One Week!

Well, it's February 3rd! To many of you, this date probably means nothing. To me, it means that is is only one week until the release of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace in 3D.

Now, admittedly, this is my least favorite Star Wars movie of the six. Second only to Return of the Jedi. However, because George Lucas has me thoroughly whipped and brain-washed to his will, I will be spending the $10 to see a 3D movie at my local theater. What's more, I'm planning on going to the midnight showing with my cousin and some friends. I might even dress up. 

I love midnight showings, though because that's when all the hardcore nerds go to the theaters. It's all the fans that know how to get along with each other because we're all as hyped up about something that not every understands. We'll all be there with our lightsabers and Star Wars t-shirts and maybe even a costume or two. It's a little bit like the crowd that goes to conventions. The kind of people that I'm the most comfortable around. And that's really why I'm looking forward to going- no judgments. 

So while Episode I isn't my favorite Star Wars movie, and my cousin and I are likely to spend most of the night making fun of whiny little Anakin and Jake Lloyd's atrocious acting and how many different ways to kill Jar Jar, I'll be taking advantage of a large crowd of nerds and geeks to have a great night where we all get to be ourselves. 

Time Sucks

One of my favorite hobbies as a kid used to be watching my parent's reaction when I told them a movie came out x number of years ago, just to watch their faces as they flashed back to the moment in time when they were sitting in that movie theater watching that movie and realizing that, while it feels like not too long ago, it actually was many more years than they realized.

My karmic justice for that is to have my younger cousins do the same thing to me, and have this XKCD comic strip rub it in my face further.

Movie Ages- XKCD

For the record, when Revenge of the Sith was released on May 19, 2005 I was 15 years old.

The real kicker was The Little Mermaid. Ouch.

Review: Skyline

So the other day I decided to foolishly ignore the the fact that my Netflix suggestion told me that it rated the movie "Skyline" at about a 1.8 based on my ratings of other movies. I had seen trailers for it before and thought it looked exciting if nothing else.

Unfortunately, it didn't even have that going for it. I'd warn you about spoilers and to not continue reading and all that except for the fact that if you haven't seen this movie then you are smarter than I am, and if you are feeling that maybe you should check it out, please continue reading so you'll understand what a bad idea that is.

Paranormal Activity

Note: This is me trying out spontaneous blog posting rather than my usual carefully thought out posts that are scheduled. Also, spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

A few months back my dad attended the Tribeca Film Festival and watched the movie "Grave Encounters" which then started us off on the subject of horror movies. I'm not usually big on horror movies since they aren't usually as good as I hope for. That's not to say I don't like them, and I even compiled a list of my favorites for a previous blog post. Anyway, while my dad was telling me about Grave Encounters, the only thing I could think about were the two Paranormal Activity movies so I finally got Paranormal Activity 2 on Netflix dvd and today we sat down to watch both of them right after the other.

19 Things You Learn from Movies

I got sent this in an email and I thought it was funny. I didn't write and don't know who did, but it's an amusing list of things that are OBVIOUSLY (not) true because they happen all the time in movies! Can anyone else think of others that didn't get put on the list? If so, leave them in the comments!

1. Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings -
especially if any of their family or friends has died in
a strange boating accident.

2. If being chased through town, you can usually take
cover in a passing St Patrick's Day parade at any time
of the year.

3. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in
a fight involved martial arts - your enemies will wait
patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in
a threatening manner until you have knocked out their
predecessor.

4. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick
of French bread.

5. It's easy for anyone to land a plane, providing there
is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

6. Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst
into flames.

7. The ventilation system of any building is a perfect
hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you
in there and you can travel to any other part of the
building without difficulty.

8. All single women have a cat.

9. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German
officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language.
A German accent will do.

10. When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak
English to each other.

11. Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for
their family every morning, even though the husband and
children never have time to eat them.

12. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious
beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his
wounds.

13. During all police investigations, it will be necessary
to visit a strip club at least once.

14. A detective can only solve a case once he has been
suspended from duty.

15. It is always possible to park directly outside the
building you are visiting.

16. Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.

17. If there is a deranged killer on the loose, this will
coincide with a thunderstorm that has brought down all the
power and phone lines in the vicinity.

18. If a killer is lurking in your house, it's easy to
find him. Just relax and run a bath.

19. Police departments give their officers personality
tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a
partner who is their total opposite.

Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

I finished The Hunger Games Trilogy a few weeks ago so I'm finally getting my act together and writing up a quick review on it. Again, I'll try to keep it spoiler free so if you haven't read it but are thinking about reading it this will hopefully help you make up your mind.

Review: I Am Number Four

I'll try to keep this book review spoiler free, folks. I'm going to dive right into this one, so here we go!

What I'm Watching: Die Hard

Since it's still Christmas-time in my house with all the trees and decorations still up that means it's still fair game to watch Christmas movies. And what better wholesome Christmas movie is there than Die Hard? The answer is there is none! Die Hard is not only a classic movie, it is a perfect movie that I make sure to watch every Christmas. Or whenever I remember.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Last night I got the chance to watch the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. Let me start by saying that I was a huge fan of the first two movies. Way more so than the books. For the record, I have read the books, but the movies are far superior to the books in so many ways (and this is probably the only book series you'll hear me say this about). Anyway, here's what I thought about Voyage of the Dawn Treader.