Movie Reviews: Back Surgery Recuperation Edition

 

When your post-op instructions are basically mandatory laziness (in other words, laying down the majority of the day, no lifting, bending, twisting & no sitting/standing for longer than 30 minutes at a time), you just know you are going to be watching a lot (a lot!) of movies (and possibly writing a lot on the blog).  Which is exactly what we have done.  Below is a list of movies we have seen since I came home from the hospital, with a few brief comments.

Week 1:

The Lincoln Lawyer: This was good, but due to the pain medication and my inborn inattentiveness, I missed some parts that were pretty crucial.  I got the main story line, though, which was really interesting, and under other circumstances this movie would definitely have held my attention.

Limitless: Loved it. Easy to watch – easy on the eyes and easy on the mind. Ha! I usually like movies that have a woman as a main character (this one really doesn’t), but it still held my interest. Brent and I both like Bradley Cooper & think this movie is one of his best.  It kept us interested and left us guessing up until the end. Really smart movie and actually so good that when the disc tore up in the last scene (darn Redbox…happens constantly), Brent went back to the Redbox at Winn Dixie and got another copy so we could finish it.

The Rite: This is a good movie about an exorcist in training (based on actual events) with Anthony Hopkins.  Creepy but enjoyable.  I honestly don’t remember that much. Thanks, Tylox.

Something Borrowed: Cute, entertaining movie.  I like Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, & John Krazinski – although Kate Hudson & “Jim” are is always playing the same basic character. Anyway, the only thing I didn’t really like about this movie is who the main character ends up with, which is sort of the main story line. I saw it going in a different direction entirely. Also, at the end it gets a little too crazy/unbelievable.

Ghost of Girlfriends Past: This one is about a guy who dates & sleeps around constantly and refuses to get into a serious relationship. I liked it okay considering the circumstances (captive audience, ha!), but actually I got to the last scene and realized that I had watched the end of it before and had thought “Well, that wasn’t that good; I’ll probably never watch the whole thing.” Ha!  It was silly & easy to watch though.  I always like Jennifer Garner.

The Caller:  I watched this movie by myself (4 times, no big deal) and have to say that it is the best scary movie that I have seen in a long time. I love ghost stories and I usually even like ghost stories that get bad reviews (The Skeleton Key was one of my favorites). The first time I watched it, I actually didn’t think it was that great and thought there were tons of holes in the plot. Then I watched it three more times and realized that I just didn’t understand it, because I picked up some really important things each time I watched it.  The fourth time, I finally understood it and it made sense to me and it was really good and really scary (although there is some bad acting at times). It got terrible reviews, and I think this is why….it is just hard to get the first time.  But it has some super creepy, ominous, nightmare-ish scenes, and really, any movie that can make an old woman scary is truly a horror movie.  I loved it! 

The Company Men:  Good movie about three men who lost their jobs during the government bail-out period.  Really good, actually, although Ben Affleck’s character was totally obnoxious (Are people really like that?!).  I’m not sure if people really live that far beyond their means (living like millionaires on only $160k per year), but this movie is good at showing how disastrous a job loss is when a family is in that situation.

The Conspirator: This is a movie about the trial of Mary Surratt, the lone woman who was tried as a conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  I had never heard this story before and it was truly fascinating, although wikipedia tells me that the true story went a little different from this movie.  Regardless, I loved it! Basically I love anything historical.  It really made me think about how lucky we are to have the law and to have the right to a trial prior to being convicted.  It also made me reconsider my beliefs/feelings about public defenders in a more favorable light.

Ghost Town:  We saw the description for this movie on redbox.com and couldn’t believe we had never seen it….Ricky Gervais is probably our favorite male comedian & Kristen Wiig is probably our favorite female comedian…plus Tea Leoni & Greg Kinnear….how could we have missed this one?! Well, actually, we didn’t. Ten minutes into the movie we realized that we had watched it before. It was still funny the second time around.

All Good Things:  This is a dark movie based on actual events about a real family who owns lots of real estate in New York. Apparently one of the sons, who was possibly mentally ill & watched his mother commit suicide, has been suspected of several murders, including his young wife, Katie. Her body has actually never been found & he has never confessed to killing her. The wife (played by Kirsten Dunst) is the main character in this movie and is so easy to love….she was a young, beautiful, sweet, happy, pre-med student from an average, middle class family. This happened in the 80’s and her case has never been solved, although the movie would lead you to believe that it was definitely the husband. So sad.

The Dilemma: This movie is about a guy who sees his best friend’s wife cheating on him & doesn’t know whether or not to tell him. Love Vince Vaughn!  At the beginning, I think we were both thinking “of course he should tell!” but as the story unfolds, the dilemma becomes bigger & bigger & more & more understandable. Also, Winona Ryder is so good at playing a character that you love to hate.

Hall Pass: I hated the idea of this movie (men given a one-week “break” from marriage to do whatever they want), but it turns out pretty good, actually.  There are some crass scenes, but overall, the concept is not as bad as I originally thought and I like the ending.  It is overall marriage-affirming, which I appreciate.  At the beginning, the husbands are really annoying, pathetic, immature guys who think they are missing out on so much by being married. I hate when married men are depicted that way in the movies, but they make up for it in the end. I’m so glad that: #1 I’m not dating anymore & #2: Brent never acts like that!

Movie Marathon

August came in with a heat wave.  It hit 106 (!) on the heat index today and right now, at 7 p.m, the heat index is still at 102.  So, what do we do on a day like this?  Go to the only place in town that keeps temps in the icebox range….the movies!  At the Cobb Theater in Tuscaloosa, you always need a jacket.  Always.  Today was no exception!

