I just love a good movie, don’t you?

I am not a film critic or even a movie buff–I miss out on tons of good films and I’m clueless to the hip indie flick scene–but I am a girl from Eastern Washington who likes to be whisked off elsewhere every now and then.  And at no time more than the holiday season, when time and money (or the spending thereof) seem to flow.

Like any narcissistic blogger, I’m going to assume that my opinions here are wanted, or even tolerated.  (Such a cozy bubble we narcissistic bloggers live in.  You should come join me here.)  So, in that vein of self-importance, let me get comfy and offer you the faves and not-so-faves of my 2013 holiday movie spree.  I’ll list them Best to Worst, because that’s easier than alphabetizing them:

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Captain Phillips  See this movie!  See it now!  See it with your hub, because it’s a total Guy Flick, and I promise you will love it too.  Not one frame of this movie is wasted; it’s a tight, fast, smart movie for grownups.  Tom Hanks is phenomenal and that it’s based on a true story just makes it better.  I barely blinked during the whole show; the action is psychological as much as physical.  I give it a king-sized box of Junior Mints!  (With an exclamation point!)

Gravity   See this movie!  See it now!  But on one condition:  you must see it in, and only in, 3-D.  Yes, I know…3-D is cheesy and annoying and championed only by the Disney crowd, but I’m telling you, this movie is beautiful in 3-D.  I am not a fan of space movies or, come to think of it, outer space in general (where does it end?  that seriously freaks me out), but I was enthralled with this film.  Sandra Bullock carries the whole show brilliantly in a tense, woman-against-time pace.  My husband actually liked Gravity better than Captain Phillips, but then again, Gravity had Sandra in a spacesuit, and he is, after all, just a man.  I give it another king-sized box of Junior Mints.  (Exclamation point pending on whether you’re a space geek like the Hub.)

Frozen  You saw it, you loved it, your kids loved it.  The animation was beautiful and the music even more so.  My girls said it was their new favorite Disney movie,  though I still think Tangled edges it out (I’m a sucker for Tangled.  Still makes me laugh.)  I give Frozen a regular-sized box of Junior Mints, only because I’m an adult.  Were I a child, it would get like three king-sized boxes for sure.

Catching Fire  Standard disclaimers about the disturbing violence among children applied, I can now tell you that I thought Catching Fire was fantastic.  I enjoyed it even more than Hunger Games, as it advanced the plot and developed the characters much more than the first film did.  (I’m now actually torn between Gale and Peeta–they’re both so adorably earnest; how do I choose?)  And though I still cringe at the violence (though that obviously hasn’t stopped me from paying money to see it), at least in Catching Fire they’re fighting the arena more than each other, which is a hair less troubling.  I’ve only read part of the book series, but I think the movies are much better, which is rare.  And Jennifer Lawrence?  She deserves all the praise she’s getting.  I give it a regular, albeit fresh and full, box of Junior Mints.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  Ok, this one’s complicated.  First of all, I’m a huge Ben Stiller fan, and I think he gets better with age.  He was engaging and gorgeous (no, really) in this movie.  I loved the plot and setting; a nice but nerdy New York photo tech is looking for the meaning of life and love.  The first half hour is a bit disjointed and awkward, but after that it takes off to a funny, tender, upbeat adventure.  This film is quirky and sweet with a deeply satisfying end. By then, I loved it.  I give it ¾ a box of Junior Mints, only bc I had to eat a few while things got going onscreen.  If I watch it again and love it, I may up the mint factor.  (Depending on your taste in movies, you may like this better than some of the full-boxed movies I’ve listed.  Compared to the blockbusters, it’s apples and oranges.)

The Hobbit 2.  Forgive me everyone, but I just don’t like these movies.  They are long and cumbersome and meandering and every scene in it looks just like the scene before it: brown, brown, brown.  (I know.  I’m deep.)  Two hours and forty minutes of brown, and they still couldn’t kill that freaking dragon?  No thanks.  I actually loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy; so much, in fact, that my sister threatened to buy me a Lord of the Rings t-shirt (a promise she still hasn’t made good on, btw.)  Maybe that’s the problem.  For me, watching The Hobbit feels like watching a less gripping Lord of the Rings all over again.  I’ve already had to witness Viggo Mortensen making out with Liv Tyler; must I also be subjected to Orlando Bloom falling in love with his own elf-babe?  A girl can only take so much. I give it half a box of Junior Mints.

The Book Thief  Did you read the book?  Did you love it?  Then don’t even bother with the movie.  I’m sorry to disillusion those of you who, like me, had great hopes for Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson to bring this haunting and beautiful book to life.  Alas, nope.  The movie is a vague, Readers Digest version of the book, and the Narrator (Death) sounds like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas; all of his intrigue is gone, as is all of the book’s.  The actors did a fine job and the casting was perfect–I could have slurped Rudy through a straw–but the plot was scattered and hugely incomplete.  As a result, the emotional impact of the book came up limp and watery onscreen.  My friend and I decided that, though the movie was sincere, Hollywood should have just left this book alone.  The Book Thief is a cerebral, artistic book, and those don’t always transfer well to film (unlike The Hunger Games series, which is plot-driven and action packed.  I think they, like John Grisham books, make for good movies.)  My chief concern over this movie is that young adults will see it, lose interest, and never read the book. That would be the real pity.  I give it a few stray Junior Mints, rolling around on the floor of the theater and, possibly, found a few days later, smashed in my purse.  (And I’m sorry, Book Thief:   this review hurts me more than it hurts you.)

