the Dog Who Saved Christmas: Another Inappropriate Dog Family Flick

I am so tired of dog movies that are inappropriately targeted at children.

First there was Marley and Me. Cute little posters with an adorable puppy with a bright red bow. My kids were begging me to let them see it. Thankfully, I'd gotten a heads up that the dog dies and kept clear. When it came out on video, I rented it and loved it... as a really great adult movie about becoming a parent, growing into your career, and midlife choices.

And now there is the ABC Family movie, the Dog Who Saved Christmas. Another yellow lab all dressed up for the holidays. Another movie marketed to kids filled with inappropriate content.

For starters, the opening scene shows the parents feverishly rushing to hide all the Christmas presents they've just bought from their kids. My kids started saying, "Wow! That is a lot of presents!" And before I had fully settled on the couch, I was already playing cover up by saying, "Yeah! Those parents must just be giving their kids a ton of presents on top of Santa's!" Not a good way to get started.

Then there was the dog. Cute enough, but he just stood there stonily, not even remotely connected to the words supposedly coming out of his mouth. Having fully enjoyed Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I now realize that we did not appreciate the animal casting enough.

And finally there were the burglars, somehow a lot scarier than the Home Alone duo they were modeled after. Maybe it was all the talk about jail. Maybe it was when one threatened that he would make the dog suffer great pain as he waved around a golf club. It was so scary that even a very funny fart scene didn't reassure the kids.

So Hollywood, please, give us a break. Please start making family flicks that are truly for the whole family, not hardened fifth graders. Otherwise I'll never have another night free of blood curling nightmare screams.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Academy, There's Been a Tragic Omission

As a movie addict, I live for the Oscars. I block out the entire day to sit on the couch, checking out the gowns, hitting refresh on Perez to revel in the latest scandals. It's my Superbowl, a day I look forward to all year, the culmination of all those Saturday nights at the movies.

Although I love the red carpet, I'm most excited by the actual awards. Seeing whether the academy agrees with my choices is the culmination of all those Saturday nights when I forked out the big buckets to sit in the dark in front of the big screen. In the last decade, I've actually been in agreement with the Best Picture winners, beginning with the excellent choice of Gladiator, and even including No Country for Old Men which I personally did not enjoy, but could understand why it was selected.

But this year, I'm up in arms. The buzz has begun. This is the first year that the race will include 10 nominees for each award, double what there has been before. As viewership has dropped in past years, this bigger pool is supposed to amp up the interest and excitement. Entertainment Weekly has their list of predictions. Moviefone does too. But there is one movie tragically missing from all the hot lists.

Brothers with Tobey Maguire, Jake Gillenhall, and Natalie Portman.

I walked out of that movie completely awed by the incredible performances of these three actors. I had no doubt that they would all be up for an Oscar and that Brothers would be up for Best Picture. But, with the exception of Maguire being nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor, it's as if Brothers had never been released.

And I can't figure out why!

The plot was pretty gripping. Maguire is a clean cut Marine sergeant, father of two adorable little girls and husband to gorgeous Natalie Portman. Just before he is deployed to Afghanistan with his men, he goes to the local jail to pick up his deadbeat brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, who is being released after serving time for assaulting a female teller during a bank robbery. Maguire goes off to war, is reported dead, but is really a POW. Gyllenhaal steps in to help the grieving widow. A year later, Maguire returns to his family, deeply marred by his captivity.

Maguire's acting is superb throughout the film, but especially after he returns from Afghanistan. He shows such range of emotion, from the doting husband at the beginning of the film, to the half-crazed prisoner, and then to the unhinged man returned to his family. But Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal also have great presence on the screen, and even the little girls who play Maguire's daughters contribute to the tension. The entire ensemble plays off each other to create a powerful, memorable movie.

I just can't understand why more people are not talking about Brothers. It was decently received by critics. But to date it's only grossed $27MM.

I understand how it could be overshadowed by Avatar. Everything should be overshadowed by Avatar. I plan on seeing it again, and then maybe again after that. I would like to live in Avatar. But that Up in the Air could be getting all this buzz while Brothers is getting ignored just makes no sense to me.

So take my word for it. Put Brothers in your list of 25 movies to see before March 7. Even if it doesn't make it to the Academy Awards, you'll be glad you saw it.