We couldn’t decide which movie we wanted to see: Dinner For Schmucks or Salt.  So……we saw them both!  Back-to-back.  Normally I HATE spending money on the movies, but we did get the tickets for the matinee price, and they were both movies that we really wanted to see.

Dinner For Schmucks was first, and it was funny.  A little bizarre and unexpectedly sentimental at times, but pretty good.  Not a movie I would own or anything, or even watch again, but we loved watching several of our favorite comedy actors (Steve Carrell, Paul Rudd, Ron Livingston &  Zach Galifianakis) in the same movie.

Salt was good, also.  Angelina Jolie is always good. This movie really keeps you guessing right up to the very end, and I’m thinking based on the ending that there will be a Salt 2.  The music in this movie was also really good.

More pictures from the weekend:

Saturday sunset over Tuscaloosa:  

I saw this book on the clearance rack at Tuesday Morning.  Woo hoo!  Already I have learned several things.  Looking forward to trying a few new recipes/meals.

Bad story about the cherries: First of all, I LOVE cherries and bought some last month and so enjoyed eating them.  But they are expensive and very awkward to eat because I think that, in general, you should not take things out of your mouth in front of people (like the cherry pits). But you get cherry juice all over your hands if you try to pit them with your fingers. So I started thinking about how some one should invent an apparatus that pits cherries – kind of like an apple corer.  And apparently, one such device already exists, and they sell them at Treasure Hunt, a new discount store in town. [Please note that I did not pay $14.99 for it, like the price sticker says – everything is a certain percentage off the price sticker.]  So, I was so excited about the cherry pitter that when I saw cherries today “on sale” at Winn Dixie for $2.99, I just snatched up a bag without thinking – it was the last bag!  It wasn’t until after I was in the car that I bothered to look at the receipt and realized that I had paid $9.58 for the cherries, because they were $2.99 PER POUND, not for an entire bag.  ALMOST $10 FOR CHERRIES.  I was sick; just sick. But I did test the cherry pitter and it works perfectly!

Now we’re sitting in the living room, enjoying the last few hours of the weekend, carrying our fan around to keep cool.  I know I said that summer was my favorite time of the year, but I am really, really looking forward to the fall and cooler weather!

Downfall

Honestly?  Not a great day.

I did get to sleep until 8 a.m., which was great.  Brent left on his 109-mile bike ride before I even got up, and he was gone most of the day.  Somehow I missed that this was going to be a longer ride.

I ran some errands, went shopping, and picked up some things for the raclette party tonight.  On the way home I drove through a BBQ place in town and got a sandwich + fries.

Here’s where I went wrong.  After eating this benign-looking lunch, I got SICK.  Really sick. The kind of sick where you just have to lay still – I had the chills and everything. Oh goodness – I cannot even think about it.  I do believe this meal may have killed my appetite for BBQ forever.

So, needless to say, I did not go to the raclette party.  The thought of cheese + sausage + wine was too much for me.  However, Brent went, and I hung out here with the pugs all night.

Movie Review: Food, Inc.

Tonight I was bored, so I watched the documentary Food, Inc.  [And no, the irony is not lost on me.] It was very interesting.  Several parts of it made me angry.  I hate to draw conclusions about things from only one side of the story, but the images of the chicken farms and slaughterhouses were compelling and disturbing.  I agree with the comment made in the film that there is a veil between consumers and where our food comes from.

The film was good, but I am just naturally skeptical about documentaries.  Obviously they are biased in a major way – some one has an opinion/passion and wants to get others on board. With that said, some things are just common sense.  Raising chickens that are never exposed to sunlight kind of sells the point, no bias necessary.  As does the image of  live chicks on a conveyer belt in a factory. What??!!!  And these are the more tame images in the film.

Obviously one 90-minute documentary cannot even begin to scratch the surface of this massive issue. This is not just about nutrition, but about politics, ethics, and even the environment. 

This film is not going to make me become a vegan or vegetarian. I definitely don’t think there is anything ethically wrong with eating meat.  However, it is disturbing that the animals and farm workers (something I never realized) are abused in the process.  It is horrifying.  Obviously, human life is far superior to animal life and I do not think that it is cruel or wrong to raise + slaughter an animal for food.  However, I worry about the acceptance of inhumane treatment of animals because of what it might possibly lead to for humans.  What happens when we as a society are desensitized to it?

What really impressed me the most, though, was the realization of how little thought I put in to my food on a daily basis.  I know that meat comes from slaughtered animals, but I don’t really like to think about it. I usually shop for price without thinking about the business behind my food.  However, there would be no product without consumer demand.  Therefore, when I buy meat from these companies, I am basically saying that their business practices are okay with me.  I find it interesting that I will eat meat as long as some one else processes it, but if I had to process it or even be close to the processing – no way!

What we feed ourselves is so important; it is crucial to our health. Really, we are what we eat.  Why, then, would I buy food based only on the price?  I don’t buy only the cheapest clothing or furniture.  Like it mentioned in the film – no one shops for the cheapest car.  Why in the world would I not put more thought behind the things I put into my body?

After checking out some of the resources on the Food, Inc. website, I am going to start making more of an effort to improve my dietary decision-making process.  I’m not saying that I’m going to make drastic dietary changes, but I sincerely desire to at least be more mindful about my food choices and become more educated on food politics.

Ultimately, this documentary is definitely interesting.  Hopefully information of this nature will become more widespread and consumers will realize the power of the choices they make at the grocery store.