Movies of 2009

1. Slumdog Millionaire – Tim and I are perhaps the only people who did not enjoy this movie. I really liked the concept, and I thought it was clever to tell his story by flashing back to the times when he knew the answers to the questions on the game show, but I didn’t find the movie as a whole to be particularly praise worthy. I felt that they didn’t develop Latika enough – We knew he was in love with her and would do anything for her, but she didn’t seem wonderful enough for all of his feelings. And I really could have done without the dancing in the credits.

2. The Wrestler – One of the best movies I’ve seen in awhile. Even though it was so well done, I don’t think I could watch it again because it was so depressing. However, the fact that it was depressing made me like it, because it felt very real. Mickey Rourke was amazing and I still maintain that he should have won the Oscar over Sean Penn for Milk. I liked Milk a lot, but I wasn’t a huge fan of Penn’s acting.

3. Coraline – I can’t believe this is a kid’s movie, but I really enjoyed it. I saw it in bits and pieces that added up to seeing the whole movie, but sometime I need to sit down and watch it straight through (it was playing on tv while we were on the cruise). Dark, twisted and visually interesting to watch.

4. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – I think it says something that I knew exactly what was going to happen, yet I still found myself crying like a little girl when Dumbledore died. The special effects were beautiful, the directing perfection and every scene played out exactly as I hoped it would. Makes me very eager to see the next two movies.

5. District 9 – I went into this expecting just an action movie, and I was very pleased when it wound up being more than that. I thought some of the character choices were stupid (I’d give examples, but I don’t want to spoil it) , but I’m willing to overlook it. Once again, it was a movie that was difficult to watch, but well done.

6. Whip It – Disappointing. Most of the characters were underused and underdeveloped, and I still feel like Ellen Page is playing a little too close to Juno. There are a million love stories out there, but there aren’t too many about groups of women who kick ass and take names. I wish the movie would have focused on the latter and skipped the former altogether.

7. Away We Go – It was predictable, but ultimately a good movie. I thought both of the leads were very good and gave performances very different than what they typically do (The Office, SNL). John K. was quietly hilarious and loved the running gags of him trying to elevate the baby’s heart rate. The music was also quite good.

8. Up in the Air – I was not impressed in the least. Going into it I kept hearing how wonderful the writing and acting were, but I was underwhelmed by both. I thought the actors were well-cast and they did their best with the material that was given, but I didn’t really enjoy the film. I’d go into more detail, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone.

Books I Read in 2009

Overall I read 65 books in 2009, some of them repeats, some of them loved, some of them hated. Here's how they break down:

Books That I Loved
1. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
2. Columbine by Dave Cullen
3. The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
4. A Little Love Story by Roland Merullo
5. Along For The Ride by Sarah Dessen
6. Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
7. Belong To Me by Marisa de los Santos
8. The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
9. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
10. The Penderwicks on Gordon Street by Jeanne Birdsall

Books I Had Previously Read But Read Again
11. Girls in Trouble by Caroline Leavitt
12. Sickened by Julie Gregory
13. Coming Back to Me by Caroline Leavitt (this one I didn't realize I had read till I was 20 pages in)
14. Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
15. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
16. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
17. Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty
18. Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty
19. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
21. The Saving Graces by Patricia Gafney
22. The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
23. Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty

Books That Were Okay
24. The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman
25. More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss
26. Things I Want My Daughters To Know by Elizabeth Noble
27. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
28. The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson
29. Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
30. Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Luts
31. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
32. Goldengrove by Francine Prose
33. Tricky Business by Dave Barry
34. What Do You Do All Day? by Amy Scheibe
35. The Finishing Touches by Hester Browne

Books That Had Little Substance But I Liked Anyway
36. The Home For Wayward Supermodels by Pamela Satran
37. Murder 101 by Maggie Barbieri
38. Extracurricular Activities by Maggie Barbieri
39. Quick Study by Maggie Barbieri
40. Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston
41. Sleepless Nights by Sarah Bilston

Books About Library Cats That Made Me Cry
42. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

Books That Had a Good Premise But Failed
43. Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
44. Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark
45. Leap Day by Wendy Moss
46. And Sometimes Why by Rebecca Johnson
47. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
48. I Just Want My Pants Back by David J. Rosen

Books That I Liked Until the Ending
49. Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty
50. Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian
51. The Every Boy by Dana Adam Shapiro