New Moon: I'm on Team Steve

My husband loves me.... a lot.

How do I know? I know, beyond the Valentine's Day breakfast and the fact that he empties the dishwasher every morning before heading out to work. I know, with full certainty, because on Friday night, he agreed to come see New Moon with me and a theater full of screaming teenagers. The man is nothing short of a saint.

And when I ooheed right along with the barely pubescent audience when Edward (Robert Pattinson) came on the screen and when Jacob (Taylor Lautner) took off this shirt, he didn't get up and walk away, disgusted with his silly wife. He gave me a little amused look, and turned back to the movie, no doubt planning all the war movies he was going to get us to see now that he had agreed to this vampire flick.

I loved the Twilight books. I began Twilight last Thanksgiving and didn't come up for air until Christmas when I finished Breaking Dawn. But I was bitterly disappointed by the first Twilight movie. I found the acting stilted and the special effects comical.

But New Moon was a different story. I'm not sure if it was the bigger budget, the new director, or Jacob's incredibly buff body, but it worked. The acting hit the right note. The special effects were credible. And the colors and scenes in Italy with the Volteri were striking. I still struggled with some of the Edward lines to Bella, a little too intense and serious to be taken seriously. I may get crucified for this by all the Edward fans out there, but I just wanted to tell him to lighten up! But then again, I had the same frustration with the book, probably due to the fact that I'd rather crawl into a warm and comfy bed than a cold and hard one. The nail in the Edward coffin, as far as I'm concerned, were the sparkling body scenes that still didn't look right, and when he took his clothes off for the Volteri.

But after all the gossip about whether Taylor Lautner would be able to bulk up enough to play the movie, and all the pressure for him to quit, I had to admire how he rose to the challenge. He not only looked amazing, completely believable as a scrawny boy overnight metamorphasized into a werewolf, but he also acted the part perfectly. The bulk of the movie was on his shoulders and he carried it well. The werewolf special effects and scenes were amazing, making these massive creatures into bonafide characters, no small feat when you're talking about monstrous wolves. And Taylor Lautner straddled the balance of moody teenager raging against this massive change in his life and pining Bella fan and gave the film the tension it needed, and that I was hoping it would have.

I guess this makes me firmly in Team Jacob, at least for this movie. But really, I'm with Team Steve, the man who endured all of this Twilight fanaticism and pretended to enjoy it!

Aliens in the Attic DVD Giveaway

*** Congrats to comment #259, FrugalQponMom, our lucky winner of this DVD! *** Winner selected using Random.org.


We've been waiting for Aliens in the Attic to come out on DVD for a long, long time. My husband and I saw the trailer when we were out on one of our date nights and we turned to each other and simultaneously said, "family movie!"

The movie is a comedy about a suburban family called the Pearsons who pack up their kids and some friends for a vacation in the middle of nowhere. After a meteor shower hits the house, the kids discover that aliens have invaded and decide to fight back. The parents, however, are oblivious. The premise is as funny as you would expect from the writer of Madagascar.

My 8-year old loved the star studded cast including Ashley Tisdale (big sister Bethany) while Steve and I enjoyed the comedy of Kevin Nealon. My 5 1/2 year old son loved the entire aliens plot, especially the goofy antics of Bethany's boyfriend who is being controlled by the aliens. Even Steve and I even found it funny. As we suspected, it was a great family movie.

Aliens in the Attic will be available on DVD nationwide on Tuesday, November 3. I have one copy available for giveaway today. I'll be choosing the winner on Friday, November 14, to enter to win, just leave a comment here. I'll select the winner at random that night.

As usual, you can get extra chances to win by:

• linking to this contest on your blog,
  
• subscribing to my Chefdruck Musings feed
• subscribing to my Chefdruck Reviews feed.
• tweeting this contest.
  

Just remember to leave me a different comment to get credit for each extra entry.

District 9: Not My Brand of Sci Fi

As soon as I first heard about District 9, I started plotting my arguments to convince my husband to see it. The movie, a low-budget production predicted to be a summer blockbuster, sounded like just my kind of film. Science Fiction is my guilty pleasure, but something my husband only barely tolerates.

