The holiday season and movies. Don’t those two things go together? We rented four movies and bought six more. Don’t panic! The ones we bought were only five dollars each!

Here’s what we rented and watched:

The Dark Knight – Yeah, the Batman movie with Heath Ledger as The Joker. Has any recent film had this much hype? Well, it was a well-financed effort with lots of flash, action, and special effects, as I expected. It was non-stop action and Heath did a creepily great job as The Joker. I liked the movie for the escapist fun that it was. Petra was less enthused. 😉

The Women – A chick flick. In fact, there were no men even in this movie! It was ok, but nothing special.

Smart People – I thought Ellen Page, Dennis Quaid, and the other stars would make this a smart movie, but it wasn’t as good as I thought hoped it might be. So-so, but it had it’s moments.

Little Miss Sunshine – We both enjoyed this one. It was very quirky and entertaining and the performances and writing were good. Plus, it wasn’t like every other movie. This one was fun.

And the ones we bought, real cheap like:

Grace Is Gone

Cassandra’s Dream

The Great Debaters

Mad Money

The Pursuit Of Happyness

Dreamgirls

Do you have any thoughts about any of these? Any complete turkeys? Are they all great? Leave a comment…

If you have an open mind and enjoy some dark and quirky humor, then you will really like this movie. I really did! The performances are great all around, the script is wild and funny, the pace is quick with lots of twists, and I was laughing out loud and loving this film. Maybe it is not for everyone. But nothing is, right?

Here is the Rotten Tomatoes page, where it currently has a very good 78% rating. And here is the official web site, check it out. This Coen Brothers film is in a league with The Big Lebowski and Fargo, and that means it is really good. If you didn’t like those then you might not like this. But then what the $%^& is wrong with you? 😉  Ha, just kidding…

More info and lots of video trailers to watch are here on the IMDB site, another great movie site. I’m just saying’, go see it if you like something a little out of the ordinary. It was really good! Have you already seen it? Let me know what you thought, leave a comment.

I won free tickets to a “sneak preview” of the new movie Swing Vote. Of course, it is playing everywhere now so you can see it too! Well, if you want to that is. I liked it. It’s not great but I thought it was entertaining, and if you like Kevin Costner in comedies then you will like this. It’s a comedy mixed with a little drama too, and some of a political satire thrown in for good measure. You just have to accept the far-fetched story line and then you will probably enjoy it.

The local paper gave it three stars out of four and I guess that sounds about right. Costner is pretty good and there are some funny and clever parts. Not a perfect movie, of course, but it’s a pleasant way to pass a couple hours. With movies, I always check the wonderful Rotten Tomatoes site, and in this case their Swing Vote page. Hmmm, maybe I liked it more than most critics, because the RT page only has a 38 out of 100 rating, but that might have changed by the time you read this.

Have you seen this movie? Do you want to? Let me know in the comments…