Movies for Halloween

I love horror movies. Even though I get nightmares and wake up and think I see someone in my bedroom only to find out it’s the stuffed animal on my nightstand, I still watch them. So, I thought I’d share the best horror movies I’ve seen this year since it’s almost Halloween. So if horror movies are your thing, I definitely recommend checking these out.

The Final Girls

I.loved.this.movie. It’s a dark comedy and it’s kind of like the Pleasantville of slasher films. Not only is it super funny but it actually gave me all the feels once or twice. I watched it with a bunch of friends (we all loved it) and I may have shed a couple tears in front of them like a giant baby. I also have a new girl crush on Taissa Farmiga to go along with my already existing girl crush on Malin Akerman.

It Follows

Ok, so this movie has a weird premise. The “It” that follows is transferred from person to person sexually. Sounds really dumb, I know, but it was great. The movie takes place in some weird time frame that seems like present day but then has a really cool retro Halloween vibe with the music and atmosphere. It’s definitely a different take on a stalker horror movie. Until The Final Girls came along, this was the best horror movie I had seen in a couple years.

As Above So Below

This one came out last year, but I just saw it so it makes the list. This movie got terrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (I live by Rotten Tomatoes) and I’m not sure why. It’s about a group of people that sneak into the catacombs in Paris to find some jewel and they get trapped. Hubs and I really liked it, as did our friend that we watched it with. Three people can’t be wrong, right? After going caving this summer and realizing I was in fact claustrophobic, this movie brought that issue right back to the forefront. I will have to be drugged to go into the catacombs in Paris. This is what I learned from this movie.

The Hallow

This one is about a couple that moves into a new house out in the middle of nowhere and there’s something in the woods around them that wants their baby. It’s not original but it has some creepy moments and overall I really liked it.

If you love horror movies and have any to recommend to me, I would love to hear them! Bonus points if you can recommend one that I haven’t already seen.

All the Movies

I really need to stay away from Ryan Gosling on Neflix. Why do all his movies disturb me?

Let’s just say I no longer feel bad for him in Blue Valentine after this one. I liked it a lot even though I didn’t understand the title or why Ryan started cross-dressing toward the end. I was so confused. I had to rewind to see if I missed something. (He makes a really ugly woman, by the way.) I didn’t know it was based on a true story until the end. I had to look up the real story online afterwards (at least that explained the title and the cross-dressing). I could have gone without learning the real-life dude lives in Florida. Why do all the crazies gravitate here?

If you haven’t already guessed, my movie watching is still in full-force between episodes of Deadwood. Hubs and I went to see Man of Steel on Saturday night. I loved it, hubs did not.

So pretty.

***SPOILER ALERT***  (Jump past the Really gif if you don’t want to read.)

I hated the Brandon Routh version, so I’m surprised I liked this one. Although, I couldn’t help but wonder how much it would cost to repair the city with all the buildings that Superman was slamming into. Like, damn Superman, use your head. Tax payers are footing that bill. Not to mention the casualties in those buildings. Superman saves one guy, then flies straight through and topples populated buildings for like an hour killing who knows how many people, then it only took breaking the villain’s neck to defeat him.

We also saw World War Z on Sunday and both liked it a lot. Then I had a horrible nightmare that night in which I woke myself up because my scream in my dream translated to a real life scream. Although, my real life sleeping scream sounds more like a pathetic dog cry, but still. It woke me up. The movie wasn’t even scary (it was more tense like War of the Worlds) but I guess when zombies can leap at you like an NBA player dunking a basketball, it leaves an effect on your psyche.

Finally, I watched Nobody Walks (another Netflix movie). I’m still not sure what that title means but it has my imaginary husband in it, so I gave it a shot.

I wouldn’t recommend it. Basically everyone has a crush on someone else that doesn’t have a crush on them, things get awkward, and everyone gets hurt. But people definitely walked in that movie – physically and metaphorically, so what the hell, title?

