We have rented and watched two movies this weekend that fall hard into the "suck" category. Having a small child that cannot be trusted to effectively lie about his age in order to get into R movies has put a real damper on our movie-going experience.And most decent movies are not released in our area anyway. And so we depend on Netflix. And Rotten Tomatoes. And what is written on the back of the box.

Both movies we watched this weekend were touted as amazing pieces of treasure and won awards for their sheer level of fantastic-ness. And it is not exactly like we are movie snobs. Granted, it's not like we will see anything that starts with "Tyler Perry" or has Ashton Kutcher in it. But I have seen Roadhouse more times than I can count. Duke will watch pretty much anything. He loves truly good movies, his favorites being fairly highbrow affairs that are too upsetting for me to watch, but probably still including Lord of the Rings. And I like anything that is good and doesn't include anyone being mean to children or animals. My favorite movie is Out of Sight. But we both loved Anchorman and thought Zach and Miri Make a Porno was hysterical and vastly under appreciated. (And yes, I am paid to edit, and no, I can't recall what one does with movie titles and I don't feel like looking it up. Hence the italics. Deal with it.)

Why am I telling you all of this? To set up a firm basis that movies at our home are highly appreciated and widely embraced, regardless of genre. So, we settled in to watch Happy-Go-Lucky. And we ended up having to turn it off. How the heroine won a Golden Globe for Best Actress is anyone's guess. Because I cannot speak for Duke, but I kept hoping a meteor would fall upon her in order to stop from hearing the sound of her voice. It takes a lot for us to stop watching a movie. I think in 13 years, we have walked out of two. That's how bad this movie was.

Last night we popped in Synecdoche, New York. Hard to go wrong with that, right? Every actor who has won an award in the past ten years is in it. Award-winning writer/director. However, the description blurb should have read "A truly pretentious piece of shite that will keep you watching until the very end in order to satisfy your immense desire that the main character dies."

So, that was my morning movie critique. I'm pretty sure we are now going to be late for pre-school.