**Okay, I really have to stop being so optimistic about my blogging. I sent this post up over weekend when I grabbed the picture. Sure, no problem, I’ll write this review by the end of the week. Why wouldn’t I? I seem to keep forgetting that I’m a mother and I have a job. Yeah, life got in the way this week and this post went live this morning with no review attached. So here it is a bit late.
Well last month it was a toss up between Babe and Easy Rider for my September pick. That may sound like widely different choices, but Easy Rider came on cable so I set my DVR to tape it and Babe I borrowed from the library. I didn’t watch Babe in the allotted time and had to return it. So for most of the month it looked like it would be Easy Rider, then I went to the library again and decided to check it and give it another go.
One of my all time favorite films is, Charlotte’s Web, so I’m on bored with a movie with a pig as the main character.
Babe’s cuteness did not disappoint. The shots of his little pink piggy butt with that curly tail made me long to own a little piggy myself.
The storyline was quirky and fun. I enjoyed that it was a smart script and not dumbed down for a potential kid audience.
Where I did feel let down was in the end. **Spoiler Alert**
I tried to go to Fox.com to find this clip. I could put it on Facebook, Digg, Stumble Upon and whatever else except simply having the embed code so I can share it on my blog! I was in Gleek heaven. My all time favorite musical sung by these two awesome voices. I will be downloading this from iTunes this weekend.
I can't really put my finger on what's missing this season. Maybe it has run it's course? I enjoy it while I'm watching it, but honestly, if it were gone tomorrow, I'd be okay. This performance certainly helped boost my waning love.
How are you feeling about Glee this season? Are you as big a fan as ever or is the shine wearing off for you too?
I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much I love this song. Man, I’m going to be 44 next month. I shouldn’t be digging on Usher so much. And I’ll argue with you till the sun comes up, this is a much better song than “Yeah.” I like that song too, but this one is the bomb!
ABC has a knack for finding shows that can deliver grand premiere opening sequences. The first few minutes of Pan Am certainly delivered for everyone waiting to check out this show. Calling all the stewardesses to action, transporting one to make the flight via helicopter and an unexpectedly married tryst boarding the plane, Pan Am easily had you settling in for the next hour.
The Playboy Club failed to make the bunnies real people. They instead decided to go for shock first and then let us slowly learn about them as people. Pan Am did it right by giving us snippets of back story so that the viewer had some type of emotions for the characters right off the bat.
Also, unlike The Playboy Club, we saw more behind the scenes of what the flight attendants endured working a job like that in the 1960’s.
Maybe it was better because most of the stories were based on fact. Maybe the acting was better. Christina Ricci owned that role instantly! Or maybe they managed to make a great pilot and they won’t be able to retain that level of interest once we know everything that goes in to being a Pan Am Stewardess.
One show already off my list is NBC’s The Playboy Club. I checked out the first episode last Monday night and the first hour failed to keep my interest. After about 45 minutes, I wandered over to the computer and I vaguely listened to next week’s previews.
Don’t get me wrong. The premiere episode was not slow-paced. It was exactly the opposite. The opening scene we witness a self-defense murder and are then taken on a roller-coaster ride of secrets and juicy storylines to ride out the whole first season.
Well it was only a matter of time before I’d have to throw my hat into the ring. I sort of kept quiet during all this pricing and streaming fiasco going on at Netflix.
I love movies. Hell, I blog about how much I love movies. I need Netflix. I also need Redbox and Blockbuster kiosks. See I’m a film addict and I’ll get my movies any way I can. It seems like Reed Hastings knows this. He’s my pusher. He gave me a taste of how easy streaming is. Funny though, he held back just a little. I can’t stream everything. He only gave me a taste. Once I saw how easy it was to simply push a button to watch a movie, he went and jacked the price up on me.
Everyone has a story in the naked city. This is mine.
