He's Just Not That Into You

I checked this movie out of the library this past weekend and have come to the conclusion that this should be required viewing for all young women.


I know it was a comedy, but honestly so much of it rang true to life. Everything from the beginning where little girls are told "Jimmy is picking on you because he likes you" to the crazy things women do (and yes, I did too) trying to analyze what a man did, what did it mean, what should you do all the way to the clique of waiting by the phone, checking 10 times to make sure it was working, etc. I have notebooks that I kept in high school jotting down what my crush did/said/didn't do with my resulting analysis. Just imagine where I'd be now if I had spent all that time studying something important like math, English or biology.


It was funny to watch now but a little painful to see it happen and remember that I really did do some of those things. Stupid, pathetic, low self-esteem things. Is there anyway I can prevent my daughter from going through those painful, useless gyrations? Someway to help her see it before she gets mired in the I'm-not-happy-or-complete-unless-I'm-in-a-relationship muck?


Much to my chagrin she is already idealizing Cinderella and the Price, Snow White and the Prince, etc. I really tried to keep all that stuff away from her but once one little girl at school had it and started talking princesses it spread like wild fire. My girl came home talking about this stuff without ever having seen it. I caved and allowed her to have some dress-up princess gowns, and allowed Grandma to buy her Cinderella and off we went.

Now she is talking about the song "All the Single Ladies" and while I know she has never heard it at home or seen the video it makes me a little sad realizing the influence her peers have over her. I'll just have to be more influential.

Blow... Didn't

Tonight I finally got around to watching the 2001 movie "Blow". I don't know why it never appealed to me 8 years ago, but it was on regular old TV tonight and I was looking for some background that I could knit to so I decided to watch. I'm glad I did.

I thought it was quite good. Based on a true story - I always like those types of movies - it was intriguing to see the life of George Jung go from rags to riches to rags again. It was poignant and somehow I ended up feeling sad for him, but especially his daughter. I tend to try and avoid any sad movies nowadays so this one snuck up on me. Again, I'm glad it did.

Johnny Depp, as usual did a great job. Lots of other big names too - Penelope Cruz, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths, Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman - I thought he looked familiar) to name a few. It's definitely worth renting

Yes Man, Yes Ma'am!

I took a sick day today - I'm tired, achy and feeling blah. After sleeping in I hauled myself into the shower and then out to get an iced coffee. I also decided to swing by the library and see what DVDs they had available.

"Yes Man" with Jim Carey was on their "new release" shelf so I grabbed it. Jim Carey movies are almost always entertaining if only in a silly, frothy kind of way and that's what I needed - some silly humor to distract me and maybe, if I was lucky, make me laugh.

It worked! This is a cute movie and if you really think about it, it's a good message too. If it made me laugh out loud (more than once), than that's saying something. Give it a try.

Slumdog Millionaire and Doubt

In the last month or so I have rented these two movies (I love Redbox - can't beat the convenience and price at $1/night).

"Slumdog Millionaire" - I had been avoiding seeing this movie for a while and I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm half Indian and knowing this movie took place in India and was about children that lived in slums made me uncomfortable. Or maybe it was because in some of the trailers I saw what appeared to be a Bollywood-esque dance scene and I thought, nahhhh, I'm not interested. But after seeing the Oscars and all the awards the movie won and hearing the music and reading a little bit more about the background of the movie I gave it a try and I'm glad I did. It was clever, sad, eye-opening and finally joyful. It is also funny to me how mainstream India and Indian people have become - I remember 30 years ago, as a child feeling so much the odd-ball, with the odd name, relatives that wore traditional Indian clothing, ate traditional India foods and being embarassed for being different. It felt like a burden having a mixed ethnicity when my classmates were Irish, Italian, German - not another "mixed" child or Indian child in my class. It was a big deal when Vietnamese refugees started coming to my school.

Now I'll bet if you asked 5 people what a samosa is 3 of them would know and also tell you how much they love naan as well. Who doesn't know what chai is? I have a friend that tells me how much she loves Bollywood movies and a neighbor that goes to Devon St. in Chicago and brings back Indian desserts for me and also listens to Indian music - she's a 50 yr old Jewish woman of Eastern European descent but sometimes I feel like she is more Indian than I am!

"Doubt" - a rather dark, heavy movie. Not what I expected and it left me with, well, much Doubt after I saw it. Doubt as to whether or not he did anything wrong and Doubt about whether I thought this was a worthwhile movie or not.

Mamma Mia, What Just Happened?

That's what I was saying after I watched each of these movies this weekend - one day after the other. Ugh. It all started with a free rental coupon and went downhill from there.

"What Just Happened" - a direct to DVD movie (should have been my first clue, but Slumdog Millionaire almost went direct to DVD and look how good it was). It starred Robert DeNiro, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn and some other names. So, how could it be so bad? Embarassingly bad? Robert DeNiro played a big Hollywood producer and we follow him through his manic, frenetic life. However, I never ended up caring about him, his manic, frenetic life or any of the other characters. The movie was disjointed, pointless and worse yet, I'll never get the 1:43 minutes I wasted watching it back. My knitting even ended up messed up. What Just Happened indeed!

