Monday, September 30

Sweet Home Alabama - Well, it wasn't awful. Reese was luminous, as always, although not quite as catty and fun as in Legally Blonde. The National Review does a more than adequate job of properly framing the film as a struggle between the mockery of big city sophistication and poking fun at the lives of small town hicks. Ethan Embry did well as the closeted redneck, but I really wondered if a scene or two had been cut from his storyline. I felt like there was more history/tension that was there, but not sufficiently addressed in the exposition. PopMatters took the words out of my mouth when they wrote that Candice Bergen "play[s] pretty much the same character she did in 2000's Miss Congeniality." I'd argue it's also the same character she's played recently on Sex and the City. She's got quite the post-Murphy Brown cottage industry going. Final grade: B-/C+