At the movies

I saw Cinderella Man this weekend as promised.

Russell Crowe was great. Paul Giammatti was good, too, although his performance was kind of mannered: he employs a kind of fast-talking patter seen in movies like His Gal Friday. This works for the period and the character: He's Crowe's manager. But Crowe's character is harder to play; he's just a decent guy who wants to do right by his family. This review by Roger Ebert puts it nicely, I think. Renee Zellweger plays Crowe's selfless wife in kind of a thankless role. The movie belongs to Crowe and Giamatti.

As usual, the movie was preceded by about 20 minutes of commercials, followed by endless trailers. I can only remember two: Jodie Foster is back in a movie that can be summed up as Panic Room on an airplane; and Kiera Knightly will be starring in yet another version of Pride and Prejudice. From what I saw of the trailer, the movie seems to put a harlequin romance style gloss on the love affair between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Also Mr. Darcy is played by Matthew MacFadyen, who is neither as aristocratic as Lawrence Olivier nor as adorable as Colin Firth.