A Lot of DVDs Going On

I have been streaming loads of Netflix movies and TV since my last Netflix update (I know, 10/10.  That's sad.). But making a list of those streamed discs seemed daunting.  So I let the list get longer.  I sat down tonight to count actual discs as a start, with a couple notable movies from streaming thrown in.  And lo and behold! I finished this item with a couple to spare.  Very exciting.  Here are the movies that got me here:

• He's Just Not That Into You
• Ironman 2
• Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone: Part 1
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Big Love Season 4 (3 discs)
• Whip It!
• Inception
• Alice and Wonderland
• The League Season 1 (2 discs)
• Scott Pilgrim v. The World
• I Am Legend
• My Sister's Keeper
• Kick-Ass
• Damages Season 2 (3 discs)
• Dexter Season 3 (3 discs)
• Big Love Season 3 (1 disc)
• Mamma Mia! 

Since I actually managed to finish this one so early, and because I'm so behind on my other items, I'm reading the tea leaves and seeing that I need to really focus on my other activities.  Which is sort of the point of this whole list.  I've got a couple of things lined up, so now I just need to take this sign and run with it. 

A Day of Jodi Picoult

It's now been at least one full weekend since my indulgent day of reading Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult in bed for most of a morning and finishing off the evening watching My Sister's Keeper (the movie based on Jodi Picoult's book of the same name).  I didn't mean to be quite so focused on one author, but as I've mentioned before, Jodi Picoult's books are like Lifetime movies and I can always get into one.  They read very quickly and I think I've gotten more or less out of my reading slump.

The movie, on the other hand, was sort of a waste of time.  I am glad that I watched it because it's another DVD sent back to Netflix, but, as with most novel-turned-movies, the movie was just not that good.  Lesson learned.

I was even more indulgent since I watched 2 more DVDs worth of TV shows (Damages and Brothers and Sisters) since it was a long weekend.  I may not be getting much else done, but at least I'm moving along on my couch potato activities!

Everything else, another round up

I topped up a few categories over on the list, but I only have a couple that I will write up here.  I am going to try to make regular visits back here as I move forward on my projects, so this won't become too much of a habit.

For a lot of reasons, I haven't been reading much at all in the past two and a half months.  I'm in the middle of two non-fiction books (and really six if you count reference books, but I won't take credit for those unless I work all the way through) now, so I will catch up hopefully on that count.  I did read two fiction novels in my time away:

• Let Me In by John Ajvide Lundquish - a Swedish vampire story that is very engaging, if a bit graphic at points. A young boy meets a curious young girl next door who never seems to change.  A group of drunk friends starts to watch its own go missing, or go extremely bizarre.  It was apparently made into a movie which I am going to sit down and watch on Netflix streaming if I can ever get Austin to watch a scary movie with me.
• Julia's Chocolates by Cathy Lamb- This novel sells itself as a Ya-Ya sisterhood of sorts, and I suppose that is a decent description.  A young woman escapes an abusive relationship and a history of neglect to her aunt's house and finds an unexpectedly diverse group of women and, of course, love.  I don't think it ever got far enough below the surface to really win me over, but the characters were interesting, if predictable.

Even when I'm not reading, cooking or doing much of anything else, I have been getting as much as I can out of Netflix. We've watched some bits and pieces of series, so I didn't really count those.  Here is a summary of what we have been watching: 

• Damages, Season 2
• Dexter, Season 3
• South Park, Greatest Hits (sometimes I let Austin pick)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 3
• Kick-Ass
• Big Love, Season 3
• Mamma Mia (such a disappointment!)
• The League, Season 1
• Whip It! 

That's the rough update.  The rest will come more closely to real time, I hope!

Netflix Round-Up: Veronica Mars, Bones and More

I've fallen behind on my round-up, but not on my watching! Our Instant Queue keeps us very entertained, so that's great.  I also dropped our discs at home to two, so keeping up with my 101-things goals means I'll be ahead of the game which is even better!

