A couple of stars and a bag of popcorn

Movies, movies, movies. Here's what I've seen recently:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire *****
This was a terrific movie for Potter fans. Ralph Fiennes is oh-so-wonderful as the baddest bad guy in the wizard world.

King Kong **
There's no plot, just special effects. Could have been better. An idea: Give the characters some dialog. Another idea: Give me a reason to care.

Memoirs of a Geisha **
Poor girls. All dressed up and nowhere to go. At least in the book we learned about the intricate hair and makeup ritual and the many layers of clothing worn under the kimono. The movie was boring and the actors' accents made the dialog difficult to understand.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ***
Weird, very weird. But in a good way. I still love Johnny Depp.

Elizabethtown *
Boy oh boy. Bad. Very bad. There were at least three different movies here, none of them very good. Were Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom even filmed in the same room with each other? Only one scene in the entire movie worked for me -- the one where the Paula Deen character took Orlando into the bedroom with all of the family pictures on the wall. That felt true and real Kentucky-like to me.