Manuel on Movies #1

I do reviews all the time, and I often have a hard time coming up with a title for the posts so I am going to start calling all of them the same thing from now on. I know I have done a bunch of them, but I'll start from scratch at #1. It has been over a month since my last review post so I have a bunch for you. I'll start off with the final 2 films I had to see that were nominated for Best Picture before the Oscars.

Atonement - I wasn't looking forward to this at all, but I heard from a couple of people it was decent so I tried to go in with an open mind. Well, that's all it was, decent. About a third of the way through or so, I felt the film had a lot of potential after a big event in the film, but it really didn't go the direction I expected/wanted. In the end, it didn't have the big payoff I wanted and it just kind of died out. 5.5 out of 10.












Michael Clayton - This was actually a pretty decent movie. I don't know why it was nominated for Best Picture though. I mean, it was really no different or better than a good John Grisham adaptation. George Clooney plays a guy who works in a law firm as a fixer and the story revolves around a pretty high end case for the firm. Clooney was awesome in the film and it had some really powerful scenes, but I didn't think it was Oscar quality. Oh well, I still enjoyed it. 7 out of 10










Ratatouille - This was a really cute film, but what else do you expect from Pixar? Not much needs to be said as I am sure you all know it is about a cooking rat. Just know, if you have been a fan of their past films, you won't be disappointed with this one and it comes highly recommended. 8.5 out of 10












The Number 23 - Jim Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with the number 23 after reading a book and then seeing it pop up everywhere in his life. This is a very dark film and Carrey puts in another underappreciated performance as a man going crazy. It has a few twists and turns and is definitely not for the average movie goer. It is simply not straight forward like that and is almost David Lynch like. Not bad at all. 7 out of 10










- The King of Kong - A hidden gem that came out of nowhere. This is a documentary about a man trying to beat the world record for Donkey Kong. Simple enough, right? Truthfully though, this film was so much deeper than that and it is amazing to see all the politics that go into the video game record world. By the end of the film, you are cheering for some and having such hatred for others on par with the greatest of movies. The fact that it is documentary makes it that much more impressive. After I saw this movie, I raved to Jessica about it and told her she had to watch it with me. Thankfully, but not surprisingly, she had the same feelings about the movie. Simply put, I can not recommend this film any higher. Don't worry if you don't like/play video games. The documentary transcends that and it really is about good vs evil. You must watch this film. 9.5 out of 10.

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #15

WHAT IS THIS?!?!?! I am posting my pictures on Saturday? I figured since I came up with the word this week, I better get mine oout on the actual day, plus, I need to name someone. So here are my "perfect" pictures...



The "perfect" pair




Jess getting a "perfect" on Rock Band on Hard. She rocks!



I had a new perfect picture of my dogs from the other night, but it looks like it accidently got deleted. I am pissed. What can you do though...

I haven't done these pics for the last few weeks so I forget who has picked the words lately. So, I apologize if you haven't been picked in a while and I am picking someone who has been picked recently. I pick DMarks to choose our next word. Have fun, man.....

Pier 39 Pictures

As I said last post, last Friday, Jess and I took a friend of ours to San Francisco, or more specifically, Pier 39. There is always good shopping there and it also gives us a chance to eat at the wonderful Bubba Gumps. Here are some of the pictures I took....

Alcatraz across the way





Golden Gate Bridge





The Sea Lions of Pier 39




This is the life




Is that even comfortable?




Cooling off




Just a bird




My Dream Girl

Sorry, sorry

So I have been tagged to do the word of the week for the Scavenger Hunt by Alien. Sorry, I have been out of it for a week. Thursday morning, a friend of mine flew into town and he just left on yesterday so that explains my lack of blogging in that time frame. I would have blogged last night, but I had some other friends over for dinner. That is a totally different story for later in the week. I even had intentions to post some "Hot" pictures for the scavenger hunt. Oh well. I did get some great pics from our trip to San Francisco on Friday. As our friend had never been to the west coast, we figured San Francisco would be a great place to take him. I'll post those probably tomorrow.

But, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting the word of the week and I only have a short amount of time to post at the moment, I give you the word of the week.......

"Perfect"

Have fun with that one and come back tomorrow for the San Fran pics...

Lost Boys 2!!!

