More disappointments

Although the first hour of After Life (Wandafuru raifu; 1998)is OK, it started to bog down after that, and is far from a brilliant, humorous, transcendently compassionate film. Best in Show (2000) was another disappointment. Wickedly funny? No, kind of dumb. I did, however, like The Anniversary Party (2001), although I can't say why, exactly; I guess I was better able to sympathize with the characters. I thought it was a little patronizing to call the maid "America", but then Leigh said her family had had a maid when she was young (I suppose having had a maid makes her hoity-toity). And then I ran across America Ferrera, from Real Women Have Curves (2002; I haven't seen the movie, and can't help imagine that the heroine is grotesquely obese).