Brave Movie Review

My wife and I went with some friends to see Pixar’s Brave last night.

Not to knock the movie, because there are lots of reasons to see it and ultimately we recommend that you do, but the best part of the whole thing was the animated short that preceded the actual movie. What can I say? I still have the attention span of a six-year old. And any animation that can adequately tell a complete story without a single word of dialog is fantastic in my book. It’s called La Luna and it tells a heart-warming story about a young boy on his first day on a very unique job that is being passed down from grandfather to father to him. You have to use your imagination (as Pixar is so good at doing) to follow what’s happening, but it’s fun and it’s interesting and extremely cute. So yeah. Go see that.

And go see Brave too. But be warned, as my neighbor pointed out to us, “You need to be brave to see Brave.” It’s scary. Like more than Ursula in Little Mermaid Scary. It’s legitimately scary. There’s a recurring theme of bears throughout the movie, and as one accustomed to hanging out withand around bears, I’m not too scared of them as a whole, but the way they depict one of the bears and a few of the scenes are so intense that it’s actually pretty dang scary.

My wife thought, and I agree, that it’s more scary and intense than it is funny and cute (which is what we were going for – since that’s what we expect from Pixar).  But yeah, Merida is a great heroine. She’s as fun and rebellious as you would expect from an adolescent princess. Her shortsightedness (never trust anybody willing to grant you wishes!! I hope all of you readers know this by now. If not, here are some more examples: Arial in Little Mermaid. The Mad Hatter and the King in Once Upon a Time. Jafar in Aladdin) and stubborn pride messes everything up, and then she needs to fix it all before it becomes permanent.

The story is a little crazy – as much as I don’t need my cartoons to be realistic by any means, this one is out there. I love the wisps though. And I really wish they were in real life too. I would definitely blindly follow those into a dark forest.

The little brothers are great: predictably mischievous in all the right ways. The mom is just like your mom. So you’ll like her. And the dad is as loud and boisterous as you would hope a big jolly one-legged warrior would be.

Overall, it’s good. Worth seeing but probably not buying.

11:44PM

It's 11.44pm on Sunday night.

I finally got somewhere decent on my designs for thesis.

Brian and I are getting SUPER antsy. (We're ready for a change!!!)

If you haven't seen Rio, you should. It's got great music and it's just a good movie.

I'm probably getting to the point of too tired to stay awake, let alone write this silly little post, but I really wanted to share about Rio. You really should watch it :)

And here's a photo of our dinner tonight, just to add some visuals.

Cheddar chicken bake, smothered with butter asparagus, and the substitute for potatoes that went bad :) Smiley fries!

Black Swan Movie Review

I was not ready for this.

I watched the trailers. I thought it was a drama about a ballerina. I thought Mila Kunis was trying to steal Natalie Portman's part. I thought it was just going to be a normal movie.

I guess I should have known better, though. You don't win at film festivals for being a "normal" movie. And apparently I don't understand the meaning of the genre "thriller."

It was really creepy and I never knew what was real and what was in her mind. Which, I suppose, is the director's point. And as much as a lot of it grossed me out (I can NOT stand the sight of blood), you can't deny that it was an extremely well-made movie, and Natalie Portman definitely deserved that Oscar.

And if you have a crush on Natalie, like I do/have had for years, she's pretty dang sexy (as in borderline graphically sexy) in this movie. And when she's not being half-naked sexy, she's elegantly beautiful:

You know how much I love dancers. That's one of the reasons I fell in love with Isa. And the dancing in the movie was fantastic. Granted, I can't really tell technique, but I thought they were flawless. (I just asked Isa, she confirmed that they were really good.)

As much as I didn't understand a good portion of the movie, I enjoyed watching it because it was so skillfully crafted, and then I really liked the ending. So good.

So if you don't mind some blood and thriller movies, you should definitely see this. Have you seen it? What did you think?

Megamind Movie Review

Movies in the mailbox. Love it.

What a yummy cast this movie had. Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt, and David Cross (Tobias from Arrested Development). We absolutely loved Tina Fey as an animated character. (We love her anyway from 30 Rock). 

So, basic plot: Megamind is a good-hearted bad guy (like Dr. Horrible) and Metro Man is the city's hero, and Megamind's nemesis, and Tina Fey is "the girl" (try to say that in a googly-eyed, love-struck tone). In a surprising twist, Megamind defeats Metro Man, but gets bored that there's nobody to fight. So he creates a new hero to fight against - Jonah Hill.

The movie is full-on entertaining the whole way through. We both loved the stories and all the twists. One of my favorite parts was after Megamind took over the city and put up these posters:

Seriously, how clever is that?

So, we recommend it. For sure. If you haven't seen it, you really should.

