Some movies I watched

I've had a little time to catch up on some movie watching in the last few days, so here's a rundown of what I saw and what I thought about it:

Anything Else

A Woody Allen film where he isn't the star either sounds like a perfect idea or an extremely bad one. Fortunately Jason Biggs is there to provide the neurotic comments in lieu of Allen, and Christina Ricci makes for a fine companion to Biggs. The writing is as brilliant as anything Allen's done, as is the camera work. His bit part as a crazy comedy writer is one of the best performances he's ever given, and all in all it's a truly wonderful, albeit bittersweet, movie. And I'm not an Allen fan...

Love Liza

Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars in this extremely moving story. After his wife's suicide, his character resorts to huffing gas to escape his emotional pain, sending him on a journey of self discovery. An extremely powerful performance by Hoffman makes this a great film, and having Kathy Bates along for the ride definitely doesn't hurt. Anyone into quirky, emotional films should give this a look.

The Haunted Mansion

I wanted to like this movie, really. It's been so long since Eddie Murphy did anything worthwhile that I had extremely high hopes for this film. Sadly, it's the same as every other mediocre haunted house movie ever produced. The story is so shallow I knew exactly what was going to happen ten minute into the film. Luckily I didn't pay to see it, as I had a free ticket, and that's about the only way I'd recommend watching it.