Best. Comedy… err, recently.

Ok, it’s not going to win any Oscars, but Harold Kumar Go to White Castle was a lot better than I expected, and is my favorite comedy recently – plenty of gross-out, yes, and stoner jokes that would make Cheech and Chong proud, but also real heart, likeable characters, and a fine sense of the absurd.

Rumor has it, there may be a sequel. So if you missed it in the theater, give the DVD a rent.

I also broke my long string of not making it to any films in the theater for a while (the last one was The Incredibles) by going with Marie to see Phantom of the Opera this past weekend. Overall, I thought it was pretty good… more after the break, minor SPOILERS

OK, this won’t mean much if you haven’t seen the musical, and if you have I suppose the main plotline won’t be spoiled by it, but I was really disappointed that the ordering of things was adjusted a bit such that the line “Remember there are worse things than a shattered chandelier” didn’t make it in… (or whatever the line was…)

Other than that, pretty well cast; the actress who played Christine sung well albeit less powerfully than I would have liked, and was cute enough I suppose – something oddly offputting about her, despite that – and both of the male leads sang well although they were sort of pretty-boys.

Did anyone else think that the old Raoul looked a bit like Jon Voight? And who’d’ve thought that Minnie Driver would look so good in a corset? (I think the cinematographer was probably a breast man…)

Anyway, enough about that.