Mind Blown.

If you are looking for some silly, fun reading and happen to be a fan of Pixar movies, check out this blog by Jon Negroni:  The Pixar Theory

Long story short- every Pixar movie is interconnected and takes place in the same universe. 

Ohhh the theory- it is wonderful.

-Kristen

Hotel Transylvania

We went to see Hotel Transylvania the other week.  I have been excited for the movie, Tim- well he wasn't so excited.

We took the 10 year old with us after clearing it with her mom.  We settled in and prepared to either be wow'd or disappointed- there really was no middle ground that I could see.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about- Hotel Transylvania is an animated movie currently out in theatres.  Dracula (Sandler) builds a hotel for monsters, safe from persecution from humans.  As his daughter Mavis's 118th birthday approaches, he plans a huge party for his baby girl- only to discover that somehow a human has found his way in to the hotel.

It was great!
This movie was Adam Sandler at his best.  He was fully able to be goofy and over the top, but we didn't have to look at him.  I really think that made all the difference.  No crazy faces and odd gestures to distract from the actual movie.

The plot line was cute and had all of us laughing, though the 10 year old we were babysitting cracking up the most.  Her new favorite thing is to walk around and quote a few memorable parts from the movie.  High praise from the kid who originally wanted to see Frankenweenie instead.

It's definitely worth seeing.

-Kristen

The Dark Knight Rises

We went to see "The Dark Knight Rises" yesterday.  Actually we found a pretty decent little theater that sells tickets before 5:00pm at the ridiculous sum of $4.00 each.  We will be attending more movies this summer, I think!

Anyway, we arrived, grabbed our tickets and headed in to the sparsely attended movie.  That's why I go when I do- I hate crowds.  The rustling of food containers, the slurping of nearly empty drinks- the inevitable talker, nose-blower and small child who won't hush and really shouldn't have been in the movie anyway- yes, that's why I attend weekday matinees.

We settled in and I noticed it- the cracks of light showing around the door of the theater that exits to the outside.  I won't lie and pretend it didn't make me uncomfortable.  I'm not one of those folks that immediately thought "oh no, there was a shooting in Aurora, so it will happen if I go see the movie too", but let's be real.  There are copycats out there and people are clearly crazy.

I noticed myself paying more attention to people who got up to leave during the movie, whether it was for a quick potty break or to get a refill of one of their snacks.  I ran my eyes across them to make sure they looked the same as they had when they left.  I watched a movie attendant come in not once, not twice, but three times during the 2 hour and 45 minute movie to check that door I mentioned earlier- the one that leads to the outside.

It's sad.  A harmless pastime, a way to beat the heat and escape the real world for a while is no longer the safe haven it was.  We find ourselves on high alert, even if you know the odds of the same thing happening that happened in Aurora are very, very low.

This insecurity will last for a while. Then we'll find ourselves slipping back in to complacency- at least until the next big, horrible tragedy.  Who knows what form it will take?  At least for a while, we'll be able to pretend the violence is only something we see on the big screen.

Incidentally, the Dark Knight Rises was excellent.  I really recommend seeing it in a theater.  Just don't be surprised if you find yourself tracking the movements of those around you. 

-Kristen

You sunk my...wait, what?

I'm currently watching a very long trailer for "Battleship".  The movie based on the Hasbro game.

This game.

I have been confused since the beginning about how in the world they were going to turn red and white pegs into a movie. 

Now I am totally confused as to how this movie can be said to be based on this game at all.  Oh- ok I guess there is a battleship in it.  Uhm...and... I've got nothing.

If you haven't seen it, here is a shorter preview. Someone tell me how this ties in with the game at all, cause I just don't understand it at all.

-Kristen

Racism and the movies

 The Hunger Games is out and it is huge.

I read the books- they are fantastic.  I have seen the movie- it is fantastic.

However, wouldn't you know that people have taken something that should have been wonderful and fun and twisted it in to something ugly.

There are two characters in the movie, Rue and Thresh, who are Tributes from District 11.   In the movie, they are portrayed by black actors.

Let me start off by saying both people do a stellar job with their parts.  Thresh especially fit exactly what I was expecting out of him, even though he and Rue are not in the movie very much. 

Spoiler Alert

Apparently some of our narrow-minded nation has flocked to Twitter and other social media to complain that the two characters are *gasp* black.  Never mind that the author writes about them having "dark skin".  I guess she didn't spell it out enough for these people.  One wrote that "Ugh, they made Rue black.  Now her death has no meaning."