The Comedy Gods where looking out for me last night. I was up way longer than I should've been(thank you 8:15pm latte). For some reason, there's nothing good on at midnight. Letterman is already on so unless I started from the beginning, I'm not usually going to watch it. This was a repeat from July, so the scary thing is I almost missed this twice! You all know my deep love and respect for Louis C.K., right? For me, there's no one doing better stand-up right now. Close, but they're not Louie. Who else could make lions attacking us seem like it just might be a good idea?
When a woman decides to have children, she knows she’ll be making sacrifices for the benefit of her child. It’s important to accept that your needs can’t always be first and often, hard decisions must be made for the good of child.
I recently had to make one such difficult choice.
I don’t go to many concerts. Frankly, they are too expensive and the to and from is usually a pain in the ass. However, tonight Train and Maroon 5 will be performing and my huge crush for Adam Levine had to be fed. I purchased my ticket on July 15th. It’s an outdoor concert with inexpensive lawn seats. I even made a date to attend with a couple of friends. This would’ve been a rare night out for mom!
My daughter also wanted to attend, but she really wanted to go with a friend of hers and her Thursday class runs late so she’d probably miss the opening act, Matt Nathanson! We agreeded to go our separate ways on this one.
Guess what? My daughter bought her ticket, but her friend forgot and then it was sold out! Now this friend leaves for college soon and this will most likely be the last night her and my daughter spend together. What’s a mom to do?
Yes folks, even though it was my destiny to be with Adam Levine, even though I know he’s singing just to me in Moves Like Jaggar, I alas have made the ultimate sacrifice…I gave my ticket to my daughter’s friend.
So I will spend the evening watching this video over and over again
Maybe this will be one of those stories that goes viral in the blogsphere and Adam will show up at my door with roses and his shirt off!
I guess I could watch the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia premiere.
The summer movie season is over so Colleenie’s Couch will be focusing a bit more on the Fall TV season. One of the mistakes I make is reading the Fall TV Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly. Every show sounds intriguing enough to check out. All in all though, I don’t really watch a lot of shows. I usually stay away from the hour long dramas because after working all day, cooking dinner and the occasional homework assistance, I really want to kick back and simply have a laugh or two.
I’ve seen enough medical, cop and law dramas. I will NOT add any of those to my “must see” list. I usually go for something different. I was a big fan of Lost and I loved Reaper before its premature cancellation. Sometimes, I start to watch a show like 24 or Mad Men, but life gets in the way and I miss a few. I feel like those shows need so much of my attention that I have to wait for the DVDs. Then there are shows like Fringe or Supernatural that I never watch because I don’t believe they’ll make it. Then I’m sadly left out of the loop.
So I can’t promise you that I’m going to continue to watch all these new shows, but many of them caught my attention.
Last night I watched Ringer, with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Here she plays identical twin sisters, Bridget and Siobhan. In the premiere we are introduced to Bridget, a woman trying to rebuild her troubled life. She reunites and mends fences with her estranged sister Siobhan, but we quickly see that things are not what they seem.
The first episode had some cleaver twists and turns and I did find myself wanting to tune in next week. They set up hints at enough secrets that they can easily go the whole season solely on everything we saw last night. Historically, I tend to bore quickly with storylines involving secrets. There are only so many skeletons someone can believably have in their closet. This is when I always wish American TV would adapt the Telenova format and not let these shows go on for too long.
Apparently, the ratings weren’t that great for last night’s episode which is another risk factor. Sometimes, they yank the rug so quickly; you never get to find out what was going.
Right now, I plan to watch again next week, but we’ll see how long Ringer can keep me coming back.
Did you check out this show? What did you think?
The next new show on my list is the new comedy, Up All Night. Come on back for the review!
Travis seems to be following me everywhere. Recently my friend burned me a CD of tunes and their were several Travis tunes. Then, as I mentioned before, I listen to Alice Chill on my work computer everyday. Every time this sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifng comes on I click my minimized button to see who it is. Then I'm always reminded, "That's right, it's Travis." Then when I read the book "One Day" they also mentioned Travis! So, I'm going to put it in your head now.
