Somusing

Jon and I first saw Escape from Sobibor many years ago, and it made a huge impression. It was just as good the second time. It's the true story of the only concentration camp to stage a successful revolt--about 300 prisoners escaped. (There were a couple of revolts at other concentration camps, but they were not quite as successful.) This is an inspiring and moving film, definitely worth seeing. And though the subject matter is awful, of course, it's not gory; we actually watched it with our kids and then talked about World War II and the holocaust.

I've seen bits and pieces of this on TV over the years, but I just recently watched the whole thing, uninterrupted. (Or maybe it was a little interrupted; I think I watched in on hulu.com , but it's not there anymore.) It's a pretty good high school flick, though more crass than I hope my own teenagers will be. (One can hope.) Possibly even up there with my all-time 1990s favorites, Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You .

I've watched many a mediocre feel-good holiday movie in the last month or so, partly because our tiny library had a recent influx (I'm thinking ABC Family might be selling a cheap package deal of which they took advantage) and partly because I've been knitting crazily, trying to finish Christmas gifts. So here they are: Snow (2004) A bad guy steals one of the reindeer and the newest Santa--young, unmarried and good-loooking--goes looking for him at the zoo that bought him, where happens to work a possible future Mrs. Claus. Cute, harmless, certainly silly at times but not overly sappy. Mrs. Santa Clause (1996) A musical! Which made my kids a little fidgety, but we made it. Angela Lansbury is Mrs. Claus, who's feeling underappreciated and takes off with the reindeer and the sleigh to try out a new route before Christmas and, due to reindeer injury, ends up living incognito in 1910 New York for the week before Christmas. The movie introduces women's suf...

I think this is the first graphic novel I've ever read, and it's definitely worth reading. The author tells about her life as the daughter of freethinking parents in Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. It's a very quick read and even though it's told from a child's perspective, there's plenty to think about.

My favorite scene in this movie is where Richard Dreyfuss's character chokes and Bob goes to heroic and hilarious measures to save him, after which the family gathers around Bob congratulating and celebrating with him, while the deserted dad lies gasping for breath on the couch. I have to admit, though, that the first time I saw this, I didn't enjoy it much, because Bob reminded me too much of someone I knew at that time.

I watched this to see if the kids could watch it (answer: not yet). I didn't expect to like it, but I really did. (I know I could fast-forward through any offensive parts in this and other movies. But I'm pretty sure the fast-forwarding would only happen the first time, while I was watching it with them. After that, the kids would just remember that they'd seen a movie, not which part to skip. But they can wait a little while. They might think it'll kill them, but it won't.)

This was another enjoyable novel by Elizabeth Berg. The main character is a 13-year-old girl trying to figure out how she'll fit in to a new place and school. She's true to life and more evidence of Berg's talent with characterization.

I was surprised to find that this is actually very good, but less surprised when I saw that it's based on a novel by Nick Hornby. It's a romantic comedy, but it's meatier than most, addressing questions about how to make a relationship work by compromising without becoming a subservient shadow of yourself. I really liked it.

This is one of several books by Elizabeth Berg that I read recently. So far I haven't found one I didn't like, although I have mixed feelings about this one because of how it deals with the subject of assisted suicide. Still, I liked it. I'm impressed with Berg's ability to capture different personalities and insecurities.

The script in this film is better and the characters more complicated than in most LDS films, but I was still distracted by signs of mediocrity. Like the fake disco music at the dance, which seemed to be attended by about twenty people. Of course, I've never been to a young adult dance in Boston; maybe twenty people is a good turnout, but I'm guessing not. However, it is based on a play (by Carol Lynn Pearson), which would also be sparsely populated. Also, the title could use a little work. I did like the characters, who were more varied and had more depth than usual.

Written by Luke Wilson, who also stars, and directed by Luke and his brother Andrew Wilson, this was surprisingly charming and funny. It's about a laid-back, not yet financially successful con-man who's stringing his girlfriend along until he can make some real money. But then he gets caught and goes to prison, where he seems to be having such a good time that his girlfriend dumps him for good. Regret and reformation ensue as he tries to win her back after he's paroled. Besides Luke Wilson, you get Eva Mendes as Doreen the girlfriend, Owen Wilson as the slimy operator of a "retirement hotel," Will Ferrell as Doreen's new boyfriend with a real job (manager of a grocery store), and several other entertaining and well-acted side characters. I really liked it.

Jon was out of town for two weeks straight and I ran out of TV shows to watch online. And as I've said before, I try not to watch anything too good without him. So there's my excuse for watching (and sometimes even re-watching) crappy stuff. Only You (1994) Predictable. Marisa Tomei is pretty irritating, but Robert Downey Jr. is cute and Bonnie Hunt is always a pleasure. In retrospect, I am also annoyed by the picture on the DVD cover, which shows "Faith" dressed in her wedding dress, apparently dancing in an Italian fountain. And the back of the case shows her on a bike with "Bob" (oh, sorry, I mean "Peter"). But those scenes never happened in the movie. Why? Head Over Heels (2001) I think this was the movie that actually used pronouns correctly after prepositions (as in "There's nothing going on between him and me" instead of the increasingly prevalent "between he and I" and other similar horrors). But I can...

This doesn't follow the typical formula, does it? And I have to admire that. Still, I think it's kind of an annoying movie. Also, watching it in 2008, it's hard to get over the size of Julia Robert's mobile phone.

Saw this in an actual theater, which is always something to celebrate. It was very exciting, well-acted, surprising. I have to agree with Eric Snider, though, who said the movie had "a tendency to bring up hot-button issues, frown thoughtfully at them for a few moments, then set them down again before moving on to the next superficially treated topic." There are some interesting concepts here, but they're not deeply entertained. But it was an entertaining couple of hours. Note: Eric Snider used to write a humor column in BYU's newspaper The Daily Universe back when Jon and I were there. Now he's a film critic, but he still writes funny stuff, too.