"Mamma Mia" - how can you go wrong with a movie that is full of ABBA songs? Most importantly, start by mis-casting the older female roles - that's crucial. Then add a frothy, silly storyline and you're done. I don't think this movie translated well from the stage to the screen - wasn't it a smash hit on the stage?? It was downright laughable watching the esteemed Meryl Streep act like a free spirited, single mother living on a Greek Island, running a broken-down hotel. Story is that 20 years earlier she had a few youthful indescretions (slept with three different men in a period of a few weeks) and ended up not knowing who the father of her now adult daughter was. Ummm, Meryl Streep is a leeetle bit long in the tooth to play this roll - I'm thinking someone in their mid-forties was about the oldest you could go and pull it off. It was ridiculous watching her dance and run around like an idiot. That and the two women playing her best friends (including Christine Baranski) - were just as bad. And the men - what a waste of Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth! Although they were a little more believable in their rolls. Oy - Mamma Mia - what a waste of film!

Matthew Waynee

It's interesting to see, now that I'm a "grown-up", what the people that I grew up with are doing now. Some I have known since I was a kid have surprised me with what they decided to do career-wise and others that did not. Many have chosen to do some really neat things with their careers and an elite few were brave risk-takers that ended up breaking into their industry of choice and achieved worldwide notoriety and huge financial success.

One of those people is Billy Corgan (we went to middle school and high school together) of Smashing Pumpkins fame. He always was a little different, but a really nice guy and one that seemed to be very smart. I remember sitting next to him in an honors history class and being intimidated by his knowledge and ability to discuss a given topic - it made me feel so inadequate that it was one of the reasons that I dropped that honors class and switched to a regular class. I couldn't take the pressure.

Another is my cousin, Matthew Waynee. OK, he may not have the worldwide notoriety (yet) but we are still pretty darn proud of him and all he has achieved so far. He is just a normal guy from the midwest who was passionate about becoming a writer. He picked up and moved from Michigan to LA for graduate school and stayed in order to pursue his writing career. Recently he found some commercial success when he was able sell a screen play he wrote. Check out his website www.matthewwaynee.com or his IMDb profile here

Me, I'm just not a risk-taker. Even at a young age I worried about stuff like "how will I pay my mortgage?", or "um, I need to save for retirement/kid's college", etc. So I took the safe route in school, obtained a degree in finance and have been steadily working for the last 18 years (knock wood!). While I have a comfortable life I can't help but envy those that really put their heart and soul into something they loved and ran with it. They didn't know if they would ever find commercial success, but they did it because they loved their craft.

Anyway, back to the point of this post - Matthew Waynee! The screen play Matt sold was for the movie "Unknown" which was produced and released a few years ago - click here for a movie review . Hubby and I really enjoyed the movie and thought it was even more cool that Matt wrote it. But even if he didn't it was still a good story with lots of twists - you can find it on www.netflix.com.

Hopefully we will see more of him on the big screen or the NY Times best seller list. We'll all be even more proud of him, but deep down he'll always be cousin Matt to me - a genuine and down-to-earth guy whom I'm proud to have in my family.

Movie Reviews "Awake" and "There Will Be Blood"

Two more movie reviews in 30 seconds or less...

There Will Be Blood - Set at the turn-of-the century. Daniel Day-Lewis is searching for oil and buying up land. His adopted son suffers for it. There is also an underlying moral/religious theme. We give it 4 stars for originality and DD-L is just a great actor.

Key Quotes:

N - "hmmmm, this is much better than I thought it would be. That title really put me off" (title does makes sense after you see the movie)
K - "I liked it. It was good."

Awake - Set in current day - thriller set around Hayden Christiansen's character suffering from "anesthetic awareness" (which is a real phenonmen and sounds absolutely horrifying). We give it 3 stars for originality and I liked the ending, but the acting/story was kind of hokey.

Key quotes:

N - "I really can't watch Jessica Alba. She kind of ruined herself for me by making movies like "Honey" and being quoted recently as saying she and her boyfriend don't use birth control because to them sex was "no big thing". (Unless you are living under a rock you know that she is currently very pregnant.)

K - "no way - you'd be screaming the whole time they were cutting you open. You couldn't narrate a movie" (as he was sitting there with his hand clenching the side of his head - very tense-like). He was really on the edge of his seat.

Movie Reviews

I was recently sick and took full advantage of my time on the couch to catch up on a few movies. We haven't seen a movie in ages so my hubby joined me.

Here are a few of our opinions. I'm the first to admit that as much as I wish I were, I am not a cerebral, analytical movie watcher. So keep that in mind and here we go!

Atonement - 1930s, sad, frustrating, intriguing, with a bit of WW II history. We give it 3 stars.

Choice reviewer quotes:

N - "what a little S&^$! I can't believe she did that and ruined their lives!!".

K - "come on, she was in love!" He also instantly recognized the battle of Dunkirk (my husband is so much smarter than me when it come to history).


Babel ("babble") - Entwined familial crises in Morocco/Japan/Mexico. Couple in marital crisis go to Morocco and leave their children in the care of their illegal immigrant nanny in San Diego. Gut wrenching to see how people react under tremendous stress and who ultimately pays the price. It was good! We give it 3 stars.

N - "what a little S&^$! I can't believe he did that and ruined their lives!!" and "Why ever would you go to Morocco if you were a germaphobe like Cate Blanchett's character?"

K - "well, he is a boy"

Love in the Time of Cholera - 1900s, unrequited love. Somewhat intriguing but watch the movie to ogle Javier Bardem otherwise read the book (which I have not but I'm guessing it's much better). We give it 2 stars.

N - "OMG, I think I'm in love with Javier Bardem"

K - "wow, Javier Bardem IS one good looking guy"