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Mpls, MN, United States

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Monday, July 07, 2008

Day nineteen

Breakfast: Puffins with soy milk; gluten-free toast with blueberry spread; cherries
Snack: Apple with peanut butter
Lunch: Quasi-haystack
Dinner: Mujadara; crudites with hummus

When we were in high school, a friend theorized that the best kisses occurred between similarly-shaped lips. It's a hypothesis I have yet to test widely, but after studying Christian Bale's lips on the cover of this week's Entertainment Weekly, I'm thinking that in the interest of science, I'd definitely be willing to research his.

I've always thought that I had kind of narrow lips, but next to his mine look positively plump! Still, I'm thinking the shapes are compatible. No?

Anyway...

I've seen (for me) a lot of this summer's movies. Here are my brief reviews:

Iron Man: Pretty and fun, the whole way through. Robert Downey, Jr., channeled just the right combination of charm and toughness, with a fitting hint of sleaze. There might have been a touch of cyborg subjectivity in there somewhere, but mostly I just liked the very impressive effects. I actually saw this one twice--once with friends in Minneapolis, and then with my parents here.

Indiana Jones: This was one of those rare films I'd actually been excited about for months. I love Indy! I'd been a little concerned about whether a somewhat-aged Harrison Ford could still pull it off, but I needn't have worried. The movie would have benefited from better editing (it was a bit long, mostly due to the meandering first quarter or so), but I had no complaints with Indy. I also loved the way it opened in the bleached-out colors of period photographs. As a fan of the original trio, I was not disappointed.

Sex & The City: I had never seen the series, with the exception of an hour in Hawaii the week before we went to see it, so that certainly colors my opinion. I found it another very colorful and pretty bit of summer fluff, with a few good laughs and what felt like too many rather tedious emotional attempts. We saw it opening weekend in a packed theater, which did make it feel awfully festive. My sister and the other excited fans did plenty of hooting and cheering.

Get Smart: This film was so close to being good! I love Steve Carrell (without whom I can only assume the film would have been terrible) and liked The Rock as a field agent recalled to office duty. There were some very funny moments--both verbal and physical comedy--but overall, it was too long, too loud and explosion-heavy, and just not as good as I had hoped.

I also saw a few movies at the cheap theater with my parents, Shine A Light, and Made of Honor. The former was a good time (although I'd been expecting more documentary and less concert footage), but I cringe to even admit I saw the latter. Ekh. It was like eating something that disagrees with you at the time and then keeps coming back to haunt you. It was one of the worst movies I'd sat the entire way through in a long time. Scott said somewhere that he could appreciate even the worst of pop culture if he just deconstructed it, but I'm either not as good at it as he is or just don't care enough. I did enjoy the wardrobe, though.

6 comments:

m said...

"in the interest of science"

hehe.

Leah said...

Thanks for all your movie reviews. I wish that professional movie reviewers would take into account that it's summer (!!) and that sometimes we have different standards for summer movies. Many times, I've seen movies solely to enjoy the A/C in the theaters.

I appreciate your evaluation of these as "a good time."

Carissa said...

This has nothing to do with your post, but I see that you're currently reading Anna Karenina. How are you liking it? I read it a couple of years ago and though I confess to just skimming the parts when Levin gets really philosophical (which happened a lot and was pretty much over my head), I enjoyed Tolstoy's writing and the story.

K L said...

Indy was fun although I was sad he had to grow up and get older. I attach a certain Peter Pan quality to movie characters. I idealize them as locked into the look and personality of my favorite story and I get all disconcerted when I see the actor in a different role, age, or setting. Seeing Indy as a venerable old swashbuckler was like opening "Where the Wild Things are" one day and noticing Max had facial hair.

Adrianna said...

I have heard that Indiana Jones was disappointing and that Get Smart was great, so I'll have to test out your movie reviews...

BTW, I have been following your cleanse and, for the record, I think I'd rather eat French Fries and die early. Not that some of the food doesn't look good- I could certainly go for some hummus and crudites, but...

And Christian Bale's lips are hot. Definitely some more research should be done- not by me obviously, so let me know how that goes.

Anonymous said...

Get Smart looks okay over all though Steve Carell seems to be veering more and more toward not so funny slapstick humor