Maybe I should have waited..

I took a break from trying to come up with many, many words and arranging them in some order for the world's worst novel to go and see the new Harry Potter movie. I've read the book. The only surprises were where the movie veered away from the book (and every time I felt a little disappointed although the movie was really very good and close enough that if I hadn't just re-read the book I might not have even noticed).

I learned two things:

1. Teenage boys should not be allowed out in public. It's a theory I've held for a long time but I see it proven over and over. Still, it could probably have been worse: there were very few teenage girls around.

2. Packed movie theaters will not keep me from crying like a crazy person. The book was hard to read because the tension was always so high. Everyone, except the bad guy, was on the verge of death the whole time. What was much more effective in the movie: the beginning where you understand what the three of them are really giving up to go out on this quest. Watching young Hermione disappear from the frames in her family home was really very hard. I may or may not have needed a Kleenex.

And of all that was left out, I really wish Dudley's shaking hands with Harry before they left had been included in the movie.

And on an unrelated note: Harry Potter's five o'clock shadow was a little disconcerting. Not anything like the first time Taylor Lautner ran across the screen without his shirt on, but still, it was surprise, you know? I have no idea why. I'm glad I read the book. The ending of this one might have been crushing without the knowledge that it's only the beginning. I'll start counting the days until the next one. Anybody want to get in line with me now?

Extra time

Three day weekends are great, aren't they? Friday afternoon, I could have turned cartwheels. I used to be able to do that. I think I would crush my elbows and break my brain if I tried it now, so I just thought about it. All weekend long, I felt like I should go somewhere and do something. I didn't. And I felt OK about that too. Friday I laid in supplies--I baked, people. It was a mix, but still. I did not clean my house. I did not improve my yard. I thought about doing both of those things too. Instead, I wrote 50 pages and a short little newsletter thing. And I watched movies.

The best of the movies was Up, available through Netflix Watch Instantly right now. I was worried in the beginning because it was sad, but then Doug the talking dog showed up and I was all in love again. There are all kinds of lessons: it's never too late to have an adventure, adventures aren't always what you think they will be, Kevin is not the best name for a bird. Stuff like that.

Then I took another chance on a Watch Instantly, this one's older. And Harrison Ford has slipped into grumpy old man territory. It sounds a little like Han Solo with a lot of prescriptions. Still, there are some fairly big names: Gladys Knight with a bit part, Isaiah Washington as bad guy, Bruce Greenwood, Master P (who I first met on Dancing with the Stars) and Dwight Yoakum (who should always wear a hat. With a hat, a slight cool factor. Without a hat, weaselly. He looks a little like an insurance adjustor named Melvin. Not that there's anything wrong with that unless you could be Dwight Yoakum if you were only wearing a cowboy hat.) The movie's just so-so. Lots of inside jokes that are about as funny as inside jokes normally are to the ones outside.

And then I watched Adventureland, mainly because it has Ryan Reynolds in it. Also, Kristen Stewart but if you've seen her as Bella, you've pretty much seen her as Em too. This one is completely skippable. I have to do a better job of minding the queue.

Movies in the Mail: Sherlock Holmes

I finally remembered to get my last movie back in the mail to the Netflix and they were kind enough to send me Sherlock Holmes in time to enjoy it this weekend. I was really looking forward to it.
And I thought it was just OK. What did you think?

Here's my problem: I couldn't understand what either Holmes or Watson said most of the time. And I think my neighbors were enjoying it along with me because I had the volume cranked up. Really, I think it was the speed of speech, not the volume. I didn't have trouble with the girl or the bad guy, so there.

And I fast forwarded through the fight scenes. I've been doing that a lot lately. Maybe I'm becoming more delicate in my old age.

Still, I would watch Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes (and even as Iron Man because it's RDJ) even if I never hear a word he says and fast forward through the beatings and also the crazy, crime-solving hazes (and this is a poster that needs to hang on a wall somewhere, people...I totally understand the appeal). And I guess that's a good thing since the internets say Sherlock Holmes 2 is coming soon.

