Back from Montreal! Stayed up past our bedtime every night, ate too much and spent far too much money --- we had a blast! Return to work and real life on Monday, but that's cool as vacations would not mean much if they never ended! I guess the snow has followed us from Canada. Looks like we may be getting more than a few inches of snow tonight.

Some quick thoughts on recent film releases:

Saw the new film adaptation of "Nicholas Nickleby" today. I really enjoyed it. However, it is fair to say that a bit was lost in translating the Dickens novel into a 2.5 hour movie. Still, it worked quite well and won me over.

I really loved "Talk to Her" --- an almost perfect movie, in my opinion! I suspect I will be in the minority regarding this one.

"Catch Me If You Can" was cute, but seemed too simplistic in terms of establishing what drove the main character to take such bold and scary chances.

"Gangs of New York" was beautifully filmed, but tried to do too much. I found it to be an uncomfortable mix of romanticism, realism, history and Cameron Diaz in soft focus. I just didn't care for it.

"About Schmidt" has some great acting work, but I found the pacing to be very slow. However, it was fun to watch J. Nicholson play a character his own age in "normal" circumstances. Kathy Bates managed to steal the whole film with her supporting role.

"The Two Towers" was awesome! See it!!! Maybe it is just me, but I find several of the actors playing the hobits to be so sexy. Uh,oh --- hobit perversion!

I do believe that all of these films were well over two hours in length. If movies must be this long, I think theatres need to bring back the intermission. I am concerned that bladders across the country are on the verge of bursting in our cinemas! --- or maybe it is just mine in danger. At any rate, I think we need to go back to the 90 minute format movie or give us a proper intermission! Just a thought.