In honor of the Winter Olympics, I give you this clip:
I have been watching some of the olympic coverage but do not usually watch as much of Winter as I do the Summer Olympics. My favorite Winter Olympics movies would be The Cutting Edge, Cool Runnings and Miracle, in case you were wondering :o)
The last week has been a little crazy. The passing of a friend's father, the East Coast being up to its eyeballs in snow and traveling to Ohio to help my best friend with wedding stuff and celebrating her completion of grad school, to name a few. I did get some movie watching in before the craziness hit and to take my mind of things, so here we go...
Forest Whitaker totally deserved the Best Actor Oscar for The Last King of Scotland. Whoa. If you did not see this movie when it came out in 2006, as I neglected to do, you must see it now. It was intense and sometimes a little too graphic for my taste, but excellent none-the-less. Whitaker usually plays such a gentle and kind man that it made him even scarier as the military dictator and President of Uganda, Idi Amin. That was definitely the last year I neglected to watch a movie that people were raving about during Oscar season.
In my continuing preparation for this year's Oscars on March 7, I watched The Hurt Locker and it was phenomenal. Another very intense movie, but still phenomenal. It is about a unit of soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq. My favorite scene is where one soldier is trying to figure out why another soldier enjoys what they do so much, when the rest of them are just trying to survive:
Sergeant JT Sanborn: I'm ready to die, James.
Staff Sergeant William James: Well, you're not gonna die out here, bro.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: Another two inches, shrapnel zings by; slices my throat- I bleed out like a pig in the sand. Nobody'll give a shit. I mean my parents- they care- but they don't count, man. Who else? I don't even have a son.
Staff Sergeant William James: Well, you're gonna have plenty of time for that, amigo.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: Naw, man. I'm done. I want a son. I want a little boy, Will. I mean, how do you do it, you know? Take the risk?
Staff Sergeant William James: I don't know. I guess I don't think about it.
Sergeant JT Sanborn: But you realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it's life or death. You roll the dice, and you deal with it. You recognize that don't you?
Staff Sergeant William James: Yea... Yea, I do. But I don't know why.[sighs] I don't know, JT. You know why I'm that way?
Sergeant JT Sanborn: No, I don't.
I can definitely say that seeing it one time was enough, but is definitely worth seeing. At least see it so that you fully understand what our soldiers are doing for us, because it truly is amazing.
Now onto more lighter fare...
I watched the movie Class with Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and Jacqueline Bisset. And, of course, no 80's movie would be complete without supporting roles from John Cusack and Alan Ruck :o) It was pretty good and one of those 80's movies that I felt I needed to see, but was rather predictable. I guess when you have seen as many movies as I have though, not many things surprise you anymore. However, my one question is, how is it fair that Rob Lowe looks exactly the same today as he did in 1983?! Seriously!
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen did not get very good reviews, but I saw the first one, so I thought I should watch the second one. And it was not very good. Don't watch it. For those of you who did actually see it, does anyone else think that the location of the Matrix of Leadership looked an awful lot like the place where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail? I'm just sayin'.
I also saw Valentine's Day with my best friend on Valentine's Day and it was just as cheesy as we expected it to be. My main complaint was that there were just too many characters and too much going on to really get invested in any of the people's lives. I felt that it was trying too hard to be Love Actually, especially with the cute little boy who is in love. And, as much as I love Taylor Swift, I felt like they could have taken out both high schooler storylines and the movie would have been much better. It was cute, but you probably should not spend your money seeing it at the theater and just wait for it to come out on DVD. I probably would not have gone, but my future husband, Bradley Cooper, was in it, so of course it was a must see for me :o)
I would like to see Crazy Heart and A Single Man this week, but I will probably only get to one. I also have District 9 from Netflix. When it gets closer to the Oscars, I will give you my winner predictions.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you in the comments section below. I hope all you East Coasters survived the snow!
xoxo
c
If you want to help Haiti, here are my suggested places to donate:
Hope For Haiti Now
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
UNICEF
Stiller Strong
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
"Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now. And it's because they sat there that they were able to do it."