What I do instead of housework

So there are movies in the world and somebody has to watch them, right? I'm doing a small part of taking care of that lately. This weekend I enjoyed Did You Hear About the Morgans? It was movie in the mail and I enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure it won't bring about world peace or cure hunger, but I'm OK with that. I laughed. It's enough. It reminded me a little bit of The Proposal...fish-out-of-water New Yorkers out in the wilds, various run-ins with locals and exotic wildlife. This one has Wilford Brimley instead of Betty White, and they're in Wyoming instead of Alaska, and it's Hugh Grant instead of Ryan Reynolds, and this one's more like Green Acres meets the Witness Protection Program. This one also has the very cool sheriff Sam Elliott and his wife/deputy Mary Steenburgen who both look like they were born in Western wear. Fans of the witty banter should like this one.

And then, when I discovered how simple it was to watch instantly, I took a chance on Bottle Shock. Have you ever heard of Bottle Shock? Maybe. I think I saw an ad in a magazine. I was searching for movies by actors that I like and this one has Mr. Alan Rickman in it as a snooty British wine seller in Paris who decides to increase traffic to his Wine Academy by holding a blind taste test of French and American wines. It was 1976. No one drank American wines. It was impossible to imagine that wines made by yokels in California could defeat the masters in France. He traveled to Napa Valley to find the wines and was surprised by the quality. And it's based on a true story and you can probably guess how the taste test turned out. Bill Pullman and the new Captain Kirk are a father and son running Chateau Montelena in Napa but I was mainly watching for Alan Rickman. A word of caution: it's a period movie and I sorta find some of the clothes and hair of the 70s painful to look at. Give me huge shoulder pads and powder blue Reeboks anytime and keep your bell bottoms and super-tight t-shirts. Still, I might be in the minority there. If you like a little history with your movie, enjoy the scenery of Napa Valley vineyards and Paris, or could listen to Alan Rickman read the phone book, you should try this one.

At least now I know how it's going to end (not really)

Thank you, Netflix, for restoring my affection for the whole movie-delivered-in-my-mailbox idea. I watched 2012 this weekend and it was less depressing than Law Abiding Citizen. If you haven't seen it and don't want to run into any spoilers, stop now. There are spoilers.

Here's the idea:
The Mayans knew an event that takes place only every 640,000 years would take place and that there'd be no need to continue their calendar past December 21, 2012. If you're wondering, an alignment of the planets causes the sun to heat the core of the earth so much that the crust becomes unstable, plates move, California does indeed slide off into the ocean, Yellowstone blows up in a cloud of ash and exploding flaming things, the entire state of Hawaii becomes a lava flow, Washington D.C. is covered in a cloud of ash, and the series of movements and earthquakes causes many, many tsunamis and floods the entire world. Except Africa. which has been elevated in all the shifting going on.

Of course, scientists and the U.S. government have been tracking the heating up and they make a plan to build arks to save some. Forty-one countries are represented and tickets are sold to those who can afford them (at the price of 1 billion euros) or given to people with connections. And 400,000 people and some assorted animals make it on the arks.

The movie is a special effects movie. Basically, John Cusack plays himself as he does in every movie. The story could have used some development, and there's a campy factor to most of it that makes it impossible to get too wrapped up in the movie. That makes it my kind of movie. There's a steaming puddle where a lake used to be with dead animals around...let's take the kids down to investigate.

Still, a happy ending for the ones who made it on the arks, right? Never mind that when they pull up alongside the curb of Africa in their warship-like arks, the people who already live there might have something to say about it. Oh, and they weren't probably even invited on the arks in the first place. It could get ugly for the rich men, politicians, Queen of England, children, and the few military types floating the boats.

I'm pretty sure that December 21, 2012 is just another day on the calendar. Still, it's a whole lot more fun that watching a man destroyed by the justice system. Now I need to go check the list to make sure there's something uplifting coming my way. I think I'll bump Precious down the list a little further.

Lured in by Netflix

The trouble with Netflix is that because it's so easy and so...doesn't cost me every time I rent a movie, I fall for movies I wouldn't normally consider. I saved my current movie out for Sunday night because I don't watch award shows most of the time. And since the networks seem to think everyone will be watching, things like "Bad Boys 2" play. And it isn't that I don't like things like "Bad Boys 2" because I do (mainly because of Will Smith...I mean, it's hard to go wrong) but one or two dubbed "big mother loving rats" and I can't take it seriously anymore.

