Cinema

I'm essentially unemployed right now. The economy has effectively totalled my business.

For those who don't know, in August 2007, Dave and I bought a biz for me to run. We borrowed the money from his parents and bought a recruiting biz that can be run from home. It was stellar the first year we had it, I cleared over $40K working in my basement just 3 or 4 hours a day! My only concern with buying this biz (other then owing Dave's parents) was that the previous owner had taken it down to working with one company. The original owner dealt with about 20, she retired, selling the biz to her office manager - that owner took it down to 5 companies and the man that bought from her took it down to one. I didn't like having all the eggs in one basket.

That basket broke.

The company went on a hiring freeze over a year ago and it still shows no signs of thawing. They are shifting people around and promoting from within and my business is bust. I've had several of the hiring managers call me to say, "I'm not looking but if something comes up..." because they want to leave the company. The company changed their comp packages three times last year and none for the better.

I'm so depressed I can't breathe right most days and I keep thinking how we.... no. How I won't be able to EVER pay Dave's parents back. I keep having nightmares (nearly every night) of being lost or late and also of being deployed to Iraq.

During the day, I look for jobs.

Dave's business (he bought a landscaping biz last August) is doing just OK. It's not doing near the numbers the previous owner was doing but again, that's more because of the economy then anything else. People are opting to take care of their own yards and then there's the schmo's who buy a lawnmower and an edger, have no overhead and undercut our price by, like, half. (We've actually had people in both categories come back to us because Dave does a much better job!) Then there's the slave labor....

Another mom of a kid on Trev's baseball team told me that her neighbor hires a Mexican to do her lawn (that's exactly how she put it). This guy cleans up the poo from their three dogs, mows/edges/trims their front yard and their back yard for the princely sum of..... $15. Are you fuckin' kidding me? The other mom disapproved. She, like me, thinks it's cruel to hire slave labor like that. And then we went on to discuss the illegal immigrant situation and we agreed that they wouldn't be here if people like her neighbor didn't hire them. But that's a discussion for another day.

Anyway, back to me - hah! If I don't get a job soon, I'm going to self-destruct. I have panic attacks some days and meltdowns on other days. We decided in June to shut down my business. It costs money, even being run from home - extra phone, website, etc. From June to July, I lost about 12 pounds. Mostly because I pretty much quit eating. I am so stressed that every time I eat, I get super nauseous. It's not as bad now but June was ugly.

I have all this time on my hands and so I've taken to getting an ass-load of movies from the library. Sometimes I even score brand new releases. I'm on the waiting list for those but they hold back a couple of copies to put on the shelves and sometimes I get lucky.

So I'm going to start doing movie reviews here as well as the rest of the snot I write about. There will be spoilers so I'll put the movie titles at the top of the post each time. If you don't want to know, then skip it, right? Also, I have an unexplainable love for dross. I love cheesy movies and old movies and there's not much I won't watch. You've been warned!

This week:
CopOut, The Crazies, Brooklyn's Finest, Bounty Hunter, The Shield (Final Season), Nip/Tuck (Final Season), The Box, My Sister's Keeper, Adventureland, Wolfman, Armoured, Doctor Who
(Normally there won't be this many but this is what I've seen over the last two weeks or so.)

The Crazies:
This not-a-zombie zombie movie was really pretty good! I love zombie movies and my favorite part is how they explain the outbreak. This movie took steps to insure the zombies didn't look like zombies, because like 28 Days Later (besides Shaun of the Dead, one of the best zombie movies ever), these aren't the living dead. They are live people who are infected with something. The explanation The Crazies gave was entirely plausible and that makes the movie all the more frightening! The characters were likeable and real and compassionate. There was very little gore and lots of jump-out-at-you scares. That's how I prefer my horror films. Excessive gore is, well, excessive and rarely necessary.

CopOut:
Sucked. Don't waste your time. This movie was like a really bad buddy-cop movie from the '80's. And I'm not even sure what purpose Sean William Scott's character served. He was in it briefly to set up a scenario - he stole a baseball card Bruce Willis needed. At the end of the movie, they basically kidnap SWS so he can use his cat-burglar skills to break into the gangster's house and get the card back. So SWS is at the top of a tree about to go in a window, he looks at Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan and gives them the thumbs up, then falls out of the tree and dies. WTF? It's a shame as I really like SWS! This movie was beyond stupid and not even very funny.

Brooklyn's Finest:
Excellent movie! Amazing all-star cast and outstanding performances by all. The ending was very Hamlet in that pretty much everyone dies. It sort of reminded me of Crash in that people you thought were good, maybe not so much and people you thought were bad, also, have another side to them.

