Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I've been traveling a lot recently, and because USAir no longer shows movies on their flights, I bring my own and have been catching up on flicks. My standard for airplane movies is really really low because anything is better than doing nothing. My recent thing has been English movies like Mansfield Park and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I also like to watch girlie movies, knowing that my husband wouldn't want to watch them anyway. This leads me to Vicky Cristina Barcelona. This I didn't enjoy...even when stuck on a plane. I don't particularly like Woody Allen movies. But like I said, my standard is really low, and Tina said it was pretty good. So I gave it a chance. But it is awful stuff...just awful. The acting was terrible. The dialogue was bad. It was almost like the actors were ad-libbing...that's how bad it was. The girl who played Vicky was the worst. She is not even pictured in the poster, and her character's name is in the friggin' title. That says a lot. And another thing, the male lead looks like a not-so-hot version of Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Clive Owen. (I get those guys mixed up sometimes. I don't know why.) And the girl who played Vicky looked like Jennifer Love Hewitt a little. It was completely distracting.

However, the shining star was Penelope Cruz. She was superb in the movie but was only in the second half. After watching the movie, I found out that she won an Oscar for her role. Not surprising, but too bad it was for this movie. Maybe it is just me because I think this movie was critically acclaimed. But I didn't think the dialogue was particularly witty or the concept particularly unique. I thought it was bad even for an airplane movie. I almost rather have sat there and done nothing.