Shrek 2: wow, that movie was good. This was the first "summer movie" I've seen so far, and it was definitely a good beginning. It had everything the first movie had, plus I think even more parody scenes. And it was a character-driven plot, unlike some movies where the characters' motivations come and go to get them where they need to be, and those characters are as fun as they were last time. And the animation - it's still cartoony, of course, but the animation was so good that some of the more realistic-looking characters, in some of the more fast-moving scenes, could be mistaken for live action.

One thing I didn't like: a song. In the first movie they managed to avoid ever having a musical number, but in this there was one. Now that I think of it, it fit with the plot and story at that point. But still, the thing that makes Shrek fun and funny is its opposition to that Disney stuff, so having a song in here threw me.

After seeing "Shrek" for the first time, I remember it made me all depressed. "Then I saw her face... now I'm a believer!" and all that horseshit. Of course, it came out in the second half of 2001, which wasn't a good time for me overall. But for whatever reason, this movie was just light and fun with no moving moral either way for me.

Also, I got my paycheck in the mail yesterday (or did I already mention this?) I finally have a positive cash flow. Cool. With luck I'll be able to find a relatively high-paying job (how do my friends and my sisters' friends do it, when I always seem to get stuck barely above minimum wage?) and work a lot this summer. Of course, I conveniently haven't started doing that yet, because subbing is so lucrative per hour that I don't want to get tied into anything else until the school is done with me. But I need money, and I badly need to keep busy to keep my mind off my problems.

Of course, I *really* need to fix those problems instead of looking for the best way to ignore them. But half a loaf is better than none...