Movie Review: Henry Poole Is Here....or not

i think a better suited title would be...Henry Poole is Gone. Henry Poole Should Not Be Here. Henry Poole is Full of Angst. or something like that. haha...um so here's the scoop. i was going to go to a movie today with my mom...got the showtimes screwed up and we ended up not being able to go. instead, we hopped on over to redbox to grab a movie, and on my tip, decided to get Henry Poole is Here. i had seen the trailer a while ago and then put it on my Netflix list...so i figured it'd be good. it was under the comedy section, so thumbs up right?

no. thumbs down. haha. it was the first time i haven't liked a movie in a long time. normally i enjoy the movie, no matter what it is. seriously. and this was a dud. i mean, it was exactly horrible. but as my mom put it..."that was the strangest thing i've seen since Vanilla Sky." and we all know Vanilla Sky was weird. really weird.

so back to the movie i just watched. stars Luke Wilson. its not really a comedy. i mean...there's funny stuff, but mostly its dramatic and depressing. and i don't think he pulls it off. there's a lot of close up shots of him pining and crying and looking pensive with really thoughtful background music. there was at least 5 entire songs in the movie. that's a lot of songs to play in their entirety. and the concept is this...Henry Poole (Wilson) decides to change his life at his doctor tells him that he is going to die really soon. he moves to a new house surrounded by friendly neighbors. one of which finds the image of Jesus on Henry's outside wall. and then people come to stare at it. they think miracles happen because of it. and Henry is just upset and angsty about the whole thing because he is dying.

its a downer. i told my mom a number of times i think Ryan Gosling would have been much more suited for the part. he could pull off that brooding, wounded stuff in a way that wouldn't make me think its over the top. and no...its not just because he's hotter.

anyway, just thought i'd warn you before you happened to accidentally rent it. hopefully i'll have better luck tomorrow. my mom and i are going to see Sunshine Cleaning with my bff Amy Adams.

this cracks me up

i was just telling min...now i feel super lame about my blog posts because they are about things that i think are funny/cool/whatever, but other people might think they are lame. traveling around Europe is not lame to talk about. this is...

so was just checking up on some of the sights that i used to peruse and i decided to hop on "Twilight Guy." i'm sure most of you have heard of the Twilight books...if not, um...look it up? lol. i don't know. its pretty big. so anyway, this guy Kaleb has his own site about how he reads the four books. he posts sort of analysis about each chapter as he goes along. its basically like, yes, i am a guy and i read these books and they aren't that bad. plus he's a writer. and i find him to be incredibly funny.

anywho, when i peeked on the site today, it seems he's started a new thing. first of all he has all these little bits he does. video blogs. normal posts. reoccuring...idk what you'd call them...um columns? for lack of a better word. so he has a new one now called "What R U Saying?" which is taking some of the more hilarious parts of all the hate mail he gets from people and posting on his blog. here's how he actually describes this:

What R U Saying: I’m not as stong as emmet (or the jo bros)

- April 11th, 2009 at 11:14 pm by Kaleb Nation -

Due to a recent influx of messages from your typical village idiot, I’ve decided to put my hatemail to good use and entertain my readers with it. I receive so much hilarious hate that I can no longer keep it for my own selfish amusement. Feel free to attempt counting and/or translating each of the mistakes:

and i have to say i find them extremely funny. i was laughing so hard at these. i'm going to screenshot some of the better ones and put them in below. but anyway...the guy just has an interest so he started this site, and now all sorts of Twilight fans...and no fans, are writing into him and being jerks. i'm glad he's got a sense of humor about it. seriously. so here are some of the more amusing "What R U Saying?" posts...

I have a new phone. And i am posting this blog from it right now. Woot.

Just wanted to test it out. I'll try to give you guys a better update later.

...and i'm back

the trip home was...interesting? lol. idk. i am not one for traveling that takes a long time. i remember as soon as i stepped off the plane in Florence i thought "thank god, i don't have to do that again for three more months."

our first flight out of Florence wasn't too bad. we were in the smallest plane known to man as well. haha. it was two rows an aisle and then two more rows. and then we landed in Munich, had a three hour layover, and then got on the plane to Chicago. that flight was so much better than the long flight we took to get to Florence. the plane was way nicer and they had this great movie selection where you could play any of them that you wanted, and not just watch them as scheduled. it was awesome. i watched three movies on the plane tv and then one of my own, so the time pretty much flew by (no pun intended).

and then of course in Chicago, our flight to MN got cancelled. this woman who was rechecking in baggage after customs told Spencer, who was in line in front of me, and i didn't believe her. but she was right of course. so we had to haul all of our luggage to another terminal and stand in a huge line for an hour before we figured out that we had been rescheduled on a flight for the next morning at 8am. all i wanted to do was get home. i seriously considered calling someone from Winona and begging them to just come and get me. idk. it was just something about being so close to getting there, and then not being able to get back until the next day. but, anyway, it didn't end up too badly.

we got our bags rechecked in and they gave us a voucher for a discount on some hotels, so me and a couple of other people split a room and just crashed. got up at 5am, headed to the airport, and eventually got on the plane. and i loved the pilot of this plane because he just booked it. 50 minutes and we were in the cities. so awesome.

and now i'm home. things are too strange. i mean, i feel sort of stupid saying things to my friends like..."well, when i was in Italy..." haha. it sounds so superior, when i don't mean it to be. and i know they don't care. but it'll take some getting used to. just like the fact that everything here is huge. there is so much room. everyone obeys traffic laws. and i can eat whatever i want. lol.

