Lionel: I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you

King George VI: My physicians say it relaxes the throat

Lionel: They're idiots

King George VI: They've all been knighted

Lionel: Makes it official then

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I know that I have been a little m.i.a. lately and I really have no excuse, except laziness.  But I am back and have lots to talk about, so get excited!

Over the past month I have seen True Grit, The King's Speech and Country Strong.  My TV shows have also started to come back and I have checked out a few new ones.

True Grit was very good...until the end.  I will not ruin it for those of you who have not seen it, but I just did not like the way it ended.  It was a little too drawn out for my taste.  I also did not think the narration was necessary.  Other than that, I really enjoyed it!  I have not seen the original, so I have no idea how similar the movies are to each other, but the performances from Jeff Daniels and Matt Damon were as good as usual and even funny at times, and newcomer, Hailee Steinfeld, was excellent.  It has the Coen brothers typical quirky humor and is a fun, modern Western.

The King's Speech was amazing.  Colin Firth as the stuttering King George VI, Helena Bonham Carter as his Queen and Geoffrey Rush as his quirky speech therapist, Lionel Logue, are all excellent performances.  The story is based in fact, is very interesting and, apparently, was not allowed to be told until Queen Elizabeth I (the current Queen's mother) had passed away.  Firth has already won the Golden Globe for this role and I would not be surprised if an Academy Award is on the way as well.

In contrast, Country Strong was not horrible but it was also not that great.  I just felt like they were trying to do too much and it would have been so much better if they had just simplified the plot a little bit.  On top of the story of the country star just getting out of rehab, there is also a love-square-type-thing going on. Garrett Hedlund is having an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is married to and still loves Tim McGraw, but he also falls in love with Leighton Meester, who Gwyneth thinks is having an affair with Tim.  My brain almost exploded just writing out that sentence.  The soundtrack, however, is awesome and if you are a fan of country music, I highly recommend buying it now.  The movie you can probably skip, or at least wait until it comes out on DVD.

I still would like to see Blue Valentine and will hopefully do so in the next week.  Also, Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday, so a few other movies will probably be added to my list of things I need to watch before the end of February.

Now onto my crazy television-habit...

The second and final season of Party Down was just as awesome as the first season. This season brought us the return of Jane Lynch, Kristen Bell and Joey Lauren Adams, as well as appearances from Tamala Jones, Loretta Devine, Rachael Harris, Paul Scheer, and Patrick Duffy and Steve Guttenberg as themselves.  As I have mentioned before, I do not get Starz, so I unfortunately could not watch the series when it was on.  However, I really do not understand why no one else watched it!  It was so funny!

As always, a few new shows have had mid-season premieres.  I do not plan on checking out all of them, but there are a few that seemed worth trying.  The first two episodes of Shonda Rhimes' new show, Off the Map, were pretty good.  I was definitely not blown away, but I will keep watching for now.  I also really enjoyed Harry's Law with Kathy Bates, mostly because of Nathan Corddry who is HILARIOUS.  Other new shows that I will probably test out are Mr. Sunshine (which has not gotten good reviews, but stars Matthew Perry and Allison Janney) and The Chicago Code.

I have also, finally, started watching Arrested Development.  I know, I know, I am a few years behind, but better late then never, right?!  I am only about a third of the way through the first season and I am not yet sure how I feel about it, but I will forge on and let you know how it goes.  I never really had any interest in watching the series, but have been pressured into it by a friend :o)

We are almost one month into 2011 and many places in the world still need our help, including Haiti, Australia and the Gulf Coast (land and water).  So, as I have done before, I give you my plea for assistance and my suggestions for where it can be sent.  I am generally a bigger fan of hands-on mission when possible, but money is always good too:

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Habitat for Humanity

United Way

StillerStrong

The Nature Conservancy

National Wildlife Federation

American Red Cross

World Vision

I hope that everyone is having a good start to their year and I look forward to hearing about what you have been watching!

xoxo

c

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"New Year's Eve. Someone just needs to change the name to Same Old Year's Eve, because that "New," implying all that hope and promise, it's not fooling anyone."

