At the movies with Darren

Last Monday I believe (New Year's Eve) it was, as I recall, ridiculously hot, so the girl and I decided to stay cool and grab a DVD during the day. We settled on "Lucky You", which I thought would have something for both of us - it's a romantic comedy (for Michella) starring Drew Barrymore (for me), and also about poker (me again). Also, Michella picked out some really dodgy movie starring Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser which I knew she wouldn't actually watch. The funniest part was watching her reaction to finding it, plus her reaction to my comments like "Michael Keaton AND Brendan Fraser, that's amazing - how the hell were they both available?!?!"

Anyway, we sat down to watch "Lucky You", and it was a pretty big disappointment. Eric Bana plays a professional poker player who falls for Drew Barrymore, treats her like crap, steals her money to gamble, realises he's made a big mistake, tries to get her back, fails, somehow gets to the final table in the World Series of Poker, realises that winning isn't everything and lets his Dad (a fellow poker player) beat him, and then of course wins Drew back since she's inexplicably travelled back to Vegas to see his big game. So it's not really that surprising or original.

Last Friday night we decided would be a "date" night. Not sure really how this differs from a regular Friday night, other than the fact that I had to spring for a nicer restaurant than normal. Anyway we had dinner at Cafe Eros, which was pretty disappointing. You would think that in a Greek cafe, you could get a yiros or something similar, but there was no such option. I went with the "mixed grill" which was like a regular mixed grill I suppose, but being Greek, much more oily. Michella had some sort of pastry thing and salad. We shared some pita and dips which were pretty good, although that's pretty hard to stuff up. The worst part was we were on a tight schedule - we had a 5.30pm dinner reservation, and 6.40pm movie, and didn't get our mains till 6.30pm. I stress out a lot over stuff like that so was pretty wound up by the time we finally got our food.

The movie we decided to see was "No country for old men". I thought it was brilliant. It's directed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski), and is about a Llewellen Moss (played by Josh Brolin) who comes across $2 million in cash in the middle of the desert, in the midst of what appears to be a drug deal gone bad. Later that night his conscience gets the better of him, and he returns to the scene to take some water to a dying man who was injured in an apparent gunfight, but when he arrives he finds the man is dead, and that the owners of the money have also returned, and give chase. The rest of the film sees a psychopathic killer Anton Chigur on Moss' trail, while the local Sherrif (played by Tommy Lee Jones) tries to keep up with the two of them, and keep Moss safe.

The guy who plays Chigur does a great job - he's one of the creepiest movie characters I've ever seen. Woody Harrelson is also great as a rival hired killer who shows up in the middle part of the film. The best part of this is the direction though - the cinematography and music are tremendous, and create an incredibly tense mood throughout. Because of this, Michella wasn't a huge fan. In fact, I think she may have described it as the worst "date" of her life. Nevertheless, I had fun.

Finally, last night we watched "The Bourne Ultimatum" on DVD. People seem to love these movies but I'm a bit ambivalent. I can see the appeal - exotic locations, spectactular car chases, violence . . . but I just kind of lose interest. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge Matt Damon fan. Who knows. Anyway this was OK, but at the end of the day, I think I'd rather watch a James Bond movie. So if you like Matt Damon and think it's conceivable he could be a lethal killing machine, go see this. Otherwise, don't. It's up to you.