CEFS is a blog and podcast. Established in 2013, we are now a serialized site, with new content generally published monthly. We hope you enjoy!
All in Movies
Furthermore, a gift of a DVD box set is perfect for your introvert family members and friends, who'd much rather hole up with their television than ski or whatever other nonsense normal people do in the winter. (Winter: I'm not a fan.)
When I finally got around to streaming Now Is Good, the story and characters' names seemed immediately familiar. A quick Google told me that I wasn't nuts, that Now Is Good is an adaptation of a book I'd forgotten I'd read, Before I Die by Jenny Downham. (I didn't forget I'd read it because it wasn't good, because it was. Rather, it was a long time ago.)
So, as any reasonable person would do, I took to Twitter to air my grievances. It's Storyfied below.
(Note: Minor spoilers ahead.)
If you're old enough to remember the 90s, then you definitely remember the great Tonya Harding versus Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Living in the same county as Tonya and skating that the same rink as she practiced (which was right in the middle of the big mall in the area), this was THE STORY of the mid-1990s for me.
I'm not usually a fan of sibling stories, since I don't have any brothers or sisters and I find those relationships rather weird (sorry!), but You Can Count on Me is beautiful in its messiness.
Also true is that Hawaiian musician Jake Shimabukuro is the best, most innovative ukulele artist. I recently watched a wonderful documentary about Jake and his music and life, Life on Four Strings.
We don't have cable or satellite television, so the majority of my television consumption is thanks to my beloved Roku box. (Note to self: Write a post about how we don't have cable & manage to watch a crap-ton of television.) I dig pretty deep into the streaming services for my screen time.
For awhile now I've been meaning to start an irregular series with my recommendations for finds on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, and so on. I thought I'd kick off this series by featuring a movie I watch with week on Netflix, the film adaptation of Meg Roscoff's How I Live Now.
Other highlights include an exclusive, only on CEFS, discussion of the proper way to assemble a Slurpee/ICEE at the movies, a debate on whether or not Justin Timberlake can carry an action flick and why Prometheus is possibly the worst movie in history.
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To top it all off, not only did it win three Golden Globes, it’s also inexplicably been nominated for eight Academy Awards. Has a non-silent movie with no spoken dialogue ever been nominated for that many before????
To alleviate how very miserable (hardy-har-har) the unwarranted hype of Les Miserables has made me, I have generously put together a snark-filled recap for anyone who has not yet seen the movie.
To ratchet up the amusement factor, I strongly suggest reading the provided “dialogue” with a sing-song voice.
The fact that this story takes place in France has no relevance!
We all know this is a movie filmed during the 21st century financed by a British production companyyyyyyyyy!
So we will all wear our British and Aussie accents proudly and not bother trying to sound like Frenchiiiiiiiiies!
I am intensely phobic of both shopping and crowds. Therefore, on the long American Thanksgiving weekend, I usually hide in my house avoiding both.
Now, I could spend this time catching up on my reading or—gasp!—blogging, but invariably, I watch movies. I miss a lot of flicks the first time around because if it’s not playing at the single screen theater within walking distance of my house, I probably can’t be bothered to go to the mall theater (remember the shopping phobia, above) to see a movie. Here’s a roundup of what I watched and what I thought.
When ads for this movie first appeared on television, my mom called me and semi-hysterically asked me,
“What the hell is Tim Riggins doing fighting dinosaurs while wearing a gladiator outfit?!”
After watching John Carter, I still can’t answer that question. But, I will say, the terribleness of this movie has nothing to do with Tim Riggins aka Taylor Kitsch and everything to do with the horrendous writing, poor editing and confusing plot. Furthermore, Tim isn’t even the worst actor in this movie—that title goes to McNulty from the Wire aka Dominic West who brings “mailing it in” to new, previously-unseen, heights.
Strangely, I do not regret watching this hot mess of a movie. (Also, how awesome is the Spanish version of the movie poster?)
