13 posts tagged “movies”

I haven't blogged in a couple of days and I feel like it's been forever. I'm so used to writing in this thing.

This weekend was fun. I went home for Father's Day.  I got home later on Friday than expected because apparently there were a bunch of events going on here that I was unaware of.  I was stuck in the City traffic for an hour and a half, and it took me an hour and a half longer to get home. My dad got his Father's Day gift early.  My mom and I got my dad some Reno 911! dvds, which he liked a lot. 

My dad got me an early birthday gift and convinced me to open it early (okay, so there wasn't very much convincing on his part).  It is a flatscreen, 19-inch LCD TV!  AND it's 1080p!  My parents still spoil me.  The color is really great on it.  Now I can play my XBox and not have to squint at what's going on.  My parents were making fun of me because they left my gift on my desk, and I was so tired on Friday that I just kind of dropped my bag off in my room without looking around it.  Then my dad came in and as a joke pointed to his small fridge that he stores there during the summer and said, "I got you a fridge!"  I faked a look of joy and happiness (I thought it was a weird gift since I already have a fridge, but I wanted to be grateful), and my parents made fun of my apparently convincing acting skills.  (But I really like my new TV.  I wasn't faking that). 

This weekend I saw the National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Semi-Pro. I liked both but I thought the first National Treasure was much better (and slightly more plausible, if that makes any sense at all), and Semi-Pro doesn't hit classic status like Talladega Nights. Other than that, I just relaxed and did errands, like getting synthetic oil put in my truck.  It took forever, and Pat and I went through the whole Master of Puppets album before we were finished.   The last time I had synthetic oil put into my car was with the first Pearl back in January, and then I got into the wreck three weeks later.  So here's to hoping that this round lasts a LOT longer than the first.

This weekend my family and I were in the HEB parking lot, and this woman literally about ran us over when she was backing up.  Her windows were open, and we were all pretty nice considering what had about happened.  Instead of being contrite for almost, you know, mowing us down with her vehicle, as we were walking away, the woman sarcastically yelled out, "Thanks for your comments, have a nice day!" My dad was laughing and hollered, "We didn't even say anything!" (Patrick later said that he had called her stupid, but I don't remember hearing him say that).  But she kept on talking trash and simultaneously backing up without looking.  My dad turned around and yelled, "You better pay attention to what you're doing, you're about to hit someone."  Sure enough, she was this close to backing into another vehicle.  We all had a pretty good laugh about her.

Work has been keeping me busy.  I like it. 

The run today was good but still quite warm. We did Fartlek intervals, 15 x 200's with a 50-m recovery.  I did the Fartleks at a comfortable pace, and I took water breaks in between.  I could feel my head pounding a little, which means I didn't drink enough water during the day.  It's better to stop and replenish your water and energy instead of trying to look badass and getting sick later. 

Lindy dancing lesson tomorrow.  Yay!

I'm having company this weekend :)  At least I have a working fridge!

My friend Meg officially is on her way to Alaska.  I'm going to miss her, she was a good pal to me.

Changes are in the works.  Look out, world.  

Dear Joaquin Phoenix,

I watched We Own the Night yesterday, and it wasn't a bad movie (I think it was rather unbelievable on some parts but since Patrick always complains that I can't watch a movie without saying something is unrealistic, I will let that quibble pass).  And while I was watching it, I couldn't help wondering, "What happened to you?"

Joaquin Phoenix then

This is what you used to look like.  Back in 2005, when I had a crush on you and listened to the Walk the Line soundtrack more than I would care to admit, you still looked pretty good.  And now you look like:

Joaquin Phoenix now

Dude, you're only 33 (thanks Wikipedia!) but you look so much older.  I know you've had problems in the past with substance abuse issues but take it easy and keep healthy, okay?   Besides, looking 20 years older than you actually are is not sexy.

Sincerely,

Jenny

P.S. I realize how completely vain this entry is, and I apologize; you still are an incredible actor, and I think you deserved the Oscars that Benicio del Toro and Philip Seymour Hoffman completely stole from you.  (Especially Benicio del Toro.  Traffic kind of sucked and all he did was walk around and speak some Spanish).

Already the middle of May.  Seriously, 2008.  Slow the fuck down.

Today one of my friends texted me to say how bored he was at work and how he didn't want to do anything.  Man, I felt the same way.  I had a "case of the Mondays" this morning, but then work picked up this afternoon and I was busy again.  I texted him back on how jealous I was of the stupid college kids and their summer breaks. Enjoy it while you can, assholes.  I have to say that even though vacation time is severely shortened out here in the "real world," I'd much rather have the 8-5 days, guilt-free evenings, and no tests :)

Today I was working on a problem at work, and I figured out how to do it fairly quickly (I'm not trying to be a show-off, because the problem was pretty easy).  But even though I knew I had the right process, I couldn't make intuitive sense of it.  So I doubted myself and spent awhile trying out other solutions.  Nothing.  I put the problem away and went to run an errand at the TCEQ office.  I came back, looked at the problem, and figured out in a minute where I'd wrong: my original math was right, just my justification for it was off.  I was frustrated at how easy the problem actually was, and I how I'd made it so much harder by overthinking it.  Two lessons: I shouldn't doubt myself when I know the math is right, and I should just put the problem away next time and let my subconscious work it out. 

