Movies and Books

On Saturday we finally made it out to see Lincoln. It had been on our to-see list since long before it came out. We loved it, by the way. If Daniel Day Lewis doesn't win all the Academy Awards in every single category for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, then the Academy doesn't know what's what.

Pretty much every time I watch movies I end up thinking I should read. Usually my thoughts run along these lines:

• "Wow, this movie is spectacularly bad. I could be spending this time doing something smart like reading a book."  
• "It's been a long time since I read this. I should read it again."
• "I'm glad I read this book (or re-read this book) right before the movie came out."

I left Lincoln really wanting to read Team of Rivals again. It's such a great book, but it's so long. I don't know if I will read it again, but I'll probably read parts of it, particularly the section about passing the 13th Amendment (which is what the film is about.)

Have any films inspired you to read lately?

Remakes

I am thoroughly enjoying the surge in movie and movie series remakes that we've seen in the last few years. I loved the two new Batman movies and am eagerly awaiting The Dark Knight Rises. I really enjoyed the new Star Trek, even though I was never a huge Star Trek fan to begin with. I also cannot say enough good things about the 2010 adaptation of True Grit. And now I have another film to add to the list of remakes - Rise of The Planet of the Apes.

First off, I have never seen the original Planet of the Apes, but I have learned enough about it through pop culture and people explaining the movie to me, that I understood the basic premise of the new film. I also knew enough about the original to be thoroughly amused with the references to it in the new movie. (There is one part where the lead chimp is playing with a toy Statue of Liberty. Very funny.)

I loved that the whole premise of the movie is based on a researcher trying to find the cure to Alzheimer's disease. It allowed the viewers to be sympathetic to the research and his overall objectives.

I am probably very late on the bandwagon for seeing this one (we just watched it this past week), but we're always behind on movies because we just wait for them to arrive via Netflix. (We have been on a list for ages and ages and ages and ages to receive The Help. I'm actually a little perturbed that Netflix hasn't just purchased more copies for distribution. This is the only bad thing I have to say about Netflix. Maybe I will get a Redbox code and go get The Help from Redbox. It would be my first ever time to get a movie through one of those machines. Seriously.)

Perfect Saturday

On Wednesday, Janssen wrote about how she had a perfect day the previous Saturday. I am not kidding when I tell you that I was planning on writing about the same thing. We also had a perfect day on Saturday. Yet again, I am a much lazier blogger than Janssen (who is not a lazy blogger at all), so even though she wrote about this topic before me, I'm still going to write about it now. Besides, my perfect day was different than hers.

First of all, Ike hasn't been sleeping through the night consistently ever since getting some teeth a couple of weeks ago. I think he's just gotten into some bad night waking habits. Blah. So, he had woken up at a few points in the middle of night, and I'm pretty sure I ended up nursing him at about 5 in the morning. (Um, this is not the part where the day was perfect. Not at all.) After that, he ended up sleeping until 8, and that was awesome. So I got up and nursed him, then I handed him off to Eric so I could go back to sleep. Only, I couldn't sleep. I popped out of bed, went downstairs, and told Eric we ought to go on a hike or some such before heading to his parents' house to watch the BYU game.

So, off we went to drive the Alpine Loop. We thought we might be a little late to get the fall leaves (and truthfully we were a bit late), but it was gorgeous!

Then we headed to Eric's parents to watch an astoundingly boring BYU football game.

After the game, Eric and I decided to go on a little hike. We went to Rock Canyon and walked for a while on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

 

Then we took Ike back to Eric's parents' house so they could watch him while we went on a date. I had received a gift card to The Olive Garden from work, so that was our restaurant of choice. (I like the restaurant well enough, but good heavens, why is it so crowded? If it weren't for the gift card I'd just assume have gone to anything but a chain restaurant, but that's another post for another day.*) Our food was great, and it was nice to eat out since we rarely do that together these days.

Then we sauntered over (read: nearly jogged) to the Movies 8 theater to see Super 8, which we both really enjoyed, especially for only paying $4 for it. (Why is the dollar theater now $2?)

After that we went back to Eric's parents' house, picked up the kid and headed home.

Perfect Saturday.

