If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium

February 19.

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium isn't a great movie, but it made me laugh a few times. And I liked seeing familiar faces of the 60s and 70s traveling around Europe together on a bus.

The bus brought me back to the time I spent traveling around Europe  on the Plummet Coach. You haven't seen Europe until you've driven it on a bus. Although I never went as far as this group of Americans on a tour of nine countries in 18 days.

The group, led by a cute British tour guide (Ian McShane) starts in London and ends in Rome. All the annoying American stereotypes are there. Suzanne Pleshette (of Oh, God!) plays a single woman on one last jaunt before marrying a man she doesn't love, Norman Fell plays a married man whose wife accidentally gets on the wrong bus and is with a Japanese tour group for most of the trip, there's a bickering married couple, a single man who comes with empty suitcases an steals everything that isn't nailed down, and on and on.

The movie was filmed on location in 1968, and it's awesome to see Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Germany, Venice, and Rome, especially with all the late-60s garb. I visited almost every city the movie does 30 years later, and besides the mini skirts and bell bottoms everything looks exactly the same.

Rating: Like

Arsenic and Old Lace

February 15.

Arsenic and Old Lace. What a great quirky, silly, old movie. Cary Grant and his two old aunts run around this charming Frank Capra classic Three’s Company Style, and I love it.
On his wedding day, the theater critic (Cary) learns that his spinster aunts murder single, lonely men to put them out of their misery. Even though they’re murderers the aunts are still sweet and thoughtful. People who visit just have to make sure they don’t drink from the wrong bottle of wine. Cary discovers a body and starts putting together a story to get his aunts into a nut house to avoid jail. All this is happening while his uncle, who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, is in the basement digging the Panama Canal.

I know this sounds crazy but it gets even messier from there and it’s still good. Somehow, maybe because Capra is a genius or because Cary is Cary, the movie kept me connected and interested and made the over-the-top story funny rather than stupid.

You should see it. It will make your crazy family seem a little less crazy.

Rating: Love

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

February 14.

The whole world is raving about the book and movie trilogy that starts with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I guess I just missed something.

The story wasn't even about the girl. When the movie flashed to her life it was just one disturbing image after another, but I never really got why I was supposed to care. And her tattoo, was there even a tattoo?

The secondary story, which was the real story, was interesting, but not much more than a good episode of CSI Stockholm.

So although the Swedish movie held my interest I refuse to see part two and don't really think I'll run out to see the American version.

Rating: Ehh

The Triplets of Belleville

February 14.

I love The Triplets of Belleville. The animation and story are so whimsy, weird and interesting.

The story is about a boy, his dog and a woman I am guessing is his grandmother. They all live in Paris, so from scene one I was in.  The boy becomes interested in the Tour de France and starts cycling, with the old woman as his trainer. As he's racing in the Tour De France he gets kidnapped and his grandmother (dog in tow) follow his kidnappers to New York. The grandmother gets help from the expat French triplets, who were a famous singing act about 50 years before.

There are parts of Triplets that seem like a dream, or maybe the whole thing is a dream. I don't know. But I loved it anyway.

Rating: Love

Gnomeo & Juliet

February 13.

Awwwe. Gnomeo & Juliet is so cute. These angry little garden gnomes live in neighboring English gardens and come to life whenever their owners disappear.

Just like in the original Romeo & Juliet, the two families are feuding but we don't really know why. Gnomeo is a blue and Juliet is a red but when they first see each other they miss the color of the others hat and fall in love.

Things get complicated when they find out who the other is, but anyone who knows Shakespeare's story knows what's coming. Of course this is a cartoon about Gnomes so there isn't as much sex or death, but the general components of the classic tragedy are there.

The story isn't the only thing that's cute. The animation is also unique and creative. The gnomes are all a little scratched and dented, which make them look lifelike.

I should admit, I boycotted the 3D version for the old-fashioned 2D, so I can't comment there. But I don't know that any movie needs 3D, let alone Gnomeo & Juliet.

Rating: Like