Yeah...read that again.  Because this little girl is black, her death is meaningless.
That's probably not what this teenage idiot meant.  More than likely, she meant that she was so distracted by the difference in the Rue on the screen and the Rue in her head that it robbed the little girl's death scene of it's emotion because she couldn't just get over it.  That is not, however, what she said.

Other tweets of note:

"Ewwww rue is black?? I'm not watching,"
"Why did the producer make all the good characters black?"

"Why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie."

Wow.  Not to mention the "N" word was bandied about.  After all, Lord forbid you find out that the character you bawled over was really just some little black girl.  

These two people should be celebrating a phenomenal opening weekend after having landed the great roles in a movie that is breaking records left and right.  Instead, they are dealing with racism surrounding the color of the skin of fictional characters.  My heart goes out especially to this adorable little girl, Amandla Stenberg, who is 13 years old.

It's an ugly world, Amandla, full of ignorant people who speak before they think- who do a lot of things before they think.  Unfortunately, they tend to breed and create more small minded idiots just like themselves.  The best thing to do is just keep smiling.  At the end of the day, you two are huge successes. They are just sad, racist, narrow-minded, pathetic sacks of worthless.  Maybe if they are lucky, some day they will crawl out of the gutter and join the rest of society. 

I wouldn't count on it though.

-Kristen

I miss Netflix

I didn't think I would...but I do.  I miss Netflix.

I cancelled it a few months ago because we just didn't have time to watch the movies. What is the purpose of spending $15 a month if the movies are just going to sit there? Not to mention they decided to be complete asses by cutting the service in half and charging the same price for it.

I have a blue-million shows on the DVR and we have quite the DVD collection, even if we have watched them all a few times, so I figured cutting it out would be no big deal, but we do miss getting the newest movies.

Tim & I considered getting the streaming-online version of Netflix, which made my skin crawl a little.  After all, part of the reason I dropped Netflix was that I thought it was so crappy of them to make us pay $8.00 for the streaming service when it had been included before.   I gave it a chance though-  I went online and viewed their "new releases".  Iron Man 2.  Really? From 2010? That's considered a "new release" for streaming? I hope this one doesn't have sound problems.  Last time we tried to watch Iron Man 2 on their streaming service, the main sound didn't work.  After reporting the problem, it still wasn't fixed nearly a month later, right before I cancelled our service.

I tried searching some new movies that we had been interested in watching that have been released to DVD already.  None of the movies came up. I read in an article that Netflix Streaming has only 5 of the top movies from 2011.  Yet streaming is what they wanted us to all switch over to? Really?

So what do you want me to do Netflix? Pay you to watch 10 year old movies when I can catch them on TBS or AMC whenever I want?  No- what you'd really prefer is for me to start up our subscription, pay you $8+ a month and never use the service, because there is never anything good on.

I miss the convenience of having movies come to my door, getting to see everything I wanted to without paying $20 and having to drive to a theater.  However, thanks to cancelling the service, I have $20 extra in my budget every month.   I don't feel guilty or angry when we let a DVD sit on the TV stand for 3 weeks before we get around to watching it.

Eh, maybe I don't miss Netflix as much as I thought.  After all- we still have Redbox!  Even if they have gone up to $1.25 a rental.

-Kristen

Monster-in-Laws- Episode 2...kinda 1 though.

No, this is not about my in-laws. 

I already posted about my love of overly dramatic reality shows.   I've been eagerly anticipating the premier of a new show, "Monster-in-Laws".  In this show, families are highly dysfunctional.  An in-law may come to visit and just wreak havoc on the household for days, it may be an all the time problem- anything could happen.

I had two episodes of it DVR'd and silly me, I watched the second episode first, not that it matters.  This episode was about a girl named Kristin, her husband (I think his name was Scott?  We'll call him Scott) and her mother (Susan? Maybe?).  Her mother and her husband fought like cats and dogs.  She was overly demanding, opinionated and demanded that he get a job.   From his side, he informed us that he was some kind of fancy-version landscaper/contractor and because of the economy, times were tough.  Fair enough.

I was very pleased with the first part of the show, then it all went South.  We find out that Susan and Kristin had been estranged for over 5 years when Scott suggested they reconcile.  Big mistake, I'm thinking, as Kristin articulates that same thought.  Kristin is very pregnant and Susan is beside herself with terror that she won't get to see her grandchild in the future.   So they work through some of these issues and Susan learns to sometimes keep her big mouth shut.  Nice.

