Midnight in Paris. A few summers ago, on the way home from co-teaching in Eastern Washington, Mike, an ace co-worker friend and I got into a discussion about nostalgia. I believe it’s a powerful phenomenon that greatly influences people. Mike basically took the opposite position. Saying people succumb to positive selective perception and wrongly assume the past was better than it actually was. In his view, people would be better off if they just embraced the present and resisted nostalgia’s pull. Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is Mike’s exact argument. A fun and funny film that raises interesting questions about memory, history, and the relationship between the two.

Win Win. The best high school wrestling movie of all time (are there others?). Great cast and an engaging, authentic story. Laugh out loud funny at times too. Truly excellent. Kyle, the central character is a troubled, thoughtful, hard-nosed, caring sixteen year old who demolishes every adult’s negative preconceived notions of adolescents. Should be required viewing for all high school teachers. The GalPal thought parts of it were “contrived and Hollywoodish” but she’s wrong. Believable throughout. The GalPal and I were the youngest couple at Olympia’s downtown hippy theatre and everyone was taken by Kyle. If more 16 and 66 year olds were friends, it would be a definite win win.

Roman Holiday. Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert. Far-fetched, whimsical story. I imagine when they pitched the idea to the studio they said, “Audrey Hepburn in Rome” and the suit said, “Great, write the script.” She was beautiful, but freakishly thin. Of course, Costco cheesecake had not been invented.