There you have it, the launch of my career as the next Gene Siskel.  Now, what movies have you seen lately?  What did you like and not like?  And more importantly:  with what currency do you rate them?  I was going to use Bags of Popcorn, like the other critics do, until I found out they’d cost me $14.95 a pop.  Geez.  I’m a film critic, dahling, not a movie star.

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A few weeks ago, I sat in a room full of mothers who shared a common misery:  we all had a dog.

Just minutes earlier we had been chatting happily about the Joys of Our Children at Christmas, but that convo had quickly spiraled down into the Hassle of Our Kids at the Holidays.  This topic naturally morphed into a heated discussion about Kids and Their Dogs–and the mothers who are guilted into buying the second for the first.  We went around the circle, complaining about our respective canines in turn, interrupting each other just enough to point out that each of us was, in fact, faring worse than the others.

“Your dog chewed up your Uggs?  Big deal–mine chewed up my laptop.”

“Your dog pooped on the tile?  Big deal–mine peed on the carpet.”  (Try cleaning that up.)

“Your dog jumps up on strangers?  Big deal–mine sniffs the crotches of strangers.”  (Excuse the vulgarity, reader, but is there any other way of putting it?)

The final consensus among the group was:  My Dog May Be Worse Than Your Dog, But Boy Do We All Have It Bad.  Listening to the collective commiseration, I wondered how, and why, we’d each allowed ourselves to be trapped in this perverse situation.  None of us had ever wanted a dog and yet somehow–though we were the mistresses of our homes and the masters of our destinies–we’d all ended up with one.  Worse still, each and every one of us had been warned, emphatically and repeatedly by our fellow mom-dog-victims, about the demise of a female’s dignity once that key was turned.  Man’s Best Friend?  More like Woman’s Worst Enemy.

So, though we complained bitterly against this new lot in life, we couldn’t say that no one told-us-so.  Many people had told us so, we’d just refused to listen.  Each one of us had been certain, after hearing our our forebears collective tales of woe, that our dog experience would be better.  Our kids’ were more responsible, we’d told ourselves in smug silence.  Our marriages were more functional, our characters more robust.

And, most importantly, [sociallocker id=”9134″]our tenderhearted little tots really really wanted a dog!  Much more, we were sure, than did our neighbor’s kids (who were kind of brats and wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.  Don’t pretend you haven’t thought it.)  We’d list these reasons for our anticipated success–in the politest way possible–to our dog-owning friends, only to hear their standard reply:  Don’t do it.  I’m telling you, don’t do it.  The angrier moms would follow up with, Look at me!  Look into my eyes!  Just look at what that dog has done to me!

We’d then smile and say, Ok.  Well, we’re still thinking about it.  And the crazed and furious friend would roll her eyes, cross herself, and turn and walk away.

And six months or a year or two years later, we’d find ourselves sitting in what was supposed to be a lighthearted womens group but turned out to be an Angry Dog Mom Support group.  Why?  Because we’d refused to listen.  For countless millennia, mothers have been warning other mothers against getting a dog, and for countless millennia, the other mothers have been ignoring them.  Moms Considering a Dog are like reckless teenagers who, heedless of their parents’ wise counsel, need to make their own mistakes.  And make them we had.  And angry we were.

Except for one of us.  Amidst the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, amidst the sound and the fury of having to pretend to be a “animal lovers,” one woman sat, quiet and smiling, on a plush chair in the corner.  As our lamentation eventually exhausted itself, the room became silent and all eyes settled on her.

“What are you smiling about?” We practically yelled it at her.  She responded with the calm  mother-dignity that the rest of us had long since forfeited.

“I” she replied, “have a cat.”

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1.  Learn to use my iPhone.  I mean, the way people under thirty use it.

2.  Order more clothes from Athleta.  My SIL got me a giftcard there and whoa do they have clothes that will make me look totally gorgeous and super Athleta-ic.  I figure just wearing their stuff gets me one step closer to, well, whatever it is I’m always trying to get one step closer to.

3.  Learn the code to the fire safe which resides in my closet and houses all my superduper important, high-powered stay-at-home mom papers.  The code is a jumble of nineteen letters and numbers that I am unable to memorize and will therefore do me absolutely no good in the event of a fire.  Sure, the safe serves as a good storage place for this stuff in the meantime, but I’ve always liked the idea of watching my house burn to the ground with nothing left in the wake of flames but my family and our excellent, responsibly-filled fire safe.  Neighbors will come out of their houses, survey the damage, and then, seeing me standing tall and strong next to my fire safe, will shake their heads and say, “That Jen.  She is always so prepared.”  At this point, to conclude the drama, I really need to be able to open the fire safe.

4.  Stop cringing as more and more people I run into exclaim,

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“Oh, you look just like your mother!”  I am now forty.  It was bound to happen.  (No offense, mother.)

5.  Exercise a little more vanity; i.e., see dermatologist about the increasing number of moles popping up on my face.  Just because they’re flesh-colored doesn’t mean that people can’t see them, and imagine the calamity when these babies turn brown.  (Never mind, don’t imagine that.  Instead imagine me, standing alone in a burning field with nothing but my courage and my firesafe to raise me like a pheonix from the ashes.)

6.  Get to 9 am church on time every week.  Most weeks.  Okay, 90–no, 80, alright, 75–percent of the time.

7.  Get everywhere on time, 75 percent of the time.  This will be a major improvement over my current record.

8.  Hang out more with my girlfriends so I worry less about my kids.

9.  I know that last one sounds selfish, but I swear it works.

10.  Stop swearing.  (See last sentence in #9.)

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