My New Favorite!

Ok so I may or may not have been bored and purchased every Kings of Leon album I could find. DON'T BLAME ME! I blame pandora.com for being truly amazing at knowing what type of music I really like! So... since that moment on amazon I have been listening to their albums, and they are FANTASTIC!!!!! I highly recommend them for anyone who is interested. The music is great for running, chilling, driving, driving a motorcycle, walking, reading, baking (I did that last night!) and anything else you can think of doing. Really they're amazing!

Big Smiley Face!

Ok, so I am trying to get to Rexburg this very weekend! Anyone care to join me? I will pay for the gas! I just am vehicle-less!!!

From Another Time

Recently I have been watching older classic movies, and listening to older music. For example I am at work right now and listening to one of my Louis Armstrong albums. I just love the peace and happiness I feel when I listen to it. It just seems to be a more respectful and innocent time. I mean I know it wasn't, but I like my dream-like ideals of that time and age.

I just don't see how we have changed so much in so little time, in terms of respect and common decency. But I guess that could be a whole different blog post. I do love where we've come in terms of human rights, and technology, but I think we've taken several steps back in terms of charity and general concern for others. We've become a much more selfish people.



Oh and as for my movie reviews... let's see... this week I've watched: 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront, Open City, and Fight Club.(on TV)



This movie quickly became one of my most favorite movies ever! So powerful, so brilliant, and amazing! The acting, the idea, the directing, the simplicity, just WOW. Now I had seen the play, and had always wanted to make it an all girl cast, and I think I would still like to do that, but there was something so powerful with having a all guy cast in the time period in which it was set. I just can't say enough good things about this movie. It is a must see for ALL!



I LOVED ON THE WATERFRONT!!! Such an incredible movie, so far my second favorite movie (of the new classics I have seen.) I just love the storyline, the acting, all of it. It was so so so so good!



Open City was an interesting one. First off I loved that none of it was in English, but that was also extremely difficult as they only seemed to subtitle half of the conversations. I loved the story line, and the acting. The actress playing the part of Pina was my absolute favorite! She has been the first "real" woman I have seen portrayed on film in awhile. It isn't on the AFI list, but it's a goodie!



I've always been intrigued by "Fight Club." I have heard amazing things about the film, and so I decided I would watch it when it came on TV. And it did not disappoint. The storyline was incredible. I loved the acting. The idea was awesome. The execution of the film was awesome... even down to tiny details. So so awesome! Plus Brad Pitt's body in the film is incredible. Is it even real? I do have to add a caution however... the language and violence are excessive and shocking at moments. But great film! This one wasn't on the AFI list, but it is on a couple other top 100 film lists. I approve!

And finally... what I am reading! Right now I am 50 pages away from finishing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. And oh my goodness it is awesome and hilarious. Now I must preface this by saying that I have never been able to get through the real Pride and Prejudice, I have just seen a few versions of the film, but this book is awesome and I do hope they make it into a film. I would definitly recommend this book to almost anyone! I can't wait to finish!

AFI Top 100 Movies

So this year I have brought back an old goal of mine. To watch all of the American Film Institutes Top 100 Films. It's kind of a hefty goal, but the fact that Cherie is in a film history class seems to help! Well so far this year I have watched four new films from this list. They are:

Citizen Kane

This film is fantastic, and I can see why it is on the top of every list! It's incredible, and I most definitely want to watch it again! For a while I thought I was watching a documentary, and thought it was a biographical work. All I can say is amazing! (And would I recognize Orsen Wells from anything else?)


Casablanca


Wow this movie is sosososososososo good! So many good quotes, and characters that I love! I see now why everyone talks about this film as well! So good! I think this one may be my favorite movie from the AFI list so far!

Double Indemnity


Okay... this movie blew my mind. I could not believe that they would create something like this at that time period! So awesome! This movie took me a bit to warm up to, but then once it had me... it HAD ME! I had to watch and see what was going on, and oh my gosh it was a race to the end! So fantastic!

The Deer Hunter


Okay so this movie had an amazing cast, and such great potential. But holy cow it was 3 hours and 3 minutes long, and it was at least an hour too long! It took me over an hour to get into the movie, and then it was hard to figure out what the director wanted out of the movie, and then it started to pick up, and then kind of died off again, and then ended well. Now I know that was a horrible run on sentence, but oh my gosh that is what that movie felt like! But on an up note Meryl Streep... looked amazing, and did a fantastic job. Christopher Walken did incredible! And Robert DeNiro... I didn't even believe this was him! He looked really attractive, and was a completely different character than anything else I had every seen him in. It was cool. But the movie itself, I really don't see why it is on the list.

Next up for me to watch tonight! 12 ANGRY MEN! I'm so excited!

Go to Hale

Woohoo!!! I did a 5k this weekend with Cherie and it was called "When Hale freezes over" and all the money went to the Hale Center Theatre. It was so much fun! But it literally was freezing!

Here are a few before shots, where we were both ice cubes!



Now the race was awesome! I actually jogged the whole first half, which was unheard of for me before! Now my goal was to get in under 40 minutes and to not come in after Cherie's dad who was running the 10k. Both of my goals were accomplished!

I was worried cuz the 10K runners started ten minutes before us... so I thought for sure her Dad would beat me... but I came in at 38 minutes and 12 seconds! And he came in about 4 minutes after me!

I think I have the running bug again! I love it... although I need to get new running shoes.

And here are the after pictures... don't really notice much of a difference, but that's because this is after the race and after lunch! So we're doing great!

I was lucky enough to get a massage after the race, so that felt good too!

Oh and I am still going strong on my weight loss goal! 25 lbs to go!