Thursday, January 28, 2010

Tina's 2009 Movie List - January 2010

For those who have inquired, here is the full list of movies I saw in 2009, with my favorites highlighted in bold. In 2010, I will be reporting on this subject monthly and reviewing and rating each movie on a scale of 1-5 tuna cans (shout out to Steve Rice). Here is 2009 in a capsule:



MOVIE LIST 2009

January
Slumdog Millionaire
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Bye, Bye Birdie – TV
You’ve Got Mail – TV
Man on Wire – documentary – Blockbuster rental
The Queen – TV
The Wrestler
About a Boy
– TV
Miracle on Ice – HBO
Annie Liebovitz – documentary – iTunes rental
American Teen – documentary – Blockbuster rental
White Squall – TV

February
The Verdict – TV
Return to Me – TV
Catch Me If You Can – TV
Philadelphia – TV
The Leopards Take Manhattan – documentary – HBO
Soapdish – HBO
Helvetica – documentary – iTunes rental
Nights in Rodanthe – with Dona – Pay Per View
Cheers for Miss Bishop – TCM TV
An Officer & A Gentleman – AMC TV
Taking Chance – HBO movie
The Graduate – TCM TV - This is my all-time favorite movie
The Last Detail – TV

March
The Package – TV
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (terrible musical remake with Peter O’Toole) – TCM TV
Then She Found Me – iTunes Rental
My Dog Skip – HBO
Broadcast News – TV

April
Baby Mama – HBO
The Contender – HBO
This Is Spinal Tap – TV
Bridge on the River Kwai – TCM TV
The Conversation – TV
Rudy – TV
Apollo 13 – TV
Grey Gardens – HBO
State and Main – TV
Prefontaine – iTunes rental

The In-Laws – TV

May
Driving Miss Daisy – TV
The Smartest Guys in the Room (documentary on Enron) – TV
In the Heat of the Night – TV
Mother – TV
Stepmom – TV
Kissing Jessica Stein – TV
Live Free or Die Hard – TV

June
Pal Joey – TCMKick Like a Girl – HBO documentary
The Taking of Pelham 123 (remake)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – TV
Billy Elliott – TV
The Group – TV

July
Last Chance Harvey – rental
Gran Torino – rental - My favorite movie of the year
Paul Blart, Mall Copy – rental
Raising Helen – TV
Away We Go
Just Between Friends – TV
The Sure Thing – TV

August
Julie and Julia
Dave – TV
Running Scared – TV
Good Morning, Miss Dove – TCM (all but the last 2 minutes)
Portrait of Jennie – TCM
Conrack – TV
500 Days of Summer

September

The Family Stone – TV
Delany Sisters: Having Our Say – TV
Far From Heaven –TV
Disturbia – TV
Friday Night Lights - TV
The Secret Life of Bees – HBO
An Affair to Remember – TCM
The Heiress – TCM
Acceptance – TV
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – TCM

October
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – TCM
All the Right Moves – TV
The Remains of the Day – TV
Premonition – TV
Amelia
6 Degrees of Separation – TV
Ali – TV
Always and Forever – Hallmark Channel
A Night to Remember – TCM
Sense and Sensibility – HBO

November
Ballou – documentary rented on iTunes
The Final Season – sports movie on TV
Vantage Point – HBO
The Jane Austin Book Club – TV
All of Me – TV
Schmatta: Rags to Riches (documentary on the garment industry in NY) – HBO
Michael Jackson’s This is It
Invincible – Blockbuster rental
My Blue Heaven – Blockbuster rental

December

Precious
84 Charing Cross Road – TCM
The Blind Side
Birdman of Alcatraz – TCM
An Education
It’s a Wonderful Life – TV
Up in the Air
Planes, Trains and Automobiles – TV
One Foot in Heaven – TCM
Revolutionary Road – HBO
Remember the Titans – TV
Lilies of the Field – TCM

Got a Minute? - January 2010

“I have a quick question.”

Sure, and the check is in the mail.

It’s not so much that the question is long, but I am betting the answer to the quick question will take more than a minute. And a minute is a long time.

Sit with my favorite sister at a soccer game, with her son’s team leading and Brandon playing goal. That last two minutes – when, for some reason, the refs stop the clock but the game time runs, just unbeknownst to the anxious fans – seems like an eternity. So many times we have looked at each other and said, “This game can’t end fast enough.”

Yeah, a minute can seem like a lifetime.

You have no idea how long a minute is until you are waiting for the light to change at Route 206 and Hillsborough Road. How long can it be, right? I don’t know the answer, but, if I am making a left, I bring a book to read (think War and Peace). There is one particular light I hit on my way home from Rutgers basketball games where I am the only person around, in the dark, and I am soooo tempted just to go ahead and make that left on red. After all, no one is coming, and who’s going to know? I can get home a minute sooner, right? Yikes, I can almost hear the sirens just thinking about it.

It makes me nuts when I see people leaving a close game with a minute left on the clock. What do they have to do that is so important that it can’t wait another 60 seconds? Congratulations, you will be sitting in the traffic in the parking lot a full minute ahead of me, I think. Why not just stay and see the end of the game?

The longest two minutes of my day are when the electric toothbrush is working its way through its cycle. I can’t really do much else besides letting it run its course, so I spend that time thinking and solving the problems of the world. By the end of the two minutes I have run out of ideas and have forgotten the solutions I came up with, which shows you how really long two minutes is.

It drives me crazy when I am watching “American Idol” and Ryan Seacrest so cleverly promises to tell you who is going home – after the break. I’m not competing, and still, that break seems to take forever even to me.

Or say you are waiting for the plumber, delivery person or someone else whose arrival is promised in a “window” of either morning or afternoon or four-hour blocks. His/her imminent arrival is predicated on whether you are actually there. Chances of the service person showing up early are greater if you are not home or are racing to get there. If you are home, you know someone won’t show up until the very end of the promised period – if at all.

Try being on hold for the insurance company or the cable company. Every now and then the music is interrupted by a semi-friendly recording says that your call is important and promises that someone will be with you shortly. Meanwhile, I keep the phone on speaker while I pay the bills on-line, sort out the coupons and try to remember the name of Lucy’s neighbor (Mrs. Trumble) or the answer to some other burning question.

Go to the doctor’s office, where you are either the last one in the waiting room or are left in the examination room with no magazines. Time creeps by ever-so-slowly. Once I was so bored that I started taking pictures of the office décor with my cell phone camera. Now I always bring along my own reading material.

Yet, as the song says, “time passes much too quickly when we’re together laughing.” Think about how many times have you been out with friends and suddenly – after what seems like a half an hour – someone looks at his/her watch and says, “Wow, I’ve got to go, we’ve been here for hours.”

Back to the soccer game. If your team is trailing, the time flies by and there never seems to be enough time to get back into the game. The hell with the other goalie’s mom, I say. I don’t want to see this game end!

I guess it all comes down to the fact that I realize that time, especially as I get older, is finite, and I appreciate it so much more now than when it seemed unlimited. I just don’t want to waste it at red lights and holding for insurance people. I’d rather spend it doing things I really enjoy, where the time is worth investing. Time flies when you are having fun, you know.

I realize that I enticed you to read this essay with the inherent promise that it would only take a minute, and you have now realized that it took longer than that. I hope the time flew by and that you loved every minute.