Archive for the ‘TV/Movie’ Category
Last Day, First Day
Saturday, December 31st, 2011
So today is the last day of 2011 and tomorrow will be the first day of 2012.
We have our traditions, The Hubby and I. And one of them is to spend the last day of the year and the first day of the year watching the Twilight Zone marathon (what, did you think I was going to say we did something mystical?). The first episode this morning was one of those make-a-deal-with-the-devil-and-live-to-regret-it ones. I’m not really sure I’d seen this one, or if I have, I haven’t seen it very often. Episodes like that could make one all philosophical, starting to ponder the mysteries of life, the gifts of love and sacrifice, and what is really important in the world. Or, it just could be a solid thirty minutes of entertainment. The beauty is – you get to choose.
We recently saw The Adjustment Bureau on cable. I’d wanted to see it at the movies, but never got around to it. It’s a pretty good movie, but again it can lead to some philosophical introspection … or just a hour and half or so of solid entertainment. But part of the argument in the movie is that while we have free will to choose our breakfast cereal, we (as a species) don’t deserve or take our free will (and the consequences thereof) seriously enough, so the Adjustment Bureau is there to keep us “on the right path.” You start thinking about fate, destiny, chance and just what the hell does it all mean.
Deep thoughts, people, deep thoughts.
Then again, it could just be entertainment….
Happy New Year’s to all of my dedicated readers….wherever you are (and I guess you haven’t become dedicated readers yet, so this one is for you to find years from now).
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Christmas Movies
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
As I am writing this, I have Die Hard on the tv. This is such a Christmas movie to me – which is strange, in a way, since it is about “terrorists” holding people hostage while they rob the vaults of bearer bonds. It does take place during a Christmas party, but still, terrorists are not exactly traditional Christmas fare.
Another holiday favorite is Love Actually. It does take place at Christmas time, so it does belong on a Christmas movie theme list, but Christmas isn’t the main focus of the movie. The intersecting lives provide the link – not the holiday. (Or maybe I just like Hugh Grant)
Bridget Jones’ Diary – another “Christmas” movie – but I really think that has to do with the scene where he is wearing the reindeer sweater his mother gave him.
Traditional Christmas movies for me are Holiday Inn; White Christmas; Auntie Mame (with Rosalind Russell, not Lucille Ball) and It’s A Wonderful Life. I was never a big fan of Miracle on 34th Street – I think I was 30 before I saw the original movie. For The Hubby, I suspect Christmas would not be Christmas without The Christmas Story. TNT puts it on for a 24 hour block – and we watch it over and over and over.
I just let the dog in – and we are getting snow. I guess Christmas is really on its way.
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Movie Night – Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
We had movie night at our place Friday night. The Hubby and I picked from our On Demand selection. Well, actually, I went online, checked out what was available, made a list of about a dozen movies, and then we picked out of that list. We decided on Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story.
It was great! Very funny. It helps if you have seen the Johnny Cash bio-pic, Walk the Line.
One of my major complaints about some movies is the full frontal nudity of females. It’s everywhere! But, when it comes to guys – nothing. It’s all gender biased! Hey, if your going to show the human body “for story line purposes” it’s not fair to discriminate and only show the ladies. But writers Judd Aptow and Jake Kasdan had the guts to break that Hollywood rule. Yes, there is full frontal nudity … of both genders.
K&E were our only movie night guests. J & S had to get ready for Kevin’s birthday party on Saturday. S said he was waiting for his brother to fix his heater. So, it was a small gathering (especially since The Boy decided to go a friend’s party for the night).
We went on the hay ride portion of the birthday party today. I have to say, it’s been awhile since I’ve been on a hay ride – probably 10 or so years. And this was much more fun – I didn’t spend my time worrying about a four year falling off the wagon.
We stopped in the cow field and had the cows come up and eat the hay from the wagons.
The Hubby had a great time feeding the cows – although he kept complaining about cow tongue.
The next stop was a pumpkin patch for the kids.
While they were picking, one of the farm dogs was playing fetch with one of the small pumpkins. The Hubby had a great time with the black lab (the mom) and the brown lab (the daughter), throwing the pumpkin for them to catch and bring back.
There was a stream, which of course, the labs couldn’t resist. Although, The Hubby seemed to be having a good time as well (even if he got a bit wet!)
After that, we stopped at a picnic spot, munched on chicken and mac & cheese. They were both delicious. Although, it didn’t hurt that all either of us had that day was a piece of banana nut bread! After a bit, we headed back to the wagons and went back to the main gate. A good time was had by all.
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Movie Night update
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Well, our regularly scheduled movie night was a bit of a bust. K&E were off to New Hampshire for the weekend, J&S couldn’t come (J was not feeling well and S had a conflict) and S wasn’t available either.
So I had all these great plans for homemade soup and bread (plus cookies) and no crowd to share it with.
