Four nights a week at Cedar Crest, residents gather to watch current and vintage movies. Each “movie night” has a slightly different personality, but they all have one thing in common: both the residents who pick out the films to show and the residents who watch them love the movies. They know what they like—and they’re not afraid to mention what they disliked.

Here are some reviews by Cedar Crest residents of recent DVD releases:

27 Dresses from Fox 2000 Pictures
You might label this movie “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” It’s about a ditzy young girl (Katherine Heigl) who plays bridesmaid to all her friends getting married. She’s got a crush on her boss (Ed Burns) whom she loses to a “female barracuda.” She gets skewered in an article by a reporter (James Marsden), but all’s well that ends well. It sounds like a mishmash, but the script in spots can be delicious for all generations. Be aware that you’ve got to keep up with the zingy script, which flips from one wedding to another. The cab scenes are a howl.

Most in our audience liked it, although a few got a headache. You’ve got to have a willing suspension of disbelief to follow some of the antics—particularly when the sloshed Katy and Jim sing “Bennie and the Jets” on top of a bar. I liked it the most. But I’ve always been a bit of a beatnik myself.
—Lee Berton

3:10 to Yuma from Lionsgate
Movies set in the Wild West were plentiful when we were all much younger, ranging from Tom Mix to John Wayne. They’re scarce these days, and the Cedar Crest residents who saw 3:10 to Yuma remembered the old days as they watched it. It did, however, seem a lot meaner in tone, even though it is a remake of an earlier movie. One villain, played by Ben Foster, was memorably evil.

With Russell Crowe as a pleasanter villain and Christian Bale as the steadfast farmer, the story of the attempt to bring the villain to justice via the 3:10 train to Yuma kept our audience hopping, as if to avoid the many bullets fired.
—Monty Kuttner