I am Legend
Merry Christmas - Over and over again. First the grandparents (aka my mom & dad and Chris's mom) came in for an early Christmas celebration. Then we celebrated our own Christmas. It was all fun, and the best part....going out to see a movie. Gasp. Without number one son.
We saw "I am Legend". Chris nailed it - if you liked "Children of Men", you'll probably be inclined to like this one. And we did like "Children of Men". Well for me, except for the part where the woman went through childbirth and then ran with her newborn through a war zone. I was about 2 months pregnant, you see. Actually that then brought up a similar issue with "I am Legend". No pregnant women, but there's an aspect of the movie that both of us identified with. And it went horribly awry. Unfortunately I can't expound on this because it would be a spoiler. If you go, you'll figure it out.
In general, I just didn't enjoy the movie all that well. Will Smith is a phenomenal actor - and he did a great job here. But this was sci-fi crossed with horror, and I'm not much of a horror flick fan. I have an overactive imagination. And then of course there was the aforementioned aspect of the movie. I'd give a qualified thumbs up - knowing that it's an apocalyptic horror flick, if that's your thing, definitely go. Otherwise...Blades of Glory anyone?
Labels: Movies
Cheapy movie night, round two
So last night we were off to see the Bourne movie. Oh dang, I can never remember which one. Identity? Supremacy? No, wait, I've got it - Ultimatum. And it really is the ultimate summer movie thriller. What more could you want - it's got a hotty lead (Matt Damon), a hotty chick (Julia Stiles), and action/adventure all over the place. My only complaint with this movie is the same as with the Bourne Supremacy - they borrowed their camera style from "The Blair Witch Project". Hand cams have to be the most highly over-rated shooting style in the world. Thankfully it wasn't as extreme as in the last film, which I almost couldn't watch. It was just a lot of fun, and even if we did exchange some comments between Chris and I during the movie like:
"In case you were keeping count, this is the third secure perimeter"
and
"So you come home from a bad day at work, and walk into your apartment..."
If you don't mind spoilers, let's just go with - I agree with
Ken Levine!
Labels: Movies, Other Blogs
Yeah, we liked it - Updated
Spider Pig, Spider Pig
Does what ever a spider pig does
Can he swing from a web?
No he can't, he's a pig
Look out!
He is the spider pig
Went to see "
The Simpsons Movie" last night, and we both loved it. It was also bargain night at the movies, so we got free popcorn - woohoo! Banner day all around. In the interest of fairness, I should say that the husband and son of a friend went to see it last week, and neither liked it. Apparently they're cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Or maybe Principal Skinner fans (he's not really in the movie). Anyway, a good time was had by both.
UPDATED Poor Ginger, she has suddenly acquired a new nickname....because she does whatever a spider pig does.
Labels: Movies
Focus? What Focus?
Hubby home from his ride at around 2ish: "What did you do today?"
Me: "Well the dogs and I woke up around 9, went for a walk, came home watched the Tour, went to Walmart, and then watched some more tv."
"Got a lot done on the back room, huh?"
Sigh, ok, he's right, today wasn't the most impressive day I had on the back room despite my assertions that THIS is the weekend. Having said that, we're actually almost there. Unfortunately you can't tell because as fast as we moved other stuff out, the baby stuff has moved in. And grown. And taken over. I'm waiting for it to give me an Audrey style "FEED ME, SEYMOUR." Oh well.
Chris is out next week wrenching at the big Div III bike race a couple of hours away. It'll be me and the dogs for 7 days. He's been working like crazy this weekend to make sure that they're good and tired. Which I SO appreciate! And that would be why dogs and I could sleep until 9 this morning instead of my getting the doggy nose in the face at 7:30. Usually on the weekend I'm awakened by Fred's schnozz two inches from my face.
We saw the Imax "
Wired to Win" last night. I forgot how swoopy Imaxes are. I was a eensy teensy bit motion sick afterwards. But what great footage of the Tour! And interesting wander through the brain. All in about 45 minutes. And yes, we're geeks for going to a 7:45PM Imax movie on a Saturday. But it was cool.
Labels: Dogs, Movies, pregnancy
Waitress
While my husband was out riding a 40 mile mountain bike ride, I went to see the movie Waitress with a friend of ours. Thank heavens I didn't take him. If I would have set out to write a movie most likely to irritate him, I would have generated this movie. To cut to the chase, a pregnant woman having an affair with her doctor. Hmmmm.
