2008

1. Night at the Museum: Loved it! I’m trying to figure out why it took us so long to watch this one. Rexy is my fave!
2. Inside Man: Very good, full of a lot of twists & suspense, the ending is a surprise, for sure.
3. Nacho Libre: Yeah, I know, I’m probably the last person on the planet who watched this, but it was a fun, feel-good movie. I enjoyed it!
4. Edward Scissorhands: I had never had an opportunity to watch this before & when I saw it on one of the premium channels, I jumped on it. A cool, modern fairytale.
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: What can I saw about this? You’ll either love it or hate it. I’ve been a huge fan of the Sondheim musical for many years & was thrilled when it was translated to the big screen. I was not disappointed in it, at all.
6. Mr. Brooks: This is a movie full of twists and turns. By the end you’re still not sure.. was it all a dream?
7. The Food of the Gods: This wasn’t my first time, but I hadn’t seen it in 20 years or so. An HG Wells classic warning to us about how we treat the planet. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a fun little movie.
8. The Simpsons Movie: All I can say is “Girls might see my doodle!” LOL fun, hilarious movie!
9. 1408: This movie was, for me, as good as the previews promised. Full of tension, twist turns and good-old fashioned scares. Well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet.
10. The Pursuit of Happyness: Wow. This was a great, inspirational movie, about the power of love & the need to believe in yourself. Jaden Smith shows a lot of promise & Will Smith, as usual, shines in this role.
11. 8 Mile: I had put off watching this movie many times, thinking it was just about rap music, which I can appreciate, but have nothing in common with the artists that do it. This movie is about life and the will to succeed & not being willing to let life beat you down. Yes, there is a lot of rap in it, but if you give it a chance & listen to it, I think you’ll find yourself making your own noise in this very touching & inspirational movie.
12. Balls of Fury: Well. It was amusing. It wasn’t hilarious, which was what I was hoping for, but it was an okay way to pass a couple of hours. I don’t feel like we wasted our time or money, I just hoped it would be funnier.
13. Gone Baby Gone: This was a really good movie, although I figured out what happened to the little girl, well before the end of it. It did make me think & it inspired conversation between Troy & I about what we would have done had we been in the PI’s shoes. A good pick if you’re in the mood for some drama and a look at the best of intentions gone wrong.
14. Good Luck Chuck: This is the kind of humor that makes me want to buy a movie, instead of wondering whether I wasted money on the rental. Good story line, hilarious sight gags and a lot of fun stuff in this one.
15. Talladega Nights – The Legend of Ricky Bobby: Again, I feel like I’m the last person on the planet to have seen this, but it was a funny movie with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. The story was good and the plot even made sense.
16. Surf’s Up: Oh, this was so cute & the little tattooed penguins were beautiful and awesome at the same time. I’m going to have to buy this one, I think!
17. The Day After Tomorrow: Well, what I saw of it was pretty good, but I was super sleepy & had a hard time paying attention to it.
18. Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone: Yeah, seen it before, but I was in a mood to watch a series of movies & Troy chose these.
19. Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets: See above!
20. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban: Again, watching them all, as time allows.
21. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry: Loved this one, I think we laughed pretty much all the way through it. It’s a definite feel-good movie that we’ll be buying.
22. Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire: Just as good as it was the first time I watched it.
23. Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix: I’m sad that we’re out of HP movies to watch now!
24. Shrek 2: I’ve owned it for years, just never got around to watching it.
25. Hancock: I didn’t know anything about this movie when we went to see it, so I had no expectations going in. Wow. What a good movie this was, I ove to see superheroes from a different perspective & this movie does that very well.
26. The Dark Knight: On the other hand, I had a lot of expectations for this movies & it valiantly stood up and met them all. I actually saw this one two nights in a row. If you love Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, see this movie.
27. Ratatouille: I always feel like I’m the last person in the world to see all of these type movies, but I don’t have little kids at home (or any kids, really), so I wait them to come on m,y premium channels. It was a heartwarming little story, but the thought of rats cooking my food turned my stomach.
28. An American Haunting: I had seen this before, but I understood it much better the second time through. This is a sad & disturbing tale, but well told.
29. Fracture: Anthony Hopkins plays the bad guy so well & this movie is no exception. Full of twists & turns, and it doesn’t stop until the movie does.
30. Ironman: I was impressed with the casting in this movie, in a word, Robert Downey Jr, is Tony Stark, at least on his part, pre-rehab & on Tony’s part, pre-Afghanistan/Vietnam (depending on the version you prefer). I bought this for Troy today, as his birthday gift & we both enjoyed it a great deal.
31. No Country for Old Men: I really had no idea what this was about when we started watching it. I enjoyed it, but found it a little hard to follow.
32. August Rush: Wow. What a beautiful, heart-touching story!
33. The Bridge to Terabithia: A sweet, sad tale of childhood love & friendship.
34. Mee-Shee: The Water Giant: This was a cute movie that would be good to share with your kids or grandkids.
35: Unaccompanied Minors: This was a lot funnier than I thought it would be & had a nice story line, too.

