More movies and Misc

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (DVD) - I know of the book thanks to Borders and its popularity and then Borders pushed it as a "Make" title (or was it a "Key" title?) so we employees had to recommend it to everyone (or we were supposed to). There are 2 rape scenes in the movie (at the beginning -- one's more sexual assault and the rape is never fully shown, but you know it happens when the officer handcuffs her to the bed against her will) and very minor nudity in it. It's a Swedish film with English subtitles and I think the book was originally in Swedish too. Anyway, it's a good murder mystery story and good character development. The acting was well done and the movie itself too. I enjoyed it and can see why the book was so popular. It's a little dark, but there's a point and it has a good ending for everything that happened to everyone. I'd watch any film of the author's other works if it's like this one. Definitely not a film to watch with the kids or if you want something light, but if you want a mystery film (more like a drama mystery and not a thriller mystery) and can stand watching 2.5 hours worth of subtitles, I'd recommend it. A-

Despicable Me - After seeing the year's worth of advertisements, I was expecting this film to be a flop at first. I then started to see the reviews and people were pretty favorable. I went and saw it and it's rather cute. It's no Toy Story 3 or How to Train Your Dragon (I still say Toothless wins "Best Pet of the Year"), but it held its own against them. All the characters are lovable. It's only 1.5 hours so it does move kind of fast in the story and scenes that could be long (e.g., the climax) are fairly short. The, uhm, "villain" of the movie also has a much smaller role than you'd think. In some ways, the movie feels short, but in others...it felt like if it was longer, it'd have been too long. So I think the short feeling is simply because movies these days push the 2 hour mark more often than the 1.5 hour mark from years ago. I simply expected some scenes to be longer then they were. :P There were some really funny moments too. The humor was throughout the film and there were some scenes that really cracked me up. Not as much as The Proposal, but it's probably the most I've laughed in a film since The Proposal. It was also cute how they incorporated current slang like "dealio" and "chill-ax". The minons were the background humor the whole movie, but the other characters also all had their funny moments. Anyway, it was a good film and I'd recommend to everyone. B+/A-

Next on the list (maybe) is Inception and Salt. Eat, Pray, Love will probably be a movie rental. Nanny McPhee Returns (or Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang) is a no go I think. The first one was cute and I own it, but the 2nd is just going to be too predictable now. Plus, the flying pigs don't do it for me. LoL If Nicolas Cage wasn't in Sorcerer's Apprentice, I would have probably seen that one, but he kills it for me. I like Jay Baruchel too. Shame. Anyway, that's pretty much it for the summer and movies for me, I think. Legend of the Guardians is at the end of Sept, but that should be a movie rental too. I never read the books (IR series). After that...Secretariat in October!! The trailer makes me super excited and it looks like the film is going to be really good. Buena Vista certainly knows how to make the tear jerker/inspiring sports films. LoL This should be better than Seabiscuit. And November brings Harry Potter (!!!) and December brings Narnia! Good year.

Next year will be the year of the comic book films: Green Lantern, Captain America, and Thor. Captain America and Thor should be interesting since it's a set-up (with Iron Man) for the S.H.I.E.L.D film. There's also something going on with a PotC 4 film coming out in 2011 (??). So if that ends up happening, that'll be interesting too. Johnny Depp is supposed to return. And, of course, HP Part 2 is next year. So...yeah.

Anyway, onto other things not movie related.

One of my female shrimp had her eggs, but didn't have any new ones. It was kind of bizarre. This is the first time a female skipped a "cycle." I do think my fish ate the last set, though. They weren't hungry that day and mostly the next and I'm only feeding them once a day. So I still think my male is potent, but not 100% sure. My grass like plant is dying too. It's not receiving enough light in my tank. So when I go back, I'll probably buy another plant. My weird brown snail is HUGE too. It's grown a lot since I came back home. I think it's almost as big as my fish now. : It still manages to hide well, but when it's in sight, it's hard to miss. Don't think I've posted the pictures I have of it. I'll do that later.

My internship is going well too. It's pretty tedious, but my co-workers are nice and the office location is great. It's nice to be able to go walk along the bike path or to Alvarado or to the wharf on my lunches. It's also nice being on salary. LoL Soon I'll start helping out on other aspects of the report and not just my own so I can get away from my literature review a little. I admit it's hard spending 7 hours a day just reading or finding literature on very specific things. I try and mix-up what I do -- sometimes read the articles I find, sometimes find articles, sometimes read the MLPA reports for references, find primary literature, find grey literature, search WA estuaries, switch to SoCal, go to OR, etc -- but there's only so much you can do. LoL It's frustrating at points, but it's also challenging my internet searching skills. LoL Some of these estuaries have almost NO information at all. It's ridiculous. Anyway, it'll be nice to work on things that have nothing to do with my literature review too. :)

Well, with that, time for bed so I can get up early enough to work at home and then hit CSUMB's library.