Movie Monday: Undercover Blues

Undercover Blues is one of my all-time favorite movies, which is to say that it is actually my favorite movie but I"m too ashamed to admit it. Unfortunately, I have not been able to track down any pictures yet because... well... no one actually cares about this movie but me! My love for this movie knows no bounds. If you expect to be considered a member of my family you have to watch this movie and when you tell me that it's bad I will assuredly tell you that you're just joking. If you really want to show me that you love me you will watch this movie with me multiple times and you won't even be mad that I say the lines with the actors and actresses half of the way through. In truth, I probably have the entire movie memorized, although I'm not sure that's something I should admit to publicly. And when I read the Wikipedia page on this film just a few minutes ago I laughed throughout the entire article.

I first watched Undercover Blues when I was seven or eight. I don't think I was supposed to do but I did and I have been in love ever since. I'm fairly certain that this movie was not well-received by most people but they just don't realize what they're missing. What do I love most about this film, you ask? The characters and the actors who play them.

Dennis Quaid plays Jeff Blue, the husband in the husband/wife spy team of Jeff and Jane Blue. Jeff can fend off a mugger with a knife while holding his baby in one arm, but in pretty much everything he comes second to his wife in terms of knowledge and skill. He readily admits to that as well. One thing he does have is his wit and his charming smile.

Kathleen Turner plays Jane Blue, and lets just say I would not want to get into a fight with her. However, if I needed to someone to defend me and I was best friends with her (because, of course, I would be) she'd be the first person I'd call.

Stanley Tucci plays Morty, a mugger intent on taking the Blues down. And while you're cheering for the Blues, a little part of you cheers Morty on as well.

Honestly, between these three characters I can't tell you which is my favorite. I don't think I have one. And the actors play their parts perfectly. I won't go into detail but the supporting cast is also fantastic. I hope, if you ever have a free hour and a half and the inclination to watch a funny film, that you'll give this one a shot. I don't expect anyone in the world to fall as madly in love as I am but I do hope that these characters will at least touch your heart in a small way. They are totally worth it!

Life has been busy recently but I'm hoping to make more appearances than just popping in once a week for Movie Monday. We'll see how that works!

The movie cover was taken from Wikipedia.

Movie Monday: Closer

In honor of Natalie Portman's recent Golden Globes win, I chose one of the few films I've seen her in, Closer. I have to admit, when I first watched this movie I didn't like it at all. But I did walk away intrigued so I watched it again and so began my love of the film. My favorite thing about this movie is its characters, because none of them are all that likable. I love flawed characters, and this film has some incredibly flawed characters! While the movie can be uncomfortable to watch at times, it's interesting to see how the characters work through the mistakes they make and deal with the consequences of each others actions. It also has some wonderful quotes, like this one from Alice: "Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one."













Movie poster and images are from Yahoo! Movies.

Charmed: Phoebe Becomes Queen

I logged in today to post my Movie Monday entry but decided that since it's so late in the week I'll just postpone it until next week. I know, I know, I'm only a week in and I'm already pushing it off. But, this allows me to post about another topic I wanted to write about today!

Classes started this week, which means that last week was my week-before-the-semester-cleaning-and-organizing-frenzy. Before the start of each new semester I put a TV show into the DVD player and clean/re-organize everything!

This time I put on season four of Charmed, which has my favorite storyline from the entire series. In my opinion, it's one of the best storylines, as well as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, battle the Charmed Ones had to face. Which storyline am I talking about? Phoebe marries the source and eventually tries to embrace her new destiny as the queen of all evil.



That last episode always makes me tear up!

Screencaps are from screencap-paradise.com

Hello everyone!

Movie Monday will be delayed until tomorrow (hopefully). It was a busy, but good, day today!

In other news, school starts tomorrow. So, maybe with a routine, I will get around to posting more often!

Movie Monday: Wicker Park

How exciting is this? It's my first Movie Monday post! (I'm calling this Movie Monday because I feel like something I do regularly should have a catchy title.)



Wicker Park is a hard movie to describe. A brief, basic description would be that a man on the verge of becoming engaged catches a glimpse of his former love and sets out to find her. It's a thriller, and it may not the best out there, but I find it to be one of the most engaging. I watched it once, years ago, and have remembered it but I didn't fall in love with it until recently. I was quite young when I watched it the first time and I think it was a film that I needed to be a little bit older to fully understand. There are a couple of things that I love about this film: the subtlety of its nature and the younger cast, to name a few. My favorite part of this film, however, is the final scene and Josh Hartnett's performance in it. Watch it just for that, it's beautiful.

Also recommended is the French film that inspired this one, L'Appartement, which in some ways is better than Wicker Park.











Movie poster image is from Amazon and the movie stills are from Yahoo Movies.

Bonne Année!

We're nine days into the new year and I haven't even posted! I've found that during breaks from classes I tend to avoid the computer since I'm on it so much during school.

I hope you all had fantastic New Year's celebrations. I did exactly what I had planned--I went out for dinner with a friend and afterward we went back to my house and watched some TV. We watched Pretty Little Liars because it's a show that she's been interested in watching I still happened to have it on my DVR.

Since then, I have been working, reading (a little) and writing. I also watched the first season of True Blood, which I enjoyed greatly! Now to move on to season two, which I have already. I think I'll wait a little while at least, though. A coworker of mine who also works at McDonald's gave us some free Redbox movie coupons but they expire at the end of the week so I'd like to take advantage of those. I already used one to watch a movie I was interested in but would never pay to see: Vampires Suck. I'm not the biggest fan of spoofs but some parts were excellent and the girl who played Becca really captured the awkwardness of Bella. There were moments when she actually looked like Kristen Stewart.

One thing I'd like to do in 2011 is to watch the movies that I own because they're some of my favorites but I don't watch them often. I think I'll start blogging about them too, each Monday. Since things get busy, if I can't watch a movie one week I'll post about a new movie I've seen recently or about one of my favorite actors and actresses. I don't claim to like the best movies; in fact, some of my favorites are very unpopular. But they rank among my favorites for a variety of reasons; maybe the story touched me or I watched it while doing something that made it special, and I'll explain some of that in each post.

I watched one this morning so look for the first post tomorrow!

New Year's Eve

This is where I spent New Year's Eve last year: in bed. I was asleep when 2009 ended and 2010 began. While others were out toasting with champagne I was taking painkillers. I had a toothache; a bad toothache! After a day it disappeared and when I was finally able to get in to see my dentist I learned that it was temporary pain from clenching my teeth at night while stressed.

This year, I plan to be social on NYE. Sarah and I are getting together. We don't have a big night of partying planned, but we will go out to eat and watch TV after. It'll be a relaxing way to ring in 2011. I work on New Year's Day, so that will be perfect. What are all of you doing for NYE?