My Food Chain Gang

I think I was somehow cursed last Thanksgiving.  I fell ill the day after Thanksgiving, and just as I was starting to feel better a few days later, I felt another virus coming on.  This cycle continued until just before Christmas, and because I was pregnant and exhausted, I tried to rest a lot and get well during that time, but it was stressful because I had a 1½-year-old to chase after.  And while I was sick, I was unable to eat any Thanksgiving leftovers.  So then all during the year, foods like turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and even creamed onions (which I used to love) just haven’t seemed very appealing to me.  I think I subconsciously associate the Thanksgiving fare with being sick, but I thought I’d be over it by now - wrong.  Thanksgiving dinner was great and everything, but I’m just not as enthused about those leftovers as I want to be.  On Thanksgiving day, the turkey was delicious.  That leftover sandwich I had on Friday was pretty good.  The cold turkey snack on Friday night was ok.  I didn’t finish the turkey snack on Saturday night, and today for dinner, I will have anything but turkey or Thanksgiving leftovers.  And I am blue in the face from reassuring my husband that it was absolutely nothing he did wrong with the cooking or the fault of any of the guests who brought delicious side dishes.  It’s just my Thanksgiving curse, and I hope it’s gone by next year.  But even if it’s not, no biggie because my Thanksgiving will be made more special than food by the wonderful people in my life.  Maybe I should “train” my body to accept the Thanksgiving food by making turkey and creamed onions more often…

At any rate, the helpers in the kitchen on Thanksgiving day were adorable - check them out:

And below are my two oldest daughters waving to Santa at the Welcome Santa Parade from the day after Thanksgiving:

And if their names were numbers that ordered them by birth, below is a cute picture of #2 and #4:

I betcha you’re thinking, wow, she thinks highly of herself…  I am Legend, geez…  but no, I was just realizing how it’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve reviewed a movie!  Part of it is because we aren’t watching nearly as many, just been pretty busy lately.  With the time change, it stays light out until 8, so we like to take family walks after dinner.  By the time the kids get settled after that though, there hasn’t been any time for movies, so we’ve been watching old episodes of The Office instead…  not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s been fun, but I just haven’t seen many movies lately.  The other night, we did manage to pop in “I am Legend“, an end-of-the-world movie starring Will Smith.  It chronicles the story of the very last man on Earth (well, kinda) as he strives to find a cure for the virus that is responsible for exterminating mankind.  I said he’s kinda the last man on Earth because he co-exists with these creatures who used to be humans, until the virus turned them into creepy, maniacal, flesh-devouring beasts.  Luckily for Smith, they can only come out at night because light proves fatal to them, so he spends his days collecting samples and information to study and do experiments in his lab at night, hoping to find a cure for the virus, a virus that interestingly mutated from what humans originally believed was a cure for cancer.

The movie was entertaining, though I have to admit when I first starting watching it, I had a bit of “Doomsday” dread - see my previous post of the same name about one horrible movie - if you dare.  However, “I am Legend” ended up only sharing generic end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it characteristics with the movie “Doomsday”, thank goodness for that.  Speaking of end-of-the-world movies, the creatures in “I am Legend” also reminded me a bit of the ravaging monsters in “28 Weeks Later“, but in a genre like this, I guess it’s difficult to be entirely unique.

It might seem lonely being the last man on Earth, but Will Smith’s character does have a faithful companion, a dog named Sam.  I’m going to risk a minor spoiler here so I can tell you what I really liked about their relationship.  In a moment of weakness, Will Smith is cradling his strong dog buddy Sam, and we learn that the dog’s name is actually Samantha.  The symbolism here is very well done and notably appreciated - you’ll have to see the movie to get it, even though I probably just spoiled that part for you - oops.

Overall, as I said, it was entertaining to watch, and pretty creepy at times.  The overuse of computer animation was annoying to say the least.  There were lots of animals in the film - beasts roam the deserted shell of what’s left of New York City - but they were all computer animated.  I agree with the person who reviewed the movie on imdb.com, I can live with the animals being computer generated, but the virus-addled humanesque beasts, now THAT was BEYOND annoying!  They could be pretty scary at times, but it was probably due to the snarling noises more than the way they looked.  During most of the action scenes involving the creatures, the computer animation was horribly fake-looking and even laughable, which of course takes away from the mood of a film such as this.

