Category Archives: Movies

04/22/12

{365.113} I Fangirl Over Queen Victoria

I feel like I was fairly productive today. I mean, more so than I normally am on the weekends. Very early in the morning I headed out to Target to see if I could grab any of the $6 shirts they had on sale, but of course ALL of the ones I wanted were sold out in my size. I know, I know — #firstworldproblems. I ended up with random grocery items and some popcorn instead. The popcorn made up for missing out on the $6 shirts, at least. Went home directly afterward because it was SO HOT OUTSIDE and it just made it generally unappealing to be running errands. I ate some of my popcorn, struggled through a book I’ve been trying to finish for a while, and then put it down when it became too ridiculous for me to bear. Believe it or not, writing and then formatting my lesson plans was 10 billion times more riveting than this book. Also, it was getting to be severely farfetched. I think I may have decided to give up on it entirely, which is rare for me because I’ve been known to keep reading even the most terrible books out of a sense of obligation.

The highlight of my day was definitely watching The Young Victoria at last — I’ve been wanting to see this for a very long time, and since I’m a history buff (as well as a British royalty enthusiast), it was long overdue. Loved, loved, LOVED this movie. It wasn’t even halfway over yet and I was texting David that I absolutely needed to have it.

Five minutes later I get a text back asking if Blu-Ray is okay or if I’d rather have the regular DVD… yes, duh, my husband is awesome. AWESOME, I SAY.

It’s coming from Amazon on Wednesday and I already want to watch it again T-T Just a beautifully made, beautifully acted film. Emily Blunt was incredible, just so completely suited to the role and everything that entailed. I mean, it can’t have been easy to take on the role of one of history’s most iconic women. She totally nailed every second of it. However, my heart was just totally stolen by Rupert Friend as Prince Albert; he was perfect. PERFECT. And together, they were SUBLIME. This was definitely not your standard period film, and the humor was a wonderful surprise. All of the characters felt real and relevant, not distant or two-dimensional in any way.

I haven’t spent as much time reading about Victoria and Albert as I have with other British Royals… I knew that she had a terrible relationship with her mother and that her marriage to Albert was arranged, and I also knew that his death pretty much plunged her into deep mourning that lasted until the end of her life. In fact, it’s Albert’s death that Victoria’s reign is often defined by, rather than their love story, which btw was not mushy or over the top in any way. The film is refreshing because it doesn’t focus on his death and the aftermath, but rather on the story of Victoria and Albert, who unexpectedly fell in love despite the fact that their marriage was supposed to be a political alliance.

I could go on and on about how much I love this movie — the acting, the costumes, the script, EVERYTHING — but I will stop now and then watch it again on Wednesday hahaha. Also, now I reeeallllyyyy feel like watching Downton Abbey…

I’m still off tomorrow so I plan to stop by the library again (I practically live there) to trade in more books and *maybe* bring the laptop with me to do some writing there. Since I can’t seem to get myself to get any writing done here at the apartment lately, I always end up finding other things to do. I still have two more lesson plans to finish for the month of May and then I’m good to go in that department and will just need to get a list of supplies together so I can buy them hopefully all at once and not have to go running to the store every week for them. But anyway, I’m hoping to at least get this chapter wrapped up tomorrow that I’ve been chipping away at for upwards of a week and a half now — shameful. If only I finished writing chapters as quickly as I finish writing lesson plans, I’d have this entire series churned out by now T-T

Anyway, it’s getting late so off I go. Let’s see if I dream that my debit card has expired again… I’ve actually dreamed this for three nights in a row now, and it makes no sense whatsoever because my debit card isn’t in any actual danger of expiring. I mean, it doesn’t even expire until July 2014. So I have noooo idea why I keep dreaming about it… haha.

03/10/12

{365.70} I Learn the Perils of Excessive Studying

Yikes, running super late today! But it was definitely a nice Saturday — weather was lovely, and I spent a few hours on the balcony being all outdoorsy. (Not really, but that’s the closest you will ever get to me being outdoorsy in any way.)

We were watching another crazy Asian horror movie and it was sooooo slow. I think that the pacing was supposed to be part of the film, but man… at one point David was playing on his tablet and only occasionally looking up to read subtitles, and yet still could keep up. LOL.

It was about an all-girls college prep academy where unfortunate scholars were sent if they failed their entrance exams. For an entire nightmarish school year, everyone wore a uniform (it looked like a gray track suit and was worn pretty much 24 hours a day), took like 10 classes a day, spent hours in regimental study hall, and crammed for lessons even while standing in line for lunch. If you wanted to get up and use the restroom during study hall, you had to have your hands slapped three times with a pointer. Heaven forbid you should have bodily functions while studying! Not to mention the existence of a solitary confinement chamber (!) with a sturdy padlock on the door… one student failed to wake up on time for roll call (it was very concentration camp at this place) and was dragged out of bed, doused with water repeatedly, then dumped into her first class of the day weeping and soaked. When she continued to freak out, she was tranquilized (I was like… why does that woman have a syringe…??! OHHH…) and subsequently dragged to solitary confinement. Which happened to be where all the ghostly ex-students were, dripping blood and being creepy. Oh! And don’t get me started on Happy the illegal hamster! I still don’t get how one girl managed to smuggle her HAMSTER in his CAGE into the academy, when everyone got their belongings searched on Day 1 for any contraband material. Long story short, Happy’s fate was not so happy. By the end of the movie, everyone had pretty much become utterly depraved.