*A post that will likely never be written.

A Series of Minis

Eric and I love a good mini-series. We've watched many in the last year or so, and all of the ones we've watched have been produced by the BBC under their "Masterpiece" collection. (I'm not sure if that is the right terminology, but what used to be called "Masterpiece Theatre" has been shortened simply to "Masterpiece.")

On to the reviews -

I already told you before that I loved "Emma." I wouldn't mind watching it again some time soon, actually.

Even more than Emma, we both loved "North and South." You may think it's about the American Civil War, but it's not. It's actually about a family from the South of England who moves to the North of England. They go through a fair amount of culture shock after leaving their pastoral home to a very industrial fictional town which was modeled after Manchester. Eric likes to describe it as an Austen novel, only the hero and heroine are arguing over something that actually matters.




I mentioned quite a while ago that we were watching "Little Dorrit" with Grandma L. For the most part, we enjoyed the series, but we felt like it really fizzled at the end. It's based on the Dickens novel, which means there oodles of characters and oodles of subplots. Some of these subplots and extraneous characters were handled well; others were not. The end of the series seemed to come very quickly with basically all of the problems solved in the last 30 minutes. This felt really rushed. With all that said, the father of the main character was fantastic. All three of us just couldn't stop marveling at how well he played his part.

Eric describes "Cranford" as Anne of Green Gables for old ladies. In some ways, I think it is right. There isn't a whole lot of plot to the whole series - it's just about people in a small town. It's about friendship, families, habits, customs and change. I would rank it second in line to "North and South."







"Return to Cranford," or "Cranford Returns" as Eric and I jokingly call it, is not as good at it's predecessor. It's okay, but not great.










"Bleak House" is another miniseries based on a Dickens novel. Again, I haven't read the book, so I cannot comment on its accuracy. We thoroughly enjoyed the series. Some of the characters were delightfully creepy and hideous, just as Dickens would have wanted them to be, I'm sure. The numerous subplots and supporting characters were handled well. However, the direction of this movie was ridiculous. Here you have a story about a never-ending probate case, and the editing and camera angles were done like it was a Bourne movie. It was absurd.

Rating Systems

When it comes to rating systems on things like GoodReads and Netflix, I am strictly by the book. Sometimes I wonder if other people are as well.

That is, when I decide to rate something, I hover over the stars before I select them to see what the website's definition of that number of stars is. (Above are the rating definitions used by GoodReads.) I rarely give any book five stars. Maybe that has to do with the same reasons I don't give out standing ovations. If you just throw out those sorts of compliments willy-nilly, they lose their meaning. When I finish a book and go on GoodReads to rate it, I really do stop to think about whether my like for it was just regular like or really like before I go clicking any stars. I know of one GoodReads friend who told me she was surprised by a rating I gave a book because she did not like that book, but then when she rated that book, she gave it four stars. I found it puzzling.

Netflix uses a five-star system, but their star ratings have different meanings. The options are "Hated it," "Didn't Like it," "Liked it," "Really Liked it," and "Loved it." I tend to really like Netflix ratings because they have a great algorithm for figuring out what other movies I might like. The only problem is coming at agreement with Eric about how we should jointly rate any film since obviously we share a Netflix account. Usually we are right on par with each other, but sometimes we are one star off, and there isn't an option for a half star.

Do you think much about the meanings of rating systems before you use them, or do you just select the star value that is most aesthetically pleasing?

Time-travel and political debates

We've been watching The Civil War, the documentary series produced by Ken Burns several years ago. It is a truly great series. The other night we watched the episode that included Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. One of the interesting things about this speech is that Lincoln was invited in sort of an off-handed way. The folks dedicating the new cemetery realized they probably should extend an invitation to the president, and he knew that he'd be called upon to speak. However, he was not invited as the primary speaker. The chief orator was Edward Everett. His speech lasted a couple of hours. Of course, Lincoln's was only a few minutes, and it was one of the most eloquent and beautiful speeches most of us have ever read.

