Movie #366 - Can't Hardly Wait

Can't Hardly Wait
1998 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 40 min
Directors: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan
Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose, Peter Facinelli, Seth Green, Freddy Rodriguez,  Sean Patrick Thomas, Donald Faison, Jaime Pressly, Selma Blair, Jason Segel, Chris Owen

Oh, high school. This movie came out the year before I graduate high school, so the whole party-before-college premise rung true for me at the time.  Jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, and X-filers alike can revel in this movie's accurate rendering of high school in the 90s.  And what a cast... so many great bit parts played by actors who have real careers now!

See if you can spot Selma Blair. Or how about Jason Segel?  Yep, that's him all right!  This was fun to revisit after so much time has passed.  Not only could I still remember my favorite lines, but finding all these "new" faces in the crowd became a game for me. 

Anyway, it's no Oscar winner, nor does it have the kind of original plot that keeps you riveted.  The characters are stereotypes, the acting's okay, but the real joy here is in what it represents for me.  If you didn't graduate high school in the late 90s, this might not strike the same chord for you.

Movie #352 - Lady in the Water

Lady in the Water
2006 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 50 min
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeffrey Wright, Bob Balaban, Freddy Rodriguez, Mary Beth Hurt

Another twisted fairytale movie, this one from the famed director of Sixth Sense (who many say peaked with his first movie).  I think people put too much pressure on Shyamalan, honestly.  This movie is good... it's just different. There's not really a big surprise, twist ending.  It's just a unique version of a *very dark* bedtime story.

Very dark, indeed.

The plotline is creative, the premise an odd juxtaposition of the mundane and the fantastical clashing together, and the effects are pretty good too.  I think some of the dialogue is a bit lacking, and some of the random bit parts are eaten up by the world's worst actors (I cite the cop that comes to file the animal report as Exhibit A).  BUT the major billed roles are all done very well, from Bob Balaban's underwhelmed and annoyed movie critic to Giamatti's spot-on stutterer.  It's not a perfect movie, but it has so many things going for it, that I like it all the same.  And Bryce Dallas Howard is amazing, in my opinion.

I give credit to Shyamalan for his diverse subject matter in all his movies, from fairytales to ghost stories and everything in between.  At least he's out there trying to do something a little different.