Another weekend, another round of DVD rentals, and that means another round of reviews from your self-appointed critic.
First up, on Saturday we watched Shall We Dance ?
starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of a Richard Gere fan to begin with, so this movie had a big hurdle to overcome at the start. And it just didn’t make it. Gere plays an attorney who, deciding that his life is just too boring, begins taking dancing lessons where he meets Jennifer Lopez. There’s not really a romance between the two, since its clear from the beginning that Gere really has no intention of cheating on his wife (Susan Sarandon), though his wife certainly suspects that at one point in the movie. If I could pick one word to describe this movie, it would be — charming. It was an amusing diversion for two hours on a weekend, but not much else and certainly not a movie I’d recommend seeing.
My feeling about the second movie, Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood’s triumph from last year’s Academy Awards is completely different. I regretted missing this one when it was out in the theaters, but I’m glad that I finally saw it. Without giving away the plot, I will simply say that this movie deserved all of the awards it received, and perhaps more. Eastwood has rightfully earned a reputation as a great filmmaker, but this one surpasses everything he’s done before. There are superb performances from Hillary Swank, Morgan Freeman, and Eastwood himself, who plays a character with a back story that we never fully learn and who seems to look to Swank’s character as his chance for repemption. Run, don’t walk, to the video store for this one.
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