New Moon

I finally read New Moon. And I watched the movie. And I was disappointed in both. Let's start with the book.

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Where do I even begin? When I read Twilight, I was amazed at how much I actually liked the book. I thought it would be kind of young and teenager-y, but it was a quick and interesting read. I couldn't put the book down. New Moon was also a quick read, but it wasn't all that interesting. Let me just summarize the entire book in bullets:

• Bella and Edward are in love, but Edward wants to keep Bella safe so he leaves her alone and leaves town along with the entire Cullen clan.
• Bella then does stupid things like riding motorcycles and cliff-diving so she can hear Edward's voice in her crazy head.
• Bella plays with poor Jacob's emotions by spending time with him and leading him on.
• Oh dear, Jacob is a werewolf. How do these things happen?
• Edward things Bella died, so now he has to go off himself. Nevermind the fact that he doesn't really try to find out the truth himself.
• Bella saves the day and is promised that someday she will become a vampire.
• Edward asks Bella to marry him.

That's about it folks. There's not a whole lot of content to read in that book. Lame, lame, lame. Edward is absent throughout most of the book. Bella comes off as whiney and weak which is highly annoying. The rest of the Cullen clan is also noticeably absent from the storyline and Victoria makes an appearance. What's annoying is that while Victoria is mentioned, there's nothing more to the story than just that. At the end, Jacob is left hanging and Edward promises to never leave Bella again. Frickin' bite her already dude! Geez, this is getting drawn out.

So after reading the book, I decided I would spend a whole dollar at Redbox to rent New Moon. Knowing that the book was pretty lame, I didn't expect much from the movie and I wasn't disappointed. The pluses to this movie are:

• The make-up was much better this time. No overly pasty white vampires. 

Oh wait. That's the only plus because the storyline was LAME. This won't stop me from finishing the series, though. I keep hearing that the last two books are better, so I guess I'll put a hold on them in the library. We'll see. Does reviewing the Twilight series make me sound like a reminiscent teenager? I sure don't want to go back to those days..........

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Avatar

 I have been wanting to see Avatar ever since I saw an interview with James Cameron on 60 Minutes a few months ago. I was so impressed that he had this idea a decade ago, but waited to make the movie until technology could do it justice. My friend Stacy gave me a gift card to Regal Cinemas, so you know I wasn't about to let that puppy go to waste.

 

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Even though J & I are having some tough financial times, every once in a while we try to treat ourselves. We decided to have dinner at the fairly new Zio's near our house, then go to see the movie. We both forgot the time and realized that we might not be able to do both. It was 6:07 when Jason got in the shower and the movie started at 7:30. Did I mention that Zio's is right across the street from the movie theater? By the time Jason was dressed, it was 6:30 so I tried to see if there were any other show times earlier than the 9:45 one that was next at our theater. Bingo! Found an 8:00 showing at another location! We had our dinner at Zio's where I splurged and had the Grilled Vegetable Lasagna. It was pretty tasty. I actually liked the tomato sauce in it (most marinara sauces are boring to me). I think I've only ordered lasagna one other time at an Italian restaurant because I hate the amount of grease that comes with it. Luckily, my lasagna only came with my side salad and not a side of grease. It was really good! The one disappointment that I had with the restaurant was that their "Italian Dipping Oil" that comes on the table was mostly canola oil. WTH? Seriously? Olive oil is what gives it flavor!


Okay, rant over.

So, we raced to the other theater to see Avatar in 3D. The $3.50 3D charge per ticket sucked, but at least I wasn't paying. On to the movie. Avatar was awesome!!! The scenes were gorgeous and the 3D really did make a difference. The movie itself was so well-written. I could tell that James Cameron had gotten a lot of inspiration from the American Indian history. The premise of the movie is that the Na'Vi "people" on Pandora have this amazing connection with their entire planet.....every tree, flower and animal. The human race has discovered a very profitable element located under Pandora's crust and of course, the most concentrated source was under the Na'Vi people's home. The humans want to drive the people out so they can ravage the planet for profit. Of course, there is love and learning along the way and a great fight! I HIGHLY recommend this movie and I also HIGHLY recommend seeing it in the theater in 3D to get the full effect. It was truly an epic movie.

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Movie Review

I saw "The Ugly Truth" today with my friend Shana starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler.

Image courtesy of here

Katherine Heigl plays a controlling type-A TV producer that has trouble in the dating world. Gerard Butler plays a sexist pig of a man who claims that men are simple and go for looks only. He winds up working for KH's TV station against her will and yada yada yada. Boy meets girl. Girl falls for other more "perfect" man. Boy likes girl but can't tell her. Girl realizes she's a dumbass and dumps said "perfect" man. And I think we all know where this is ending.

Even though this was a formula kind of movie, I really enjoyed it. The movie was cute and really funny! I laughed quite a bit. However, I would like to offer a word of advice if you are planning to see this movie:

Don't take your 3-year-old to this movie and let them grab someone's seat and play with their hair. It's rude and insensitive to other's feelings and germaphobias. Who knows where that kid's hands have been?!? I'm just saying. I may or may not have been said person.

