Oh, WOW!, WOW and WOW..Breaking Dawn

I finished "Breaking Dawn" today and Mom and I saw "Twilight" the movie last night.  First, I loved the movie so much by seeing it a second time.  I just got more out of it and heard the dialog better and appreciated the acting and story much better.  Mom liked it also a lot and is starting to read again the book.  I am totally with the casting.  Even Jacob I like.  The Volvo I don't have any problem with and I never did have problems with the hair color of Victoria.  Bella and Edward are just the best....I really got into the last two books and B. Dawn just kinda blew me away.  Very creative writing and storytelling I must say.  The solution to the love triangle was brillant and novel.  Imprinting!!!  Jacob will be so awesome in the next movies as a wolf as I am sure they will do a good job in the special effects area.  Anyway, I am sorry the saga ends and I have read all the books.  I hate to go back to reading Mickey Spillane novels.  I wish I knew how to import pictures to the blog.  Maybe the Foos will show me again how to do it and find a source.  I haven't heard much from them except that they are having fun and that is the objective.  Hiss to Aro!

Tuesday's with Tue?

Sorry guys!!! We got home so late Sunday night I didn't even think of Sunday's with Sue, and I forgot about it yesterday too. Anyway, last week's was the Wright Family Classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels! I had to pick a picture from our favorite scene. Cat was first to guess, but she guessed wrong. Sorry Cat! It wasn't European Vacation. Em was first to guess it right, then Matt. No one else guessed!

Since the Phisters and Matt and B are in CA, and I'm late posting, I'm going to let this new one go until next Sunday. Here is the quote from a movie:

I hope you wake up so stiff you can't even move!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

YO PEEPS-------THANKSGIVING

Mom agreed today that it would be better, (wiser? smarter?) not to take the quick trip to Utah for Thanksgiving dinner. Just too much car riding for such little time with you. You know how much she likes holidays, birthdays and gettogethers and this is going to be very hard on her. I would go if she insisted. She tears us thinking about she and I alone on Thursday. We are both so happy that the Phisters and Matt & B are on their trip and will see SoCal and stuff. We will just miss them for the week. I had all worked out in my mind how I would pretty much fix a small turdkey dinner and thought we could make it a fun day etc. Before I could tell her of my plans she asked if we could go to the Holliday Inn for their buffet. I said yes, although I think going out to eat would be sadder than eating at home together with music and our livestock. But, supprise, I told her that Justin Hays (a guy I work with) invited us to their house to join their big family dinner and mom brightened up and smiled and said that would be great. There will be about 20 of us at his house and he is roasting and deep frying turkeys and all we need to do is bring pickles and cool whip. So that will be a new experience for us. I guess I will have to pass on the Coronas. (standing joke with me and Justin) We'll see Twilight Wednesday night or Thursday and maybe another movie also. Soo, we will be okay. It would be nice if you think to give mom a call on the phone. Looking forward to Neil in December.

Twilight

4 stars

FYI for anyone reading this that may not know-- I (Emily), Sue and Cath drove out to Wyoming for the sole purpose of watching this movie on opening weekend with our other sister Amy, her daughters, my mom and dad (mom was sick, so didn't end up going) and our brother (Matt) and his wife (B). We thought it would be a lot of fun to be able to see it together. Plus, we like any excuse to spend the weekend with the fam, that is always a good time.

I thought it only wright that someone did a review of this movie, since most of us saw it together. I'm going to try to do a collective review, that includes what we all thought. I can do this since we spent so much time talking about it afterwords (hee hee). As a whole, we all liked it. I don't think we have ever all agreed with each other so much! Here are the thoughts we all had on some particular points of the movie:

Pattinson: We all loved him!! Upon first hearing he was cast, I was on board 100%. I was familiar with him from his role in Harry Potter (Cedric Diggory) and it just clicked with me. We agreed that he has a very intense face and it worked well with Edward. Some had a slight problem with his eyebrows, but he was forgiven (not me! Loved the eyebrows). We all very much liked his hair. Very much. The only execption to our love of Pattinson was Sarah, she has been against him from the start, he was nowhere near her interpretation of Edward, not that any of us know what that is exactly, as she is unable to explain it properly. After seeing it, she admitted that he did a good job, but still.....

Stewart: She totally nailed the look of Bella we thought. There were a couple of times for me, where she seemed a little awkward (and not in a Bella way, just awkward), but I didn't hold it against her too much. I saw her on Letterman a few days before, and that is how she talked in real life, so I guess that is just her. It wasn't detrimental though, so no big thing.

