No one ever said it would be this hard

All right... the blog silence is broken, and another year of inane posting begins. Sorry for the lack of posting. I really did think I'd get a chance to post while I was in Saskatoon, but I never even bothered to check my email.

Saskatoon was nice. A week away from the dissertation was just what the doctor ordered. I didn't even watch any of the "work" movies that I brought along. Although we did see MANY movies, most of which I really, really liked.

1) Little Miss Sunshine Brilliant. Almost peed myself during the dance at the end of the movie.

2) The Good Shepherd De Niro's film about the early days of the CIA. I liked it, but felt it was a little overlong. Good acting throughout, though Matt Damon hardly seemed to age. I was also a little distracted by his son's physical appearance (ie, it was hard to imagine that Damon and Angelina Jolie had a kid so unattractive).

3) Casino Royale Best Bond film ever. A gritty and intelligent turn in a franchise that had turned to the worst of the Moore era with an abundance of ridiculous gadgets and silly names. Daniel Craig was great as a novice Bond.

4) For Your Consideration Christopher Guest's take on Hollywood lacks the sparkle of his previous films. While there are some wonderful scenes (Fred Willard's hair deserved its own credit), the film failed to build to anything. It just sort of ended.

5) An Inconvenient Truth This Al Gore documentary should be required viewing. I think if Gore had shown this much passion and personality during his Presidential campaign, the world would look a little different today.

6) Charade Yes, Cary Grant was far too old to be romantically linked with Audrey Hepburn, but who cares? This is one of the smartest, most enjoyable non-Hitchcock caper films.

7) Love Actually My in-laws asked us to bring this along, thinking they'd not seen it before. They realized almost immediately that they had, but we all watched it anyway.

8) Once Upon a Time in the West How does Sergio Leone make the perennially likable Henry Fonda so evil? Magic. Claudia Cardinale may be one of the great screen beauties of all time.

Flew home yesterday to discover that Winnipeg had been hit with 30 cm of snow. Spent a good portion of New Year's morning shovelling my car out. Stupid snow.

Now that the holidays have come to an abrupt end, I'm back at work, type, type typing away.