I hadn't heard much good about this one beforehand, so my expectations going in were pretty low. While I can't really say that it was a good movie, it was actually pretty cute. The writing was mediocre at best—in a few places the dialogue made me roll my eyes—but the two leads, Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon, managed to bring the film up several notches. I've been a fan of Ruffalo since You Can Count On Me; he brought emotional depth to his character where a lesser actor would have choked on the sappy script. And while I can't say that Witherspoon was particularly inspiring in this one, she played off of Ruffalo very well; they had very good chemistry. What else? John Heder was funny enough, although he more or less re-hashed his shtick from Napoleon Dynamite. He and Donal Logue were pretty much the only ones that managed to get a chuckle out of me. The movie's not long on comedy and isn't what you'd call brilliant, but for a dinner-and-a-movie kind of date it fits the bill pretty nicely.

Viewed: 2005-09-16 | Released: 2005-09-15 | Score: C

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I was actually quite amazed by this movie. Despite the fact that it got an excellent review from Entertainment Weekly—who are usually quite snobby—I found it to be pretty boring. Rachel McAdams continues to underwhelm me—she plays everything so straight. Not that she does anything particularly bad, she's just uninteresting. The same goes for the rest of this movie. The plot was so straightforward, so linear. I kept expecting that there would be more, that just around the corner we'd have some mind-boggling plot twist, but it never came. It never even felt particularly suspenseful to me. (Juliette got a little nervous during the climactic scene, but even she found the rest of the movie pretty flat.) I don't know, I just expected more from the director that brought us the Scream trilogy.

Viewed: 2005-09-08 | Released: 2005-08-03 | Score: D

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I've been running this site in one form or another for over seven years now, and the Useless Opinions section has existed for more than three. In all of that time, I've only written 15 of these pieces. It works out to about one article every three months. What gives? Why can't I get it together to write something once a week, or even once a month? Lately I've been mulling over this very question, and here's what I've come up with:

1.) I'm not passionate enough. I have convictions on political and social issues—some of them even quite strong—but I just don't care enough to really do much about them. I vote, and I sometimes talk about what I believe. It's not even that writing would be too much work; it doesn't even occur to me most of the time that I should write about an issue. And besides, even if I did write about something like that, what would be the point? Not very many people even read this, and those who do are likely to be either friends or family, and in cases where I strongly disagree with people, I generally don't want to run the risk of alienating those close to me.

2.) I'm not smart enough. Well, either that or I'm too much of a generalist. Whatever the reason, I'm not really an expert on very many things. Certainly not very many interesting things. Consequently, I'm not qualified to write technical articles. Even with the things I do know a lot about in comparison to the average joe—electrical engineering, for example—I'm not experienced enough or knowledgeable enough to teach them.

3.) I'm not interesting enough. My life is pretty normal. I go to work in the morning, I do my job, I come home. In the evenings, I eat, I talk to my wife, I watch TV. Occasionally, I hang out with friends. I go to the movies a lot. That's about it. I'm just not dramatic enough to think that the boring details of my life would be interesting reading.

4.) I'm not funny enough. If I were funnier, I could probably make my life fun to read about. I'm not those things, though. I have a hard time making fun of the events or people in my life. I think in order to be good at that sort of thing you have to be convinced that you're in some way better than others, and I don't. Or, at least, if I do, I dislike that about myself enough that I don't want to point it out.

5.) I'm too embarrassed. There are very few things that make me squirm more than reading back over old journal entries (which also tend to be quite few and far between). As I get older and gain more perspective, I realize how silly so many of my previous fears and peeves are. When I see how self-righteous I have been in the past, it makes me wish I'd never picked up a pen in the first place.

6.) I'm too lazy. Writing is work, so when it comes to writing I do what comes naturally: I procrastinate. Speaking of which, I should probably quit stalling on that Overlook turn. Or, you know, get back to that whole "job" thing.

The fact that I'm over a week late with this review is probably an indicator of the impression it left on me. Not to say that it was particularly terrible, it just wasn't particularly good. There were plenty of funny moments, although in my opinion the funniest parts were in the outtakes at the end. The performances were, for the most part, mediocre. I admit I have something of a soft spot for Seann William Scott, but Johnny Knoxville mostly just gets on my nerves, and Jessica Simpson was just embarrassing. Still, not everyone was bad—Kevin Hefferman as Sheev (who I don't remember being in the show) made me laugh, and I always like David Koechner, who played Cooter. Willie Nelson was also pretty good as Uncle Jesse. Anyway, I didn't particularly care for it, but all three of the other people I went with did, as did the rest of the audience, so I guess this is just further evidence of my increasing snobbishness. I can live with that.