With all that background, here is my point: Can you imagine listening to somebody speak for over two hours? In the 1860s that was really common. Most politicians gave speeches that lasted that long. Sermons were that long too. Mormons attend a semi-annual conference each year. Each conference includes six two-hour sessions, four of which are directed at the entire church. (Meaning that at any given conference you probably will only attend as many as five sessions.) Don't get me wrong, I love General Conference, but sitting for two hours at a time and listening to speakers is a little tiring, and we're talking about NUMEROUS speakers in each session, plus songs! And I still find myself very ready for each session to end.

It is hard for me to imagine politicians of today, who are trained to speak in soundbites and quippy remarks having a debate with a politician of the 1860s. I mean, really, can you imagine Abraham Lincoln participating in the Republican presidential primaries with Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and John McCain? If anything on earth could make our current politicians look even dumber, I think that would be it. Of course, Americans, as a rule, appreciate the shorter, quippy remarks to the logical, thoughtful political explanations. (Thank you, television.) Not only that, but can you imagine a politician of the 1860s having to respond to debate questions within a 90-second limit?

Now, I'm not advocating a return to lengthy political speeches. I just thought it was interesting how very different our political discussions are now than what they were 150 years ago. The style of political discourse is so vastly different than it once was, that it really is like comparing apples and oranges. But I still do wonder if truly eloquent politicians of ages past are looking down on the Sarah Palins (and others, oh, there are others!) of today and shake their heads in disappointment.

Disappearing Act

A few tidbits to tide you over until I have time to write a real post:

• Work has never been so busy for me. This is what I call job security. No fear of getting laid off for me.
• Eric and I have been watching the BBC series of Little Dorrit. The extra-double-super fun part has been watching it with his Grandma L. We love getting to hang out with her, and we all really like the series.
• My belly has really been protruding in the last few days. My midwife told me that it was likely between my last appointment and my next that I would just pop right out, and that has been true. No pictures. Sorry. We can't find the camera.
• I went to California this past weekend with my old roommate and Eric to attend another old roommate's wedding. It was a great trip. After the wedding the one old roommate headed down to Southern California to visit her family, and Eric and I headed to Northern California to visit my cousin whom I've never met. It was way awesome.
• I usually like to sit down and write three or four blog posts in one go. I was going to do that last night, but my brother distracted me with family history queries. You can blame him if you don't hear anything from me for the next week.
• Eric's family will all be coming into town in the next few days because my little Andrewton is leaving for his mission ONE WEEK FROM TOMORROW.

Perfect

Eric was at work the other day, and one of his clients (who is mentally challenged) told him about some Hannah Montana movie she had seen and how great it was. She told Eric that he and I should go see it together. Eric replied, "Nah, Sherry doesn't really like Hannah Montana."

Then his client said, "Oh, then you should see Eclipse! It's so good!" To which Eric said, "Sherry doesn't really like those movies either."* Then Eric's staff said, "Wow. You have a good wife."

When Eric relayed the story to me, I agreed with the staff and then proceeded to tell Eric all the ways in which I am The Perfect Wife.

He very graciously agreed and then added his two cents that he is The Perfect Husband because he likes BBC mini-series as much as I do, maybe more.

We really are perfect for each other.

*(I read the first two books, was not impressed and didn't bother with the later two. I haven't seen any of the movies, and I'd like to keep it that way.)

Review: Netflix

We are patrons of Netflix. We love it. We are on the plan where we can have two DVDs out at any given time, and we can cycle through an unlimited number of DVDs in a month. This plan is about $15 per month, and to us it is worth it. DVDs comprise almost 100% of our entertainment. We don't spend money to go to movies or concerts or even restaurants very often, so Netflix is a worthwhile expense for us.

I have never rented a movie from redbox or any of its similar competitors. The idea of actually going somewhere to pick up a movie and then having to actually go back to drop the movie off just doesn't appeal to me. I'd much rather have the movies delivered to my mail box and have the shipping already in place for me to mail them right back. I know some people swear by redbox and the free codes, but to me it is just too inconvenient.

Not to mention the fact that redbox only has new releases, and we watch a lot of older movies, foreign films, documentaries and otherwise non-new releases. We perhaps could rely on the library to fulfill this need, but we find the hold lists for the library to be too long for our tastes, and again, the availability just isn't the same. You can get anything from Netflix. Anything. It truly is amazing.

