NOW PLAYING: Big Screens

A friend just wrote me, looking for a movie prescription to help fend off her end-of-summer malaise. What would I recommend?...

Tomorrow night at the VanCity is a special showing of 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD, which would be wonderful tonic for a book-lover like you. But that doesn't help today. What will be at the VanCity tonight at 9pm is Aleksandra, the latest by contemporary Russian auteur Aleksandr Sokurov. Not necessarily a cheer-up piece, but probably masterful.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED is at the Fifth Avenue and Granville 7. The screenwriter is outspokenly anti-Christian, so I really dreaded what would happen to Waugh's explicitly Catholic novel, but those who've seen it think maybe the director mitigated the screenwriter's tendencies.

In the realm of sheer fun, I saw IRON MAN last night and it really is entertaining. Robert Downey jr is just a scream, the dialogue is well written, and the emphasis is character and story rather than unending action sequences. A treat.

Also a good mood-picker-upper might be MAMA MIA. Critics were generally critical, that being their job, but everyone I've talked to who's seen it gets very excited when the talk about it, and start contemplating either a trip to Greece or a return trip to the theatre. Do you like ABBA? (The band, not the deity.)

And WALL-E is charming as heck, though I'd rather watch the first third three times than the whole thing once. Not that the latter two-thirds are bad, but the first third is so fine.

Lots at the video store, too. Check soulfoodmovies.

Get happier!

Ron