Those Who Save Us was not easy to read, but it was worth it. It's two stories, told in alternating sections, one about a young German woman living in Weimar during World War II and the other about her daughter 50 years later who's trying to figure out her past because her mother has never talked about it. It's hard to read because of the sometimes graphic war stories, not all of them about violence against Jews. Most of them aren't even violent; they're sexual, but they're still war stories. (That's my warning.) It's also hard to read because the characters are so complex. There are no easy answers to why they make the decisions they make, but I think that's what makes this book outstanding. The answers aren't easy, but they're realistic and believable. After I finished the book, I dreamed about it all night and then told Jon all about it and why it was bothering me. His comment was "Life is messy." This book really captures th...

I read Open House by this author several years ago and liked it, but this novel set me on an Elizabeth Berg path--I've since read two more novels and some short stories by her. It's like finding another Anne Tyler. Not that they are the same, but it's been a while since I've wanted to read more by a particular author. (It's also kind of nice to discover an author after she's written several books, instead of having to wait for whatever she's writing next.) The descriptions of longing in this are so real they made my heart hurt. I loved it. I'll post about the other books by her soon.

I liked this . I don't know if it's actually better than your average romantic comedy, but it seemed like it was. Maybe I just haven't watched any good ones lately. Anyway, it's good, and you get to see Patrick Dempsey in a kilt, albeit a "mini-kilt" that looks kind of ridiculous. I think the music was decent, too.

I thought this was cute, a smarter-than-average teen flick based on the Snow White fairy tale. I could do without the feel-good speech at the end of a movie like this, but whatever.

This is not a happy film, but it's very good. Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, it's about an English couple in a loveless and faithless marriage. The husband, a doctor specializing in infectious diseases, takes them off to a remote Chinese village to deal with a cholera outbreak, where they go through some harrowing stuff that changes their relationship. Very good.

Run-of-the-mill rom-com , predictable but occasionally funny. My favorite line, from the Girl's best friend to the Guy's best friend: "If I could kill someone with my mind right now, it would be you."

This little novel is a quick read, but unfortunately, I didn't like it much. It's possible that I objected most to the parable-like style of it. I had the same feeling of impatience while reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: interesting ideas, but just get to the point already! On the other hand, we had a very interesting discussion about it at one of the book clubs I go to.

This independent film was recommended to me by my friend Kim. I'd seen it in our local video rental store many times and was always intrigued, but I avoided it because the description on the back hinted that the main character, Jenna, might cheat on her husband, and normally I'm against that kind of thing and don't really want a movie to make me feel all warm and fuzzy about the new guy, who's so much better for her and really understands her, etc., etc. But Kim recommended it, and I trust Kim. I liked it a lot. There is marital infidelity in it, but the movie doesn't force you accept it as somehow inevitable and the only way to true happiness, and it serves to develop the characters quite a bit. The characters are more complex than in most movies, too. There are great scenes where the Jenna, a waitress who makes unique pies at the diner where she works, creates pie recipes with names based on what's happening in her life: "I Hate My Husband" P...

This is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. It's the true story of the author's unusual childhood with parents who were intelligent and loving, but also eccentric, to put it mildly. They were often homeless, hungry, and "doing the skedaddle," which was her father's term for picking up in the middle of the night and fleeing bills and other responsibilities. It's entertaining and easy to read, even when the stories are appalling. It's also thought-provoking on many levels. I coerced Jon into reading it after I finished. I could go on and on, but I'll settle for posting this right now, and if anyone wants to discuss, please comment. Highly recommended.

This is a compelling and suspenseful first novel that takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, amid tourists, modern-day witches, future-divining women and a group of relgious fanatics. There is something strange going on, and it's fun to try to figure out what it is. Also interesting is the story of the book's rise to publication. The author and her husband decided to publish it on their own. First, they gave copies of the manuscript to a local book group and asked for feedback. After their self-publication and subsequent success due to word of mouth and a PR firm, the author found an agent (or the agent found her). A bidding war between various big publishers followed, and Berry got to take her pick. A nice story for a first novel! Here's an interesting online book group featuring Brunonia Berry, if you're interested.

This is not great, but it's amusing and pleasant enough. I always like John Cusack.

I thought this would be a silly romantic comedy because Ryan Reynolds is in it. There are definitely funny moments, but it's actually kind of a serious story about family relationships. It's not the best movie in the world, but it has good messages about honesty and loyalty and (perhaps unintentionally) communication, and I like Ryan Reynolds' way of being funny, even if it doesn't change a lot from movie to movie.

Not only do the Bourne movies have the best sequel titles, they're also just good sequels. The Bourne Ultimatum did not disappoint. I'm kind of glad we waited to watch it on a TV, because it has the same jerky, dizzying cinematography that The Bourne Supremacy had, and that's much easier to take on a small screen. It's a good movie, although I kind of missed the romance of the first. (There is a very vague hint of a past romance, but that's all.) Otherwise, it's exciting and tense and has a pretty satisfying ending. The special features on the DVD are some of the most interesting we've ever watched. When the camera shot follows Bourne as he jumps from a roof into a window in the next building, that camera was actually following him. They strapped a camera onto a stunt man who jumped after him. Pretty cool.

Several people said this was good, and I was surprised to find that they were right. For one thing, there's not much dialog, so when I watched it with the kids, their extra noise hardly bothered me at all. Otherwise, it's silly and over the top and very funny. I laughed out loud a lot. One favorite thing: Willem Dafoe is hilarious as a self-important film director, and the screening of his new film at the Cannes Film Festival at the end of the movie is wonderful. I also enjoyed Mr. Bean saying "Gracias" to everyone while he's traveling in France.

This was just okay. I fell asleep a few times.

