Love love love! I wish you could hear my sing-songy voice, well, maybe not, I loved this movie!

Even in the middle of it, I turned to DCM and said we must add this to our movie collection! There are some movies that I enjoy the I don’t feel the need to add to the collection, this one was!

What a cast! The boy who played Jack, I knew him from X-Men as Hank or The Beast, but I knew I had seen him in something recently, something where there was a transformation… I know you’re not supposed to use your phone in the theater, but with 2 other people all the way in the back, thank goodness for Internet and imdb.com! He was the lead boy/zombie in Warm Bodies I told you about a few weeks ago; he was cute in this, cute like in X-Men, but not swoon-worthy cute as in Warm Bodies (back off, he’s more than legal!)

Jack was great, shy and adventurous, sweet and brave and clever and you want him to win and get the girl!

Wean McGregor played Elmont, head of the kings guards and he reminded me of a young Kenneth Branagh, and for me, that’s a great compliment! He was brave and dashing and daring and had a good heart.

Stanley Tucci was Roderick, if you’ve seen any previews, you can guess he’s a bad dude and I have to say, he plays a great bad dude! You’re rooting for him to get stomped by a giant!

Ian McShane, who has become famous in recent years for playing Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean. He plays King Brahmwell in this story and he’s a good king who loves his daughter.

A few other faces or voices you might recognize, Bill Nighy, it’s his voice you’ll recognize. The funny thing about Bill Nighy,…I first saw him in Blow Dry, he plays a hair dresser. DCM first saw him in Underworld, he plays a really nasty vampire, go figure. I this he plays a giant, General Fallon and really not nice. Warwick Davis plays Old Hamm, in it for about 5 minutes, 19 max, you may remember him from Willow, as…Willow.

The story is basically how legends become legends and then the possibility of them coming to life. You know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, this is a slightly different take or twist, but the lore didn’t fall far from “the truth”. Boy goes to town to sell horse, boy steps into carny show, girl is getting accosted, boy saves girls, turns out girl is princess who just wants to get out and see the world. Somehow she ends up going up with the beanstalk, the king sends a group, Jack goes with them, they save the princess, giants find a way down to do battle with humans.

By now, you can tell boy and girl like each other, but boy is commoner, but does princess care? Nope!

Boy saves kingdom, after it gets smashed up a bit (not boy’s fault), then boy…do I tell you if boy gets girl! I’ll let you guess!

There were only a few things that made me go..eewwe, other than that, I loved it and recommend it, it was funny, scary even once or twice and not hide my eyes scary, just ooh, suspenseful scary, if that makes sense. I was biting my nails at one point, I squeezed DCM’s hand another and couldn’t wait for some characters to get eaten by a giant, they really did deserve it. There were even some bad one liners, we thought “did they really go there?” There were some predictable parts and that was ok too.

All in all… You guessed it, I loved it!

It’s interesting to see actors in roles that are unexpected, nice to know they’re not typecast like others.

You know when you’re watching a movie and an actor you like plays a bad guy or just a role you’re not used to, makes you feel weird, uncomfortable even. Then it’s entertaining to see an actor in a role that is so far from what you’re used to, possibly as a favorite character.

Tonight I am watching Little Voice. Is about a painfully shy girl who can imitate almost any singer. A few of the actors you might recognize playing total opposites…

Jane Horrick plays LV, stands for little voice and that’s her name. She doesn’t go out, talk to people, just sits in her room with her records, favorites of her late father’s. The only way she can sing in public is to picture her father, who appears in black and white, right out of the photo she has on her wall. She channels all the classic greats; Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Edith Piaf, Judy Holliday, makes me want to sing.

Michael Caine, he plays a quasi sleazy, well more than sleazy, talent agent, thick cockney accent, gold chains and gold pants! not the polished and refined sort we see in most films. He uses her mom to get to her, he’s s boozer, gambler and not the most upstanding citizen, let’s say.

Brenda Blethyn was great as her trash talking mom who is slight on the floozie side, well, not slightly, way more than that. My favorite role that she’s been in is Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, the Keira Knightly version.

Ewan McGregor is playing the very shy telephone installer (dated, huh?) who is into pigeons and sweet on LV, they just look at the ground when they talk or don’t talk to each other. It’s sweet and sad all at the same time.

Jim Broadbent plays the club owner, Mr Boo. Long hair, if he had more hair in front, it would be a mullet! He’s quiet and soft spoken and not very funny, not much else I can say about his character.

How to end this blog? Not a clue, just thought I’d share.

Go see this movie! It was fun, goofy, icky, silly, romantic and just plain great!

At its basest level , it’s a love story, not your typical love story, but a love story none-the-less. There is a disease that has turned people into zombies, across town, there are the people who hunt and kill the zombies. The movie is narrated by a zombie boy (it took a while to place his face, for me, it was Hank McCoy/Beast from X-Men:First Class). John Malkovich is the leader and his daughter is one of his soldiers and of course…the girl (I remembered her from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) so you can sort of see where this might be going.