The run today was good.  5 sets of 400/200s.  The 200s kick my ass.  I like running as fast as I can for the first, but it gets harder with each successive one.  The weather was cool, so that was nice, at least.  (Well, the weather was probably around 70 degrees.  Living in Texas for 14 years has warped what my sense of cold weather is.)

This weekend I went home for Mother's Day, of course.  How can I spend Mother's Day without seeing my mama?  I got my mom some lotion from Victoria Beckham's line.  My mom loves Victoria Beckham so it was an ideal gift. (My mom is really bad with remembering names, so sometimes she'll call her "Rebecca Buchman." Hee.)  It was nice to be home, and I had a good time with my family.  My mom always makes me a nice Italian sauce, and my dad will usually make some sort of barbeque dish, and I take the leftovers from that too.  See, I don't even live at home anymore, and I still manage to eat all the food.  Ha!

This weekend I went to see Iron Man with Pat.  The theater was so packed (at 11:45 am on Saturday!) that we had to sit in the 2nd to front row.  (Obadiah Stane's head looked extra huge from that view, let me tell you.)

Iron Man

I really liked this movie.  It had a great plot, really good acting (except for Gwyneth Paltrow's apparent inability to act in front of a green screen, but she was tolerable in other scenes), the sarcastic humor that I like, minimal romance that would otherwise suck the life out of an action flick, and good eye candy for me (seriously, this movie makes you see RDJ in a new light).  I like the character's name too ;)

Um so I have three days to finish my two stories before the writing contest's submission date.  Hey, it's just like college!

Wow, I have written entirely too much for one post.  Time for me to call it a night :)
 

I was looking at an old gas receipt from last week, and already the price of gas has risen 10 cents per gallon since then.  This is the only, only time I wish I drove some death trap of a vehicle, because you want to know how much I spent filling up only half a tank?  Fifty dollars.  For half a tank. Yay for gas-guzzling trucks.  Sigh.

This weekend was fun.  I watched There Will Be Blood.  I liked it, it was really good.  Caveat: if you are expecting an action-packed film, this is certainly not the movie for you.  It unfolds slowly but it has a really good story.  And it certainly wasn't as slow as some of the movies I had to watch for my film class, like The Claim, which was so terribly boring (was that really two years ago already?)  The performances in this movie were really good too.  I can see why Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar.  I think Paul Dano should have gotten at least nominated, because he also did a really good job.  Even the kid actors were talented and weren't hammy and annoying like some kid actors tend to get.

I am so thirsty. I need to get some water.  I went for the run today and forgot my stopwatch :(  It was a short workout, a little over mile that was split into a 500 m sprint and two 200 m sprints.  I felt like I was having an easier time running faster, but who knows, since I didn't have a stopwatch to confirm this. 

So I finally have business cards.  I feel terribly official now.  I put my title as "Graduate Environmental Engineer" which is unnecessarily fancy.  But I didn't want to put "EIT" because even though I passed the FE, I'm still waiting for the dumb certificate to come in and I didn't want anyone to look me up in the database and think I was lying when my name didn't pop up.  So far I have only given my business card to a friend at work, my parents, and my hairdresser, who I've known since I was in high school.  Her name is Rocio and she is adorable.  She is really proud of me and always gives me dating and life advice, and no one does hair like her (not at the good price she charges, at least). Anyway, Rocio was so excited about my business cards that she took several.  I have yet to give my cards to a client. 

I need a new schedule.  It will commence tomorrow. I think.

Ok I really need to get some water and start winding down. 

This weekend was a good one for me to catch up on my errands and chores.  It was nice and relaxing.  Today was deliciously cloudy and cozy.  I went to the gym and got a good run in (albeit on the treadmill...ugh).   I made my mom's ragu'.  I was craving it, I suppose because of the weather. My mother has the best ragu' recipe ever.  It's not loaded with spices like all the American ones.  It didn't quite come out like hers, but it was a start.  I also made chocolate chip cookie pizza, which I have to admit is AWESOME.  I think I'll make a batch to take home with me.  I have no idea how I'll eat this current batch, it's huge. 

