Wedding Crashers, etc.

When I wrote that I'd try to offer a review for a movie, I may have misspoke. I'd never want to "review" a movie like Ebert, Maltin, or any of those guys, but perhaps just offer a simple recommendation. For instance, tonight we saw Wedding Crashers and I thought there were lots of great moments and funny situations. In fact, I thought there were enough great moments and situations strung together to constitute a pretty good film. So there you have it: My Recommendation.

I saw Vince Vaughn interviewed on Charlie Rose last week, and he mentioned how funny movies were more than "funny lines" or "funny situations." While that's part of it, there has to be some solid scriptwriting to make the audience believe that these situations would actually arise within the reality of the movie. The audience has to be walked through the story in a very specific manner to make it believable. Actually, I can't remember how Vince put it, but it also sounded pretty vague when he said it, too. I think what he meant was that there has to be some "down to earth" moments in the film. Real connections need to be drawn between the characters we're supposed to care about, and I think Wedding Crashers succeeded on that point. It's what made the movie better than I thought it would be. Charlie Rose mentioned the real meaning in a good "buddy flick" was the love story between the two buddies. It's what made White Men Can't Jump such a good script. And please don't forget K-9 and Turner & Hooch.

As for today's other activities, they included doing a "clean sweep" of the apartment (as Katrina puts it), grocery shopping and going to the Japanese market to get our next month's supply of rice and other snacks like Pocky and dried wasabi peas. There was a Japanese restaurant next door, so we went there for dinner. I had the tempura combo and an order of salmon maki while Katrina had the pork katsu and California maki.