No, really, did you miss me?
OK, March is just sort of a lost month. I've been a very bad blogger, and knitter for that matter. I still want to blog about my cruise, just for my own purposes because I forgot to bring along my travel journal. But, as soon as I got back from vacation, I was thrown into the work meat grinder. Last week I had to take a road trip up to Northern Minnesota - 4 hours up, 4 hours back. Long day! This week I had another trip, this one by air, to Utah. But we flew into Vegas and drove to Utah from there. Now that I'm back home again, I THINK I'm going to be settling into a normal routine. Although my sister should be having her baby any day now, so I'll probably hit the road for one more trip before too long.
I have still seen a few movies, and since that doesn't require me to take pictures, edit them, post them to flickr and then to here, I'm going to start with reviews. After the hectic week back from vacation last week, I snuck out a little early on Friday for a matinee:
A romantic comedy in which Hugh Grant plays a guy who used to be half of a successful 80s duo whose partner went on to all sorts of acclaim while he kind of went no where - like Andrew Ridgely of Wham!, maybe. Drew Barrymore is filling in for his plant lady and turns out to have a flair for writing lyrics. Hugh's got to write a song for the hottest pop singer around (a blond teen of the Christina/Britney type) to try to revive his career. So, Hugh and Drew collaborate on writing the song and fall in love in the process. Hugh and Drew are not at the top of their games in the rom-com business anymore, but I still like them both. This film is completely what you think it's going to be and totally and utterly predictable, and just what I needed that Friday afternoon.
Last Sunday I had my movie club and we saw this Korean film:
For those of you, like me, who don't read Korean, it's call "The Host" in English. It's about the family in the poster and their battle against a sea monster. It's sort of like Godzilla meets Little Miss Sunshine. I loved it. The oldest son, the blond in the poster, is sort of a screw up, lazy bum type. But he's a great dad to his pre-teen daughter. One day this sea monster appears and attacks the city and eats the girl. Her dad and his brother and sister and father are devastated until the dad gets a cell phone call from his daughter - the monster didn't really eat her and she's still alive. Only no one believes them, because this guy's such a screw up. So they set off on their own to battle the monster and rescue the girl. It's scary and suspenseful, but also really funny and I was totally in love with this family. It's definitely a statement on American foreign policy, hysteria in times of emergency and the superiority of the family and people over the government. So, it works on several different levels. I'd highly recommend it.
On the trip to Utah, we were visiting some girls who are going to school there and took them out for an afternoon of fun. They went horseback riding, ate junk food and wanted to see a movie, so we saw this:
Not my cup of tea, although there were a few funny moments. As you probably already know, it's about four middle-aged men who ride motorcycles together once a week and have created a club called the Wild Hogs. They're all pretty disatisfied with how their lives have turned out, so they decide to get away from it all and hit the road on their bikes. They encounter a gay patrol officer who mistakes them for some sort of sex group, a hardcore outlaw bike gang and a charming town who has been terrorized by the outlaw bikers, during their road trip. It's all rather predictable and slapstick.
With all of this work (and the occasional film), I haven't seen or talked to most of my friends for a few weeks, so I was happy to get together for dinner and a movie with one of my law school chums last night. Even though we're two middle-aged women, we saw this film:
It stars Mark Wahlberg as an ex-military sharp shooter who becomes disillusioned after a mission in Ethiopia goes wrong. He leaves the military and becomes sort of a hermit in a cabin in the mountains where he surfs the web, shoots his guns and plays with his dog all day long. However, he is recruited by a mysterious high level military man (played by Danny Glover) to help avert an assassination attempt on the President. Wahlberg is one of only a handful of people who could successfully pull off a long-range shooting, so he's the perfect man to figure out how it's going to be done and stop it. Only that's not really what they're doing. They're really setting up Wahlberg as the patsy. Only of course at the last minute Wahlberg escapes and then sets out not to prove his innocense, but to get revenge. After that it's all shooting and explosions. If that's what you like, this fits the bill. There's lots and lots of people getting shot in the head and stuff getting blown up. And none of it makes a lick of sense. If you try to think about it for even a minute, it all falls apart. But Marky Mark sure looks great with his shirt off. There are plenty of opportunities for him to show those famous pecs and they're still gorgeous. And since this film is probably aimed more at the guys, the woman who helps Wahlberg get his revenge shows plenty of cleavage too.
