The Proposal

Predictable chick flick, but I loved it. Very funny indeed. Betty White is wonderful. Sandra Bullock's dance around the fire with Betty White was hilarious. I cracked up! Ramon was an interesting surprise (the guy that plays Oscar from The Office). I thoroughly enjoyed the Alaskan setting. As Tina Fey once said as Liz Lemon in an episode of 30 Rock, "I want to go to there." Ryan Reynolds is soooo hot, especially in the nude. And Sandra Bullock has done a great job of keeping her body looking smokin', too. The nude scene with those two was great and oh so funny. The end theme, of course, if you love someone let them go and they'll come back to you, worked out really well. I will probably be buying this when it gets released on DVD. Romantic movies are my weakness. Oh, one more thing, I loved Sandra Bullock's hair in this movie. She's just gorgeous.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D

Cute animated flick. I don't think the 3D element was played up enough in the graphics, though, so I feel like I wasted my money on that. The family theme was played up in this Ice Age. The adult humor was good, but it was still child-friendly. There were a lot of sweet moments, and the action/adventure in the underground dino-world contrasted nicely with the feel-good stuff. I like how the T-Rex befriended Sid, that was cute. The cuteness factor went way off the charts. I did enjoy the movie, but I felt like there was something missing the whole time...not sure what, though.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Such a good movie. Shia LaBeouf was just as hot as ever. And Megan Fox steamed up the screen as well. The action was non-stop (some might think there was too much action), and the graphics and explosions were fantastic just like the first movie. I like the tie in to Egyptian culture. The love story between the leads was cute but a bit saccharine at times with the whole who's gonna say the L-word first thing. I saw this in an IMAX theater, and it was awesome! I hope there will be a third Transformers movie...I'm sure there will be.

East of Eden - John Steinbeck

Whew! That was an enormous book. Maybe I should ask the length before I ask for recommendations on what to read next time. That took forever. I mean I read fast, but there's only so many pages you can read in a lunch break.

Okay. Overall, I liked it. Messed up book. Messed up. Cathy/Kate was scary. She makes me think of the Joker. Just pure evil, and there's no way to plan around that craziness. No reasoning with it, and at points, no stopping it. I tried to explain the story to Josh, but there were just too many turns to explain. You'd just have to read it.

I liked his writing. Kept me interested while not a whole lot was going on. Seemed like he had alot to say behind what he was really saying, and on occasion he just pulls out of character and goes on with what he wants to say even though it doesn't seem to relate. Or maybe it does, and I'm just slow. Either way. I liked all the thoughts.

I'm still not sure about the ending. Did he bless him or not? I think maybe not? Was he saying he chose to do bad when he could have overcome it so he's not going to forgive him?

I loved Lee's character, and Samuel Hamilton's. I would like to meet some folks like them.

And for the quotes....

Pg. 130 - "Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing, but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from other men."

Pg. 131 - "Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man." Hmmm...I guess this is technically true, but it seems weird to me. What do you think??

Pg. 143 - "You have a point, Louis. But some men are friends with the whole world in their hearts, and there are others that hate themselves and spread hatred around like butter on hot bread."

Pg. 160 - "That's why I'm talking to you. You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect." This is a tough one b/c, at least to me, everything is already tainted by what you think of it. So it's leaning toward your preconception already. Takes a strong character or act to push it back the other way.

Pg. 255 " 'You're never satisfied to let the Testament alone. You're forever picking at it and questioning it. You turn it over the way a 'coon turns over a wet rock, and it angers me.'

'I'm just trying to understand it, Mother.'

'What is there to understand? Just read it. There it is in black and white. Who wants you to understand it? If the Lord God wanted you to understand it. He'd have given you to understand or He'd have set it down different.' "

Ha. I like this. I like to question things, but sometimes it would be nice to just accept.

Pg. 268 "And I here I make a rule - a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familar."

Pg. 301 "But 'Thou mayest!' Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."

Pg. 413 "It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world."

Pg. 415 "They say a clean cut heals soonest. There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps." Boooooo.....I'd rather write that let it go.

Possession

This was an okay movie. I didn't think they built up the love enough between the two present day characters to where when they started talking dramatically to eachother I even cared. If you don't believe the love, then the cheesy love lines just sound fake. I liked the past poet guy better as a leading man. He looked his part. I liked the mystery being solved through the poetry. That's always nice. Riddles. I liked the ending, and the story moved along pretty well. Check it out if you're bored and happen to see it available.

Inkheart

This movie was so cute! If you're a nerd like me and love books and fantasy stuff, you'll love it. The characters in the books come to life whenever someone with the special gift called a silver tongue reads outloud. Then the whole movie is about the characters fighting eachother, and this guy trying to save his wife that's gotten stuck in a book. Very Neverending Storyish, and I loved it. Sigh. I love happy stories.