So Far Ordinary

No idea how I ended up with two Netflix movies with "Life" in the title. But I did, and neither was that great. (Oddly, they both also had a Scottish theme....)

In A Life Less Ordinary, Cameron Diaz is essentially the same character she always is (spoiled and gregarious), and Ewan McGregor's character was essentially ripped from Moulin Rouge. The premise of the story is that Ewan accidentally ends up kidnapping Cameron, and two angels are dispatched to make sure they end up happily ever after. I actually didn't think they had any chemistry, so the whole idea of them falling in love didn't seem very believable. It was a dark comedy, which I appreciated, but it seemed like it was more a patchwork of a lot of other movies (like, say, anything with angels and/or road trips) than its own.

Then again, I might be projecting, since I'm a little cynical about anything lovey-dovey or wedding-related right now. Maybe I should lay off the romantic comedies for a few weeks and watch a lot of war movies instead.

My Life So Far, based on the memoirs of a British TV mogul (according to wikipedia), was similarly clichéd. The story is told from the point-of-view of a 10-year-old boy in 1927 growing up on a huge Scottish country estate. There are adults having affairs, dying, and agonizing over adult things all around him, but The Boy is Just a Boy, and is too innocent to understand it all just yet. It's the typical idealized post-WW1 idyllic childhood, where jazz --gasp!-- epitomizes loose morals and carefree attitudes that are so shocking and yet so alluring.

I, um, put it in my queue because it stars Colin Firth as the kid's father.

I think I'll watch The Great Escape for the billionth time...