Happy 2010!

Last night was what it's all about, magic, love, and planning new beginnings. This time of year is pretty hard on my husband because this is the same time of year he shipped overseas into a nightmare that would follow him the rest of his life. So we figured we'd kick back and stay up most of the night watching movies together to take our minds off everything. Just for you guys and to make up for the sheer SUCK of my recent posting history here in the Closet I'll start ya off with some movie reviews.

First we watched Righteous Kill which we thought was really great! It got under my skin especially deep because I can have a very strong sense of justice sometimes. I want to see the "bad guys" get what's coming to them and it seriously gets to me if they don't! That's something my husband and I share! In the movie two cops, partners played by Al Pacino and Robert Deniro, have been on the force together for a very long time when they catch one case that becomes a turning point for one of them. A little girl has been brutally murdered by her mother's boyfriend but he's going to get away with it. Unable to cope with the thought of this monster going free the partners plant evidence to make sure the guy is convicted. For one cop justice has been served even if it needed a little push. For the other cop this only opens the door to the possibility that he could do more good on the job serving up his own justice to villans that slide through the court system while using his status as an officer to shunt suspicion away from himself becoming a serial killer. Definitely two thumbs up!!

The next one we watched was Jennifer's Body with Megan Fox. I really enjoyed this one too but I think you probably have to be in a certain mindset to appreciate it. It was pretty clear looking at the synopsis that this movie should've been a typical second, maybe even third, rate "horror" depending heavily on gore and T 'n A. Jennifer is your usual high school cheerleader, popular and smokin hot! Her one obvious idiosyncrasy is her BFF, Anita aka "Needy", who doesn't fit with the usual high school Beautiful People. Needy is sweet, shy, and somewhat nerdy with a great boyfriend in the school band, Chip. One night Jennifer and Needy go to a local dive to see a band from the city, Low Shoulder. After the bar burns down Jennifer gets in the van with the band despite Needy's pleas not to go with them. Later that night an all new Jennifer visits Needy who's home alone. Jennifer's new look comes straight from Hell's best boutiques, blood spattered, ravenous, unnerving screechy noises, and projectile vomiting some truly nasty black goo! But the next day at school Jennifer seems to be back to her old self, if a trifle more insensitive than usual, leading folks to believe that Needy might just be blowing things out of proportion. As the movie goes on Jennifer kills, Low Shoulder experiences a huge upswing in popularity (that seems almost, dare we say, *magical*???), Needy tries her best to figure out what to do, and Chip really pulls his head out of the sand a little too late. If you liked the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer you might like this one since it mixes psuedo-horror with a small sprinkle of over the top campy comedy relief though Buffy did it better, in my opinion. And just a little heads up, whatever you might think -- hot babes in a bad horror flick definitely equals at least a tiny bit of T 'n A -- there is not one single T or A shown in this whole movie!! If it had I might've thrown in another quarter to half a thumb more based just on how scrumptious Megan Fox is but as it is I'll give it a tentative one thumb.

And last we watched Paranormal Activity. I'd heard really mixed reviews about this movie but in the end this one turned out to be a true gem for a horror hound like me!! It's insanely simple with only four actors in the whole movie and only a teensy tiny bit of blood at all but the suspense and fear factor ratchets up steadily! A young couple, Micah and Katie, buy a new tract home only to find that a frightening presence from Katie's past has followed her so Micah decides to capture it on film. The whole movie is done as if taped with the camera that Micah buys for this purpose. Katie brings in a psychic hoping for help and explains that she has had the same unnerving experiences when she was eight years old, again at 13, and moving hasn't seemed to help. Katie has a healthy fear for whatever it is that's been terrorizing her. Micah starts off openly jovial and disrespectful about the entire thing. Micah's off the cuff idea is to find out what the entity wants and give it to him but the psychic warns him that what the entity obviously wants is Katie! As the movie progresses it becomes clear that Katie is going downhill fast and seeing this along with his own investigations going no where leads to Micah growing more and more frustrated, angry, and maybe even scared? Clearly ignorant in these matters Micah only makes things worse at every turn committing pretty much every mistake a person can make when dealing with a hostile entity leading to a disasterous conclusion. One thing that really makes this movie a treasure for me is having a fair amount of knowledge about hauntings I can really appreciate that most, if not all (depending on what you believe), of this movie is entirely plausible. This movie now holds the coveted spot with me of being one of the only TWO movies EVER to come the closest to actually scaring me (and this one blows the other one away)!! I'm borrowing hubby's so I can give this one FOUR THUMBS WAY UP!!!!!

Now I'd PLANNED to get to the more personal parts of this post but honestly two of the kids come home tonight leaving hubs and I little time left alone together and throughout this whole post he's been teasing me to distraction! I promise to fill y'all in on the rest of our time last night but right now I'm going to do my best one more time to kill him with a huge, goofy grin on his face! After all, a girl's gotta have her priorities!