Monday Tuesday Viewing

Monday:
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Aftershock (1990)
Fierce Creatures (1997)

Tuesday:
Wedding Crashers (2005)
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - pilot episode

Randy enjoys Buffy so wanted to share that with me.
Expect to watch a few more select episodes as we ...
await the final season of 4400 in the mail anyday.

Weekend Viewing

Friday:
Duck Soup (1933) - AFI pick
The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
Children of Men (2006) - good

Saturday:
Final Destination (2000)
Final Destination 2 (2003)
Final Destination 3 (2006)

Sunday:
Unlocking DaVinci's Code (2004)
and associated video (need to grab title)
Gattaca (1997)
Evolution (2001)

Mostly Sci Fi

Wednesday:
Americanizing Shelley (2007) *
Queen of Outer Space (1958) *
Princess (2008) (TV) - ABC family - very cute

Thursday:
Puzzlehead (2005) *
Cypher (2002) *
Idiocracy (2006) - ridiculous!!!

*movie rentals from B&G

Sci Fi Movie Day

I am having a tooth extracted tomorrow.
Decided to enjoy some sci fi flicks today.
Sphere (1998) - so many great actors
Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel L Jackson,
Peter Coyote, Liev Schreiber and Queen Latifah
Crossworlds (1996) - very interesting
Philadelphia Experiment II (1993) - sequel

Earthsea

We just watched this miniseries from the Sci-Fi channel.
We both really enjoy science fiction and sometimes fantasy.
Science fiction and fantasy are oftne lumped in together.
I am not so much into fantasy but can handle some of it.

This morning I found some YouTube movie clips.
Because I did enjoy it so much wanted to share these.
Also of note is Official Sci Fi Legend of Earthsea site.
And from wikipedia: Earthsea, Characters, Islands

The actors may be familiar from other sci fi endeavours.
The main character, Ged, is Shawn Ashmore aka Iceman
Best friend, Vetch, is Chris Gauthier, Eureka's Vincent.
Lady Elfarren is Amanda Tapping, Stargate's Samantha.

Scene 1 - 6:51 minutes


Scene 2a (2:27) and Scene 2b (4:23)

Scene 3 - 6:07 minutes


Scene 4 (0:51) and Scene 5 (3:30)

Considered E of HUMORE for entertainment value.

Adventure Movies

The AFI movie tonight was Easy Rider (1969).
I guess it depicted the hippie-stoner life style.
Rather than find other movies like that ...
I decided to take the "adventure" element
to find other movies to watch with it.

Earthsea (2004)
Listed genres as fantasy, drama, adventure
Admittedly I have never read the books it is based on.
I really liked this - it kept my interest thru out
moreso than Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
It does seem to be a cross between the two -
it has a magic school for wizards like Harry Potter
and there is the adventure/quest like the Lord of the Rings.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Listed genres as adventure, comedy, sci-fi
All I can really say is this is very odd.

Natalie Portman movies

We decided to watch Natalie Portman movies.
She is a contemporary favorite of Randy's.
I like what I have seen of hers.

Closer (2004) - (independent) romantic drama
Natalie's Alice starts and ends with Jude Law's Dan.
Julia Roberts' Anna starts/ends with Clive Owen's Larry.

Garden State (2004) - romantic comedy
A mother's death brings a troubled young man back home.
While there he falls in love with Natalie's character.

Mars Attacks! (1996) - comedy sci-fi fantasy thriller
It's a Tim Burton movie with Jack Nicholson as President.
Glenn Close is the first lady and Natalie the first daughter.
Other greats: Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito,
Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Michael J. Fox.
Following is 1996 Theatrical Trailer for Mars Attack! (2:21)

Sci Fi Adventure

Ultraviolet (2006)
It stars Milla Jovovich who was also in Fifth Element.
This was much better than we expected based on reviews.
Would recommend this partially due to compassion for child.

