Just like when I was in film school

I saw two movies yesterday. At two different theatres.

27 Dresses
I went by myself and sat in a solo seat at the very back of the theatre. It was so crowded I overheard an old lady say, in response to the observation that there were no two seats together, “Let’s just take single seats.”

And two other ladies sat next to me in chairs that were actually brought in from the lobby. Weird.

I loved it. What can you say about a movie that you went to see primarily because you’re looking forward to seeing the montage of bridesmaid dresses…and as you’re watching the montage, you feel bad for the actors, because really, what a silly little device the costume montage is, and yet, you’d have been disappointed not to see it…?

Let’s hear it for cute James Marsden, for finally graduating past the role of The Guy You Don’t Want the Chick to End Up With. (See: X-Men, Notebook, Superman Returns, Enchanted…) And I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, but I liked that Katherine Heigl when she played an alien on Roswell.

So, I walk out of the theatre, my heart swelling like it does when you see a silly romantic comedy, and I’m thinking about a time when this movie would have made me think longingly, “Golly gee, why can’t I find a cute guy like that?” And there’s a message on my cell phone from my cute guy, who wants to know if I’ll go see Cloverfield with him after he gets off work.

Sure, I’ll even pick up the tickets on my way home.

Cloverfield
I appreciated everything that this movie intended to do, and in fact accomplished. The idea is that a video camera was recovered after some kind of apocalyptic event, and this is the footage that was on it. Quite believable performances in an unbelievable scenario by a group of non-stars. (Oh, but hey, that’s the lesbian from Mean Girls. I knew I recognized her.)

I didn’t even mind that there was no explanation for what the monster was and where it came from, because a few possibilities were suggested. Rob had a similar reaction to mine after Aliens V. Predator: Requiem (in which I wanted to see a diagram of the life cycle of an alien, because where did the little creepy crawly ones that lay eggs in your stomach come from, again?): “What were the things falling off the monster? Was there more than one?”

I dunno. But they were good-looking monsters, in that I totally believed they existed. At first sight of a massive tail, I thought we were dealing with a giant lizard (see masthead above), but it had a head like an I Am Legend vampire/zombie and had front legs that sometimes looked like really long arms…and it was angry.