Saw a TiVo'd double feature from the '60s today.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a French musical take on a story that Hollywood has done a hundred times (boy and girl fall in love, boy gets drafted and goes off to war). All the dialogue is sung, and the movie has more charm than the law should allow.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines is a fun romp about a London-to-Paris air race, c. 1910. Lots of fun, if you like slapstick and have medium-to-high tolerance for national stereotyping. If you liked Rat Race or It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, you might like this one.

Betsy, I just saw it too and had pretty much the same reaction. One thing bothered me though we sawthe soldiers creeping up on the Dagger house, but never went back there HEREto see it resolved.

Me, too, Quester. A crucial emotional point was the realization that we're all going to die anyway, we're just pawns on the chessboard. I thought they were setting up for a really powerful ending in which it didn't matter which choices the protagonists made because the big climactic battle destroyed everybody. Instead, we got that weird cut to the encroaching soldiers, then back to the soap opera.

On the other hand, people slithering head-first down bamboo trees? Coolness.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

In a similar vein is The Great Race with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

One of my favorites. Silly fun. Balloons and blunderbusses! And I think it is the first thing I ever saw with Benny Hill.

On the other hand, people slithering head-first down bamboo trees? Coolness.

Totally!

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

I loved that movie as a child. The aforementioned stereotypes are kind of hard to avoid. Same for The Halleluja Trail.

I don't have a copy of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. I should get one to go next to my copy of The Great Waldo Pepper.

I saw Finding Neverland today. The kid who played Peter was indeed marvellous, but I think the moment I liked the most was when George grew up -- because it was so visible.

I teared up when the childred sat down in the theatre, and again when Sylvia entered Neverland, when it was apparent that just wishing it so would be enough.

I thought it was very nicely done, very sweet, and really wished that Depp hadn't had Billy Boyd's accent throughout. Rendered me powerless. What a magically pretty man he is.

There was the trailer for Willi Wonka, which would have earwormed me, except most of the rest of the trailers were so annoying (dear god, that zebra racing one, or Pooh meets the Oliphaunt ...), and the only other non-irritating one was Bride and Prejudice, which looks like a good laugh. Martin Henderson = hot man with unmemorable name. I did twitch a bit that the only Indian looking one of her suitors looked like such an immense tool. But we'll see.

eta: Someone mentioned there was a Superman Returns poster out there -- anyone know where I can see it?

Depp plus the accent=too much for mere mortals to resist.

Saw Hotel Rwanda tonight. Very moving, very earnest, very good performances (except Nick Nolte, WTF is up with him in this move?).

(except Nick Nolte, WTF is up with him in this move?).

I am so with you on that. When he was first introduced, I thought there was something seriously wrong with him, or he was just going to be the crazy comic character, based on the way he was all slouched over with the funky hat doing funky things over the funky expression on his face. And then when he went into his we're all racists speech, I was really confused about what exactly he was trying to say. But then, later, when Terry George was talking, it became very clear where that speech came from, since he flat out said how he thinks the entire world is racist, and we all hate people from Africa, specifically because they are from Africa, and we look down upon them as being less than other blacks, even. Because they are black Africans. And we are racist. And that is why the Rwanda situation did not receive the same amount of funding and outreach help that the recent tsunami disaster did. However. How much were you sobbing during the scene with the Rwandan children's choir song, where the whites are being evacuated, and the orphans are being snatched out of the priest's, and nuns', arms? Or the scene where they were driving over the bodies? Those scenes will stay with me for a very long time.