okay, well i just got up, and i feel like there are a couple things i should really do today, one of which is trying to find a cell phone. so i'm gonna get on it.

half over

with two finals down i feel a little better. i can definitely tell that my stress level has gone down. whoo. my literature final was this morning, and i don't think it went too bad. actually not bad at all. plus we got our grades for our oral presentation and i got an A. sweet.

then i just got out of my art history final which was insane. i was really nervous about it. and i think i did alright. we had to do 10 short ids...which is seeing a picture of a painting/sculpture/etc and then saying who did it, the title of it, the date, what its made out of, and where it is. then 2 long ids, which is the same thing, but then we have to give at least four characteristics of the painting...so more in depth stuff. a couple of comparison and contrasts of paintings, multiple choice, and vocab. and its over now! lol. i will say that i feel pretty smart about art now. and i loved the teacher.

all that's left is my culture class final today at 3:30 and the my italian one tomorrow. the culture one will be a joke. we have to write 20 lines on three different topics...that she already told us about. so that'll be fine.

tomorrow night we have a farewell dinner with everyone from our program, the CAPA staff, and our teachers. i'm looking forward to it. its a resturant i haven't been to yet, and it'll be a nice way to say goodbye to everyone. and extremely weird. although i don't feel like i've made a million lifelong friends, i do feel like i got to know people pretty well, and that we'll at least be able to carry on a conversation if i see them later in life. haha. and kelly and i are pretty close. she invited me to come to her lake cabin in May, which is really sweet.

as for the rest of the weekend, friday is devoted to packing and cleaning. i'm about half packed right now. and we've got to get our apartment back to the state it was in when we showed up. however, i am going to also make one last stop at the San Lorenzo market on friday. so it won't be all work that day. and saturday we head to airport at 8:30.

anywho...its cram time. maybe i'll post one more before i head out on saturday. later.

summer movie list 2009 edition

i love movies. i think most of you know that. so basically every so often i go onto Yahoo's movie page, and get to the trailer page, and sit and watch all these different movie previews. and since i haven't done that in months, i went on the other day and found a bunch of movies that i want to see when i come back. maybe you'll be interested in some of them too (underlined titles = links to movie preview)

May

1. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - May 1st, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Gardner. yeah, i know Matthew MacConaughey in a romantic comedy, how suprising right? but it looks cute. and i like jen gardner.

June

1. Away We Go - June 5th, John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. john krasinski...enough said. haha, no i really do think it looks funny. and its got some heart.
2. The Proposal - June 19th, Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock, odd pairing that has to get married. hilarity ensues.
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - June 26th, Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, and Rainn Wilson. do i need to say more? i'm excited for Rainn's cameo.

July

1. Public Enemies - July 1st, Chrisitan Bale and Johnny Depp. this looks cool. and old school bank robber and the guy that tries to catch him. lots of running and guns.
2. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - July 17th, Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. i don't know if i need to explain this. its sort of given since i've like the other ones. and the fact that sam 1 is possibly interested in going to this means it must look amazing. (p.s. this is the new trailer)
   
3. 500 Days of Summer - July 17th, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zoey Deschanel. another romantic comedy that won some inidie film awards i believe.

so it looks like i'll be giving the movie industry a good chunk of change this summer.

speaking of spending money...my poor iPod had not been the same since its "malfunction" so it looks like i will be perusing the options for a new iPod this summer. which honestly, i'm not too upset about. haha. okay...class.

ugh.

yeah. that's all i have to say right now. i am interuppting the previously planned movie to post to bring you these dismals words.

italian class sucked today. completely sucked. obviously we have finals this week...so we're reviewing. we went around the class doing different exercises and every time i got mine wrong. every time. actually one time i got it right, but it was a sentence where i had to give two answers, and i got the next one wrong. ugh. and i could tell my teacher was just getting so upset at me. like "how come you don't know the simplest stuff?"

i mean, she even tried to break it down for me, and everything i answered then we even wrong. oh god. it was horrible. i am not kidding you, i almost started crying right there in class. speaking italian when the situation calls for it is one thing, but being in class and learning it is like the most difficult thing i've ever done. i'm not kidding, i would take a math class over this class any day. well, actually that's not true, because i do like the class, and i like learning it, but i'm not good at it. what i'm saying is, i would do better in a math class than this class...and that's saying something. its like hitting my head against a wall every time i go in there. and every time i leave, i feel as thought my brain has had the biggest workout in the entire world. literally like my head is tired of thinking. haha. well...it'll be over with in a few days. so i suppose that's good.

i don't have any exciting pictures to put up from this weekend. i went out to dinner on thursday night, and then for the most part, just stayed in all weekend. i watched a lot of movies. maybe that's sort of lame. lol. um...let me think, there was Atonement, Just Like Heaven (not that good), Benny and Joon (its okay), The Dark Knight, and Wedding Crashers.

i've got about half of my stuff packed up i'd say. i am crossing my fingers that my suitcase will be less than 50 pounds. although i feel as though i have a pretty good shot. and i'm going to sort of stuff everything in there that i can, and leave my backpack a bit empty so that if it is, i'll just pull a couple things out no problem.

okay, enough about my packing. iTunes gave me the perfect song this morning, so i'll share it with you. its called "Non-Believer" by La Rocca. this is not a video for it, someone just put it up on YouTube with a picture for the whole song, so you can just listen : )