One of my all-time favorite movies is Lost Boys. When I heard they were finally filming the "sequel" a while back, I got really excited. Sure, I knew it would never top the original, but when you are so starved for something to follow up that great film, almost anything will do. The trailer for this film arrived today. Yes, it looks cheesy and like any other teenage PG 13 horror film that has come out in the last few years, but I will see it anyways. It could get bad reviews and I would still see it. Hell, you know it is going to be bad because it is going straight to video. But you know what, who cares. It's Lost Boys 2....

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

The new backyard

As I previously mentioned, we had our backyard worked on in the past couple of weeks. Jess and I are NOT yardwork people and our backyard had essentially turned into a pile of weeds that we avoided like the Plague or country music. We spent no time out there because we had no reason to. Well, we hired a landscape company to make our backyard very low maintance and somewhere where we would want to hang out. This is what they came up with...

Yup, I am back

I have returned. So what happened? I just a lot of shit going on that pissed me off all at once. Seriously, I had about a years worth of frustration with people in just under a day and a half on Monday and Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon, I was mentally done. I was emotionally drained and rather than try to pretend to be all jubilant on my blog or spend 3 hourds typing it all out, I decided to take a break. I think the break did me some good. It allowed me not to think of all the crap, rejuvenated me to write, and got me ready for the following week. So I am back and I can't wait to visit all your blogs this evening after I am done working. Tara, I will sending that email out to you today or tomorrow to get your prize out to you. And tomorrow, I will be happy to unveil the pictures of our new backyard! Look for it and thanks for the kind words to those of you who wished me well in my last post. You guys rock....

Fucking Pissed....

Beyond mad right now. Not you, don't worry. Too irate to write and just need some time off. Will be back next Monday....

Contest to end all contests is over

Well, it is now past the Sunday evening deadline for my contest and I have to say, it was not a big success. I am very disappointed to report that I had a grand total of TWO people enter it. One was my former co-blogger Mrvideoguy and the 2nd was your winner, Tara. Tara got 6 out of 10 right which qualifies her for the prize. Tara, I'll be emailing you back for your address to send you your prize. Please visit her blog and give her a congrats. I actually wasn't too surprised at the number of entrants as my readership seems to be going down. What are you going to do...

Since Tara was the winner, I'll pimp her site out even more. Today is Keyser Soze appreciation day on her blog. I sure hope everyone knows who Keyser Soze is, but if you don't, here is a great intro course from the spectacular film, The Usual Suspects.



Really, is there anyone who hasn't seen this film? It really is one of the best of all time in my opinion. The ending? Brilliant. If you haven't seen it, see it now and appreciate the greatness of Keyser Soze.

Got a few things planned this week.

Tuesday - My Saturday Scavenger Hunt pics
Wednesday - Movie reviews
Thursday - Backyard update
Friday - Frightful Dilemma Friday.

Have a good week and again, thanks and congrats Tara!

Trivia Thursday #17

Here ya go. Winner gets a used copy of Con Air on DVD(if they want it). All answers must be emailed to me at pokermanuel@hotmail.com. DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE! Name the movie each screen grab come from. The person that gets the most correct will be the winner. In the event of a tie, the person who emailed it to me first will be the winner. To make it somewhat hard, you need to get a minimum of five correct to win. If no winner, the prize will be rolled over to a contest next week. This contest will end Sunday at 5pm PST/8PM EST. Remember, DO NOT POST ANSWERS HERE! This contest is open to my regular readers/posters. If you have never commented here, sorry...
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Wordless Wednesday #23

Be sure to read the post below on Thursday's contest.

Update on the old lady

Well, the birthday came and went and we had a great time. I mean, it is really hard to complain about having 2 parties. We had a great time at both - Friday night with the friends and Saturday afternoon with the family. What a lucky girl! What did I give my wife for her 30th? Well, my wife has been sleeping with the same teddybear since she was one year old. I decided to take a black and white picture of him and then have it framed at our friend's framing shop. It came out awesome. I don't have a picture of it right now, but I will put it up later this week.

The new pizza place by our house finally opened last week, Pizza Schmizza. It is awesome and in fact, I went there again today for the second time. They have a great variety of interseting pizzas including the yummy steak and red potato pizza I had today. They also have breadsticks which are closer to loaves of bread and you can dip them in some AMAZING alfredo sauce. Overall, I am very happy with this place and will probably become a regular stop.