Oh well, 80 minutes of my life gone but somehow I couldn’t stop watching. It was still worth it for John Krasinski, even though he played a cheater.

And that was my weekend. Please tell me you did something more exciting.

How to Depress Yourself in 90 Minutes

I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix lately. If I work from home, generally I stream a movie in the background so I don’t have to listen to Pants dig in her litter box all day. The only catch is, I have to watch something that hubs doesn’t want to watch. If one of us watches something alone that the other wants to see, the non-watcher is instantly not interested in watching that thing anymore. I can’t explain it. It’s just what happens. That basically leaves me with two kinds of movies to watch: depressing dramas and depressing romances.

First I watched Young Adult. (I think Charlize has Bitchy Resting Face there. < — Clicking that link is worth it, trust me.)

I actually heard this one was a comedy. It is not a comedy. Charlize’s character is so sadly pathetic, it was hard to even watch, but somehow I powered through because I was hoping for a happy ending. Didn’t get it.

So after the movie was over, I was sufficiently depressed but oddly feeling good that at least I wasn’t a delusional alcoholic trying to break up the marriage of my high school boyfriend.

I needed a little pick-me-up, so I decided to watch Blue Valentine. (Spoiler: It didn’t pick me up.)

I read good things about this movie awhile back so I’ve been wanting to see it. Plus, it’s a love story. It stays it right there on the poster. And, the V in Valentine is a heart! If that doesn’t say happiness, I don’t know what does. Ok, I guess the “Blue” in the title doesn’t but I didn’t think that part through.

I was completely depressed and stressed out for two days over this movie. My God. Ridiculous. It was all I could think about. I’m not even a big Ryan Gosling fan but why would someone do that to him? WHY!

I was so bothered by it that I had to get “grief counseling” from my co-worker. Grief counseling about fictional characters. (This is my life.) I don’t know why I even try watching dramas and romances anymore. I’m way too emotional about it. It took me five years to get over the ending to Beaches, I should have learned by now.

Luckily, I was cheered up last night when hubs and I went to see This is the End. For the love, go see that movie. It is so, so funny. It’s worth it just for Michael Cera alone.

***

I just realized we have less than a month before Google Reader goes away. I’ve tried out Feedly (dislike) and Bloglovin (not bad) but I’m still using GReader for all my blogs because I fear change. I think I’m going to go with Bloglovin at the end of the month. What are you all using now?

That Night I Watched Four Movies

The weekend started out like this.

And let me tell you, I needed that. Well, I probably didn’t need six of them.

I had one of those super long weeks that would.not.end, so I met up with the bestie (we go way back) for some drinks on Friday night.

I hadn’t seen her in forever. Or two months, which in best friend time is definitely forever.

Then I spent Saturday watching an obscene amount of movies. Hubs and I started with Battlestar Galactica Blood and Chome.

This was a Web series that aired in segments each week and it was put together as one movie on DVD. I was a big BSG fangirl so it’s hard for me to watch these little off-shoot movies because I was so invested in the TV show characters that I can’t bring myself to care about new ones. But I still liked it. Really good production value for a Web series too.

Then we moved on to Sinister.

This one is from the producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious so we wanted to check it out. It’s an interesting story and pretty creepy, but the last shot of the movie went for a cheap scare, which well, cheapened it. Also, why does Ethan Hawke keep walking by light switches and not turning them on? YOU WILL SEE BETTER. The lights work fine. But no, go ahead and just use the light from your cell phone or that miniscule flashlight. I mean honestly.

After Sinister, we lightened things up a bit.

I really thought I wasn’t going to like this movie about 20 minutes into it. Most of the game jokes were over my head and I was not loving the sequence in the Hero’s Duty game. Luckily it got way cuter and not even Sarah Silverman could keep me from liking it – which is fortunate since we bought this one instead of renting it.

After Wreck It Ralph, it was getting late. We wanted to watch Argo but we’re not big “thinkers” late at night, so we dumbed it down real good.