I have been so bad about writing lately, so in the interest of saving time, I have combined my list of favorite movies from 2010 with some other random reviews of things I have recently seen.

Starting with Netflix movies, I finally finished watching all of The Tudors, as well as Any Given Sunday and The Bounty Hunter.

The final season of The Tudors was an excellent finish to an excellent series.  The only thing that bothered me was how quickly the last two seasons seemed to go, in terms of the years of his life that they cover, as compared to the first two.  I am not sure if this was because they knew the series was ending and were trying to wrap things up or if Henry VIII was just much less interesting later in life.  Either way, if you have not yet seen this series, you should.

I only watched The Bounty Hunter because I could stream it live on Netflix.  And, while it was not as awful as I thought it was going to be, it definitely could have been a lot better.  The thing that annoys me the most about this movie is I know from watching her in other things that Jennifer Aniston is a good actress, she just keeps picking really crappy movies.

Cameron Diaz is another actress that has been in so many bad movies that I often forget that she actually is a good actress.  I finally watched Any Given Sunday and it was well done.  I had seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but never actually sat down and watched the entire movie from start to finish.  It was not amazing by any means, but it was entertaining enough for the two and a half hours that it lasted.  It also seems to be one of those movies that people reference a lot when talking about football, so if you like football, it is probably worth seeing :o)

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

When it is cold outside, it is hard to motivate yourself to leave the house, but I did manage to get to the theater a few times over the past few weeks to see How Do You Know. Love and Other Drugs, Tangled and Burlesque.

Burlesque was not a high quality movie. The plot was predictable and Christina Aguilera's acting was pretty bad. That being said, the musical numbers were energetic and very entertaining.  However, I do not really understand the point of casting a movie full of people who can all sing and dance (Kristen Bell, Julianne Hough, Stanley Tucci, Alan Cumming, Diana Agron) and then barely use those skills at all in a movie full of singing and dancing.  Do not get me wrong, I love hearing Christina Aguilera and Cher sing, I just felt that the cast could have been utilized a little better.  If you like Aguilera and Cher, buy the soundtrack, skip the movie.

I have to be honest, I did not know that Tangled was a musical until the first song started.  I should have guessed knowing that it was a Disney movie and the lead actress was Mandy Moore, but there was no indication of it in any of the previews that I saw for the movie.  That being said, I really enjoyed this movie a lot.  I do not think it needs to be seen it in 3-D, but other than that I thought it was really well done.  Plus, who knew Zachary Levi could sing?!

I think I need to see Love and Other Drugs again.  I was in a weird pre-holiday funk when I saw this movie and, while I enjoyed it, I was kind of not paying attention to parts of it.  I know that is not a stellar review, but I really do think it was my own personal issues and not the fault of the movie.  I love Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway together and I do think I liked it....I just really need to see it again :o)

How Do You Know was pretty awful.  There were a few funny lines, mostly from Paul Rudd, probably improvised.  Even though it got bad reviews, I really wanted to like this movie simply because I like Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson as actors.  Most romantic comedies do not get stellar reviews, but sometimes turn out to be quite entertaining.  That was not the case with this movie.  The plot was all over the place and the writing was just not very good.  Parts of it were filmed in Philadelphia, so it was fun to see that, but that is about the extent of the excitement.

Okay, now on to my list of favorite movies from 2010.  I am not saying that these are the BEST movies of 2010 in terms of quality; I am simply saying that these are the movies that I personally enjoyed the most.  That being said, some of these movies are excellent and I will be sad if they are not recognized by the Academy Awards.  I have seen Inception and The Social Network and they have not made my list.  While I think that these are both good movies, I was not as impressed as the rest of the world seems to have been.  For the movies that I have already reviewed, and to not make this post any longer than it already is, I have simply created links to previous posts.