Æon Flux (2005)
It stars model Charlize Theron.
Hard to follow storyline at times.
Virus kills 99% population yet there is cloning.

The Fifth Element (1997)
After starting this realized I had seen it before.
It stars Bruce Willis with Luke Perry and Gary Oldham.
Its an okay movie certainly better watched the first time around.

Wednesday and Thursday

Randy was done with current data entry task.
So these movies we were able to watch together.

Wednesday: Religious mystery
The Da Vinci Code - it was pretty good
The Code Conspiracy - it was just okay
Wholly Moses! - needed some comedy!

Thursday: Time travel movies
Timequest - very cool -
What if JFK was not assasinated?
Sometimes hard to follow the time lines.
Time After Time - pretty cool -
HG Wells follows Jack the Ripper which used his
time machine to escape to the 20th century.
Primer - too much geek speak
Slow start and hard to follow what was going on.

Monday and Tuesday

Randy was busy these days doing data entry.
He brought over his tv series on DVD from storage.
So mostly I watched these myself except last of the day.

Monday :
The Devil Wears Prada - it was a rewatch
Are We There Yet? - excellent family movie
Are We Done Yet? - did not live up to original
Cats & Dogs - great fun!!!!
"Firefly" pilot

Tuesday :
Explorers - it was just okay
The Adventures of Pluto Nash - this was fun!!!!
The Butterfly Effect 2 - easier to follow than original

Avenging Appleseed

More movie animation picks today.

Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers II
They were okay but not something we would sit thru again.
Interesting the initial characters were all black ...
That included the head military and the astronauts.
Then again the overthrow of planet earth ...
was happening in an African country.

Appurushîdo - American title Appleseed
This was much better.
Although at times still hard to follow.
In this movie women had strong and powerful positions.
It took awhile to understand the title of Appleseed.
I would watch again to better understand all the action.

Romance for Cathy and Action for Randy

Tuesday:

Paris Holiday with Bob Hope and Fernandel
The tagline is "The Comedy Team Of The Century".
Fernandel is Bob's comedian counterpart in his homeland of France.

Deja Vu with Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer
I am not big into action but I liked the intrigue in this one.
It was a combination of drama, romance and sci fi.

Wednesday:

Paris - When It Sizzles with William Holden and Audrey Hepburn
It's marked as a romantic comedy but I just consider it a comedy.
The romance seemed contrived as they wrote a screen play.

Sky High with Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston
It's a great movie - action, adventure, comedy, family, sci -fi.
Another of the super hero movies I would recommend to others.

A New Kind of Love with Paul Newman and (wife) Joanne Woodward
Also in it are George Tobias aka Abner Kravitv from Bewitched.
Thelma Ritter and Eva Gabor were also a part of this great movie.

Batman Begins with Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson
Randy calls it a "reinventure of Batman".
There is more looking into his young adulthood.

Seat Filler leaves Deep Impact

Yesterday we watched a romantic comedy and an action movie.

The Seat Filler (2004) starred Duane Martin and Kelly Rowland.
While I did not recognize either of their names it was a good movie.
Different elements reminded me of a couple other movies ...
Maid in Manhattan for its mistaken identity/deception for love.
The Bodyguard for its entertainment industry and class difference.

Deep Impact (1998) is a drama sci-fi thriller according to imdb.
We definately also classify it is an action movie. AMAZING cast!
Morgan Freeman plays the President of the United States.
Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Woods, Vanessa Redgrave.
And Leelee Sobieski who I recently saw in My First Mister.

Week ending 02-09-08

At the beginning of the week we purchased our first HDTV.
We spent the week watching Alien Nation the series from 1989.
Among those 22 episodes we also did watch some other movies ...

White Noise (2005) and Good Luck Chuck (2007).
I was not impressed with White Noise at all.
Good Luck Chuck was an okay romantic comedy.

The Country Girl (1954) and Blue Skies (1946).
I also was not impressed with The Country Girl.
Blue Skies' story got lost in the 32 Irving Berlin hits.