The premise seemed fascinating, something truly different. A large alien ship comes to a stop over Johannesburg. After months of deliberation, humans board the massive ship and find a population of half-starved aliens who resemble human sized shrimp. The aliens are fed and relocated to a ghetto within Johannesburg called District 9. The movie begins 30 years later. The aliens are reproducing. District 9 is rife with crime and anti-alien sentiment is running high amongst all humans. The movie begins when the South African government hires a contractor to carry out the relocation of District 9 to a more distant camp.

I understand why District 9 got such critical acclaim. It certainly touched on serious questions of human intolerance, racism and moral responsibilities to weaker non-human beings. It was refreshing to see an alien contact scenario where the extra-terrestrials were weaker than humans. But I didn't enjoy District 9.

I enjoyed District 9 so little, in fact, that I found it hard to stay awake.

District 9 was a different brand of Sci Fi than the type I generally enjoy. It provided a dark and gritty vision of the future, devoid of creative technological inventions. The entire movie took place in a decrepit slum filled with rusting shacks. The only different element in the vision from our world as it exists today was the weak prawn population. The aliens, or prawns as the humans called them, were disgusting to look at, with the hundreds of moving tentacles on their faces. The last 30 to 45 minutes of the movie consisted of an incredibly violent gun fight. The blood and gore just added to the somber tone of the movie.

I'm sure plenty of people will find this review shallow and will trumpet the artistic merit of District 9. It just wasn't my type of escapist Sci Fi. I realized that I like my Sci Fi to be filled with special abilities, new technologies, even if the movie's world view is grim. I like to imagine the progress that the human race will make, even if it is just technological progress. Give me space ships, space travel, or cool computers, but spare me scenes of monstrous shrimp foraging through giant piles of garbage for half-eaten cat food. Our world is gruesome enough as it is; I like to escape it for a few hours after paying my $20 at the movie theater.

Of course my husband, the Sci Fi hater, positively loathed District 9. I'll have a tough time convincing him to see the next installment of X-Men or Avatar.

We should have gone to see Julie and Julia instead!

State of Play Entertains while Providing Eye Candy

I have to admit that I'll see pretty much any movie starring Ben Affleck, with the exception of Gigli, because I couldn't bear to see him with J. Lo. His performance is erratic - he sometimes wins big (The Sum of All Fears, Good Will Hunting, and Chasing Amy) but often really misses (Gigli again of course, Reindeer Games, and Surviving Christmas).

On Saturday night, we escaped the nightmare of de-cluttering by heading to the movies. I had no trouble convincing Steve to see State of Play as it seemed like a typical thriller "guy" movie. In addition to Ben Affleck, State of Play stars Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams. 

Crowe is a hardened reporter who tosses back bags of Cheetos in one big bite. He must have put on at least 30 pounds to play this role. His hair is long and wild and swings along with his gut as he races to track down leads in his story. McAdams is a cute political blogger on staff for the Washington Globe. The two team up to investigate a sex scandal and murder investigation involving a young idealistic senator played by Affleck.

The developing plot did not sustain Steve's interest enough to overcome a day of hard work and his head was soon nodding next to mine. I tried to shake him awake a few times before giving up and getting fully sucked into the movie. Russell Crowe was very convincing as a seasoned reporter and I got kick out of his snide comment to McAdams about her blogging. Affleck was perfectly cast as a squeaky clean politician.

Although the movie focuses on Capital Hill politics, there is plenty of action too. I found myself hiding my eyes and gripping oblivious Steve's arm more than once. My only complaint about the movie is that the twist at the end is weak. I won't say any more than that to not ruin it, but the ending downgraded the movie to a B for me.

CHEFDRUCK GRADE: B  Entertaining political thriller.

He's Just Not That Into You - Chick Flick or Great Flick?

There's a certain amount of shame involved with admitting that you liked a chick flick. Any endorsement needs to come with a disclaimer, like, "well, it's a real chick flick, but it was fun." I just read a scathing article by Lisa Schwarzbaum in E.W. complaining about chick flicks being demeaning, and I'm here to make the case for chick flicks.

He's Just Not That Into You is a typical chick flick. The main female characters blunder through, painfully telling themselves that guys lost their number or have been too busy to call. Ginnifer Goodwin is the worst offender in the movie, stalking man after man in a desperate search for a mate. Drew Barrymore is unable to meet a man IRL (in real life) because of her over-dependence on online technology. And Scarlett Johansson talks herself into dating a married man while Jennifer Connelly talks herself into staying with her cheating husband.