So here is my list, in no particular order:

The Town

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

Easy A

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

Morning Glory

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com

127 Hours almost made me vomit, which is not something I usually say about a movie that I enjoyed, but in this case, it is relevant.  The movie is based on the true story of Aron Ralston, who went hiking in Moab, Utah and got his arm stuck under a boulder for…127 Hours :o)  In order to get free he cuts off his own arm, which is pretty disgusting and I kept my eyes closed for most of it.  The rest of the movie, however, was phenomenal and James Franco exceeded my expectations immensely.  Even if you have a weak stomach, this movie is definitely worth seeing.  I was worried that it would be boring, but they did a nice job with flashbacks and Ralston's hallucinations and it really keeps you engaged throughout.

Black Swan was completely terrifying and disturbing but phenomenal.  At times you do not know what is real and what is a fabrication of this dancer's mind.  Natalie Portman's peformance was brilliant and I will be shocked if she does not win the Oscar.  However, I did make the mistake of seeing the last show of the night at Bryn Mawr, which meant I needed to come home and watch Newsies before I went to bed so that I would not have nightmares :o)  Definitely not a movie that I will watch over and over again, but totally worth seeing at least once.

I have not yet seen Blue Valentine, The King’s Speech or True Grit, but have heard great things about them and may need to amend my list after seeing them.  I will let you know :o)

2010 has been, by far, the worst year ever for me personally.  Thank you for being there, where ever and who ever you might be, friend or complete stranger, and reading my ramblings on this blog.  I am not getting my hopes up for 2011, as that seems to have jinxed me last year, but I hope that you all have a FABulous New Year!

xoxo
c

p.s. If you have not already noticed, I have added a new category on the right side of my page called: My Musically Inclined Friends. Please check out these websites and listen to their music because they are all awesome musicians and they have supported me in the past.  I am now returning the favor :o)
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Damon: I took away your suffering once before. I can do it again, but it's your choice.

Jeremy: Look, I know you think you took it away, but it's still there.  Even if I can't remember why, I still feel empty...alone.  And making me forget won't fix it.  It won't fix what's really wrong.
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So here they are, my favorite TV episodes of 2010.  It was hard enough to pick these, let alone put them in some kind of order, so they are pretty much just listed as I thought of them :o)

Community "Cooperative Calligraphy" While I did love "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" a few weeks ago and last season's "Contemporary American Poulty" and "Modern Warfare," I think this was my favorite episode this year.   Annie accuses someone of stealing her pen and the entire group goes on lockdown in the study room.  There is nothing flashy or fancy about the episode, it is just the actors in a room being funny.  Plus, there is a Puppy Parade at the end!

Dollhouse "Epitaph Two: Return" Joss really started to hit his stride in season two of this short-lived series.  Network executives should know by now not to mess with the genius.  Alas, it was canceled before it's time, but not before giving us an AWESOME finale.  What happens ten years from now when the tech gets out of control?  Hopefully not what happened on Dollhouse, as I am hoping there is no one out there wiping people's memories and imprinting them with new ones.  But you never really can be too sure :o)

Justified "Fire In The Hole"  In the series premiere, Federal Marshall Raylan Givens is reassigned from Miami to his childhood home of Eastern Kentucky.  The episode sets up the character of Givens perfectly as an old-school Marshall living in modern times where, even in Kentucky, his cowboy-look is out-of-place and his quick-draw is not always warranted.  He is not where he wants to be and he now has to deal with all the things that made him leave Harlan in the first place.  The new season starts February 9 and if you are not watching this show, you really should be.