Anyway,
Waitress was ok, but I have to say it just didn't touch me the way I know it was supposed to. It got screaming good reviews, which means that I OBVIOUSLY don't know what I'm talking about. But my recommendation is to leave it for the netflix queue. I did really like the ending though.
Through the whole movie it was killing me that I couldn't remember who the lead actor was. And I knew I liked him! I figured it out this AM - it was Captain Mal from Firefly.
Labels: Movies
Overcoming
We watched the movie "Overcoming" a couple of days ago (Thanks, Susan & JH, we're sending it back!). It's really a quite well done documentary of the CSC team during the 2004 Tour de France. We laughed, we cried, but we gave it a 45 because we couldn't dance to it. I keeeed. My favorite teensy little piece was the part where Michele Bartoli retires at the end because he can't stand being away from his wife and baby. (Gee, I wonder why). But good music, good photography, and an interesting insight into what it takes to do well in the TdF. Unfortunately given the festivities of the past week, and the two years of lapsed time since the movie was filmed, we spent a lot of time pointing guys out and going "Doper...doper...doper..."
Definitely worth a watch if you have any interesting in watching cycling. Although these days I'm so disgusted, I'm not sure I care any more.
Update 5/25: Egads, my head hurts. Doper....doper....doper....
Labels: cycling, Movies
Flashbacks
We were flipping through channels the other night flip...flip...flip....Purple Rain...flip...
I felt my husband do a full body shudder next to me.
Labels: Movies
The Good Shepherd
So we're on night 3 of watching "The Good Shepherd". The question is...do you take the band-aid off slowly or quickly?
It amazes me that a movie about spies, and double crossing, that has Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie manages to be...boring. Even the sex scenes are boring - how could that be? There were so many bad directions that a movie like this can go - it could have been completely vapid, too heavy on the car chases, included Ninja moves in a historical movie. It could have been "The Fast and the Furious" in 40s cars. It could have said things like:
Mr. Furious: Why am I doing this, again?
The Sphinx: When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack.
Mr. Furious: And why am I wearing the watermelon on my feet?
The Sphinx: [looks at the watermelon on Mr. Furious' feet] I don't remember telling you to do that.
Only these folks meant it. But instead of all those potential wrong turns, it goes in an unthinkable direction. It strings together like a 4 year old telling his grandma about a trip to the zoo... "And then...And then....And then....And then...And then....." Which sucks because I had sort of high hopes for Robert DeNiro. I really liked the last movie he directed, "A Bronx Tale". But...oi.
Maybe it's just too subtle for me. Maybe it's completely nuanced. To me, it's just muddled. But now we've committed almost 2 hours to this movie, so we have a quest. We're going to finish the darn thing. And then we're moving on to Casino Royale with proper car chases. And Daniel Craig. Mmmmm, Daniel Craig. I think you see the level of the audience we're talking about here.
Labels: Movies
The Secret of Roan Inish
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I took a little trip to Ireland. This pre-dates my move to the frosty north, and my brother's going into the seminary. The first week my brother and I rode bikes around the Ring of Kerry. Then he flew back to the states and I did a trip around all of Ireland with a group of friends.
The trip had it's ups and downs, but I think one of the high points was a day my brother and I spent at Valencia Island. Ireland, being what it is, was grey and hazy more than it was sunny. But that particular day, the sun came out, and we could see. On the climb to one of the points we passed sheep with spay paint on their sides, and tiny little wildflowers in the grass. And then we came upon
Bray Tower at the South end of the island. It is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. (The photo is not mine, I don't know the person in it.)
The reason I'm thinking of this now is I'm watching the movie "The Secret of Roan Inish". And the scenery reminds me so much of that day in Ireland, that's it's startling. I looked it up, and it was filmed a bit further north on the same west coast in County Donnegal. But it's still the grey stone, wildflowers and wild grasses that predominated on Valencia Island. It's a nice movie, listed as a kids movie (which I'm guessing it's really too slow to be a proper kids movie), but I can't help but be so captured by the scenery that the story is kind of secondary. The little girl who plays the lead "Fiona" is really good, the story is interesting if you like Celtic tales, but the main reason to see this movie is because it's beautiful.
Labels: Movies
Children of Men
We saw
Children of Men on Tuesday (after a super yummy dinner at Thai Me Up.) I somewhat liked it, Chris REALLY liked it. It's an interesting picture - dark, moody, and with some surprising acting performances. Michael Caine was...subtle. Not a word I would normally associate with him. Julianne Moore's character surprised me for reasons I can't explain without making it a spoiler. Clive Owen...well he sorta reminds me of Gabriel Byrne at times. I could have seen either of them playing that role.