The good news is, I found a job. The bad news is, it is only part-time and is not in the field I want to be in, so it is not permanent. It also means I have less time for movie and TV watching :o) If only Bradley Cooper would realize that I am the girl for him, then we could get married and I would not have to work and I could just watch movies all day. Until then, my job search continues...
I saw When In Rome Friday afternoon and I thought it was super cute. Going in, knowing that it was a Disney movie, I was not expecting anything spectucular and it was a little cheesy, but overall I liked it. Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel were really funny and I liked their chemistry. I also thought Dax Shepherd's character was funny, however, the other characters played by Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Danny DeVito were a little cheesy/creepy. It was worth seeing, but definitely not the best romantic comedy that I have seen.
The latest news on the Veronica Mars movie is that creator Rob Thomas has pitched his idea to Warner Brothers but they do not feel that a movie would do well at this time. Kristen Bell has been saying in interviews and on twitter (@IMKristenBell) that if When In Rome does well it will hopefully show the studio that she can carry a movie. I also feel like since Veronica Mars has been cancelled, it has gained a lot of fans and that the already existing fan base would make it a huge hit. I am a little biased as I would LOVE a VM movie, but still, sometimes I think the studios are out of touch with their audience.
I FINALLY saw Up In The Air, which was excellent. It is a movie about a guy who spends 250 days of the year travelling around the country firing people. There is obviously more to it than that, but as someone who was recently let go from her job, that aspect of the movie was a little surreal. My favorite part is actually when George Clooney is telling Anna Kendrick the fastest way to get through airport security. He says, "Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left. Bingo, Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they have a thing for slip on shoes. Gotta love 'em."
This is not that scene, but it is another good one:
The whole movie was very well done and George Clooney was amazing, as usual. I also have to say that, Anna Kendrick's acting skills are definitely not getting put to good use in the Twilight movies. She should be playing a much bigger role than just one of Bella's high school friends. She should have been Bella. If it were not for Mo'nique's amazing performance in Precious, I would say Anna should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
I also finally got Angels & Demons from Netflix. I saw The DaVinci Code in theaters, but was unimpressed so I was not in a big hurry to see Angels & Demons. Although, I had read the book, so I did want to see it eventually. As a person of faith, I always found Angels & Demons to be a more interesting read than The DaVinci Code. Apparently that is also true of the movies because I did not think that The DaVinci Code movie was very good at all. I thought that Angels & Demons was very well done and much easier to follow than its prequel. Interestingly, the book Angels & Demons was written after The DaVinci Code, but chronologically took place before. In the movie though, they implied at the beginning that Angels & Demons took place after the occurrences in The DaVinci Code. Anyways, if you too did not see the second movie because you did not like the first, then I suggest you give it a try because it was much, much better.
I also had no interest in seeing Bright Star in the theater, but it was getting such good reviews that I thought I should watch it. However, I thought it was just alright. The story of writer John Keats and his three-year romance with Fanny Brawne was interesting and the acting was good, but there was something about the movie that threw me off. For instance, there was never any indication of time. By that I mean, some times it went day-to-day and sometimes many days or months would pass and you never knew when that happened. It just felt kind of abrupt and choppy at times.
Last on my list for this posting is Wonder Boys. Although, it was not quite what I was expecting, I thought that it was pretty good. I was expecting it to be more about a professor who is having trouble writing his second novel and forms and odd relationship with one of his students. And while, that was, I suppose, the main plot of the movie, it had more to do with the crazy circumstances that happen over a few days. Michael Douglas is the pot smoking professor who is having an affair with the dean's wife, and Topher Grace plays the quirky student. It also stars Robert Downey, Jr. who was hilarious as a gay, book editor who shows up with a transvesite that he picked up on the plane. Like I said, it was not really what I was expecting, so it took me a while to get into the movie, but I eventually found it to be quite entertaining.
Also this week, Oscar nominations were announced. There were not really any surprises, except that Up was nominated for Best Picture. Which was not really a surpise so much as, I just disagree with the choice. I have already expressed my feelings on that movie. Here is the full list for your viewing pleasure: http://oscar.go.com/nominations/nominees
I hope that everyone is staying warm and that if you live in the east coast you have a few good movies at home to watch when we all get snowed in this weekend :o)
xoxo
c
ps. Haiti still needs our help, so if you have not done so already, please consider donating. Here are some of my choices:
Hope For Haiti Now
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
UNICEF
StillerStrong
I saw When In Rome Friday afternoon and I thought it was super cute. Going in, knowing that it was a Disney movie, I was not expecting anything spectucular and it was a little cheesy, but overall I liked it. Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel were really funny and I liked their chemistry. I also thought Dax Shepherd's character was funny, however, the other characters played by Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Danny DeVito were a little cheesy/creepy. It was worth seeing, but definitely not the best romantic comedy that I have seen.