I really liked this movie as Jon and I were watching it (in a real theater!): the main characters were sweet but also funny and sarcastic; the music was good; it took place in a realistic, less glamorous New York that was refreshing; the romance was uplifting and believable; and it was just plain funny. But I liked it less after it was over, mostly because I'm a little old-fashioned, I guess. And maybe sheltered, too. Maybe in comparison to those raunchy rated-R movies that target teen audiences (which I've never seen), Nick and Norah is no big deal. In any case, I got on my parental high horse after it was over and I thought of all the teens who will certainly see this movie. There are some good things about it--some straight-edge kids, who are clearly smarter and cooler than the friend who gets so drunk and lost and is truly ridiculous (but funny); the good kids trump the bad kids in the end; etc. But why can't they just make out at the end? No, they don't ha...

I enjoyed this delightful modern fairy tale very much. It has a great message about learning to like yourself the way you are. Christina Ricci's character is sweet and pretty, even with her pig nose, and while James McAvoy is not immediately pleasing, he grew on me. I'd like to let the kids watch this, but there's some innuendo that was funny but not for kids. I guess there's a reason it's called innuendo, though; mine probably wouldn't get it. Anyway, I loved it.

Mira comes in with a handful of Corn Pops. "What are you eating?" I say, just making conversation. "It's poison blood," she says. Of course.

I read this a long time ago, probably as a young teenager, and I loved it. This time around I got a little impatient with the speed of the narrative, which jumps years at a time and then gives lots of details about certain events, and with the constant self-sacrificing of the main character. I suspect that I'm being overly critical, and it's also possible that I'm feeling defensive because I don't give up everything for my kids, like this woman did. So, yeah, it might be guilt, because I live in a time when I can have a family and still do things for myself. This is a book worth reading, though. You've got the story of the settling of Nebraska and also a life from childhood to old age. There's a lot to think about.

I loved Austenland and thought it was about time I tried something else by Shannon Hale. I didn't love Princess Academy in the same way, but I liked it pretty well. My favorite thing about it is how the main character learns that her assumptions about people are usually wrong. It's an entertaining story with good messages, just like a kids' novel ought to be. Shannon Hale is a better writer than most of the LDS authors out there these days. I'll be reading more of her stuff.

We are at the library and things are quiet, as they tend to be at a library. Suddenly I hear Mira shouting, "Yes, I do! Yes, I do! YES, I DO!" Every time she says it, she yells louder. I rush over to where she is playing on one of the library's new computers. She has headphones on, of course. As I reach her, she yells one more time, "YES! I DO WANT TO QUIT!" Of course, the animated character on the screen was saying, "Do you want to quit now?" She doesn't know how to use a mouse yet. But you know, when are the computers going to start listening to us? She was speaking very clearly!

And then, after Mean Girls , while we were still in teen flick mode, we also watched 10 Things I Hate About You , which is one of my all-time favorite teen movies. I love the paranoid OB/GYN dad, who makes his daughter wear "the belly" before she goes out.

After watching Tina Fey in Baby Mama , I thought Jon needed to finally see Mean Girls , which she wrote. (I guess we are kind of fans of Tina Fey. We like 30 Rock , too, and I think her Sarah Palin impersonations are hilarious but not vicious, which is good. We liked her when she did Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, too.) Mean Girls is one of the good teen flicks, with classic lines and believable characters. I like it.

I thought this was really funny. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are hilarious, as usual. Steve Martin's relatively small part is also great. Well, I liked all of it, really. It made me laugh.

This book of stories about the residents of Haines, Alaska, is funny, entertaining, and thoughtful. The author has written obituaries for the local weekly paper and a column for the Alaska Daily News for years, and she knows everyone in town. That's not particularly difficult, because Haines is an isolated town of 2500 people, accessible only by ferry and airplane, except in winter, when it's not really accessible at all. The locals are colorful and quirky; it's kind of like reading Northern Exposure , one of my all-time favorite TV shows, but these people are real. I sometimes felt like I was reading about our current location, with the politics, hunting, nature, etc., and that made it even more fun. I really liked it.

Here's how I know that I'm a real Grown-Up with Responsibilities and Such: when I check voice mail, I'm happy when there are no messages. In high school and college, there was nothing better than a message. Someone had called! Someone was thinking of me! Even better if it was a boy! Then when the oldest kids were little and I was home all day, there were times when I felt like the title of this post, which is a line from "Single" by Everything But the Girl. Of course I was speaking, but it was the repetitious Mommy-speak that's necessary but sometimes mind-numbing: "Time for your nap!" "Don't put your fingers in your brother's eyes!" "Let's change your diaper." "Don't put that in your mouth!" I'd turn the TV on just to hear adult voices. Phone calls were good, too. But now I'm getting older, and so are the kids, and I'd rather not hear that staggered dial tone that means there are me...

Curiously (ha ha! couldn't resist!), I read this book at the same time I was reading Louder Than Words . Curious because The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is narrated by a 15-year-old autistic boy. This is a really good book. (I know that's a lame description or review or whatever, but I have good music in my ears right now and I'm distracted. Thanks, Pandora !) There's a mystery, lots of insightful insight into a functional autistic mind, some humor, drama, family stuff. It's also a quick read. Jon read it, too, and liked it.

Until this book , I'd never read anything by Jenny McCarthy, and I think it was a good choice. She's not a great writer, but she's conversational, funny, and easy to read. Louder Than Words is the story of how her son was diagnosed with autism and what she did to make him better. The treatment and cause of autism can be fairly controversial, but she doesn't get too hung up on that, just shares her story. An interesting recurring element in Jenny's story: two Mormon missionaries who keep showing up at her door. She doesn't "get" the church, but she treats them gently.

I missed the beginning of this but still enjoyed it for the most part. As Jon pointed out, the ending is a too rosy, considering the many serious topics visited (drug use, the Vietnam War, sometimes violent war protests, etc.), but the remade Beatles songs sound great and are visually stunning and beautiful.