2010 (also includes Documentaries)

1. A Knight’s Tale: The first time I’ve been able to watch this since Heath died.
2. The Blind Side: This was the second time I went & saw this, this movie is so good. Watch it, even if you aren’t a football fan.
3. The Book of Eli: This wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but it was an enjoyable movie & I didn’t feel like the message was crammed down my throat, as I’ve read others felt.
4. Avatar: What an amazing movie. It was not at all what I expected, I definitely didn’t expect it to mirror my own beliefs & make me feel the way it did. I’ll definitely be buying this one.
5. Alice in Wonderland: Wow. This moving is literally a feast for the eyes. This isn’t the standard telling of the old tale, it’s more like a revisiting of Wonderland. While there were many children there, I probably wouldn’t take a child under about 10 to see this, there are some scary parts & a bit of violence, too.
6. Alice in Wonderland 3D: Well, it was the same story, and the 3D was amazing, in comparison to what we had in the 80s, but.. you knew there was goig to be a but, didn’t you? It was hard to focus on the movie because of the 3D. If you moved your head away from a straight-on perspective, it changed the image & distroted it, the glasses are hard to wear if you wear glasses already & the constant focusing and such, gave me a headache & made my eyes very tired.
7. Sweet November: I caught this one morning on HBO or another premium channel. I had never heard of it, but it has Keanu Reeves & Charlize Theron in it, so I decided to watch it. It was a very sweet movie, with a very sweet, very sad ending. If you’ve ever been in love, truly in love, you should watch it.
8. How to Make an American Quilt: I had never heard of this one, but it was a very engaging film. It’s about a 20 something woman, trying to find herself & make sure that marriage is for her. She leaves her fiancé & spends the summer with her grandmother & her quilting circle & the stories they tell change her life.
9. Julie & Julia: What a fantastic movie! It just makes you want to cook & blog & live every day to it’s fullest. Storytelling at it’s finest!
10. 11:14: A movie that tells several different stories that seem unconnected in the beginning except for what happens at 11:14, but they aren’t as unconnected as you think. Give it a chance, it’s actually a pretty good story.
11. Capturing the Friedmans: A documentary about a family & the aftermath of a father’s secrets. It’s very different because the story is mainly told through home movies that the family filmed over the years.
12. Troubled Waters: This one was pretty good, with a few twists I didn’t expect. It’s about a multimillionaire couple whose daughter gets kidnapped & the FBI agents who are trying to solve the crime & save the girl’s life.
13. Driftwood: About a troubled boy who’s brother dies, his parents become worried when he shows signs of being obsessed with death & sent him to a camp for troubled youths. It was just okay, it wasb’t horrible or anything, but I wouldn’t buy it.
14. Ted Bundy: This 2002 retelling of the Ted Bundy story tells a more thorough tale than “The Stranger Beside Me,” but only because there was more information available after he confessed shortly before his execution. Still a horrifying story, only made worse by more detail, you still have to wonder what made him tick the way he did.
15. Aileen: The Life & Death of a Serial Killer: The same, delusional, pathological liar she always was, a British documentarian takes her on for a further work after his original “The Selling of a Serial Killer.” It’s worth a watch, if only for the train wreck that she was.
16. Wisconsin Death Trip: A documentary about Black River Falls, WI in 1890. This was a very good film, definitely worth a peek.
17. The Long Way Home: This tells the story of the hardships the Jews faced after WWII and before the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. It’s told through interviews, newsreels & journals and was very informative.
18. Born Into Brothels: This is a sad story, about the children of the brothels of Calcutta & a photographer who teaches them about photography & tries to better their lives.
19. Hogfather: a must-see for any Terry Pratchett/Discworld fan. This is a reasonable & engaging portrayal of the book.
20. Dear Zachary: This started out as a documentary letter to the child of a murdered friend, so that Zachary would know who his father was & who his friends were, but it ends up being something more & something much more sad. If you don’t like things that make you feel & make you angry, don’t watch this.
21. Food Inc: A documentary about the negative affects on life in general that have been caused by the ever-increasing streamlining of the food industry. If you eat, you should see it. It will change how you eat.
22. The Up Series: A documentary that began filming 14 British children in 1964 when they were 7. It follows them, every 7 years until they’re 49, I believe. This is a fascinating look into people & how they change over their lifetime.
23. Paranormal Entity: This was another one of those movies that was filmed with a video camera & tried to make you believe it’s real. I watched it with Rhi, because she started it alone, got freaked out & I told her I’d watch it with her. It was an alright movie, the acting was overdone, especially for something that was supposed to be fooling us into believing it was real, but it wasn’t a total waste of time.