I love that Netflix allows us to rate the movies we've seen (although sometimes it is tricky to agree on how we will rate certain movies) and then recommends others that we might like. We have seen some seriously awesome films this way, particularly foreign films.

I love that if we decide we want a Netflix break, we can put our membership on hold for up to three months. We won't lose any of our preferences or the movies in our queue, and when we're ready to pick it up again, it's very simple. We did this during the winter when we were house-sitting, and to be honest, we've considered doing it again during the summer when the weather is lovely and we should be spending more time outside.

We can also stream movies online, and this doesn't cost extra, nor does it count against our allotment of movies checked out to as at a given time. We don't do this very often, but I've done it now and then with movies that I knew I would want to watch and Eric wouldn't want to. Of course, the quality isn't as good, but I don't mind that. Plus, if I don't like the movie, I won't have wasted precious days to get the DVD in the mail and then send it back. (Of course, we find that if we put a DVD in the mail on Monday, the next DVD in our queue is usually sent on Tuesday and arrives on Wednesday. So the wait time is never horrible anyway.)

A downside of being a Netflix patron is that you feel obligated to watch movies, and if you let your DVDs collect dust, you feel guilty about the money you are spending on them. If you are not really into movies, then Netflix is probably not a good option for you. We love movies. And we tend to like to spend our evenings at home, so it is a good fit for us. It certainly is one of those things in our budget that could be easily cut if we needed to cut back, but for now it is something that we both really enjoy.

Review: Who Killed the Electric Car?

Who Killed the Electic Car? has a very basic premise: GM created an all electric vehicle in the mid-90s that could go about 90 miles per charge, was sleek and cool, had reasonably high demand, and was fairly affordable. Then when everybody's leases ended, GM took the cars back and no longer produced the cars. What was that all about?

Unfortunately, the film is almost 100% conjecture as to why GM would possibly pull out of something that seemed to be going fairly well. It's a whodunnit without an answer. And it's pretty boring, which is too bad because the topic itself is fairly interesting.

I think there were two competing factions within GM - those who wanted to focus on big beastly cars with traditional gas-powered engines, and those who though that electric cars were the future of American automobiles. The folks who didn't want to move toward electric cars didn't do a good job of promoting the vehicles; they were advertised completely differently than traditional cars. These execs refused to sell the cars, and only offered them on lease. These execs were hesitant to acknowledge the growing demand for the vehicles. Ultimately (I believe) it was these guys who won out. When the electric car was finally 100% off the road, GM bought the rights to Hummers.

And don't you find it all a bit ironic that GM had a really great opportunity to market the first all-electric vehicles and they totally blew it? They opted to invest in their massive trucks and SUVs, which is what has ultimately been their demise in the last couple of years. Gas prices have gotten so high, that Americans are thinking more practically in their automobile choices, and GM has gotten a swift kick in the pants.

Not only that, but just as GM was pulling out of their focus on electric vehicles, Toyota and Honda were kicking it into high gear, and they are the companies that have had the most success with their hybrid vehicles, and are faring reasonably well during the economic crisis.

And now that I've told you all about this boring documentary, you don't have to watch it. You should definitely thank me.

Review: Masterpiece Theatre's Emma

We finished watching the 2009 Masterpiece Theatre version of Emma Friday night. I highly recommend it. Put it in your Netflix queue.

To be honest, I'm not one of those girls totally obsessed with Jane Austen and all adaptations of her books. I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice until the summer after my freshman year of college. (In fact, I'd hardly ever even heard of her until my freshman year of college when I met all these Jane-Austen-obsessed girls.) I quite liked Pride and Prejudice. Then, a couple of years ago I read Emma. It took me weeks to get through it. The characters truly were fantastic, but the plot was almost non-existent, which made the book quite a hard slog for me.

But this film adaptation of the book was truly delightful. You will spend four hours in bliss if you decide to watch it. (Eric liked it too!)

Review: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

When I saw the previews for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, I thought it looked pretty dumb, but then it got rave reviews. And frankly, I trust mass amount of critics. This is why I rely so heavily on Rotten Tomatoes. (Also because Eric has turned me into a movie snob.)