The Vampire Diaries "Founders Day" or "The Return"  It is hard to say whether or not I liked the finale of season one or the premiere of season two better.  The finale was action-packed and tied up the story of the tomb vampires, leaving us with three possible-death-cliffhangers.  Whereas the first episode of the second season gave us the infamous Katherine in action.  When this show started, I really did not think that it was going to be anything special but it continues to get better every week and is never dull.  I know the thing a lot of TV critics point to is the amazing acting of Nina Dobrev, but she really is phenomenal in her dual roles and the show would not be nearly as successful without her.  It also does not hurt that the ENTIRE cast is gorgeous :o)

Grey's Anatomy "Death and All His Friends" The reappearance of Denny Duquette in season five made me wonder if I should continue watching Grey's Anatomy.  But, my girlfriends and I endured (with the help of a few margaritas) and were rewarded by a great season six and an awesome season finale.  With a shooter on the loose in the hospital we saw many shocking losses and some heart-wrenching acting performances.  Shonda Rimes said early on in the year that the season finale would be a "game-changer" and she was definitely right.  We are still seeing the repercussions in the current season and I am glad to say that the show has rebounded nicely from its tumor-induced-hallucination.

White Collar "Copycat Caffrey" Neil and Peter discover that there is a Criminology class at a local college that is studying Neil and the work of several other white collar criminals.  The problem is, they are not JUST studying them but copying their heists.  Neil goes undercover as himself, minus the FBI job, and tries to get in on the students next con in hopes that it will out the professor as the leader of the group.  I pretty much love every episode of White Collar, but this one really made me laugh.  The dynamic of the Peter/Neil relationship, the return of Alex and the always-lovable Mozzie make for a very good time.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia "The Gang Gets Stranded in the Woods" This episode has guest appearances by Ryan Howard and Chase Utley.  Do I really need more of an explanation for why I love it?! :o)

Friday Night Lights "The Son"  Why this show has been nominated for so few awards is beyond me.  The whole series is phenomenal, but this is the best episode of this year.  It is not just about a boy whose father dies as a soldier in Iraq, leaving him to take care of his grandmother.  It is about a boy who struggles with the emotions of his loss and reconciling them with the fact that he hated his father for abandoning the family when he volunteered to go back to Iraq in the first place.  It really is a shame that more people, including myself, did not watch this show from the start and I will be sad when it is over at the end of this season.



Honorable Mentions: Spartacus: Blood and Sand "Kill Them All," Accidentally on Purpose "Speed," Mad Men "The Suitcase" and The Glades "Pilot"

What were your favorite episodes this year?!  Please let me know in the comments section!

I hope everyone has a very, Merry Christmas!

xoxo

c

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"Fare warning, it tastes like goblin piss"

I have now seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One twice.  I really enjoyed it and thought it was well done.  It did move a little slowly, but it also needed to set some things up for the second movie, which I am hearing will be must faster paced.  The last book is the one that I have read the fewest times and I did not reread it before seeing the movie, but have since read the first half.  I am now better reminded of what was left out of the movie and, of course, have a few comments.  I simply feel that there are some details from the book that are important to the story.

If you have not yet seen the movie and do not want it spoiled...

STOP READING RIGHT NOW!!!

I will warn those of you who have not read the books to stop reading further down, as one of my issues with the first half of the movie has to do with what happened in the second half of the book and I do not want to ruin the next movie for you.  But for now, you may continue reading. :o)

So, here are my concerns:

1. One of my biggest issues with the last movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was that I did not feel they explained the horcruxes well enough.  Unfortunately, that issue, for me, has over-lapped into this movie as well.  At the end of the sixth book, they do not know exactly what they are looking for, but they have a general idea.  In the seventh book they have several conversations about what the different horcruxes might be and where they think they could be hidden.  They even go to a few places to look for them.  While I understand why they took out the scenes where they actually go to these locations for time purposes, why not at least tell the audience what Harry, Ron and Hermione are looking for?  In the movie, it just seems like they are constantly moving from place to place in order to stay hidden from Voldemort, which is part of the reason, but it is also because they are trying to find these items and do not know exactly where to look.  In my opinion, this is partly what accounts for the slow feeling of the movie.

