Animated Sci-Fi - gets a thumbs up!!!

What do you get when you mate ET with R2D2? WALL-E!!!!!!!!! The Hubster and I took in the movie WALL-E last night. The theater was empty except for one other couple and one lone woman. So nice! No seat kickers. No teens texting during the movie. No babies crying. It was awesome! The Hubster and I are self-proclaimed overgrown kids (but we don't kick seats, text during movies or cry...not out loud anyways) and we loved WALL-E; he is adorable. He has a 'head' reminiscent of ET (with some amazingly similar vocals) and a body similar to that of R2D2 (and beeps and whistles like him too!). He has some packrat tendencies and a tender heart (powersource???) . The funniest characters are the humans who are hovering-lounge-chair-bound blobs (due to obeseness and diminishing bone structure due to lack of excercise) who wear StarTrek-like jumpsuits. Those characters helped me remember my Weight Watchers limit...about a cup and half of popcorn (no butter) and 6 peanut M&M's. That was plenty. (The good thing about being on WW is that after two weeks your stomache shrinks dramitically and reduced amounts of any treat can be satisfying!).

Back to the movie...WALL-E falls in love with Eve, who reminded me of a sleeker, quieter, less matronly Rosie (from The Jetsons). The corriders of speeding robots and hovering lounge chairs reminds me of the traffic in one scene of The Fifth Element. Cute movie, a bit long for animation, okay for little kids (wonderful animation, no bad words, no blood or guts, some giggles) and big kids and adults can enjoy also (wonderful animation, glimpses into the future, message about taking care of earth and ourselves, and a love story) - which is a Pixar trademark. It has elements of many of my favorite sci-fi movies, that's an extra! I give it a thumbs up.

Chick Flicks

I have a new movie to add to my list of Top Ten Fave Chick Flicks. 'The Holiday' with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black. This movie came out back around Thanksgiving, 2007, I believe, and I am just now getting around to watching it. The Hubby had asked me to pick up a movie for Friday Night Date on the Couch Night and I chose three, hoping he would like one of the three. I got 'The Holiday', 'Cleaner' with Samuel L. Jackson, and 'The Savages' with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. He went straight for 'Cleaner', the Orville Redenbacher Movie Style popcorn and the Whoppers. The movie got a thumbs up.

Saturday night I snuggled up on the couch alone with 'The Holiday'. I have not liked Jude Law very much since the whole 'nanny' scandal...but he has redeemed himself, somewhat, in this movie. I had forgotten how darned cute he is! Jack Black is a goof ball and I really don't like him in a lot of his movies, but he was decent in this role. Of course, Cameron is a cutie pie as always. Kate Winslet, in this role, reminded me way too much of her character in Little Children; the not quite pretty, but not ugly, low-self-esteem-suffering 'grey' personality type girl. I just think she frowned way too much. She can be soooo pretty. Almost Daughter passed through the living room and commented that if I ever wanted to go to London before, this movie will make that longing a hundred times worse. She was right. The scenes of snow covered valleys and dales, complete with sheep, just made me sigh. And the shots of little villages, complete with church steeple and the roofs dusted with snow, and strings of Christmas lights....oh me. I could go on and on.

The Hubby will submit to a Chick Flick on occasion. He pretends he doesn't like them, but secretly, he does. What makes a movie a Chick Flick? In his opinion, any movie that displays copious amounts of emotion. The worst are the kinds that are strictly romance stories and the absolute worse are the kinds that make women (me) produce tears. The first time I ever saw The Hubby cry at a movie was in 1993, My Life, with Michael Keaton, a movie about a terminally ill man. He won't admit it, but I think sometimes he needs to watch a Chick Flick to help him get in touch with his inner woman. To me, a Chick Flick is any movie which makes me feel empowered, or makes me laugh a lot, or cry deeply, I admit it.

My current Top Ten Fave Chick Flicks (in no particular order):

1. Moonstruck
2. You've Got Mail
3. Pretty Woman
4. Home For the Holidays
5. The Family Stone
6. Sex and the City
7. Bring it On
8. Clueless
9. My Best Friends Wedding
10. The Holiday

Note: This list can change without notice. Also, my Top Ten Fave Teeny Bopper movies sometimes coincide with Chick Flicks (see #7 and #8).

Oh, and after I watched The Holiday, the Hubby wandered through as The Savages was coming on. He ended up sitting down and watching it with me. Yeah, it's a Chick Flick, sort of. But he liked it. It helped him think about the sadness of his Dad growing old. See, Chick Flicks even have a purpose.