Critics Corner

My routine for Cooper currently includes putting him to bed at 8:00 (ish) and then getting him up at 10:30 or 11:00 for one last feeding before I go to bed. Since we're currently suffering through the ridiculous thing that the networks like to call summer programming, most evenings there is nothing worthwhile on TV to watch during that time frame. And let's face it, if I'm not watching something that will hold my attention, then I'll probably fall asleep. (Side note: some friends of ours were telling us that a couple of Sundays ago at their church (we go to different churches) a couple was sitting across the aisle from them and they had a newborn with them. At one point during the service, my friend said that the parents were both sound asleep! Turns out the baby was only a week old. She found this out when they brought the baby to the nursery after the church service and she checked them in. They took their 1 week old baby to the nursery! That's another discussion entirely.)

Back to the point of this, in order to pass this child-free time in the evenings, we've been catching up on our movie rentals. In the past 4 weeks we've seen: "He's Just Not that Into You", "Bride Wars", "Knowing", "Transporter 3", and "Body of Lies". We've also watched "Legally Blonde", "Legally Blonde 2", "Black Hawk Down" and "Bourne Supremecy" on TV.

Of all these movies, my favorite was "He's Just Not that Into You". Ladies, you probably don't want to hear this, but they totally nailed how most single girls are when they're actively pursuing a relationship with someone (anyone!). Yes, I know that there are exceptions to this and there are many women out there who didn't obsess about whether or not the guy is going to call or come up with ways to "accidentally" run into him. But I would say that there's an equal number of girls who did these exact things. I will confess to having done some of them myself. Of course you need to see the movie in order to fully understand what I'm talking about. And I loved Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck's story line in this movie. So sweet! I couldn't help but wonder if some of these scenes were hard for her to film because, in some ways, they seemed to mirror her relationship situation in real life.

"Bride Wars" was ok. I'm not a big Kate Hudson fan, but I loved that "Van" from "Reba" was in this movie. I loved him in that show. Of course this character is different from "Van", but it was still nice to see him again. "Bright" from "Everwood" was also in this movie. If you never watched "Everwood" then shame on you! That was a great show that was cut way too short by the stupid CW network.

"Transporter 3" was simply rented for Keith's sake. I can't remember much from that movie, but I can probably safely say it was a guy movie and if you're a guy that likes car chases and gun fights, then you'd probably like any of the Transporter movies. I do like car chases and gun fights, but this movie didn't hold my attention. "Body of Lies" was hard to follow, so I can't really give a good critique of it. This may be solely due to my sleep deprivation, but I finished that movie feeling very confused and also had a hard time understanding how the FBI/CIA (see, I can't even remember which agency Leo DiCaprio worked for!) thought that Leonardo would be a good choice to blend in with Middle Easterners. He couldn't be more of a white boy. They had him with dark hair, but he still wouldn't have passed as a Middle Easterner in the real world. They would have totally suspected him as a spy.

The initial premise to the movie "Knowing" was really good. I remember seeing the previews for this when it was in the theaters and I knew I wanted to see it when I got the chance. 3/4 of the movie was really good and definitely held my attention, but the last 1/4 of the movie was absolutely absurd. They could have gone in a completely different direction and made it a really great movie. Instead, it was a passable movie. Though I would recommend it if you're a Nicolas Cage fan, or just curious about the movie. But be prepared for a ridiculous (in my opinion) ending.

I'm sure I'll have many more movies to critique between now and the night when Cooper starts sleeping all night and doesn't require a late feeding.

Doctor's Appointment and a Trip to the Movies

I almost wasn't going to blog about today's doctor's appointment because seriously?  They're getting more and more monotonous and there's only so many times I can say "weight-normal, BP-normal, urine-normal, heartbeat-good.  The end."  Not that I'm not completely and totally, 100% thankful for having a normal pregnancy.  If nothing else, my trip to the hospital 8 weeks ago taught me to be thankful for it.  But now that I'm getting down to the wire I have to realize that this very well could have been my last doctor's appointment and then I would would beat myself up later for not having blogged about these minute details.  I'm extremely doubtful that I won't be seeing my doctor at least a couple more times during this pregnancy, but you just never know.  