As we all know vampires are everywhere now. Books, TV, movies, and yet I’m less interested than I was twenty years ago. One of my favorite books of all time is Interview with the Vampire. With the exception of Kristin Dunst, I was not a fan of horribly miscast film adaptation. I’ve spent years craving the type of vampire story I enjoy. I was excited when TrueBlood premiered. At the time, I still had the luxury of a Showtime subscription, but that show didn’t click with me either. Twilight is too tame for me so I’m not even going to go there.
My vampire landscape is pretty bleak. Sometimes, I like to pick up genre paperbacks to see what’s new and what makes people by them. I was intrigued by Jennifer Armitrout’s new novel, American Vampire. Maybe this is what I’ve been seeking?
Sadly, this book felt like a romance novel wrapped into a vampire story. Which by the way, this was barely a vampire novel! We never saw the vampire lifestyle because Graff, our only blood sucker in the story, gets trapped in a town called Penance, very early on.
Apparently, the whole town is trapped by a monster that once described I could only picture as the smoke monster from the TV show Lost. The story was really about this monster, the townspeople and Jessa, our tough girl and possible love interest or victim for Graff.
**Spoiler Alert! Graff does not bite anyone till page 192! I have less of a problem with the plot not really being about vampires if the title of the book was not American Vampire!
This was not my type of story and so the search goes on. I’ve now found out that there’s a graphic novel of the same name, but does not have the same storyline at all. I might try that next. Wish me luck.
For time to time I like to do blog challenges. I've been a member of SITS for over a year now. I've learned a lot, found tons of great blogs to read and have increased my blog traffic.
I did the 31 Day ProBlogger Challenge with SITS before. Now they have a new challenge to coincide with the new Problogger book, "Problogger's Guide To Your First Week of Blogging." I'm hardly a newbie, so why would my three year old blog do this challenge? Well, when I started this blog, I new nothing about blogging. Three years later I'm at about 10%! I constantly feel like there are so many things I don't know or that I'm probably doing wrong. Basically, I need this challenge.
I'm planning lots of overhauling and changes to this blog over the next couple of months. I have many new ideas for regular features and ways to interact with you more. So it seems like the perfect time to re-introduce my blog to you so you know if this is the place for you.
Movies, music, books and TV are great passions for me. I have strong opinions about what I like and frankly, what sucks! For years, friends and family have asked for my opinion. Sometimes I think only because my passionate soapboxing is entertaining for them. Anyway, as an aspiring writer and someone who believes that film critic would be the most perfect job in the world, I decided to start a blog.
As much as I love the entertainment world, one thing I don't care for is celebrity gossip. I believe celebrities should be left alone when they are not working and when they are out with their families. My blog only focuses on the work itself. Don't get me wrong, this is no stuffed shirt, monocle wearing site. When you're sitting on Colleenie's Couch, I want you to feel like you're talking to a good friend. One who happens to have stellar taste and won't let you accept some of the lazy crap Hollywood churns out. If we expect better, we'll get better.
I'm a mom, a wife and a full time office dweller. My blog comes from a deep place of love and a desire to interact with others who feel as strongly as I do about movies, music, TV and books. Believe me it's an obsession, because I seriously do not have time!
My humor can be dark and twisted. I love shows like "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and comedians like Louie C.K. I read books from many genres and my musical taste are all over the map. I don't think my blog is ever "R" rated, but I'm sometimes "PG-13."
I hope I've enticed you to come by often. Please take a look around and voice your opinions. Right now I have two regular features. Every Tuesday is Song of the Week, the last day of each month is "I Can't Believe I Haven't Seen," and I recently introduced an occasional feature, "Movie/Book Combo." I have some new things on the horizons so check back in. Thanks for reading this. If you leave a comment, I'll know who you are and I'll come check you out!
Short and sweet tonight! I'm starting to worry. My DVR is almost at full capacity and the Fall Television Season is about to start. Since The Emmys are next week, I thought this weekend would be a good time to buckle down and watch some of my taped content.
