At the movies ...
I had a post about a couple of my trips to le cinema last week, but something ate it up. Oh well. Anyway, I lucked into a free ticket The Two Towers last Wednesday, and despite missing about 25 minutes of the movie trying to find the theater (my thought -- it's a 3-hour movie, what am I really going to miss?), I really enjoyed myself, even though I'm not a Tolkien fan. It definitely was a dark film, although the battle sequences at Helms Deep were magnificent. It's a good way to keep things moving, even though it's hard to do, given it's the middle of a trilogy. The ents were cool but they often seemed superfluous (hey, we haven't seen those other hobbits in a while, let's check up on them) until that closing scene, including the quick part where the one who was on fire dunked his head into the rushing waters -- a nice touch.

Also lucked into a screening of Chicago and had a great time. It was a lot of fun and definitely over the top, although not as much as Moulin Rouge. I enjoyed the way the story proceeded as is, then put the musical numbers in a faux-vaudeville show to accentuate the action. Catherine Zeta-Jones finally was able to use her past singing and dancing skills, although the way she tries to cover up her distinctive accent can be off-putting at times. Renee Zellweger (by the way, did they cast this by reading the SAG directory backwards???) did the cutie-pie thing well and was serviceable in her singing and dancing -- she didn't embarrass herself. Richard Gere was very over the top, which worked in his favor since it really took jabs at his own celebrity. The real surprise was Queen Latifah, who showed plenty of vocal range and decent acting ability.
Tangentially related to this, it was the first time in ages I actually saw a movie with Alyson despite the fact we both watch a lot of movies. I guess schedule and geography both have a lot to do with it (there are plenty of googolplexes in the Atlanta area), plus the fact that we both like a lot of control in what we do.