Category Archives: Movies

You Have to! It’s Christmas!

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Yikes. Has it really been over a month?

Ok, ok, I could give you excuses [Getting my wisdom teeth out, DIYing my apartment for Christmas, family visiting, LIFE!] ….or I could give you a nice list. List it is. You see lately I’ve been taking refuge in the most likely of places: Netflix. There is nothing better to help me unwind then a gripping, well written TV show or an overly dramatic preposterous made for TV movie.

Recently I have discovered the genre of Christmas Romantic Comedies and, whoa, can we say gold mine [It even inspired a game for some good Valentine’s Day Rom Com fun later next year]? In addition to all the antics of your normal rom com you get a dose of holiday cheer which makes things infinitely more zany and simultaneously heart warming. It’s fun to guess how they are going to take those classic tropes and make them Christmas-y (I just love doing this in general).

Movie people like to put a lot of pressure on Christmas. I personally love in Christmas movies of all kinds where they give you a grand speech to do things simply because it’s Christmas [Because truth and love and virtue only apply on holidays and expire once new years hits.]. You HAVE to tell the truth. It’s Christmas! Confess your love. It’s Christmas! Tolerate this annoying person. It’s Christmas! Buy me a sandwich. It’s Christmas!

So without further ado here is my ranking of Cheesy Christmas love movies** (On Netflix Instant) for your viewing pleasure:

*Keep in mind these are not the best Christmas love movies or even made for TV love stories. These are my rankings of the made for tv (or similarly devised) Christmas love movies that I’ve watched in the month of December. This is a very narrow genre. Within two lines of the first descriptions you should know if these shenanigans are for you.

4. 12 Dates of Christmas

The basics: For some reason I cannot fathom, two people: Kate [Amy Smart] and Miles [Saved by the Bell alum Mark-Paul Gosselaar], agree to a blind date on Christmas Eve. It (of course) does not go quite as planned or renew anyone’s faith in humanity, so when Kate wakes up she has to do it again! And again! Until she get’s it right. It’s a Christmas-y groundhog day if you will.

Despite shaking your head through the first few “dates” at Kate’s utter clueless-ness and self destructive behavior during the beginning of the movie you can actually relate to her. You start to feel better once she starts getting her act together and not acting like a crazy person. Although her accomplishments are not always quite what you’d expect from someone given the instant replay option (I can bake and decorate Christmas cookies now!).

3. Holiday in Handcuffs

The Basics: Melissa Joan Hart [Trudie]needs a man to impress her family. The successful and good looking Mario Lopez [David] [Another Saved by the Bell alum!] walks in. So naturally she decides to solve her problems by kidnapping the handsome stranger. Antics ensue.

Despite hate-HATE-hating Melissa’s hair (Perm gone terribly wrong) for the first half of the movie you get into the story and can’t help but wonder where they are taking the dynamic between these two. I mean are we rooting for Stockholm Syndrome? Is that ok? Oh wait my moral dilemma has vacated my head due to that unintentional smolder Mario Lopez just threw at the camera.

2. Desperately Seeking Santa

The Basics: Jennifer, a focused, dare we say cold hearted, marketing exec, needs profits to go up at the South Boston Mall so she devises a genius plan to have a Sexy Santa contest. What she doesn’t anticipate is her verbal sparring matches and utter contempt for one of the contestants. But Sexy Santa turns out to have a sexy heart! Ok, that was weak. But you get it! He’s adorable and actually a really good guy.

There’s also evil corporate entities, danger of foreclosure…and boy band dance moves? Yup, you heard right. Seriously though, this would have been a great follow up movie for Justin Timberlake after Model Behavior.

1. A Christmas Kiss

The Basics: Wendy has an amazing kiss in a freak elevator incident…only to discover the man is actually her boss’s boyfriend. And he doesn’t recognize her because she was dressed up for a fancy party!! Oh did I mention that her boss is a crazy, vain, demanding person bent on getting engaged??  [DRAMA]

I know what you’re thinking: This is just a non high school version of the  Cinderella story. Well it is, but I like it anyway. Side note: Hillary Duff would’ve been great in this role.