I really want to see Contagion, but I won't. Can I admit that I almost said catch and I was going to put it in quotation marks? I refrained. That was close.
I also promised myself I would not rent a movie. I watched so many DVDs that I have not written reviews for! I'm a movie addict though and I could not resist renting Everything Must Go. In some sort of crazy karma, the disc messed up right at a pivotal scene. I have to try it on another DVD player, but maybe I'm being punished.
So what do I have to watch? Well, I taped every episode of Falling Skies and haven't seen one minute of it. I also have about eight episodes of Wilfred, a show I'm totally digging, it's just not a must see right now. I also have about six episodes of Awkward, currently on MTV. This showed looked potential funny to me.
What else? Ah, movies, movies and more movies. If I see something good is coming up I tape it. I recorded Easy Rider for my "Can You Believe I Haven't seen" series. Then I got super excited when I saw that, My Beautiful Launderette was coming on. I haven't seen that in years. I can't wait to watch it with my daughter. Same goes for The Closet. Hilarious movie that I'd love to see again.
Could I possibly have anything else? Well I have some real old stuff I still haven't watched. I have three episodes of Our America with Lisa Ling. I also never finished The Kids in the Hall mini-series Death Comes To Town. Oh, I just remembered I have a few episodes of Rhett &Link from IFC. Wow, I really have my work cut out for me.
How about you? Are you as bad as I am? Do you load up tons of stuff, planning to watch and then your back is against the wall? Tell me some of the stuff you have and still haven't watched. It will really make me feel better!
Sorry kiddies but summer is officially over! Still, I want to leave you on a good note. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we always have a hella hot September, so no gray days and crunchy leaves just yet. But most of you have to face reality.
I have watched VH1's "One Hit Wonders - The 90's" more times than I care to admit. Last time was a few weeks ago when I threw my back out so cut me some slack. Anyway, everytime I watch it I'm reminded of this awesome summer song by brother and sister duo Len. I always tell myself to go download it and then I forget. I can't think of a better way to end the summer. I always fantasize that one day my son and daughter will spend a fun day chillin' together. A mother can dream right?
I hope everyone is enjoying a day of leisure. I know Fall doesn't officially begin until September 23rd, but we all know that after Labor Day most of shed our summer fun and go back to school and busy days crammed with errands, meetings and overall busyness. So it's sad to say that yesterday's viewing of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark will be the last movie I can officially include in my summer viewing. Personally, I thought this summer was the best in awhile. Let's take a look back at what I managed to make it to the theater for.
Since tomorrow is Labor Day, this is my last official summer movie and I almost didn’t see it! It was getting such horrible reviews, I was afraid I’d be wasting my time. I’m glad I snuck this one in. While this isn’t going to win any awards, I had a creepy good time. This is the kind of horror film I’m looking for. I did read some reviews that talked about how troubling the opening was. I find this confusing since I didn’t hear those types of comments when Final Destination 5 came out a few weeks back. As a lover of classic horror comics, the opening sequence gave a very gritty, authentic feel of a story that could have been lifted from an issue of Vault ofHorror, or Black Magic. I seriously don’t see why anyone would find the opening more disturbing than any other current horror offering. This comic book feel is not by chance. Director, Troy Nixey is a former comic book artist and collaborated with Del Torro on the creation of the creatures.
Although Guillermo Del Torro is not in the director’s chair this time, he did co-write the screenplay and his signature look is all over the place. If you are not a fan of his films, I don’t expect you would like this.
Most of you are probably unfamiliar with the source materiel. Since I have the benefit of being old, I’m a fan of the original 1973 TV movie of the same name. Also, because I have a brother-in-law who is obsessed with the same crap as me, I was able to borrow his video cassette for a re-watch. I’m sorry, if you are truly a connoisseur of film, I would think you still own a VCR. There are simply some things that are still unavailable in newer formats.