I posted this a while back on my private blog, so if you already read it there, you don't have to read it again! Also, it's very long. Soon after Jon and I returned from Europe, our ward went on a pioneer trek in Wyoming. The youth and their leaders have been to Martin's Cove in Wyoming twice, but this time, they invited families to come, and Jon and I were eager to take our kids. I've always thought it would have been so cool to go on the big pioneer reenactment the church did for the Sesquicentennial several years ago, but I didn't know about that until it was happening. Anyway, I was really excited to do this, until we'd committed to doing it, and then it seemed like my attitude went downhill from there. I had a lot of excuses for this, among them confusion in the planning; getting our pioneer clothes ready, which was very time-consuming (and my friend Teresa actually made our skirts and the girls' bonnets, so I had it relatively easy); and worrying ...

I was 14 and 16 when these two movies came out, so I was totally part of the target audience. Sixteen Candles (1984) The only thing I could have remembered off the top of my head from this movie was the foreign exchange student named Long Duk Dong, but it was all familiar when I watched it again on TV at my in-laws' house. Unfortunately, someone let me have the remote, and this is what I settled on. I forgot that it was so stupid, although Jake is still dreamy as the seemingly unreachable object of the girl's desire. My mother-in-law's brother (is that my uncle-in-law?) got a kick out of the stumbling bride high on muscle relaxers at the end. Pretty in Pink (1986) This movie aged pretty well, I thought. Duckie still looks goofy but edgy, the dialog is still funny but not retarded, and the romance is classic. (Although I am a jaded adult who wonders just how long the teen romance is going to last, I still like a good teen flick. Like Clueless and 10 Things I...

Named for the car in which the three main characters take an unexpected road trip after one of them is widowed, Bonneville is a not-too-sappy feel-good movie about learning to let go, and a little about learning to experience life adventurously. Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Joan Allen are wonderful actors, and it's good to see a movie about older beautiful women instead of the typical young Hollywood beauty it's impossible to relate to. I was surprised that two of the main characters are obviously Mormon (and according to the "Behind the Scenes" stuff on the DVD, the other is, too). Also surprisingly, it's a pretty good representation of Mormons, though one character seems overly prim and the other overly casual. There's some humor here that will appeal only to the LDS crowd and those who've run into us a fair amount, like when the prim Mormon offers a Book of Mormon to a hitchhiker they're dropping off. I won't spoil the joke, but it's f...

In the last few months, I have watched almost every episode of all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls . Ridiculously, I feel a sense of accomplishment about this. Also a sense of embarrassment. That's approximately 106 hours of TV watching. In my defense, while I watched, I did a lot of knitting and caught up with a few years worth of entering receipts in GnuCash . Mostly, I enjoyed the show. I liked all the references to books, music, art, etc. I liked the quirky characters. I liked the clever, funny, fast dialog. I did not like the soap opera-like pace of the show and obvious manipulation to keep people (me) watching. It was so convenient for the money-makers that nobody on the show learns that honesty in a relationship is the best policy until the seventh season. But at least it all turned out right, and I can pretend that they've all learned their lesson and will never act like idiots again. This is the nature of TV, though, and I'm hoping to stick with the 20...

Today I did something I've never done before: I ironed a sheet. I wanted to use it for my daughters' birthday party as a tablecloth, and here's the accompanying explanatory stuff: Yes, that apostrophe is appropriately placed. My two daughters were born on the same day, five years apart, and we are still having joint birthday parties for them. Usually we just have family birthday parties, with a cake that may or may not be fancily decorated. But this time, we decided to have friends over, which meant, to me, that I ought to try a little harder. This was our first ever girly party, so I wanted girly stuff, but I am cheap and also prone to last-minute inspiration (or desperation, I guess). I don't have any girly tablecloths, but I do have some girly sheets, so I used a twin-sized flat sheet as a tablecloth. It was almost a perfect size but very wrinkled. My usual method of dealing with a wrinkled tablecloth is to put it on the table, spray it with water, and let ...

Watched this with the kids. I'm having trouble remembering it, so that's not a great sign. But after a little effort, I remember that it was okay. I'm assuming the Susan Cooper book on which it's based is better.

The author of The History of Love is married to Jonathon Safran Foer, who wrote Everything Is Illuminated , which I have not read. Just some trivia for you. I really liked this book. There are several narrators, and sometimes things get a little confusing, but not in a bad way. It's funny and sad and complex. The characters are realistic, interesting and have plenty of depth. Thanks to Ethan and Courtney for giving us this book! I thought it was really good.

The older I get, the less I want to waste time on books I'm not enjoying. (Now if I could just apply that logic to a certain TV show that I am obsessively watching online. Well, I guess I'm enjoying that. Wasting time, yes, but enjoying it!) The Constant Gardener by John le Carre This is well-written and has a fascinating setting, but about halfway through I realized that I didn't give a flying crap what happened to the characters, so I put it down. No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year by Virginia Ironside Mildly entertaining, but the narrator's cavalier attitude about her three past abortions bugged me too much. Just Like Heaven or If Only It Were True by Marc Levy I really like the movie Just Like Heaven , so I thought it would be fun to read the novel on which it was based--I'd heard that it was pretty different from the movie and I was curious. But this book would make a perfect anti-textbook for a creative writ...

I listened to this novella by the actor/comedian Steve Martin, and I liked it pretty well. The author read it, and some of the dialog reminded me of David Mamet movies that Jon and I have really liked. I liked the way the characters changed and grew during the story.

