Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

We decided to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over the weekend, it was chosen over Seven Pounds and Yes Man, both of which I would have rather went and saw. In fact, if it weren't for my wife's interest in TCCOBB I probably never would have saw it.

The plot of the movie is basically and old woman on her deathbed who recounts the life of a man she fell in love with who grew younger instead of older. The story is read by the woman's daughter at her bedside via the man's diary, somewhat like the movie Big Fish. The movie is a drama with a little bit of comedy laced in. It definitely had a Forrest Gumpy feel to it. If you enjoyed either Big Fish or Forrest Gump you'd probably like this movie.

Honestly, I cannot fault this movie in any way. Acting: Spot on. Music: Spot on. Cinematography: Spot on. Script: Spot on. Special Effects: Spot on (20 year old Brad Pitt was just as believable as 80 year old Brad Pitt). Seriously, the movie is good. The idea is unique and done so well. The characters are memorable and the parts that are intended to be funny... are funny.

Now for my gripes. Firstly, the movie is long, approximately 9,540 seconds. Now, it doesn't drag mind you, but I don't know about other people but sitting in those movie theatre seats for too long is a pain in the butt, literally. So, do whatever you can to make sure you're comfortable and prepared for the long haul because as long as the movie is, you still don't want to miss any of it. Also I was bothered by the person behind me kicking my seat and once in a while the A/C in the theatre would blow at just the right angle to get a whiff of the old people stink emanating from the couple in front of us taking advantage of their senior citizen discount.

I'd give this movie a 7 or an 8 if I was just rating the movie for myself because it's not really my type of movie. I prefer more action and/or more comedy in my movies but that's just me. The rating I'm going to give this movie is not based on my preferences but based on the strengths of the movie itself.

Did I ever tell you I've been struck by lightning seven times?

9/10

My Wife the Ballerina

Cassie has been going to an adult ballet class for the past few months and yesterday she had her first "performance". I say "performance" because it was only one dance, out of the five the compromised the entire program. The other four were little children in the dance school and I guess they thought four dances was a little short for reserving an entire rec center so they decided to tack on one more and let the adult class in on the fun. For whatever reason I'm glad they did. Seeing my sweetie move so gracefully on stage once again reminded me that I married an angel. Ain't she pretty?

Sore Neck...

Yesterday my neck was sore. Like, turning your head causes severe pain sore. It was manageable as long as I didn't need to move, although driving was a pain. Instead of getting better, though, it seemed to get worse. Last night I absolutely could NOT find a laying position that didn't cause constant pain. I couldn't get to sleep for the life of me. To top it all off something that I ate yesterday gave me digestive problems and I had to go to the bathroom at 5 AM.

It hasn't been any better today. Despite downing Excedrins like candy I have still found myself couch ridden the entire day. When the Excedrin wears off I find myself in excruciating pain if I move my head in any direction. Another thing I can't do is exert much effort into searching for things, like the Comcast remote for example. I've been watching the same channel for the past 8 hours or so.

This isn't how I imagined spending this Saturday. It was supposed to be the day I finished my Christmas shopping. Now I guess I'll have to find time sometime before next Thursday. Having a sore neck has to be on my Top Ten Things Things That Must Go List, right below frozen butter.

So Tired...

So I have been working nights at a pharmacy the past 3+ weeks. I leave straight from my regular job and work 4 hours at the pharmacy on top of the 8 I worked already. My days are long. I leave home around 9 in the morning and don't get home till 9:30 PM. This schedule has left me quite drained during the week. Sometimes I go to bed when I get home because I'm completely exhausted. Sometimes I stay up, not that I'm not tired it's just the only time I have to do the things I want to do, like watch TV with Cassie, play video games, or surf the internet a litle. I have a very hard time waking up in the morning and an even harder time staying awake throughout the day.

Now you know how much it sucks for me. Here are some things that make it worse...

People that want me to ring up their freaking groceries at the pharmacy register. I didn't go to school for a year to ring up your effing Malt-O-Meal okay! You'll notice there's a lot of people waiting to pick up their prescriptions and they're probably just as pissed as I am yet you somehow are inconceivably unaware of the plague that you are to society.

