We're back, happy and tired, from our Christams Movie day. Very successful this year. We started with Happy Feet, which was charming and fun. Then Dreamgirls, which is mostly good and features two kick-ass performances in Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy. The audience was totally digging it, and there was lots of applause after several numbers. Last movie was Children of Men, which blew me away and is going on my 10 best list for the year. A powerful, beautifully written script, not a bad performance in the huge cast, and so very very very well directed. Clive Owen is mesmerizing.

After moves, we all had dinner at Jerry's Deli, where we got to grill our friend who did props on Dreamgirls about the making of the film.

So last night we were watching a little It's A Wonderful Life, and we were wondering out loud why no one has ever remade it. (I know there's been tons of similar stories, but no one seems to have done a direct re-make.) My theory was that no one thinks they can do justice to the original.

Err, somone did. It was called "It Happened One Christmas". Marlo Thomas, as Mary, played the Jimmy Stewart part and, yes, she was still the one in charge of the savings & loan (Wayne Rogers played her husband George who was sort of an architect). Orson Welles played Mr. Potter. It was...very made for TV (which it of course was).

My family decided to watch movies on Christmas day and we ended up only having time for one so between PoTC: Dead Man's chest and Little Miss Sunshine we watched Miss Sunshine. An interesting Xmas day choice but it was really good. And actually worked with the family theme.

Christmas Eve I watched Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I found it funny and not cringe worthy like I thought it was going to be. The best part was probably the discussion about praying to Baby Jesus.

Oh, not just sitcoms. It seems to be a requirement for shows with enough whimsy, even if they're hour-longs. Grey's Anatomy is about due, I swear.

The show doesn't even have to be whimsical. Highlander pulled the IaWL-trope out for their series finale. Blah.

I have to give points to Dallas for showing J.R. Ewing how much better everyone's lives would have been without him.

An article on Guillermo del Toro's sketchbook.

I love sketchbooks. I wish I could draw.

The two movies I most want to see right now are Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men.

Del Toro and Cuaron seem to be hitting on all cylinders. It's exciting when a director hits their stride and you can really look forward to their next work.

But if one's going to do a remake of It's a Wonderful Life, I hope they do something left field and films the version from Jonathan Lethem and Carter Scholz's "Receding Horizon" -- you know, where-in Kafka wrote the screenplay.

The two movies I most want to see right now are Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men.

CoM was just ridiculously, incredibly good. I saw it with five thousand heterosexual couples and walked out, amongst the entwined arms and kissing noises, thinking, "My god, that was an amazing film." It stuck with me too, mostly in abortive pub conversations with my long-suffering friends who hadn't seen the film, yet were subjected to my cracked out theories and half-formed criticisms. Also, it was the funniest apocalypse movie I've seen in a long time. Intentionally funny, not unintentionally comedy; that award still goes to "The Day After Tomorrow," for the Powers of the Crack.

Pan's Labyrinth was a surprising disappointment in many ways. I found I didn't enjoy it very much at all, and while it was shot breathtakingly beautifully and was in many ways visually stunning, the story was displeasing and I thought it was depressingly unbalanced. Part of that, certainly, was due to how it was marketed and what I thought I was going in there to see. But I really thought it was only a shadow of what it could be. And my god, the gratuitous violence and torture. I still shudder to think.

Pan's Labyrinth was a surprising disappointment in many ways. I found I didn't enjoy it very much at all, and while it was shot breathtakingly beautifully and was in many ways visually stunning, the story was displeasing and I thought it was depressingly unbalanced.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I loved it beyond reason, and have been itching to see it again for months. I also disagree that the violence was gratuitious. I think less graphic, more "fantasy"ish violence would have undercut the story's impact a great deal.

I also love Children of Men, but that's one I've been lucky enough to see twice already.

Well, it wasn't that I wanted the violence to be particularly fantasyish. I just think that it was too much violence, period. While it conveyed the real horror and violence of the civil war, I think it could have been transmitted without, for example, seeing the guy's hand bloodied from his fingernails being removed. Or watching the captain stitch up his own face and than be all surprised that it hurts to drink alcohol. And while I understand that the captain was a character who acted as a corrupted moral centre for the film, and on a larger scale for the country, it was ham-fisted and difficult to watch; I felt no sympathy for him, and mostly was eagerly waiting for him to get off the screen. Unfortunately, he was in almost every damned shot.

I suppose I went in expecting a fantasy, and what I got was a recreated view into a terrible historical reality, with some (far more unbelieveable for the lack of balance between "reality" and her fantasy) out-of-place, though beautiful and intriguing, adventures thrown in.

It really was disappointing for me, because I had looked forward to seeing it, and thought the reviews sounded intriguing.