Movies with Robert

My best bud Robert took me up on my offer to come over and watch some screeners. He arrived around 9:30am and we got started. He first went through my pile of screeners and picked out movies that he wanted to see. I then went through and pulled out a few that I have seen and didn't wish to see again. We wound up with six movies and put them in a order that we though was good.

We weren't sure if we would get through all of these but we started with Rise of the Guardians. Now I saw this last week and loved it. It became an instant yearly Christmas movie for me. And on my second viewing I loved it just the same... it's a Christmas classic already for me.

After Rise ended we were hungry so we headed out for some lunch. We went with Wienerschnitzel as it's one of Robert's and my favorite places. Back home we popped in Moonrise Kingdom. Again I had seen this one a few weeks ago and was mediocre about it. But Robert really wanted to see it and I enjoyed it enough to watch again. I have to say that I actually enjoyed this movie more the second time around and I'm glad Robert wanted to watch this one.

Next was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. And if you read my blog about hanging with Brett yesterday you will notice that I watched this with him as well. So this is going to be my third time watching this in a matter of a few weeks.. and you know what... I don't care. I love this movie. Everything about it is just so good. And I'm actually the one who suggested that we watch it. Robert knew I had just seen it and it wasn't in his pile to watch.. I actually put it there because he needed to experience this fantastic movie.

So the first three movies I had seen.. now it was time to watch a movie that I have not seen yet. Madagascar 3. Here's the synopsis: Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are still trying to get back to the Big Apple and their beloved Central Park zoo, but first they need to find the penguins. When they travel to Monte Carlo, they attract the attention of Animal Control after gate crashing a party and are joined by the penguins, King Julian and Co., and the monkeys. How do a lion, zebra, hippo, giraffe, four penguins, two monkeys, three lemurs travel through Europe without attracting attention and get back to New York? They join a traveling circus. Their attempts to get back to New York are consistently hampered by the Captain of Animal Control who wants to make Alex part of her collection. Once they make it back to New York Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman realize that they want to be part of the traveling circus.

My Review... I enjoy the Madagascar movies. I've seen the first two several times and was looking forward to watching this. I had heard such great things about it and folks comparing it to Toy Story 3 which I just adored. Well it's defiantly not Toy Story 3. The first hour or so the movie is kind of crazy. Robert kept looking at me and saying "I feel like I'm on speed" the movie was so disjointed and fast pace it was very bizarre. Once they joined the circus the movie slowed down and actually started to get good. And it ended great bringing this trilogy to a conclusion. Maybe that's why folks were comparing it to Toy Story 3 as that movie did the same. It nicely ended that series. I give Madagascar 3 a C+

Made some pizza for dinner and started with our fifth movie Flight. Again another movie that I had not seen yet. I have heard from friends that it's not what you think, that it's a much darker film about alcoholism. So I was warned about the movie before watching it. Here's a brief synopsis: An airline pilot saves a flight from crashing, but an investigation into the malfunctions reveals something troubling.

My Review... As I mentioned the previews are a bit deceiving but I was warned about what the true story is about. The movie is not bad, but it's wasn't enjoyable for me. I have a hard time when the person, who is the main character and protagonist, is just horrible and never really changes until the end. But by that time I didn't care what happen to him. There wasn't one redeeming quality about him. The acting was excellent but I just couldn't get pass that I hated the main character. Maybe I didn't enjoy the movie because it was too real, I mean I understood that alcoholism is a sickness and that part of his actions were not controllable because he was sick, but it was just to hard to watch someone so self destructive.  Maybe that's why I enjoy Fantasy as I have enough real life drama in real life I don't need to see it on the big screen.