Note to readers: this post is kind of long and about our chickens, so if that's boring to you, don't read it. A couple of nights ago, I was awakened at 3:00 am by the squawking of chickens, which is never a good thing. Their coop is visible from our bedroom window, but there was no moon and I couldn't see anything. Jon wasn't home--he'd gone up to Scout Camp to be with Zed and Jacob--so after yelling out the window, which usually scares predators away, I went outside with the flashlight. (I really don't like to yell outside at night, especially in the summer when people have their windows open, but it's better than a shotgun blast, I guess.) I don't really like to wander around outside at 3:00 in the morning, but it had occurred to me that I had not verified the shutting up of the chickens before we went to bed. Well, the bad news is that I found the coop door open, and inside were two sleepy chickens. Not ten , like we'd had the day before,...

This was a little too profound and confusing for the kids, but kind of an interesting movie. I'm also not sure the parallels or metaphors or whatever they should be called really worked that well. But the characters were likeable and the message was good.

I'm all about taking the kids to the movies this summer, I guess. I liked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , which we saw in a real movie theater right after it came out, but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me. When I've caught glimpses of it since then (one of the kids bought the DVD, so it's been viewed a few times), it seemed way too serious. So I wasn't all that excited about Prince Caspian . I enjoyed it, though. Here's my take on the Chronicles of Narnia movies thus far: they're beautiful to look at, even stunning at times, and the action is exciting and intense (also strangely bloodless). I don't remember the books that well, but I suspect that what's getting glossed over in the movies is the thought processes of the characters as they make very important decisions. I also suspect that their choices and how they get there are the most important part of the stories, so maybe that's why the movies don't stick in my hea...

Oh, that Jack Black is a hoot, even as an overweight panda who dreams of being a ninja. Some great lines from the beginning: "Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose Kung Fu skills were the stuff of legend.... It is said that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness!" It's not all about Jack Black, though. His awesomeness is actually somewhat restrained and totally appropriate for kids. I liked this movie a lot, and I think the kids did, too.

Will Smith is really a good actor, and he's great in this . I had some pretty disturbing and vivid dreams after watching it, though. I really need to read the book someday. There are two other movie versions: The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price and Omega Man (1971) with Charlton Heston. I've seen Omega Man , and I think it was pretty corny, but I can't remember it that well. Anyway, I Am Legend is very far from corny. It's suspenseful and scary.

This is pretty good, but I had a surprisingly violent reaction to something in one of the special features. The director or writer or someone was talking about the movie (you know that every movie is special, right, and deserves its own thoughtful discussion about how they came upon their wonderful idea, how they found the perfect actors, etc.), and he said, "We wanted New York to be a character in the movie." I suddenly felt the urge to yell "Shut up!" and throw a pillow at the TV. Like 2/3 of all movies aren't set in New York!* Yawn. Or commit violence with throw pillows. Take your pick. It was original as far as romantic comedies go, and the backdrop of the Clinton campaign and administration was pretty interesting. I had some problems with the movie (not just with the special features), but I think they might be considered spoilers, so I will leave it at that. * This statistic is a fabrication. If anyone knows what the real statistic is, please tell ...

It's been close to 3 years since Brian Dunn gave me a couple of books that he'd just read: Eastern Standard Tribe and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom , both by Cory Doctorow. The other day I realized that they're not keepers for me, so I pulled them off the shelf to put in our bye-bye books box. (Books in that box sometimes get traded for credit at one of the used books stores around here, sometimes given to the second-hand store, sometimes given to the local public library for their "holiday reading" section from which anyone can take books permanently.) First, I profusely praise the author for releasing his works under a Creative Commons license that allows for free redistribution. That's really cool, and for that he deserves lots of credit (and support by purchase of physical books such as Brian did!). As I flipped through my copy of Eastern Standard Tribe , I found some notes I took on hotel note paper, and chuckled at my fussy copy-editor side...

This entertaining young adult novel is about a rebellious kid who gets kicked out of several schools and finally ends up with an artistic home schooling family. The message is positive and the characters are quirky and funny.

Maybe the Wachowski brothers only had one good story in them ( The Matrix ), but they still make great- looking movies. Speed Racer is fun to watch, but there's not much else to it. It's also too long--over two hours. We saw it at our little drive-in, which I love. I think I've mentioned that before.

I think my expectations were too high for this movie , so it was a little disappointing. But it's good. The portrayal of humans 700 years in the future is especially funny and insightful, but not cynical or mean like it could have been. There's plenty of cleverness and humor, even with little dialog in some parts.

I gave the kids some failed lemon bars tonight--I overcooked them and the crust had kind of disappeared into the lemon part. Possibly a result of using whole wheat flour, too. Anyway, the following conversation ensued: Seth: "These lemon bars taste kind of weird. But they're still good! No offense, Mom!" Mira: "MOM IS NOT A HORSEY! SHE IS NOT IN A FENCE!" It is still making me laugh.

I got kind of tired of seeing things from the ball's perspective, but this was an okay movie. Jon said that the class issues made it an interesting story, and he was right.Otherwise it would have been pretty dull. I'm sure golf is exciting to some people, but not necessarily to me. It's a true story, though, and that made it more interesting.

I discovered on our nine-hour flights between Denver and London that there are only certain movies that are suitable for viewing on the tiny, 5"x5" screen in the seat in front of you. They should be entertaining but not great, because you want to be entertained, but you don't want to watch anything that might become a classic on a tiny screen a foot from your face with mediocre headphones for the sound. Also, nothing with sweeping scenery or detailed costumes. In fact, maybe something you wouldn't go out of your way to watch otherwise. Here's what I watched: Mad Money (2008): fit the in-flight entertainment requirements perfectly. I like Queen Latifah. I think I'd like to be called Queen something. I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007): In spite of having one of the worst movie titles ever invented, this movie wasn't bad. I kind of enjoyed it. I had never heard of it before, and nobody else has ever heard of it either. Later: I'm remembering m...