We rented this one on Netflix, and we are so glad we finally got to see it. It's based on a kids book (that I've never read) of the same title. The premise is that these people live on an island and eat only sardines day in and day out. Flint Lockwood is an aspiring inventor who has many hilarious failed inventions under his belt. He invents a machine that rains food - good food! No more sardines for their town. And of course, somewhere along the way, things go terribly wrong.

So, the premise is funny enough, but then there are a lot of really hilarious moments throughout the movie, mostly in dialogue, but also in animation. It's one of those movies that is meant for kids but is also really enjoyable to adults, and frankly there are very few movies that are meant for kids that are also actually funny for adults.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs did not get a lot of media attention. Apparently the studio who made it was eager for it to get to DVD, which made a lot of theater operaters angry. Many of these theater operators chose to really limit their showings of Cloudy. Consequently it was short-lived in theaters and poorly publicized throughout. It really is too bad because it was a genuinely stellar animated movie.

Looking forward

Three things that are going to make this week awesome:

1. Daylight Saving Time has begun! No more driving home in the dark! I'm so happy I could cry while I do a happy dance.
2. Karina and I finished HP6 tonight, and we will begin HP7 tomorrow! Woot! I've only read that one once, and I'm so excited to read it again. There are lots of things I've forgotten. This is going to get me so antsy for the movie that comes out this year!
   
3. Another episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" airs on Friday. My colleagues did a lot of the research for these shows (Their names are even in the credits!), and so far I'm really liking them. I especially loved the Emmitt Smith episode from this past Friday. If you haven't gotten a chance to watch it, go check it out.

What are you looking forward to this week?

Review: Alice in Wonderland

We saw the new Alice in Wonderland this weekend. We say, "meh." It got a 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, which we both thought was a pretty accurate score.

Visually it was pretty awesome, and I expected it to be, being a Tim Burton creation.

The story was rather lame though. Rather than re-hash Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass the filmmakers decided to create their own Wonderland story. It was rather lame. Basically, Alice finds herself back in Wonderland and finds out that everyone is waiting for her to fulfill the prophecy which states that she will kill the Jabberwocky. Once she does so, the White Queen will dethrone the Queen of Hearts and all will be happy again in Wonderland.

The thing is, the original stories (and poem, I guess) on which the movie is based are full of whimsy and humor, mixed with philosophical questions. This movie version was not especially funny, nor whimsical, nor thought-provoking. As with most movies based on literature, I'd take the literature any day.

Cult Classic - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

One of my favorite movies is the 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. No, I'm not being facetious, and yes, I know it's kind of weird.

A few weeks ago Eric and I were in line at T.J. Maxx after Eric had selected a new pair of jeans. The line was kind of long, and the T.J. Maxx folks had done a great job of setting out all sorts of treats and trinkets along the queue. I saw the DVD, and I said to Eric, "If that movie is less than $8, I am going to get it." He crossed his fingers that it would cost more. It was only $5, and I was thrilled.

Whenever Steven and I used to catch it on T.V., we'd watch it. I love everything about this movie, sans "Cheer Up, Charlie," the song Charlie's mom sings at the beginning of the movie. I love all the great songs that the Oompa Loompas sing. I even have the soundtrack.

There are so many great things about this movie. Foremost, the humor. Gene Wilder is perfect as the eccentric and brilliant Willy Wonka. In fact, the book on which the movie is based is titled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's my belief that the film version's title was changed because Willy Wonka's part was written so well and performed so superbly by Gene Wilder. There are so many great lines that are difficult to catch unless you are kind of smart, and I always like humor like that because, let's be honest, it plays to my ego.

Second, the sheer whimsy of it. Most of that was written in by Roald Dahl, who has an incredible genius for truly imaginative children's literature. I haven't read the book since I was in about fifth grade, but I do remember that I was purely amused by the characters, the dialogue and the plot.

