The Terminal (2004): review: 3/10

A man is stranded in a beaurocratic twilight zone when his fictitious East-European country has a revolution, and his passport is no longer accepted by the US. He lives in the airport which he is forbidden to leave. He has an ongoing conflict with the head of immigration at the airport, whose ends seem unclear.  He manages to find ways of earning money, make friends and begin a romantic liason with a women which lacks any discernable fizzle.

The film does not emphasis the inherant tragedy in the beaurocratic situation, it's strangeness and awfullness: it is too light. Hanks is as irritating as ever: with that ghastly, saggy mouth and piggy eyes and oily skin, and his horrible "folksy-method" acting style.

The joke is often the ridiculousness of foreigners, most notable the Indian floor-cleaner. Hanks is given a stupid accent and a silly walk There no parallel joke about the ridiculousness of Americans.

The film is considerably overlong and unpleasantly ingratiating.

The Rebound (2009): review: 6/10

An attractive suburban brunette discovers her husband is having an affair: she decamps with her two small children to New York, where she rents an apartment above a coffee shop. She begins a successful career in TV.

The fellow running the coffee shop is an insipid mommy's boy, the ill-dressed, unhaven going-nowhere son of a wealthy, charmless Upper West Side family. His accent is hatefully nasal, and he quite vomit-inducingly, a-sexually nice. His best friend, who aspires to a career on the stage, is a sleazy loser, and a rotten actor.

However, being quite immature, coffee-shop boy gets on well with the children: mother finds this quality sufficient to inspire copulation.

It is dreadful to think that women might really go for men like this.

Entertaining drivel; might be good to watch on a long flight.