I purchased a Netflix account over the weekend, and so far I’ve watched The Guild: Seasons 1 & 2 (TV), Dear Zachary (documentary), and Penelope (modern fairytale); and I have about 25 items in my DVD/instant queue.

The The Guild was hilarious, geeky, and quirky. Felicia Day is completely adorable and quirky and I fully see the appeal of her after watching the her internet series. She didn’t make as much of an impression on me in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, though I enjoyed the musical overall.

Dear Zachary was completely opposite, and I’m still recovering from the emotional blow left on my psyche by that movie. And I knew about heartwrenching subject matter going in, having remained unspoiled of the gut-punching twist near the end.

And then there is Penelope, which I finished viewing only a few minutes ago. The movie garnered mix removed, but overall the consensus is on the positive side. I, however, LOVED IT! For some reason, I have a ridiculous, seemingly unfounded affection for James McAvoy, even though I’ve only seen him in one other movie before this one. The practically flawless American accent he put on for his role in Penelope did nothing to dissuade my opinion.

Or it could just be his eyes and touseled dark hair:

tbc.

I’m on a weird kind of high right now after an afternoon viewing of 500 Days of Summer. It was just as great as I expected, and I’m so glad I wasn’t disappointed. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great.

My co-worker, Dave, expressed that he would not be seeing the movie because there is no way it could possibly live up to the hype. Well, fortunately for me, that wasn’t the case. In my opinion, the over-hyped-movie title still resides with Shrek and Waitress.

From the beginning of the film the narrator informs us that although this is a story of boy-meets-girl, this is not a love story. I love that 500 Days of Summer was so very grounded in its portrayal of love, or rather, relationships and our expectations of them and the people with whom we become involved. The idea that it’s unwise to go into a relationship expecting to change the other person, to win them over to your side of whatever your core beliefs are, and not expect that that person, in turn, will affect you in the same way—this film explored that idea brilliantly AND it was so very pretty, funny, heartbreaking and squeeful (JGL doing a very relatable portrayal of a stifled artist) to watch.

At first, I didn’t give much consideration to Zooey Deschanel‘s performance as Summer. Now I think that’s a good thing. Her performance wasn’t lacking by any means, and now I realize she did an amazing job of conveying a sense of reservation on the part of Summer, playing a character who didn’t believe in love, but by the end, you see that she truly wanted to believe what it was that Tom (Gordon-Levitt) was pitching.

On that note, here’s this:

“Why Don’t You Let Me Stay Here” by She & Him
Directed by Mark Webb

Tuesday night, I discovered Seven Brides for Seven Brothers playing on TCM. It was close to the beginning, and I found that I had to watch the thing all the way to the end. It’s just that good.

In this sequence, the Pontipee brothers have come to town to participate in a barn raising. They meet 6 lovely girls, and get the opportunity to test out the manners taught to them by Milly, their new sister-in-law.

It really picks up around the 2:38 mark, and again at around 4:20.

Apparently, this is dubbed and subtitled in Italian. It’s the only one I could find of this particular sequence, but it doesn’t matter, because this number is all dancing, no singing.

This is a movie I really need to add to my DVD collection.

A fable about the magic of free parking.

This put a smile on my face.

It’s been months since I’ve seen anything in the movie theater. I broke that habit this weekend, though, as I joined family and friend to take in The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was blah. Not horrible, but not terribly good either. Keanu Reeves was cast perfectly as the emotionless alien. Jaden Smith was pretty good. John Cleese seemed a bit wasted. I got the feeling that the scene with him was supposed to be much longer.

So, the best thing about the movie was the beginning. More specifically, it was before the movie even started. We drove across the bay to The Rave theater. By the time we got into the theater, the trailers were already playing, about halfway through the Wolverine Origins trailer. Funny thing is, most of the group I was with stopped at the foot of the stairs up to the stadium seats to watch the rest of the trailer. I’m not really feeling Taylor Kitsch as Gambit, but I’m glad to finally see Remy LeBeau at all. Liev Shreiber looks to be giving a pretty wicked portrayal of Sabretooth, though.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE SD