September Movie Watching

September, my least favorite movie month. I saw three films theatrically this month, plus one on-demand. I'll start with the best, which was World's Greatest Dad, the Bobcat Goldthwait directed-Robin WIlliams' starrer. I saw it on demand (it got a simultaneous theatrical and on demand release) because a friend forced me! And now I can't decide whether I'm glad I saw it at all (I might have skipped it) or whether I'm mad I didn't see it at the theater. It was a truly great film... if very cynical. I gotta tell ya though-- don't miss it. The script is just first rate and I truly hope word gets around and Goldthwait gets an Oscar nomination. Williams, too, by the way is very good and the casting was right on the money. DON'T go by the terrible trailer on this one.

I caught up on Julie & Julia and found it to be very enjoyable. And I didn't think the modern story dragged... don't listen to the old fogey Streep-lovers! In fact, I thought the two stories were woven together quite seamlessly. Streep (and Stanley Tucci) both deserve, and probably will get, Oscar nominations. I also predict that the film will find its way into the Best Picture category. Four reasons for this: a lot of people saw it, it's "prestige," it's well reviewed, and fourth and most importantly— with the Best Picture nominations expanded to ten, the Academy has to pick five films to be nominated without corresponding Best Director nominations, and they will have no problem keeping Nora Ephron's name off that list.

Jennifer's Body was not the box office success I thought it would be. And, although it had a nice screenwritery sense to the dialogue, dare I say it suffered from no character development. Right, I know, its a horror genre piece.... but I had no reason to follow the two female leads through their paces. And Megan Fox, although she sure got her close-ups, was never hot enough in this entire movie as in that one opening-the-hood-of-the-car shot in TRANSFORMERS (nor was she particuarly well used in TRANSFORMERS 2).

EXTRACT was a pleasant surprise. I laughed a lot. And although Jason Bateman just plays his Arrested Development character-- I like that character! And although I GROANED when I saw Gene Simmons name in the credits, he is HILARIOUS in his small part!