The Bounty Hunter:
Meh. It was OK. It was entertaining and Gerard Butler takes his shirt off a lot which is always nice! The storyline was predictable and the characters didn't have a lot of depth but it's worth a watch if you want something fluffy and mindless. The only thing that truly annoyed me was at the ending and it's just a petty thing.... There's a gun battle in a police evidence locker and although there's cops downstairs and there's gunfire upstairs, the place wasn't swarming with cops instantly. Also, if you are in a gun battle in a police evidence locker and you happen to find that much-needed extra shotgun in an evidence box (thank you V. Gotti), I'm fairly certain it would not be a loaded weapon. Just sayin...

The Shield (Final Season):
This show has always been sort of a corrupt-cop-with-a-heart-of-gold show. It's very violent and as graphic as basic cable will allow and it's an excellent show. The last season, they made Vic (the show's lead character) and Shane (Vic's right-hand guy) sort of trade places. All along, you kind of root for Vic because he shows glimpses of these small saving graces and all along you hate Shane because he's a total shit. In the last season, Vic becomes this desperate, narcissistic animal who is only out to save his own ass. Shane, equally desperate, keeps trying and trying and failing miserably to pull his butt out of the fire. The difference is that Shane is trying to finally do right by his small family and Vic, though trying to also save his own family, is mostly out to save himself, his reputation, and make some cash. Amazing show the whole way through. The end was sad and harsh and justice was served - keeping in line with the entire series. In the end, Vic gets his just rewards in the form of a living hell for his character. A slow death, chained to a desk, with constant supervision. Perfect!

Nip/Tuck (Final Season):
I've really liked this show so far. I'm not excited about this last season. So far, it's making me just sick of these people and waiting for it to end. So why am I still watching? I hate not knowing the end of a story. So, I'm slogging through this last season but I'm so over it all.

The Box:
This movie was SO much better then I thought it would be! It was excellent! It was imaginative, well-developed, creative, touching, sad, poignant, redeeming, and outstanding. It is based on a short-story by the same man who wrote I Am Legend - Richard Matheson. It was so good, I went to the library and got an audiobook with a collection of his short stories including this one.

My Sister's Keeper:
This movie is one of those ones you rent when you want a good cry. It was well-done and had an excellent cast. I never wanted to read this book because I knew it would destroy me but I figured I could watch the movie and be only marginally wrecked. I was right. I cried through most of it and I highly recommend it.

Adventureland:
This movie was good. It wasn't nearly as funny as the trailers made it seem but it had several funny bits and many touching moments. Totally worth the rental.

Wolfman:
I loved this movie! It was creepy and well done! It held true to the original 50's movies without resorting to campiness or too much cheese. Anthony Hopkins was stellar as always (I'll see anything he's in just to hear him speak!) and Benicio Del Toro was a dream.

Armored:
I have a confession to make. I still have the Matt Dillon Trivia book I bought with my allowance from 1984. I'll watch anything he's in! This movie was OK. It was entertaining and they didn't resort to a too-perfectly-happy ending. Most everyone dies or gets severely injured in this movie. Worth the time of you're killing time.

Doctor Who:
I got this series because I was wondering what all the hype was about. We are completely hooked! The kids would beg to see the next episode and even Dave got into it! I have a huge crush on Christopher Eccelston - such an amazing smile! I'm sad he's only in the one season. We are on hold for the next season, anxiously awaiting.....

Watching all this film, I've been doing a lot of knitting. I have a new camera and as soon as I can get his old computer and the new camera to speak to each other civilly, I'll post some knitting.

Next time I post, I'll announce the winner of the contest. The contest is still open until I post about it.

Swimming as fast as I can, Ruth!

M is for Movies

I watch a LOT of movies. I watch them while I'm making my Stitch Savers. I watch them while I go through the hundreds of resumes I get every day. I watch about a movie a day.

While my husband says I'll watch anything, I don't actually like them all. I will watch anything. I just got Season 3 of MST3K from the library. I discovered this show when I was stationed in Germany. My clinic had a secretary for awhile who was my age and married but her husband was in the field a lot, so she'd come over to my barracks room and we'd hang out. Her family would tape shows for her and mail them (since the shows on AFN in Germany were always a minimum 6 months behind). One day she brought a tape of MST3K over. Laughed ourselves stupid!

Anyway, I've seen several episodes of MST that I have to admit I've actually watched on my own. The full length versions of these horrible, cheesy movies. I love the Chiller channel and it drives my husband nuts. For me, the cheesier, the better!

But lately, I've seen some really great films. I know it's been forever since my last movie review but here goes....

In my last movie review, I mentioned that I was going to watch TransAmerica. I eventually did and it was fantastic. It was funny and touching and sad and I'm glad it didn't have the typical American happy-go-lucky ending. I also (around that time) tried to watch Syriana. I have, maybe 3 movies in my lifetime where I didn't watch the whole thing, no matter how bad. This was one of them. Not because it was a bad movie, more because of actual content. The sound was bad (the background noise/music being 10 times louder then the speaking and I couldn't hear real well), so I had a hard time following the story line. Then the (SPOILER ALERT)


death of that child and the torture of Clooney's character - I couldn't watch it.

