When I went to see The Counterfeiters at Magnolia a few months ago, I saw the poster for The Fall.  It caught my eye as I was headed to the ladies room before the movie started.  I stood transfixed by the poster.  I’m not really sure why; I just stared at it a few moments, and then I saw the starring line, and great googly moogly, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Lee Pace was the star?!  Then I got to see a trailer for it before The Counterfeiters, and I was speechless.  I HAD to see this movie!

Ok, so at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Who the heck is Lee Pace?”  Well, he’s only the cutest thing to ever hit the silver screen.  If it’s possible, I’m more enamored with him than Daniel Day Lewis and Hugh Jackman put together.  Yeah, I know; it’s probably hard to believe, but I think it’s got a lot to do with the character he was playing the first time I ever saw him: Ned, the Piemaker, from Pushing Daisies.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

I can’t even think where to begin for this blog, which, I’m sure, is partially due to how much I was completely shocked by my total adoration for this movie.

I saw a billboard for Leatherheads at the movie theater when I went to see Michael Clayton back in February, and by the time I actually saw it in the dollar theater a few weeks ago, I’d totally forgotten that it even existed.  Of course, I knew virtually nothing about it, but I like George Clooney and I LOVE John Krasinski (Where, oh where is the Jim to match my Pam in my real-life office?!), so I figured together they could cancel out my mild dislike for Renee Zellweger.

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Popularity: 15% [?]

So this blog was supposed to be about Mama Mia.  Faithful Angelika had come through with a free screening pass to Mama Mia, and I invited my old college roommate, who lives in Bedford, to make the trek to Dallas on a Thursday night to see it with me.  We were going to make a night of it: dinner and a beer at Trinity Hall and then laughing and singing our way through the movie version of the HIGHLY acclaimed musical.

That’s when we got in line and found out that they had filled the theater in record time.  Oh well, all was not lost.  If we hadn’t spent a few extra minutes chatting at Trinity, we might have gotten in, and then we would have missed out on Then She Found Me.

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Popularity: 23% [?]

I love M. Night Shyamalan’s films.  The man makes me speechless.  The storylines in Sixth Sense, Signs and The Village will always be amongst my favorites, especially The Village.  There was just something haunting about it and the character that Joaquin Phoenix played.  Lady in the Water was different from what the first trailers made me expect, but I still enjoyed it.  I even liked Unbreakable, although I don’t remember a lot about it.

So I was really looking forward to seeing The Happening.  Even though it was being marketed as an actual horror film, of which I’ve never been too fond, I knew that Shyamalan would put his own spin on it that would not include a half-naked, screaming blond.  He did not disappoint me in that respect; however, the movie fell flat.  
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Popularity: 31% [?]

A few weeks ago I went to the Bombardier LearJet Indy Car 550 Race at Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth.  Yes, I know; I’m an oddity.  How can the same girl who blogs about movies like 27 Dresses and Sex And The City even stand to get within 20 feet of such an edifice?  Well, not only did I go…I freakin’ loved it!!

Prior to February 17, 2008, I’d watched one racing event in my life, the Talladega 500 in 1993, and the only reason I watched that was because it was the tribute after Davey Allison’s helicopter crashed on the way to the race.  I was only 12, so I can’t really tell you why we watched it, but I know that my dad and I sat there and watched the whole thing.
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Popularity: 32% [?]

Just like Rene Zellweger tells Tom Cruise that he “had her at hello” in Jerry Maguire, the Counterfeiters had me at Nazi and Concentration Camp when I read the synopsis.  I’ve always been fascinated by the European part of World War II, especially the Holocaust.  I didn’t even read past those buzz words, so I was surprised to find that it was based on a true story about concentration camp prisoners who are given preferential treatment due to their special abilities which will help the Reich counterfeit the British pound and the American dollar.

The winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008 tells the story of these prisoners who succeeded in counterfeiting £132 million in £5, £10 and £20 notes.  Their delay in counterfeiting the dollar was pivotal.  Had they not delayed, the Nazis might have been able to flood the American economy; thereby, possibly causing a very different outcome to WWII in Europe.
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Popularity: 27% [?]

A coworker first told me about The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss in November of 2007.  And I began reading it right around Thanksgiving; however, that was also during a time when I was having a lot of difficulty focusing on any book.  I had 3 or 4 or maybe even 5 or 6 lying around my house that I'd started and just never got quite interested enough to finish.  And this one got added to that pile.
 
I finally finished reading it in March of this year.  It's definitely a book that makes you think, and I've been thinking about it and what it advocates ever since I finished it.  Ferriss introduces the idea of the New Rich. 

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Popularity: 17% [?]

You knew this one was coming, people.  You had to; if you didn’t, you haven’t been reading my blogs, and you certainly didn’t read my Made of Honor blog.

I told a friend’s boyfriend about a month ago that this movie was to women what the opening of Phantom Menace was to men in 1999.  He said that that was ludicrous.  Had I waited 16 years between movies (in this case the series and the movie)?  No.  No, I hadn’t, but it’s still a HUGE occasion. Continue Reading

Popularity: 11% [?]

More and more often it seems that my book selections are recommendations from friends.  I guess I don’t spend enough time skulking around the shelves at Half Price or Barnes & Noble anymore.  At least I know that I can trust my friends to know what I like, and although I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl by Laurie Notaro isn’t quite as fabulous as Outlander, it was still pretty entertaining.

To be fair, I Love Everybody isn’t really in the same realm as Outlander.  Notaro writes from her own experiences and is extremely self-deprecating.  She’s a woman after my own heart.  Every time I picked up the 226 pages of sometimes painful honesty, I couldn’t help but sing a few bars from I Hate Everyone by Get Set Go.  Even though the main title is I Love Everybody, Notaro actually kind of hates everyone, so I thought the song was fitting. Continue Reading

Popularity: 9% [?]

IMDB is one of my favorite things in the world.  For those of you who are less movie trivia/knowledge inclined, IMDB stands for Internet Movie DataBase, and I, of course, have it bookmarked in every browser on every computer I use.  And it provides me with tons of interesting and pertinent information.  For instance, I did not know 21 was based on a true story until I looked it up on IMDB to check my facts for this blog.  You really do learn something new everyday.

21 was one of those films that I didn’t even realize was still in theaters, and by the time this blog gets published it might not be, but if you can find it at a dollar theater, it’s worth the dollar.  Especially considering that it’ll be $4.38 at Blockbuster if you wait until it’s out on DVD. Continue Reading

Popularity: 10% [?]

Writing these blogs has made me realize that almost every movie I see is in some way a chick flick.  Sure there are the outliers like There Will Be Blood or Michael Clayton that I really enjoy, but by and large, it’s a pretty safe bet that I’m going to blog about something girly.  And this one’s no different.

I did actually plan to NOT see Made of Honor.  I do enjoy Patrick Dempsey’s role as Dr. Derek Shepherd, the sexy neurosurgeon who more than lives up to his McDreamy moniker on Grey’s Anatomy, but something about the little trailers that I saw for Made of Honor on my MySpace homepage just rubbed me the wrong way.  Then one day I went to Yahoo, and I saw a blurb that said that Made of Honor had more going for it than TV’s sexiest doctor, and I got sucked in.  I just couldn’t help it.  I had resisted fate as long as I could.

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Popularity: 12% [?]