Doubt

Wow wow wow! Theresa and I went to see this last night at the Bagdad, neither of us knowing much about it. I was just blown away by the quality of the writing and the acting. Meryl Streep especially was just incredible, and I already have very high standards for her. Philip Seymour Hoffman impressed me as well. This is the first role I have seen him in that wasn't just a big schlubby jerk, so it was nice to see that he has a little range.


The only complaint I have about the movie was that it ended a little abruptly for me. Some of that I'm sure is that I was enjoying it so much I didn't want it to be over. Really good stuff.

In America

This was just a beautiful movie. I know you've probably all seen it already by now but I got it from netflix a week ago and it has been sitting on my nightstand waiting for the perfect moment to be watched and tonight was it. I really expected it to be much more blunt with the themes of a young family struggling to make their life work in New York but it was about so much more than that. I cried at the end. A lot.

The Decemberists - Picaresque

Okay, so Corrina does the merchandising for The Decemberists and knows all the gossip and apparently there is some drama behind the scenes, but you know, I still absolutely love them. They have a unique sound and a fairly skewed, dark viewpoint, and listening to their albums just makes me happy. Here are a few songs to try. As usual, if prompted for a username and password, use cpadian and 020276:

The Sporting Life

16 Military Wives

The Mariner's Revenge Song

Bee Movie

Theresa and I watched this the other night and let me just say, it was appalling. The main characters were annoying, the script didn't bother to use logic of any kind, the big plot device was ridiculous, Jerry Seinfeld was incredibly annoying, and when it was all over I totally wanted my money back. Wondering 'who wrote this piece of crap?' at the end, I watched the credits. It turns out, there were four separate (credited) writers. Not a good sign, fellas. Can you see the tag line in the photo over there? "Honey just got funny"? No, no it really didn't. My advice? Skip it.

Premonition

I just finished watching Premonition, the one with Sandra Bullock where her husband dies and she wakes up the next day and he isn't dead and etc etc. My spontaneous utterance at the end of the movie was "oh my god....what a bunch of preachy crappy garbage!"

Needless to say, I don't recommend.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Oh boy. Hard to know where to begin with this one. The biggest issues were the glaring inconsistencies in logic. I know it's a kids movie, I know children aren't supposed to have the best judgment, but the errors they made just seemed ridiculous. The basic premise (beware of spoilers ahead) is that there is this book that contains all of the secrets to finding magical creatures in the world and the book is inside this old house that this mom and her three kids moves into and one of her sons finds it. The whole point is to keep the book safe from some scary ogre guy because if he had all the secrets then he would destroy the world. So the boy figures out that the house is protected by some magic something or other and the book is safe inside the house. He sees his brother get dragged away into the forest by goblins and so he goes after them, but instead of leaving the book in the magical safety of the house, he takes it with him!! I could understand this if he was going to use the book to figure out how to help his brother or something, but he doesn't open it one time! Then he finally gets his brother back safely to the house and they decide they have to go into town to find the crazy daughter of the guy who wrote the book and ask her for help, and he takes the freaking book with him again!! For NO REASON.

There was more of this kind of nonsensical BS, but it all adds up to lazy writing. It made the whole suspense of the movie kind of fall apart for me because I was so irritated. The 'feelings' part of the plot was one of the sons waiting for his father to come pick him up (the parents were recently divorced) and then of course his father doesn't show up because, surprise! He doesn't really want his son to live with him. Haven't we seen this particular drama play out about a thousand times already? Now I haven't read any of the books so I don't know if they were just stupid or very poorly adapted. Either way, I'm annoyed. From the drippy dialogue to the unbelievable plot lines, this had to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Don't waste your time.

John Legend - Once Again

I came across this album on Napster as a recommendation for people who like James Morrison. Anyway, I threw it on my MP3 player with some other stuff and put it on random and John's songs just kind of stood out. Every time I was really digging a song I would look at my MP3 player and it would be one from this album! He has a very nice mellow style.

Here's a link to a 30 second preview of one of my favorite songs of his: PDA (We Just Don't Care).

If it makes you log in, use the following: username: cpadian password: 020276

Zodiac

I enjoyed Zodiac a lot. I tend to be partial to serial killer movies anyway (not sure what that says about me, but I don't think it's good), but this one in particular was paced really well. There were sequences where I was actually on-the-edge-of-my-seat scared, and that doesn't happen to me very often. Plus, it's chock full of Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Jake Gyllenhaal...how could that be bad??

Pan's Labyrinth

I just finished watching Pan's Labyrinth on Netflix On Demand. The thing that surprised me the most about it was how bloody it was and how disturbing some of the scenes turned out to be. I expected it to be much more lighthearted than it was, and while technically I suppose it had a happy ending, it was still a little bleak for my taste. Given all that, I'd have to say I can't quite recommend it. Most of you have already seen it anyway, so I don't suppose it matters too much what I thought :)