This was my other vacation novel while we were in Europe, and it was entertaining. I liked it. I kept imagining Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, and Lisa Kudrow as the characters in the book, since they starred in the movie . They seemed to fit pretty well.

Michael Crichton's novel about a global warming conspiracy was my entertaining escape fiction while we were in Europe. Kind of a guilty, over-the-top pleasure, I admit, but definitely fun.

Jon hated this movie from the other room, where he was trying to work while Ivy and I watched it. He kept yelling at us about how terrible the argumentative dialog was. Ivy and I enjoyed Jon's response to the movie more than we enjoyed the movie.

The historical elements in this movie are surprisingly good and informative. Good story, too.

Wow. If I'd paid attention to the real plot of this, I don't think I would have rented it--too sad and painful. But it's really a very good movie , and I'm glad we saw it. Strangely enough, we laughed more during this movie than we did during 27 Dresses , because it has some great comic elements. It's a painful movie to watch, but the ending is hopeful and at least somewhat happy. Definitely recommended, but not if your loved one is away on a business trip or anything like that.

Pleasant and mildly entertaining. The best thing about this movie was the believability of the characters. The hero and heroine who hate each other at the beginning of the movie but end up together at the end is not a new concept in a romantic comedy, but in 27 Dresses , I thought their antagonism was particularly realistic. Instead of their differences being overcome by their physical attraction or whatever, these two actually seemed to complement each other. I could believe that they would be better together than apart, which seems unusually thoughtful for a rom-com, though probably accidentally so.

I was so eager to read this novel --it seemed like exactly the kind of thing I'd love--but I struggled to keep interested through the first half of the book. The second half picked up a lot, and I thought the ending was good--entertaining and suspenseful. It's possible that my expectations were too high, because it's well-written and has some very good historical parts. Anyway, I think I'd recommend it, if only to get some other people's reactions to it.

Jon and I saw this first at the drive-in when it was new. We liked it fine the first time, and it was still entertaining the second time, though nothing special. At the drive-in, we noticed during the closing credits that the film had apparently been playing slowly--we could tell because "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure sounded a little slow and weird. I felt better after seeing it at the right speed. Not that it made any difference, really. I mean, we didn't notice until the very end. But whatever. I was happy to hear "Just Like Heaven" at the right speed anyway.

This was the second time I've seen this movie , and it's a pretty amazing story. I'd like to read the book someday, which is by Frank Abagnale, the guy who actually did successfully pretend, at a young age, to be a PanAm pilot, a pediatrician, and a lawyer, cashing millions of dollars worth of fraudulent checks. It's a fascinating story.

An excellent film in Swiss German about a child prodigy and his creative ways of coping with the pressure he feels from parents, teachers, etc. We watched it with the kids, and aside from a little dialog that's probably too mature, it was great. Recommended.

This was released as Picadilly Cowboy , which is kind of a dumb name. But it's kind of a dumb movie. At least they were actually in London for the filming, which made it interesting to look at. And the characters are somewhat likable. It's loosely based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," but it's an LDS version.

This novel about a certain area of 19th century China is fascinating. For one thing, I learned about the secret women's writing called nu shu that has been passed down from mother to daughter in one rural Hunan province for about a thousand years. Also, the book has a vivid but fairly unemotional description of foot binding that made me feel physically ill. That's just evidence of my ignorance rather than a recommendation not to read the book. I knew about foot binding before, but only in the vaguest way. Then there's the heavy stuff about the friendship between the main character and her "old same," a friend bound to her by contract when they were young. Anyway, it wasn't a light read, but it was fascinating and important.

This movie based on an Oscar Wilde play is clever and funny but more meaty than The Importance of Being Earnest . This was my third time watching it (I've been trying to knit at night, and I have to watch TV while I knit, right?). I can't remember if I've read the play, and I wonder how close the movie follows it.

Yep, I watched it again. I think that's probably five or six times now. I love the music. I love the sympathetic take on even the most annoying characters. Keira Knightley is too skinny for the part, but she's also a friendly and modern version of Elizabeth you can imagine being friends with. Of course, the 1995 A&E version is the best and most faithful to the novel. But it's also five hours long, and this one's only two, so I can watch it while knitting and still go to bed before midnight. Or 1:00 am or whatever.

Jon and I have been learning a little Czech (and I mean a little) because we are going to Prague for about 24 hours after a week-long trip to Berlin for Jon's work. (I say that so casually, but this is very exciting for us. So far, we have only aspired to be world travelers. Hopefully, this will be the first of many trips to various cool places.) So I found this movie in Czech at our local video rental place. I think we understood one phrase, with the help of the subtitles, which is daunting, of course, but the movie was really good. It takes place just before the Soviet Union released its hold on Czechoslovakia, and it was cool to see the quiet resistance of the Czech people to the Russian occupation. There was a fair amount of womanizing by the main character, but the story, about an older, jaded man whose outlook is changed by a little boy, is heart-warming.

I'm pretty sure that Jerry Seinfeld isn't much of an actor, and here's my evidence: on his TV show, his name was Jerry. And in Bee Movie , his name is Barry! Yes, it has long been an untried and nonsensical theory of mine that not-very-good actors get parts that have their same first name. I guess so they don't get confused or something? Well, I'm not ready to defend my theory, and I'm kind of embarrassed that I'm going public with it, but there it is. (We can talk about many of the supporting actors in the The Office later if you'd like--Creed, Phyllis, Oscar, etc. Maybe they will bury my theory once and for all.) But while there is other evidence that Jerry Seinfeld isn't a great actor (like when he used to deliver some of his lines on Seinfeld with a barely concealed smile), he's pretty dang funny. And so is Bee Movie , which kind of surprised me. I especially liked John Goodman's unprincipled lawyer character (and Jon laughed for ten...