Books I Don’t Remember The Plot Of
52. The Perfect Elizabeth by Libby Schmais
53. Best Friends by Martha Moody
54. Starting Out Sideways by Mary E. Mitchell
55. Killer Heels by Sheryl J. Anderson

Books That Didn’t Suck But Weren’t Great Either
56. Girl Talk by Julianna Baggott
57. Quality of Care by Elizabeth Letts
58. Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
59. Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
60. Talking to the Dead by Helen Dunmore

Books That Just Sucked
61. The Soul of Medicine by Sherwin B. Nuland
62. What I Did For Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
63. What You Have Left by Will Allison
64. Post Grad by Emily Cassel
65. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult

Laura's TV Round Up 2009

The only show I liked consistently this year was Modern Family, so I'm just going to break this down by episodes of shows I liked in 2009.

1.ER, “And In the End…”
I’ve already commented on this episode back when it first aired, so I’ll just say I was pleased with this finale and leave it at that.

2. Grey’s Anatomy
“Elevator Love Letter”
This was the episode where Izzie finally got treated for the brain tumor (and no appearance by GhostDenny, which was fine in my book) and also featured the Owen-Cristina break up and the Meredith-Derek engagement. Very good acting and plot advancement throughout. Even though I currently hate Izzie, Owen and Cristina are back together and Meredith and Derek never actually got married, this is still a good episode.

“Now or Never”
This was one of the best season finales that I’ve seen and left a lot up in the air with the possible deaths of Izzie and George. Unfortunately, some of that was ruined by releasing the fact that TR Knight was leaving the show, but the episode is still a great cliffhanger. And it didn’t hurt that Knight looks killer in an army uniform. Even though I do not like the decision to kill off George (I still maintain he should have been fired during the merger or actually joined the army), I think this episode’s reveal was done well.

“I Saw What I Saw”
This was the episode centered around the series of mistakes that led to a patient’s death. It was the only episode of this fall that I could watch repeatedly and still like.

3. Glee, “Pilot”
This was the one that started it all. There weren’t too many big numbers, but I loved the energy behind it all. Most people watched it when it first aired back in the spring, but I didn’t get on the train till a week before the next installment (in the fall), which I was thankful for because this episode left me wanting to see more.

“Sectionals”
I had my qualms about it (see TV round up, week 12), but this episode is what the show is all about. I don’t agree with the concept of having a fall finale and waiting till April to see the next episode, but if you’re going to have a finale, this is the way to do it.

4. Scrubs, “My Finale”
It’s somewhat cheapened by the fact that the show continued, but if you look at what this was originally intended to be, it’s the perfect finale for these characters. JD’s encounters with Dr. Cox and the Janitor were spot on and his mental image of his patients lined up in the hallway to send him off was a nice touch. I thought it was nice to have the viewers decide if JD’s life lived up to his final fantasy at the end. Why didn’t the show just end on this high note?

5. Modern Family
“The Bicycle Thief” and “Run for Your Wife”
I’m grouping both of these episodes together because I know I’m one of the few people here who watches this show. I’m just saying, watch this show because it is hysterical and one of the only programs I have found to be consistently good this season.

6. HIMYM
“Three Days of Snow” and “The Leap”
I’m grouping these together because I’m feeling lazy. Three Days was more Lily-Marshall centric and while somewhat sappy, was exactly what this show is all about. The Leap was more Ted centered, showed a lot of progress in getting to the mother, and featured Ted fighting with a goat. What more could you ask for?

Laura's TV Round Up, Week 12

1. HIMYM – I thought the Maggie character wouldn’t have made a bad mother, but it was clear from the start that she wasn’t going to pan out. Still, I like the direction the writers seem to be taking, which is having Ted go back to that romantic, I want to get married person he was in the first season. I understand that he needed to go away for awhile after the whole being left at the altar incident, but it’s good to have him back. Once again, I really feel like they’re writing episodes with good premise but the actual follow through is somewhat lacking. I don’t mind Barney’s overall challenge, but most of Robin’s farmer jokes fell flat. I loved teenage Marshall, but felt like that storyline should have been in an episode that could have giving it more screen time. I sometimes feel like Robin is a character that they alter with time to suit their purposes – Robin of past would have had no problem keeping Maggie’s suitor away...Or at least would have done a way better job flirting with him than she did. And speaking of Robin, what happened to the coworker she met a couple of episodes ago (when it was implied that she’d have a serious relationship with him in the future)? Licky boom boom down.

