2011 in Movies

It's been a tough year for movies. At least in my opinion. Normally at Christmas time there a ton of movies I want to see and I have to make an actual decision about what movie to see on Christmas Day. This year it was a choice between movies that I was indifferent about. We settled on Mission Impossible 3: Ghost Protocol, mainly because I liked the third one so much and J.J. Abrams, while not directing this one, produced it and he always does great stuff. The movie was sort of interesting, but it felt looooong and Tom Cruise was looking old but trying to not look old. I would rather watch a movie where Jeremy Renner was taking over for Tom Cruise.

Thursday I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and was not entirely engaged with it like I was the book. While sometimes the book had too much detail (a whole page was dedicated to listing the titles of books on a book shelf) I felt the movie missed a lot of finer points. And yet the movie felt long. Maybe I preferred being able to formulate the images in my head (or not in some instances) but the movie produced actual images for me to cringe at (that dead cat nearly did me in).

Looking back on the year, I haven't had very many movie posts. Maybe it's just because I was busy with school and therefore saw less movies and blogged less as well. But if a movie is awesome I make time to blog about it. With that being said, I think my favorite movie of 2011 was Super 8, followed by Moneyball, and then possibly The Debt. Like I said, it was a bad year for movies for me.

For now, I'm looking forward to 2012 for The Hunger Games and The Lucky One.

A Day at the Movies

I must've been in a mood when I went to a movie today because a lot of things were bothering me.

--seriously, who was the moron who greenlit a sequel to Ghostrider?! Nicolas Cage should seriously consider a different career path.
--was I the only person underwhelmed by the new Dark Knight trailer? These movies have suffered from the the law of diminishing returns (I know I am in the vast minority here)
--in a fairly open theater at 2:20 on a Thursday do you really have to pick the four seats right next to me!

Baby Athena

Athena Avienda Anderson Arana (yeah, totally awesome super-hero name) was born December 23, 2011. Even though she was due January 18th, scheduled to be C-sectioned out on January 11th, she decided that as soon as her parents were married she was ready to make her debut (Jared finally, after six-years, decided to put a ring on it [I mean this jokingly, as neither was in a rush to get married] one day before in a simple and beautiful ceremony).
She has Jojo's nose and feisty-ness, Jared's feet and eyebrows, and my hands (no joke). She's precious.

The Best Semester Ever

This past semester was the best ever. Since my grad program is only four semesters, I'm including all my undergrad semesters as well (although I keep my two semesters at Snow College separate because, well, they were just special!). I had four classes this semester and was completely overwhelmed and busy most of the time. But I learned so much and had so many moments of, "Wow, this is what I want to do with my life." I had great classes and made some great friends. This semester really solidified a lot of things, and I'm hoping the trend can continue with next semester.

But for now, I need to catch up on some much needed leisure reading, Netflix-watching, movie-viewing, and sleep.

Almost Done

I have a couple draft blog posts, about being on the Graduate Admissions Committee and Bacon Day at work. They'll probably stay as drafts for awhile...

The last couple weeks have been crazy with school. I have a final on Thursday that I should be studying for right now. This class is super important to me and I want to do well in it.

Once that is done, my time will be filled with baking goodies, wrapping presents, visiting friends, and relaxing.