So yeah, the school was scary enough without adding random bloody corpses here and there. Oh, Asia.

In other news, I so totally knocked out just over 1800 words today. Basically, I chained myself to the adirondack chair on the balcony and committed to writing at least 4 pages. I made it to page 5 before we had to leave and run some errands, so I feel fairly victorious. If it wasn’t already so late, I would keep going, but I don’t think I’d be very coherent. Of course, I do the majority of my writing between the hours of midnight and 3am, so really you could question my coherence in general… haha.

02/5/12

{365.36} I Enjoy Blizzard Wedding Remembrance Day

Let’s begin this anniversary post with an open letter to the state of Nevada:

Dear State of Nevada,

What is your problem? How can it be that you have no Cracker Barrel locations here???? I mean, our relationship was already beginning to sour when you turned out to be IKEA-less. I just don’t know how much more I can take at this point. I’ll have you know that I lived in a backwoods quasi-city called Wichita Falls for almost five years, and even THEY had a damn Cracker Barrel. Sure, there was only one Starbucks, the Target wasn’t Super, and I had to drive two hours for a Jamba Juice. BUT THEY HAD CRACKER BARREL. Now, on this happy day when we were supposed to go out for dinner & a movie as our anniversary date, we were forced instead to see a movie MINUS dinner because we couldn’t think of anywhere else we wanted to eat. Or anywhere that we would be able to still afford, considering how stupidly expensive it is just to see a movie and have some freaking popcorn. Also, we were nursing broken hearts because THERE IS NO CRACKER BARREL HERE. I realize that I sound crazed, strangely Southern, and mentally imbalanced right now, but I maintain that it is unfair for you to have a massive selection of restaurants and yet neglect Cracker Barrel. Two words: WHAT GIVES??? I don’t know that this is a forgivable offense, so please do not speak to me for the remainder of our time stationed here.

Disappointedly,
Paola

With that out of the way, we had a great anniversary~ We went to go see The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe, which we both really liked. It was super creepy and full of peeling Victorian wallpaper, creepy wind-up toys, a demented rocking chair, and D. Rad’s intense sideburns. Yes, I am addressing Daniel Radcliffe as D. Rad from now on. Maybe it will help me differentiate his future film roles from his ever-present association with Harry Potter. Seriously, 75% of the movie, I was like… oh come on now, Harry, shouldn’t you be out looking for Voldemort…? But all joking aside, it was definitely a fantastic horror movie. And we watch a lot of those, so we know what we’re talking about here. It was incredibly eerie, similar to Nicole Kidman’s The Others. We strategically went for a showtime that coincided with when everyone would (theoretically) be watching the Super Bowl instead of going to the movies. This worked, for the most part, except that of course there was the inevitable group of giggling teenagers sitting in the very top row who were whispering, muttering, and laughing through the whole movie. Oh, and here’s something else that I find annoying about going to the movies: as we were walking in, there was a man with two small girls going into the same movie we were. THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE. IT IS NOT FOR LITTLE CHILDREN. Ugh! I just hate when parents bring their very young kids to movies that aren’t appropriate for them!

Can you tell why we hardly ever go to the movies anymore??

Anyway, we had a fun anniversary, and I particularly enjoyed the warm, sunny, happy, SNOW-FREE weather. Even if Nevada is home to such travesties as no Cracker Barrel and no Ikea, at least it doesn’t have freakish winter weather like North Texas does. That, I will never miss. Snow is a hateful substance that is only slightly better than ice. Oh sure, you think it’s all exciting and awesome the first time you experience it. But then you realize that it’s actually super, unbelievably lame having to get up twenty minutes earlier than usual to allow yourself time to scrape ice off your windshield and also to drive slower because the roads are slick. And then you end up having a winter wedding during a freak storm that shuts down airports and leaves you standing at the window weeping hysterically that you aren’t going to have a wedding because some idiot had the bright idea to make winter one of the four seasons. These are the memories that make me appreciate living in this desert, even though you can’t even go to the movies without first walking through a casino full of secondhand smoke. I just think to myself: at least there isn’t a blizzard going on outside. (Also I like to comfort myself with the reminder that I will never, ever have to repeat my wedding day ever again. Ever. There will only be one wedding for me. The first one almost sent me completely off the deep end.)

By the way, we filed our tax return on Thursday afternoon. Contemplating using our refund to buy a proper-sized couch and finally let our battered hand-me-down loveseat go to its final resting place.