Here’s why you’ll want to watch this one:

  • Sassy friends. So there is one girl who babbles on about fate and destiny while sighing romantically, but there is also that great sassy friend (This girl who’s an Grey’s Anatomy intern right now) who tells it like it is with classic sitcom-y attitude. Even better than her little quips is her good friend advice speech at the end where she says things that I would actually tell my friends. Well done.
  • Rich people problems. I love seeing rich people habits in movies. The boss in this movie is priceless. Oh remember St. Barts? Oops I ruined my Monolo Blahniks! GET ME A CROISSANT.
  • Brendan Fehr. Do I need to explain this? He’s that handsome former teen alien we all love. Or that charming young fellow on Bones if you are too old/young to be acquainted with the other worldy drama that was Roswell.
  • Makeover! These writers learned from the life of Laney Boggs that you can transform a girl simply by removing her glasses and getting rid of that unfashionable ponytail. Except for instead of tweasing her eyebrows to finish it off in this movie they drown her in glitter (It’s the holidays after all).

My caveat with this movie is if it was that easy to get handsome strangers to fall in love with you girls would be sabotaging elevators left and right. All the tired of excessive PDA people would be forced to take the stairs everywhere. Of course, everything else in all of these movies is completely realistic and one of these meet cutes will probably be the way I meet my husband.

Up Next: All She Wants for Christmas. According to the Netflix summary this Christmas Rom Com centers around a woman who works as an “efficiency expert at the local Christmas ornament company.” An ORNAMENT company. How could should not find love in time for Christmas??? Still I’m willing to invest 1 hour and 34 minutes to find out.

Currently: knitting my little heart out. Christmas is near and I had this silly idea to make things (I’m actually quite on track. Knock on wood).

The Modern Day Music of Jay Gatsby

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“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. The responsiveness had nothing to do with the flabby impressionability that is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament” — it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which is not likely I shall ever find again. No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
– Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Are you excited for the new Great Gatsby movie? Me too. It’s been a long time since I’ve anticipated a movie like this and I’m really looking forward to the Baz Luhrmann adaptation. Until it’s released (May 10th!) let’s listen to the soundtrack, which I’m equally excited about. It was released on NPR yesterday (click here) and features The XX, Florence + the Machine, Lana Del Ray, will.i.am, Emeli Sande, Gotye, Jack White, and other wonderfulness (like an Amy Winehouse cover by Beyonce and Andre 3000!!).

Good job Jay Z. My ears will be very happy this weekend.

Currently: wearing red nail polish and happy it’s Friday

Good things come in threes…or sometimes twos…or sevens…or…

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I am lucky to have good things come to me often. These are some good things lately:

Trio. I tried to eat here one night a few months ago and after we’d sat down, had our drinks, and given our orders, the power went out. So, no trio for us. But thank goodness I finally went back, cause it was delish. If you go I think you should get the rosemary flatbread. It has goat cheese, roasted peppers, caramelized onions, and tomatoes. It’s pretty wonderful.

Dry Cucumber Soda. I had this at Trio (see the afore mentioned other good thing). I got it just for kicks because I’d never heard of cucumber soda, but I ended up loving it. However I was worried. The waiter said they imported these drinks from somewhere in Seattle and they were only here for the season. How would I ever find this drink again? Surely I would have to search for endless hours on the internet to find their obscure origin.

Or it would be the first hit on Google. And you can easily order them online. Guess I’m behind on the times.

dry cucumber soda

dry cucumber soda. Mine did not come garnished with cucumbers and artfully placed on highly reflective surfaces, but was delicious nonetheless.

Movie time. Recent watches include The Impossible and Ruby Sparks. The Impossible made me cry (which I don’t really do in movies). Ruby Sparks made me want to visit the Big Sur, take more chances, be my true self, and write, write, write.

New recipes. Part of my new years resolutions was to cook more and I’ve found some good recipes; my favorite so far was probably the Moroccan Chicken and Lentils. I’ve also been pleasantly surprise to find that a few nights of cooking goes a long, long way.

Unhinged. This is place is great. You should probably go there. It’s tucked away in Sugarhouse (1121 east 2100 south SLC, UT) and is full of wonderful things. Like clothes, and jewlery, and art, and great local designers. I got this:

Nifty, right? It also came with a case, flash, the original manual, and one final picture that the previous owner never removed.

Nifty, right? It also came with a case, flash, the original manual, and one final picture that the previous owner never removed.

Best Week Ever! It’s back! Can’t wait. Now, I just have to figure out where I can watch it since I don’t have VH1.

BWE! So many great times with this show!

BWE! So many great times with this show!

Currently: Happy after a night of pancakes and dancing it out despite having to reschedule and cancel plans. I guess even large amounts of snow can be a good thing. Oh, also got to spend a lot of time catching up with family via telephone, which is always good :)