Jumps and Jive

Picked up the Garden State soundtrack over the weekend. Great disc. It's a pretty mellow collection of songs, but that often works in it's favor as it certainly makes perfect background music for just about anything. I really enjoy In the Waiting Line by Zero 7 and Winding Road by Bonnie Somerville, but the whole disc is great (although I suspect my wife is getting tired of it spinning in the background). At least it's not the scrubs soundtrack - I've just about worn that one down to nothing as well. The two cds do share some artists in common (and one song by The Shins) but they are slightly different - scrubs is a little more upbeat on the whole.

Watched both The Village and The Forgotten this weekend. Both were better than I expected, so that was a nice surprise. The Village was pleasantly interesting. It is basically a movie version of Running Out of Time by Margaret Haddix, but there are a few differences (if I were really cyncial I'd say enough to keep her from winning a lawsuit...). And I must admit that a few of the plot turns surprised me. It's an interesting idea, but you have to wonder at some of the decisions made concerning the film's end. That is one of the major differences between the film and the book. I won't go into details (despite it having been out for a while) but I don't think the film made the right choice. Although, again, there are some differences in motivation between the two stories.

The Forgotten was much better than I expected it to be despite the sci-fi copout. This was a movie that in a lot of ways was harmed by the trailer and commercials. Far too much of the plot was given away. Although, oddly, it sort of helped too. Mostly because the filmmakers decided they weren't going to tell the more interesting and (obviously) harder story. I personally think a story concerning the main character's questionable sanity would have been more interesting. I suppose because it's more real. Instead (and this is why to some extent the PR people can be forgiven) they chose to tell a story about alien abduction. So in order to give people some warning that the story wasn't going to be grounded on this planet, the trailer had to give away the fact that Julianne Moore's character wasn't crazy. The film has several great jump moments and overall tells a good tale. And while I was disappointed they went the route they did, I won't deny that they did it well. Since we rented the DVD we chose to watch the "extended, alternate ending" version. So I can't really comment on what people saw in the theaters. We did go back to check out the theatrical ending and there are differences, some more obvious than others. Sadly, I think you need to see both to really get the complete feel for what they were trying to accomplish. Which may be why I got such mixed opinions from family and friends about it when it was in the theater.

I'm just about to wrap up book #3, so expect comments on it in a day or two. And I still haven't quite shaken my head cold. Curse you head cold!