01/21/12

{Project 365.21} I Hoard Disney Swag

So! 2 weeks ago I decided to spent some of my precious Disney Movie Rewards club points on one of their limited edition gift boxes. I had no idea they were even doing this, so I ended up missing the first two :( Luckily, they had three in the rewards list to choose from. I would’ve gotten the one for Tangled, but to be honest it didn’t look anything like Rapunzel and Flynn at ALL. The only real indicator that it was supposed to be Tangled-related was Rapunzel’s iconic hair. The guy she was dancing with could’ve been ANYBODY… haha. The Beauty & the Beast box, however, was a lot nicer. In fact, it’s perfect, as far as Beauty & the Beast goes. My box came today and I’m pretty happy with it. I wish it didn’t have lame glossy varnish all over, but it’s a lot bigger than I figured it would be and overall looks very nice. It’s even nicer because it was free~ I buy a lot of Disney movies, and I enter the codes inside every DVD or Blu-Ray into the Disney Movie Rewards website so they’ll be credited to my account. (Membership is totally free~) I had a lot of points anyway so I figured I could drop 900 of them on this box. It can maybe sit next to my Little Mermaid music box that I salvaged from the thrift store in high school for 99 cents. *Happy Disney Mood*

Okay, I admit, I’m also a member of the Disney Movie Club. WHATEVER LOL.

Sorry for such short entries yesterday and today! It’s the weekend, David’s home, and we’re about to go watch a horror movie. We LOVE horror movies. I can’t explain why, we just do. We will watch horror movies in any language. By horror movies, I mean actual horror movies, not slasher flicks. Those are just dumb. Where’s the thrill in watching people die excruciating, bloody deaths? Except maybe predicting who’s going to die next. We primarily enjoy B.A.H.M.s (Bad Asian Horror Movies). Our verdict is that Korea makes the best ones, hahaha. As in, they make horror movies that are actually good, but the bad ones are so hysterically bad that we like them too. We highly recommend A Tale of Two Sisters for those who want to begin their journey into the awesomeness that is Korean horror films. But if you’re not a fan of subtitles, a remake was released in the US as The Uninvited. (We watched them both — Korea still wins) This is sad (or bizarre), but we’re probably going to spend our upcoming anniversary watching The Woman In Black (starring Daniel Radcliffe and a bunch of creepy children) because it comes out on February 4th. Tonight’s offering is Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Heard the beginning is really good but the latter half is kind of lame… oh well, the thing I love about horror movies is that they’re fun even when they’re terrible~

…How did I start with my Beauty and the Beast gift box and end with horror movies…? Hahaha

11/30/11

Books vs Movies (Or, LEAVE MY BOOK ALONE!)

A few nights ago, I finally got myself to log in to our Netflix account and watch a movie that’s been sitting in the queue for upwards of a year or so. Why the hesitation? Because it happened to be a movie based on a book I love so much that I’ve re-read it countless times. This book, which is Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher (I reviewed it here on my old book review blog), is one that an old friend gave to me for Christmas one year. Her letter, in her familiar handwriting, is still tucked in between the pages where I first found it upon opening my present. It serves as my bookmark, and my connection with her, even though she moved to Pennsylvania and we hardly get to talk to each other now. She gave me the book because she’s loved it since time immemorial, has gone through several copies, and wanted me to have the same special treasure. Thus, while I am generally wary of watching movie adaptations of books, I was even more terrified to watch this one. I mean, what if they completely ruined it?? But then, this is the conflict I have with every book that’s adapted for film.

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11/3/11

Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 3

It’s 1988, and a little girl named Katie is having a birthday party. As she blows out the candles on her cake, squeezed between her sister and her friends on a bench, her life still seems happy and normal. She has a young and smiling mother, a cute little sister named Kristi, a grandmother who fondly recalls the first time she held her. Behind the lens of the video camera that tapes this happy occasion is her mother’s boyfriend Dennis, who is the closest thing she has to a father. Katie is surrounded by people who love her. Little does she know that there is another presence here, one that will hunt both sisters for the rest of their lives. Eighteen years later, Katie’s haunted face will appear in another camera lens, stalked by an invisible menace that never left her.

Paranormal Activity 3 takes us back to the very beginning, when sisters Katie and Kristi are still children living in Carlsbad, CA. Life is fairly normal, until Kristi starts talking to a new imaginary friend called Toby, and strange things start happening in their once peaceful house. At first, it’s just odd noises in rooms that should be empty. When Dennis, who films weddings for a living, decides to set up cameras around the house in an effort to find out more about what’s going on, it becomes clear to him that something is seriously wrong. Little Kristi climbs out of her bed in the dead of night to speak to someone only she can see. Doors swing open and shut, lights flicker on and off. When questioned, Kristi claims that she can’t tell Toby’s secrets because if she does, she’ll be in very, very big trouble and won’t be “safe” anymore. And when Katie attempts to prove to her sister that Toby isn’t real, she finds herself locked in a closet, the door held shut by an otherworldly force. The paranormal phenomena intensifies, and the connection is made between the girls’ childhood and the terror that strikes them later as adults.

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