It all sounds painful, and it was, at times, but it was also highly entertaining. Chick Flicks are not meant to portray women as they really are. No one really sits there checking their cell phone that obsessively, although it might feel as though we do. The characters in chick flicks are just caricatures, exaggerating male and female traits, to make us laugh at ourselves. Although I spent a great deal of the movie cringing at Ginnifer Goodwin's complete cluelessness, I was rooting for her to find true love, although true love in chick flicks is a comic in its over-simplification.

I'll stop trying to be philosophical now that I've gotten my rant out of the way. It's just that I loved He's Just Not That Into You! The cast is star-studded and fantastic. Ben Affleck is finally back in a credible, lovable role. He had real chemistry with Jennifer Aniston. The soundtrack is amazing, so many fun and fresh tunes. Drew Barrymore has some hilarious monologues about dating and technology. And poor Ginnifer Goodwin needs to stop doing these roles where she completely lacks good judgement, first by entering in a polygamist marriage and then by playing the most desperate single woman in He's Just Not that Into You.

So send out some emails, get some girlfriends together, and go see He's Just Not That Into You. Although it won't be sweeping the Oscar race next year, I guarantee that you will walk out smiling.

Gran Torino Movie Review

If you're looking to get out of the cold this weekend, and thinking of going to the movies, I suggest that you check out Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's new movie. Clint plays the part of Walt Kowalski, a bigoted Korean vet who just became a widower. His neighborhood is crumbling around him and is being overtaken by Hmong immigrants. His sons are rich jerks who are almost estranged from his dad. Walt just looks at the world with utter contempt. For the first few minutes of the movie, all he does is growl. He growls at his granddaughter with a belly ring, the pre-pubescent priest who delivers his wife's eulogy, and his daughter in law's gift of a phone with big buttons. And the beauty of his performance is such that I wanted to growl with him.

Walt begins to develop a relationship with the Hmong brother and sister who live next to him and he reluctantly takes the boy under his wing to protect him from a local gang. They learn to get past Walt's racist epithets and come to understand each other. Eastwood plays his part masterfully. He uttered speeches that were as powerful as Jack Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men. There are no bare chested shots, no young love interests. He is just a credibly tough old man with a mean facade but a good heart.

Gran Torino was a great movie, destined to become a classic. Both my husband and I loved it. Word is that it may be Eastwood's last. He is 78 after all. What a wonderful way to end such a long and prolific career.

Starting Off the New Year Right ... at the Movies with Adam Sandler

There's so much pressure around New Year's eve and New Year's day. Pressure to start the year off on the right note, pressure to set the tone for the next 12 months. Steve and I had different goals today but somehow we managed to accomplish it all and we started the year off right.

My goal was simple. I wanted to spend a quiet day at home as a family and get some writing in. I didn't want to write about just anything. I wanted to start a new tradition of writing a letter to my children looking back and looking ahead. I got the idea from Sara at My Sippy Cup Runneth Over. She challenged bloggers to start the year off right by writing a special prayer for the new year for each of their children. I didn't do it in the form of a prayer, but I did get in all of their accomplishments from the last year and all the things they have to look forward to in the next year. I planned to read it to them over dinner but ended up doing it in the dark, at bedtime, spontaneously with each child. They were a little taken back by the sudden depth of our bedtime routine, Bella was even a little embarrassed, but I think they were moved. And we marked the day.

Steve's goal was to start the year off with a movie night. We almost didn't make it though. Our plan was to grab a quick dinner of either Chinese or pizza at the strip mall of the movie theater. We didn't bank on everything being closed and ended up racing to dine at McDonald's to make it to the movie. Talk about starting the year off questionably! But the dietary merits of chicken nuggets aside, the night ended up being great because Bedtime Stories was a runaway hit.

I'm a huge fan of Adam Sandler but I wasn't sure how appropriate Bedtime Stories would be for the kids. For one thing, it's rated PG and we generally only do G movies. Bella is very easily scared so we don't like to push the envelope. But the trailers seemed pretty innocuous so we decided to give it a try. I have no idea why Bedtime Stories was rated PG - the note says mild language, crude humor and some thematic elements, but it was completely fine for my kids.

