Playin' some baseball

Happy Wednesday. Here's a capsule review (I'm trying to write more concisely these days) about a movie I said I would tell you about...

Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, was an enjoyable look at what goes on behind the scenes in the world of baseball. I’m still not quite sure what was so radical about the “new way” Pitt’s Billy Beane character selected players, as he just seemed to think outside the box a little more often than his scouts and advisors did, but then I’m not a huge baseball expert. I did enjoy that it was a sports movie that was generous in its subtlety and light on simplistic moments of triumph. The skillful, effective balance of heart and smarts helped, too.

Next up, "The Tree of Life", which Netflix should deposit in my mailbox in the next day or so. That should be an interesting one to sum up in a capsule review!

Strange, fun diversion

I really should be working harder to catch all the Oscar-nominated films I haven't seen yet, in preparation for Sunday night's Academy Awards. I did catch "Rango" last night, though, via Netflix. The movie is up for a Best Animated Feature Oscar. Here's the quick little capsule review of the film that I just put up at Amazon...

Gore Verbinski’s Rango, featuring yet another quirky, endearing performance from Johnny Depp, is a funny, engaging good time. I enjoyed its skillful mix of surreal craziness and straightforward narrative, neither overpowering the other. Watch for all the great tributes to Hollywood films of years past (even one or two that starred Depp himself), as well as the most obvious one: The film’s plot, themes, and even its main antagonist are cleverly and playfully taken from the classic 70’s drama Chinatown, minus that film’s violence and weird familial relationships (so it’s okay for the kids). Cool animation and character design, too!

Next up, I'll tell you what I think of "Moneyball", up for a Best Picture Oscar (as well as a few others). Netflix promised me that one for Thursday!

A brief English lesson

No English dictionary has been able to adequately explain the subtle difference between the words complete and finished, at least in a way that is easy to understand.

Some people, in fact, say there is no real difference between complete and finished. However, we beg to differ, and to illustrate our point offer the following:

If you marry the right woman, you are complete.

If you marry the wrong woman, you are finished.

Oh, and if the right woman catches you with the wrong woman, you are completely finished!

All clear now?

More puns

Because we love you, here's another handful of "puns for those with a higher IQ". Some of these are pretty cute. Aren't you glad that the internet is still free and uncensored, allowing for the easy search and re-use of stuff like this? Anyway, enjoy.

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

You get stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

A midget fortune teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.

Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

More to come if you want them. But don't worry, not right away.

Oscar time

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning. Here's a rundown of the nine films that will compete for Best Picture, along with each film's total number of nominations:

Hugo (11 nominations)

The Artist (8 nominations)

Moneyball (6 nominations)

War Horse (6 nominations)

The Descendents (5 nominations)

The Help (4 nominations)

Midnight in Paris (3 nominations)

The Tree of Life (3 nominations)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2 nominations)

I've only seen four of the above films, so I have a little bit of work to do between now and Sunday, February 26 (when the Oscar ceremony will air on ABC) if I want to see all the films nominated for Best Picture. But it'll be fun work.

Goin' to the movies

To mark tomorrow's announcement of this year's Academy Award nominations (this year's nominations of last year's films, to be more precise), below is a list of all the movies I saw in theaters last year. I saw 31 movies on the big screen in 2011, up from 27 in 2010 and 27 in 2009.

It's nice to know that my beloved movie-going habit is still alive and well, and even growing a little, despite the responsibilities of life, the ever increasing price of movie tickets, and the fact that it's just getting more and more comfortable to watch movies at home.

It's also pleasing to know that I enjoyed every movie I saw, and that I would give all of them a good, very good, or excellent rating. Maybe I'm too easygoing and/or forgiving, but there wasn't a stinker in the bunch.

Anyway, in case you're curious, here's a peek at what movies I ventured out to see last year and what I thought of them:

Movies I saw and thought were perfectly good: The Green Hornet; Battle: Los Angeles; The Lincoln Lawyer; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Cowboys and Aliens; Horrible Bosses; The Thing; and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Movies I saw and thought were very good: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (in Real-D 3D); X-Men: First Class; Super 8; Midnight in Paris; Green Lantern (in Real-D 3D); The Help; J. Edgar; Breaking Dawn, Part One; and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

Movies I saw and thought were excellent: The King's Speech; The Fighter; 127 Hours; True Grit; Thor (which I saw in both Real-D 3D and Imax 3D); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (in Real-D 3D); Captain America: The First Avenger(in Real-D 3D); Rise of the Planet of the Apes; Warrior; The Descendents; Hugo; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; and The Adventures of Tin Tin (in Imax 3D).

Feel free to chime in with your two cents about any of the above. It would be fun to hear what some of you guys think of last year's movie fare.

Fun in the pun

To mark the return of active posts after our brief hiatus (hey, we all need a little down time, right?), as well as to perk up this grey January Monday (well, it's grey here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, anyway), here are a few little items which I'll simply call "Puns for those with a higher IQ". Because, that's all of you, right?

A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

Shotgun wedding: a case of wife or death.

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Dancing cheek to cheek is really a form of floor play.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.

What's the definiation of a will? It's a dead giveaway.

She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

Pretty cute, huh? Gotta love the things you find in the various nooks and crannies of the internet. Anyway, stay tuned. I'll drop a second handful of clever little puns on you in a little bit.