The rest of the Cullens: We LOVED Jasper and found him so funny! We thought Emmette and Rosalie were perfect (we were skeptical of Rosalie before we saw it, but were won over quickly upon seeing the picture). Esme was great (very small part), Alice, I wasn't totally in love with, but I'll live. Our biggest problem was Carlise. I think we all agreed that he nailed the part, but he looked wierd. I really like Peter Facinelli, I just thought the blond hair was strange looking and compromised his look quite a bit. I am now thinking that's really shallow of me since I thought he played the part very well, so I have decided to let go the problem I had, and just say that I was happy with him.

The Quiluetes: I thought Billy was perfect. Jacob too, our only concern is how many power shakes are they going to have to force down that kid to prep him for New Moon?

Charley: That actor did a great job. I thought he portrayed him perfectly, yet he wasn't at all what I pictured, but I adjusted nicely. I seemed to have the most trouble with him.

Edward's diamond skin: We (excepting Kelly) were really happy about how they did that. How Edward acted before and after was a little -eh-, but the effect itself was better then I expected. Let me just say, that the moment I heard they were doing a movie, this was my first thought - How cheesey it will be to see the diamond skin. I thought that no matter how they did it, it would look terrible and just weird visually. But they made me eat my words. I thought they did it very subtle and was impressed that it wasn't over the top. So bravo!

The baseball scene: We enjoyed this scene very much, we did think they could have spent more time showing it, it was a little short. We all seemed to like the song (supermassive black hole - Muse) and thought it went great with the scene. We also really liked Alice's pitching.

Spider monkey: Yeah, we really liked that line.

Edward's Volvo: Most found it too wimpy looking. We expected a more sporty looking Volvo. Sue called it "hatch-backy" and that sums it up pretty well.

Overall: We thought they did a great job of adapting this book into a movie. It is hard to make everyone happy (impossible I should say) but I think they made wise decisions on what to leave out and what to add. I cringed a few times, but it seemed to be more with the directing then specific actors. I think a different director might be a good thing, but I can live with this one I suppose. Two members of the family attended that hadn't read the books: Matt and Scott. Scott has heard a lot about them from his wife and daughters, and Matt probably a little from his wife (and sisters). Both of them really enjoyed it! Matt is even planning to read Twilight when he is done with Les Mis whenever that might be. He thought the story was really interesting and cool. While watching it, I didn't think anyone that hadn't read the books could possibly like it, but I was very happy to hear that they did. I guess I was wrong. It's good to be wrong sometimes.

I am sure I have left some stuff out, but I pretty much wrote this so we had a place to continue discussing the movie if we'd like (comments). So no worries, whatever I missed, I am sure we will discuss it fully below.

I am so glad we took the time to go out there so we could all see it together! That was a great idea I had. Yes, I'm smart. I had a lot of fun seeing everyone! Hope the Phisters and Co are having fun at Disneyland this week. Ride Splash Mountain for me.

Cinderella Man

3 1/2 - Stars

Well, I did it, I watched it last night. I thought it would be best, and I could avoid some awkward questions this weekend if I watched it before I left and had to face you all in person. The movie was very good. The story was excellent, the first 45 minutes however, I was like, "who is making me watch such a depressing movie!?" Cold, sick, starving kids make me sweat a little. But it all worked out. For how much I don't enjoy watching sports at all, I sure love me a good sport's movie (even boxing!)
With that being said, no one told me I would get to see Russell Crowe taking punches for two hours! I knocked an entire star off my rating for having it star Crowe, but added a half of a star because I got to watch him get punched. I like Paul Giamatti, and thought he did an excellent job in this, as did Renee Zelweger.
I think I handled my first Russell Crowe movie pretty good, a little better then I had anticipated. Sometimes I had to just distance myself from him and concentrate hard on the character he was portraying, sometimes I was just plain ok with him. And sometimes, his little Old Time New York Accent needed to be smacked out of him (and then it would be).
I don't like him any better then I did yesterday, but I now feel like maybe I can watch another movie he is in if it's REALLY GOOD. I know you lot are all in love with every Russell Crowe movie ever made, so we will have to see.

Some examples of some looks I would like to see smacked off his face:

Top 5 things that give me the chills

5. The squeaky sound (and feeling) of wet shoes on thin car carpet.

4. Touching pottery or other rough things like maybe cinder blocks after my hands are all raisiny from being wet for a long time.