Adam Sandler is a handyman for a big hotel in Los Angeles. He is his typical goofy Adam Sandler personality. His sister (Courtney Cox) asks him to babysit his niece and nephew for a week while she goes to Arizona to interview for a job. He doesn't know them well because he has been estranged from them and they bond over the fantastic bedtime stories he makes up for them each night. Sandler begins to take a keen interest in the stories once he realizes that whatever elements the children add to the stories end up coming true the next day for him. Keri Russell also stars as well as a funny guinea pig with gigantic eyes.

I read an interview with Adam Sandler where he explained that he really wanted to make a family movie now that he is a father. He was tired of making movies where he did things like pee on the walls and have kids copy that behavior. Bedtime Stories is full of Sandler jokes and maneurisms but it's also full of fantastic dress up scenes with cowboys and indians, gladiators, and even a Star Wars like sequence. There are no scary fights, it's just a great family comedy. I'm crossing my fingers that it's a big commercial success and that we'll get to see more Adam Sandler family movies.

Body of Lies Movie Review

We saw Body of Lies on Saturday Night with Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe. Amazingly enough, I was the one really pushing to see this action movie. Steve had read some negative reviews and didn't think it would be good, but it didn't take too much work to talk him into it, after all, what guy can turn down guns and explosions?

As usual I disagreed with the critics. Body of Lies was amazing! It was a CIA flick in the Middle East. Di Caprio is an agent who speaks Arabic and has a great understanding and empathy for the Arab world. Russell Crowe is his boss back at Langley who watches his every move on a massive wall to wall screen using helicopters and spy satellites.

There's some powerful cinematography with desert scenes full of swirling dust from speeding mercedes and surface to air missiles. Di Caprio is pretty good although his whole persona is a little too similar to the role he played in Blood Diamond and his romance with the Egyptian nurse is not really credible. The real star is Russell Crowe as a pudgy Machiavelian puppet master. He masterminds operations and makes life and death decisions from his cell phone while cheering on his kids at their soccer games with his easy Midwestern drawl. He is living the American Dream while waging a war to save America yet he ends up as the real villain.

Maybe the critics are getting tired of terrorism movies - but I'm certainly not. If they're half as good as Body of Lies - keep them coming!

Pineapple Express - a great laugh

Steve and I went out Saturday night - it felt like it had been a long time since our last one. Summer just gets busy with going away; it was nice to go back to our routine. Especially when our routine involves starting the night with a great game of tennis, going home to shower, then dinner and a movie.

We saw an awesome movie: Pineapple Express. I love it when we catch something that's just come out. Makes me feel like I'm still with it!

Pineapple Express, like all the Seth Rogen movies, had me laughing so hard that I found myself doing strange things like slapping my thigh and holding my gut, the kind of laughs that can only be described as a guffaw. The movie, which was co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, was really a new genre: an action comedy. It was hilarious, but I was at the edge of seat.

Seth Rogen plays a gentle loser - a pot loving process server in his late twenties who dates a high school senior. Amazingly, their relationship is not disgusting, because he genuinely cares for his girlfriend and is somehow less mature than her. He just comes off as a lost goofball. He witnesses a murder while delivering a subpoena and becomes the target of competing drug gangs. He goes on the run with his drug dealer, an equally clueless James Franco who only deals drugs to keep his grandma Buby in a nice retirement home. I didn't think it was possible for him to be unattractive, but the grungy long haired drug dealer look is not hot, at all.

I'm not doing justice to the movie as I write. It was just so perfectly random that it struck the perfect note. The dialogue was great. The fight scenes were funny - without being complete slapstick. The car chases were a riot too - everything was tinged with the random actions of people who are stoned.

In short, I highly recommend Pineapple Express. You will be very entertained.

Fly Me To the Moon Premiere

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days when blog swag and fun for kids come together. I was invited to the premiere of a new children's movie, Fly Me to the Moon, and I went with Jack and Bella. I'm not sure who was more excited: me or them, but what really mattered was that what we all ended up having an excellent time.

We didn't spot any celebrities because we were too focused on the movie which is too bad because I would have loved to see Kelly Ripa, Nicolette Sheridan, or even Christopher Lloyd. After the movie, Bella asked me why there were no characters in the audience - that's what she thought I meant when I explained that the people in the movie would be watching it with us. I don't think she would have been impressed by Kelly Ripa unless she was wearing a fly costume.