Today, work started on a backyard which is being professionally landscaped. Bascially, we are not outside yard work people so they are making low maintenance. I'll put up some "before" pics later this week.

Thursday, I am going to steal an idea from Alien and do a contest for a prize. I just bought Con Air on BluRay so I am getting rid of my DVD version, minus the UPC code I am cutting off to get $$ back for upgrading. The winner will get the DVD shipped to them. So that everyone has a fair share, I will tell you when it is posted. It is due to be posted Thursday at 5PST/8 EST. Bring your movie knowledge!

Happy 30th to my beautiful wife!

Yup, my wife is the big 3-0 today! For a few more months, I can say that I am sleeping with an older woman in her 30s! Today, we are having a party here at our house with all of our friends. It will be full of pizza, board games, Wii, Rock Band, etc. Should be a great time. Tommorow, we are having a party with all the family members. So, she gets 2 parties! What more can a girl ask for? I guess not being sick on her birthday would help, but what are you going to do? Happy Birthday, love...

Evil E's Saturday Scavenger Hunt #14

The word last week was "temptation." Here is what I came up with. A few days late like always!

The other day, I was tempted to get myself some new shoes for the first time in 6 or 7 years. As I couldn't decide which color, I bought them both!





That new government check we are all supposed to get tempted us to get a new dining room set. Here is what we bought a couple of weeks ago.




Here is my PS3. I am always tempted to stop my work and come play it as I work from home. Takes will power!




One of my favorite temptations - Poptarts! I hadn't had these in a while and bought them the other day.




Of course, tempting yourself too much with food leads to bad news from this guy...

I just realized as I signed on that I have 666 posts so far. How dare I leave it at that total for so many days!!!!!

First, the answers to the trivia questions as I have yet to post them yet. Although, only a few people took part in the trivia, I guess you still need answers. Kelly #2 bugged me on my Myspace page that I still needed to post the answers. So here ya go....

1. Car Thief/FBI Chemical specialist/Arms Dealer - Nic Cage(Gone in 60 seconds, The Rock, Lord of War)
2. Miami cop/Boxer/Fighter Pilot - Will Smith (Bad Boys, Ali, Independence Day)
3. Football Player/FBI Agent/Hacker - Keannu Reeves (Replacements, Point Break, Matrix)
4. Homicide Detective/Thief/Hitman - Brad Pitt (Seven, Ocean's Movies, Mr and Mrs Smith)
5. Bank Robber/Soldier/Fish Boat Captain - George Clooney (From Dusk Til Dawn, Three Kings/Perfect Storm) Lot of Tom Hanks guesses on this. Was he ever a bank robber - not sure.
6. Driller/Comic Book Artist/Lawyer - Ben Affleck (Armageddeon, Chasing Amy, Changing Lanes)
7. Cop/Child Psycologist/Assassin - Bruce Willis (Pick a movie he ISN'T a cop, Sixth Sense, Whole 9 Yards)
8. Inmate/President/Detective - Morgan Freeman (Shawshank Redemption/Deep Impact/Seven)
9. Model/Nurse/Security Guard - Ben Stiller (Zoolander/Meet the Parents/Night at the Museum)
10. Race Car Driver/Assassin/Truck Driver - Sylvester Stallone! (Driven, Assassins, Over the top)

Thanks to those who played. Have a dispute over an answer you put, please let me know.


And now, random thoughts from this weekend....

I still have to post my Scavenger Hunt pic. I will do it tomorrow Evil E.

Manchester beat Arsenal 4-0 this past weekend. It was beautiful! The day after, we were leaving Best Buy and someone had an Arsenal sticker on their car. I wrote them a note that said, "Glory, glory Man United! 2/16/08 - Man U 4, Arsenal 0." I left it on his car and then parked in the next lane to get his reaction when he came out. When he came out five minutes later, he looked at it intently, then looked around, then shook his head and laughed. This made my day. Is that wrong?

I was at the gym the other day and it has windows in from that face the outside parking lot. There was a girl on the treadmill and a bum walked right up to the window and just stood there for a good 2 minutes staring at her. It was creepy. She just looked away as if she didn't notice him.

I feel like there was more, but what are you going to do? Have a good week everybody.

Oh yeah, my spell check doesn't work for me anymore. What the hell? I click on the spell check at the top of the blogger page and it does nothing. Why?

New Indiana Jones Trailer!