Far Away, So Close! is the more accessible sequel to Wings of Desire . Both are German movies about angels who choose to become human. ( City of Angels , with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage, was an inferior but somewhat interesting American remake of Wings of Desire , although the endings of the two movies are radically different.) Far Away, So Close! is about the angel Cassiel, who becomes human when he's not quite ready. He's just trying to help, but he ends up making some bad choices, getting involved with scary people, hurting people he loves, and eventually learning about consequences and other profound stuff. It's really a good movie. My favorite character, or at least my favorite name for a character, is Emit Flesti, which, cleverly, is "Time Itself" spelled backwards. It's mostly in German, but there's also Italian, French, and English. Oh, and a little Russian! There's a cameo of Mikhail Gorbachev. It's all subtitled, of course.

The Matrix is so good, although this time around I was surprised to see that its wonderful special effects are already looking dated. The Matrix Reloaded is like watching a video game. Not playing a video game, but watching one. Way over the top with the fighting, car chases, etc., and boring . The Matrix Revolutions was okay, and helped make a little more sense of the second. But it's also possible that watching the second one causes many brain cells to die and then the third one looks better than it otherwise would. Here's a site where you can buy edited movies. Or rather, you buy a movie and they provide a free archive copy that happens to be edited (similar to PG or PG-13, your choice). I don't know how long their trickery will last, but apparently it's legal to make archive copies of DVDs that you've purchased, so that's their angle.

Me: Did you go potty? Mira: Yeah! Me: When? Mira (very happy and loud): At two firty seven! This time the number actually sounded like a time, but often it's something like "Sixteen fifty two!" Which is a time when you're referring to the 24-hour clock, but I don't think she's that smart. It's probably not a fair question to ask a 2.5-year-old. Like I expect her to have a record of her potty breaks or something. Another frequent conversation is the following: Me: Let's go potty! Mira: I already did yesterday!

I think Enchanted might be Disney's best princess movie ever. I should probably mention that I'm not a big fan of the Disney princesses in general, but I like this one a lot! Amy Adams captures perfectly the wide-eyed wonder of a cartoon princess, and the concept of a Disney fairy tale character showing up in New York City is clever and funny. (A character from any real fairy tale--Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, for example--would probably feel right at home in New York City. After all, in those stories, the Little Mermaid gets turned into sea foam instead of getting the prince, and Cinderella's stepsisters cut off their heels and toes to fit into the glass slipper and their deception is discovered when blood starts dripping out of the shoe. Also, I believe their eyes are pecked out by birds. But maybe that's making New York City out to be worse than it is. I love New York.) Anyway, in spite of the lame name (I keep forgetting the name, or going thro...

My youngest child, who is 2 1/2 years old and precocious, if you want to use a nice word for it, was messing around in my room today while I was doing something (something important, I'm sure) on my computer. I was trying to keep my eye on her, because she is into everything these days. She was jumping on my bed and "looking" at our books and hiding behind things, peeking out at me to see if she was hidden enough to do whatever dastardly deed she was about to do. I kept talking to her, just to let her know that I was paying attention, and taking things away from her. At one point, she got quiet (you know that's not good), and I could suddenly hear that unmistakable sound of a pencil on paper. "What are you doing?" I asked in my accusatory Mommy voice. And she said, "Trying not to color on your book." Apparently she wasn't trying hard enough. But I guess it's a start?

This book by an Australian female journalist who worked in the Middle East for years is fascinating. She shows a lot of different aspects of women's lives under Islamic regimes, including the militant women who choose to wear hijab and fight alongside men to bring Islamic regimes to power. It's not all about the oppression of women, but about different ways Islam has treated women over the centuries and how women have dealt with their religion in several Muslim countries.

Parts of this Dracula novel are deliciously tense and creepy. It's a smart, well-researched retelling of the Dracula legend, but I was a little disappointed in the end, which seemed a little too much like every vampire movie you've ever seen. However, I admit that in a different mood, the references to our pop culture Dracula probably would have delighted me. The novel includes a lot of fascinating and disturbing stories about the historical Vlad the Impaler , on whom the Dracula legend is supposedly based. I loved the vivid descriptions of some Eastern European cities. It's long, but I'd recommend it. (Bram Stoker's Dracula is also worth reading.)

I thought I was going to get through this Vonnegut novel without encountering any aliens, but I was wrong! Their appearance is very brief, and they're not directly involved in the story, but they're there. Besides that, it was an interesting book with plenty to talk about, but my brain isn't up to discussing it meaningfully right now.

I read the Winnie the Pooh books to my 2-year-old before nap time every day in an attempt to make the nap more palatable to her. It didn't really work, but I loved these stories. I had never read them before, and they are delightful. Eeyore has always been my favorite character in the Disney version, and I was surprised to find that his pessimism is much, much worse in the books. He is ridiculously pessimistic, and I thought he was hilarious. I highly recommend them.

The kids and I went to see a live production of this at a (sort of) local theater. It was delightful. The plot could have been more complicated, even for kids, but the music was energetic and delightful, and the performers excellent. Even my 2-year-old was transfixed.

I liked this movie about a group of Italians who cleverly and peacefully stand up to the Germans who occupy their small village during World War II. However, I admit that I slept through part of it. Jon says it was good, though, and I liked what I saw. I'd watch it again.

This was okay. A ballerina secretly plays on a baseball team against the wishes of her strict grandmother. Her friend is refreshing--feminist, political, opinionated. Otherwise, just okay.

I'm not often drawn to a get-rich-quick book , and to be honest, I wasn't drawn to this one. Jon made me read it, mostly for the travel ideas. Tim Ferriss does have good ideas about how to travel and do worthwhile things while you're young instead of waiting until you're old and retired. (That's right, Mom, OLD!) (I remember hearing my dad's good friend Sherman talking about how he thought society was all backwards: we should be retired when we're young and energetic and go to work later, when we're ready to settle down. This book made me think of him.) It's not really a get-rich-quick book, though. It's more about figuring out how to live your dreams instead of allowing yourself to be oppressed by your job and what everyone says you have to do in order to be successful. Tim Ferriss seems a little unscrupulous sometimes (like when he wins the world kickboxing championship by taking advantage of technicalities he found in the rules), but the id...

