Movie Night

Saturday night I relaxed into a lump on the couch and watched, "Friends with Money." This was one of those movies that after it ended I clicked rapidly to the Special Features, hoping that the director hid more of the movie in the bonus materials. (Rarely the case! And by the way, it seems like they never include bloopers anymore in the SF's.) One reviewer on IMDB wished that this might be a tv series; it has enough story threads to jump there.
The premise of the movie is pretty direct from its title, a vignette about friends who have money and one who doesn't and how awkward and infuriating that can make things - despite the fact that they are all friends. Although this story is set amongst the very, very rich, differences in wealth don't have to be as wide as they were in this movie to prompt the financial-social dynamic. I confess, I've wondered sometimes why some friends couldn't get a credit card but shopped weekly at B-Rep; or fretted about shopping with friends and their mistaking a splurge for my day-to-day spending, when I thought they might be counting their pennies. I've also pressed my lips tightly when a co-worker asks how much I got for my year-end bonus. No good can come of answering that question.
Catherine Keener, one of the actresses in "Friends With Money", is one of my v. favorite actresses. There's intelligence but also genuine down-to-earth goofiness in her characters. She's spunky and endearing, but quiet and thoughtful. I should add Capote to my Netflix list, since she apparently did a very good Harper Lee.
In the "Coming Attractions" portion of this post I'd like to highlight two films that I'm pretty excited about:
"The Departed": Jason assigned me to the couch one night in Ohio to watch the Hong Kong original, ""Infernal Affairs". He was right about that movie. V. good and I highly recommend it for those of you who can't wait for Scorcese to arrive at the multiplex on October 6. (Unfortunately, being right about this one movie has encouraged Jason to pepper me with many, many other recommendations and assigned viewing. These demands when he fell asleep during the one movie I requested he watch, Amelie.)
"Everything is Illuminated": I had no idea one of my favorite recent books was turned into a movie. So this isn't really a coming attraction, since it came and went and I didn't even know about it. But it's also now on the Netflix queue.