Today's special: Try our "Movie Buffet" (no tasting)

Since I've not been very prompt in posting and am starting to get backed up, here are shorter recaps of a few movies, many that might not be worth a full post anyway. Consider it a little Friday treat.

A little ditty about Jack and Debra: "Terms of Endearment"

I'd seen bits and pieces of this -- including the supermarket scence with Debra Winger ("Legal Eagles") and John Lithgow ("Harry and the Hendersons") mutliple times -- but never the whole movie until this month. It was good, I suppose, but my appreciation suffers from seeing too many similar heart-tuggers since "Terms" came out in 1983. Also, naming one of the main characters "Flap" was pretty distracting for some reason. On the plus side, all of the performances are solid, especially Jack Nicholson ("Anger Management"). Sure, he's over the top at times -- shocker! -- but does get the best lines, such as this exchange:
Nicholson: "You're gonna need a lot of drinks."
Shirley MacLaine: "To break the ice?"
Nicholson: "To kill the bug you have up your ass."

This is what happens when you listen to David Hasselhoff songs: "The Princess and the Warrior"

If I told you this was a foreign film, you'd think it was from China or Japan and would involve a lot of aerial derring-do by somber, proverb-spouting monks. Yet it's from Germany, and nary a monk was to be seen. Instead, we had the woman from "Run, Lola, Run" playing a nurse at a loony bin who gets hurt in a traffic accident but saved by a guy with his own problems, namely trying to rob a bank with his brother. She wants to know more about this samaritan, but he's mourning his dead wife and can't stop crying. Sounds fun, I know. But if you don't mind reading your movies, this isn't too bad, and I liked how the plot unfolded, even if there were too many scenes of people just staring at each other.

Funny, I don't remember any of these guys at the Career Fair: "Word Wars"

This documentary from last year on professional Scrabble players is a simplified version of "Word Freak," the excellent book by Stefan Fatsis about life on the pro Scrabble circuit. (Pause for laughter.) Clocking in at 80 minutes, it's pretty easy to follow the paths of four guys on their way to the National Scrabble Championships. All pathetic in their own way, these four guys are still amusing enough, and you can't help but wonder if any of them will take home the gold. I suggest pairing this with "Searching for Bobby Fischer" for a real Macho Man Movie Night.