It's kind of interesting playing the "did you notice" game with this movie, including "Quietus" the suicide kit that gets advertised in the movie, some background headlines, and things like the whole movie is shot from the viewpoint of Clive Owen's character. It gives the whole thing a tunnel vision type of feel. The other thing we were talking about is that there were a LOT of dogs in the movie. No Rin Tin Tin or Lassie hero types. It's just that everyone had a pet.
My only complaint with the movie was that there were a few references to current events in the movie, which I find distracting. This is a movie supposedly set in the future (20 years in the future, but the future nontheless), I hate being distracted by the references to now. It just felt like a bad product placement to me. But it's definitely worth the watch!
Labels: Movies
1776
My husband can attest that I have abominable taste in music. That extends to my loving corny musicals. (Do I get brownie points for hating "South Pacific"?) And this one has a special place in my heart. My birthday is July 4, and in my mid teens we developed a tradition of going downtown to watch fireworks, then coming back and watching the late, late showing of the movie version of the musical 1776 on TV. A few days ago I felt a yen (out of season) to watch the old movie again. And ya know what? I still love it. One of my favorite lines comes from John Adams as he storms into congress early in the movie:
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!
Another great line (just because of our weekly road trips in the fall) from Adams:
At a stage in life when other men prosper, I'm reduced to living in Philadelphia
A few years ago I got to Independence Hall in Philly, and it made me laugh to realize that they must have actually filmed the movie on sight. Anyway, I'm off to scare the dogs by singing along again.
I do believe you've laid a curse on North America
A curse that we now here rehearse in Philadelphia
A second flood,
a simple famine
Plagues of locusts everywhere
Or a cataclysmic earthquake
I'd accept with some despair
But, no, you sent us Congress.
Good God, sir, was that fair?
Labels: Movies
Lazy Day
While hubby is off Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer, the dogs and I are declaring today snoozin' day at the residence. We started the day off with a burst of craziness at the ball field. The dogs ran off a lot of stress. Then it was home for wrestling and tug of war and lots of sleep while I'm doing the movie marathon thing. So far I've seen Relative Values (have I mentioned that I love Colin Firth?), Tristan and Isolde (eh...), and now I'm working on the Kings of Comedy. It's not even 3PM. At some point I'm going to have to move along to books just to break the day up. And maybe another outing to the ball field in a little bit to let the hounds burn off any leftover energy. This will spare us an evening like yesterday evening when I almost left Ginger on the side of the road in the rain with a "Free" sign around her neck. She was barking at every single twig snap, door knock on the neighbors' doors, and passing car. Tonight...she sleeps....
Labels: Dogs, Movies
Hmmm
Is it good or bad that I've seen 7 of the 9 highlighted family films
recommended on Rotten Tomatoes? Take into account that I don't have children...
Labels: Movies
Transitions
There's a DVD out called "
Transitions". It's basically about the 2004 cyclocross season, focused mostly in the Northeast and using Adam Myerson as the pivot point of the story. My favorites in the movie are Ryan Trebon and Barry Wicks. In addition to being crazy talented, they just make me giggle. They're just goofy 20-something guys, a group that I seem to have a soft-spot for. And Adam was having a bummer year of illness and results he wasn't happy with, so I walked away from watching it wanting to make the poor guy whatever the vegan version of chicken noodle soup is. Oh yeah, and the cross footage
rocks.
So for a really long time, I was startled at how many guys I knew
hated the video. Then I realized...ooooohhhh, they're used to being the complainers not the listeners. Everyone of them complained that Adam was bitching too much. Really? That's funny because after 5 years of hanging out at cross races, I have to say that there are very few cyclocrossers that I haven't heard wailing away about how their season is going, the bad luck, the %&*# who cut them off, how they're going to retire (bike racers are required to retire at least once a season), health issues, the joy of juggling real life with racing, etc.