Friday night's AFI selection was Pulp Fiction. I did not watch it.
There simply was too much foul language for my liking.
Instead I watched an episode of CSI: Las Vegas.

Alien Nation

Yes, we both like science fiction!!!
Previously we watched Alien Nation, the 1988 movie.
Last night we started watching Alien Nation, the 1989 tv show.
The show only ran one full season and then had some tv movies.
"Alien Nation: The Ultimate Movie Collection" has those 5 movies:

Alien Nation: Dark Horizon (1994),
Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1995),
Alien Nation: Millennium (1996),
Alien Nation: The Enemy Within (1996),
and Alien Nation: The Udara Legacy (1997).

I bought the 1989 tv series as a christening gift for our new LCD tv.
I also let Randy know I pre-ordered "The Ultimate Movie Collection".
It does not come out (for the general population) until April 15th .
That works good since Randy's birthday is after that. Yeah!
I had to tell him so he did not pick it up himself.

Week ending 02-02-08

I did not blog last week but wanted to mention some things that we did do partly for our own benefit so we remember what we did when. I tried a few new recipes. The first new recipe was Macaroon Cookie Cake, a chocolate cake with coconut topping made with pre-melted chocolate. It was from an OLD cookbook my mother had given me from the sixties, a Pillsbury Cook Off compilation. I asked my mom if that ingredient still existed today and found that it did. Me thinks I will use it again; it beats melting chocolate squares. The second new recipe, Potato Bacon Casserole, was my first use of our crockpot. It went well enough. The original recipe called for hash browns but I replaced it with potatoes thinly sliced. Only slight problem was that even after cooking for 6 hours the potatoes were somewhat hard. We both did like it so will be doing it again with precooked potatoes. I will be backdating the recipes a little later and adding links in this post.

If you know us you know we love movies. I was still a little out of it health wise so spent even more time than usual watching movies. I'll list by genre things we or just I watched. Later I may backdate entries to expand on some of these so look for last weeks entries a little later. The sci-fi picks included Taken (mini series), Lost Room (mini series), Alien Nation (original movie), and Stargate (original movie). Musicals watched Babes on Broadway, Broadway Melody of 1936, Broadway Melody of 1940, Ziegfield Follies and Words and Music. Comedies including romantic comedies included My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Repli-Kate, Just Like Heaven, My First Mister, Music and Lyrics and The List. The latter is the best romantic comedy I have seen in a long time.

During the last week we also found imdb's My Movies feature. It's your personal subset of their database. We each created an account over there. Randy is inputting all our movies and tv shows. Right now he is doing the DVDs and later the VHS. I am keeping track of what movies we actually watch. I have it set up by genre according to us (not imdb). Some of these will be linked on our website. Needless to say we are keeping busy.

The Triangle

We watched The Triangle which originally aired as a tv mini-series.
It is indeed about the Bermuda Triangle and questions why it exists.

It was a very well put together movie with amazing people involved.
The story itself was a collaboration by Bryan Singer and Dean Devlin.
Bryan Singer wrote X-men and X2. Executive producer on House MD.
Dean Devlin wrote and produced Stargate and Independence Day.
The director Craig R. Baxley has directed other tv mini series ...
Steven King's: Storm of the Century and Rose Red.

The actors too were picked for their professionalism and excellence.
The cast of characters includes but not limited to a tycoon,
a four person team, a green peace activist (and family)
as well as military personel and politician.

