top five movies i saw in 2009

2009 was not a good year for movies. there were very few to recommend to others (in my opinion, at least.) so here is the list of the best five movies i saw this year. these are movies that came out this year. i did see several of my favorite movies again this year, but here we're just talking about new ones.

5. the blind side

sandra bullock. sandra bullock with a gun and a kick-a attitude. awesome. this movie isn't particularly well made. the only good actor is bullock. it's a little cheesy. okay, a lot cheesy. there's also not much of a conflict. the story is pretty much happy from beginning to end, which is not usually the kind of story that is fun to watch. but it was fun to watch. it entertained me, made me laugh, but more than that it made me feel something. i actually felt emotion while watching this movie. this is something almost all the 35 or so new movies i saw this year totally failed at. but even more than that, i felt inspired. inspired to do something wonderful for someone else. inspired to look at people in a different way. inspired to do something a little different in my life. and when you're talking about art, what more can you ask for?

4. sherlock holmes

robert downey jr. and jude law make this movie worth seeing. there's nothing really spectacular about it, but these two characters grab your attention and are really fun to watch. i've heard a lot of complaints about pacing problems, but i didn't think that it dragged at all. sherlock is a lot less annoying than he usually is, in part because of rdjr.'s charm, and in part because his character is kind of a loser (he's a drunk who has only one friend). there are many aspects, though, that are very loyal to the holmesian tradition. he's smarter than everyone else and not afraid to show it and he's constantly helping out the always-one-step-behind police. the movie itself is pretty stylized and artistic. but honestly...it's just fun to watch. simple as that.


3. up

well, if you saw my review for this movie back in june you're probably surprised to see this here. but again, i've been surprised at the low quality of movies i've seen this year. yes, this movie annoyed me with it's sexist plot line. and holy cow i wish the talking dogs weren't in the movie. so annoying. but overall it was a fun, very well made movie that deserves to be near the top of my list. up was also a very emotional movie...the most romantic movie i saw no question. it's a movie i would definitely see again and hope to own one day.

2. harry potter 6

this was a GOOD movie. i have to admit i like the fifth movie better, but i think they did an excellent job with this one. the teen angst was really at it's pinnacle here, and the action was wonderful. they skipped all the boring stuff that doesn't move the plot along. it was very artistic and exciting and those kids are getting a lot better at acting. there's not really a lot of argument here. i don't know anyone who didn't like this movie. i haven't seen it since the theater, and it has been too long. anyone who says that sequels are never better than the first movie has never seen this movie.

1. (500) days of summer

i love love love love love love love love LOVE this movie. i'd never seen a movie three times in the theater until this year, that's how much i love it. someone asked me a few weeks ago why i love it so much and i kind of didn't have a reason. i hadn't really thought of it in great detail like i normally do when i see movies. i just LOVE it. it was just so...good. i mean really. i don't know many people who can't relate to this movie in some way. the soundtrack is awesome. the story is different and refreshing. so many movies these days are just regurgitations of the same basic plot. but this one was new and fun. the main character is adorable. this movie is happy and sad and funny and emotional and romantic and depressing and hopeful. if you haven't seen it you're definitely missing out.

run, that ye may obtain

i think my big problem with completing new year's resolutions is the same for any type of goal i set. namely, once i fail i just quit trying. actually, this is how i am with anything. once i do poorly at something i just give it up completely. from something as small as a single homework assignment to the always-in-my-life goal of quitting my nail-biting, once i mess up, i'm done. this is also my pattern for when i do something well. if i reach what i believe is my best, i quit. that might actually sound healthy, but it's not. i'm talking about things i could possibly get better at, but feel like it would take a lot more work than it's worth. like playing the clarinet. or getting a b instead of an a. all this being said, i've never been the sort to make new year's resolutions. i feel like most people don't actually fulfill their new year's goals and i don't want to be one those people who makes a goal and tries really hard for two weeks and then gives it all up, and then does the exact same thing the next year. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting the same result. at least according to einstein.

so this year i've decided to make some new year's goals. i've excluded the word resolution from my goal making because one-it just sounds like something people don't actually accomplish, and two-the only time people use this word is at the new year, which doesn't sound like something you'd continue working on in july. so...what should i work on this year?

i haven't made any solid goals yet, but i have entitled my list "operation keep it together." right now all i have on my strawberry shaped notebook page is the title, which is a reference to a joke from a movie some of my close friends and i recently watched and quote quite a bit more often than is probably funny. it's also refers to the feeling i have that everything is about to fall apart. of course this is me being pessimistic, but it's a looming feeling i have. things just aren't currently headed in the right direction. probably i should try to be more optimistic this year.

things i might make goals about:
-writing in my journal (which i didn't do even one time in 2009)
-reading more books (i'm decent at this already, but i want to step it up)
-biting my nails (sigh)
-learning something
-getting stronger
-taking care of my car
-saving money
-continuing my education
-being social at church (which i am infinitely bad at)
-going to the temple (holy cow i have not been good at this lately...and i live in utah...)
-volunteering
-studying habits
-making plans
-being nicer

i won't be making a goal in all of these areas. that would be overwheming. these are just ideas. ideas of things that i wish i had the desire to work on, which isn't true for all of them. for example, i have no desire to write in my journal. this is because i am just not the sort of person who goes back and reads what i wrote x number of years ago. i'm the one who wrote it. i don't have a lot of interest in my own personal past. i don't know why, i just don't really care. it's so...boring. so that would be hard. another one is being social at church. the reason i'm not is because i just don't want to. i abhor small talk. it makes me want to rip my eyeballs out of my head. my personal version of hell would look oddly familiar to a church classroom where i had to talk to strangers for a few minutes at a time about insignificant happenings in their daily lives and their tiresome opinion on the sunday school lesson. a d&c sunday school lesson.