Movie Review: Twilight

I figured I'd start posting movie reviews of movies I go see. First of all, it takes a lot to impress me movie-wise. I'm extremely critical of movies. That said, let us begin.

Let me start by saying that I have read Twilight. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It was geared towards teenage girls but I tried my hardest to enjoy it. I was looking forward to the movie, as anyone would be when a book they have read is adapted for the big screen.

I thought the casting was probably the best thing about the movie. I think the producers did a good job selecting actors that fit the characters, most notably: Edward, Bella, Charlie, Jacob, and Alice.

The acting was... bad. And honestly, I can't really blame the actors because the script wasn't that great either. A lot of the dialogue just sounded so forced. Like, the writers just didn't put a lot of thought into it. They knew they had to get certain information across but didn't strive to make it sound natural. Over acting was an issue. For example, Rosalie. We all know that she is not supposed to like Bella, but the movie made it BLATANTLY OBVIOUS. It was just too over the top. Also, the "high school" students in this movie are apparently at a junior high or lower maturity level.

The worst part about this movie is the music. Good music in a movie should be transparent. What I mean by that is, it should blend in with the current mood so that you don't notice it's there. There were several moments in this movie that I found myself pondering, "What is up with this music?" Another movie no-no is dead air space. Generally, you should always be hearing some background noise or music so that there is something to be heard when there is no dialogue. This movie didn't follow this idea, and there were points when nobody was saying anything and it was dead silent, which I feel is uncomfortable for the audience.

All in all, this movie almost felt like an Independent Indie Film. Sub par acting, weird music, forced dialogue, over acting, the only thing that is missing is a low budget, which apparently this movie did not have because the special effects were actually quite nice. The vampire movements looked ok, although I didn't feel they were adapted too well. Sometimes when they were running there was this sort of blur effect, and other times they just were running at an incredible rate. I prefered the latter, when reading the book I didn't picture the blurred movements that the movie depicted. Maybe that one is just personal preference.

So what it all comes down to is that you'll enjoy the movie if you were a fan of the book. Maybe. I, for one, felt that it could have been done so much better. I've heard other people say they loved it and honestly I feel that is only possible if you tell yourself you're going to love it before you watch it because as far as films go, it's just not that good.

5/10

The Real Game

So Cassie and I went to he Real Salt Lake game Saturday night. We had to make a quick stop at a wedding reception for one of Cassie's friends before heading to the game. It look longer than I wanted but we still arrived at Sandy City Hall about 20 minutes before kickoff, which should've been plenty of time.

Now, since Rio Tinto Stadium doesn't have a large quantity of parking spaces, there are a lot of buses that stop off at certain places that shuttle fans to the stadium. As we were approaching the City Hall we were right behind one of the buses, which was mostly full. We were bummed since we obviously weren't going to make this shuttle and would have to wait for the next one.

After we parked the car we started heading to the bus stop only to behold a massive mob of people waiting for the next shuttle. We make our way to the end of the line and wonder if we should just walk to the stadium. I decide to wait for the next shuttle and see what it looked like. I mean, they have Staff people at the bus stops that (I would assume) are able to communicate with the bus people. Obviously this stop was in need of some empty buses to get all these people to the stadium before kickoff.

So the next bus comes and it is almost full. Maybe 5 more people were able to get on. Cassie and I looked at each other for a brief moment and then began hoofing it down the road towards the stadium. So, according to Google maps we walked about 1 mile to the stadium, but it felt like a lot longer. Mainly since it was mostly uphill.

The first part of the walk was ok, because we would see buses full of people pass by us and we would think, yeah we made the right choice. Then towards the 2nd half of our trek we started to notice empty buses pass us by...

Crap.

Anyway, we made it and thanks to the national anthem and starting player announcements we only missed about 3 minutes of the game. Yay.

Then RSL lost. But hey, they gave us a good season and I look forward to the next.

Blog Gender Analyzer

This is in response to http://www.genderanalyzer.com giving me a "51% written by a male" analysis.

Pork Ribs. Deathblow. Testosterone. High School Football. Quentin Tarantino. Vault Soda. Rated R. Bloody Stump. Budweiser Commercials. Sperm Count. Black & Decker. Bench Press. Auto Zone. Pornography. Motocross. Jack Bauer. No Ma'am. Bicep. Hernia. Remote Control. Penis.