Emma (TV) (1996)

I had the opportunity to watch several movies recently since I am at home recuperating.  The first film I selected was the made-for-television version of "Emma."  It stars Kate Beckinsale and is based on Jane Austen's book by the same name.  I am more familiar with the modernized version featured in "Clueless" which is one of my favorite films that I should watch again soon.  The film is a period piece about a girl who fancies herself a matchmaker, but who gets some of the matches wrong and misses out on her own match in the process.  It's an interesting story to watch with lots of banter and twists in the romantic plot.  The film gets 3 ½ out of 5 stars, but is great for a movie produced for television.

Life as We Know It (2010)

"Life as We Know It" is another film that I really wanted to see in the theatre but ultimately didn't see until Netflix mailed it to my house.  Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel star in a film in which they are forced to raise an orphaned baby even though they despise eachother.  It's a stretch, but the film works.  There were lots of sentimental and a couple of humorous moments in the film.  However, I was expecting this to be more of a romantic comedy than a drama going in.  I know that the plot is a bit predictable, but I did enjoy most of the film.    I found Duhamel endearing even though he was supposed to play a womanizer in the film.  Don't expect this to be a laugh-out-loud comedy.  It really is a chick flick and a bit of a tear jerker.  Overall, it gets 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

The Goodbye Girl (1977) (2004)

I just finished watching the remake of Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl" starring Patricia Heaton and Jeff Daniels.  It is pretty much an exact replica of the 1977 version of "The Goodbye Girl" that starred Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss.  In both films, the main character Paula gets dumped by her boyfriend and finds out that the ex has leased the apartment to someone else, leaving Paula and her daughter helpless.  The guy who comes to take the apartment is an actor in an off-Broadway show, and in their desperation they end up living together in the same apartment.  Lots of fighting goes on between the two characters throughout the film, but the tension gives way to romance.  It is one of the best and funniest romantic stories ever written.  While both films are enjoyable, I felt like the original version was slightly better.

The 1977 version gets 4 out of 5 stars.

The 2004 version gets 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

The Sure Thing (1985)

Rob Reiner directed "The Sure Thing" featuring John Cusack with cameos by Anthony Edwards, Tim Robbins, and Nicolette Sheridan.  The film is about a guy at an Ivy League school who is in a dry spell whose friend at a college in California tells him to come out for a girl.  He ends up having to make the cross-country trip with an uptight girl from his English class, who is on the way to visit her boyfriend at law school.  The two of them spar on the trip, and there are many funny scenes from the road trip.  The movie was very uplifting and funny.  I can't believe I never saw this film before, since high school / college romantic comedies from the 80s are my absolute favorite!  It definitely ranks as one of the best from that genre.  It gets 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

Fun With Dick and Jane (2005)

I own "Fun With Dick and Jane" and I watched it again last night.  This Judd Apatow's remake of the 1977 film with this update starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni.  I'm a big fan of Carrey's more recent films, and I love Tea Leoni in almost everything.  This movie is still relevant today, poking fun at the excesses in our society and how big businesses are greedy machines.  In this film, Dick and Jane work hard and then lose their jobs due to an Enron-like scandal, and then their lives start to crumble.  The funny part starts when they are about to lose their house and they decide to start robbing local stores and banks.  Their capers are hillarious because they are a middle-aged formerly upper middle class married couple reduced to crime.  This movie always makes me laugh, and the end thanks all the real corporate criminals who inspired this film.  I give it 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

"The Jane Austen Book Club" is a story about a group of five women and one man who meet monthly to read all six of Jane Austen's novels.  While reading the stories, the group realizes that the novels imitate their modern lives.  One woman has been married six times while another has never been married.  There's a mother and daughter pair where the mother has recently become divorced while her daughter struggles with her life as a lesbian.  The fifth woman is unhappily married and struggles with her childhood.  The man is an oddball thrown into the mix, but adds some insight that the women would never have expected.  The cast has a lot of familiar faces, and I enjoyed the film.  My only complaint with the film is the disposable view of marriage and relationships as is evidenced by the characters.  That is very unlike the characters portrayed in Austen's novels.  The movie also inspired me to read some of Jane Austen's books, particularly "Persuasion."  The movie was a great chick flick, but I would still prefer to watch "Pride & Prejudice" or "Sense and Sensibility."  Overall, this film gets 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

You Again (2010)

I was very much looking forward to seeing "You Again" after the previews with Betty White.  However, she really didn't have much of a role in this film.  Instead, you have a story that is just okay.  In this film, a girl who was ridiculed all through high school finds out that her brother is marrying the girl who bullied her for years.  When the families meet up for the first time, it turns out that the mother of the groom and aunt of the bride have a similar history.  Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver were humorous at times throughout the film, but most of the performances fell flat.  I was very uninspired by the film and felt like it should have been more of a comedy and less of a drama.  It gets 3 out of 5 stars because it was entertaining at times, but could have been better.

The Town (2010)

Ben Affleck's film "The Town" is one of those that had been so hyped up that it was somewhat of a let down to me.  It was still a better than average film.  The movie was about a bunch of bank robbers in Boston and it followed their crime sequences as well as their depressing lives.  The acting was terrific, Ben Affleck's directorial debut was outstanding, but the film dragged at times.  I had anticipated more action sequences, but the film really focused on the relationships of the bank robbers.  As a result, the film left me feeling a little depressed.  Overall, it was a great film that was well done with a lot of character development, but the genre just wasn't really my type.  I give it 3 ½ out of 5 stars, though I suspect that most people would enjoy the film more than I did.

Boomerang (1992)

I've had "Boomerang" on my list of romantic comedies that I needed to watch.  I was a little disappointed.  I could see how the film would have been monumental and groundbreaking in the early 90s, but watching it now leaves you with a feeling that the movie is just okay.  You will get to see lots of young actors before they hit it big like Eddie Murphy, Halle Barry, Martin Lawrence, and Chris Rock.  However, as in most of Murphy's films, he insists on taking over every scene.  The story is about a womanizer who falls for his boss, gets played, and then decides he wants a real relationship.  The story is interesting and there are some funny moments, but I spent a lot of the time feeling sorry for most of the characters in the film.  I guess it's a film that should be watched once, but only once.

It gets 3 out of 5 stars.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

I finally got around to watching the last installment in the Twilight trilogy: "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse."  I'm not really a Twilight fan and I've definitely never read the books.  I watched the first film, found it decent, then watched the other two.  They were more disappointing than the first installment, but again, they were all okay movies.  I don't really understand the obsession with Twilight, but maybe that's because I'm not an adolescent girl.  Anyways, in this film, Kristen Stewart was just as whiny and nearly as helpless as in the other films.  She was choosing between her vampire love and her werewolf love.  There was an interesting battle scene at the end of the film, but I felt like many questions weren't answered and that there were too many scenes of Bella and Edward just laying around in fields professing their love and Bella complaining about not being a vampire yet.  Like I said, they're not great movies, but they're not terrible either.  I've watched the first installment more than once, but I won't repeat the other two.

The third installment, "Eclipse," gets 3 out of 5 stars.

The second installment, "New Moon," got 2 ½ stars.

The original "Twilight" film got 3 ½ out of 5 stars.