As I said this isn't a bad movie I just don't think it was the right movie for me. If you enjoy extreme drama then this movie is right up your alley and I'm sure you'll love it. Am I glad I watched the movie.. sure, will I ever watch it again.. nope. I give this movie a C

After that depressing movie we watched our final movie of the night Dr. Seuss The Lorax. This is the third movie of the night that I had not seen. Here's a brief synopsis: In the walled city of Thneed-Ville, where everything is artificial and even the air is a commodity, a boy named Ted hopes to win the heart of his dream girl, Audrey. When he learns of her wish to see a real tree, Ted seeks out the Once-ler, a ruined old businessman outside of town in a stark wasteland. Upon hearing of how the hermit gave into his greed for profits and devastated the land over the protests of the Lorax, Ted is inspired to undo the disaster. However, the greedy Mayor of Thneed-Ville, Aloysius O'Hare, has made his fortune exploiting the environmental collapse and is determined to stop the boy from undermining his business

My Review... I enjoy Dr. Seuss and don't ever remember reading The Lorax so I wasn't sure what to expect. This was an environmental film animated for kids. This movie is all about deforestation and how it effect the environment. Robert mentioned several times how this film just hits you over the head with their message and I agree.. it's not a subtle message. But with that said I did enjoy the movie and I did like the storyline, though a bit heavy-handed. My biggest complaint were the musical numbers that they would do in the middle of a scene.... Those felt very weird. Nowadays most kids movies are written for kids and adults and can be enjoyed by both. This is definably a kids movie and one that I don't think I'll watch again. I give it a solid C +

So I saw three movies that I had already seen and three new movies, but the best part was spending the entire day with one of my favorite peoples in the world.. Thanks for hanging with me all day Robert, you're AWESOME!!

Hanging with Brett

My buddy Brett came over this evening to have dinner and watch a few screeners. I haven't had a chance to spend some one on one time with him so I was really looking forward to this get together.

Brett and I met on The Guild, he's part of the Guild of Extras. I think we actual talked for the first time while at Comic con and I really though he was a nice guy. So we continued to chat here and there on facebook and he finally attended one of my movie marathons and that sealed the deal.. Brett instantly become a new member of my "Geek Mob".

And I have to say after spending about five or six hours with him today I like him even more. He arrive a little before six and the first movie he picked was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I had seen this movie a few weeks ago when my buddy Aaron, but I loved it so much that I had no problem watching it again. I have to say I loved this movie even more. And Brett really enjoyed it as well, so that made the rewatch worth it.

I made us lasagna and garlic bread for dinner and by the time Perks was over the food was ready. So we ate and started our second movie, Cloud Atlas. Again I went to a screening of this about a month ago with my buddy Robert and totally loved it. But watching it again with Brett I loved it even more. It truly is going to be one of my favorite movies of 2012. I saw and understood so much more. And watching with Brett (who I found out is a human IMDB) made it so much more enjoyable. I can't wait to watch this movie again.

Once that movie was over it was late so we just sat for a few minutes and chatted. Said our goodbyes around 11pm and he headed home. It was a great day and I can't wait until we get to hang out again.

My Twinkie Adventure

So I went to the grocery store today and while in the bakery section I looked for any more Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dong or Cup Cake (those 3 are my favorites). I wanted to pick up three or four boxes of each to store as they are no longer making them. I know the news broke a few weeks ago but I honestly didn't expect everything to be gone. I assumed they had thousands of boxes in warehouses and they be on the shelves for a few months.:(

I checked a few more stores and no one had any hostess anything left. I was bummed. I went to ebay to see if anyone was selling anything and of course there were 10,000 auctions going on with people selling everything hostess. It looked like the average cost of 1 Twinkie on ebay was about $5.  There was even an auction of 1 box of Twinkies for 5 million (not joking).

Now I love Twinkies but there is no way I am going to pay $5 for one Twinkies. I did bid $5 on six or seven auctions for full boxes of Ding Dongs and Twinkies but if I get outbid, so be it as I won't pay anymore for those things.

I  know other companies are vying to buy the secret recipe and continue to make them so I'm not that desperate to find some.. but I'd still like to get my hand on at least a box of each. So if you see any boxes of Ding Dongs, Twinkies or Cup Cakes pick them up for me and I'll be happy to pay you back.

Buffy Rewatch Continues

Once again I struggled to motivate myself to do anything other then watch TV. I wasn't successful. Lucky for me I had plans in the evening...  I was heading out to my buddy Robert's place for our Buffy night.

Got to his place around 6:30pm, we ordered our dinner, Italian this time and we picked a new place. I always get the same thing, spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian sausage.

