Need a Dose of Sherlock Holmes?

As we wail and languish in fangirl purgatory waiting for Sherlock to come back we have a wealth of past Sherlock Holmes movies and shows to keep our addiction at bay.

I just finished watching With Out A Clue a wonderfully funny Sherlock Holmes mystery filmed in 1988. Michael Caine plays Sherlock and Ben Kingsley plays Doctor Watson. Dr. Watson is the brilliant deductive mind and Holmes reminds me of Inspector Clouseau.

Do you have favorite Sherlock Holmes? Well other than Sherlock 🙂

I am a Movie Grinch

My poor husband I am so mean to him.

I love movies, and I enjoy going to the theater, but I HATE spending that much money. It’s crazy for me and my family. To go and buy drinks and popcorn is over $80! For two hours’ worth of fun, I just can’t stomach it.

My hubby on the other hand LOVES going to the movies and the whole movie experience. So I bite my tongue and try not to act like the movie-going version of the Grinch when he asks the kids if they want anything.

They are children, the money sucking vampires, of course they want something!

I flinch when the total comes up and think of all the things I could have bought with the money we just spent, add in the money for the tickets, too, and my aversion to going to the movies grows. I keep these thoughts to myself as my hubby and the money vampires are now happily munching popcorn and slurping sodas.

Instead I settle in and allow myself to get lost in the film. We really don’t go very often, so the movie watching part is great.

Once the movie is over, I go back to the money issue. Did we just have eighty-plus dollars’ worth of fun? In a few months it would have been at the cheap theater (we have second-run three-dollar movie theaters in town) or even better at the video store. (Yes, I still go to one). Then the popcorn would be organic and a thousand times cheaper than the first-run movie theater.

Photo by Veggiefrog

Again, I do my best to keep these thoughts to myself. Because I live in Arizona, going from the cold dark theater to basically the face of the sun when I step outside, my scowl is mistaken for a personal war against the heat.
Thankfully we don’t go often due to not having a car, not having any free time, and me sighing and saying ‘Are you sure it will be worth it? What’s on Netflix?’

So are you a movie Grinch? Or do you love the movies enough to pay ten dollars for twenty five cents worth of popcorn?

Life Before IMDB (International Movie Data Base)

I love IMDB, and almost every movie or show I watch I will check IMDB at least once to find out where else I have seen an actor, where I recognize a voice from, or because the movie is so good that I want to know what else the director, actors, writers have done!

Photo taken by christopherharte

I can’t imagine not being able to look up something right away. I should be able to, because I lived back in the dark times before IMDB *shivers* I have hazy, pain-filled memories of wracking my brain for hours trying to figure out who was doing the voice of a cartoon character, or what else I had seen that actress in.

My eyes feasted on the credits, pathetically hopefully that their name would ring a bell and I would be able to remember the information I was searching for.

Days would pass sometimes before the answer would come to me. I would be walking with friends gossiping about boys and window shopping and suddenly call out “Star Trek, that’s where I know him from!” My friends would look at me like I was crazy. I would explain how I was watching a movie, and couldn’t remember where I had seen the actor before and it suddenly came to me, Star Trek.

Photo by gb_packards

“Oh, okay,” they would say gently, as if loud noises would make me explode into a female Mr. Hyde. “What movie?”
Of course I could never remember the name of in that moment. This insured another random outburst hours or days later.

What is your favorite info website or app?

Korean Teens, Blog Fun, and an Update

Can’t get enough teen RomComs?

I know they get formulaic and trite after a while, which is why you should watch My Tutor Friend 2, a Korean teen RomCom. It is cute, with lots of Korean culture which makes the story unique, well, for non-Koreans at least. There are the misunderstands, pranks, teasing, confusion, deep emotional trauma, and the hot guys and girls that we need in all our teen RomComs, with the added bonus of learning more about life of college kids in Korea.

This was fun silly movie. I enjoyed it and would watch it again.

Sorry the only trailer I could fine is in Korean

Sorry between being sick and jury duty I didn’t have time to read blogs 😦 I will bring you extra special ones next week.

Molding My Daughter Into a Joss Whedon Girl

Photo by RavenU

I don’t mean this to be creepy, I’m not preparing my daughter to become his concubine, or join his harem or anything like that, although for the right price I might sell her ….

And, yes, she is a fangirl, and can sing all the songs from Once More With Feeling, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog. Yes, yes, I am very proud.

What I mean is I am trying to make my daughter into a badass warrior woman: Buffy, Zoe, Faith (but not when she was evil), River, Willow (again not when she was evil), and Kaylee you know what I’m talking about.

