Yesterday, we did our traditional Christmas on vacation activity, which is to go to a movie. It took less time than usual to choose a movie because I've thrown up my hands and stopped resisting seeing chick flicks. I live with a bunch of chicks, what can I do? Over the summer we saw Julie and Julia. Yesterday we saw It's Complicated. I've not seen too many of this director's movies (which I make up for by having seen The Parent Trap, which she also directed, about 30 times) and I think that's okay. Even though this movie is "unusual" in that it has an older female protagonist, everything about it was completely conventional and, to my eyes anyway, formulaic. At times it's painful watching good actors trying to sound heartfelt and original when the scenarios are not.

The most outstanding characteristic of this experience was the number of commercials that were played before the movie started. We got into the theater about 10 minutes late because of the persistent lack of useful road signs around here, and there was a preview on. This was followed by, and I'm not exaggerating, 10 or 12 commercials. Then, 3 more previews followed by 8 more commercials. I've never been so happy to see the dancing popcorn and soda.