Speaking of pecs, when I was looking for a picture of the Wild Hogs movie poster, I came across this picture comparing John Travolta then and now:
See, the guys all go skinny dipping, so we get to see plenty of all of them shirtless, plus a lot of William H. Macy's ass. I don't even care that John Travolta is a flabby, pasty guy, I still think he's awesome and sexy. From what I hear, he truly enjoys life, including food, and that's great! Not everyone can be Mark Wahlberg.
I have still seen a few movies, and since that doesn't require me to take pictures, edit them, post them to flickr and then to here, I'm going to start with reviews. After the hectic week back from vacation last week, I snuck out a little early on Friday for a matinee:
A romantic comedy in which Hugh Grant plays a guy who used to be half of a successful 80s duo whose partner went on to all sorts of acclaim while he kind of went no where - like Andrew Ridgely of Wham!, maybe. Drew Barrymore is filling in for his plant lady and turns out to have a flair for writing lyrics. Hugh's got to write a song for the hottest pop singer around (a blond teen of the Christina/Britney type) to try to revive his career. So, Hugh and Drew collaborate on writing the song and fall in love in the process. Hugh and Drew are not at the top of their games in the rom-com business anymore, but I still like them both. This film is completely what you think it's going to be and totally and utterly predictable, and just what I needed that Friday afternoon.
Last Sunday I had my movie club and we saw this Korean film:
For those of you, like me, who don't read Korean, it's call "The Host" in English. It's about the family in the poster and their battle against a sea monster. It's sort of like Godzilla meets Little Miss Sunshine. I loved it. The oldest son, the blond in the poster, is sort of a screw up, lazy bum type. But he's a great dad to his pre-teen daughter. One day this sea monster appears and attacks the city and eats the girl. Her dad and his brother and sister and father are devastated until the dad gets a cell phone call from his daughter - the monster didn't really eat her and she's still alive. Only no one believes them, because this guy's such a screw up. So they set off on their own to battle the monster and rescue the girl. It's scary and suspenseful, but also really funny and I was totally in love with this family. It's definitely a statement on American foreign policy, hysteria in times of emergency and the superiority of the family and people over the government. So, it works on several different levels. I'd highly recommend it.
On the trip to Utah, we were visiting some girls who are going to school there and took them out for an afternoon of fun. They went horseback riding, ate junk food and wanted to see a movie, so we saw this:
Not my cup of tea, although there were a few funny moments. As you probably already know, it's about four middle-aged men who ride motorcycles together once a week and have created a club called the Wild Hogs. They're all pretty disatisfied with how their lives have turned out, so they decide to get away from it all and hit the road on their bikes. They encounter a gay patrol officer who mistakes them for some sort of sex group, a hardcore outlaw bike gang and a charming town who has been terrorized by the outlaw bikers, during their road trip. It's all rather predictable and slapstick.
With all of this work (and the occasional film), I haven't seen or talked to most of my friends for a few weeks, so I was happy to get together for dinner and a movie with one of my law school chums last night. Even though we're two middle-aged women, we saw this film:
It stars Mark Wahlberg as an ex-military sharp shooter who becomes disillusioned after a mission in Ethiopia goes wrong. He leaves the military and becomes sort of a hermit in a cabin in the mountains where he surfs the web, shoots his guns and plays with his dog all day long. However, he is recruited by a mysterious high level military man (played by Danny Glover) to help avert an assassination attempt on the President. Wahlberg is one of only a handful of people who could successfully pull off a long-range shooting, so he's the perfect man to figure out how it's going to be done and stop it. Only that's not really what they're doing. They're really setting up Wahlberg as the patsy. Only of course at the last minute Wahlberg escapes and then sets out not to prove his innocense, but to get revenge. After that it's all shooting and explosions. If that's what you like, this fits the bill. There's lots and lots of people getting shot in the head and stuff getting blown up. And none of it makes a lick of sense. If you try to think about it for even a minute, it all falls apart. But Marky Mark sure looks great with his shirt off. There are plenty of opportunities for him to show those famous pecs and they're still gorgeous. And since this film is probably aimed more at the guys, the woman who helps Wahlberg get his revenge shows plenty of cleavage too.
Speaking of pecs, when I was looking for a picture of the Wild Hogs movie poster, I came across this picture comparing John Travolta then and now:
See, the guys all go skinny dipping, so we get to see plenty of all of them shirtless, plus a lot of William H. Macy's ass. I don't even care that John Travolta is a flabby, pasty guy, I still think he's awesome and sexy. From what I hear, he truly enjoys life, including food, and that's great! Not everyone can be Mark Wahlberg.
rdladd@arnan.com
