"The one constant through all the years has been baseball...

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again."
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The Olympics are over and I have no more Curling to watch, so I guess I should get back to my movies :o)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was good but I was not blown away by it. I think I am just over the X-Men movies. Enough is enough. There were lots of plot twists, but i was not really shocked by any of them. It was kinda like, "Okay that make sense that he was being deceived, I am not surprised" :o) The action sequences were cool, I just think if they are going to keep making these movies, they need to be better. Let's hope that Ryan Reynold's Deadpool does just that.

Rachel Getting Married has been sitting on top of my blu-ray player for about a month and a half now. My mom saw it in the theater and said it was pretty depressing, so I just have not been in the mood to watch it yet.

I have also been really bad about watching all my Oscar movies, so I tried to cram a lot in this week. Thank you Bryn Mawr Film Institute for playing all the nominated films that I had not yet seen!

A Single Man was a beautiful movie. Colin Firth was amazing. He played a man, dealing with the sudden death of his partner of sixteen years and, not really knowing how to live without him. When it started, I thought it was going to be way too artsy for my taste, but I loved it. It was sad without being depressing and it was very visually pleasing. Nicholas Hoult was also excellent. I did not even recognize him at first until I got home and checked imdb.com to discover he was the little boy from About A Boy all grown up. This is definitely a movie that everyone should see.

Crazy Heart was good, but not amazing. I thought Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal were excellent, but they are both good actors, so that was not a surprise. Maybe my expectations were too high? Jeff Bridges has been getting all this Oscar buzz that I guess I just expected to be totally blown away by his performance, and I was not. He is a good singer, but this just felt like a country version of The Dude to me. I thought Jeremy Renner and Colin Firth were much more impressive in The Hurt Locker and A Single Man respectively.

I could not get through District 9. It was weird and I just could not get into it. I only watched about forty-five minutes of it, maybe it got better, I guess I will never know.

Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to see An Education. It is a bit of a long shot for any Oscars and I just did not have the time to get to the theater again this week. It did get really good reviews though, so I plan to see it next week :o)

To sum up my Oscar prep this year, of the ten Best Picture nominees, I recommend seeing the following (in no particular order): Avatar, The Hurt Locker, The Blind Side, A Single Man, Precious and Up In The Air. And I will give you my winner predictions soon, probably Sunday afternoon. I am having my annual Oscar Party and I do not want to give my friends any tips :o)

In non-movie-related news, Spring Training is officially underway, which makes me ridiculously happy! It also means that the Phillies road to the 2010 World Series is underway. You can even follow Jayson Werth's Beard on twitter! So, to put you in the baseball spirit, and since I just watched this movie on TV, I leave you with Tom Hanks...



xoxo
c

Haiti, and now unfortunately, Chile need our help. Please give what you can:
Hope For Haiti Now (H)
Stiller Strong (H)
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (H&C)
UNICEF (H&C)

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"Darling, I don't know how to tell you this, but there's a Chinese family living in our bathroom."

I haven't been in the mood yet to watch Coraline.

The other night I went to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute to see (500) Days of Summer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. A quirky romantic comedy that starts with an author's note:

"The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Especially you Jenny Beckman.

Bitch."

I thought it was super cute and everyone should definitely see it. Towards the end it started to drag just a little bit but then it pulled together to finish and was ultimately a very sweet movie.

The main topic was a little different than your typical romantic comedy, which I liked. It wasn't: boy meets girl, they fall in love, something happens to derail their romance but they eventually end up together. It was more like (spoiler alert): boy meets girl, girl doesn't believe in love but boys fall in love anyways, girl ends things and boy is devastated, girl starts dating someone else, sees what boys was talking about but just didn't feel with him and eventually gets married, boy is even more devastated but moves on and meets someone new.

I liked it because like most other romantic comedies it was not completely predictable. There was even a fun dance number, which is a plus in my book :o)

I also cheated on Netflix and rented 17 Again last night OnDemand. I have it in my queue, but it is apparently very popular because, despite it being on the top of my list since it was released, I have not received it.

It was definitely not an Oscar-worthy movie, but it was definitely funny. As my friend Jeanne says, "I think it's illegal for me to think Zac Efron is charming and cute" .... Hunter Parrish too :o)

I would go into a more detailed review, but I really can't out-do Elizabeth Banks.

So I will simply say this...

I had some fundamental issues with some parts of it - like why Leslie Mann spent so much time alone with Zac Efron, regardless of the fact that he "looked just like her ex-husband," no mother should be alone that much with her high school-aged son's best friend, it's just weird. - and the ending left things with his kids unresolved, but overall, I thought it was a very entertaining movie.

Thank you for continuing with me on this journey through my Netflix queue and, as always, please feel free to comment below. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts...about my thoughts :o)

I hope everyone had a FABulous Labor Day Weekend!
xoxo
c

Movies in Queue: 223