It's up!!!!!

Here it is. If it should get taken down by YouTube, the link to the official site is below....



http://www.indianajones.com/site/index.html

Be sure to check out the trivia below. Try not to look at other's answrs!

Trivia Thursday #16

Well, I guess I won't ve posting as much in February as I hoped! Oh well, it is what is is. Here is some trivia for Thursday. Here are the rules. I am going to name three professions/lifestyles. You name the actor who has played all three types. Example: archeologist/President of the US/smuggler - You would say Harrison Ford. Get it?

Here we go....


1. Car Thief/FBI Chemical specialist/Arms Dealer
2. Miami cop/Boxer/Fighter Pilot
3. Football Player/FBI Agent/Hacker
4. Homicide Detective/Thief/Hitman
5. Bank Robber/Soldier/Fish Boat Captain
6. Driller/Comic Book Artist/Lawyer
7. Cop/Child Psycologist/Assassin
8. Inmate/President/Detective
9. Model/Nurse/Security Guard
10. Race Car Driver/Assassin/Truck Driver

Have fun!

The 5 things that pissed me of last week #14

Wow, I haven't done this since October. That is due more to my laziness to a lack of grumpiness....


#5 - Had the annual Heads Up poker tournament at my house on Saturday. This is something a little different than the regular tournaments we have. A buddy of mine has one it 2 years in a row. We were drawn to play each other in the second round and I was a card away from knocking him out, and he got lucky, took the lead, and went on to win. Boo!!!!!

#4 - Despite a promise to do a post every day in February, I didn't get a chance to this weekend. I should have known better as the first week of every month is the busiest for me every month. I think I haven't visited all your blogs since Monday or Tuesday. It happens every first weke of the month, but I still apologize. It should be bettre again this week now that the usual hell week is over.

#3 - Speaking of work, I have a client who the last 3 months in a row, has asked me to get all her work done the day I get it so she can look it over and hae it in the mail the next day. I have had to set other things aside and one night, evern work until 11pm to finish her stuff for her. Well, I have to get her stuff done right away, but when she tells me she is going to give me a 1099 and I tell her I need it right away, does she do it? NO! I have an appointment to do my taxes tonight and I STILL do not have my 1099. That pisses me off!

#2 - Jessica applied for a new job and got it, but probably won't be taking it. Long story, but she decided not to take it. Anyways, what pisses me off is that when she was considering the job and talking to the new job's benefits lady, she asked her about what % coverage she would get for certain things. The lady turned from nice to snooty instantly and said, "Don't think that you can just come in here and get special favors from us!" Jessica never even had that in the back of her mind and I was very turned off by this. What a bitch!

#1 - As you may have read on my blog last week, it was the 50th anniversary of the Munich Manchester United disaster. Sunday, they commemorated it at the Manchester United game....and they lost. Nice tribute.

Frightful Dilemma Friday #14

Quick post today - haven't done one of these in a few weeks....


Would you rather have a junky front yard that the neighbors make fun of, but the inside of your house is immaculate?


or


A front and back yard that is featured in magazines as being top notch, but you hate the inside of your house for being dated, old, and decrepit.

Google Searches

I promised to do a post every day in February and the day is almost over, so I am going to go with something easy that I have not done a while. What are people searching for to get to my blog? These always make me chuckle. Here are some of the recent ones...


1. ugly peanut super bowl ad don't get it - Ok, so obviously, this was made by someone who didn't get the ad. What was there not to get about this commercial?!?! Ugly lady rubs peanuts on her and it makes her attractive to men. No Encyclopedia Brown there!


2. How long will I live test - I don't ever remember doing this on my blog. Sorry. Why don't you just eat healthy, exercise, etc. and you will be fine.

3. Dog paw tatoos - I don't know how they ended up at my blog, because it is spelled correctly on my blog - TATTOOS!

4. superbowl 2008 minute by minute play - That's right! People come to MY blog for the Super Bowl breakdown! Maybe I have a future in sports writing?

5. nation+Soviet Army+land mines+4300 years - I have never seen someone used a plus sign before in a google search. Interesting...

6. spanking torrent - Ummm...what?

7. American Idol Manuel - Hmmm...am I your next American Idol?

8. zombie ate homework - My favorite! Although, I am sorry whoever clicked on my page to find this. I have no advice on how to convince your teacher this what happened...