Until…
My friend Sally emailed me Friday morning about the “Kitten of Death” my mom gave her. Apparently, Bolt (sounds like a soap opera hero’s name, right?) is quite the mouser and is keeping up the good family name in that area. So we were emailing back and forth and it ended up that I invited her, her husband and her son over for movie night.
Timing worked out perfect – The Boy had karate in the afternoon, so I was home by 5:30 to start the soup. I’d already made the bread earlier in the afternoon.
The Menu:
Rosemary Bread – made with fresh rosemary from my box garden
Pea, Lentil, Barley soup (Bob’s Red Mill mix – Ocean State $3) with beef
Cinnamon, Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies
The Movie:
Vantage Point
I told everyone this was an experimental dinner and the only thing I could vouch for was the cookies (I made those Thursday night and 1/3 of them were gone before we went to bed that night). Everyone thought the soup was good – but I think The Boy was less than thrilled (but didn’t want to say anything). The Hubby preferred the French bread I made last week over the Rosemary bread, but said it was a personal preference, not a reflection on how the bread turned out. I was hoping it’d would have been a bit better with the olive oil and fresh roasted garlic, but it was just ok – not spectacular like I had hoped.
The movie was pretty good – although I had an idea who the bad guy was when I first saw him onscreen. It used an interesting way to tell the story. It showed about 30 minutes of the story, then stopped, backtracked and showed the same 30 minutes, but this time from someone else’s point of view (hence the title VANTAGE POINT). It would than go through the same 30 minutes, stop, backtrack and then go through it again from someone else’s view. Each time, you would see more of the puzzle, see why some things were important or part of a larger plan. The basic story line was the US President was in Spain for a conference and there is an assassination attempt carried out.
After the movie we turned the TV on and CNN was on. We started talking about Sarah Palin, and the conversation drifted to Saturday Night Live’s skits with Tina Fey. So we cranked up the computer, hooked it up to the tv (The Hubby is great with that kind of stuff!) and watched some clips of Sarah Palin and the SNL skits. Gordon & Sally hadn’t seen the SNL stuff – just heard about it – so they were happy to have seen it in context. Tina Fey is just so dead on with her looks and voice for this character – if McCain/Palin wins, I think Lorne Micheals is going to have to shell out some big bucks to get Tina to come back!
Anyhow… blogging may be VERY light next week. I have a big church fundraiser I am in charge of, and tomorrow starts my busy week before the event. Everybody play nice while I’m away!
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Chicken Parm and French Bread
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
Guess what we had for dinner tonight? Yup, chicken parm and french bread. And guess who made it? Yup, yours truly, amazingly enough.
The Hubby was gone all week – business trip – and was forced to eat restaurant food all week. Dinners here at home were simple: tacos for The Boy all week (he was so happy!) and whatever I felt like for myself. So I felt like I should do some cooking.
Of course, I didn’t get too carried away. I mean, I made the French bread from scratch, sure, but the chicken parm was practically no work at all. I found a great website, A Year of Crockpotting, for the chicken recipe. She said I could use frozen chicken, and that’s what I had. Unfortunately, it was a massive bunch of frozen chicken, so dipping in egg wash and then bread crumbs was less than 100% successful. I did the best I could, and it turned out alright. Some of the chicken was a bit dry, but that could have been from using the “quick” 3 to 4 hour method on high as opposed to the preferred 6 to 8 hours on low.
I turned to Home Ec 101 for the bread recipe. Heather posted a recipe for hoagie rolls, and there was a link for a french bread recipe. So I pulled it up and made 2 loafs – BY HAND – of wonderful, warm, delicious french bread for my honey bunny.
While I was making it, I searched for a recipe for rosemary bread. And I found what looks to be a keeper. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it, but this summer I purchased some herbs and grew them out in a planter on the deck. And one of those herbs was a rosemary plant. I’ve used some of it, but not as much as I thought I would. So this will be a great way to use some of it up.
I was thinking of making soup and bread for our movie night on Friday. It’s our turn to host. So I have to come up with a dinner plan (well, I kind of already decided, now I just have to figure out what kind of soup!) and we have to narrow down a movie choice. It’s hard to decide between something we’ve seen and like or something we haven’t seen. We do have Vantage Point to watch, but we are thinking about some older movies that we like. I guess we will make a final decision about two minutes before we watch!
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My Blue Heaven
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
Well, it wasn’t The Jerk, but it was still Steve Martin. We saw My Blue Heaven for movie night at J&S’s house. It’s a cute movie – we’ve seen it several times and we like it. A couple of people there had never seen it before (maybe they have more of a life than we do!).
A couple people left early and some were late (yes, K – I mean you!). Apparently it was a long week at work and everyone needed to blow off steam – in the form of drinking themselves silly or going home to get some sleep.