If you have never seen the original, it’s a scant 76 minutes long, but if you saw it as a kid, it stuck with you forever. The creatures are not very scary by today’s standards, but they sure worked in 1973! What viewers always remembered about the original was the creepy whispering and the creatures dragging the defenseless Kim Darby across the living room. Watching this in modern times and as an adult, I was more bothered by the way Alex (Jim Hutton) was treating his wife (Kim Darby). This could be why Del Torro chose to make Sally a child in the big screen adaptation. The way the wife is being treated in the original makes you feel she’d be better off with the creatures than her asshole husband.
In the newly big budget flick, Del Torro took a little story and ran with it. He gives the house and the creature lurking beneath an elaborate backstory. So much so that he made an entire graphic novel entitled, Blackwood's Guide to Dangerous Fairies. I have not read this, but I’m digging the idea and I might have to check it out.
The update gives us a much larger, much creepier house. I mean this house looks like it would have creatures lurking in its basement! Guy Pearce, (whose character is named Alex as in the original) plays a designer renovating the mansion with his girlfriend played by Katie Holmes (she’s a new character not in the original and she is named Kim, which I can only believe is a nod to Kim Darby, but I haven’t found proof of this). While undergoing this major renovation, Alex is asked by his ex-wife to take his troubled daughter, Sally (Bailee Madison) full time. The job pressure of the male character remains intact in both films. The Sally character has not only has been changed to a little girl, she also is withdrawn and does not fit in with kids her own age. Although these are common character traits for kids in horror films, it’s especially important here because it makes Sally’s claims of creatures much easier to believe they would be passed off as something else then the adult character in the original.
Now to the creatures. The creepy whispering is kept intact and once again, I was glad to pay attention to the end credits because I found out Del Torro lent his voice in what must have been a blast! The audience gets good shots of these gruesome little guys and they will make you cringe!
This is a film I thoroughly enjoyed and I don’t see why it isn’t getting better reviews or doing better at the box office. There’s no blood and no one gets hacked up, yet it garnered an R rating for its overall terror inducing feel. Unfortunately, for us older folks, there were no warnings or ratings for TV in 1973. We innocently plopped ourselves in front of this and were forever scarred. I don’t know though, we are a pretty cool generation and some us grew up to make good films like Guillermo Del Torro did. Maybe it’s a character builder to “safely” have the crap scared out of you when you’re young.
Last year I unveiled Colleenie Ghoulie for Halloween. Since I was talking about the scariest stuff ever, of course I mentioned the original.
Also, there's only a few weeks before there will be all new installments of Colleenie Ghoulie! I'm working hard to unearth some nice scary stuff for you!
What makes a good romantic comedy? I’m sure there are many posts in the blogsphere that dissect this topic. For the most part, it’s a personal thing. Some people want the couple to get together no matter what. Others want exotic locations or fish-out-of-water scenarios. And some people actually watch ones with Katherine Hiegel in them!
For me, it has to be a bit classier than the normal stuff they churn out. When in Rome? No. No Strings Attached? Pass. These movies tell you everything in the trailer and they simply would be a waste of my time.
My taste lean more towards the likes of 500 Days of Summer. So when I saw the trailer for Crazy Stupid Love, I had high hopes. Although I’m one of the few people who can’t stand Steve Carell in The Office, I like him otherwise and he’s done a good job in the lead role in Date Night and Dan in RealLife. Also, the supporting cast has clout. Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Julianne Moore, I had high hopes for this one.
Definitely, uplifted by the acting, this film does work as a better-than-average romantic comedy. I’m a bit hesitant in my praise for this film because some of the storylines were too unbelievable. So anyone who wants to come at me with, “Really? You liked this contrived pabulum?” I don’t really have a leg to stand on in my argument. What I will say though is some of these types of movies simply work, I think it’s based on chemistry. A movie like Pretty Woman should not work at all, yet it does. Carell stars as Cal, a loving husband with a beautiful family who gets a bombshell dropped on him. His wife and high school sweetheart, (Julianne Moore) wants a divorce. Cal has a tough time adjusting to single life until he meets the ultimate single guy, Jacob (Ryan Gosling). Jacob feels so sorry for Cal’s inept ways with the ladies that he forces his mentoring on Cal.
