Two movies

My beautiful eldest daugther and her mother and her mother's mother took off for a week in Hawaii following my daughter's high school graduation last week. For me, it was a rare opportunity to spend some time with my younger daughter. We shopped, we cooked, we saw a couple of movies.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End--Good movie to see with your daughter. Good movie to see, period. Entertaining. Great special effects. Minimum of stupidity. Good story. The critics--what do they know.

We also saw Knocked Up--For God's sake don't go see this with your 15-yr-old. Great reviews: "poignant," "hilarious," etc. Reality: mildly funny. Poignant, in a "this is the sort of real life I go to movies to escape from" sort of way.

Lastly, there is Spiderman III--SAVE YOUR MONEY. When I saw Mission Impossible II with my wife, she took all the fun out of it by laughing out loud at some of John Woo's more over-the-top directorial moments. At Spiderman, we both laughed. To begin with, Tobey Maguire is no great shakes as an actor. But really, when said 15-yr-old comes home and says it's the worst movie she's seen in a while (and this from someone who thinks Will Farrell can act), you know you're probably going to want that three hours of your life back.

Want to know what you shouldn't miss? Reign Over Me. So far, for 2007, the best movie I've seen, and I saw most of the Academy Award Winners. First, Adam Sandler can act. If you didn't know that after Spanglish, you weren't paying attention. Second, there is not an emotion that Reign Over Me leaves untapped: anger, love, humor, happiness, passion, friendship, grief, and every other corner of your heart that I've not named. If there is a don't miss movie for this year, this is it. Critics gave it a C+. They gave Spiderman a B; same grade they gave Talladega Nights. See a pattern yet?