Independence Day!

Happy Birthday, America!

Busy Weekend

We had last Thursday and Friday off from school....remnants of the old "Teacher's Convention" of yesteryear.  The convention is gone but the days off remain.  Thursday was slotted as Parent Teacher Conferences, but my team tries to be flexible and hold them mornings and evenings the week before and the week after the Thursday...all to get the day off!

My wife and kids still had school.  The town we live in went through a Teacher's Strike several years ago.  As a result, they missed a lot of school days that year and ever since the calendar has been different from the surrounding districts.

I didn't do much on Thursday as a result of a REALLY late night on Wednesday.  Dinner with my teaching partner and then some late night prowling with my cousin as he waited for a flight to arrive.

Thursday was my wife's birthday.  The kids and I gave her her presents before they all left for the day.

The rest of the day involved a long nap and a re-watching of "Serenity".  The movie grows and grows on me with each viewing.

# 84 on my flickchart list

After picking up the kids and dropping them off where they needed to be, I put an episode of The Mike O'Meara Show on to my iPhone and mowed the lawn.

We had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants that night and then settled in for the night.

Friday was rainy and cold, so we settled in for a mini-film festival.

# 3 on my flickchart list

 

# 34 on my flickchart list

# 240 on my flickchart list

Plans got a bit screwy for our family and I ended up seeing "Looper" by myself.

# 139 on my flickchart list

It is rare these days where I care enough to pay to go see a movie but this one had enough buzz and an intriguing concept.  It is also rare where I avoid all spoilers and can be truly surprised by a movie but I did my best with this one.

I left slightly underwhelmed but it is growing on me in retrospect.  I think I need to see it again at some point. I won't spoiler it for anyone who may be waiting to see it.  Needless to say, if you think this is your sort of movie, it probably is....some action, makes you think, sort of a twist ending....

On my way home, I stopped at one of the few video stores still in business and bought four movies.  One for the kids, two for all of us and one for me.

Saturday involved breakfast out after a few episodes of "Law and Order".  We also played a game of Monopoly.  Nan got kind of bored after an hour and "killed" her player (we don't tend to use the Monopoly pieces....usually there are HeroClix or MiniMates or the like on the board).  We then proceeded to play "Haunted Monopoly".  The rules got weird, but we swapped Nan's figure for a ghost and had to pay "Exorcism Fees" and deal with "Fright Attack" damage.

The night ended with a game of poker.  The Armchair Squid was there and will probably do a better job of writing things up.  There was a LOT of Texas Hold 'Em when I was hoping for a variety of games, but it was a fun night.  I left with about $12 more than I arrived with!

Today's highlight was watching one of our new movies..."Unstoppable".

# 38 on my flickchart

If you've stuck around this long, I'll give you the short version.  I really liked this movie after I first saw it.  It kind of stuck with me.  I'm not so good with the reviews but this was a fun flick.  The characters got established quickly.  The writing was crisp and the interactions were believable.  The story is credible and edge of your seat tense.

Much longer post than I usually do.  I erased and rewrote it a few times but will leave this babbly version.

And I realize I left out so much! Part Two tomorrow?

Final Film Festival Friday: August 3, 2012

As the title indicates, this is the last time I am regularly planning on blogging about the week's movies.  These seem to be popular posts and I have enjoyed the comments here and on some of your blogs.  I'll post about movies and update the flickchart but probably with less regularity.

This week, we hit Redbox to purchase a few flicks and on our way out of town after the golf tournament (using chewing gum to hold the power steering together!) we stumbled across a video store and grabbed a few more!

Currently #34 on my flickchart list.

Currently #73 on my flickchart list.

After watching Captain America recently, I scoured local Redboxes until I found the one selling both of the Iron Man movies.  Both were better than I remembered.  A rainout of our kickball practice last week let us do a double feature!

The video store we found sold us the next three for $21.  Considering Redbox doesn't include the boxes, I might consider this a better deal.  Nan, Haley and I watched Super 8.  The girls liked it, as I had hoped.  I grabbed Three Musketeers for Logan and Mission Impossible to add to my Sunday afternoon lesson planning rotation.

Currently #86 on my flickchart.

Currently #464 on my flickchart list.

Currently #113 on my flickchart list.

I scoured (did I already scour something else in this post?) the shelves for Thor but no luck.  I made Haley ask the boy working if they had any copies for sale and he said no.  Nan tells me I offered to buy one that they was still a rental copy and the kid said yes!  We watched it almost immediately once we got home.  Now we are ALL jonesing for The Avengers upcoming release!!

Currently #31 on my flickchart list.

Blogging From A To Z: I is for...

Iron Man #114

I recently bought this comic EXCLUSIVELY for the semi-bad grammar on the cover.  There is just something about how Iron Man seems to be okay with the fact that SOME of his colleagues are going to die that makes me chuckle....

Hugh Grant Has Severe Doubts About Iron Man's Professionalism

via Topless Robot