The Holiday

Today was a rough day and concluded a bit of a rough week. The weather here also completely freaked out, and in one day went from sunny and 70s to ice falling from the sky. It was cold and pouring rain, ice, sleet, name your precipitation by this afternoon. There was nothing I was more excited about than coming home, getting into my sweats, ordering Chinese food and watching The Holiday, courtesy of my good friends at Netflix.

General disclaimer: I am slightly in love with Kate Winslet and confess that when Jack Black isn't 'playing a character living on a very extreme spectrum, I find him kind of adorable. I also completely loathe Cameron Diaz and Jude Law. Hence, balance.

I could not have been more disappointed with this movie. It reminded me of a story I might mapped out for my Barbie dolls back in the day. It was cliched, formulaic, poorly written, underdeveloped and not at all interesting. I did learn a new skill that I did not know I possess, however, and that is the ability to fall asleep during the Cameron Diaz/Jude Law scenes of a motion picture and wake up just as they are ending. It was awesome. Sadly, it didn't happen for every scene, but it happened enough for me to be fairly impressed with myself.

I could spend a lot more time talking about the movie's specific flaws, but the above paragraph really does sum it all up. Don't waste your time with it. The only truly interesting part of the movie was a minor subplot about an aging screenwriter that would have made for a much better movie as a whole. Further, the talent wasted in this film is difficult to understand. I'm convinced there were some major favors cashed in with the casting. "Sure, Kate, we'll cast you in Titanic, but only if... " type thing. Sadly, I doubt the same can be said for the producer of the movie, who is very much connected to my place of employment. Sigh. Oh, but just seeing Kate have to play air guitar upon waking up to the first day of her vacation was enough to make me cringe. It hurts to think about.

The movie does continue to feed my fascination with the talented minds who put together movie previews. This may be one of the coolest jobs in the world. Whoever put together the trailer for The Holiday has mad skills, as it appeared to be a fairly clever and engaging movie in the preview (on a relative chick flick scale, of course). Alas, 'twas not the case and I was completely hosed.

Hard to beat last weekend's back to back movie successes with Stranger than Fiction and Black Snake Moan. Please focus your energies on one of these two if you're inclined towards film going this weekend.