Adam's Awesome Anecdotes

After three weeks of an all-out assault on my condo, prepping it to put it on the market, I just took advantage of the 3-day weekend (plus a day off work) to hang out with my mom in Cary, NC.  Other than a couple of errands, we pretty much hung out and did nothing but play XBox and watch movies.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  Before I forget all about them (as I tend to do with most movies no matter how good or bad), here are my thoughts on what we watched:

For simplicity, I’m going to use the school grading system - A+ thru D-, and optionally F.  Also, as a disclaimer, yes, there are a lot of romantic comedies listed here.  I like lots of genres of movies, but feel-good, heart-warming stories were the ticket after some tough work on the condo.  We actually had other genres of movies, but after one of two turned out to be good, neither of us were feeling blood and guts action movies, so we went back and got some more in the same genre and saved the more serious movies for another day!

• Extract (F) — From the same guy that did Office Space, but without any of the Office Space humor, it’s a story about a manufacturing plant.  I don’t want to even waste any more of my life thinking about this strange movie, so I’m not going to describe any of it.  Just know that if you like Office Space, you’ll probably hate this movie.  Also, if you hated Office Space, you’ll probably also hate this movie.  It’s a shame that even tried using the billing from such a great movie to sell this piece of crap.

• The Ugly Truth (A+) — This one surprised me.  Katherine Heigl (an uptight local news producer) & Gerard Butler (a crude, “man’s man” with a late night cable show about men versus women, full of cliche, seemingly horribly, and seemingly truthful information) end up working together and having to learn from one another to come off their extreme standpoints and learn things about the opposite sex they probably already knew, but didn’t want to.  Yeah, that’s not a great description of the movie (it’s getting late), but trust me, it’s a lot better of a movie than I expected it would be and definitely worth seeing — great comedic moments interspersed nicely throughout.

• Sunshine Cleaners (A+) — Kind of a heart-jerking story about two sisters who go into the apparently lucrative crime scene cleanup business in order to make ends meet.  The movie had kind of an indie feel to me (perhaps it was, I don’t know), but it really is a great story told very well.  It’s one of those movies that is a complete story, yet at the same time is just a glimpse into a few weeks in the life of real-world people.  There were several unexpected events / sub-plots, although they tied in nicely to the main story line, including Mary Lynn Rajskub briefly making out with another girl.  I always knew Chloe was cool!  Overall, it’s a great story full of humor and sorrow, but very well told with incredible attention to detail.

• Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (C-) — Yeah, I may be biased because I’m not a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey.  I wasn’t even a huge fan of Jennifer Garner — at least not in this film.  It wasn’t a horrible movie, but not a great one either.  I also don’t think it helped that it followed during a weekend of some very strong movies seen along side it.  The movies is about Matt being a jackass and a ladies’ man (what?  shocking!) and basically a spoof of “A Christmas Carol”, but with past girlfriends representing the ghosts to help him realize just how wrong he is.  It was mildly amusing, but terribly predictable.

• 500 Days of Summer (A+) — Fantastic movie.  The movie jumps forward and back in time repeatedly (and at one point it even has two separate “realities” on screen at once — a refreshingly original and well-used idea), showcasing the relationships between Summer, a girl with some serious issues, and Tom, a greeting card writer who is absolutely infatuated with Summer.  It’s definitely not your “classic romantic comedy” and showcases both the unpleasant and enjoyable aspects of relationships and does a great job of detailing the complexities surrounding dating and love.  It’s not common a movie of this type can keep me guessing what the final outcome will be until about 15 or 20 minutes out, but this one did a nice job of it.

BTW, back on a gaming note, I’m starting to get a bit more into the story for Halo: ODST.  And I FINALLY opened Pure.  I’ve had the latter for QUITE a while, and ODST since Sept I think.  Oh, and I tore up a little Mr. Crowley in World Tour.  Came right back to me.  Sure felt good to drink a Winter Lager and rock out to some Ozzy.  :)  Still no hope of that damn Joe Satriani song though — no matter how much or how little beer!  Oh well, back to reality tomorrow!