We saw two movies yesterday, which I secretly thought would be a lot of fun and very decadent. And it was, but that's a lot of sitting, a lot of tolerating the hooting of the audience at Julie and Julia, and a lot of scrunching down and looking up. My neck could use a crack after five hours in a theater (with an Arby's break in between--one cannot live on reece's pieces and diet cola alone).

It may have been one movie too many.

(And this, after I'd watched the first 37 minutes of Big in my basement and sobbed a bit when Josh's best friend Billy realizes Big Tom Hanks is really 13-year-old Josh and there's this wash of understanding that pours down his face... As an aside, I thought Stephanie Zacharek was kind of a jerk when she slammed You've Got Mail. She must not be as much of as a sap as me. I was tearing up at some of the trailers. Sitting on the precipice of a long wet cry is a weird place to be. Oh, did I mention that I saw two movies yesterday?)

Review: Julie and Julia
7 out of 10 stars. I'm sure this assessment doesn't veer far from the conventional wisdom about it. The Julie Powell (prototypical Salon.com blogger) part was kind of bleh, even though I typically adore Amy Adams. It's downright petty of me, but I didn't like the character's hair. Likewise, I didn't much care for the book this movie was based on, and I was relieved that Julie's friends' love lives were blissfully excised from the script. I did enjoy the Julia Child segments; I think I could watch Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci banter all day long. In a parrallel universe, they'd be a reality show and I'd Tivo them faithfully. 

Review: 500 Days of Summer
9 out of 10 stars. This unlikely non-love story is charming, sweet, and backed up by a swell soundtrack. It features good acting and a reassuring voiceover by a deep-throated man. I like getting pulses of joy when I see movies, and I have to say the joy-to-minute ratio was higher for this film than the other.

Went to the Tattered Cover today (going there must inspire me to blog here) and bought for my sister The Devil in the White City (Chicago World's Fair plus serial killer nonfiction epic) and The Lazarus Project (a novel set in the early 1900s Chicago and also eastern Europe, the predominant theme being the plight of the immigrant, then and now--and it's so much better than I'm making it sound) for her birthday. In case you didn't get the Chicago connection, that's where she lives and that's where I'm heading tomorrow morning.