So instead, I watched "Law Abiding Citizen" last night. I had a bad feeling. I mean...how could it possibly have a good ending? Gerard Butler is Clyde, an engineer with extra talents whose family is killed in a home invasion. Jamie Foxx is Nick the district attorney responsible for letting one of the killers out in three years in exchange for his testimony on the second man in order to get the death penalty. It's hard to watch the beginning of this movie. And also the middle is hard to watch. And also the end. There's a whole lot of vengeance going on. This morning I'm not sure why I kept watching, except that I wanted Jamie Foxx to be better, a hero at the end. I really don't think I got that.

Clyde gets his revenge but loses himself in the process, becoming more dangerous, more criminal than the men who started the whole chain of events. Nick in the beginning makes the deals he does because he's protecting his conviction rate and his ambitions to move up and he sort of defends his choices. It's hard to say that he learns anything about justice.

I'm hoping 2012 comes next. I think a good ol' end-of-the-world apocalypse might be less depressing.

The Dark Knight

Apparently I'm all out of control...I made it to see another movie this weekend...me and every single other person who lives in Little Rock. We were all at the Chenal 9 at approximately 3:00 on Saturday, either leaving (me) the movie or waiting in line to get into the movie. And I may (or may not) have been the only person in that theater who wanted the movie to end sooner, but 2 1/2 hours of psycho clown-types is just a little bit too much for me.

Still, it was a good movie and you're going to have to see it anyway, right? I enjoyed it about as much as I thought I would and everyone in my group gave it rave reviews. Of course, I am the only knitter in the group. I was wishing for some soothing knitting to help with all the dark intensity. No such luck.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

I actually made it out of the house this weekend to go to Little Rock's newest movie theater (in a bee-you-ti-ful new shopping complex that will have, among other excitements, a DSW store) to see Journey to the Center of the Earth. I was in a group, and otherwise I would have probably picked something else. But it is a fun movie, the idea is that Jules Verne's story isn't fiction after all but it's just not an easy journey. Basically, you have to suspend any critical thinking to enjoy this one. Luckily, I am good at that. (Although I still don't understand why the book with all the clues wasn't actually with the science guy who went there in the first place...or what that dinosaur was living on because there weren't any other meaty animals...maybe it's just better not to spend too much time thinking on it...if it had to be all sensible and realistic, we probably would not have had a movie, I guess.)

Maybe any movie that requires 3-D glasses is good enough for me.

Becoming Jane

From Mr. Mark Twain (one of my favorites although he was horribly misguided about Jane Austen):
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
- Following the Equator

I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898
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Just as soon as I made it back into town on Friday, I had a message waiting, an invitation to go and see Becoming Jane with the girls from this new Sunday School class that I'm attending. I wasn't sure I wanted to see Becoming Jane,a movie about Jane Austen's life, loosely based in history but enhanced (I think) to make a better movie. And it works. I enjoyed it.

It's really too bad Anne Hathaway's face gets that big on a movie screen because her eyes and mouth frightened me until I got used to the screen size...but that's my only real criticism. I loved the way lines from Pride & Prejudice were worked in and the ending didn't feel as depressing as I thought it might. I still love the fictional Darcy instead of the somewhat more real Mr. Lefroy. And, of course, after I watched the movie, I went headlong into an Austen binge and watched the latest Pride and Prejudice (nowhere near as good as the BBC miniseries version starring Mr. Colin Firth, but good anyway) and Emma (with Jeremy Northam). Sense & Sensibility is up next (starring Mr. Hugh Grant and Mr. Alan Rickman...and a few other people). I wonder why it is that the men are what really leap to mind about these movies...must be the British accent. Mark Twain and I will never agree on the quality of Jane's work but the quotes were too good to leave out.

I also realized how much more fun it is to go to the movies with the girls. The last movie I went to see in the theater was the newest Harry Potter. I went by myself because I couldn't wait for anyone else to be ready to see it (also starring Mr. Alan Rickman...why isn't there a better movie than Love Actually that has Colin, Hugh, and Alan?). And the movie before that was the third Pirate movie, with the non-door opener...and we all know how THAT turned out, right? A movie with the girls? Much easier to enjoy...no worrying about who's paying or whether or not I can have treats for the movie. And I didn't lock myself out of the house...