A favorite, extreme (real life) example of racing angst was Pit Boy at the 2001 cyclo-cross nationals in Baltimore. It had been a crappy nationals for Chris, we'd been dating a month, I didn't know about things like trying to find the second pit with his pit bike, and he had gotten some bad starts, got a flat near the pit I wasn't in, etc. When I saw him walking across the field with the flat tire, I knew that it was going to be a long ride home. While we were standing close to the pit, dejectedly gathering up all of our stuff, we heard a commotion in the pit. There was a young guy and an older man. The man was holding the younger guy's bike, and not letting him re-enter the race. The younger guy (early 20s?) was having (literally) a screaming fit. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" He was trying to jerk the bike away, and finally the older guy walked away from pit, with the bike in hand, and Pit Boy threw himself on the ground, pounding it with his fists. The crowd stood their with their mouths hanging open. Talk about catharsis! I have no idea who the guy was, and I wonder if he looks back on his outburst and cringes. I hope so. But Pit Boy, we love you man. You're still good for a laugh 5 years later. And you certainly took some pressure off of a tense situation.
Labels: Movies
Weather Underground
We watched the documentary about the
Weather Underground Organization, a terrorist group of the 70s. They're goal was first to bring about the end of the Vietnam war, and secondly to act in support of the oppressed peoples of the world and to overthrow the US Government to install communism.
And after watching the movie, I sorta felt like....so what. They did a pretty thorough job of covering WHY these people bombed, but not so much of the results of their activities. They talked about "Days of Rage" when they rioted in the streets, but apparently by the WUO's standards, the Days of Rage were a terrible flop. They were expecting thousands of kids to show up in Chicago to riot. Instead they got a couple hundred. But were they successful in sowing dissent and fear? Or did the average person on the street see this stuff happening someplace else, and carry on with their activities?
Ultimately, as a teaching tool, I think it was a bit of a flop. If you already knew about WUO and their activities, maybe it provided insights. If, like me, you'd only sort of heard of them, this probably won't fill in many blanks.
I did find it amusing, though, that none of them served more than a few years because of their work in the WUO. And now most of them are working as....teachers at colleges and universities. Think about THAT when you sign your kid up for school!
Labels: Movies
Bad year for movies
Sigh. It seems like Rotten Tomatoes has looked like this all year:
Labels: Movies
Sigmund Carl & Alfred to the rescue!
They have discovered that it's not your fault if you...er... a few pounds over the weight limit. It's microbes in your gut. Sounds to me like I need to be washing down the coke and donuts for breakfast with a hearty helping of bleach. That'll kill the little beggars and make me a nice svelte weight. Or dead. One of those.
Labels: Movies, Other Blogs
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Wow, so not only am I a geek, but I'm an out of touch geek. I finally got to watch the Battlestar Galactica's miniseries from 2003, today. Well disk 1 of it. Wow... Really amazing. Although I'm pretty sure that by admitting that I like this show, I'm pretty much committed to learning to play Dungeons and Dragons and learning to program Unix. But if you have the remotest interest in this sort of thing, and are as behind as I am, it's worth a watch
Labels: Movies
Talladega Nights
Apparently Chris and I are the only people who didn't see "Talladega Nights" last night. But
Garfield Ridge and
La Vida Vica both offer their reviews. Sounds like maybe this would have been a good 1/2 hour tv show instead of 105 minute movie.
By the way...since
Daily Mumps hasn't posted in a month, I'm going to pull them off the links until they show some activity. But since I'm working on the template anyway, I've added
Garfield Ridge, a blog I've read since before Chris & I got married. Funny in that guy sort of way, and sometimes with some thoughtful posts from the POV of someone who works in the defense department. Oh yeah, and he likes the Nationals.
Labels: Movies
Where the crack is free...
C4, a British TV station, has released a list of
50 Films to See Before You Die. Now I realize there's no such thing as a greatest film list that isn't controversial, but this one earns a big....C'mon. Any list that includes "Erin Brockovich" as one of the great all time movies immediately loses all credibility. The list:
2001 - A Space Odyssey
A Bout De Souffle
Aguirre, The Wrath of God
Alien
All About Eve
The Apartment
Apocalypse Now
Badlands
Black Narcissus
Boyz N the Hood
Brazil
Breakfast Club, The
Cabaret
Chinatown
City of God
Come and See
Dawn of the Dead
Donnie Darko
Erin Brockovich
Fanny and Alexander
Fight Club
Heavenly Creatures
Hero
The Ipcress File
King of Comedy, The
The Ladykillers
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Lost in Translation
Manhattan
Manhunter
Mulholland Drive
Night at the Opera
North by Northwest
Pink Flamingos
Player, The
Princess Mononoke
Pulp Fiction
Raising Arizona
The Royal Tenenbaums
Scarface
Searchers, the
Secrets and Lies
Sexy Beast
The Shawshank Redemption
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
This Sporting Life
Three Colours Trilogy
Touch of Evil
Trainspotting
Walkabout
Labels: Movies
