Don't worry, my expectations are not that high after 13 years of Mr. "Oh-but-you-always-LOVE-scarves"!

They say that expectations are everything. (I have no idea who “they” are, but they do.) For better or worse, our expectations affect our reactions to everyday life, whether it’s a meal we’re about to eat, a store we’re about to go shopping in, or a movie we’re about to see. This was the case with me, as I recently saw 2 movies and read a novel where I had varying degrees of expectations going in – and that definitely affected how I felt about each.

High Expectations: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Crystal Skull. How could you not expect big things from the latest installment of the Indiana Jones Trilogy? (Or Quadology. Or whatever.) Unfortunately, the movie just felt real old to me: Harrison Ford looked old, the dialogue felt stale and old, and the story was just one eye-rolling moment after another. While there were a few good scenes, the plot was pushed along way too fast, with very little explanation. It seemed that the screenplay simply said, “Let’s get on to the next action sequence, and who cares if the story makes sense!" Maybe I was being a little naïve thinking that the movie would be as good as the 1^st or 3^rd installments, but I figured they had 19 years to work on it, how could they not have put together a good movie in that time? Maybe if my expectations weren't so high, I wouldn't have been so disappointed, but this one fell REALLY flat.

Low Expectations: The Orphanage. One of the hardest things to find is a good, scary movie. The rare times that a good scary movie does come out, it usually gets copied so often that the original starts to look poor in comparison. And these days a scary movie is considered to be Saw or Hostel, which don’t try to scare you with suspense of what might be right off the screen, but instead are simply blood-baths with plenty of blood and gore. The Orphanage doesn’t fall into any of these categories. It’s a very smart movie from Mexico, though it takes place in Spain. A woman, who grew up at an orphanage as a child, buys the run-down and abandoned orphanage with her husband to turn it into a school for special-needs children. The plot unfolds a bit slowly, and the movie builds the suspense by creating realistic yet frightening scenes that don’t rely on an irritating music track to tell you when you should be scared. I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but it really delivered, and thankfully the ending didn’t produce any eye-rolling moments. This movie is reminiscent of The Others, another great scary movie which was made internationally. Which is probably the key, now that I think about it.

No Expectations: Snow Angels by Stewart O’Nan. The only thing I knew about Stewart O’Nan going into this book is that he co-wrote Faithful with Stephen King, about the 2004 Red Sox season. But earlier this year I saw some great reviews for a movie version of Snow Angels, and found out it was written by O’Nan. I figured I’d read the book before watching the movie, and see if this O’Nan kid is any good. Turns out he is. Snow Angels tells the story of 3 different people: Arty, a teenager in his high school’s marching band whose home life is falling apart; Annie, his former babysitter who has a daughter and recently left her husband; and Glenn, the aforementioned husband who wants to get back into Annie’s good graces and restore his family. The novel starts out with Arthur hearing gunshots, and tells us that it’s Annie being killed. The book then works backwards to show how we got to that spot in time, and how it affects everyone involved. O’Nan’s writing is great -- he does a fantastic job of establishing the characters, the setting and the times (mid 70’s outside Pittsburgh), and paralleling both families as they slide from stable to barely hanging on. A great read, and I can’t wait to read more of his work.