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

Leap Year

January 8.

Ehh, OK, I knew I wasn't going to like this, but my friend Gigi and I had plans to see "Youth in Revolt" at Town Square. So, we met for some wine and food at The Grape first and by the time we got our tickets and popcorn the theater was packed. The only seats left in the tiny room were in the front row. Instead of getting a neck injury we stepped into "Leap Year" (I seriously thought it was called Leap Day until just now) with a few other friends we ran into just a few minutes before.

Gigi couldn't get over the ridicolous high-heels Anna (Amy Adams, who I usually love) ran around in the entire movie, and I didn't understand why no one was wearing a coat in Ireland in February. Although, the way every scene looked as if people were standing in front of a green screen, I'm sure no one went to Ireland to film this.

The movie had a serisouly dumb story line about a control freak (Bitch as Gigi called her) chasing her doctor boyfriend to Ireland to propose to him on leap day - because in 2010 you couldn't propose to a man on say, June 3. It's also stupid to think two people who are buying an apartment together in a wealthy neighborhood in Boston wouldn't have discussed marriage at this point of their four year relationship.

The only thing goode about this movie is Matthew Goode. His character is whatever, but he is hot with his accent and sneaky smile. More Matthew Goode, less stupid Chick Flicks!

Gigi and I both thought we should have had at least one more glass of wine or brought the flask for this one.