The V.I.P.s

April 3.

I love how old movies don't need to fit into one genre or another. I'm sure "The V.I.P.s" is listed somewhere as a drama or a comedy or a romance, but it's really all three.

This classic was suggested to me by the Bushman, who has yet to steer me wrong, current rom-coms excluded. I added it to my Netflix queue without really checking it out and was intrigued by the list of stars in the cast. I had never seen an Elizabeth Taylor movie, or Richard Burton. Maggie Smith I know from "Harry Potter" and Orson Welles is, well, Orson Welles.

The film takes place during one night while a group of V.I.P travelers are stuck waiting for their flight from London to New York. There are so many great stories in the movie and each is well done. There aren't many movies that can successfully pull off intertwining story lines–yes, I'm talking to you "Valentine's Day."

Watching this movie, I'm reminded how much I love old movies. I've got to start watching more again. Thanks Bushman!

Me and Orson Welles

January 1.

"Me and Orson Welles" wasn't heavily advertised, at least not in Las Vegas where no one cares about movies like this, but I did catch a few previews and really wanted to get a glimpse of Orson Welles during his early days as a stage actor-director in New York. So, when my friend, Boba, bailed on seeing "Avatar" because she was paying for a fun New Year's Eve, I took the opportunity to catch this movie at the one theater in town where it was showing before it was gone forever.

I loved the movie, and I didn't realize until the end that it was made by Richard Linklater, director of two of my favorite movies ever, “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset.”

Although I never really got over how weird Zac Ephron, who plays Richard Samuels – the Me in the title – looks, (he looks like the woman in The L Word who has a sex change to become a man), I liked the character and the story set behind the scenes of an Orson theater production in 1937 New York.

The side story between Richard and Gretta, played adorably by Zoe Kazan, left me with a feeling of hope. But the star of the show was definitely Orson, portrayed by British-actor Christian McKay.