Technically not a good movie and definitely the worst of the series, but I love Mila and I love Resident Evil and I love people running by big clocks. Soooo, I didn’t hate it. Let’s just leave it at that.

Alright, that’s really all the excitement I got for today.

(source)

The Rundown

The past week has been super busy and this weekend isn’t any different. I’ve wanted to write about so many things but haven’t had the time, so now you’re going to be the abridged version.

1.  I have been running. I just haven’t been talking about it. Besides the Vegas RnR, I knocked out 3.5 miles at the gym earlier in the week and did 7 super slow miles (over 11:00 minute pace) on my treadmill at home last Sunday. I’ve even fit in some personal training workouts.

2.  I watched Bride Wars during that slow run. I would have ran 8 miles but the movie ended and then…eh. Taking a shower sounded more appealing. Bride Wars was really cute. I loooooove movies about best friends. If you ever need a professional Beaches quoter to follow you around all day or someone to sing you every song from the soundtrack, give me a call because I’m your girl.

By the way, have you ever seen Bette Midler’s daughter, Sophie? They are carbon copies of each other.

3.  Hubs and I went out to see the Muppet Movie. I’ve never been a fan of the muppets. I know, I know. I’m un-American. I did like the Muppet Babies but I was more of a Scooby Doo girl growing up. With that said, it was a really cute movie. I still can’t get into Gonzo or Animal. I mean, who thought those would be cute Muppets? Honestly.

Also, Miss Piggy is annoying. I know that’s her thing and that’s fine, but if I was a muppet, I could not be her friend. She is too high-maintenance. However, she does get points for not caring that she’s taller and weighs considerably more than her boyfriend. I can relate to that.

No Piggy. The frog does.

4.  Our work holiday party happened last weekend.

That dress is a steal for $25 at Target and it comes in navy blue too. You hear that J’s Everyday Fashion? 😉 (I did style my hair even though it looks like a rat’s nest there.)

More important than the dress is the fact that I won $250 at the party because I had a Jack playing card taped underneath my chair. A Jack that I thought was a Joker at first glance and just stood there not claiming my prize while they called for me. Awesome. Eventually I saw hubs frantically waving at me to signal the big boss was calling my card and got with the program.

When I got up to him, I told him I thought it was a Joker and he told me not to go to Vegas. <—– too late   So, I looked like a douche in front of all my co-workers but it was worth it because now I’m richer than them.

If winning $250 isn’t enough, the next best part about my work holiday party is how I strategically befriend all the people that don’t drink. Because then they OFFER you their drink tickets. Don’t mind if I do!

And of course, there were also dessert shots.

Overall, it was a good time. But my work holiday parties are always a good time.

5. One of my co-workers, Tim, made me an awesome robot.

He makes these things out of scraps he finds as a HOBBY. I don’t even have 1/4 of the talent it takes to make something that creative. It blows my mind. I have been admiring all the robots at his desk forever now and he’s always changing them out. Every one he makes is original and he sells them when he has spare time and even has a blog about them. I’m not even a big robot fan but what he makes is so cool. Here are some of the other ones he’s made.

6.  I have another holiday party to attend this weekend, Christmas shopping to get done, and I need to fit a trip to Jacksonville in there somewhere, so it should be interesting. Next week, everyone at work is on vacation except me, which means I get to do all the work. That shouldn’t add to my holiday stress. I’m going to have to figure out a way to get through the week without going bald.

Low Key Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving started with a workout with our personal trainer, Linda. She opted for cardio since we all have no self-control when faced with large quantities of food. So, we did 5 rounds of:

• 1/2 mile run
• 1 minute boxing
• 1 minute side step-ups on an 18 inch step (20 reps each leg)
• 1 minute jump rope

Try to do 40 side step-ups in 1 minute. It’s challenging. I think toward the end, I only had 5 seconds to spare in each minute.

For anyone new reading, this is Linda.

That is also when my hair didn’t suck.

