Sweeney Todd

Dick and I went to see Sweeney Todd over the weekend. I was counting down to the opening since the musical is a favorite of mine - and I love Stephen Sondheim. Well, it was a good movie, the singing wasn't bad for actors singing (actually I liked it, even though not the greatest voices), but I guess I thought it would be better. Don't get me wrong...I definitely enjoyed it, but I just thought it would be better - I don't know what I was expecting, but I thought I would be "blown away". Now, I've seen the musical live a couple of times and have listened to the Broadway CD of the Broadway "umpteen" times, so maybe it's unfair to compare the movie to a live show - it's almost like seeing a movie after you read the book...the movie is never quite as good. Anyhow, it was enjoyable, albeit quite bloody. BTW, "Professor Snape" and "Pettigrew" were in the movie.

Great Boston Sports Fan Song

Ok, this is for you Boston sports fans...especially if you're into the Red Sox, Patriots and/or Celtics. It makes you feel great about being a Boston sports fan...unless you're a Bruins fan. Enjoy!

Movie Reviews - Limited Release (Art/Indie)

We live in Southern NH and there aren’t a lot of “art” or “indie” films around us. We’ve always been bummed by this since we’d really like to see more of these types of movies, but don’t want to travel to 45 minutes to see them. Well, a couple of months ago, one of the movie theatres in-town decided to run a “unique art or independent” film every Wednesday night – just one night a week, but a different one every week. We were ecstatic – finally, a place we can go to that is local! So far, we’ve seen the following films there:

Two Days in Paris – Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg. It was a cute romantic comedy about a NYC couple (woman is from Paris and the man is from NYC) in Paris – spending time with her family.

Moliere – based on Moliere and one of his plays - Tartuffe. It is a French film with subtitles. If you’re at all familiar with Moliere and his satirical plays and farces, you’ll love this movie. It has the same “feel” of one of his plays – but maybe with a little more “reality”. I highly recommend this one.

Lars and the Real Girl – Ryan Gosling. This is a comedy of sorts about this outcast who orders a full-size female doll from the internet and has a delusion that she is real and is his girlfriend. After initial skepticism, his family and friends begin treating her like she was a real person and treat their “relationship” as if it was real. The trailer looked pretty funny, but the actual movie was a bit weak. It was “ok”, but not as funny as I expected.

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei. This was such a hypnotic, mesmerizing movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman should win an Oscar for his performance as a down-and-out broker who comes up with a scheme for his brother to steal from his parent’s jewelry store –figuring that the jewelry is insured, so his parents don’t lose anything and him and his brother can “fence the goods” and pocket lots of money. But things don’t go quite as planned. This is probably one of the most powerful movies I have seen in a long time. And Hoffman was just astounding…and Hawke was good, too. I would see this movie again just to see Hoffman act. I highly recommend this movie - but keep in mind, that the movie is definitely disturbing and will stay with you for a while - very powerful.