The Most Intense Movie Ever

So Brian has been nagging at me to start posting on OUR blog.

I'm just not a writing fiend.

However, I posted something like this blog post on my status on Facebook and Brian encouraged me to "blog about it" (that sounds so weird to me). Anywho, I've had a fairly relaxing weekend in terms of homework (though now I just know next weekend I will be smashed. With homework).

So, here goes:

We went and saw the movie Trust last night - David Schwimmer's (you should know who he is) directorial debut starring Clive Owen (Children of Men, Inside Man), Katherine Keener (40 Year Old Virgin), Viola Davis (Law & Order: SVU, Disturbia) and newcomer Annie Liberato. It's about a girl who gets targeted by an online sexual predator.

It. Is. Intense.

The most intense movie I've ever seen. I wanted to cry so many times and I rarely cry during movies let alone multiple times.

It's a disturbing look at reality, but not disturbing as in don't see it, but just be prepared to be incredibly insightful and shaken the rest of the night (at the least) - especially from the ending.

It just got Brian and myself thinking how we would have dealt with the situation (not like the dad in the movie) and how in the world do you prevent something like that? There is only so much you can do...

We talked about it the whole way home and it still shakes us.

I don't really have that much to say about the movie for a "review" per se, so...sorry.

Trust is an incredibly well-made, directed, and acted movie. I want to encourage you to watch it, but at the same time, I walked out of the theatre saying that I almost wish I hadn't seen it - BUT IT WAS SO GOOD. Just be prepared. I suggest that if the trailer grabs your attention, see it.

(Feel free to challenge me on the most intense movie you will ever see - once you've seen it)

How to Train Your Dragon Movie Review

Isa and I got "How to Train Your Dragon" in the mail yesterday (LOVE Netflix) and we couldn't wait to watch it. I heard it didn't do so hot in the theaters, which is crazy because it has one of the highest ratings I've ever seen on Rotten Tomatoes. And how can you go wrong when you throw together McLovin, Jonah Hill, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig (from SNL), and Gerard Butler (seriously, what better viking could you get than 300's King Leonidas?).

We're suckers for pretty much anything animated, and so we figured we'd like it, but it was REALLY good! The story had some surprising turns, it was really suspenseful, and we got really into it. During some of the more intense scenes I actually stopped eating my dinner (and you know what we had last night!) so you know it was captivating.

Besides the great story line, we fell in love with the dragon (well, all of them had their fun little quirks, like the Gryffindor Gronkle or the Terrible Terror, but mainly we mean Toothless, the Night Fury). He's a mix between a playful cat and the carpet from Aladdin.

The graphics are amazing! They really did an awesome job on the fire and the water.

If you haven't seen it, we highly recommend it. If you have seen it, tell us what you thought about it in the comments. And tell us which character (dragon or viking) was your favorite.

New York City Winters

This is just a quick update to let you all know how the married couple is doing. We're happy and having fun. We went to see an advance screening of Hot Tub Time Machine. It was great! You can watch our review of it by clicking this link:

Hot Tub Time Machine Review!!

We've also been having a lot of fun in the snow. New York has had a few decent snow storms this year. (Have you ever experienced a New York winter? See here.) But anyway, Isa and I go out and play in the snow as often as possible. Here are a few shots:



You can see the rest of the gallery on our facebook profiles.

Also, I've been spending time updating PerfectLittlePlanet.com and the store. I'm trying to make it more user-friendly, but Printroom (the company I'm using for my store) is a little old and dumb.

AND, if you haven't heard, MY BOOK IS DONE!! I've submitted it to a few agents, but until I get it "for real" published, I just went ahead and published it myself. You can get a copy by clicking this link or by searching my last name on Amazon. Either way, it's only $10 for my friends now. Yay! :)

That's all for now. See you again soon.

That's how we roll...

So Steve Martin called me up the other day and asked if I could make it to the world premiere of his new movie, Pink Panther 2. I told him I already had plans, but since he's such a good friend, I'd see what I could do to be there. So I rearranged my schedule and I took Isa and our friend Gabby to the premiere.


Ok, so maybe I made up a few of the details above. What actually happened is that we ran into a guy in Union Square giving away free "seat filler" tickets to the premiere. No guarantee to see the show - it's on a first come first served basis. He told us to show up about 2 hours before showtime.

We got there late. Like really late. Like 10 minutes before showtime late. But luckily it was snowing and nobody else showed up, so we still got in. It was AWESOME!! Free candy, free ice cream, free drinks, free popcorn, and the free movie to boot. Can't beat that, huh? Wait, yes you can. Steve Martin was there and so was Aishwarya Rai (former Miss World, now a huge Bollywood star).

Fun night.