so we'll see. i'll keep you posted.

just give me somethin' to blog about

can you read it?

i don't normally read this blog, but i'm just sitting here waiting for my sister to show up. i hope this is fake. and illegal.

perchance to dream

Many things--such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly--are done worst when we try hardest to do them. --CS Lewis

'til a new computer purchase do we part

so there's this column in slate magazine called 'dear prudence' where people write in their questions about manner and morals. or at least that's what they're supposed to ask about. i was reading some old ones the other day and ran across this question sent in:

Dear Prudence,
I recently married my dream husband. We have incredible chemistry and a shared commitment to each other. When we disagree, we settle our differences by balancing logic and gut feelings. That is, until we came to our disagreement on which laptop I should buy to replace my Mac PowerBook. We are both in the software industry and have strong preferences on which operating system we prefer. I have been a happy Mac user for years. My husband can't stand the Mac, and his only explanation is the image associated with Mac users. Whenever he sees me with my PowerBook, he thinks of the "Get a Mac" commercials where Justin Long, who is a Mac, ridicules John Hodgman, a PC. I agree with him that the commercials are obnoxious, but they have nothing to do with the usability of the Mac. My husband said jokingly that I could get a Mac only over the divorce papers. I don't believe he was joking. It's getting to a point that we cannot discuss this without getting our blood boiling.

—Boiling Blood

are these people serious? it seems to me that you would know what kind of computer your significant other had BEFORE you married them and if it bothered you that much you'd just break up then. but for the love, how could this bother you that much? if you are this passionate about what type of computer OTHER people use, please seek counseling.

that's the story of, that's the glory of lasik

on friday i had lasik. for two weeks before i had to wear glasses. bah!-bane of my existence. i hate glasses. i have, no had, absolutely no peripheral vision when i wore glasses. horrible night vision too. so two weeks ago they measured the thickness of my corneas to see if i could have lasik. my vision was TERRIBLE. a -8. if you don't know anything about vision prescriptions, a -8 is really really bad. without my glasses i couldn't tell you who the person standing three feet away from me was. basically the higher your prescription the more of your cornea they have to take away, so they measure you to make sure you have thick enough corneas. luckily i did.

so on wednesday afternoon i went in and had my eyes measured for the procedure. and then on friday morning sarah drove me to the eye place. they gave me goggles to sleep with, steriod drops for my eyes, a prescription for an antibiotic, and samples of artificial tears. then they made me put a valium under my tongue and let it dissolve. apparently it gets in your bloodstream faster this way. but holy does it taste sick. they give you a life saver to try to make up for it. and then you sit and wait for it to kick in.

when they call you back it all happens really quick. you sit in a chair that is pretty much a dentist's chair. they lean you back and put numbing drops in your eyes. they took away my glasses so when the doctor came in i couldn't really see him at all. but it all happened pretty fast after he introduced himself to me. they covered my left eye and then the horrible part happened. they pried open my right eye. ow ow ow ow OW. "look at the flashing red light." the nurse said something about suction and i went blind for about thirty seconds. then i could see again. "perfect flap." and then the laser started. it felt really good, like little puffs of cool air shooting into my eye. then it stopped and the doctor put my flap back on. it felt like he was using a paint brush and gently wiping all around the circle of my eye. they had me close my eye and covered it and uncovered the left eye. and the whole thing happened again. only this time it hurt when they suctioned and cut the flap too, and not just when they pried my eye open. i don't think i could have handled this if it had lasted longer than thirty seconds, but the cooling feeling of the laser made it better. after brushing my flap closed, the doctor took the covering off my right eye and sat me up and told me to come sit in a chair so he could check my eyes. they were fine, though the light he used was incredibly bright. and then they sent me on my way. just like that. from the moment the doctor introduced himself to me to the time i walked out the door...ten minutes tops.

my vision was really...milky, i guess. that's not quite the right word. everything was a little blurry, but it also felt like i had some sort of cloudy lens over my eyes. sarah took me to walgreens to fill the prescription. and i could see. not perfectly, but i could see. then she took me home and i slept off the valium for an hour and a half. i had to put lots of drops in my eyes that day and i still have to for the next week. by friday evening i could see pretty decently.

by my estimation, my lasik procedure was at 10:30 am on friday. at 8:15am on saturday i had another appointment. 20/30 vision in my right eye, 20/40 in my left. good enough to drive to provo and go to the byu football game, which i did. the cornea in my left eye is swollen so it's more blurry than my right. the flaps were barely visible and i had almost no dry spots in my eyes. all great things. also, when sarah had her lasik done she had scary bloodshot drug addict eyes for days. i have one little spot on my left eye that's slightly red, but you can barely see it. otherwise i look totally normal. no bruising at all. this is either due to the fact that i've been sleeping with my head elevated or to something the doctor did. who knows?

so yeah. my vision should improve by the end of the week. i don't like the eye drops. they are gross and sticky and goopy. but i can see. i can SEE. without corrective eye-wear. it's amazing. and totally worth the five minutes of pain. totally and completely and absolutely worth it.