CHROLS--Breaking Dawn

Well, I finished the Twilight series . . . and have to say that as far as happy endings go, this one was pretty satisfying. Not sure I always like things so neatly wrapped up with everyone realizing their fondest wishes (Leah as an exception here, and I guess the Denali coven who lose their sister--even though Kate ends up with a new and pretty dang cool mate), but I actually thought the final showdown and how everything came to a head was really well done. And if Meyer had something close to this in mind all the way along, then I am impressed. It sure took a frickin' long time to get to this book and all its action, though! I was feeling pretty weary after Eclipse, so I'm glad this one had a lot less hand-wringing and a lot more forward movement all the way through it.

I definitely met a surprise on who Jacob imprinted on (thought it was going to be Leah in one of those typical "I hate you but I really love you" kinds of things--and I have to say I was sort of rooting for that to happen, or at least Leah to find someone to love her), but I thought Meyer did a great job with how that imprinting happened and how it changed the dynamic for Jacob and Bella. The earlier scene with Quil imprinting on that little girl was CREEPING me out, but as it unfolded with Jake and Nessie, the context and what imprinting really means (without inappropriate physical longings when the kids are so young) helped me get past that. And Bella's reactions and hers and Edward's growing acceptance to who had imprinted on their daughter were also pretty believable and well executed.

I generally liked the new vampire characters and thought they were well drawn for the amount of time she gave to them, and I loved the Romanian dudes. They were hilarious. Garrett and his speech was great, and I thought the way Meyer explained the Volturi motivations and the way they ruled the vampire world was decently complex and interesting.

I liked the Jacob and Rosalie relationship and rip-fest, and I'm glad Jasper became a more compelling character in the final two books. Still can't understand the casting choice they made for him for the movies, though. Completely off! Yay, too, for Charlie hanging in there so well through all the changes and also for him ending up with Sue.

Bella.... Still not my favorite character for taking so long to begin to grow into a fraction of confidence. And overall, I'm still not sure the romance novel is a good thing for the world and am pretty solidly against any idea of soul mates, but I guess by the end I was sucked in and rooting for the right people anyway.

Thanks, I guess, for urging me to dive into the world of Forks, Washington ....

WTB: NEW MOVIE Last week of April

Yeah, Dan, you have to start early to beat me when I know the quote and I have to be at the airport at 4:45 AM. I don't know many quotes but I knew that one. I rented the movie about a month ago and enjoyed it huge again. So many funny lines. A little sappy and slapstick at times, but the characters are so funny. Eunice Burns (M. Kahn) is great. Same for Kenneth Mars as a german professor. The whole scene with Judge Maxwell is classic. Anyway, good one Ems and I am back in the winners circle. Not as a Laker, but as a movie guesser guy.

Okay, here we go. First quote:

Girl: "It must be a drag to be a slave to the male sex drive."

Boy: "It's not just sex."

Girl: Oh, you want to start a book club with her?"

Extra quote: Girl: "Don't go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs."

have fun, peeps......

WTB-- What's Up Doc?

I TOTALLY forgot to do this yesterday! I was even on the blog several times. Weird. Oh well, sorry. Anyway the movie is What's Up Doc?.

Yes, Dan you did get your guess in early and it was wright, but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on ol' Uncle George -literally- he was up at before the dawn with a sharp mind and beat you (his guess came in at 5:03 am). For the record, Dan's guess came in at 10:42 am, and there were no other guesses! Congrats pops! I really didn't know how popular this movie is with this crowd, but I figure it's a good ol movie and if you haven't seen it-- go and do it already.

This is a rollicking good screwball comedy and apparently, you can hate Barbara Streisand and still endorse it (Ami's husband Alex can back that up). Ryan O'Neal plays an uptight nerd with an uptight fiance (Madeline Kahn- her character's name is "Eunice" and they get good use out of making fun of that name). Anyway there is some sort of Nerd convention or scholorship thing- it escapes me what it is exactly- in a hotel and O'Neal meets Streisand's character and she makes him a very grudging participant in a series of misadventures because she falls instantly in love with him and misadventures seem to follow her. Anyway, some great moments and it climaxes with a car chase on the streets of downtown San Francisco that has to be the best car chase in the history of movies. I was talking about this with Ami about a month ago and I mentioned that the car chase makes me clap in delight several times during the sequence. I'm not kidding. I seriously (and literally) do that even while watching alone. Also-- it never gets old. The last hint I did on Friday is also a funny line that is a nod to "Love Story" starring Ryan O'Neal, a VERY sappy movie that features that line (a line I find to be grossly false). Anyway, Streisand tells it to O'Neal and then bats her eyelashes precociously and O'Neal looks at her for a minute and says, "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard". Anyway, funny moment in the film if you're familiar with Love Story.

