I just don't get it...

Last weekend down in Gatlinburg, I finally got around to watching The 40 Year Old Virgin, and I'm going to have to just say that I don't get it.

For a year I've heard everybody rave about the movie. It's been lauded alternately as hilarious and sweet/touching. So when some of the folks in the chalet were going to drop the movie in and sit down, I hopped upstairs (missing out on running yet another poor schmuck from the pool table). Two hours later, I was sort of shaking my head and wondering what I'd just seen. It's not hilarious. It's kinda sweet, sure, but there are a lot of kinda sweet movies that people don't think are deserving of a nod for best picture or best actor. I'm thinking this whole 40 Year Old Virgin thing was just a little over-blown.

Sure, it's cute. Sure, it's moderately funny, but getting a five out of ten in two different categories doesn't make it an overall ten.

A week later, I gave Upside of Anger a second view. First time was this past spring in Dallas, second time was in the comfort of the basement.

The movie still holds up really well. It's not a straight-forward story - there's a bit too meandering a tone for that - and the main characters aren't perfect folks. It's a story of a woman whose husband has left her and their four daughters. Joan Allen - in an excellent performance - is the mother whose relationships with her daughters are strained at best. Kevin Costner is also excellent at Denny Davies, former World Series hero and neighborhood drunk who takes a shine to the abandoned family. The writer and director, Mike Binder also makes a quality appearance as Denny's radio producer who crosses into the family for a short time as well.

The movie allows us glimpses into the family's coping and missteps with each other as they struggle with each other as much as with the departure of the patter familias. We don't stay too long in every instance, often drifting out for a seasonal fade away as time passes without us watching the family the entire time. We visit but don't always stay long enough to see every issue resolved. A few months later, we're back, and the family has moved along a bit, whatever issue we'd just seen has been patched over as best they can manage, and life has gone on.

It's not a perfect film, to be sure, as the narration steals some of the momentum at times and is too heavy-handed in the end, and the film's ending leaves much to be desired, but it's a good film. One that allows us to journey with the characters and to hope for and with them.

Jagged Little Pill Acoustic by Alanis Morissette is crap. Simply crap marketed to people who remember their rebelious, angry days fondly. The AllMusic.com review nails it.