Movies

I forgot to tell you that Andy and I took Pete to see "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" a couple of weeks ago. (The girls meanwhile sat in an adjoining theatre and watched "Zookeeper," which they enjoyed and which I am very grateful I did not have to sit through.)

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is a modern-day prequel to "Planet of the Apes," in the same way that "Casino Royale" was a prequel to the early James Bond movies but was set decades later. So, if you're willing to ignore that bit of anachronistic poetic license, you'll be all set. It was really good! I was surprised that they managed to come up with a very credible back story for how the apes ended up ruling this place. Actually, the whole movie sets the stage, but the last minute—which runs after the credits have started rolling, so stay put!—takes it one step further.

James Franco (mmm...) stars as a scientist working at a pharmaceutical company. He's working on a drug that will help rebuild the damaged brain cells of Alzheimer's patients (like his dad, played by John Lithgow), and he tests it on chimps. This all happens right at the beginning, so I'm not giving anything away, but I'll stop there for those of you who are planning to see it. For the most part I found the computer-enhanced chimps to be really believable—and plenty scary when they got angry! There were a lot of exciting action scenes and very little gore. We all really enjoyed it.

This past week we were up in New Hampshire for Andy's vacation, which unfortunately coincided with the only week of near-solid rain this whole summer. It poured for a few days straight, but then we were rewarded with one of the most spectacular days imaginable. We (along with Steph's friend) spent 7 hours at the water park that day! But on the rainy days we did a lot of jigsaw puzzles, ate a lot of candy from Chutter's, played a lot of board games and cards, and stared at each other a lot. We also rented a couple of movies. The kids chose "Green Hornet," which I did not watch. It looked pretty dumb and unnecessarily violent. Andy and I watched "The American," which was overall a disappointment, although a disappointment starring George Clooney is still better than most disappointments.

Clooney plays a man who custom-makes weapons for assassins (and, it seems likely, also frequently pulls the trigger himself). The story itself was interesting, but the whole thing could've taken place in about 30 minutes. Instead, we had endless scenes of Clooney drinking coffee alone in a cafe (to show that he is a loner), awaking in a cold sweat from a bad dream (to show that he is haunted by his past), working out (to show his very nice musculature—oh, and his discipline), looking at his butterfly guidebook (to show that he has a soft spot), and sneaking around with gun drawn just in case he is being followed (to show that he is always "on"). It got boring fast. Clooney is a pleasure to watch, but there wasn't a whole lot else going on here. This is a story we've all heard before. Don't bother unless you feel a need to complete the Clooney oeuvre, in which case I salute you whole-heartedly.

Comments

[Elena]

I know for a fact that there was at least one other very rainy week in New Hampshire this summer!