"Gettin' knocked up and kidnapped kinda wipes the slate clean."

Sadly, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies have made an early exit from the post season. The only good thing about this is that I do not have to worry about catching up on all my TV shows because I am not watching any more playoff games, watching any baseball is just too heartbreaking :o(

But I digress...

Last week, I checked out American Horror Story on FX and I am not really sure what to say about this new show. Parts of it were interesting and parts of it were just weird. I cannot tell where the plot is going or how they are going to make an entire season out of it. I have not yet watched this week's episode, but I will give it another chance before I stop watching, if only because I really like Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott. As we all know, horror is not my thing, but if the story and acting are good, I might be able to enjoy this regardless.

Against my better judgement, and mostly only because I could fit it onto my DVR, I also tried to watch Last Man Standing, starring Tim Allen. I could not even get through the first episode. I made it to the first commercial break and then I had to turn it off.

As expected, I am loving the new seasons of Parenthood, The Vampire Diaries and Sons of Anarchy. In fact, Tuesday night's episode of Sons of Anarchy totally blew my mind. I am ridiculously excited to see what Kurt Sutter does with the rest of this season.

And I think I can now officially say that Prime Suspect is my favorite new show of the season. Maria Bello is fantastic as New York City Detective Jane Timoney. I especially love the scenes when she is antagonizing the ex-wife of her boyfriend, played by Kenny Johnson. I also enjoy the other detectives in her office played by Kirk Acevedo and Tim Griffin because they make me laugh a lot. I can also now say that New Girl, starring Zooey Deschanel, is my favorite new comedy and I am a little sad that it will not return until November because of the MLB playoffs.

"They're men, dear. If they ever stop competing, they die."

The new movies coming out this weekend are: Footloose, The Big Year, The Thing and Fireflies in the Garden.

In Fireflies in the Garden, Julia Roberts plays the matriarch of The Taylor family. Decades after leaving college to raise her family, she goes back to school and on the day of her graduation, dies in a devastating car accident. The film is about how the family deals with the tragedy and shows us how even a family that looks perfect from the outside is often not-so-perfect on the inside. Along with Roberts, it stars Willem Dafoe, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss Ioan Gruffudd and Hayden Panettiere.

Trailer #1
Fireflies in the Garden at MOVIECLIPS.com

"You got me an old dog?"

Based on the true story of and written by Will Reiser, 50/50 is about a 29 year old guy named Adam who goes to the doctor because of back pain and finds out that he has a tumor and must undergo chemotherapy. It is about the way the he deals with his cancer and how the people around him react to his cancer. His best friend uses it to try and get girls, his girlfriend cannot deal with the pressure of being a caregiver and cheats on him, and his mother wants to move in with him.

I enjoyed the movie, but it was not as funny as I was expecting it to be. There were funny lines throughout the whole movie, but it was actually quite depressing at times. I would characterize is more as amusing than funny. However, it was well written and a very moving story.

I am not sure that anyone besides Joseph Gordon-Levitt could have pulled off the dark humor as well. Similar to his character in (500) Days of Summer, he is good at making light of typically sad situations, but can also transition very easily into more serious scenes.

"I'm either coming with you or you're fishing for your keys in the sewer."

The big films in theaters this weekend are Real Steel and The Ides of March.

Real Steel is set in the future when the sport of boxing has gone high-tech and been taken over by robot boxing. Charlie, a former boxer and struggling promoter, thinks he has found a new champion in a robot he finds in the junkyard. With the help of his estranged son, Charlie teaches the robot his old moves and takes one last shot at a comeback. The film is based on the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson and stars Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand and Hope Davis.

Trailer #2
Real Steel at MOVIECLIPS.com

"He's heavy for half a guy."

For the past five days I have been visiting friends in the great state of Texas and was FINALLY able to go to the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. For those of you who do not already know, the Drafthouse is basically a movie theater where they serve you food and alcohol in your seat during the movie. They show mainstream movies, but they also show the more artsy movies and cult classics. There are several of them in Austin, but there are also locations in Houston and San Antonio, as well as in Virginia and Colorado. Going to this place was number one on my list of things I wanted to do while in Austin and it totally lived up to my expectations.

Part of it living up to my expectations was the movie that my friend and I saw, which was Tucker & Dale vs Evil, because it was awesome!

Tucker and Dale are two good intentioned hillbillies who are headed to their new vacation home. While trying to fix up their cabin, they run into a group of college students who are camping. One of the girls ends up falling into the lake and hitting her head while Tucker and Dale are fishing, so they bring her back to their cabin to fix her up. The rest of the teenagers think that these hillbillies have kidnapped their friend and plan to kill her. While trying to save her a lot of funny misunderstandings occur, including several of the teenagers accidentally killing themselves and each other. Tucker and Dale are completely baffled by what is going on around them.