four and a half days

Hooray for the holidays! Mainly the one where you’re allowed to gorge yourself without guilt. Wait, what do you mean, that doesn’t really narrow it down? sigh I mean Thanksgiving, silly. Since I already had a turkey celebration with family earlier this month, I stayed home for the actual event. This means that with the time off I took yesterday combined with the two days we get off for the holiday plus the weekend … four and a half days of glorious nothing. I don’t have to even leave the house. Yes, I’m aware that makes me sound like a loser, but, well this is me caring.

And so with my four and a half days, whatever shall fill my time? Well, I’ll be sleeping in a lot, reading, eating (yes, I’ll be stuffing my face. In honor of the pilgrims and Indians of course) but I’ll probably also spend much of my time watching the long list of movies I’ve built up in my queue. What does this mean for you, you might ask? Why, random reviews of course! I’ve got a bit of a line up for you here, so I’m keeping them brief. Well, mildly brief. I’m not good at really brief, as we’ve discovered from some of my other “brief” reviews on here. Oh, and be warned, I might let some spoilers slip without noticing. Without further ado:

The Brothers Bloom
Confidence at its best, where not even the players know what’s the truth and what’s the lie. And while I loved the brothers themselves, one can’t overlook the women in their lives – Bang Bang (cannot even begin to say how great she is) their explosives expert, and Penelope, their rich mark whose hobby is collecting hobbies. This movie was quirky, smart, interesting, action-packed … all around great. There were times it seemed a little long-winded and overly complex, as if the characters all knew what was going on and weren’t letting me in on it. But this all just adds to the feeling that you’re almost in on the con, “almost” being the key word. You don’t know what exactly happened until the end, but it’s almost better that way. It kept me extremely interested right up to the end. (Oh, and one random note: when you hear “the Brothers Bloom, you think their last name must be Bloom, right? Well, they never say their last name, and the younger brother’s name is Bloom. Stephen and Bloom. So is the kid’s name Bloom Bloom? Are they calling him by his last name? Why call the younger by the last name and not the older? Anyway, I was just curious. The title didn’t quite make sense to me.)

Whitechapel
Never heard of this one? Me either. It’s a British miniseries about a police force trying to solve a series of murders occurring in Whitechapel in 2008. Though they really don’t want to admit it as first, these murders seem to be exact recreations of the Jack the Ripper murders from 1888. Though I usually don’t expect much from the acting from British TV, this miniseries was fairly well done. Nothing was too over the top nor too bland, and the story itself was really interesting. The killer doesn’t just recreate the murders themselves, he recreates the world of the original murders, leading the modern-day coppers down the same roads as the investigators from ’88. It’s really fascinating, not to mention that I learned a lot about Jack the Ripper. Or at least, the version that these writers were following, as there are many different theories about Jack out there. But no matter what theory of Jack takes your fancy, this was definitely fun to watch, and definitely better than From Hell, despite the lack of Johnny Depp.

Funny People
This is up there as one of the best roles Adam Sandler has ever played. Definitely not the top (Reign Over Me, Spanglish) but really good nonetheless. He plays a rich and famous comedian, basically a huge sell-out, who discovers he’s dying of a form of Leukemia. Taking on a personal assistant/joke writer, he goes about getting back to his stand-up roots while closing up shop around the house. The first part of the movie is watching him accept his sickness and eventual death, taking stock of his life up till then. And then, BAM! The experimental medicine he was hopelessly taking actually works. Surprise, you’ve just reached the “acceptance” stage but no matter, you’re no longer dying. Awesome! And so the rest of the movie we get to watch Sandler run around with a new lease on life, determined to get the woman that got away. (She didn’t really get away, he cheated on her a lot and she left, with good reason.) The movie was good, funny at times, serious and sad at times, a good balance of both.
However. This movie was TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG. Dear god, why? The movie wasn’t that good. It definitely wasn’t lively enough to keep my eyelids from drooping after about an hour and a half. So besides the long-ass unnecessary length, this was a pretty good movie. Not my favorite semi-serious Sandler role, but as I said, it’s up there.

My Sister’s Keeper
Yeah, I’ll admit it, I can be a major sap for weepy movies like this. And yes, this movie made me cry. Who doesn’t cry at a cancer movie? Heartless soulless people, that’s who. This movie was based on a book, but if you read the book and haven’t seen the movie yet – don’t expect the same ending. At all. I’m not going to spoil it for anybody because … well, because I don’t want to. But yeah, the movie would have had a completely different tone if they had kept the book ending. As it was, the movie was basically about a girl with Leukemia (wow, two in a row here on my blog … could this be considered a cancer cluster? lol, wow that was a bad joke, sorry.) as she slowly dies, full of flashbacks of the progression of her disease and how she lived with it. It’s all very standard and weepy, Lifetime movie material, but whatever. Still made me cry, even if I hate the girl who plays the younger sister. She’s apparently one of the great new child stars nowadays, but I don’t enjoy her. So anyway, in a nutshell, this is a good movie for a good cry, it even has the interesting subplot (well, maybe not subplot, it’s the main story, but the flashbacks take up most of the movie) with her sister, though if you have a brain at all you can see the truth behind this whole story line, taking a bit of the bite out of it, but it’s nothing amazing.

Alrighty, I’m getting tired and hungry now, must feed. Peanut chicken for me, methinks. mmm. I’ll have to finish the rest of my reviews in another post. But before I leave, here’s a fantastic music video I discovered plus a few new songs for your pod. Happy Turkey Day!

“Koop Island Blues” – Koop

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“1901″ – Phoenix

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“Wake Up” – Sliimy

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“Oxford Comma” – Vampire Weekend

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