Movie Reviews

Handyman and I have actually been able to get some movies watched lately. Which is a change for us. We looooooove movies. Handyman is in the movie business. But somehow we just never get to watch them. We get them from the library, all the time. We keep them. We look at them. We scan the boxes. Then we take out the dogs, hay the horses one more time and fall asleep in our clothes and start all over again a couple of hours later.


Well one thing we did differently is we started getting #1 out of bed a little earlier in the morning. That is definitely one "problem" with homeschooling. I was raised to never wake a sleeping child and I still have trouble doing that. Even when said child wears the same size shoes as I do! But, once we started making her get up and do dog chores with us, even if she went back to bed for awhile, it made it much easier to get her to sleep at night.


Anyway, our recent viewings included: About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates. Weird, boring, strange and Kathy Bates full-frontal nudity--not my cup of tea. Then we tried Sweet Home Alabama, which one of my dear friends told me she loves--we hated it. We like chick flicks, usually, but this was a little too trite. We stopped halfway through.

Also, there was Failure to Launch with Matthew McConaghey and Sarah Jessica Parker and Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates. This time it was Terry Bradshaw who was naked. That was actually much more tolerable than Kathy Bates, let me tell you. It was humorous and a little over the top. Oh, also the sidekick from National Treasure is in this. He plays, a geeky sidekick. Hmmmmmm.

Then we caught Bride & Prejudice. You may know that we are big-time Jane Austen fans, naming lots of our pets and our place after Austen icons. So, of course, we could not turn down a Pride & Prejudice take-off; this one set in modern-day India. It was pretty cute. It's important to know the original story. There are musical numbers, in Indian, lots of bright, beautiful clothes and still the important P&P touchstones--Mr. "Colley", Wickham, and the silly sisters.

Next up, Mission Impossible III. Now I used to be a Tom Cruise fan and I still feel it, but now the weirdness of scientology taints my appreciation of that smile. Anyway, it was pretty good. The stunts are always awesome. The violence is pretty icky and constant, but I admit, I like action films. There were some story strings left hanging, but overall, enjoyable. Of course, the special features/making of things are always what we watch, since Handyman's in the biz. (That night when I went out to the barn, on the ATV, I could hear the theme song running in my head as I sprinted into the darkness on my little machine!)

The next night we watched Die Hard With A Vengance with Bruce Willis. The weird thing here was the same Asian girl that had been in MI III, Maggie Q, is also in Die Hard WAV. I was surprised she would be cast in two similar movies. In MI III she's on the good side, but not in DHWAV. This story was excellent. And the sidekick for the aging Mr. Willis was the guy who is the Mac in the Apple commercials. He was terrific. The perfect foil for John McClane. Violence quotient is pretty high, but the stunts were cool, except for about 10 minutes almost at the end. They definitely "jumped the shark" with the semi/jet sequence. Overall, still enjoyable.

Little tough to sleep after those adrenaline-pumpers! I see Handyman has brought home something restful from his brother's collection: The Bourne Ultimatum--no yawning tonight!

BTW--The Bourne trilogy is now our standard to judge action films. The best, our favorites on multiple levels: writing, stunts, and best car chases of ALL time. Watch them in order if at all possible. Highly recommended. The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum.

Gotta go hay!