Marley and Me

This is a movie I would recommend to just about anyone and everyone. Yes, it is a movie about a dog, but you do not need to be a dog lover to love this movie as it is about so much more.

Soon after their marriage, John and Jenny Grogan move to Florida and add Marley into their family. They soon realize that Marley is just about the "worst dog ever." He is good for a couple things, one being he provides great material for John's new column about everyday life. This is truly what the movie is about, everyday life. The story continues with their family growing with a baby boy and soon another boy. Jenny realizes she cannot continue to raise a family and have a full-time job at the same time. At this point you see her conflicting desires as she discusses her desire to continue with her job but knows she cannot delegate the responsibility of motherhood to anyone else. A little girl is later added to the family and they are then pressed with the decision to find another avenue for John as he struggles with his job. The family heads to Pennsylvania as he accepts a new position. Marley is with them throughout all their struggles and joys of starting a family, raising a family, being married and working.

One of my favorite scenes contrasted the life of family man, John ,and his old friend, Sebastian, who is single and always chasing the ladies. They see each other after a long time and John is able to show a picture of his family as his prized possession while Sebastian has nothing to show. Family truly is the most important part of life and can never be substituted for anything as worthwhile.

The movie was wholesome and real. I was slightly surprised that the movie came from Hollywood until I found out it was first a book.

Yahoo's 100 Movies to See Before You Die

0-9
12 Angry Men (1957)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
400 Blows (1959)8 1/2 (1963)
A
The African Queen (1952)
Alien (1979)
All About Eve (1950)
Annie Hall (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
B
The Battle of Algiers (1967)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Blade Runner (1982)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blow Up (1966)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Breathless (1960)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Butch Cassidy and theSundance Kid (1969)
C
Casablanca (1942)
Chinatown (1974)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
D
Die Hard (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Duck Soup (1933)
E
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
F
Fast Times At RidgemontHigh (1982)
The French Connection (1971)
G
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Graduate (1967)
Grand Illusion (1938)
Groundhog Day (1993)
H
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
I
In the Mood For Love (2001)
It Happened One Night (1934)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
J
Jaws (1975)
K
King Kong (1933)
L
The Lady Eve (1941)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Lord of the Rings (2001)... this is debatable as I fell asleep during most.
M
M (1931)
M*A*S*H (1970)... I've seen many a M*A*S*H episodes
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Matrix (1999)
Modern Times (1936)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
N
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
Network (1976)
Nosferatu (1922)
O
On the Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
P
Paths of Glory (1958)
Princess Mononoke (1999)
Psycho (1960)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
R
Raging Bull (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
Rashomon (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Rocky (1976)
Roman Holiday (1953)
S
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler’s List (1993)... this was on TV
The Searchers (1956)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Snow White and the SevenDwarfs (1937)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Star Wars (1977)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
T
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Third Man (1949)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Titanic (1997)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Toy Story (1995)
U
The Usual Suspects (1995)
V
Vertigo (1958)
W
When Harry Met Sally (1989)... I have seen many parts on TV
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Wings of Desire (1988)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Women On the Verge of Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The World of Apu (1959)

Quick Clips...

Confessions of a Shopaholic: We saw this for Valentine's as it is the typical rom-com. The movie was very enjoyable, even the husband enjoyed and it was pretty clean! My one question... why must there always be an English brogue in the production? Maybe I already answered that in the first sentence... typical rom-com.

Lars and the Real Girl: Funny, I wouldn't say I was rolling on the floor laughing, but it was funny... in a quirky sense. Lars brings home a girlfriend and his brother and sister-in-law couldn't be more happy, until they find out it is a plastic woman ordered over the internet. It is really great how the whole community gets involved to help Lars by providing service to his girlfriend.

Adam and Eve: A husband (prosecuting attorney) and wife (defense attorney) battling in court over an attempted murder case. Great movie. These are the same two actors who play in Woman of the Year, another fabulous movie.

12 out of 100

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. I have read 12 so far, but there is still time...

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Withering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Started and could not finish; however, I did finish "Reading Lolita in Tehran)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (I can actually only count this as half as I had to give the book back to the guy I was dating!)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Amelie (the edited version)

I loved this movie. Quite different than my initial reaction to having to read subtitles throughout the entire movie (as an excuse we were eating, I was more interested in concentrating on food than reading). The subtitles did not effect the movie at all. And it was a great pleasure to listen to French, it is such a beautiful language.

The story of Amelie who has been sheltered all her life because of her "weak heart." She is home schooled and therefore has no friends; she dreams and prays for a younger brother but does not receive one. As an adult she finds a box hidden in the wall of her bathroom. A little boy filled the box with treasures and hid it 40 years earlier. Amelie sets out to find the owner. If he receives joy from the box she will set her life on a course to do good continually. After Amelie sees the joy on the man's face, she immediately goes to find ways to do good and she is so creative in how she accomplishes her good deeds. She walks with a blind man for a little and tells him all the sights she is witnessing. She makes friends with her reclusive neighbor, referred to as the "glass man" because of his brittle bones. She finds the owner of a lost scrapbook and of course finds love in doing so. Moral of the story: If you do good unto others, you will find love... or something like that.

Shouldn't we all be anxiously engaged in doing good continually. The movie did give me desire to do good to others, now I need to go and do. I tend to think of service only in terms of grand projects but really I should just focus on the little things: sharing a smile, picking up trash, holding the door open, giving out more compliments, telling someone if they drop something, sending little gifts just because...

The movie also displays individual quirks. We all have them, I too love the feeling of running my hand through grains or sand, I eat my sandwiches and hamburgers in a circle to save the middle for last...

Paul Blart, Mall Cop

Kevin James is the main character and has the same quirky and slightly awkward characteristics as his Albert Brennaman character from Hitch. If you loved him in Hitch, you will love him in this movie! Single father trying to become a New Jersey Police Officer but fails due to his hypoglycemic condition. He continues to put his effort into his job being a security officer, not to be confused with a security guard, at a mall. Black Friday is given a whole new meaning when the mall is taken over. Because of his oath to "protect the mall and all inside," Paul Blart uses his police academy training to save the hostages which include his intended sweetheart and his daughter.

Definitely a fun movie, nothing too serious taking place on screen, but certainly entertaining. Plus it is a good PG movie... so we have to support the wholesome!

Fun fact for you (just as Paul Blart would interject)... the film began shooting in late February 2008 in Boston. The main shooting took place at Burlington Mall in Burlington after being denied a permit from Willowbrook Mall.

Born Yesterday, 1950

Don't let the black and white/old movies scare you they are full of charm, whit and humor. Born Yesterday was such a film. It is the story of a corrupt villain, Harry Brock (at least that is what I thought of him) who is trying to work a congressman to get more money for his business. He is embarrassed by his fiancee of seven years, Billie, by her coarse and slightly ignorant and uneducated nature. He hires a journalist, Paul Verrall, to help her unsightly ways. He gives her books and newspapers to read and takes her to the various monuments in Washington, DC. She highlights those words/ideas which she does not understand and he helps her understand. She finds a desire for learning and realizes there is something more than her beautiful looks, clothing and other fine things.

Judy Holliday plays Billie and is fantastic in this movie: she's sassy and spunky.