Monday 20th April

A Cinderella Story

Director: Mark Rosman
Year: 2004
Stars: Hilary Duff, Jennifer Coolidge, Chad Michael Murray

It's amazing how many movies you can get watched when you're ill. I managed 6 in 3 days, between Monday and Wednesday this week. I had no inclination (or energy) to do anything else, and watching films was nice and easy. What with a crazy number to watch that I'd recorded over time (something like 40), I wasn't short of choices.

However, about 80% of these movies did seem to be horrors - seeing people being ripped apart (most of them were of the gore, rather than thriller, variety) is not really what you want when you don't feel great yourself! I did manage to find enough other genres to keep me happy for a few days though.

First up was A Cinderella Story, a pretty standard Hollywood romance about two high school students who fall in love but can't be together because the guy's cool and the girl's a geek - a Hollywood definition of geek, anyway. The fact that the film is quite clearly based on the Cinderella fairytale is actually not as annoying as it sounds - it many ways it helps, rather than hinders, the plot. And I loved the wicked stepmother!

There's nothing new here, and it has the normal cheesiness you get in this sort of film. But it's not bad either - there is a plot, the film moves along at a decent enough pace, and if you like this sort of film (OK, I'll admit it, I do) you're unlikely to be disappointed.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5