After the workout, we got ready to go to the in-laws for dinner and I cannot confirm or deny that I ate a piece of pizza before heading over there. Dinner was at 2:00 pm, so I’m not sure why anyone calls that dinner. But ok. Dinner it is.

Dinner was just the four of us – me, hubs, the FIL, and the MIL. I took about 3 pictures total, so here’s one with the four of us from three years ago at my SIL’s wedding.

By the way, none of us planned the red, black, and white theme and we didn’t even notice until after we took the picture. Also, everyone is in heels or on a step (my MIL) except me and my FIL’s cousin’s husband. If you see tall people in the family, it’s because they married one of us.

The MIL made turkey, ham (for me because I’m not much of a turkey fan), green bean casserole, stuffing, and sweet potato casserole. There were also sliced cranberries, but every year I like to pretend those don’t exist because they are the devil.

My plate looked like this. Times three.

I guess it was times four if you count that the sweet potato casserole gets a plate of its own. I can’t have other food tainting the beauty that is sweet potato casserole. My MIL also cooks carrots just for me (I loooove cooked carrots) and I ate 6 of them. SIX full carrots. That just seems unnecessary.

Everything my MIL made was almost too delicious and better tasting than last year. We mentioned how good everything was and she couldn’t even remember what she did differently.

After dinner, we rolled over to the couch, collectively unbuttoned our pants, and watched Hanna.

I had never even heard of this movie but it was really good.

After the movie, hubs and I headed home, took a nap, woke up, and then ate some more. After we completely defiled our bodies with leftovers, we defiled our livers with some margaritas. Then we defiled our eyes by watching Paul.

I had heard Paul was good. And we both thought it was just ok. It was about as funny as Hot Fuzz, which was barely funny. Now that I think about it, Jim told me Paul was good and he has an unnatural man-crush on Simon Pegg, so maybe I should have taken that into account.  You will never recapture the magic of Shaun of the Dead, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost! You hear me!?

We also watched the Ice Age Christmas special, which was super cute. We’re gonna have to buy that one. 🙂

*****

Today, I plan on avoiding every store. I don’t get the Black Friday thing at all. I would rather pay full price for something than have to deal with all the assholes out there.

If you’re into the Black Friday thing, good luck to you. Also, tell me what awesome deals you got so I can live through you.

I am Twelve…

…because I am taking off of work today to see this:

Ok, maybe 12-year olds wouldn’t have a job but if they did, I’m sure they would take today off.

And my GOD, who comes up with those movie posters? I mean honestly. That person was probably responsible for these posters too. We should all get together and give him or her a collective punch to the neck.

Anyway, Lisa and I will be getting our RPattz on (suck it, Team Jacob) and then we’ll be partaking in some girly shopping to hopefully find a dress for our upcoming Christmas parties.

In case you’re wondering, Lisa and I did NOT take off of work for New Moon and Eclipse. And we definitely won’t be doing that for the second half of Breaking Dawn on November 16, 2012. I mean, that would be silly to plan that entire day off of work a year in advance just because of a movie. Just silly.

Then, after I’m done freaking out in excitement about Breaking Dawn, freaking out about The Hunger Games will commence. And it will look like this.

Feelin' Halloweeny

Saturday night, the hubs and I went to our friend K’s Halloween party. With the exception of a few people, no one knew my costume. Do you?

My other husband couldn’t make it but he was there in spirit.

My husband that could make it came dressed as a scary spider.

Someone must have had some bug spray.

I swear I left him alone for one minute.

Linda (our personal trainer) and her hubs came dressed as Bruce and Linda Lee.

Linda would like to remind us all that we will never have abs like her. Also, she’s the only woman I know who will go to a party dressed like this, eat 3 cupcakes in front of you, and then make you work out harder because she ate cupcakes.

Speaking of the cupcakes, they were adorable but easy for me to avoid because I don’t like chocolate frosting. *gasp!*

K did a really great job with all the decorations, but I didn’t get many pictures of them because it was so dark.

