Tonight-movie reviews!

Ok, I know I've not posted anything for a couple days. No excuses really, just busy and moving pretty hard and collapsing with no words of wisdom to share before its bedtime. And its nearly that way tonight but I'll try to share for a little bit.

I'm watching Animal Planet right now, there's a program called Romeo and Juliet, A Monkey's Tale showing. Ita a tale of love between two monkeys from opposite sides of the street, somewhere in Thailand. I have to say its the weirdest story I have seen in in quite a while. The monkeys just roam the streets, catch rides on the train when its convenient and fight between the tribes. Very strange. Too strange to watch, really.

Anyway, on to the movie reviews! First- CARS! CARS! CARS! Its a fantastic movie! Sure its animated and the cars are the characters, but its fantastic fun. It is a "coming of age" story for Speed McQueen as he meets up with a cast of characters in the forgotten town of Radiator Springs, somewhere off the interstate in our American Southwest. I'm not going to spoil it by telling the story but I will recommend it to everyone in the family. The animation is terrific, the storyline has lots of humor and jokes that the adults will get even if the kids don't and there are some hilarious cameo appearances.

Two of my favorite car guys, the Brothers Magliozzi from Car Talk have significant roles and even my lifetime hero Mario Andretti has a cameo that only I recognized. There's several more but I don't want to spoil it for all of you. Just be sure to take a good look at Ornament Valley when the scenes appear!

We saw Cars on Friday night and on Saturday we headed out to see a slightly smaller blockbuster that also opened this weekend, A Prairie Home Companion. Now, I've already confessed to being a National Public Radio junkie in this post by mentioning Car Talk, so if you didn't know already, I also love the Prairie Home Companion radio program. The movie is wonderful, full of characters from the real radio show and some of the characters, Dusty & Lefty and Guy Noir are actually part of the cast instead of just characters in a radio skit.

There's no question that this is a Robert Altman film in the way the multiple stories unfold both on and off the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater. The closeups of the characters as they perform and the cluttered backdrop of the stage are classic Altman trademarks and they make for a terrific film. This film's not going to be for everyone, the BSU barely tolerated it though she did like the old-time songs. If you aren't familiar with the stories and characters from the radio, there might not be a hook that will get you to part with your hard-earned movie dollars. But it is a solid story with great performances by Lilly Tomlin, Meryl Streep and Lindsey Lohan, all of whom have singing parts. Woody Harrelson makes a terrific cowboy BTW.

I loved it, you might too. Check it out.