Sunday, January 13, 2008

Movie: The Terminal

Last night when The Professor went dancing, I stayed home and watched the Tom Hanks film The Terminal. Or should I say the product placement film? So much product placement, so little time seems to have been the theme of this movie.

I should confess, I was predisposed to dislike this movie. I had made up my mind before I ever even picked it up at the library. So, I didn't really go into watching it with an open mind. In my defense, though, all my suspicions about the commercial nature of the movie were confirmed almost immediately, when the (I don't even care about ruining this one it was so bad, so get ready for some small spoilers) line was delivered 10 minutes into the film, "There's only one thing you can do here: shop," which was a bit too eerily reminiscent for my taste of the snippet from W right after 9/11 urging us all to get out our credit cards to fight the mean terrorists with a big dose of spending. Ugh. You know a movie is a waste when the most clever thing about it is the end credits. I won't ruin those, because it really was the best part of the film. Tom Hanks pretty much lost me at Cast Away (remember that giant commercial for FedEx?), if not before then. You've Got Mail? Are you kidding me? Just what the world needs, a cinematic ode to AOL. Barf. The word sellout is too good for Tom Hanks.

Catherine Zeta-Jones rocked in Chicago, but her character in The Terminal was so one-dimensional as to be impossible to believe and the little eyelid-flutter quirk was just too precious. The only good parts of this movie were thanks to the supporting cast. A juggling show by Kumar Pallana and Trekkie love between Diego Luna and Zoe Saldana stand out.

In unrelated news: we have a metal pot lid in our cupboard that fits the crock pot perfectly. Not ideal in terms of heat containment, but it means I don't have to haul my butt out to the thrift store to hunt down a glass one, so yay. I also made myself a homemade pill box for my vitamins out of a cardboard box we had in the attic, a sort of little gift box that a gift card probably came in. I need to add some glue to fortify it, but I'll take a picture soon to share. I'm quite proud of it! The pill box was one of the first things I thought about wanting to buy and then not buying this year. It's nice to know that 20 minutes with an Exacto knife can keep one chunk of plastic, one purchase out of my life.

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoyed Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War. Mrs. Teacher and I saw that one over the holidays. Didn't spend any money either. Used a Fandango gift certificate.

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