However, the cobwebs over the gym equipment was not lost on me.

Here are a few other pictures from the night.

We had a fun hanging out with friends. A couple drinks were definitely needed after I ran around town for hours looking for specific things for my costume that I never found. I was stressing out so much that hubs tried to help me by going out on his own search only to have his car break down. It was a stressful night so we were glad to finally relax.

Then last night, we kept with the Halloween spirit and went to see Paranormal Activity 3.

It was pretty good and better than the second one. Lots of stuff happened in the trailer that never happened in the movie. Even the Bloody Mary scene in the trailer with the two little girls was done by one of the little girls and a different actor in the movie. Either way, they tied all three movies together pretty well and there was lots of chills, so we liked it. Then everytime I woke up last night, I was sure I heard something in the house. < —- wimp

Did you celebrate Halloween this weekend?

The Leftovers

I was so busy talking about running 24 miles and being boo-ed yesterday, that I forgot to mention a couple things about the weekend.

1.  The first DVR cuts of the season are in.

I tried really hard to like this show. I love Will Arnett. I love Christina Applegate. But man, I cannot identify with these characters. Maybe it’s more for parents? Or people without cold, black hearts? Because I cannot get with all the baby stuff. Raising Hope is way more my style. (Hubs and I love Raising Hope.)

Next up (sorry, Michelle):

I love Elisha Cuthbert but I can’t do it. Even Damon Wayans Jr. is pretty charming. But for the love of God…

I really don’t know what happened there either because I loved Casey Wilson on SNL. After last week’s episode when her and her mother were singing their problems to one another, I wanted to poke my eyes out. Instead, I just deleted it from the DVR. It was a close call, though.

2. On the awesome TV front, I love that The Walking Dead is finally back.

I know a lot of you don’t like horror or zombies, but if you do, this is seriously an amazing TV show. So well done and well acted.

3. We watched Take Me Home Tonight.

I loved this movie. So cute and funny, plus I have a total nerd crush on Topher Grace.

4. After the 24 miles on Saturday, hubs and I met up with some friends to see The Thing.

Hubs was acting like a 13-year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert for this movie. So we hit up an afternoon showing as to not interfere with my our drinking plans that night. If you don’t already know, this movie is a prequel to The Thing with Kurt Russell made in 1982. I don’t think it makes sense that the movie is named the same thing since it’s not a remake, but whatever.

The movie did really well linking up to the first movie so the writing was impressive. Hubs liked the movie a lot. I thought it was ok. The creature effects were so over-done that they were more ridiculous than scary and I think that killed a lot of the tension for me. But, if you’re a fan of the first one, you’ll probably like this one.

5. That night, we went downtown so I could properly hydrate after my 24 miles.

That one on the right was called a Cream Pie. Sooo delicious. We met up with Lisa who was already downtown for a birthday party. Hubs did some hooping and we did our picture-taking thang.

We had a fun night. Probably too much fun because I didn’t wake up until 11:30 the next morning.

Anyone else watching The Walking Dead or do you hate zombies?  (I love zombie everything. And they can give me horrible nightmares, but I just can’t quit them.)

14 Miles on the Treadmill

I woke up at 4am this morning for a 14 mile run with my group. Noticed it was raining and went right back to bed. I figure if it’s not a race I paid for, it’s not worth running in the rain. Also, I’m a big baby.

After I slept in like I was going for a world record, I moseyed my way to the gym by 3pm to run 14 miles on the treadmill.

I love the treadmill when it’s 7 miles or less, so I was pretty sure 14 was gonna suck enough that I was willing to buy entertainment in the form of Jake Gyllenhaal for $15.

The run was just ok. Source Code was also just ok. The premise was so unbelievable that it almost made the movie unenjoyable. I mean, I know it’s a movie, but at least make me believe what you’re doing is possible. So, I guess if you have 14 miles to do on the treadmill and you need to watch something to keep from poking your eyes out, Source Code is good for that.

Now I have important things to tend to before I go out for the night.