Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Movie Tuesday 1/18

Huh?  What?  It's Tuesday already?  Really?  Oops...just one of those weeks!  The kids had Monday off, then had a 2-hour delay this morning because of a snow/freezing rain mix (lovely), so even though it's almost mid-week, I'm still not feeling as if I've even started my week yet!  Morning's my only real productive time, so knocking two hours off this morning really kind of blew the whole day (not that I didn't appreciate the extra sleep!)

We had a wonderful time yesterday.  Some friends came to spend the day - two older teen brothers who both have severe ME/CFS and their mom - and we celebrated two birthdays.  The kids all had a great time together playing games, and their Mom and I had a chance to just relax and talk...and she totally understood that I needed to take a nap after lunch.  Now that's an easy guest!

So, I'm finally getting around to my weekly movie round-up...and we watched quite a few this weekend, as the boys needed lots of downtime after the party:
  • Earlier in the week, we all watched Hook, the 1991 return to Neverland film, starring Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook and Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan who must recapture his childhood in order to save his children.  It's a great movie with a talented cast, and the kids loved it.
  • Friday night, in preparation for the big events of the weekend, we stayed in and snuggled up with another good movie, Ironman, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges, which Jamie had given Craig for his birthday.  The movie was much better than I expected, better than the typical superhero flick, in my opinion, with a unique backstory and plot, with Downey as a spoiled rich guy who owns a hugely profitable weapons manufacturing company that is intricately involved in the Afghanistan war. It had some interesting twists and turns, and we all really enjoyed it.
  • Ken and I didn't have time for any movies in this packed-full weekend, but we did squeeze in a couple of episodes of the final season of Saving Grace, one of our favorite TV shows.  It's not only an excellent cop show with a unique supernatural twist, but it's also set in Oklahoma City, where my husband is from.  We missed most of the last season this past summer and had been waiting for the library's DVDs to become available.  Only problem is that now we have 17 episodes to watch, and Ken is out of town this week!  Guess what we'll be doing next weekend?
  • After Crag's sleepover, both boys were pretty wiped out, not good for anything but lying on the couch and watching movies, so I picked out a couple of old favorites from the library for them.  They watched The Hunt for Red October while I napped on Sunday.  They knew Sean Connery from the Bond movies, and Jamie had enjoyed another movie based on a Tom Clancy novel, so they enjoyed this one, too.  Well, Jamie enjoyed it; Craig fell asleep in the chair halfway through!
  • Sunday night, the three of us ate dinner in front of the TV and watched another Robin Williams' classic, Mrs. Doubtfire.  The boys absolutely loved this funny and touching movie about a divorced Dad who is so desperate to see his kids that he pretends to be an old British nanny.  Definitely a good one.
  • After our guests left on Monday, we did the same thing again - chilled out with dinner and a movie in the family room!  We watched The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.  The boys both really enjoyed the TV show, Avatar, that this movie was based on, so it was fun to see a favorite cartoon brought to life on screen in live action.  It was very well-done, with excellent special effects, and would appeal to anyone who enjoys fantasy, even if you're not familiar with the TV show.
Lots of movies this week, in between bouts of extreme activity!  Have you seen any good movies lately?

3 comments:

Baffled said...

These are some of my favorite movies. I just rented Ironman from the library since I haven't seen it in a while. While I haven't seen Airbender I did watch quite a few of the cartoon series a few years back when I was recovering from surgery. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie version.

I watched Two Weeks Notice which is a total chick flick. Hubby and I watched an aweful movie on Netflix, Unthinkable. We didn't even finish it. We much prefered SpongeBob.

My friend came over so that we could watch Eclipse together but we ended up talking for 5 hours instead. Not as crazy about Eclipse as the other Twilight movies. They left out a lot of the interrelationship stuff due to time constraits and concentrated on the battle prep. A lot of things that made the book interesting to me were left out of the movie.

Pamela said...

We watched The Informant with Matt Damon. he's am amazing actor & portrayed this quirky character; I forgot I was watching Matt Damon & focused on the character. He made the guy likable, which maybe wasn't best for the movie since he turned out to be a crook. Other than the acting, the movie fell pretty flat, in my opinion. Not enough story-line to make it interesting. Yeah, it's a real story so if it's not interesting enough to tell, then don't.

Other than that, I've fallen asleep in every tv show or movie we've attempted to watch in the past month, so .... nothing else to report. :P

Renee said...

No movies here...sounds like you guys got in a few though. We have enjoyed a few of our favorite shows like NCIS at 7 here on Tues. Lots of really low key shows with my adrenaline surging high from the flu.... What a nice party you had! i think it is so super your kids are able to connect with others with ME/CFS.