movies, movies, and more movies

so, this weekend, we went a little overboard on the movies.

there were 7- actually 5 and 2/2. yeah, i know. movies were our full-time job on saturday.

shut up and sing- documentary about the dixie chicks controversy from a few years ago. good, interesting look at their off-stage lives. nothing too spectacular. but it was rather ridiculous that people actually threatened their lives over not liking the president.

wall-e- this was the only theater viewing, and it took us a long time to see it because toby kept saying he didn't wanna see it. matthew and i made the executive decision that we wanted to see it. toby did come, and did enjoy it. so did we. it was very sweet, and fun to watch a movie with so little dialogue, but plenty of story.

m- an excellent german movie. one of the first talking movies from germany. subtitles were good, as most of my german is just in poetry/song form. it's about a child murderer, and the underground thugs that decide that the cops aren't gonna solve this case, so they better. once they catch the guy, the town secretly meets and begins to decide what his punishment should be. this starts a debate about whether he can control himself, and therefore, should have to face any judgement or be declared insane. great script, well acted, we really enjoyed this one. strongly recommend- as long as you can get past the subject matter and all the reading.

kite runner- we'd been hearing about this one for a while. it got great reviews. and we agreed. there were some disturbing moments, great heartfelt memories, and a story of friendship and family. amazing to see how much life has changed in the middle east. strongly recommend.

next we tried two that we stopped after about 45 mins each

all that jazz- bob fosse?- good. jazz?- good. movie about a jerk, adulterating musical director's messed up life?- not so good. i was expecting a musical. we righted this later. you'll see.

brazil- a wacky british comedy (which is a genre we normally love- we enjoy the sarcastic wit)that we just couldn't "get into". didn't work for us.

i still wanted a musical, so we watched........

state fair- we received this in a rodgers and hammerstein collector's set, and just never watched it. we are both musical fans (seeing as we met during one!) so it was a lovely cap to our movie viewing extravaganza of a weekend.

and yes, we did get other things done. we did some laundry, had a date night, went out to lunch, took a friend a birthday present, gave a home staging estimate, went to church, baked cookies, went swimming, got family portraits, and went to target. that sounds like a lot, but didn't feel that jam-packed. a fun few days..............

2 more movie reviews

we saw a couple other movies this week that i didn't review.
donnie darko- very dark (o) indeed. an interesting journey into the mind of a disturbed teenager. he is a paranoid schizophrenic whose shrink decided to try placebo medication on. um, hello! he starts to hallucinate a demonic rabbit, well, actually a man in a demonic rabbit costume, who gets him to do bad things in his sleep. wacky, but good, if you enjoy a little comedy mixed in your macabre stories.
the bucket list- we thought this would be a pretty frothy one. but there is some decent story and substance. of course, i was just happy that morgan freeman's character didn't follow every other hollywood storyline and cheat on his wife when propositioned. yay, a decent male role! the movie was pretty light fare, but had some genuine chemistry between the leads, and some touching moments.
i'm sure there will be more reviews soon enough..........
fyi- toby and i are both sick. pray for us!

the train! the train!

since toby goes to preschool on monday/wednesday/friday mornings, i try to make sure that tuesdays and thursdays are a little extra special. harkins summer movie fun helped take care of tuesdays this summer, and i declared thursday as "outing day". today's outing was to one of our very favorite places, mccormick-stillman railroad park in scottsdale. it was very hot, but still a fun morning. and we had an extra special treat, daddy came along too! that is truly rare for him to come play on a work morning. so here are some pics (look, aimee- i did it all by myself..........)


how precious!

he could literally do this for days

after a blue raspberry icee!

we also watched ballets russes last night. most documentaries are difficult to follow all the way through, but we enjoyed this one very much. probably me more than matthew. i just kept thinking about what amazing lives these folks lived, to be nearly forgotten in modern society. watching the interviews and seeing them in their lives today, was just so sweet and touching. most of the dancers are still dancing/teaching/funding ballet today all across the world.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

as always, a busy but good day.
woke up, went to work/church, visited mother-in-law for lunch, visited my mom in hospital, took naps (all three of us), watched a documentary, had a picnic in the backyard for dinner (toby's idea), watched a movie (more in the next paragraph), and now, internet stuff.

the movie was In Bruges. interesting- it was quirky, witty, funny, and yet full of drama and action. very enjoyable time. fyi-if you don't know me or my hubby very well, we LOVE movies. we have seen close to 1000, own close to 400 dvds, and have spent time watching the classics. we consider ourselves kinda mini-experts.

meanwhile, getting back to my normal life has been joyful. i became very smitten with boulder, co. the lifestyle and weather and gorgeous natural surroundings were delightful. but i missed both matthew and toby so much.
i love my little toby-boy. he's so sweet and very polite, even though he has too much energy to know what to do with. yes, he bounces off the walls often, but most messes are cleanable, all owies are fixable with a bambi (bandaid) and a kiss, and all obedience offenses are easily forgotten with night-night hugs.