3. Finger nails on car paint. I think it is worse on older cars that have spots of rust on them.

2. The soap scum build up on drinking glasses. If I so much as think about the feeling of my fingernails touching that, I have to bundle up and get in front of a heater.  (I just zipped up my hoodie)

1. This one is a little hard to explain, but it's bad. When your eating an apple, I swear the juice does something weird to your lips... It's like even though they are wet, they feel dry when your lips touch something! Do you know that feeling? If your lip touches your teeth, tongue, or other lip it feels so gross! It gives me the chills so bad that I even think twice about eating an apple, or I just eat it like a gorilla with my lips all puckered so they stay out of the way.

If your going to do one of your own, I suggest getting somewhere warm! This post sucked to do! I shuddered so much I almost got whip-lash! 

Happy Birthday Emily!!!

Happy Birthday Emily! Hope you're having a good day. I hope Scout is being good and pretending to be something really cute like Bruce pretending to be a whale pretending to be a kitty. Here are some pictures of things Em really likes.

I don't have a picture of Em stored on my computer, so I went to google images. I thought perhaps there was a chance there would be a picture of Em somewhere, but I couldn't find one. But I did find this lovely picture of a woman named Emily Pugh!!

Love you!!!! Kisses!!!!!

Sunday's With Sue

Last week's quote was from The Mary Tyler Moore Show! It was a tough one for everyone. Cat was the first to get it! Yay Cat! Em guessed next and that is it. Cat didn't recognize the first quote, but she just knew it had to be Ted and Murray. Em got it after the second quote. I took that quote from the very funny Chuckles the Clown dies episode. If you haven't seen that one, Chuckles is killed by an elephant in a parade, because he is dressed like a peanut. The whole office makes jokes about it and Mary thinks they are horrible, because a co-worker of theirs was killed. Then at the funeral she starts laughing and can't stop. Very funny. TV Guide actually voted that episode the #1 best TV episode ever.

Here is this week's quote from a movie:

I'm keeping the mink. Is that wrong?

By the way, I watched the best movie this morning. The Darjeeling Limited with Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Swartzmann. I absolutely loved it and will definitely buy it. It is a Wes Anderson movie. Wes Anderson is becoming one of my favorite directors (Rushmore, Royal Tananbaums, The Life Aquatic). Anyway, it's rated R, but I really don't know why. I think the F word is used like twice, but that is it. I'd do an Under the Radar on it, but I'm tired and I'm trying not to do rated R ones, so I'm just doing a quick recommendation.

Random dribble

Your mom wore a few shoulder pads back in the days. "What goes around, comes around!" Your kids will be laughing at you before you know it. I saw Young @ heart tonight. Nice! I liked it a lot, but mom fell asleep at 9:10 watching it. Maybe I should slip her a Red Ball Mickey before she watches a movie. Last night I watched with much interest "Mistic River". Awesome movie. What a role Sean Penn played so very well. He is a great actor. I was very impressed with all the acting and the story and directing all everything about the movie. Matt and I discussed the ending at lunch hour today and agree that there are more than one way to interpet the ending. The finger pointing gun sign and Penn's shrug and expression. Good film making. The young girl that was killed, played Christine in Phantom. Pretty girl! I still don't like Penns' active politics, but I won't let that be a factor in my watching his movies any more. Go and do likewise you that hate Russell Crowe...see Cinderella Man, yet? See A Beautiful Mind? See 3:10 train to Yuma? Have a fun time this weekend with Rarnee and the B. Mom and I still laugh and remember the good time and food last Saturday at P J Chinks. Kisses, Pops

Happy Birthday Linda Evans!!!

Love you! Kisses!

Happy Birthday Neil!!

You are the Greatest! Love You! Kisses!

Sunday's With Sue

It's a little late today! My animals actually let me sleep in a bit this morning, then we went to lunch with mom and dad, and I've been taking down the rest of the bat cave, doing laundry etc. Anyway, it was great to see mom and dad! Mom I really, really like your latest hair color! I know I told you at lunch, but I really do like it!

So, last week's quote was from the very funny Tommy Boy! Em was first to guess, then Haley, then Matt, then B, then Cat. You did it again Em! It was extrememly difficult to find quotes from that movie that we all don't use all the time! Almost every sentence from that movie is a great quote! Cam and I actually watched the movie just a couple of hours ago, Comedy Central was playing it.

