New from the Movie Snob:

In America. (B) Melodramatic movie about a poor Irish family that moves to New York City and tries to deal with a recent family tragedy that has left the parents (Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton) in a state of shock. Terrific performances from all the actors, including the two little girls, but it gets a little too sentimental and a little hokey at times. Still, worth a look.

This weekend I also got out to a local theater and saw a production of a new or newish musical called Opal that is apparently based on a true story. The action is set in an Oregon logging camp in 1904. A little French girl named Francois is washed ashore after a shipwreck, and her parents are nowhere to be found, so she entrusted to a rather bitter single woman who renames her Opal. Although Opal endures some taunting for her foreign ways, her whimsical way of looking at the world wins her some friends as well. It's no Man of La Mancha, but it's not half bad.