Two short years ago, while still a 1L, as an enjoyable distraction I wrote a column for The Forum, the VLS newspaper, entitled “Movies I Didn’t See.” The premise was simple: with law school taking all of my time, I reviewed movies based on trailers, cast lists, celebrity reputation, and general enthusiasm for pop culture. It was awesome, it made everyone laugh, and we all had great big ball. And then, in the irony of all ironies, second year kicked in and I didn’t have the time to review the movies that I didn’t have time to see. Bummer.

That’s why I love being on break, because it gives me a chance to catch up on all the movies that I missed during school. And since I haven’t made a posting on this blog for a few months, I figured it would be a proper way to get back to posting here with a throwback old-school movie review column. Without further ado … movies I did see! During break!

The Princess Diaries 2—Anne Hathaway stars as a rich princess of some phony baloney land that has to get married or something. I had a hard time getting into this movie only because years of reading Page Six has scarred me, and I kept thinking that this movie should have been more true to life. For example, instead of riding horseback through the countryside, she should have been out clubbing til dawn with Paris Hilton, flashing her privates to the paparazzi, passing out from “exhaustion”, dating the dirtbag son of a Greek shipping magnate, and maybe getting into a drug-fueled cat-fight with Lindsay Lohan. At the very least they should have had her do an MTV special “True Life: I’m a Princess!” just so millions of young girls across the country could feel bad about themselves because they can’t get Kayne West to sing at their sweet sixteen. Two thumbs down.

Havoc—Anne Hathaway stars as a bored and pampered suburban teenager that decides to hang out with a gang of Mexican drug dealers, and as a consequence she ends up taking off most of her clothes. This is the greatest movie ever. Two thumbs up.

Brokeback Mountain—Anne Hathaway stars as a lonely and neglected rodeo barrel rider trapped in a loveless marriage with a shamefully disinterested Jake Gyllenhaal. In all seriousness, I was defending this movie from the veiled homophobic criticism against it even before I saw it, but guess what? It totally stinks. It insulted me as a dude, actually. Expecting with an open mind some great tale of tragic romance, Ennis and Jack turn out to be a pair of mumbly nitwits that share the most shallow and nap-inducing relationship in the history of cinema. Part of me was hoping that they would finally get that place together on the mountain, just to hear this conversation. Jack: “So what do you want to do today?” Ennis: “I dunno. What do you want to do?” Jack: “Let’s do something.” Ennis: “We could go fishing.” Jack: “We go fishing every day.” Ennis: “What’s wrong with fishing?” Jack: “You never take me anywhere.” Etc.

The Devil Wears Prada—Anne Hathaway stars as a … I don’t really know. I couldn’t figure out if this was a movie or if they just followed Anne around with a camera at Bloomingdale’s for a few hours. Anyway, eventually she cheats on her boyfriend and starts making these really sad faces—I think her Versace clashed with her Louis Vuitton. But then she made the happy face again, so I guess everything turned out OK. Women are insane, by the way. Add two stars if you saw the cutest Manolo’s at Neiman Marcus last week.

Domino—Anne Hathaway stars as a nunchuk-weilding celebrity bounty hunter that dishes out killer one-liners while beating the crap out of the Vegas mafia. At least this is the movie it should have been. Instead, a scrawny chain-smoking Keira Knightly runs around like a lunatic in this nauseating disaster that has all the patience and charm of a meth addict. In hell I’ll be forced to listen to Tony Scott’s director’s commentary on this while the DVD plays in an endless loop. Mickey Rourke should be ashamed of himself, which is really saying something, because he is Mickey Rourke.

Roadhouse—Patrick Swayze and his mullet play a bouncer—a “cooler” in the parlance of the roadhouse trade—that single-handedly frees a small town from the clutches of a redneck gang. I’ve seen this movie roughly 46,000 times and it never gets old. Added bonus was that I caught it on cable, which means that not only did I get the gratuitous nude scenes, but I also got to hear the best homoerotic yet weirdly effective brawl-talk line, “I used to fight guys like you in prison”—only he uses a different f-word instead of “fight.” Best movie ever. Five stars.

So, um, what does any of this have to do with the law, or being a law student? Not much. But we all work hard in law school, and will no doubt continue to work hard once we’re released back into the wild. Distractions like taking some time out to post stupid movie reviews between school work and journal commitments and job applications and bar preparation and everything else can be the difference between balanced sanity and perpetual stress. Probably.

Now if you’ll excuse me, “The Family Stone” is about to start. Anne Hathaway is in that, right? Sigh.