I should have gone to the doctor on Monday, but seeing as how it was Memorial Day, the appointment ended up being today instead.  As I said, everything was good, Garrett went with me, probably for the last time.  At each appointment, my doctor asks me if I have any questions and I seriously cannot think of anything to ask.  I feel like I should have a list of questions, but I honestly don't.  We've already discussed the issues that I've wondered about and, at this point, any other question I might consider asking would just result in him guessing as to the answer.  Of course he has no idea if I'm going to go into labor early or how much the baby will weigh.  It would just be speculation on his part, so I don't bother asking.  Though today I did ask him, once he starts doing internal exams (which could be at my next appointment), would he want to induce me if I was showing progress.  When I was pregnant with Garrett, at my 39 week appointment I was dilated 3 cm and we scheduled my induction for the following week.  I was curious if something similar would happen this go around.  And he basically answered yes.  He did say the hospital does not encourage inductions before 39 weeks if you're not dilating, which I wouldn't want to be induced if I wasn't making some sort of progress on my own, so that's not a problem.  But he did say if he checked me and I was 4 cm, he would send me to L & D and get things started.  Though I would probably request to go to the hospital the following morning rather than heading straight there from his office.  

So that was basically my doctor's appointment.  At the next one, I will be exactly 38 weeks, so I feel pretty sure that will begin the internal exams because I know that's when I had my first one when I was pregnant with Garrett.  I know us women usually avoid being examined internally at all costs, but at this point in a pregnancy, it will be a welcome examination.  Weird, I know.  I have been having the occasional contraction combined with the usual Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing painful or consistent.  They do take my breath away, but not because they're painful.  It's hard to describe.  The way everyone outside of my family talks, they're all expecting me to go into labor anytime now.  I don't think it will happen early, but that's just my take on it.  

After the appointment, Garrett and I went to see "Up", the new Disney Pixar movie that came out today.  I felt bad because Garrett missed his last day of school which is Splash Day where the kids get to play in wading pools and slip n slides, but I knew I couldn't handle sitting outside for all of that unless I was allowed to sit in one of the pools and that probably wasn't going to happen.  We went to the very first showing at our local AMC theater, got a bucket of popcorn and a large Coke to share.  It's so nice that he's almost 4, I don't feel quite the guilt of allowing my almost 4 year old to drink Coke, as I would a 2 year old.  I was surprised by the number of people at the movie at 10:00 am on a Friday when school hasn't let out for the summer.  And there was only 2 other preschool kids in the whole group, the rest were teenagers and adults, which I found odd because if I had a choice, I would have seen something not animated.  

I didn't know anything about this movie beforehand and the little that I had seen about it, it looked strange, but I figured it would be the better choice between it and "Night At The Museum 2", though I'm sure Garrett would like that one too, he liked the first one.  I won't give anything away about the story, but I will say I was not prepared for it and there were several moments that caused me to tear up and a couple of others that I was outright crying and trying not to make any noise and be the weird lady crying during a cartoon movie.  I would love to hear from the rest of you once you've seen it to see if it was just my crazy hormones causing me to cry or if it really did have moments of sadness.  I will definitely confess to the hormones being a little crazy right now.  I just finished a book that caused me to cry many times and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt those parts were not sad in the least.  

The Shortest Movie Review Ever

Last night, Keith came home from work early, I burnt supper, and we all ate hotdogs.  Not sure what happened with the supper thing, but I was making a new recipe as well as boiling spaghetti noodles and mixing up cupcake batter.  Too many balls in the air and the one that came crashing down was the new sauce that was supposed to go over the noodles.  Our house stunk for several hours.  I'm sure that makes me sound like a novice, but in reality I'm a decent cook, I know how to put together a recipe, apparently I just don't know how to stir said recipe frequently enough.

Not sure how I got off track.  

Movie Review.  Focus.

Ok. Last weekend I rented the new musical "Mamma Mia", but I never got around to watching it until last night.  After you burn supper, you typically need some kind of pick-me-up, so I chose that one.  Keith was very thrilled to know we would be watching a musical, but I told him all of our normal shows were reruns so we weren't missing anything important anyway.  After the first random song was burst into, Keith gave me the "are you serious?" look and went into the garage, taking Garrett with him.  

