Return of the Blog

The school year is over.

I uploaded my grades yesterday, and within an hour I was back in the books, reading what I want to read.

Mary and I have also rejoined Blockbuster online, so I've watched a fair number of movies this last week or so. And in the old tradition (that cut off a year ago, when we cancelled in favor of satellite TV), I'm going to do brief reviews of some of them:

The Family Stone
Before you start in, this one was Mary's pick. Pretty standard "everyone ends up with the one that makes 'em happy" chick flick. Everyone hates yuppie Sex and the City woman. Things get worse. Movie-ending couples end up alone with one another, some sleeping together. Food spills. Everyone's cool with everyone. Marriage occurs. Mother dies and inspires everyone with memory. Not a bad movie, but not precisely memorable either.

The Constant Gardener
I've been looking over my shoulder for the four days since I saw this one. Big corporations conspire with big governments to squash the small people, most of them sub-Saharan Africans. White liberals and black physicians try to speak up and expose the corruption. Corporations hire hit men and kill white liberals and black physicians. Kind of a downer.

Cinderella Man
This one picked me back up. The ending should surprise nobody, but nonetheless, it's nice to see a down-on-his-luck working-class family-man overcome his hyphens and Jethro-from-Beverly-Hillbillies's dad to score a victory for his kids and his wife and the working class.

More reviews to come...