The zombie’s have a life, sort of, the group we are focused on ambles around an abandoned airport. Then there are the Bonies, basically very angry skeletons on a vicious rampage to kill everyone and everything. Basically, some zombies become Bonies eventually.

The boy zombie sees the girl and there is something inside that clicks and he wants more and after he saves her life, they grow closer and get to know each other and something changes in him. The other zombies see them together and something change within them as well, there is a cool scene when you see their hearts beat.

So, is it a typical love story? Girl fighter seeks out zombies to kill while rebelling against father. Boy zombie sees living girl and is smitten. Boy zombie saves living girl, living girl falls for zombie boy, but must go against zombie killing father and together they change history?

Sure, same old story from the ages…

Bottom line, go see this movie (if you’re looking for Oscar winning material, this isn’t it, just in case you were wondering), you’ll enjoy it, give you warm fuzzies.

Here is the link for IMDB where you can see a full description and a trailer.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588173/?ref_=sr_1

What did I do today? Well, it was nice and low key…iHop for breakfast, farmers market, Walmart, FaceTime and bad TV movies.

DCM and I decided on iHop, took a chance as the last few times we went, not so good. It was yummy,they have new melts, roasted peppers and spinache, who would have thought at iHop!

Next was Walmart to look for a birthday present for DCM’s granddaughter LB (well, LB is her nickname, her real name is LRS, but we call her LB). Her new favorite movie is Brave, or as she calls it, Merida, after the main character who has long red hair. LB has red hair, but as she’s almost 2, not as long. We found a Merida doll, that came with the three bears, that she will love and some Brave stickers, which her parents will probably not love, as they will probably end up on the car windows and a Merida card that opens to reveal a poster of Merida on a horse.

Then on to the farmer’s market, DCM’s first, hopefully not his last. I got my veggies for the week so I can juice, it’s been a few days and I’m not happy.

When we got back to the house, it was time to FaceTime with LB! LB is DCM’s first grandchild, she and her mommy, CS, DCM’s second oldest, moved to Las Vegas after she got married last year. She was talking with DCM and asked for me, JJ, that’s what DCM started calling me, so I have a title! And as soon as she realized I was there, she said “Cookie Monster, JJ?”.

So…the backstory…when CS and LB still lived in GA, DCM and I would FaceTime (video chat via the iPad for those of you not ‘in the know’) and to entertain LB, I would pick up this tissue box I have that had Cookie Monster, Elmo, Big Bird and Ernie. So, the second she sees me on FaceTime, she asks for Elmo or Cookie Monster, I put the box in front of my face and start talking like them, it’s exhausting! But funny! Today…I couldn’t find the tissue box! Oh no! So, I had to improvise, I was able to pull pictures of Cookie Monster and Elmo up on my iPad to show her.

We had fun chatting with them today, as much as a 2 year olds attention span will allow! I know DCM misses his LB, but it’s fantastic that they get to see each other as often as they can via the iPad and sometime soon, I’m working on it, we’ll go visit! (They’ll be back in GA in a few months as LB is about to have a cousin and DCM is going to be a granddad again!) more babies to spoil!

Then there was cross stitching, WOW (DCM, not me), pizza and bad tv and movies. We watched I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, a wonderfully bad B blaxploitation movie from the late 80’s that I absolutely love! It’s a Keenan Ivory Wayans movie about Jack, a soldier in the army who comes home to find his brother has OG’d, died from over gold! Drugs are not what is killing the kids, it’s too many gold chains! Mr T gone wild! There’s fighting, romance, thugs, lost loves, prosthetics, pimps, great cameos, pms, Kung Fu fighting and theme music, because every good hero should have their own theme music!

Next was this awfully wonderful series that I had to share with DCM and the movie it was based on. The tv series had only 12 episodes and it starred Rue McLanahan, Olivia Newton John, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, as a Tammy Wynette wanna be drag queen, and so many others that some of you will recognize and some you won’t but it made me laugh from start to finish! The description n Netflix: “Head on down to the trashy side of Texas that follows the warped antics of Peggy Ingram and her various and honorary offspring.” I think that about sums it up, rednecks, white trash, bible thumpers, drunks, gays, lesbians, theater and guns, what more could your want! The movie was not as good as the TV show, but they had time to perfect it! It was a wonderful, horrible cheesy show that I honestly believe was written to be like that and I could not pull my eyes away, I loved it! If you have to choose, choose the show, 12 episodes, 22 minutes each, but be forewarned, there are cliff hangers at the end of the TV show, we’ll never know what happens to Ty and Jacob, Bitsy Mae and Glyndora, Brother Boy or the rest of the nut cases! Do I care? Nope!