Sam Neill played the shipping tycoon that hired the four person team
AKF: Jurassic Park's Dr. Alan Grant, Event Horizon's Dr. William Weir

Eric Stoltz played Howard Thomas,
a reporter for supermarket tabloid and expert on Bermuda Triangle.
AKF: Chicago Hope's Dr. Robert Yeats, Anaconda's Dr. Steven Cale

Catherine Bell played Emily Meredith Patterson,
deep ocean resource engineer among other degrees
AKF: JAG's Lt. Col. Sarah 'Mac' MacKenzie

Bruce Davison played Stan Lathem,
an aging man with genuine psychic abilities
AKF: X-Men and X2's Senator Kelly, Kingdom Hospital's Dr. Stegman

Michael E. Rodgers played Bruce Geller,
professor of meteorology, thrill seeker
AKF: American Dreams' Colin (not much to his credit on imdb)

Lou Diamond Phillips played Meeno Paloma,
sole survivor of a Triangle event, nearly kills self
AKF: La Bamba's Ritchie Valens and Young Guns' Jose Chavez

The main characters are explained at wikipedia's The Triange (tv mini series).
Or head on over to the Sci-Fi channel's official site: Triangle (starts with video)
* AKF stand for Also Known For

Movies and Organization

Interspersed with watching movies we continued to organize.
I use a four tier white cart on wheels as my nightstand.
It had started to overflow so sorted thru all the stuff.
And moved some of the lesser used items other places.
Now I have space for notebooks and books I am reading.
Randy also put together yet another three shelf unit.

I picked the first two sci fi movies of the day:

Paycheck (2003) - Has plenty of action for those that like it.
It stars Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart,
Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Morris (Lilly Rush on Cold Case).
Also in it is Joe Morton (Henry Deacon on Eureka).

THX 1138 (1971) - I found this very slow moving.
It is the full length version of a George Lucas student project.
He is better known for Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Starring in this film is Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence.

Lost in Space (1998) - We had both previously seen this one.
The mom and dad were played my William Hurt and Mimi Rogers.
Others included Heather Graham, Matt LeBlanc and Gary Oldman.
Cameos by four of the cast from tv series including June Lockhart.

More Sci Fi

Randy was not feeling so well today.
He was dealing with an earache and headache.
So we decided to make it a sci fi movie day.
We watched the following four movies:

4: Rise of the Silver Surfer -It was the followup to the Fantastic Four movie we watched yesterday. Mr Fantastic (stretch guy) and the Invisible Woman (Jessice Alba) are trying to wed. Of course world events once again stop the wedding from actually happening. The other members of the team are The Torch and The Thing (Michael Chiklis). Bad guy Dr. Doom is played by Julian McMahon who played pure evil on Charmed. And the voice of the "Silver Surfer" is Lawrence Fishburne.

NEXT with Nicholas Cage as a guy that can see two minutes into the future. His "eventual" girlfriend is played by Jessica Biel of 7th Heaven fame. When he is with her his ability to see the future is expanded. Government agent played by Julianne Moore wants him to help prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.

The Butterfly Effect - I was pleasantly surprised of this movie. It starred Ashton Kutcher who I know best as Demi Moore's husband. He has been keeping a journal through his life due to strange blackouts and memory issues. He finds out he can go back in time and change the outcome of events - better known as the ripple effect. His young self is played by Logan Lerman who played Mel Gibson's young self in What Woman Want.

Interstate 60 - It was pretty good. A young man goes on an adventure on a highway that doesn't exist or does it? He learns some of life's lessons thru experience. He is played by James Marsden known for appearing on X-men. A couple of "characters" he keeps meeting along the way are played by Gary Oldman and Christopher Lloyd. Lloyd I remember from the Back to the Future movies and was the voice in tv's animated series by the same name. Also making guest appearance were Michael J Fox, Kurt Russell and Ann-Margret.

Sci Fi flicks

Last night we watched two sci fi movies ...

The Philadelphia Experiment - sci fi action
I had heard about it before so wanted to see it.
I liked it enough that I stayed awake throughout.
The navy denies experiments on invisibility or teleportation.
There are those that believe it happened and the skeptics.

Fantastic Four was second on the watch list.
I liked what I saw but did fall asleep due to lateness.
I will rewatch the rest of it later today during daylight.
One of the "FOUR" is played by Michael Chiklis.
I loved him in The Commish as Anthony 'Tony' J. Scali.