4 Movies, 2 Flights

Thanks to the miracle of in-flight movies and iTunes movie rentals on my iPhone, I watched 4 movies on the long haul back from Puerto Rico yesterday. In chronological order:

The Nanny Diaries -- This movie was far better than the script, if that makes any sense. And that's mostly due to Laura Linney, who did a really great job playing Mrs. X. Scarlett was pretty (as usual) but it wasn't a great part and she didn't add a lot to it. But fun.

Saved! -- This brutal comedy is set at American Eagle Christian School, a born-again high school. It's very funny, I felt. Mandy Moore is actually quite good as a high school queen bee whose Christianity is mostly used to attack others. She is sincere in her faith, but expects it to bring great rewards, like popularity and good skin. The movie doesn't really question faith or Christianity, but aims for the evangelical moral code that opens itself to hypocrisy, self-flagellation (figuratively) and self-delusion even.

Live Free or Die Hard -- The absolute silliest movie of the four (and that's saying a lot since the next movie I watched was Hairspray) but dang this is a fun action movie with bizarre set piece after bizarre set piece. It uses cars a lot. The car that took down the helicopter I could almost buy. The SUV that ended up in the elevator shaft was hard to take. That said the premise of the movie is actually rather terrifying, and the film actually captured some of that.

Hairspray -- Don't judge me, but I really liked this film. It's got fun music, it had extraordinary art direction and production design, and the characters were well drawn (for a musical). I'm still not exactly sure why John Travolta had to play a woman, but he did a very good job at it.