Caught up a little bit with Robert before starting our Buffy rewatch / first time. Again we are watching Buffy from the beginning. This is a rewatch for me and a first time for Robert. We are currently on season three. Our first episode is episode 5 "Homecoming", I thought it was an okay episode... nothing too special. It's always fun to see Buffy go head to head with Cordelia. 

After that we moved on to episode 6 "Band Candy". Now I told Robert that this was one of my least favorite episodes but I guess I forgot how awesome it really was. I laughed so much in this episode. Of course the highlights were Giles, Joyce and Snyder all acting like teenagers. It was a blast. Both Robert and I really enjoyed it.

Our final episode for the evening was episode 7 "Revelations". I really liked this episode as well, it started the rift between Buffy and Faith. And I can say that I truly dislike Xander. I don't remember him annoying me so much the first time around, but now he's just so horrible and annoying. And I totally forgot about the whole Willow and Xander thing. I mean I know how it ends but it's fun to see Robert so involved with these characters.

As always it was a great evening and fun hanging out with Robert. It had been a few weeks since we hung out for our last Buffy rewatch and I've been missing him more then usual. Gonna try and get one more Buffy rewatch in before the end of the year.

Also I got a new screener tonight.. Wreck-it-Ralph. Now I've seen this in the theaters and loved it so I can't wait to see it again.

Most Beautiful Song & Video

I came across this video from a tweet today and I'm surprised that I had not seen it earlier. The song itself was released in July and the video early October and already has almost 8 million views. I normally don't enjoy hip hop or rap so I know nothing about this artist other then he wrote one amazing song.  I've listened to this song about ten times so far and every time I watch this video it makes me cry. I love the words behind it, he speaks truth and honesty. This was a must have as soon as I heard it. So I went to itunes and found it.

I mean I love the video and music together but the song is just as powerful without the images. I also did more research on this artist named Macklemore and hope to listen to more of his stuff soon.

Hope you enjoy this song and video as much as I did.

Doctors and Dinner

yeah that's my Doctor

Today I had my annual yearly check up. I won't go into great detail as some of my life I like to keep personal (I know shocker), but I can say that my blood pressure is the best it has been since my teens. It was 121 over 80. Of course this is because I'm taking blood pressure medicine. I'm hoping with my continued weight lose I'll be able to get off the meds and still get those kinds of numbers. But for the most part I'm in fairly good shape for a 42 year old man.

After dinner I headed out to Burbank to have dinner with my bestie Will. Only problem is that I got to Burbank at 5ish and Will wasn't getting off work until 7:30. So I drove over to the empire center and did a little Christmas shopping. Not doing alot this year since I have been jobless for most of it... but I was picking up a few things here and there. After a half hour I had had enough. The lines and the crowds were just to much for me so I went back to my Jeep and just sat there listening to podcasts and texting friends.

The time flew by and soon I was having dinner with my buddy Will at Zankou Chicken. Will and I hadn't seen each other in a few months which we try to avoid but it happens more often then we like. But we both agree, it's not about the quantity but the quality of our hang outs. This was a great dinner. We sat and talked for over three hours and closed down the restaurant and then went to my jeep and continued to talk for another half hour. It was nice catching up with Will and a great way to end my evening.

Fighting the Blues

Today was a really lazy day. I still have many podcasts that I have to get edited and ready to be released as I am leaving the last two weeks of December. I have a ton of things I need to do around the house, like continue painting the outside or prepping the deck for sanding. Again none of this has been done. On top of all that I was extremely restless today, more then usual. I couldn't sit still for more then five minutes and my mind was going at a million miles a minute. I had so much to do that I couldn't do any of it. I hate feeling this way and I have to say that this year has been particularly bad. I've only worked 2 1/2 months out of the entire year. That is the least amount of work I have every done since I started working when I was 14.

I should be taking this time to get stuff done and my mind knows that but I just can't motivate myself to do it. Of course when I get a job again I'll be kicking myself  for not getting more done while I was off.. it happens every time. You would think that would motivate me but it doesn't. I don't know what's wrong with me... everything is such a struggle.

I did mange to get about 2/3'ds done on an upcoming Alien Nation podcast. It's something but far from what I could have accomplished today.

I hope I can get out of this funk soon.... I gots stuff to do.