And the wisdom of the Oompa Loompas. It thrills me to no end, and is best exemplified in these lyrics:

Gum chewing's fine when it's once in a while.
It stops you from smoking and brightens your smile.
But it's revolting, repulsive and wrong,
Chewing and chewing all day long!
The way that a cow does.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is 100% worth seeing. It's at the dollar theater these days. It's done with stop-motion animation, and it is probably the only stop-motion animation film I've ever enjoyed. Unlike most movies that claim to be "fun for the whole family" which really means, "loads of slapstick and potty humor for the kids, while the parents are bored as all get-out," this one really is. Only, this "fun for the whole family" actually leans toward being more fun for the adults than the kids. The dialogue is just hilarious and would go straight over the heads of most children.

The script is by Wes Anderson, who also did The Royal Tenenbaums (which I suggest watching edited). If you liked that movie, you will like this one.

I adore Roald Dahl, and now I really need to read The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Has anyone read it before?

Uncanny Resemblance

Tonight we watched Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, which neither of us had ever seen. To be honest, it didn't do a whole lot for me. I'll take Rear Window or Vertigo any day.

One thing that did amuse me. As soon as I saw this character:

I thought of this one:
Agreed?

"Mountains of Books!"

Sorry for the hiatus. Only, I'm not sorry because family was in town, and it was awesome.

Went to the library tonight. Love that place. Lots. Not so much the building itself, but arriving there with my little post-it note on which is written my little list and leaving with a non-little stack of books. Think of all the new things I'm going to learn and enjoy!

But where to start?

(Gold star to anyone who can name the movie quoted in the title!)

Review: ClearPlay DVD Player

Eric and I bought a ClearPlay DVD player in January.

It's a DVD player that allows you to filter content from any DVD without altering the DVD itself. It works with a USB memory stick (also called a jump drive, thumb drive, flash drive, etc.). You pay for a membership to the website which allows you to download filters, which you put on your memory stick. Then you plug the memory stick into your player, set the filters to your preference levels and enjoy your film without the objectionable content.

You can filter a variety of content including language, violence, nudity, sexuality, blasphemy, and even silly things like mushiness, dishonor parent, and dishonor flag. Seriously. I could never make those up. I don't even know what mushiness is. We have that filter turned off. In addition to choosing what content to filter you can also choose the level of filtering that you want. Maybe a little swearing is okay. Maybe you don't want to hear even the slightest hint of a swear word. You decide.

It's a great idea, really. Only, it just doesn't work very well.

Our player constantly skips, and despite multiple calls to the help line, we frequently get the same results. Usually the movie plays fine up to a certain point, then the skipping begins. At that point we have to eject the disc, press a few buttons, put in a magical code, wait a few moments and then try the DVD again. Usually this works, but sometimes it doesn't. Even when it does work we still end up frustrated that our movie has been interrupted, the lights have been switched on, and our movie-watching environment is shattered.

The help line is only open until about 10 at night, which is fine for people who only use their players to that point. We, however, use our player generally later than that. I wonder how it goes for folks on the East Coast. Do they have to watch their movies before the sun goes down? When I have talked to people on the help line, they have usually been pretty knowledgeable. One time, though, Eric talked to a person who was really a salesperson, and not a tech person. What he should have done was redirected Eric to a technical support fellow. Instead, he gave Eric this gem of advice, "If the player is skipping, try turning some of your filter levels down or off." Excuse me? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the player? I bought the player BECAUSE OF THE ABILITY TO FILTER objectionable content.

One time I called to tell them that the memory stick that came with the player was defective. In fact, I called about the middle of March on that. Today Eric got an email that said our new memory stick is in the mail. Over a month? Seriously?

Also, the phone number printed on the box is incorrect. Two of the digits are inverted. Luckily the website has it right.

In conclusion, I say that ClearPlay is a great idea, but it doesn't pay to be an early adopter. It's still very buggy and is more of an irritation than it is a Godsend.

Puh-lease

Spouse and I started watching Anne of Green Gables last night. I'm finding it utterly adorable. At some point in the evening, this conversation ensued:

Me: Do you love me?
Eric: Of course I do. Why else would I watch so many movies about little girls growing up with you?
Me: "So many" movies? Like what?
Eric: Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, [long pause] The Dark Knight, Wall-E
Me: And Gettysburg, too, I suppose?
Eric: Yeah, and Gettysburg.

Let the record show that it is highly unlikely that Eric will ever catch up to me in hours spent being coerced into watching movies.