Candice and I had been talking for about a week now about trying to take some time out of our schedules to wander down and see a movie, and finally got the chance last night. It was Candice’s turn to pick, so we ended up watching Life or Something Like It, with Angelina Jolie.
While it wasn’t anything amazing, it was certainly a very cute little romantic comedy, and I think it might be the best role I’ve seen Jolie in (and a very welcome change from the dreck that was Tomb Raider). An enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes, at the very least.
One of the most entertaining things about LoSLI was that it was set and (mostly) filmed here in Seattle. Jolie’s character is a news anchor, so they got the cooperation of one of the local television stations, KOMO 4, changed its call letters to ‘KQMO’ for the film, and a lot of the local anchorpeople got cameos whenever there were dealings in the television studio. I haven’t watched enough local TV since I got down here to know who’s who, but every time a familiar face came on the screen it got a bit of a laugh from the rest of the audience.
It was also really fun seeing Seattle on the big screen, more so now that I’ve lived down here for almost a year. Many of the sites and locations I could actually identify, which I enjoyed — enough has changed enough in the years since the three movies that I have on DVD that I know are set in Seattle were filmed (Singles, Say Anything, and Wargames) that while I recognized some things in them, many other things have changed or just aren’t there anymore.
As for the movie itself — well, it was cute. It felt a little slower than many other recent films, but I liked it — it wasn’t a boring type of slow, it just was paced to allow for a bit more breathing room than is typical these days. Jolie did a better job than I expected, and I’ve gotta say that when her character ‘dressed down’ and lounged around with unkempt hair, 50’s style eyeglasses, and a Social Distortion t-shirt, I thought she looked a lot cooler than when she was prissed up. I did get the feeling that some of the secondary characters were either underwritten or over-edited to trim time, as very few people other than Jolie and Edward Burns as the romantic interest were very fleshed out at all.
Still, as far as fluff goes, it wasn’t bad fluff at all.