2. In the book, at one of their campsites, Harry, Ron and Hermione over hear Muggle-born wizards and a couple of goblins who are hiding in the woods from the Snatchers.  They hear them talking about how Ginny, Neville and Luna tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office at Hogwarts.  After they were caught, the sword was then moved to a vault at Gringotts.  One of the goblins also reveals that the sword placed in the vault was in fact not the sword of Gryffindor because he could tell it was not goblin-made.  While I do not really think that this is a terribly important scene, it does explain why, when the Snatchers bring Harry, Ron and Hermione to the Malfoy mansion, Bellatrix freaks out about the sword and how it is supposed to be in her vault. 

3. I think this is probably the smallest detail that actually irritates me the most.  How did Harry know that he needed to speak parseltongue to the locket in order to open it?  In the book, they address the fact that none of them can open the locket early on but then it is not brought up again until Ron and Harry go to destroy it.  Harry then explains that because there is a snake on the locket he realized that must be the way to do it.  In the movie, there is no snake on the locket, so why would it have to be opened using the snake language?  And either way, how he knew to use it is never explained.

4. While many of these things are not really all that significant in the grand scheme of things, I never seem to understand why parts of information is included and other parts left out.  Or why some scenes, like the fight between Harry and Ron, are almost verbatim from the book, while other scenes are completely different.  Why, for instance, when in the book Harry and Hermione use polyjuice potion when they go to Godric's Hollow, do they make a point in the movie to have him say that he did not want to use polyjuice potion?  He says he wanted to return to this place as himself, but why even have the line in there?  The idea of the polyjuice potion could have just been totally left out.  Also, why give Bill Weasley werewolf scars when the scene from the end of the previous book, where he was attacked in a fight at Hogwarts, was taken out of the previous movie?  It just never makes sense to me why they put in insignificant lines or details and leave out things that are actually important to the plot.

My final point, and I think one of the most important things left out, reveals information from the end of the book.  If you have not read the books and do not want me to ruin the end of the second movie, then I suggest you stop reading NOW.

Okay, here I go...

5. In the book, Hermione removes the photograph of Phineas Nigellus Black from Grimmauld Place and takes it with them in her "over-sized" purse.  This is important because this is how Snape finds them in The Forrest of Dean in order to give them the sword of Gryffindor.  Black overhears Hermione say the name of the place where they are and Black tells Snape.  I will be interested to see how they explain this in the second movie, if they bother explaining it at all.  In the movie they do not talk about who they think sent it to them, but the fact that it was Snape is incredibly significant as it means he was a good guy all along.  Harry, Ron and Hermione also use Black to give them information about what is going on at Hogwarts, but that part is less important to the first half of the story.

I want to reiterate that I really did like this movie.  I just get frustrated when they leave out or do not explain things that are incredibly important for the story to makes sense.  Clearly, they need my help.  :o)

And now I must wait until July 15 for Part Two, which is really just mean!
xoxo
c
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"It's all right, Captain. We always knew you were a whoopsie."

I was not as quick with this second post as I was planning. I have actually been trying to find a real job, so I have been a bit distracted :o)

Alright, now where did I leave off...

Another show on Showtime that I had heard wonderful things about but never got around to watching, until now, was The Tudors. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Henry VIII and the show takes us through his reign as the King of England, including all six of his wives, over four seasons. I know some people do not like "period" movies and shows, but this really is fantastic. It is interesting to see how Henry's decisions and opinions changed over the course of his monarchy depending on his age or his advisors. I am especially fascinated by how much history was influenced by men's sex drives :o) The show is a little racy, but not quite as scandalous as Spartacus: Blood and Sand and I think that it is definitely worth checking out.

The Tudors also reintroduced me to actor Henry Cavill, who plays the Duke of Suffolk Charles Brandon. He is also the son of Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo. (An awesome movie, if you have not seen it, and an even better book.) Because of my rediscovered love for him, and the fact that two of them were available to watch instantly on Netflix, I then watched the movies I Capture the Castle, Whatever Works and Stardust.