This week I'm doing something different. I'm doing a quote from a TV show. It's a show that I know most of us love dearly. If you don't like it, let me know, and I'll stick to movies. But, if I'm going to stick to movies you guys have to send me more titles! I didn't get a very good response when I asked for titles from you guys before. Okay, here's the quote:

Person #1- Mother Nature made Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and me.
Person #2-Right--The steep, the deep, and the creep.

Good luck!

A Sad Report...

I am sorry to report that our little kitty Jacob, died this morning. Poor little thing was probably just too sick to make it. We found him this morning in the garage. We are going to bury him now and clean up his huge mess in the garage, (he still had water poop.) Anyway, just thought you guys would like to know. Sorry for the sad news. Edward is still going strong, so hopefully he makes it. Have a great Sunday!

Since you asked..........

I know a little about the Lynryd Skynyrd vs. Neil Young thing. It all started when Neil wrote and released this song:

B, listen at your own risk

Southern man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

I saw cotton
and I saw black
Tall white mansions
and little shacks.
Southern man
when will you
pay them back?
I heard screamin'
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

Southern man
better keep your head
Don't forget
what your good book said
Southern change
gonna come at last
Now your crosses
are burning fast
Southern man

Lily Belle,
your hair is golden brown
I've seen your black man
comin' round
Swear by God
I'm gonna cut him down!
I heard screamin'
and bullwhips cracking
How long? How long?

As you can see, he is referring to slavery and the old days, and then he talks of burning crosses (stuff that was going on in the present day). He is kind of like, "hello! Are you guys going to drop the hate and degradation anytime soon?". Well, Lynyrd Skynyd took offense to this. They were a Southern love band that even used the confederate flag as album covers from time to time. They retaliated that they thought the South was doing just fine and wrote a song about their home sweet home. They spoke specifically to Neil by saying:

Well I heard mister young sing about her
Well, I heard ole neil put her down
Well, I hope neil young will remember
A southern man dont need him around anyhow

Sweet home alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home alabama
Lord, Im coming home to you

In birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

As you can see, they thought things were just fine and Neil can take a hike. Now I don't know how deep this feud went and how much was kind of tongue in cheek. I tend to think they weren't THAT offended and it was all just for fun. A few members did die in a crash, including the lead singer and the rumor is that he was buried in a Neil Young t shirt.

I just looked up a couple tidbits from songfacts.com and here are two of interest:

One of the verses is an attack on Neil Young: "I hope Neil Young will remember a southern man don't need him around anyhow." Young had written songs like "Southern Man" and "Alabama," which implied that people in the Southern US were racist and stuck in the past. Skynyrd responded with this, a song about Southern pride and all the good things in Alabama. The feud between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young was always good-natured fun; they were actually big fans of each other. Ronnie Van Zant often wore Neil Young T-shirts on stage and is wearing one on the cover of Street Survivors, the last Skynyrd album before his death.

Neil Young performed this once. He played it at a memorial to the 3 members of Lynyrd Skynyrd who died in a plane crash in 1977.

If you listen carefully to the line, "Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her," immediately following it, someone in the background sings, "Southern Man." Some people thought it was a recording of Neil Young, but it was their producer, Al Kooper, impersonating Young.

The first of those, backed up my comment that it was a good natured feud.

STOP STOP STOP!!!

We just can't let politics infest this family blog.  I hate the botched Iran war.  G. W. Bush has been a poor if not awlful president for at least the last 7 years.  Both parties in Congress have let the country down and if I had my way, I would sweep all the #%$@&*% out of office.  Our so called leaders let the crooks get away with all those millions of dollars and now the taxpayers and your kids the taxpayers will be paying for the bailout for ever!  I'll give Obama a chance and see what he will do.  I just hope some redneck, skinhead, #%&*$% doesn't try to shoot him.  Would that ever be a disaster for the whole country.

     Since I made a pol statement on this posting, you can go ahead and say what you like, but let's commit to comments only on this post.  Shirley, lets not let politics ruin our fun times and interesting comments that we have had going for the last two months or so.  I love you all, you nerdlings, and wish you happiness and prosperity and love and health.  

Moonstruck.....or should I say Moon-hud!

