Monday, December 18, 2006

"Stranger Than Fiction" -- who knew he could act so well?

We went out bowling last night... or at least we headed to the lanes to bowl, but we discovered that it was a league night. Well, a movie then? Sure! The girls and I went off to see Stranger Than Fiction, the new Will Ferrell movie.

I loved it. I mean, I know that Will Farrell does good comedy and has pretty good timing and that comedy is much harder than drama... but I found myself moved to tears on a couple of occasions. Emma Thompson was brilliant as a self-absorbed, rather depressive author, Dustin Hoffman made a great professor of English Lit., Maggie Gyllenhaal is scrumptious, and, hell, I'd totally follow Queen Latifah around just because she's so hot. But Will Farrell really has untapped talents as a good dramatic actor with the bulk to carry a leading role. It was much akin to the pleasure of seeing The Truman Show, discovering that Jim Carrey could turn in an effective and serious performance as well as do the same physical humor over and over again. But I think that Will Farrell may have more depth.

Interestingly, Jim Carrey is about to do a film called The Number 23, in which a man reads a book that appears to be based on his life, but the book ends with a murder that hasn't happened in real life... yet. Well, it's not the first time an idea was taken in two different directions by two contemporaneous films, and this could be good, too.

But in the meantime, everyone should go see Stranger Than Fiction.

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