I want my daughter to be a badass. I want her to carry throwing stars tucked into her belt, I want the loser who puts drugs in girls’ drinks to be afraid the minute she steps into a room, I want my daughter to be able to back her ‘no’, and not wait for someone else to save her.

Hair and attitude ready for ass-kickings!

And it would be great if she looked awesome and had terribly clever things to say while kicking ass. No one likes a boring heroine.

Joss showed us that strong, powerful, fearless, kick ass woman can be beautiful, compassionate, and accessorize any outfit.

And that is what I want for my daughter.

So those of you with daughters what movie characters do you hope they grow up to become?

A Musical Horror

The Fog is a Bollywood horror movie, now I LOVE Bollywood and horror movie. I’m even fine with bad horror movies, if they are fun and campy enough to make them good, in their own unique Attack of the Killer Tomatoes way.

Unfortunately The Fog doesn’t do this. There was some dancing, but it didn’t make up for the slow start and the boring ‘scariness’. And honestly I never did figure out why the called it “The Fog’.

If one of your goals in life is to watch every single horror movie ever made, then go for it. Hubby and I did manage to sit through the whole thing. But otherwise, just say no.

I am on the hunt for a good Bollywood horror movie, or one so bad it’s fun, any recommendations?

Sorry this is the only trailer I could find.

Dhoom 2

Because I have been sick I am re-posting my first Foreign Film Friday Dhoom 2. This is a Bollywood movie- so there is singing and dancing, beautiful outfits, many costumes changes, and the sudden use of English slang in the middle of the Hindi.

Dhoom 2 is full of action and music. The actors are fabulous Hirithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachan, Aishwarya Rai, Uday Chopra, and Bipasha Basu. The songs are great- my daughter bought the CD, and the dancing amazing.

I had ten kids- most of who can’t read well enough to keep up with the subtitles- sit with me and watch this three-hour movie. This is a really fun and lighthearted way to introduce yourself to Bollywood.

Dhoom 2 is about a man ‘A’ who is a master thief and described by the police as ‘cool’. In fact he is so cool that he makes an aluminum can magnetic! ‘A’ is a master of disguise and the police are stumped so they have Sunehri, a lovely thief who always refer to herself in the third person, gain A’s confidence. Our cops Jai- the bad ass and Ali- the goof ball, follow A and Sunehri to Brazil in order to try to catch him. Amazing escapes, perfect abs, extraordinary costumes, and beautiful landscapes frame the plot and unique songs and dances which are a blend of traditional Indian and new hip-hop styles. Prepare to dance in your seat and laugh your ass off at this campy fun Bollywood romantic action adventure.

This movie is safe for the whole family (there is one weird scene with a gun but no one gets hurt.) I don’t remember any cussing, and of course there is no sex. I think they kiss once, maybe twice.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

So if you like odd, cheesy, Chinese movies, you might enjoy this one. It made me laugh at times. Dr. Donkey Wong *snickers* and some parts were interesting with nicely done fight scenes. I won’t watch it again, but I don’t feel like I was wasting my time.

This is one best enjoyed with others who will have fun laughing and heckling the movie.

I would keep this teens and up, there is some nudity and violence: people burning alive and such.

Korean sci-fi

2009 Lost Memories- I have another Korean movie for you. This one has a bit of a sci-fi theme to it. It’s an alternate reality where Japan joined America in WWII and then took over Korea and most of Eastern Asia. I had fun watching this movie. Hubby and I yelled at the TV during the cheesy parts and got into the drama of the plot during the rest. There were some parts where the film was grainy- maybe they ran out of money for special effects?

One thing I enjoyed is as the hero grows and changes the differences between the Korean and Japanese cultures become more pronounced.

All in all it was fun- and if you’re a fan of Korean, sci-fi, and/or time travel movies then go watch this one. Again not the best but all in all very fun, esp. if you have someone to yell at the screen with you.

Foreign Film Friday

My eighth pick for Foreign Film Friday is a pair of movies, Night Watch and Day Watch. These movies are Russian and I really enjoyed the flavor of Russia that was woven through this sci-fi horror movie. It has scary moments, they build tension well, and the visuals are stunning. This is supposed to be a trilogy- but I can’t find anything about the third- granted I didn’t look all that hard 🙂 Both hubby and I really enjoyed these movies, I haven’t seen many Russian films and I liked the uniqueness of the Russian life style and landscape that is shown. If you’re a sci-fi fan and enjoy thousand year old battles of good vs. evil then I recommend Night Watch and Day Watch. Oh did I mention they are battling to control mystical chalk?