And now, I'm off with the husband to hang with some friends and drink some glorious wine. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

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Movies that suck

I've been on a roll picking out really crappy movies lately. It all started this weekend when Jason & I stopped by the closest Redbox (hello $1 movies!) and rented "The International."

Image courtesy of Redbox

This movie seemed promising in the previews, but somehow Jason & I never made it to the theater to see it. There was something in me that just said "wait and see what others thought." Those "others" never thought anything. No one I know went to see it. That should have been my first clue. The movie stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts and is about a big brother-ish bank that is dealing arms. Clive Owen's character wants to stop the bank and goes on his own vigilante spree to do it. Doesn't sound too bad, right?

Wrong. The problem with this movie is that:

1) It jumps to different locations way too many times, making it hard to keep up.
2) It has a LOT of plots. In fact, most of the plots develop more plots making it even harder to keep things straight.
3) None of said frickin' plots get resolved. NONE.
4) The movie ends suddenly without warning. It's almost as if the production guys said, "Oh lookie here, it's 5pm on Friday and we don't want to go into overtime. Yeah, I think that was enough filming. We'll make it work."

After the movie ended, Jason & I just stared at each other wondering what in the heck we just saw. It was that bad.

My second crappy movie choice of the weekend was "Rachel Getting Married."

Image courtesy of Redbox

Now this movie I decided to watch by myself. I knew it would be hard convincing Jason to watch, so I didn't even bother to try. I knew I would have a hard time watching this movie because it stars Anne Hathaway in a very different role. She plays a hard-core drug addict that has just come home from rehab. I've liked every movie I've seen her in so far, but she always plays a cutesy girl in movies that have happy endings.

This movie did not have that happy ending. Here's how Redbox reviews the movie:

"When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel, she brings a long history of personal crisis and family conflict along with her."

Yep, that's all it said. Maybe I should have read that first before I rented the movie. Unlike "The International's" crazy long list of plots, "Rachel Getting Married" lacked one completely. The movie just altogether sucked. But since nothing really unfolded in the movie, I guess nothing needed to get resolved. The movie's cinematography was terrible as well. The camera zoomed in and out like they couldn't focus, making it hard to watch. Parts of the movie, such as the rehearsal dinner, were so drawn out that I got bored. This was just one stinker of a movie.

Finally, a couple nights ago, Jason & I went back to our beloved Redbox and rented yet another bomb, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" starring Keanu Reaves, Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates.

Image courtesy of Redbox

Yeah, I know. I don't really like Keanu Reaves either, but we've seen most of the good movies in our Redbox by the time we rented this one. In this movie, Keanu plays an emotionless alien that is a friend of the Earth and comes to warn the Earth that it is about to have all the humanpopulation eliminated in order to save the planet. Jennifer Connelly's character befriends him and tries to get him to stop the destruction that has started since the world has treated him as hostile.

And that's about it.

To give the movie some credit, at least there was a plot involved and the movie did end.......sorta. But this movie ended much like "The International" did - it just kind of stopped. I haven't seen the original movie so I can't say how well it followed, but the ending was just anticlimactic. Boring.

The one darn movie that I saw in the past week that I know I liked was on the G4 station under their "Movies That Don't Suck" headline.


With a station that broadcasts such gems like "Cheaters" and "The International Sexy Ladies Show", you would think that they wouldn't know a good movie if it slapped them in the face. But "The Goonies" can never be denied its "Movies That Don't Suck" status.

"Rocky Road" and "Hey you guys!" is in all our vocabularies whether we like to admit it or not. It came from a freaky thing called Sloth! Who could forget Mikie (Sean Astin) always getting air from his inhaler, believing they can find the rich stuff of One-Eyed Willie. Or a young Cory Feldman as Mouth, trying to always look cool and bust out with the smart aleck comments. Or Data, with all of his crazy inventions. "Booty traps!" Best of all, who could forget Chunk doing the Truffle Shuffle?

If you haven't seen this movie, then you are lame.

If you've seen this movie and think this movie is lame, then you are super lame and should probably not read this blog anymore. I can't be friends with you. Seriously.

And finally, if you've seen this movie and love it, then you are moved to fully bloggy love status.

Moral of the story here? Sometimes even $1 can be wasted. Stay at home and watch movies that don't suck.

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Birthday happenings

So yesterday I turned 30. It didn't hurt a bit, much to my surprise. In fact, I had a pretty good day. On Thursday, I got my hair done and even got a free mani! How could I say no to that? Then, on Friday, I was shopping and redeemed my coupon for free birthday lip glosses from Sephora. They were actually colors that I can wear, too! That night, Jason came home with red roses and we went to my favorite sushi place to eat dinner together. Afterward, we went to The Cheesecake Factory and stuffed ourselves silly with cheesecake. Jason had a carrot cake cheesecake (which was more cake, actually) and I had a nice fluffy vanilla bean cheesecake. Yum! To end the night, we went to see Taken at the movies. It was a great night! There will be more festivities tonight! :)

Oh, and Taken was good. It was kind of "formula", but I still enjoyed it. It's worth seeing in the theater. I guess just about any movie I see now just won't hold up to Gran Torino. I had to remember this as I was watching it!

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Movie Review: Gran Torino

This was by far, the best movie I've seen in a long, long time and possibly Clint Eastwood's best movie. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Go see it!!!!

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