A personal note about this movie, I found it on DVD on line somewhere and ordered it and it arrived at my house a few days before the Great Pugh Family House Robbery of '07 and the stupid thieves took it! I never even got to watch it and I haven't seen it to this day. Sniff.

I AM A LAKER!! DREAMER??

I dreamed the other night that I made the Laker team. It was one of those dreams that you remember totally after you wake up. It was so cool. I walked on to a team tryout and made the team. I remember banging it up with the guys on the boards. I could jump. Everything I tossed up went in. The G.M. took my arm later and said I made the team. I went into the locker room and nodded at the boys and picked out my uniforms and shoes. Sweet! I remember thinking, hey, I can get Rob floor seats when the team plays the Jazz. He will be so excited." At the end of the dream I was thinking....hey, I get paid. I get a check. I can pay off my VISA credit card... then I woke up. I was smiling, but still a fat, old man... AAuggggggooowwww..

Spoon and I are back!

Most, if not all of you know that the last 10 days have been pretty crazy for me and Alex. During the middle/end of the semester we stumbled upon a great film making opportunity that we just couldn't pass up. Our good friend and English Professor Ben Evans invited His Eminence: Chokling Jigmed Palden Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist Lama- to come stay at his house in little Riverton Wyoming. It was quite an experience! Every day was packed full of lectures, classroom visits, Empowerments, and other ceremonial things for him to do around different parts of Wyoming- ALL of which needed to be filmed. At this point we have around 65 hours of footage to condense into a regular length documentary. YIKES...
The good news is, we got all the shots we were hoping for and more. I really feel good about what we can make out of this, and have pretty high hopes for the film! 

I couldn't have asked for a better work partner then Alex. He was fun, teachable, hard working, and added some dynamics to this group that I think were very refreshing to everyone. He represented Wyoming, America in every way! He even took the President of the organization out to go shoot clay pigeons! Thanks Spoon, for jumping in and never quitting. It was awesome witnessing miracle after miracle with you.

We both have very mixed feelings as we go back to our day to day normal lives. In a way, it's nice to think about other things and work on school, but we can't help but miss the friends we made, all the broken english, the laughs we had, and the constant search for creativity. We both feel like we need to have a camera or microphone in our hands!
Thanks for all the support B, and the rest of the fam.

Happy Birthday Marcus!!

Happy Birthday today to Marcus! He turns 24 today and I keep teasing him that the only reason I'm excited for his birthday is because we will get cheaper car insurance. Of course I'm kidding but that is a nice bonus! Well, I'm glad that a lot of you have been able to get to know Marcus better the last few years. He really is an amazing person. I couldn't ask for a better husband and father. He works really hard at work and school and also helps me so much at home. Allison LOVES her daddy SO much! Here are some pictures of Marcus:

That is Marcus on the left with his sister and brother

Marcus with his sister Nia

Us going to prom in 2005

Marcus dancing with his little sister at his brother's wedding

Marcus on his mission with some of his good friends from his mission

At our wedding

This is a common Marcus face :)

Marcus and Allison

At the Rose Bowl watching his beloved Oregon Ducks!

Happy Birthday Marcus!

Love You, Kisses!!!

YNE (Yes, No, Eh) -- Actors

I'm running with the idea talked about in another post to give us the chance to talk about our idiosyncratic likes, dislikes, or indifference to certain actors and actresses. Because there are SO many and I think we should approach this systematically, I decided to take the list of Academy Award Nominees for Best Actor (not supporting actor--at this point anyway) from the 1980s to the present. That was still WAY, WAY long a list, so I narrowed it down to thirty of them who have had multiple noms in this time frame (the numbers in the parentheses indicate the number of times nominated). I also listed them in alphabetical order by first name (which is how I sorted them in Excel). After this way of culling them down, I also chose a few (listed after this first group) who I thought might be actors that would be polarizing to some of us. I'm sure I left out people who some of you may want to talk about. I have kept my full list, though, so I will do a "catch all" for the rest of these some time in the future.

I don't know the best way to have everyone respond (at least in your first, most formal take), but I don't think you necessarily have to talk about every person on the list. Maybe a good plan would be to first list only those of these who are your HUGE YES guys and maybe give a line or two why you are so crazy about them. Then give your huge NO guys and perhaps reasons why. Then list your "EH" people. Sound okay? If not, go with however you want to format your responses, please!