2. Scrubs – I missed the beginning again, but there were definitely some laughs in the episode. Maybe I’ll catch an entire episode next week and be able to give an actual opinion.

3. Modern Family – Still not a very big fan of the voiceovers at the end. Voiceovers always seem like cheating to me; unless you’re revealing a character’s internal dialogue (Scrubs is an example because all the mental images come to life wouldn’t work without narration, but even they take it too far at times); it seems to me that if you’re writing well enough, the actions of the story itself should be able to make the ending, not a paragraph read by a person off screen. I think I’d be okay with it on Modern Family if they made someone being interviewed saying it (even then, turn down the sappy sweet), but as a voiceover, I just don’t like it. But aside from that, I really enjoyed this episode. The best part was Fred Willard as Phil’s dad...I don’t think there’s ever been better casting than that.

4. Glee:

- If you want us to be concerned when the other schools are stealing their songs and they have to rush at the last minute to come up with something else, don’t show them practicing approximately 11 billion songs throughout the season. There is no way they needed to do “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” when they’ve done eight hundred other things.

- That song always reminds me of House, so it was weird to see it on a different Fox show.

- I do not believe all of those people keeping the Quinn-Puck secret. Okay, maybe Santana because she wanted Puck to himself and Brittany because she’s really too dumb to know better, but you cannot tell me that Kurt would have resisted an opportunity to break Finn and Quinn up.

- I’m very happy with the secret being out in the open, but wish it wouldn’t have been done two seconds before sectionals. Finn as the hero swooping in at the last second didn’t do much for me. Probably because I’m not a huge fan of his, but it felt more contrived than this show usually does.

- I feel like the writing for Sue has been a little sloppy in the last few weeks. Jane Lynch is still bringing it, but the lines she’s been given aren’t as wonderful as they were earlier in the season. That being said, I loved her telling Figgins he had no proof of anything.

- I would love to see Sue on vacation terrorizing people in the tropics.

- Loved Will’s reactions as he listened to the club through the phone.

- I like the idea of Emma and Will together, but I’m still a little bugged by the fact that they both had feelings for each other while Will was still with his supposedly pregnant wife. I want to like them more than I do, but that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The scenes with them together were very good.

- Emma’s wedding dress reminded me of one of the dresses my sister designed/made while she was in college.

- I think it’s incredibly stupid of the producers (or whoever makes these decisions) to have the show off the air until April. I think it would have made sense to stretch the episodes out, maybe finish them up in February and then take a month or so off. But taking over three months off when you have a loyal fan base willing to watch the show? Don’t give me that American Idol is going to be on bullshit – You can find somewhere else in your schedule for it, and I actually think pairing the show with American Idol makes some sense (get me straight: I loathe American Idol, but I understand that the same people who watch Glee might also watch the Ryan Secreast tool/douchebag hour). I’m considering giving the producers a kitty cat and then punching them in the face.

Intestinal Paranoia

I’ve decided that there should be a rule that if you’re exposed to an illness, you should know whether you’re going to get sick or not. Tim has stomach flu vs. food poisoning (and while we’re at it, can we find a way to better distinguish between these?) and I’ve been nervous since Monday morning. Every time I burp or my stomach twinges (which is quite often, especially considering the whole IBS thing), I’m convinced that I’m getting sick. I don’t want to be sick at all, but if I’m going to be, I’d like to know when and where. If someone could say, “Laura, you’re going to want to be in the vicinity of a bathroom around 1 pm on Wednesday,” I would at least be somewhat relieved. I’d know that I should get any vital tasks done right away and take the day off. And if someone were to say, “Laura, this whole thing is going to pass you by, go ahead and eat that enchilada,” even better.

Not that I currently want an enchilada. My appetite went down a couple of hours before I got the fateful stomach flu vs. food poisoning phone call and it hasn’t quite returned. My appetite does this from time to time, so I’m left wondering if this is (a) normal, (b) started off normal and has been perpetuated by the intestinal paranoia, (c) is a mild form of what Tim has, or (d) is the beginning of what Tim has.

I think this is the only time when it’s acceptable to wish that your husband had food poisoning.