I watched the series premiere of this TV show while I was at Ivy's house and liked it pretty well. The next day I read that it was watched by so few people that it probably wouldn't air a second episode. Ha ha! Considering how often I watch TV, this has happened to a large proportion of the TV shows I've watched and liked, like Keen Eddie . But Quarterlife apparently began life as a web series, so I guess if I really care, I could watch more of it. Maybe someday. I don't think it was great, just not as inane and annoying as the rest of what's typically on TV.

I read the book a few years ago and thought it was pretty good entertainment reading--suspenseful and exciting. People took it too seriously, but the author was partly to blame for that, considering his statement at the beginning of the book about "facts" he'd included. I wasn't very excited to see the movie (obviously I didn't rush out to see it), but it turned out to be better than I thought it would be. I was surprised that it was fairly slow-moving, possibly even less suspenseful than the book. It wasn't great but not bad.

I loved this book . It's light-hearted (but not frivolous), easy to read, thoughtful, hilarious, entertaining. A.J. Jacobs, a secular Jew (he describes himself as Jewish like the Olive Garden is Italian), decides to live all the rules, laws and advice of the Bible for one year, even the most obscure and bizarre. Along the way he finds other groups and individuals who try to follow those laws, and he's always respectful and fair-minded. Like Jon said when he finished it, it wasn't long enough, which is a pretty good gripe to have about a book. Highly recommended.

Since I was at Ivy's when this aired, I got to watch it. But it was kind of boring. Jon Stewart was funny in an I-think-the-Oscars-are-stupid kind of way that I find interesting. It's fun to see pregnant actresses (Nicole Kidman, Jessica Alba and Cate Blanchett). And I'm glad Juno won at least one of four awards it was nominated for (best original screenplay). Otherwise, like I said, kind of boring. But I got my TV fix for a while!

The 1999 Mansfield Park is pretty edgy and takes some liberties with Jane Austen's story. This PBS film sticks to the story a little better but isn't as satisfyingly passionate. The Crawfords in the movie are immediately untrustworthy and shallow, while Austen's Crawfords are much more interesting and surprise you with their deceitfulness. At least that's how I remember the novel. Anyway, it was entertaining but not as good as Persuasion and Northanger Abbey .

I read the novel within the last year and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The new PBS film is delightful, capturing the heroine's overwrought imagination quite well. I loved it.

The cover of In Defense of Food advises "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." Small parts of it are recycled from The Omnivore's Dilemma , which is an amazing and wonderful book, but there's also a fair amount of original stuff about nutrition research that was pretty eye-opening. His conclusions about how to eat for health weren't earth-shattering to me, but they were useful and are helping me get back on track after feeling kind of derailed about what we're supposed to be eating. I liked it a lot.

I liked this new PBS version of Jane Austen's Persuasion better than the 1995 film, which I found confusing, even knowing the story. It was a nice way to spend one evening after the eleven children went to bed. (You might think I'm very casual about watching that many kids, but you might also notice that I keep mentioning the eleven children .) Anyway, it was a great escape film.

The second National Treasure movie is even cornier than the first, but still enjoyable. We couldn't see a lot of it towards the end because we saw it the drive-in and a pretty thick fog rolled in. That was kind of weird.

This LDS movie about a Utah girl who goes to New York as a dance student has more complicated characters than we usually see in LDS films and isn't as silly as some, but it was kind of hard to believe that the setting is supposed to be New York. Jon and I had just been there and walked right by NYU, where the story takes place. The students in the movie look more like University of Utah students, and I bet the professor is more like a U. of U. professor, too.

The second and third books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are just as entertaining and exciting as the first. Fun reading, with lots of references to Greek mythology.

Same as what I thought about Tears of the Giraffe .

If the youngest is crying, and you give some bubbles to the big kids so they can distract him, he might stop crying, but the arguing among the elder children might be so loud and vehement that you consider taking the bubbles away, even if the little one starts crying again. If there is a water and ice dispenser in the door of the refrigerator, there will always be at least 20 cups and glasses on the table, half-filled with water and ice. Even though there are only eleven children.

I'm spending this week at Ivy's house while Ivy and her husband are gallivanting around Orlando, Florida. (I totally approve of the gallivanting, by the way. They'd better be having marathon fun!) That makes me, the lone adult, with eleven children, ages 19 months to 12 years. Of course, more than half are my children, so it's not really as big of a deal as you'd think. The days start off pretty calmly, and it's only around dinner time that the noise reaches such a level that I start to feel like joining along with the screaming. And right after that, it's bed time, the best part of the day. Ivy and I have watched each other's kids several times, and it's interesting to see how interactions between the kids change as they get older. For example, the older boys now spend a lot of their time talking about their "band." Keep in mind that none of them plays an instrument. Well, Ivy's oldest is taking guitar lessons, and my boys play the ...

The fourth book in the Harry Potter series has a pretty slow and meandering start that lasts for about 3/4 of the book. Maybe I was a little burned out on Harry by the time I started it. I also remembered the movie pretty well, and maybe that made it less exciting. I do think the plot moves more slowly than in the others and it's not even really clear what the plot is , because the connections between events are intentionally unclear until the end. However, the end was so suspenseful and exciting that it made up for the rest. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I was riveted. It also set up the fifth book in a way that the movie didn't. So I guess I'm a Harry Potter convert. I resisted for a long time. But after I finished Goblet of Fire , I had that familiar bittersweet feeling of missing the characters as if they were real friends that I'd lost contact with. I can reread the books and see the movies, especially the coming sixth and seventh, but there ...