There's No Stoppin' The Weeks From Stepping Up.

I usually keep these reviews to movies I haven't seen up until this point. Otherwise they'd go on for a mile and--oh wait, they'd go on for three miles. I just saw Step Up, which I'm guessing is like Breakin' for kids born in 1996. Being there's that history of DANCE! in my family, Nan and I ended up watching it late last Saturday morning. I'm of course tainted by my love for Turbo and Ozone, and Ollie and Jerry, so I kept comparing it to the pre-Electric Booglaoo days. If I continue down this path I will injure my back. Again.

The movie Nan picked for us to watch Saturday night (the tastiest night of the week, you know. Pretzels are involved.) was In The Valley Of Elah, which I really didn't want to see as I saw one bit and it was like, "All the guys torture the chickens!" and really, me watching that is like all those grandmothers on YouTube who sat down to watch Two Girls, One Cup and I didn't mention the mention of chicken torturing, because I knew I would then have to deal with my mother's head exploding, so I just said okay. I've had 300 on tape off Cinemax for two weeks. I want to see 300. I've wanted to see 300 since I heard the word "Persians," because, you know...well, maybe you don't. Someone once told me I...uh...lived...in those times...in a past life. Which explains a lot about me, really, but I'll save that for the week I finally get to see 300. For some reason Nan keeps passing Gerard freakin' Butler over for made-for-tv alien movies and chicken torture cases. Life is not fair. In case you're wondering, gluing my family to chairs and forcing them to watch a movie I want to see never goes well (*cough*The American Astronaut*cough*). But I decided I'd watch In The Valley of Elah, because it's got Tommy Lee Jones, and I once had my hair cut by a girl who was hot for Tommy Lee Jones, so whenever I watch Tommy Lee Jones movies I think of her. And then I watched the whole movie. That scene I saw made sense then. Everyone needs to watch In The Valley of Elah. It's sad. I would even go so far as saying heart-breaking, and I don't throw that term around very often. I would actually glue people to chairs and make them watch the movie, if I had that much glue.

The next night, we watched No Reservations, the Catherine Zeta-Jones remake of Mostly Martha, both of which are about gourmet chefs. Only where the Shakespeare Retold version of Macbeth had me antsy to see what would happen next--even thought I knew--this one was about food. Gourmet food. And death. I eat peanut butter, mainly, and ramen noodles, and I don't quite like death so this was like...I was like the little girl in it who didn't like the fish staring at her from her plate. Then it turns into a chick flick, but no one ever talks about their feelings, they just walk off, so I was torn between the movie being good and...not. But Monopoly is involved, and so anytime Monopoly is in a movie, you can at least give it a shot if you like movies like Baby Boom and all those movies where women living their lives for themselves inherit children and meet a guy (also, Nan loves Aaron Eckhardt, who is in No Resservations) and suddenly they stop being crotchety and everything becomes happiness and pop songs. Oh, and threats of child protective services. I don't recall that part in Mostly Martha. Crap, I don't recall most of Mostly Martha.

During the week Nan found Cherry 2000, which is '80s sci-fi goodness in a hot little mechanical package. I'd never seen it so I enjoyed it, and I got all wistful for red hair again.

Nan found the latest haunted stretch of road movie, Wind Chill, and those are always fun. I have no idea who was in this one, but if you like horror movies, it's fun. If you do a lot of driving on winter roads, it's not so fun.

The rest of the week was gardening and X-Files joy. My furry little Mulders and Scully like to search for proof of UFOs in this one section of the yard, and I decided it was about time to buy some dirt to cover the loads and loads of leaves I've raked into the body-sized hole over the winter...and last fall...and summer...they love to dig there. The Fluffy One and The Puppy helped me distribute the dirt, and they're so adorable when they do it that I overlooked the fact that The Puppy was dragging the bag of dirt across sections of the lawn that weren't in need of any repair. She then ate some dirt and stole my rake while the cats were running in the opposite direction with the sticks I use to cover the dirt so it looks old and uninteresting.

I lost five more games of solitaire, and only drew two strips and added 1,800 words to my great novel. I am not proud of this, but I'm about two weeks ahead on my cartoon, so I could afford to blow off some of my work. That's what I tell the ceiling when I'm not sleeping.

There's No Stoppin' The Weeks From Stepping Up.