Fly Me to the Moon comes out on August 15. It's rated G. Check out the trailer below.

Marathon Date - part 2

Last weekend, for Father's Day, I planned a marathon date for Steve. We started with a lesson with my tennis pro, went home and changed, and grabbed dinner in town. Then we went to the Garden State Mall to catch a movie, You Don't Mess with the Zohan. At that point, our marathon date went haywire because some loser decided to pull the fire alarm 20 minutes into our movie. The whole mall was evacuated, no small feat considering this is one of the biggest malls in NJ. We went home and finished our night on the couch with our respective IPods.

Tonight we repeated the marathon date, complete with tennis lesson. Luckily we got through the entire movie without any disruptions other than crying children. Why is it that more and more people seem to be bringing their babies to 9PM movies? Wouldn't they have more fun at home on the couch? They end up spending the entire time in the aisle, and bother everybody else, and it seems to happen more and more. I'll get off my soap box and give you the scoop on the Zohan.

Unfortunately I'm not sure You Don't Mess with the Zohan was worth two trips to the mall. It was funny, but not that funny, and at times it was a bit long. Still, I didn't think I would ever find humor in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so Sandler gets a lot of credit for that. I also didn't think it was possible to have that many jokes about hummus, but they were all funny. The soundtrack, with all its disco music, must be awesome.

Still, you could definitely enjoy it on HBO without missing much. Sandler's crotch thrusts probably won't lose too much by transitioning to the small screen.

21

For the first time in way too long, Steve and I snuck out of a fundraising dinner to catch a great movie last night: 21. It was the perfect film to remind me why I love the entire movie theater experience. Being in a dark stadium seating theater with a huge screen and pulsing music is exhilerating. Regardless of how large our home theater systems become, it won't be able to match the excitement of the large screen experience and the dangerous feel of being in the dark with strangers, sharing the same experience.

But I digress. 21 was such a great movie. There were chase scenes, suspense, a love story, and a rags to riches component. The acting was great, Kevin Spacey was intense as usual, but newcomer Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth were great as well. The card counting math was beyond me, but it didn't make the movie any less enjoyable. I guess that's why I'm at my computer blogging about the film instead of in a casino.

Dream Date

Steve and I are serious about our dates. For a long time after moving out to New Jersey and having our second child, I would get a babysitter every other weekend, even that felt profligate. Then Steve questioned why we were limiting ourselves to every other Saturday night. He questioned what was keeping us from declaring every Saturday night a kid-free night? A hot-date night? A night of keeping us connected, alive and in love. He argued that it was not extravagant, it was essential, necessary to the health of our union. I was more than happy to oblige. Since then, we have had a babysitter most Saturday nights and we both feel a little claustrophobic when we can't find a Saturday night sitter.

We're pretty social here in the burbs, and we use many of these Saturday nights to go to dinner with other couples or go to parties. We like to make sure that at least once a month, these Saturday nights are a true date night: just the two of us, dressed up a little, me in nice jeans and a sexy shirt, a little lipstick, eyeshadow and perfume, him in clean jeans and a clean shirt. It's such a great feeling to bid the kids and the babysitter goodnight and step out into the night together, knowing that we will not be interrupted for the next few hours and that we will be able to talk, share our thoughts, worries and maybe even a few laughs.

Our ideal date is dinner and a movie. We've always been movie addicts. In our pre-children days, we would see a movie every Sunday night; just to keep the work blues away a little longer. I loved our 8-block walk home along a deserted Broadway, around 10:30 at night, talking excitedly the whole way about what we'd liked and disliked about the movie we'd just seen. Then we would walk into our cozy one bedroom, brush our teeth, and snuggle up in bed ready to face the workweek.

Our date nights no longer involve leisurely walks along New York city streets, but they do still involve dinner and a movie. I miss the days when we would see everything that was released. Nowadays we often miss movies we really want to see because our schedules get too hectic. Seeing the movie on DVD with Steve periodically snoring on the couch next to me is just not the same. The worst feeling is when we waste one of the precious date nights on a bad movie. We recently saw No Country for Old Men and left the theater wishing the villain had shot us with his pneumatic device. But a few months ago, we had a great dinner and then laughed our way through Knocked Up. It was a perfect date night.

You can read more Sunday Scribblings here http://www.sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/