If you like the mankind-is-extinct type of movies or are a Will Smith fan, I think you should see this movie.  The best parts were the scenes of him roaming a deserted New York City - those were pretty cool to see.  But if you’re the type of person who doesn’t like the hopelessness or loneliness one might feel when imagining the end of the world, not to mention watching frightening creatures unleash terror and violence, skip “I am Legend” and go for “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” instead - classic Will Smith the whole family can enjoy!

The movie Doomsday is about a virus that wipes out all of Scotland.  I’m not really inspired to write much about it because I didn’t like the movie.  I can’t even think of anyone I know who would.  I wasn’t bored at the theater, but you couldn’t pay me to watch this movie again.  First of all, it wasn’t my type of movie.  It was sci-fi and took place in the future, which is already 2 strikes against it as far as I’m concerned.  And then there was the violence.  The never-ending, non-stop, constantly gruesome and always bloody violence.  People died in any and every way you can imagine and some hopefully you can’t.  I lost count after 5 decapitations, all very graphic, and there were also scenes of people getting squished, burned alive, smashed by cars…  like I said, you name a method of torture, it was in this movie.  I was not expecting this.  I thought the movie was going be more like Outbreak, where people try to combat the virus together - I would classify that as more of a drama from what I can remember.  After seeing Doomsday, I even had a dream involving severed limbs last night…  thank goodness it wasn’t nearly as graphic or bloody as the movie…  I wouldn’t even classify it as a nightmare.  And don’t go thinking I’m some kind of weirdo - if you were exposed to almost 2 hrs. of that kind of violence, you would understand why it came across in my sleep!  But anyway, Doomsday definitely goes on my Worst Movies I’ve Seen list.  So far the list consists of:

1.  The Night Listener

2.  The Producers (2005)

3.  Doomsday

4.  The Devil’s Rejects

5.  Meet the Spartans - I’m actually going to remove this one - it doesn’t really qualify as a movie, plus I didn’t see the whole thing.  I KNEW it was going to be horrible, but my husband wanted to try it for some reason…  we lasted for about 10 mins, if that.

This list is in no particular order.  It’s really difficult to do that because they were all horrible in their own unique ways.  I liked the original Producers (1968), but I never even saw the whole remake with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick because I couldn’t get past the first scene, which is rare for me, usually I will stick it out.  The Night Listener was horrible because it was predictable and dumb, but I would much rather sit thru that movie again than be subjected to Doomsday and all the violence again…  But when I saw each of them for the first time, I was more entertained by Doomsday than by The Night Listener…  so it just depends on the movie and what you mean by worst.  But they are all worthy of being classified as the worst movies I’ve ever seen, for one reason or another, some more than others.

I was totally surprised that Doomsday ended up being so bad after seeing that movies.com gave it an “A” as a rating!  I used to have this theory that I would go opposite whatever the critics said about a movie, and I think I will have to continue that trend.  If I remember correctly, Ebert and Roeper gave Devil’s Rejects “2 Thumbs Up”.  As I said, movies.com liked Doomsday, but I think the following excerpt of their critic’s review just about says it all - I say, see this movie at your own risk, on a dare, or if for some reason you are getting paid.  Otherwise, don’t bother with it, don’t know why we did!

From movies.com:

 ”Name something you want in an ultraviolent action thriller and this movie delivers it. Impalement, decapitation, decapitated heads being affixed back onto bodies only to then take arrows through the skull and fall off again, motorcycles decorated with human skeletons, cannibalism, exploding bunnies, insane car chases, wacky costumes, incomprehensible editing, an indestructible a hot chick heroine (Rhona Mitra, who looks like what would happen if Kate Beckinsale and Victoria Beckham had a baby that was the Terminator) whose hotness grows in tandem with the number of people she mows down in the name of truth. Does it suck? Sorta. Is that awesome? Absolutely. In terms of sheer excitement, it’s the best movie of 2008.”

NOTE FROM ME - Best movie of 2008?  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re only in the 3rd month!