My plan will be to put up a new group once per week, so plan on Best Actress nominees next week.

Now, let er rip!

Multiple Nominations for Best Actor:
Albert Finney (3)
Anthony Hopkins (4)
Ben Kingsley (2)
Clint Eastwood (2)
Daniel Day-Lewis (4)
Denzel Washington (3)
Dustin Hoffman (4)
Geoffrey Rush (2)
George Clooney (2)
Jack Lemmon (2)
Jack Nicholson (5)
Jeff Bridges (2)
Johnny Depp (3)
Leonardo DiCaprio (2)
Michael Caine (2)
Morgan Freeman (3)
Nick Nolte (2)
Nicolas Cage (2)
Paul Newman (5)
Peter O'Toole (4)
Robert De Niro (3)
Robert Duvall (4)
Robin Williams (3)
Russell Crowe (3)
Sean Penn (5)
Tom Cruise (2)
Tom Hanks (5)
Warren Beatty (3)
Will Smith (3)
William Hurt (4)

Single-time noms who may generate some commentary:
Al Pacino
Bill Murray
Billy Bob Thornton
Brad Pitt
Edward Norton
Gene Hackman
Harrison Ford
Heath Ledger
John Travolta
Kevin Costner
Matt Damon
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Richard Dreyfuss
Robert Downey, Jr.
Tom Wilkinson
Woody Harrelson

WTB This Week

Sue, I'm kinda sad I beat you this week (so close!) since you haven't won any yet, therefore have never won any of these ever. Except for that Wizard of Oz post....... So once perhaps (but by default).
Anyway-- good luck with this one folks!




Woman: I can't see!
Man: There's nothing to see really, we're inside a Chinese dragon.




For my musical selections this week, I decided to get back to my roots- my Radiohead roots. I have been into b sides and hard to finds for some time now and decided that this week, I would post the songs that made me fall in love with RH in the first place.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.... first love- isn't it grand?

Plus I added one song for the JWMCC

Also, there is one little giggly surprise and one Pixies song, just cause it's so dern good.

WTB—Dave!

Oh my heck, am I disappointed on several levels that more of you haven't seen this movie, or at least recognized it from the clues! It's awesome. In fact, it was number one on my Top 5 lazy/rainy/sick-day movies that Sue had quizzed us all about on the blog a while back. Also one of the ones listed as a favorite on my Facebook profile. Anyway, enough about me. If you haven't, you need to see this really enjoyable movie. Kevin Kline is so likeable in this, and it has some really great relationships, fun cameos by a ton of people, including real politicians (the clue about the donut was a line by Arnold Schwarzenegger, though before the time he was the Governator), and that's not to mention just the romp of a story it is in which a man who looks like the president steps in to play the role-and does it so much better than the original guy. Highly recommend, and it seems to me to have all the elements that Wright folk should love.

As far as the contest goes, I must tip my hat to Emily, for the girl plays hard! She ended up winning by sheer effort, piecing together clues for a movie she hasn't seen. After an early wrong guess, which actually was a good one given the two clues she based it off of, there were no guesses until the big giveaway one that names the character as well as adds a second clue to the idea that this had to do with the President of the United States. Congrats, Em! I do also feel redeemed a bit by Sue, who came in early this morning (seven hours after Em, though) with the right answer AND claimed that she'd been racking her brain and LOVED the movie Dave. Thanks, Sue, for that! Big relief that someone at least had seen and liked it like I do. No other guesses.

Anyway, ready for some Radiohead everyone? It's Em AGAIN....

Kind of Weird....

Some stranger recommended my blog to this blog interview sight that complies interesting blog from around the web and they interviewed me. Thought you all might be interested to read it and vote for my blog. I guess you win prizes if you are in the top 15 blogs every month. Anyway, just thought I'd try it out. You can read the interview and you can also vote for me (every 24 hours) by clicking a link that is now on the sidebar of my blog.

It's weird, I get a lot of hits from people clicking some "next blog" button. I must happen to fall next in line following some really popular blog, cause I get a lot of hits from everywhere around the world. Wish I knew what that blog was.
I don't know what this is going to do to my blog- maybe nothing- but do I have to be all interesting now?

ps-- for you all that are having a hard time finding the vote button it is toward the top of the page and looks like this:
Here is a link to where you vote, to make it easier.

Cheers