I admit I haven't been doing a lot of city exploration in the past month or so, other than when I had to drive somewhere for training or work.  I'm thinking it's time to start again. I've learned that there's no rushing things though.  This place is too big for me to conquer in one weekend.  I finally went to the library this weekend though :)  I realized that I hadn't read a book in nearly two months, which is the longest I've gone without reading a book since I've learned how to (...or maybe first semester of college. I can't remember).  I checked out a bunch of good books.  I'm reading The Glass Castle right now, and it's craaaazy but good.

l watched the first half of Gone With the Wind this evening, since it was so cozy.  It's one of my favorite movies, and I don't think I've ever seen it all the way through (I think I always missed the first ten or fifteen minutes).  I was completely obsessed with it when I was thirteen.  It's kind of funny, I have no idea why.  Maybe thirteen is the perfect age to get swept up in an epic romance. I read the book and everything.  The book is really good but I think the movie is better, just because I love seeing the story on screen.  Plus, the movie is a pretty faithful adaptation, with a few exceptions.  Rhett is more open with his feelings with Scarlett in the movie than in the book.  Plus, in the book Scarlett has two other kids with her first two husbands, and they get annoying after awhile.  Scarlett's character is pretty much the same in both the book and movie.  I don't care how unlikeable she is supposed to be, she is a conniving, bitchy whore and I love her and how fearless she is.  The acting is so good in this movie too, I can't imagine anyone other than Vivien Leigh as Scarlett.  

I'll have to save the second half for tomorrow. It's already 9:45!  I'd better relax before work tomorrow.   

...besides Blockbuster, of course.  Well, I have a DVR and it's so much fun because now I'm able to record a bunch of movies I should have seen a long time ago but haven't.  I now have the following scheduled recordings:

• Casablanca (I've only seen a little bit of it)
• Office Space (so many of my friends reference this movie, and I am left in the dark)
• The Royal Tenenbaums (I hope this movie is not anything like The Life Aquatic, because that's two hours of my life that I can never, ever get back)
• Top Gun (which I think I saw when I was three or four. All I can remember is closing my eyes during the love scene.  Also, I think "Take My Breath Away" is one of the most annoying songs ever.)
• Some Like It Hot
• Animal House
• A Raisin in the Sun
• Gangs of New York
• Cool Hand Luke (one of my dad's favorite movies)
• Love Story (I already know what happens and the whole "love never means having to say you're sorry" sounds terribly cheesy, but I figure I might as well watch it)
• Halloween
• Airplane!
  

So thanks to my DVR, I was finally able to catch Training Day.  It was really good! Almost seven years later, I can finally see why Denzel Washington earned that Oscar.

What was the last good movie you watched?

The last good movie that I've already seen before was A Christmas Story. I love that movie.  The last good movie I've seen for the first time is Walk Hard. I liked it!  I know it has been getting mixed reactions.  If you walk into the movie expecting a high-brow satire, this movie is not for you.  If you enjoy over-the-top satires along the line of Not Another Teen Movie, then you'll really like Walk Hard.  I loved how it poked fun at pop music during each decade-my favorites were Dewey Cox's Bob Dylan and "Pet Sounds" phases.  I've been hearing grumbling that it dares to make fun of Johnny Cash, but it really isn't spoofing Johnny Cash. It's mainly making fun of all the music biopics from the last couple of years (i.e. when Dewey Cox gets upset, he'll just tear sink after sink out of the wall.)

Here are examples of its humor, from my favorite scenes in the movie:

...Waitress!  I watched it while working on my exam, and it is so good.  It was funny and Keri Russell was so adorable in it. I completely teared up at the end, but you did not hear that from me.

I have not seen a Pixar film that I haven't liked (though I've yet to see Ratatouille).  I got excited when I heard that a new Pixar film, Wall-E, is being released next summer. The trailer was released a day early. There's not much to it, but you can see it here.

I saw three movies this weekend (unfortunately, none on my Iconic Movie Ignorance list). 

The Number 23 - This movie was okay. Jim Carrey stars as a man who reads a novel about the number 23 enigma, and becomes both obsessed with the enigma and the fact that he shares many similarities with the mysterious auther, Topsy Kretts.  It had an inconsistent directing style, and the story rather dragged on through the middle of the movie.  The twist at the end was decent, though.  Also, the unrated version is pretty much soft-core porn.

Zodiac - Definitely the best of the three movies that we saw this weekend.  Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who begins his own investigation of the still unsolved Zodiac killings.  Mark Ruffalo portrays the homicide detective, and Robert Downey Jr. is memorable as Paul Avery, the reporter who covered the story. The running time was long (over 2.5 hours), but it was very well-directed. It was fast-paced throughout, and I didn't get bored once.  If you are a fan of true crime, then you will definitely enjoy this movie.  I find these sort of movies creepier than "scary movies," just because the killings really happened.

Premonition - UGH.  Frustrating movie.  Sandra Bullock stars as a woman who wakes up one day to find that her husband has died, and the next day he's still alive.  She goes back and forth throughout the week of his death, trying to piece clues of what is really happening, and whether or not he is really dead. It had a good overall story, but plot inconsistencies and a disappointing, ambiguous ending completely mar what could have been a decent movie.