The latest news on the Veronica Mars movie is that creator Rob Thomas has pitched his idea to Warner Brothers but they do not feel that a movie would do well at this time. Kristen Bell has been saying in interviews and on twitter (@IMKristenBell) that if When In Rome does well it will hopefully show the studio that she can carry a movie. I also feel like since Veronica Mars has been cancelled, it has gained a lot of fans and that the already existing fan base would make it a huge hit. I am a little biased as I would LOVE a VM movie, but still, sometimes I think the studios are out of touch with their audience.I FINALLY saw Up In The Air, which was excellent. It is a movie about a guy who spends 250 days of the year travelling around the country firing people. There is obviously more to it than that, but as someone who was recently let go from her job, that aspect of the movie was a little surreal. My favorite part is actually when George Clooney is telling Anna Kendrick the fastest way to get through airport security. He says, "Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left. Bingo, Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they have a thing for slip on shoes. Gotta love 'em."
This is not that scene, but it is another good one:
The whole movie was very well done and George Clooney was amazing, as usual. I also have to say that, Anna Kendrick's acting skills are definitely not getting put to good use in the Twilight movies. She should be playing a much bigger role than just one of Bella's high school friends. She should have been Bella. If it were not for Mo'nique's amazing performance in Precious, I would say Anna should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
I also finally got Angels & Demons from Netflix. I saw The DaVinci Code in theaters, but was unimpressed so I was not in a big hurry to see Angels & Demons. Although, I had read the book, so I did want to see it eventually. As a person of faith, I always found Angels & Demons to be a more interesting read than The DaVinci Code. Apparently that is also true of the movies because I did not think that The DaVinci Code movie was very good at all. I thought that Angels & Demons was very well done and much easier to follow than its prequel. Interestingly, the book Angels & Demons was written after The DaVinci Code, but chronologically took place before. In the movie though, they implied at the beginning that Angels & Demons took place after the occurrences in The DaVinci Code. Anyways, if you too did not see the second movie because you did not like the first, then I suggest you give it a try because it was much, much better.
I also had no interest in seeing Bright Star in the theater, but it was getting such good reviews that I thought I should watch it. However, I thought it was just alright. The story of writer John Keats and his three-year romance with Fanny Brawne was interesting and the acting was good, but there was something about the movie that threw me off. For instance, there was never any indication of time. By that I mean, some times it went day-to-day and sometimes many days or months would pass and you never knew when that happened. It just felt kind of abrupt and choppy at times.
Last on my list for this posting is Wonder Boys. Although, it was not quite what I was expecting, I thought that it was pretty good. I was expecting it to be more about a professor who is having trouble writing his second novel and forms and odd relationship with one of his students. And while, that was, I suppose, the main plot of the movie, it had more to do with the crazy circumstances that happen over a few days. Michael Douglas is the pot smoking professor who is having an affair with the dean's wife, and Topher Grace plays the quirky student. It also stars Robert Downey, Jr. who was hilarious as a gay, book editor who shows up with a transvesite that he picked up on the plane. Like I said, it was not really what I was expecting, so it took me a while to get into the movie, but I eventually found it to be quite entertaining.
Also this week, Oscar nominations were announced. There were not really any surprises, except that Up was nominated for Best Picture. Which was not really a surpise so much as, I just disagree with the choice. I have already expressed my feelings on that movie. Here is the full list for your viewing pleasure: http://oscar.go.com/nominations/nominees
I hope that everyone is staying warm and that if you live in the east coast you have a few good movies at home to watch when we all get snowed in this weekend :o)
xoxo
c
ps. Haiti still needs our help, so if you have not done so already, please consider donating. Here are some of my choices:
Hope For Haiti Now
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
UNICEF
StillerStrong
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