Academic

So, the last two weekends have found us at the movies, and as the blockbuster summer season wanes, we went to see two "small" movies that we liked very much.

500 Days of Summer.  We were going to see the "Time Traveler's Wife," but made a game time decision to see this movie after a neighbor recommended it to us on our way out the door.  It's a really simple movie, but captures what it's like when you are in your 20s and you really think that someone is "the one."  You know, when two people are holding hands at the IKEA and pretending they are married and live in the furniture "serving suggestions," and one person is like "Oh my gosh, they must want to marry me because we're pretending we're married in the IKEA" and the other person is like "The IKEA is such a fun place to joke around.  Let's go get some meatballs."  I've been there.  Anyway, the male lead, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, completely makes the movie.  He was the "boy" alien on 3rd Rock From the Sun and the little boy in Angels in the Outfield, but now he's a male lead, which somehow adds to the affection that you have for this naive young man falling in love so hard, so hard.  Very sweet movie.  It's set in modern day, but it feels sort of retro (the music, the clothes) somehow, which help us old people remember. . . .

Taking Woodstock.  We sort of just wandered into this one at the art theater downtown without knowing what it was going to be.  I think our lack of preconceived notions helped a lot.  Again, it's a really sweet movie about another early 20s male trying to find his way in the world, navigating between his immigrant parents who run a (run-down) motel in the Catskills and his desire to be a designer and go to San Francisco with his New York friends.  And, he's gay, but his parents don't know.  So, with this backdrop, Elliot becomes the driving force for getting the Woodstock music festival to come to his Catskills town when the "hippies" are kicked out of Wallkill, NY.  The movie is based on the memoirs of Elliot Teichberg, now Tiber.  Woodstock is the backdrop -- the real story is Elliot's journey separating from his parents and becoming his own person.