Our turn for movie night is up next. It’s so hard to chose – do you pick a favorite? something new? something obscure? Long? Short? Funny? Serious? Sci -fi? The choices are endless.
Anyway, i checked out www.imdb.com for some tidbits on My Blue Heaven. I didn’t realize it was loosely based on Henry Hill’s life while he was in the witness protection program while he waited to testify. Henry Hill, if you don’t know, was the basis for Goodfellas, another one of our favorites.
Before we started watching the movie, The Hubby and I were talking with S about movies in general. We started throwing out movie titles, to compare what we had seen. S mentioned Shoot ‘Em Up and asked if it was like Smokin’ Aces. We had seen Shoot ‘Em Up, but not Smokin’ Aces, so we weren’t sure. Guess what was on cable this afternoon? Yup, Smokin’ Aces. The Hubby missed the first 15 minutes; I missed that, plus other parts near the end (had to take The Boy to a friend’s house). It looks pretty cool – a bunch of crosses and double crosses. I get the feeling you need to watch it several times to really see it all (kind of like Memento or The Ususal Suspects).
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Sleepless Summer Nights
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
When I was a teenager, I was very lucky to have a small 13 inch black and white television set in my room. This is when cable tv first came out (hard to believe that cable hasn’t been around for ever!). But of course, we did not have cable. I was stuck with ABC, NBC, and CBS on the main dial, and various “independent” channels on the UHF channels.
But you would never know what you could catch on those UHF channels. I actually saw music videos – and it wasn’t MTV! And I swear I say Jon Stewart on a comedy show, sitting behind a desk with a female counterpart. Anyway…
It was those summer months… stay up late… sleep in late… that I got exposed to “old” movies. Now they have their very own channel – TCM (Turner Classic Movies). I saw some great movies:
1) Portrait of Dorian Grey
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
3) African Queen
4) all the Bikini Beach movies with Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon
5) The Invisible Man and The Invisible Man Returns
6) Fred Astaire – Funny Face, Top Hat, Holiday Inn, Royal Wedding, Daddy Long Legs
7) ELVIS movies – the cheesier, the better!
8) Arsenic and Old Lace
9) My Favorite Brunette
10) My Three Angels
11) Twelve Angry Men
12) Katharine Hepburn – Stage Door, Bringing Up Baby, Philadelphia Story, Desk Set
13) Father of the Bride and Father’s Little Dividend
14) Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
15) TopperAt Home With Faith › Edit — WordPress
16) Rope
Maybe that’s when I really started to love movies. I loved them just as much as books. I’m sure that some of them were “bombs” when they were released, but 40 years later they were entertaining enough for me! It’s the same now – there are plenty of movies out there – they weren’t blockbusters or career-defining roles for the actors, but it’s a good way to pass an hour or two. I still haven’t seen The Crying Game (released 1992) yet!! (I hear it was kind of good, with a twist!)
So we are starting a Movie Night with some friends from work. We will rotate from house to house, and each host gets to pick the movie(s) we watch. It’ll be fun to see what other people have in their collections and see if they are favorites of mine or new movies I haven’t discovered yet.
8/9 – Editor’s Note: I apparently forgot about Fred McMurray’s Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. I was upstairs this morning, not being productive (a.k.a. surfing the net for new blogs) and I heard his voice coming from the downstairs tv. I listened for a moment and shouted down – “is that Fred McMurray?” After getting an affirmative response, I said – “what movie is it – Flubber?” Reply back: “Absent Minded Professor”. I say to myself – yup, Flubber. Robin Williams might have done it in ’97, but Fred had it down in ’61.
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You know what they say…
Monday, April 7th, 2008
Anna Scott: You know what they say about men with big feet.
William: No, I don’t, actually. What’s that?
Anna Scott: Big feet… large shoes.
Notting Hill – one of the best movies ever!
Hubby’s feet – best Hubby’s feet ever!
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Lost
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
I have never watched Lost. It always looked interesting, but when it first came on, we were already committed to enough tv that we didn’t add it to our regular tv habit. I’ve picked up on things here and there – read some stuff on entertainment websites, but that’s about it.
So, when I was putzing around today, I went to the ABC webpage, and wouldn’t you know – you can watch ALL seasons of Lost in HD Streaming online. I started to watch the pilot episode, but only got through about the first 20 minutes before I had to leave the house. I have to say, J.J. Abrams may have got me hooked again. I loved Alias – I hated to see it go. I can’t wait to see what he is going to do with Star Trek (The Early Years a.k.a. figuring out why Kirk loved his green ladies so much!) And now, Lost. It really grabs your attention.
So I went back to the website tonight to finish the episode and maybe watch some more. But, being 8:30 every kid in the east coast is online I think, so the video is choppy, I can hear dialogue but see not matching video, etc. Damn kids!
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