I saw at Neatorama the link to a story about a dog that paints. What amazed me is how much that dog resembles someone else I know.

I think Waitress has to be my favorite sleeper film from this year, which came as a complete surprise to me. Starring Keri Russell as a pie-making expert who works at a diner by day with her friends and gets hassled by her crude husband by night, the film is filled with sarcasm, color, laughter, and food, all of which make a great combination. Russell's character, Jenna, finds out she's pregnant just about when she's ready to leave her abusive husband. Her pregnancy doesn't stop her escape plans, but it does bring a new person into her life - her doctor, played by Nathan Fillion, with whom she falls in love. With a big pie contest coming soon and the eventual need to tell her husband that she isn't just getting fat, Jenna's got a lot on her plate. Okay, I swear, that's the only pie reference I'm going to make in this review.

Writer/director Adrienne Shelly got this one just right. The characters are all a little bit exaggerated, but so is the color palette and the dialogue, and in the end, it all comes across as colorful and fun, with just enough touches of sincerity to make it feel realistic. Unfortunately, this is the first and last I've seen of Adrienne Shelly, who also plays Dawn, a fellow waitress at the diner. Shelly was murdered while Waitress was still in production, by a guy in the apartment below hers, when she complained about the noise, and he punched her and then staged her suicide. If Waitress is any indication of where she was headed in the movie world, this is definitely a big loss.

I've never seen anything with Keri Russell in it before, but this role was made for her. With perfect balances of sarcasm and cuteness, she sells the script and holds the movie together. I loved her interactions with her husband, who is equally perfectly played by Jeremy Sisto. Rounding out the great performances are Cheryl Hines and Eddie Jemison, as well as the great Andy Griffith, who plays the grumpy yet secretly kind old man who owns the diner.

In case you haven't seen the previews, Jenna makes a pie each day to represent her mood. So don't go to the theater while you're hungry, because there are tons of scenes that will make your stomach growl. You'll also laugh a lot, and hopefully enjoy it as much as I did.

I wasn't in much of a hurry to see the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, since the second one really failed to impress with all of its gimmicks. This time around, the focus is on the story, the characters, and building up to an extremely awesome final battle.

Some say that because of the run-time, the movie's just long and boring. I disagree. I felt like the timing was adequate to set up all of the pieces of the story. After all, this was the final movie in the series (or the last planned for at least a while), and the ending needed to be bigger and better than the first two while bringing all of the story threads from the first two movies together to resolve everything. Oh, by the way, the PG-13 is pretty well-earned this time around, so please don't take young ones to see it.

The focus on characters was much better this time around as well. It resolved the issues between Will Turner and his father, Davy Jones and his long-lost love, and even Elizabeth and Will (and even Norrington), each story feeling like it got proper treatment instead of just having a quick-written ending. My favorite character was Davy Jones (who I somehow did not realize was Bill Nighy). I guess he must be a big favorite in general, because he was inserted a lot into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland--a bit too frequently, if you ask me.

The final battle scene involves two giant ships and a maelstrom. Wow.

While the first movie held the best senses of comic timing and adventure (this time around, Elizabeth just seems a bit too bitter) and is all around the best of the three Pirates movies, this one comes in high above the second. I thought it was amazing to look at and had plenty to entertain.