So, since I last checked in, we've been watching:

• Veronica Mars (um, all three seasons.  What? I was home all day!)
• Bones Season 2
• Avatar Las Airbender
• Up in the Air
• The Men who Stare at Goats
• Beavers: IMAX
• Some Firefly

Altogether, 19 discs since my last round-up.  That's actually on the scary side.  I wanted to separately write up Up in the Air and The Men who Stare at Goats because both were inspiring and thought-provoking in their ways.  Alas, I waited too long and the time has passed.  Both worth watching for very different reasons.  And before you judge on the Beavers movie, they are fascinating little buggers. 

The Secret Life of Bees

A few years back, I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and really loved it.  It's really a lovely story about strong and interesting women and love and magic and, of course, honey.  Because I got a lot out of the novel, I'm glad that I waited a considerable amount of time before seeing the movie.

The movie is well-acted, well-written and visually pleasing.  It hits most of the high points and tells a great story.  I even forgot to pick at all the places it departed from the book while I was watching the film.  As far as most book-to-film attempts, I'd say this made a really good effort.

As I thought about it after the movie, there were a number of things missing that could have been built in more.  Like the magic.  I understand that might make a movie harder to sell and that current audiences want either completely fantastic or gritty realist films.  I like stories that are in between, that have the kind of magic you think maybe exists in the real world if you looked hard enough or if you had been able to go to August Boatwright's honey house.

Including more of this in the film would have taken it just a step farther for me and would have helped make more sense of certain aspects, such as Lily's sadness over bringing the real world into the honey farm and the real power of the spiritual community with the Black Madonna.  I'd say this is a solid B or B+, but it could have gone the distance.

Up!

Austin and I are on an endless search to find compromise movies.  We couldn't have more opposite taste which usually leads us to merely tolerating the selection of the other person.  At best, we both sort of like a movie - usually me more than I thought I would and him less (case in point, Kung Fu Panda). 

I've been begging to watch something and tonight we picked Up.  It's on Starz, so it only streams on Netflix for a short time which motivated us.  I am not sure exactly what I thought happened after the balloons lift the old man out of town, but it was a fun enjoyable movie that surprised me a bit, even if the lesson didn't.  It definitely made me want to make sure I'm taking my adventures while I can and appreciating the quiet moments in between.  

Everyone Says I Love You

I rewarded myself after a long week with a lazy night in with the dog, Netflix streaming and a glass of wine.  I generally find the whole Netflix thing hard because of all the hundreds of movies that are available to me, I can almost never pick *the* movie that I want to see right now.  That's even harder with streaming because the movies are not the Oscar nominees or big blockbusters that at least I know I should see.

Netflix streaming does have Starz movies only available for a short time which helped me pick Woody Allen's Everyone Says aI Love You last night.  It was my only movie with a deadline, one that I've wanted to see pretty much since 1997 when it came out and it's not really available on DVD via Netflix.  So, it won out.

I enjoyed the movie, although I couldn't really tell if it was taking itself seriously (as seriously as a musical comedy can) or it it was trying to be tongue-in-cheek about the whole musical thing.  I don't think the story really went anywhere and there were too many overlapping stories to really make you feel like there was one big dramatic arc, but it was light.  The singing also was pretty mediocre, but I don't think that Drew Barrymore, Ed Norton, Alan Alda, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts or Woody Allen were chosen for their singing voices.  All in all, I have it a solid three stars since it was fun, but I didn't get too caught up in it and I definitely don't need to see it again.

Catching up on Netflix: Dexter, Avatar: The Last Airbender....and Paul Blart Mall Cop

It occurred to me recently that I wasn't doing very well on my DVD watching.  Austin reminded me, however, that we had been watching up a storm on Netflix Instant Watching.  So I just took it upon myself to find out the DVD equivalent of what we've been watching and add it to the total.  Yes, it's fudging a bit, but basically the underlying goal is get what we are paying for, so it counts!

We're on the second season of Dexter which is brilliant and addictive and provocative.  I just found out that the third season is not available instantly, so we will definitely be back on track with physical DVDs once we are there.  We've watched 7 DVDs so far on this one.