Before I go any further, I have to say that I'm definitely a musical kind of gal.  One of my all times favorites is "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".  You can't ever go wrong with anything involving Gene Kelly, like "Singing in the Rain", either.  

But "Mamma Mia" was very disappointing.  I just knew after seeing the previews that I would love it.  Come on, who doesn't love a movie that includes "Dancing Queen"?  But this movie did not reach the caliber that a musical should, according to my standards anyway.  I'm sure Meryl Streep would love to know my assessment.  While most musicals are random songs at random moments, this movie was even more random than the norm.  I had a hard time following along with the story line and I kept watching the clock to see how much longer this movie could possibly go on.  

I have a hard time turning off a movie, even when I don't like it.  I'm not sure why, but I feel like I have to endure the entire thing in hopes that it will have some sort of redeeming quality.  This movie had 2.  One was Pierce Brosnan singing.  I never thought I would ever see a former James Bond in a musical, so that made it partially worth watching.  The second was the girl who plays Meryl Streep's daughter.  I really like that actress, she plays in the HBO show "Big Love" which I've recently become addicted to watching when the seasons are available for rent at Blockbuster.  Other than that, the story line was hard to follow, the songs were borderline ridiculous (minus Dancing Queen, which I love), and Meryl Streep did not impress me.  Though I'm not much of a Meryl Streep fan to begin with.

So that's it.  If any of you have seen it, I would love to know your thoughts.  Maybe I'm missing something here and if I were to rewatch it, I would discover a new love.  

I might be able to pencil in another viewing in a few years, or if I was stuck in bed for an indefinite period of time.

Away From Her

Yesterday I finally watched my Blockbuster rental that has been floating around my house for a month. This is one of the positives to doing online movie rentals because there are no due dates so you can hold on to the movies until you get a chance to watch them.

The movie was "Away From Her". Not a typical movie choice for me, but I had read several reviews for this movie because it was nominated for an Oscar. I normally shy away from the Oscar-nominated movies. They always seem to be too "artsy" for me and I feel that they're nominated solely based on who the Academy knows in the little known movies that come out each year. But after reading a synopsis on this movie I felt that it would be worth watching.

I wish I could say that was true, but I really don't know how I felt after watching it. The first half of the movie I cried pretty much non-stop, the second half of the movie I was irritated and annoyed. I guess I should explain.

The movie is about a woman with Alzheimer's. I loved the beginning because it showed some of the things that she was doing that made her and her husband think that she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's. It was so sad to see her slowly being ravaged by that disease and how her husband dealt with it.

My great-grandpa died with Alzheimer's and I can vividly remember how he behaved in the late stages with that disease. Up until this movie I have never given much thought to how he felt while in the early stages, nor how my Grandma dealt with it. In this movie, the couple makes the decision to put the woman in a home where she is cared for, but in my Grandpa's case, my Grandma took care of him until he passed away. I don't know how she did it. One of the reasons that this woman gave in the movie for why she wanted to go to a home was because she didn't want her husband to become her caretaker. I have to say that I would agree with her. After watching the movie, Keith and I have discussed this some. Unfortunately he also had his Grandma die with Alzheimer's, so it runs in both of our families and because of that I want us both to be prepared for the possibility that this could be our situation one day.

So I wish I could say "You should definitely go out and rent this movie" or "Don't ever watch this movie, ever", but I'm stuck in the middle. The first half was so touching and thought-provoking. I don't know if it makes up for the frustration of the second half, but I will say that if this is a movie you've been considering or if you're looking for a movie that portrays Alzheimer's, then you should check this one out. Be prepared for a couple of things. There is some language in this movie, more specifically the use of the F-word. There's also some sex involved, not descriptive sex scenes, but the implication is there. Of course old people are involved so I can't say that it's really steamy, but if you don't want to see an old woman's naked shoulders then this movie isn't for you.

I will say that if I look half as good as Julie Christie does when I'm her age, I will be one happy woman.