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500 Days of Summer – sp – Boy meets girl and both like each other. Boy falls in love with girl but girl doesn’t believe in true love and just wants to let the relationship happen. The film crisply directed by Marc Webb in his first feature film, weaves some of older Los Angeles architecture into the story. It is focused completely on this charming young women played by Zooey Deschanel but through the eyes of a love struck and terribly disappointed guy played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It should resonate with the modern 20s and 30s crowd going through the trials and tribulations of trying to find true romance when both parties always aren’t on the same page. Other than a good music background sound track, it doesn’t have much more to offer although the off-beat take on the familiar well told story may be enough for many viewers. (2009)

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Gigantic – sp – This is another one of those Independent film that picks up some well known actors which in this case it is why it probably gets distribution. Twenty eight year old single man decides he wants to adopt a Chinese baby. He meets and is attracted to quirky and somewhat unstable girl whose father played by John Goodman grabs your attention, as did the young man’s father played by Ed Asner. Despite it being well acted, we didn’t think the movie was really worth seeing. Screen writer and first time director Matt Aselton was the guest speaker at our film course and confirmed how the characters were not meant to be fully developed and how the story was supposed to keep the viewers off balance and really not be clearly understood (which we noted and agreed). He couldn’t explain, nor could we guess, the reason for the title of the movie. 2009