OK, more recently....

I watched Volver with Penelope Cruz. Normally not a huge fan of her but this foreign film was outstanding! It's dubbed which made for some difficult knitting but I managed. It's a really great film and I highly recommend it.

The Kingdom - holy shit! What a ride! This is one of the most intense movies I've seen in a long time. It doesn't stop pretty much throughout the entire piece. I have a friend stationed in Saudi Arabia that I worry about and now I worry even more. They have a somewhat Hollywood ending but the last minute of the film (where they are switching back and forth btw the FBI agents and the little Saudi boy) are absolutely blood-chilling.

Mr. Brooks - I thought this movie was going to be really stupid. I only rented it because I wanted to see how Kevin Costner did as a villain. Surprisingly well, I gotta say! And this movie was nothing like I thought it would be. From the previews, it looked like Costner's killer was a serial killer (which he was) being blackmailed by some man (played by Dane Cook and that part's true, also). What I didn't expect was the fact that Costner's character was split and the other side of him was played (quite well and creepily) by William Hurt. Also, Mr. Brooks treats his killing like an addiction and attends 12 step program meetings to try and keep it in check (writing about that makes that part seem dorky but it works in the film). It's a well thought out movie and if it came off a book, I'd love to read it.

Perfect Stranger - not as compelling but still entertaining. I love Giovanni Ribisi!

Fracture - can't get enough of Anthony Hopkins! This one was a little predictable but like he did on Oprah - he could read the phone book and I'd show up.

The Lion in Winter - This is one of my all-time favorites. Katherine Hepburn is my favorite actress and of her early films, Philadelphia Story is my favorite. Of her later stuff - Lion in Winter, hands down. Also one of Anthony Hopkins first films! The only thing I never liked about this film is the fact that when it was over, they never told you who succeeded Henry! I'm guessing, I could easily find out (what with Wikipedia and Google and all) but I'm hoping, if you've read this far, maybe one of y'all knows.

There's tons of other movies and I remember, recently, thinking, 'Man! I've seen a lot of good movies lately!' But my brain is small and I didn't write them down.

Cranium like a sieve, Ruth!

Gender Bender Week

During the week, I watched Orlando. It came out in 1992 and is brilliant! Since it's been around awhile, y'all have probably already seen it. Wow. Sparse dialogue, visually stunning, clever, strange, all at once. It's based on the Virginia Woolf book. It's one of those movies that makes me want to go read the book. (I usually do that the other way around.) It makes me wonder, however, would the book be more confusing then the movie or make the movie more clear? I had that problem with Naked Lunch. Like Orlando, I saw the movie before I knew it was a book. LOVED IT! Went and bought the book. Hated it. Couldn't understand what the hell was going on and then read the intro where it explains how the author was in an opium-induced daze the entire time he was writing the book. It's one of the few books I've ever just given up on.

The story of Orlando is about a man, apparently immortal, who goes through a series of events and then he's a woman (or was she one all along?). It starts in the 1600's (the person playing Queen Elizabeth is a man), somewhere around the late 1700's is when Orlando is a woman and she has a brief thing with a man played by Billy Zane. (God, I'd forgotten how beautiful he is when he's not being weird, creepy, or cruel.) Every now and then the director has Orlando just look into the camera and his/her expression says it all as pertaining to the current situation. Orlando is played by Tilda Swinton. Excellent casting. Her androgynous face, dark red hair, flawless skin and expressive eyes are so captivating. (Most of you may recognize her as the White Witch from the recent Chronicles of Narnia movie.)

Then, last night, I took the boys to a library event. Stage to Page The Emperor's New Clothes. It was a small, 3 person play, based on the classic story but set in the old west. 3 actors (one female, 2 male) played a plethora of charcters both male and female switchin' and dippin' and a good time was played by all. Reminded me of the fact that originally all actors were male and had to play all parts equally well.

Today, I'm planning on watching TransAmerica. This movie, starring Felicity Huffman is about a man, going through gender reassignment, who discovers he/she has a son. I've heard great things about it and am looking forward to watching it. If you click on the IMDB link to the movie and scroll down to the cast list, I find it interesting that the voice coach got first billing!

I'm glad I have you people to share with. I can't talk to Dave about the movies I watch during the day. He busts his ass for 12 hours a day or more and gets a little irritated when I talk about sitting on mine while watching movies. (Understandably so.) It's not like I sit there doing nothing, though. I only watch when the boys are down for a nap. Then while I'm watching, I'm folding laundry, working on patterns for my book or working on mailings for our other business. Plus, he'd never watch half the movies I like. He hates "period pieces" and gender bender things make him uncomfortable. (Not that those are the only types I watch when he's not here, just recently so.)

Sorry, no reward pic's for making it this far today. But! On Monday, a contest announcement....

Off to do more laundry, Ruth!