128 - 130

128 - When A Stranger Calls (2006) 1/2










129. Thank You For Smoking (2006) *1/2






I watched these two movies on HBO on sunday night, after getting back from a weekend in Bodega Bay. When A Stranger Calls was first, I think Steve picked it, he said he was in the mood for a "junkie movie," meaning, not a movie about people on heroin, but just a crappy movie. WASC was certainly that. That old horror movie device where they use scary music and long drawn out approaches to make you all nervous and then...it turns out it was just the cat making those scratching noises! Well, that went on for a full hour. The movie is only about 90 minutes long, so that means there was really only about 20 minutes of anything really scary happening. This movie could have been good I think, but it was just really boring. I guess it is a remake of late 60's movie with Carol Kane. That sounds way awesome-er.
Thank You For Smoking was fine. It wasn't great, but it was entertaining enough. I find myself getting bothered more and more by these movies that are really ambiguous about what they are trying to say. Especially when they do it in a kind of cocky way like this movie did. I kind of liked the kid who played his son, and I actually like Katie Holmes. She actually seemed like a real person in this movie, instead of Joey from Dawson's Creek.


130. Rocket Science(2007) ***


I saw this movie last night at the ECC. I didn't really know if I even wanted to see this movie. I didn't know anything about it except that it was directed by the guy who did Spellbound. I guess Spellbound was a pretty interesting movie, so I wanted to see what kind of scripted movie he would choose to follow that with. In the end, I'm glad I saw it because I really liked it. It was really funny, which I wasn't expecting. And it was pretty raunchy, which I guess is a kind of cliche thing to say these days, but, again, I really didn't expect it from the guy who directed a movie about a spelling bee. There were some elements I found problematic; the voice over narration seemed out of place (it was very sporadic, I generally do not like sporadic narration) and was kind of cheesy. But overall I liked it a lot.