Saturday Night at the Movies

We had some friends over Saturday night for dinner and a movie. The kids were with us, which always makes for tricky movie choices. The tendency is to want to pick movies that we adults want to watch, and cross our fingers that they are appropriate for the kids. We did that a few months ago during the holidays. We decided to go see "Four Christmases" with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. I think because I had just seen Vaughn in "Fred Claus", I figured it would be fine. I was wrong. The very first scene had enough sexual innuendo that my 11 year son old was embarrassed. Later in the movie, they actually allude to the fact that there is no Santa Claus. My 9 year old daughter looked at me with questioning eyes. Now I knew this would probably be her last year of "Santa Belief", but I wasn't ready to give it up in the middle of the holidays. I took her out at that point, but it was really too late, and I was angry with myself for not checking it out beforehand.



Anyway, the guys made the gracious decision Saturday night to take the kids to see "Monsters and Aliens" and let us ladies go see "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owens. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the movie, especially Gabrielle, who gave it a 10 out of 10. (Even Matt liked it, and he wasn't thrilled about going. He was hoping he was going to talk the guys into a pg13 flick.) The guys were not as thrilled. I was hoping it would be something like Shrek or Monsters, Inc. Those were kid's movies that Tony really liked too. But unfortunately, this one did not fall into that category. They called it things like "painful" and "never-ending". Oh well.



"Duplicity" was pretty good. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it was definitely entertaining. If you are expecting a normal Julia Robert's romantic comedy, you will be disappointed. It is more of a quirky, intrigue movie with a slight romance thrown in. Clive Owens is really good. He plays the leading man role with a sweet vulnerability. It isn't what I expected. Julia Roberts still has her trademark smile and laugh, but she doesn't over use it as she sometimes can, and her character is interesting. Her wardrobe is lovely, which can always be a huge winning point for me. I also like the fact that she is aging gracefully. What I mean by this is that she is absolutely beautiful, but not trying to be the girl we saw in "Pretty Woman". There are some wrinkles (thankfully not botoxed away), and it is obvious that she has had 3 children, but it doesn't at all take away from her beauty.



We ladies obviously got the better of the two movies, a fact that we will pay for over the next few months. Every time we go to a movie, the men will insist that it is their turn to pick because of their generosity this time. It almost makes it not worth it, because we will have to sit through something like "Van Diesel Lives Again" or "Animal House 7", but hey, it was nice of them to let us have our pick this time.



The next movie I am looking forward to is "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I loved him in "Definitely, Maybe", and I've been waiting for her to do something funny like "Two Weeks" that she did with Hugh Grant a few years ago. This one looks like it might be really good.



Tomorrow, I need to talk about "Celebrity Apprentice." Sadly, I am addicted to this show. I like anything where there is a competition that pretty much just requires hard work. That and a bunch of B list celebrities thrown in...



So until tomorrow, when the discussion will be about how Joan Rivers, Dennis Rodman and Clint Black all have something in common...