Cal’s storyline serves as the anchor for all the other storylines in the film. Some work, some don’t. Cal’s young son in love with his babysitter, did not work for me. The wise beyond his years, young kid bit is really wearing thin on me. Plus, the things he does to express his love are completely unbelievable. The film immediately gains points in the “working” category when the lovely Emma Stone comes on screen. Her character, Hannah is a newly minted lawyer at a crossroads in life and her chemistry with Gosling is fantastic. They were funny and cute together.
As for the main characters Cal and Emily, I felt that Julianne Moore delivered a believable performance as a middle aged woman who’s not sure what she wants, she just knows she’s unhappy. As for Cal, some of his character traits worked. He’s a believable portrait of a loving husband and father, yet I have a hard time accepting that this character would hang out at an ultra-trendy club. I actually see Cal as someone who wouldn’t even be interested in dating for awhile. But then of course, we have no movie.
So, if the viewer can overlook these flaws, I think you could walk away quite satisfied with this one.
Welcome to a new feature at Collenie’s Couch, Movie Book Combo. So many films are made from books, right? Well, I always wonder what is better. Should I read the book first? It’s common knowledge that the movie never seems to live up to the book, but what are we going to do? I’m sure readers of this blog equally love books and movies. I’ve decided to dissect both in this feature. I actually started this with Never Let Me Go, but I didn’t quite finish that post. Look for it in the near future. I’m trying to finish up all my summer movie reviews first and then I’ll back track to some posts I never completed.
Instead, we’re going to kick this off with David Nicholls book and the current film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess…One Day.
First, the book.
My daughter read this first and passed it on to me. It was one of the few books that sucked me in immediately. We meet Emma and Dexter on July 15th, the day they graduate from college 1998. The book checks in on them every July 15th through 2006. It’s a wonderful premise and Nicholls handles it brilliantly. Since it’s always the same day, important life milestones can’t always happen and this creates a very different path for a book. You may think small snippets of a large period of time would make it difficult to feel a deep connection with the main characters, but this is not the case. We hear Emma’s story and Dexter’s story. Sometimes they are in each other’s lives and other times they are not. The dialogue is biting and witty and I often laughed out loud no matter where I was reading. Also, their inner dialogue with themselves was often funnier than what was being spoken. It was also fun to read all the UK references. Emma didn’t wear glasses, she wore spectacles! Characters snogged and shagged, for me it was a wonderful change. I loved spending time with the characters, the story was well fleshed out…it really was one of the best books I’ve read in quite a while.
Now, the movie.
Well, my daughter and I were already worried that this would not transfer well to screen. Yet, how could we not see it? This film was basically a shining example of why some books should never be brought to the screen. As far as Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess go, they were wonderful! They had great chemistry and were completely believable as Emma and Dexter. The problem was trying to cover almost twenty years in less than two hours. I hope someone reading this has seen the movie without reading the book. It’s hard for me to know, because I feel if you didn’t read the book, you find it all very confusing. I’d like to know what you thought if you saw it. Minor characters were very miscast. Ian had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, Sylvie wasn’t quite cold enough and Suki was way too tall. The whole point of her was how loud she was in comparison with her small size. None of it really matters though because you saw such brief moments of them, they had no impact. Also, I realize you have to pick and choose when you transfer a book to screen, but a major event that happened to Emma’s character was taken out. This really made a difference as to who she was as a person and thus changes your perception of the character. Some scenes and dialogue were lifted straight from the book and they were great. The visualization of Dexter’s TV show “Largin’ It” was spot on. Sadly, the scene was so brief, I don’t think viewers even got a chance to digest it.
In the end, the book works. The movie does not. What are your thoughts? Have you read One Day, or seen the movie? Sound off. What do think of this new feature? Am I asking too many questions?
