No, not the Will Ferrell movie. This was what I did as I was DRAGGED by my girlfriend to see "The Lake House" starring the WONDERFUL (Note the sarcasm) Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. As it turned out my expectations of the film were incorrect and I was embarrassed at the end to say I really enjoyed it. The writing was good, the feelings were real, the acting wasn't so top notch, but who can expect anything from the TALENTED (Sarcasm once again) Reeves?

The movie was really good.

The film is about two people falling in love while living in a lake house. However, they aren't living together! In fact, they aren't even living in the same time period. Alex (Reeves) and architect, is living in the year 2004, while Kate (Bullock) is living in present day 2006.

The two meet through a mailbox that has been set outside the lake house, which they each own two years apart. When Kate puts a message into the mailbox, it is sent to Alex in 2004. When Alex puts a message in the mailbox it is sent to Kate in 2006. After writing numerous letters the two begin to fall in love. Sort of a spookier version of internet dating, if you will.

Now this movie was fantastic, with no flaws and no errors of judgement by the film makers... until the end.

The last TWO MINUTES (Literally) nearly ruined the movie! I won't tell you why or what happened, but what happened doesn't make any sense, completely throws off the story, and leaves you wondering "What the heck!?"

The movie was really good, better than 'The Notebook" by far, (Yes I said it! BETTER THAN "THE NOTEBOOK!") but I would have actually called the film "Brilliant" had the last two minutes been different. The first 103 minutes were fine, but you'll cringe at the final two.

Why is it that when baby sitting a little kid, they never remember you saying "Don't run in the house," but when you go to see "Cars" every little kid in the theater remembers EVERY line from the trailer?

I'll tell you why! Because they love annoying people! I swear, every time a scene came up, that was in the trailer, every kid under the age of seven had to talk along with the movie!

It was SO annoying! Luckily its fairly easy to ignore this when the movie is good.

Pixar has once again made a wonderful film, this time about the a cocky race car on his way to California.

Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is determined to be the first Rookie winner of The Piston Cup, the most prestigous award any race car could win. However, on his way to the big race, McQueen gets sidetracked in a little town called Radiator Springs.

During his brief stay he accidentally ruins the town's road, so as a punishment he must repave it. During his stay he meets various interesting characters like a rusty tow truck named Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), a beautiful Porsha (voiced by Bonnie Hunt) and a grumpy old doctor (Paul Newman).

The film's animation is amazing. Possibly the best work done by Pixar Animation studios to date! And the films humor and wit nearly matches. Though this isn't the best Pixar film, it definitely isn't the worst. It tops The Incredibles and possibly Monsters Inc. (although how can you resist two of Disney's most recognizable characters Mike and Sulley?)

So far I'd rank the Pixar movies this way:

1. Toy Story
2. Finding Nemo
3. A Bug's Life
4. Toy Story 2
5. Monster's Inc. / Cars
6. The Incredibles

However, even though the Incredibles is ranked the lowest, I loved it! You see, Pixar has this wonderful habit of making movies that are actually good! They haven't made a bad film yet!

Dreamworks Animation Studios either produces movies that are hit or miss. There is no in between. They started early off, copying whatever Pixar did. When "A Bug's Life" became a monster hit in the box office, Dreamworks slapped together "Antz," which was not so clever and wasn't half as entertaining.

Sure, then Dreamworks struck gold by turning the lousy childrens book "Shrek" into a phenominal and groundbreaking movie that has become a classic. But, soon following came films like "Shark Tale" which reminded me a heck of alot of "Finding Nemo."

Madagascar was pretty good, but now there's a big controversy about weather or not the idea was stolen from Disney's "The Wild." This time, however, Dreamworks came out on top.

Now, Dreamworks has brought us another funny and ORIGINAL film called "Over the Hedge" which stars a group of animals desperate to find food to last them throughout the upcoming winter.

RJ a racoon, (voiced by Bruce Willis) who has gotten on the bad side of an angry bear, (Nick Nolte) needs to find a wagon full of food by the next full moon or he will be killed. Terrified, RJ decides to recrute nearby forrest animals to help him gather the food from suburbia.

These animals include a skepitical turtle named Vern (Gary Shandling), an over-energized squirrel (Steve Carrel), a family of propcupines (the father is played by Eugene Levy), a skunk with an attitude (Wanda Sykes), a possum (William Shatner) who believes the only way to get things done is to play dead, and his embarrassed teenaged daughter (Avril Lavigne).

When the films humor worked, it REALLY worked, but I felt that there was not enough of it. Each time Hammy the squirrel came on screen you knew something hysterical was going to happen, but there wasn't enough of him.

The movie sometimes wound down into a more dramatic tone of things and the humor almost came to a dead stop before the writers snuck in a new joke to bring you back into the story.

I did really enjoy this movie, it just didn't go above and beyond my expectations. It was what I expected and i expected good things from it, so I give it "thumbs up."

Also, in case you haven't noticed, this is my 100th blog entry. Just thought I'd let you know.

Thanks for reading

-Mike