Another that we've been watching whenever Dexter isn't on is Avatar: The Last Airbender.  The movie is coming out on Thursday (!) so we started watching from the beginning to make sure we remembered the whole story and had seen what we needed to see.  We're hoping the movie is just Book 1 (it's a planned trilogy, so it's likely) since that's all we'll get through before the movie.  3 DVDs here.

And finally, Austin has his own queue, so those movies count too! He took it upon himself to watch Paul Blart Mall Cop on the XBox, and that actually brings us right up to 18 DVDs/movies/shows/whatevers total which is right on track for 3/mth.  Now that there is no regular TV on, I have a feeling we'll be more motivated to use our actual DVDs - we've got The Wire and Big Love lined up as well as loads of movies.

Big Love, Season 3: Disc 1

Got another DVD watched this past weekend.  It's been so long since I saw the last season of Big Love that I really didn't remember what was going on and I'm fairly sure I missed one or two episodes at the end.  Regardless, I started up with this DVD and I have missed the show - I'm looking forward to seeing more without a doubt.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

My gut reaction is that this was the worst Harry Potter movie so far.  But it's not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination.  Of course I had the usual problems of the gaping holes of material not included from the books.  I also felt like this film was caught between Harry's adventure and an episode of Gossip Girl.  A poor episode of Gossip Girl, but still - all snogs.  I missed the magic and the intricate details.  Solid B. 

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#56 - Watching 3 DVDs per month

This one doesn't warrant a whole detailed review since it was The L Word: Season 6, Disc 2.  I will say that it is slightly satisfying to see Jenny's evil behavior being played out since I've always hated her.  I think it's a bit disruptive to the other relationships which are now just tools for creating the whole mystery behind Who Killed Jenny and I would rather see those relationships continue.  It's very sad that there is only one disc left forever!

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Julie & Julia

The film just finished.  I had been hesitant to even watch it because I'd heard a tiny handful of mixed reviews that stuck in my head.  Now that I've seen the film, I realize my hesitation was not because I thought the film would not be good, but that it would (or those nay-saying voices would) ruin the experience that I had with the book.  With both books.

I read Julie & Julia first.  I was 28 and just finished with law school.  I completed the bar exam and after a serious decompression and an emotional tear through the last Harry Potter book, I found Julie.  And Julia.  Or rather Julie's experience with Julia. 

I've always loved Julia Child, but from afar and as a pop culture and food icon far removed from my actual cooking life.  I didn't even attempt such recipes, even though I had a dog-eared and well-loved version of From Julia Child's Kitchen in my collection (nabbed lovingly from my grandmother's collection after she passed away a couple of years before).  I have to admit, though, that I connected with the book on the level of the navel-gazing almost thirty year old who was a bit overwhelmed with life and wanting to find some purpose.  And of course loved food.

My Life in France engendered a similar reaction, if that is even imaginable.  The brightness of Julia's discovery of food and France and herself was fabulously inspiring to me.  I read it about a year later, and it was at this point that I really discovered Julia.  I heard her voice as she discovered the person that she would become after living an entire successful and happy life.  She found her passion because it was still waiting for her (of course, in both food and Paul).  
I cried my way through both books.  With love, and hope, and interest, and commiseration.  I cried my way through the film as well.  Maybe I identified with all of the narcissistic self-absorbed aspects of Julie that I'd read about in the papers.  Maybe that's what made her human.  Maybe, at the bottom of it all, the stories really are parallel - they are all about discovery and love of food and a little bit of adventure.  They are both beautiful.  And satisfying.  And inspiring. 

Most of the things I wish to achieve over the next few years have to do with food and adventure and really making a life.  If one really wants to sit down and make a life, it takes a little bit of self-absorption a la Julie and a lot of determination a la Julia.  This film brought out the best of both and really touched me.  It has become, thanks to Julie's book and the film, a bit of a cliche to re-invent yourself by cooking and discussing it online, but so it goes.  And at the end of the day, cliche or not, it's all about Bon Appetit! 

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