You’re probably as beat as I am now, so, I will leave you to say good night…good night.

Tonight I saw a new movie, Beautiful Creatures.

DCM and I went to Discover Mills mall to see Beautiful Creatures in the smallest theater we have ever been in! We may have been the oldest people in the theater, possibly with the exception of the man snoring in the back.

The cast was impressive, Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson were the big heavies, leading a wonderful cast of well known faces and talented newcomers.

The movie takes place in Gatlin, NC. As described by Ethan, the main boy character, Gatlin is too far from Charlotte to have a Starbucks! The one movie theater gets movies after they are already on DVD and always get the name wrong (Interception, Finale Destination).

The town is very religious and wary of anything they don’t know or is different and they have ideas about the Ravenwoods, the recluse family that has been in the town for centuries and the new girl Lena Duchannes (Ravenwood) is shunned by the popular kids, they all said she was a witch.

There was a fight over Lena…was she going to be light or dark (I’m not giving anything away, just watch a trailer)… What is going to happen to Ethan? Will they be together? Will there be a happy ending?

One of the things I liked about the movie was that even though it had a teen feel/theme, it didn’t feel like it was being marketed towards teens, it was a movie that could transcend the generations. It was about family, loyalty, love, respect, hate, confusion and the power to make your own decisions.

There were some great one liners, fun effects, spells, magic, confusion and great lessons. The greatest lesson? Love is the strongest magic there is.

So go…make your way in the world, be true to yourself, love and allow yourself to be loved and you won’t go wrong.

Today I did something that was a lot of fun, I went to a movie marathon.

Every once in a while, when a new movie comes out, if it’s part of a series, they will do a movie marathon. I did this several years ago for the last Harry Potter movies, they showed the last 2 movies before they premier the new one, I did the same last May for The Avengers movie, it was Iron Man, the Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and then the Avengers, it was 15 hours of movies!

today with the Die Hard marathon it started at noon, with Die Hard, Die Hard 2, the 3rd, Die Hard With a Vengeance, the 4th, Live Free or Die Hard, and finally A Good Day to Die Hard.

The great thing about the movie marathons is you get a discounted price for your entire movie collection, today’s deal was $20 for 5 movies you can’t beat that!

Now anybody who’s at least in my age range even younger, has seen Die Hard, we love it! it’s the original, yippie ka-yay mother blank! There is no greater villain than Hans Gruber, he set the precedent for a long line of badasses, there’s been nothing like him since and many have tried to imitate him none have succeeded.

So how many times have you seen Die Hard? Can you quote it, I can! Then we have Die Hard 2, it was a great movie a little silly but still a lot of fun, both have become Christmas classics for some! As I was watching these movies everything came flooding back that was the cool part and those of us who were in the theater, and they were very few, we were all quoting different lines and cheering when we heard our favorite yippie ka-yay!

I hadn’t seen the other to Die Hard movies, I don’t know why I just didn’t. In my mind the first to are classics and the other 2 just didn’t quite catch my eye. Well this being a new one coming out, and there was an opportunity for a marathon, I thought why not. I went with my friend BG and met his friend MF.

The cool thing was, in between each movie, we had about 30 minutes so a bunch of us would stand outside the theater and discuss the merits of what we thought of each film.

I enjoyed the third one, it was is a lot of fun, and it took place in my hometown of NYC so I was a little nostalgic. I like Samuel Jackson he was a lot of fun, and I really like Jeremy Irons as a villain, but he was a little bit lame, I just didn’t feel it it…was kind of awkward.

The fourth one was interesting because there was a lot a techno stuff, it was definitely coming up more in terms of new technology which was very cool, I like Justin Long, he plays a good geek, and I love Kevin Smith, although, it’s always a little odd to see Silent Bob talk in a movie. I wasn’t as big a fan of the villain in the fourth, he seemed like he was about to cry at every turn. I also thought this one had a little too much violence and destruction, didn’t like seeing that. I’m all for gratuitous violence and laughter in a movie, but there has to come a point when you say, really?

What I don’t get in some movies is why the character has to have marital and family strife in every single picture. I know, I know it adds to the depth of the character, an inner turmoil, well bully for character, can we just have a happy ending?

Here we are the fifth movie, A Good Day To Die Hard. It took a little bit to get into, it dragged in a lot of places, there were a lot of twists and turns, but overall it didn’t quite keep my attention as evident by the fact that I dozed off twice during the movie. from what I remember there were a lot of plot twist and turns and you never really knew the bad guy was, which is kind of cool.

All in all I had a great time, good company and fun movies, what a great way to spend the afternoon. There was a 30 minute break in between each movie, but you’re still sitting for about 12 hours.

On the way home, so I had the seat warmers on, I am going to sleep on my side, because my rump is sore!

so dear friends, I leave you with this..Yippie Ka-yay!