My Dinner with Andre

Remember this oldie but a weirdie? Back in 1982 two playwrights, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, starred in this strange movie where they just sit at a table in a restaurant and discuss weird stuff like improvisational theater in a Polish forest, being naked and lowered into an 8 foot grave, or a Japanese shaman walking on Andre's wife named Chiquita. It's weird and was somewhat popular back in the 1980s. I remember seeing it back then on PBS, and I am sure I was seeing it because I thought it was THE movie to see. (I still do that, you see) I wanted to see it again because 1.) it was at the library 2.) I love Wallace Shawn and had recently seen The Princess Bride, and 3.) I wanted to remember what all the fuss was about. Well, the fuss is about a couple of intellectuals struggling with some pretty esoteric issues and deciding, in the end, that it is all bunk. Or is it? I kinda enjoyed watching it again. My friend Mary was too engrossed in Scrabble to have an educated opinion on this movie.

Favorite Movies

I wanted this blog to be lists and then I try to make these definitive lists of my favorite movies, and I become stymied. Some movies I love some movies so much for about two months or so and then two years later I can’t remember why I liked it. I think a favorite movie needs to last in your mind and stay meaningful to you. So they are not only meaningful to you at the time, they hang on and insist you see them again and again. Some movies that I feel that way to me are listed below. More will come to me later, by the way.
Gigi 1958 (I don’t know why)
Broadcast News 1987
Ordinary People 1980
Reds 1981
The Princess Bride, 1987
Pride and Prejudice (A&E version) 1996
You Can Count on Me 2000

What is one of your favorite movies?

Enchanted and Love in the Time of Cholera

I just saw these two movies -- very different in tone but alike in their lack of weightiness. I kept hearing people compare Enchanted to The Princess Bride, so I felt I needed to see it. It was cute, it was no Princess Bride, it had no goofy Wallace Shawn or repetitive Enigo Montoya (sp) but still cute. Amy Adams was the best part of the movie. She is sunny in a bizarre way. She is worth seeing in Junebug, it you haven't seen that.

Love in the Time of Cholera is also pleasant -- I never read the book so I can't compare them but I imagine the book is better-- it was just a little too one note about one man's weird obsession with one woman who has a lot of sex with other women while he pines for her until they are in their 70s. Javier Bardem is the long-lasting lover.