Since my parents are in town only one more night, we took them up on their offer to watch the kids while we went out to see a movie. After going through a long list of movies, Jennifer and I settled on The Holiday starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black. It’s a romantic comedy and the main reason I agreed to see it was that Jack Black was in it. I offered to make it a Jack Black double feature with Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, but was turned down. In the movie, Cameron Diaz, who lives in Los Angeles and Kate Winslet, who lives in the small town outside of London, decide to switch houses for two weeks. Both are trying to get over break ups with their boy friends. Overall the movie was actually pretty good. Both of us liked it quite a bit.

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Tonight we watched The Terminal staring Tom Hanks. We didn’t realize it was a Steven Spielberg movie until I was about to pop it into the DVD player. Both of us really like this movie. Hanks plays a man stuck in a terminal when there is a coup in his home country and the United States doesn’t recognize his passport. He is forced to stay at the airport until the war is over in his country. As I mentioned we both really like the movie and recommend it. Tom Hanks is great, as always. It’s amazing how well he can play different characters, this one from a former Russian country who barely speaks English.

Jennifer and I watched Collateral off of our Netflix queue tonight. This movie stars Jamie Foxx as a cab driver who picks up a hitman played by Tom Cruise. Cruise forces Foxx to drive from hit to hit at gun point. Overall, I didn’t find the movie all that good. It took a very long time before it became interesting. Maybe it’s just hard to picture Cruise in the “bad guy” role. Jennifer didn’t like it at all and felt it just didn’t go anywhere.

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Tonight we watched the Will Farrell movie Elf. Farrell portrays Buddy, a human raised by elves at the North Pole. Once he figures out that he isn’t like the other elves, he sets forth to New York to find his father. I made the realization when I suggested we watch this movie, that Jennifer rarely watches comedy movies. She thinks “they are too silly”. However, she thought this movie was cute. So, that sounds like two thumbs up to me.

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Tonight was an event for the team I’m on up at work. We all went to see the new football movie Invincible. This is the true story of a guy from South Philadelphia who goes to open try outs for the Philadelphia Eagles back in 1976 when Dick Vermeil became the coach. It was a good movie and both Jennifer and I enjoyed it.

Tonight we watched I, Robot off of our Netflix queue. This is a movie staring Will Smith and is very loosely based on the science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. A scientist friend of Smith’s character is murdered and he’s suspicious of a robot, but robots are programmed not to harm humans. The visual effects on this movie are amazing and it’s a good adventure movie. However, don’t go in expecting anything of substance and don’t expect to see Asimov’s original novel.

I always have to watch Ben Stiller movies on my own. Jennifer can’t stand his movies. So, when I heard about a movie with both Ben Stiller and Jack Black it was instantly on my Netflix queue. I figured you can’t go wrong. Well, Envy is by far one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a while. It has a great premise: Jack Black character invents a spray can which instantly disintegrates dog poop. How much I wish I had a can of that for all the dogs that take a crap in my front yard. However, the premise is all that’s good about this movie. I would suggest staying away from this movie even if you are a Stiller and Black fan.

What better way to spend your 34th birthday than to go see the sequel to one of your favorite movies. It was a little poignant because it’s been 12 years since the original Clerks came out, but fortunately, my life has progressed further than the characters in the movie. The Quick Stop from the first movie has burned down and Dante and Randal now have jobs at a fast food restaurant. However when the movie opens, it’s Dante’s last day. He has a new fiancé and is moving to Florida. The movie was great for any Kevin Smith and/or Clerks fan. I would stay clear if you aren’t or you may stomp out like Joel Siegel.

If you didn’t guess, the movie we watched this weekend was the latest in the Harry Potter series. Once again I didn’t think this one was up to snuff. I was wandering around lost, just like Harry and one thing after another led to the ultimate plot of Lord Voldemort trying to re-enter the world of the living. I just felt this movie went back to the previous two movies of not really explaining what is going on. I know it’s tough to condense a 700 page book into a movie (thank God Stephen King’s The Stand was a mini-series), but I wish they would do a better job of it.

Tonight Jennifer and I watched the third movie in the Harry Potter series. I’ve been pretty down on the series so far, but this one was by far the best one. Unlike the first two movies, they established a plot early on in the movie: a person has escaped from prison and is tracking down Harry. In the first two movies Harry just wanders around and uncovers problems. The only problem I have is that they talk about things in the movie that are hard to understand unless you’ve read the books. There are a lot of holes, but fortunately, I have Jennifer there to fill in the gaps.