Sunday, August 2, 2009

So. Um. Wow, Where Does The Time Go?

Oh, I'll TELL you where it goes...it goes into Facebook, the world's biggest time suck ever. Seriously, if there is an American Gods-ish Facebook god, I am keeping it very well-fed. I blame Mame for this. Apparently, everyone I've ever met in my life is on there. Good times.

Hmmm...what's been going on around here? Made it back from vacation with the family on the Outer Banks. Hey, did you know that the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is 23 miles long? A little PSA from me to you. So that when you are driving across it, you won't look around to see your car entirely surrounded by water with no end in sight and ask your mother, "Uh...how long IS this thing*?" to have her airily say, "Oh, 20 miles?" You're welcome! Actually, it was sort of fun, like driving a roller coaster.

It's very pretty on the Outer Banks. A bit buggy this year. Everyone from the island seemed extremely apologetic about that fact. I was all, "Whatev, I'm from Jersey, as least these mosquitos doesn't give you mutant superpowers, AMIRITE?!"

I got a large proportion of my family watching True Blood. My mom brought her season 1 DVDs down and I hectored Bri into watching them because Bri, as she would say, "loves that hot vampire shit." Yeah, I don't want to know either. She loved it: predictable. Not so predictable? My uncles Claudius and Jazz and teenage cousin *** (Because I am TOTALLY blanking on a nome de blog for him right now. Someone help me out with that?) were all into it too. Heh.

We watched lots of movies too. The uncles were appalled that I'd never seen The Big Lebowski and set to remedy that straightaway. I liked it; it was very amusing and confounding. I'm not prepared to start a RELIGION around it the way some people seem to be, but it was fun. I brought The Midnight Meat Train with me, thinking it would be fun to watch with Uncle Jazz because he's a big horror movie buff like me. He'd already seen it but consented to watching it again with me and Bri. AHAHAHAHAHAHA! That movie is HILARIOUS. It's not good, but it's not terrible either. It's plenty gory and has some good kills and wacky camera angles. Bradley Cooper is SMOKIN' HOT as always. I recommend it but only if you are a hardcore horror fan. The story is ridiculous and the characters do things that make no sense and the ending -- AHAHAHAHAHA! Then we watched Slither, which Homer has been after me since forever to watch. It was pretty great. I love Nathan Fillion.

I've been going to the movies quite a bit this summer. It's one of my favorite things to do and there's been a pretty good selection this year. I've seen:

  • Public Enemies with Sorcha. It was good times, Johnny Depp was MADE for that kind of period dress. See? The movie itself is overlong, but good. LOTS of gunfire. SO MANY BULLETS. Christian Bale was hot too, once you get past the fact that his character is named "Melvin Purvis." Was there ever an unsexier name? I think not.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: It's a good movie and I liked it. I don't have a whole lot to say about it like I don't have a whole lot to say about the book. The book is sort of a place-holder and so is the movie. I will say that I continue to be sort of confused by the pacing of these movies. They leave out SO MUCH, which is understandable since the books are a million pages long. But then they make up stuff that wasn't in the books when they could just...use stuff that they left out. I don't know? And sometimes stuff they leave in doesn't seem nearly as important as what they leave out. Like, the whole Ron/Lavendar subplot goes on for WAY too long. I mean, yeah, it's amusing and gives Rupert Grint a chance to be goofy and Dumbledore a funny line, but really? And the half-blood prince thing is barely covered? Ok.
  • (500) Days of Summer; I was totally psyched for this the first time I saw the preview. I adore Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I love quirky romances. They played a couple in Manic, a film I adore and I was pleased to see them play one again. I love The Smiths. (Although, really. Who doesn't?) THEN, I FOUND OUT. SPENCER REID IS IN IT, YOU GUYS. DONE. It's a really cute movie, you should go see it. SPENCER REID!!! Ahem.
  • The Hurt Locker: the best movie I've seen all year. Honestly, I can't imagine another movie being better. I DEMAND Academy Award nominations for Kathryn Bigelow, Anthony Mackie and most of all, Jeremy Renner. One one hand, it's an intense, suspenseful action movie where lots of shit gets blown up and hot men are being stoic and competent. (Seriously, Ralph Fiennes has a cameo and I've never seen him look hotter.) On the other hand, it's this heart-breaking look at the effects of war and its costs. These soldiers are in life-threatening situations at every moment. They literally have to kill or be killed. A split-second hesitation or minor misreading of a situation could cost them or their fellow soldiers their lives. Your son/daughter/brother/sister/whatever wants to join the military? Make them watch this movie first. The last ten minutes felt like a kick to the stomach.
*That's what she said!

5 comments:

EGT said...

Yes, I never will understand the penchant to add things into a HP movie that weren't in the books, while gleefully slicing the books into tiny slivers of pieces. I feel like the third movie was the worst one for this, although I don't know why I feel that way.

Dr. Fabulous said...

I watched "Shopgirl" for the first time last night. I'm assuming you've seen it? I LOVED it!

Bea said...

EGT: See that's funny because the 3rd one is my favorite. I feel like it's the most representative of the spirit of the series.

Bea said...

Dr.: I did not see that movie! I take it that I should?

Sorshanik said...

I gave up on real critiques of the HP movies after the second one since they leave too much out and I got too pissed off. I totally HEART the books: 4, 6 & 7 are my favs. I don't think book 6 is a holding space for the next. I LOVED this book *SPOILER* and cried like a baby when Dumbledore died. Book 7 is better, but book 6 is fantastic with it's information needed to move on, the sadness of the build-up of more lose for Harry and it's controversy of Snape: Bad/Good? Loved it. BTW, book 7 gave me anxiety with it's constant danger pace. The movie was decent. I love the actors, so they make it for me.

Johnny Depp can be in anything now and I will probably see it. He was SOOOO hot in Public Enemies. When a hot character actor genius in his 40's can "outhot" (is that a word?) a character actor hottie in his 30's, I say life is going well for him. Johnny is brilliant, even when he's silly. I would break my womb oath and have his babies. Really. Johnny, call me, k?

And loved Shop Girl. That was a good flick.