Viewed: 2005-08-11 | Released: 2005-07-26 | Score: D

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Steve Carell is what Will Ferrell ought to be but isn't. First, he's funny, and I mean full-on, belly laughs kind of funny. Even when he goes completely and ridiculously over the top, he's still funny. But he's also capable of portraying actual emotion. The 40 Year-Old Virgin was surprisingly cute. Don't get me wrong, it's also the vulgar sex comedy that you expect—in fact, the three little old ladies that sat next to us left about 30 minutes into the film—but watching Carell's Andy develop a relationship with Catherine Keener's Trish was unexpectedly heartwarming. I don't usually care much for Keener, but she did just fine in this movie. The rest of the cast was also pretty good. Juliette particularly liked Paul Rudd. An interesting final tidbit: in the scene from the preview where Andy is getting his chest waxed, Carell is actually getting waxed. Knowing that makes the scene that much funnier.

Viewed: 2005-08-19 | Released: 2005-08-10 | Score: B

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Assassination Vacation was a pretty decent read, but the thing you've got to keep in mind is that it's really more of a personal essay than a history—you learn a lot more about Sarah Vowell than you do about the presidents whose assassinations she follows. Vowell has an interesting voice as a writer, sarcastic and dry with a very sharp wit. She's very matter-of-fact about her opinions, which are very strong. The book is filled with little tidbits and details of the first three presidential assassinations—Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley—but what I found more interesting was the peek into Vowell's personality that the book provides. She's quite a character, as you might guess about the sort of person who plans vacations around travelling to obscure presidential museums, historical sites, and cemetaries. To Vowell, history and these presidents aren't dead, they are quite an active part of her life and the world she walks in. I wouldn't recommend this book to religious people or anyone who cares in the slightest for George W. Bush, but those of you who are liberal, atheist Bush-haters should find it entertaining.

Started: 2005-08-11 | Finished: 2005-08-20

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I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the way this series has progressed. Rowling has managed to mature both her characters and her stories seamlessly and realistically. Younger fans, who have grown up with the series, have continued to find that the next book is right at their level. I do wonder a bit, though, at how I'll work this out with my own future kids. I mean, I don't think I'll be able to get away with saying, "The end. Now we'll have to wait another year until you're old enough for the next one." Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I quite enjoyed The Half-Blood Prince. Harry still had his share of youthful folly, but he wasn't nearly as angsty and annoying as he was in The Order of the Phoenix, and it was also interesting to see what Rowling did with the other characters. As with the previous book, though, this one had some very emotionally heavy scenes. I don't mind admitting that I was affected by it. I'm very interested to see how Rowling wraps it all up in Book 7.

Started: 2005-08-07 | Finished: 2005-08-09

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Wedding Crashers was all right, but it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson seem like they'd make a dynamite comedy duo, and, in fact, they were pretty good, but only some of the time. The rest of the time the movie came off as either cute or embarassing, but not hilarious. Still, Juliette liked it quite a bit, so maybe I'm just too uptight.

Viewed: 2005-08-07 | Released: 2005-07-14 | Score: C

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This one was an even quicker read than the previous three Hornblower books, or it would have been if I'd had more time to read it. Hornblower During the Crisis is a collection of two short stories and an unfinished fragment of the novel Forester was writing when he died. Reading that part was a little frustrating, as it ended far too soon, but fortunately the initial action of the story had been completed, so I wasn't left hanging as much as I could have been.

Started: 2005-07-10 | Finished: 2005-07-18

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Tim Burton's new interpretation of Roald Dahl's novel was really good for what it was. What it was was a very funny and visually interesting film. Freddie Highmore was perfect as Charlie Bucket, and Deep Roy made for a hilarious group of Oompa-Loompas. (He played all of them.) What it was not was a movie that matched my feeling of what Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is. It just didn't feel like the story I grew up with. But, hey, that's only my opinion, and I will grant that my image of the story was influenced very heavily by the original film.

Viewed: 2005-07-15 | Released: 2005-07-09 | Score: B

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