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I am the movie lover in my family. Books and movies are my great passions. I love both. That's why, whenever we have a family movie night, I usually end up getting the task of finding the right movie to watch. This is a considerably difficult process. I have to keep in mind a little sister who hates violence of any sort, a younger brother who loves superheroes, a father who enjoys Arnold Schwarzenegger action rampages, and a mother who enjoy romantic movies.

I finally decided on "Sister Act" as the movie for tonight. I remembered watching it vaguely as a child, and loving the concept of singing and dancing nuns. All this time later, this very fun film entertained all of us when we sat down to watch.

First of all, Whoopi Goldberg is a nun. If that isn't funny already, I don't know what is. Goldberg plays Deloris, a lounge singer who witnesses a mob killing courtesy of her boyfriend (Harvey Keitel). She goes on the run when he tries to have her killed. Long story short (too late), she winds up in a convent which is presided over by Maggie Smith, a stern yet not entirely unsympathetic nun. Deloris, now Sister Mary Clarence, livens things up around the convent, and becomes the choir director, turning an awful group of singers into an excellent choir. (Perhaps too quickly. It might have been fun to see them struggle a bit longer.) The premise is quite funny, and it's a real delight to have the nuns singing and dancing in some really inspired routines. The songs themselves are actually excellent, and this movie probably has my favourite version of "Hail Holy Queen" ever. It starts with a very traditional rendition of the song, and then morphs into something very different.

The real stars in this movie are the nuns. They are all cast so well, particularly those in the choir. They all seem so sweet, friendly, and innocent, and it's riotously funny when they start singing upbeat renditions of church music.

There's plenty of really good stuff in here. The religious jokes work really well, the singing nuns are a riot, and Goldberg has tremendous fun throughout the movie, along with a few other nuns. I have only one complaint. The direction is bad. It's often extremely clumsy or amateurish, and the movie's crime subplot is horribly executed. The movie is still extremely entertaining and funny, mainly due to the actors.

So was this movie Oscar-worthy? Hell no. Pardon the pun. But it did what it was supposed to do: it entertained us all tremendously and was tons of fun to watch. I wouldn't hesitate to watch it again. Or twice more. Maybe even more times. The pure fun of it all is why I award this movie the 10 stars I do. It was a delight.

When I watched "When a Stranger Calls", I did not see it alone. I saw it, in fact, with a whole group of friends. There must have been six or seven of us altogether.

This film is a very generic, PG-13 'horror' movie. It mistakes suspense for quick "jump scare" moments, which I've seen so often now I'm practically immune to them. This movie makes it particularly easy to predict them. For no reason at all, sinister music will start playing. That's your cue. Remember, you're supposed to be scared.

Was it a bad movie? I think so. But I can't be sure. The thing is, we all critiqued the movie MST3K style. It made for an extremely entertaining evening as we took turns bashing the movie, making wisecracks at every opportunity and shouting at the characters what to do. We also occasionally identified characters via their stereotypes, such as "I don't even know who you are girl, but you're so *dead*!" If you want to have a fun movie night, gather together a bunch of your friends, whether they like horror movies or not. (The elements of horror, which I'm sure were supposed to be found somewhere, completely escaped me.) Make plenty of popcorn and then mercilessly mock this movie for all it's worth. There's plenty of stuff to make fun of. It made for a really fun evening.