Time for more movie reviews.

We actually WENT OUT to the theater this week…TWICE. Berck’s mom gave us some money with instructions to go do movie and a dinner. I discovered, when checking the movie times in the paper, that the dollar theater just down the street becomes the fifty cent theater on Tuesdays. It just so happened to be Tuesday, so we decided to do a practice run and went to see The Terminal. The movie was better than the theater. Berck broke his vow of never going to the dollar theater again, and his nose was punished as a result. (“It smells bad in here.”)

Terminal is a delightful movie. Not a great film, by any means, but quite entertaining. Everyone should see it. It was fun seeing it in a theater full of teenage rednecks, who laughed at EVERYTHING, or else pointed out the obvious audibly to whoever blind might be in the audience. (Tom Hanks glances at the restrooms, and someone whispers, “He has to go to the bathroom!”) All in all a safe film bet.

We went on our real date to the real theater last night (it’s across the street from the dollar theater) and paid real cash for Garden State. This was a wonderful movie that I think the only person in my family who would enjoy it is Ben. Everyone else who reads this and doesn’t share my bloodlines should go out and watch it at once. Or wait till it hits the dollar theater and take a clothespin. Natalie Portman actually acts in it, instead of just looking pretty, which delighted me but disappointed Berck. He wanted more ripped clothing and knee-high boots.

We’ve been wading our way through The Decalogue, a series of one-hour films made for Polish television in the late eighties. They were directed by the guy who did Trois Couleurs. They don’t follow the Ten Commandments exactly, but each one is about a different inhabitant of a Warsaw apartment complex and the circumstances that lead them to sin. They’re very well done but also very depressing. We’ve finished “Seven.” Three more to go.