Not Another Movie Post

So today I saw Changeling and it is one of the best films I've seen this year (or rather last year?), and so I'm a little sad that it is not nominated for Best Picture. I've noticed a theme this year in that most of the movies out now are about hope, except for Doubt which is well about doubt, and that perhaps is why it was not nominated for Best Picture. I wonder if the message of hope has anything to do with Barack Obama's campaign. Angelina Jolie gives a great performance and if anyone doubts her talent then go see this movie. Go see it anyway because it's fantastic! Of course she already one an Oscar for Girl, Interrupted, and Jolie finds herself in a psych ward once again. If you think the film is simply about a mother who loses her son, think again--that only provides the framework for this film.

When the LAPD finds her son after he's been missing for five months, she knows he isn't her child. Enter a corrupt city and police department, a reverend on the radio, the sorry situation of mental health care, a serial killer, and a time when everyone wore hats. When Jolie finds herself wrongly incarcerated in a state asylum, I wanted to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Iron Jawed Angels, and Girl, Interrupted. again. I would also be interested in reading Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly or Norah Vincent's Voluntary Madness. It's shocking how few rights women had as recently as the 1920s and how mental health was treated. I thought Dale Dickey's character was going to get a lobotomy à la McMurphy. Speaking of crazy people and memoirs, I am reading The Glass Castle which so far is quite good. Jeannette Walls tells the story of her wandering childhood--her charismatic but destructively alcoholic father, her free spirited mother, and how her siblings banded together to survive it all. It's quite interesting. Noticing my slightly British affect for "quite" and "rather" I would quite rather like to read The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall. It looks hilarious.

I have to breifly mention that I just saw Mamma Mia! which didn't have nearly as many Greek boys in speedos as Ellen had promised. Meryl Streep looks impossibly young but is incredible as always even in something as silly as an ABBA musical--and earned herself her second Golden Globe nomination this year. By the way, Dominic Cooper pulls of boardshorts much better than period costume. And are we quite sure that Colin Firth is not actually gay? Anyway, it was a fun little movie but I don't think it will go on my top ten movies of 2008. I was at B&N today, said a little hello to Jenny, and I saw a new book--1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die--which I must have as a cineast (or cine*ass as I sometimes like to say).

Instead of writing this blog, I really should be preparing for my job interview tomorrow. I really hope I will be hired. I also look rather sexy at the moment, if I do say so myself, which can only be good. Nuts and salmon are quite good for the complexion if you didn't know. So goodnight children, I must go ponder why I want to be a library boy and make up hypothetical questions and real answers.