This is what flu anxiety does to you. That’s why the illness rule needs to come into effect. I’m not asking for information about life threatening conditions, I just need to know if my stomach really hurts or if it’s just my brain talking.

Laura's TV Round-Up, Week 11

1. The Amazing Race – I usually don’t watch it because it annoys Tim and I don’t like watching it online for some reason, but I caught some of it this week. I came in on the part where they were doing the word jumble, and I solved it in about three seconds. I cannot believe the Globetrotter team took a four hour penalty because they couldn’t figure it out. He knew the first letter was “F” and there were only four other letters, so he should have just kept trying combinations till he worked it out, because doing that would have had to take less time than four hours.

2. House – I know I said I was done, but HIMYM was in reruns, I had a screaming headache and I just wanted to stare off at something familiar. Only problem with commenting on this episode is that I missed about 10-15 minutes in the middle when I was picking Tim up from class, but I still thought the episode was pretty decent. I think the reason I enjoyed it was because it didn’t center around House, and as evidenced by previous posts, I am sick of socially retarded, friendship bashing, relationship screwing, no moral compass, woe is me I’m in so much pain and no one likes me but wait I don’t care but wait I do care, oh wait that reminds me of something that ultimately leads to my patient’s diagnosis at 8:51 House. Wilson I like. Wilson I can deal with right now. But what’s up with characters on medical shows donating part of their liver? Robert Sean Leonard couldn’t possibly have a pregnancy to hide like Ellen Pompeo.

3. Scrubs – I can only comment on the first episode and the first five minutes of the second episode, but I’m still a little torn on this. The episode that was supposed to be the series finale was so strong that having episodes to follow it (especially with JD back) almost feels cheap. That being said, it was better than I thought it would be, though I’m curious if they ever explained the absence of the other characters – Carla, the Janitor, Ted, etc. Did they even say what Elliot was up to aside from being pregnant (and I wonder if they would have put that in if the actress wasn’t pregnant in real life....at least they didn’t make her donate her liver to someone). I was happy with the return of “Guy Love” and I was really excited to see Wendell of the Miller High Life being a security guard catching JD as he fell out of a tree. I loved those commercials, and I loved him even more when he showed up to a 2007 Indians-Red Sox playoff game with a sign that said “Living the High Life with Wendell and the Tribe”. In short, I think I’ll watch another episode or two and see how I feel.

4. Glee – I really liked what was going on in this episode plot-wise, though I wasn’t a huge fan of the majority of the music used in this episode. The exception to that was the use of “Smile” at the end, because it’s been a favorite of mine for a long time. I really liked that while everyone was smiling and happy in the yearbook photo, it wasn’t a happy ending. I feel like too many episodes have put a smiley face stamp on the end of them by just saying “here’s the Glee kids singing an upbeat song even though nothing’s really resolved,” so I appreciated there being a little bit of depression in the air. Other thoughts:

- Thank goodness at least one of the lying pregnancy storylines has been resolved. I was afraid Will was going to buy yet another lie from his wife and was pleasantly surprised when she was revealed. I understand what Emma was saying to defend Terrie and that she wasn’t condoning what she had done, but I still don’t think Emma’s come so far that she would say that. I’m really afraid Will still winds up with his wife, at least for awhile.

- Finally we can see a little bit of a pregnancy belly on Quinn. If she was far enough along to know it was a girl like five episodes ago, she really should have been showing back then. I really hope the Puck as a father reveal happens next week. Please.

- I like the whole idea of Will not being able to go to sectionals with them. But I hate that there were a few possible outs – For one, Quinn could have revealed Sue and screwed the yearbook photo altogether. Two, Will could have just paid for the mattress he slept on. There’s probably a third out, but I don’t want to waste more brain power on a tv show right now.

- Sue yelling “it’s over” in Will’s face was a little too typical villain for me. Like she should have been twirling a mustache or something.

5. Monk – I’ve only seen a handful of episodes, but for some reason I felt compelled to watch the series finale. And it was awful. The pacing was horrible, the revelation of the killer happened too soon, the “twist” was obvious, and there was a new song by Randy Newman. Which means it was every song by Randy Newman with new lyrics. Not to sound like my husband, but that reminds me of those two sketches from Family Guy...which I’d link to if they hadn’t been taken off of You Tube. That somehow makes me even more pissed at Monk.