Stardust, while it did not have very much of Henry Cavill, was surprisingly entertaining. Whimsical would actually be the word I would use to describe this movie. It stars Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert DeNiro and is about a young man who leaves England to venture into the mystical land of Stormhold to recover a fallen star for his love. I remember not particularly wanting to see it when it came out in 2007 but, after checking Rotten Tomatoes, I realized that it had actually gotten pretty good reviews and they were pretty accurate. I Capture the Castle was also a bit quirky but quite entertaining. Set in the 1930s, it is about an English family, living in a castle that they can no longer afford, and their landlords, who happen to be two wealthy American brothers. It stars Cavill, Rose Byrne, Romola Garai, Mark Blucas, Henry Thomas and Bill Nighy. Neither of these movies are what I would consider classic movies that everyone should see, but they entertained me for a Sunday afternoon and have impressive casts for pretty under-the-radar movies.

Whatever Works, on the other hand, was not really worth my time. It is a Woody Allen movie starring Cavill alongside Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood that you can skip. Parts of this film were funny, but it was mostly just weird. Seinfeld aside, I am not really a fan of Larry David and this did not change my view of him whatsoever.

Along with watching lots of things at home, I also got to the theater quite a bit in the past few weeks to see The Social Network, Due Date, Morning Glory and Harry Potter.

The Social Network was a good movie. It was well made, well acted and interesting. The brilliance is not as much in the movie itself as it is in the timing of the movie. You make this movie five years ago and the only people interested are college students and recent graduates because they are the only ones using the website. You make it five years in the future and there is a chance that Facebook is now obsolete and nobody cares about Mark Zuckerberg anymore. I suppose that could be said about many things, but I really think that is where the huge success of this movie comes from. That being said, it definitely took me back to my Senior year of college. I went to a small liberal arts school in North Carolina and I remember talking to high school friends who went to NYU about this new website called The Facebook with which everyone was obsessed. It was not readily available to us at Elon and then when it was, you had to use your school email address in order to get access and make a profile. It was huge and definitely made more popular by the feel of exclusivity and the fact that you could now "stalk" your classmates and friends without anyone knowing. That sounded creepier than I meant it to be, but you know what I mean! Like I said though, the movie was well done and it certainly is relevant and worth seeing. I particularly enjoyed Andrew Garfield's performance as Eduardo Saverin and am now really looking forward to his portrayal of Peter Parker in the new Spider-Man reboot.

Even though it did not get very good reviews, I really enjoyed Morning Glory. The plot itself is fairly predictable, however, Diane Keaton was hilarious, Harrison Ford was a perfect curmudgeon and Rachel McAdams was as charming and loveable as ever. I especially enjoyed that, although Patrick Wilson is dreamy and perfect as her love interest, the movie did not dwell too much on the McAdams' character's love life. It was a movie about a girl whose career seems to have hit rock bottom but with a little luck and a lot of hard work she makes a new life for herself. It was actually kind of inspiring and definitely a fun movie.

Due Date, on the other hand, was not that great. It definitely had its funny moments, but it was mostly just ridiculous. Robert Downey Jr and Zack Galifinakis are excellent actors, which is where I think the problem with this movie lies. I know that sounds weird, so let me try to explain. It was a typical crazy-things-that-happen-while-on-a-road-trip-across-the-country plot, and with less talented actors I may have believed that a character like Peter Highman would have gotten in a car with Ethan Tremblay, let alone, allow him to get away with half of the things he pulled. I just think that with this caliber of acting at your disposal, it could have been a much more believable movie with a simpler, less crazy plotline. Does that make any sense? It does in my head :o)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One was excellent and my review of that will come shortly...probably after the holiday.

And on that note, I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! I am especially thankful for my friends and family who have been there through what has been the hardest year of my life thus far. I would not have made it without your support and love, so THANK YOU!

xoxo
c

P.S. Would it be helpful if I added hyperlinks that took you to IMDb whenever I talked about a specific movie, TV show or actor?  I did not do it here because I reazlied that I listed a lot of different people and it would have been more work, but I can in the future if you want me to.  Let me know in the comments section!
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