However, we find out a lot of the tension and the reason Susan keeps hassling Scott about a job is that Scott and Kristin owe her over $50,000 for renovations!  This comes out when Kristin is complaining that Susan refuses to get a job to help them not lose their house.  Hold up there baby-cakes, this is your mother.  She already loaned you $50,000 and bought you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff (as we saw when they went through and put price tags on items in the house that she had purchased)!  Let me say, as well- I don't know what they did with this $50k, the house is unfinished and a disaster.   When the therapist asked the youngish couple to say outloud how much they could pay Susan weekly or monthly towards the loans, they say "Literally, not even $5".  Wait... you have a baby on the way! What?!

 I was looking for 100% in the right or 100% in the wrong.  Instead, I suddenly find myself all up in this couples business, agreeing with the "Monster-in-Law" that Scott should get his lazy ass up and go mow grass if that's what it takes to support his family!  Apparently he is a lazy-good-for-nothing who just lounges around all day while her daughter works.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed with this show.  At only 30 minutes, I don't feel like you really get enough of a sense of the "whole story" and there isn't nearly enough time for the fantastic melt-downs that are the whole reason I watch these types of shows.  The surprise about the couple owing $50,00 came in just the last few minutes.  The reconciliation was a bit quick too- in seconds the mother-in-law is learning to hold her tongue and to date the couple hasn't paid a dime back to her.  She does get to see the grandbaby once every two weeks though.

I'm hoping other episodes will redeem this show a bit, but so far, it's passable.  Something to watch when there is absolutely nothing else on, but not anything to really look forward to.

-Kristen

5k for Diabetes and an otherwise lazy day.

Tim woke me up at 7:30 this morning.  My first thought was "Why do I have to get up now? I don't have work and if it's church he has to go..."  Then it hit me.  Today was the 5k for a cure for Juvenile Diabetes.  They really need to start these things later in the morning, I like my sleep!

We arrived early and grabbed a half bagel for breakfast, played a few of the little games (I won a free Chick-fil-a Ice Dream coupon! Yummy...) and lined up for the team photo.  Not long after that, we were off!

I was disappointed that the 5k actually ended up being a 3.5k.  Due to the extremely large crowd walking the narrow sidewalks of a nearby University, we weren't able to do a fast pace either.  We finished the 3.5k in under 50 minutes.  Not that impressive, but what can ya do?

We grabbed hot dogs (keep in mind this is 10am in the morning) and had a Popsicle, then headed out.  On the way home, we found a Fall Festival and stopped in to see what we could see.  I was very disappointed with the craft booths- there wasn't much around and the items that were there were very expensive.  A single pumpkin muffin? $3.00. No thank you.

We headed home to veg out in front of the TV and enjoy some college football.  My Tar Heels won, then we watched a thriller between Virginia Tech and Miami.  Oh, did I say watched?  We slept through about half of it.  I woke up at one point to discover that not only was I the only living being awake in the house, I had also been using Toby the cat as a pillow.

We had happily thrown some ribs in the crockpot, so dinner was a quick affair.  Now there is nothing to do until bed time but veg out in front of the TV or curl up on the couch with a book.  Did I say nothing to do? Oh there is plenty to do, but those are the only options I'm considering!

-Kristen

Dramaz

I have a couple new favorite shows. I'm starting to get sucked in to more and more of these overly dramatic "reality" shows. I'm going to talk about my current Top 2 though.

Dance Moms: Good lord, I watched a few episodes of this show and it was CRAZY. Little girls being forced to dance with sore hips, mutterings of "Oh of COURSE the favorite MADDIE gets ___". These people are CRAZY. Every episode at least two little girls cry and the moms most often just tell them to suck it up. The moms are SO snarky too, even when they aren't actually going at each other tooth or nail, someone is always making a comment about the size of a nose or how old another one is... loves it.

Bridezillas: This is an oldie but a goodie. Crazy, insane women in the final week(s) of their wedding planning, going absolutely nutso on anyone within a 50 mile radius. Tim hates this show because the women are so psychotic and the husbands are very abused. Is it bad of me that I always root for one of these put-upon grooms to up and leave the women like they threaten to for the entire show? Probably, but I do it anyway.

Tim sighs in disgust through most of my shows lol. He says "You just watch this for drama, don't you?"

Of COURSE! But hey, it's better for me to sit at home and watch other the drama of other people, than be one of those folks that have to create my own for entertainment! This way, I can live nice and happily drama free, unless I want to hit "Play"!

-Kristen