Ok, no offense to people who like this movie, but Marcus and I just thought it was terrible! Where shall I start? We were bored one night last week and we wanted to watch something that we had never seen. So I remember my mom mentioning that Moonstruck was a good movie and quite funny. So I suggested we watch it. From start to finish, Marcus and I kept looking at each other and cracking up after a look of "what the heck??" And I even love Nicolas Cage, but he was just sooo weird. It's like it wasn't even him. I do believe it was his first movie, but seriously. The whole thing consisted of a disfunctional Italian family(Cher being 40 and living with her parents and many other weird people). The main theme in the movie was infidelity. Wow, like we need more of that in the world. She (Cher) cheats on her fiance, with his brother, while he is in Italy with his dying mother! Then, her father is cheating on her mother throughout the whole thing and her mom is almost seduced by this creepy college professor. And they blame all this "love" on hte way the moon looks! I thought it was just weird how she goes from looking like a spinster into a floozy in like 5 min and heads off to the Opera. The only couple seconds I actually liked was when they were at the Opera becuase they see La Bohem, which is the best! But of course they have to ruin that for me because as he is walking her home afterwards, they mysteriously end up at his apartment and as they are playing my favorite song from La Bohem, Nicolas Cage starts yelling "Go get in my bed!!" Wow, that's romantic. It was disgusting! I did like her mother, she was cool. Well, as you can see, I hated to movie. If any of you like it, I would love to know why. And if you agree with me, I would love to hear that too! And I hereby declare that I will rate this movie %*@$ becuase I believe that it will cause B permanent scarring becuase it has a creepy Nicolas Cage in it! But other than that, I think it deserves a "hud sauce."

Sue's Picks

3 Stars!!

Cam and I saw the first one and pretty much thought it was hud sauce. We like Rob's doppelganger, Eric Bana, but it wasn't enough to make the first Hulk any good. We totally hated it. We decided to give the second one a try only because we are both huge Ed Norton fans. He is one of those very rare actors that I will see a movie just because he is in it. In fact, Hulk 2 has 3 actors that I like a lot in it. Ed Norton, Tim Roth and William Hurt. I didn't know Roth and Hurt were in it until I started watching it and I was a very happy Sue.

The story is pretty good, the nerdy scientist guy "Mr. Blue" is great, William Hurt was really good as the general, Tim Roth does a great job as always, and Ed Norton, what can I say? I love him. We liked the design of the Hulk a lot better than the first one, and there were some great scenes. Our favorite scene is when Tim Roth says to Hulk "Is that all you got?" and Hulk kicks him really hard and he smashes into a tree. We watched that scene 3 or 4 times. And of course Stan Lee makes his cameo as always.

So, if you hated the first one and weren't even going to give this one a chance, well I recommend you do give it a chance.

Sunday's With Sue

Pet Sematary! First, I really want to apologize to Matt. I'm sorry little bro! I wanted to do a scary movie one in honor of Halloween, and I knew pretty much all of us had seen this one. Maybe I should have used The Shining or Ghostbusters. And I guess using a quote from "she who shall not be named" was down right mean. Think of it as pay back from when you scared me, Booker, Kyle and Annie while we were watching Watcher in the Woods last year!

Em guessed it first, you're back on top Em! Then Cat, then B, B was pretty excited that she finally knew one of the movies. Then Matt, then Dad snuck in his answer early this morning! I think Dad only got it based on the comment Matt left on the previous Sunday's With Sue posting.

Here is this week's quote from a movie:

We're family, we're gonna be doing lots of dumb stuff together. Wait til Christmas!

Twilight saga

I finished Blue Moon, Moon over Miami, Moon Beam, Moon Rise, or whatever it is called. No sniff....from me. Just kidding mostly, I didn't hate it, just couldn't really get into it all that much. The weirwolfs were willy wrather wonderful (how's that for aliteration?) but I thought the story draged a little. I am still withit and borrowed the third book from Amy last night.

I Declare Myself Harry Pot Pot Champion!!

Yes, I finished all the Harry Potter books....sniff. I didn't really think of this as a race but when I finished Deathly Hallows yesterday, my mom said, "you won!" I am really missing Harry Potter land. I am sad that I am finished and I thoroughly enjoyed reading these books. I think that the characters, story, setting, everything was just well written. I LOVED the last book, the Deathly Hallows. I thought the whole book was just non-stop action and I loved every minute of it. I can't say much else about except that I loved how it ended. Happy reading to you all!

PS- That isn't the real book cover but I think it is a lot better than the real one! I really think that they should have picked better cover art for these books.