96: Bet you don't have a life either...

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 of these films, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, then, put an x next to any film you've seen, add them all up, change the header adding your number, tag 20 friends and click post at the bottom. Have fun!

() Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
(x) Boondock Saints
(x) Fight Club
(x) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
() Blazing Saddles
(x) Airplane

Total so far: 8

(x) The Princess Bride
(x) Anchorman
(x) Napoleon Dynamite
() Labyrinth
(x) Saw
() Saw II
() White Noise
() White Oleander
(x) Anger Management
(x) 50 First Dates
(x) The Princess Diaries
() The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

Total so far: 15

() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
(x) Scary Movie
() Scary Movie 2
() Scary Movie 3
() Scary Movie 4
(x) American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
(x) American Wedding
() American Pie Band Camp

Total so far: 19

(x) Harry Potter 1
(x) Harry Potter 2
(x) Harry Potter 3
(x) Harry Potter 4
() Resident Evil 1
() Resident Evil 2
(x) The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
() The Village
() Lilo & Stitch

Total so far: 24

(x) Finding Nemo
(x) Finding Neverland
() Signs
(x) The Grinch
(x) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
() White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
(x) 13 Going on 30
() Robots
(x) I, Robot

Total so far: 30

(x) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
() Universal Soldier
(x) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
() Along Came Polly
() Deep Impact
() Kingpin
(x) Never Been Kissed
(x) Meet The Parents
(x) Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
(x) Joe Dirt
(x) King Kong

Total so far: 37

() A Cinderella Story
(x) The Terminal
() The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
(x) Dumb & Dumber
(x) Dumber & Dumberer
(x) Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
() Final Destination 3
(x) Halloween
(x) The Ring
() The Ring 2
() Surviving X-MAS
(x) Flubber

Total so far: 44

(x) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
(x) Practical Magic
(x) Chicago
() Ghost Ship
() From Hell
() Hellboy
() Secret Window
(x) I Am Sam
() The Whole Nine Yards
() The Whole Ten Yards

Total so far: 48

() The Day After Tomorrow
() Child's Play
() Seed of Chucky
() Bride of Chucky
(x) Ten Things I Hate About You
(x) Just Married
() Gothika
(x) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
(x) Remember the Titans
() Coach Carter
() The Grudge
() The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
() Son Of The Mask

Total so far: 54

() Bad Boys
() Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
() Lucky Number Sleven
(x) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Bourne Identity
() Bourne Supremecy
() Lone Star
(x) Bedazzled
() Predator I
() Predator II
() The Fog
(x) Ice Age
(x) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
() Curious George

Total so far: 60

(x) Independence Day
() Cujo
(x) A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
(x) Christine
(x) ET
() Children of the Corn
() My Boss's Daughter
(x) Maid in Manhattan
(x) War of the Worlds
(x) Rush Hour
() Rush Hour 2

Total so far: 67

() Best Bet
(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(x) She's All That
() Calendar Girls
(x) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
() Event Horizon
(x) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
() Big Trouble in Little China
() The Terminator
() The Terminator 2
() The Terminator 3

Total so far: 74

() X-Men
() X-2
() X-3
() Spider-Man
() Spider-Man 2
() Sky High
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
(x) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
() Freaky Friday
() Reign of Fire
() The Skulls
(x) Cruel Intentions
() Cruel Intentions 2
() The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2

Total so far: 79

(x) Swimfan
() Miracle on 34th street
(x) Old School
(x) The Notebook
() K-Pax
() Krippendorf's Tribe
(x) A Walk to Remember
() Ice Castles
() Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old Virgin

Total so far: 84

(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
() Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
() Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost
() Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
() Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Total so far: 86

() Baseketball
(x) Hostel
() Waiting for Guffman
() House of 1000 Corpses
() Devils Rejects
(x) Elf
() Highlander
() Mothman Prophecies
(x) American History X
() Three

Total so Far: 89

() The Jacket
() Kung Fu Hustle
() Shaolin Soccer
() Night Watch
() Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
() Shaun Of the Dead
() Willard

Total so far: 91

() High Tension
() Club Dread
() Hulk
() Dawn Of the Dead
() Hook
() Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
() 28 days later
() Orgazmo
() Phantasm
(x) Waterworld

Total so far: 92

() Kill Bill vol 1
() Kill Bill vol 2
() Mortal Kombat
() Wolf Creek
() Kingdom of Heaven
() The Hills Have Eyes
() I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
() The Last House on the Left
() Re-Animator
() Army of Darkness

Total so far: 92

() Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
() Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
() Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
() Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
(x) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
() Ewoks The Battle For Endor

Total so far: 95

(x) The Matrix
() The Matrix Reloaded
() The Matrix Revolutions
() Animatrix
() Evil Dead
() Evil Dead 2
() Team America: World Police
() Red Dragon
() Silence of the Lambs
() Hannibal

Total so far: 96...... rookie, but I still have no life?

The price is WRONG, bitch!

Hopefully you all remember that line out of Happy Gilmore and I don't sound like a complete ass right now. But I'm banking off your movie knowledge more than my social(-ly acceptable) skills, so I think I'm good, for now.

Anyways, being in France kind of deprived me from American television. Well, not really, since I could watch Friends, Fresh Prince and 90210 dubbed in terrible French whenever I wanted. So let me edit myself and say that I was deprived from current American television. Then again, back here in the U.S. we sort of took a page out of France's socialist mindset and embarked upon months of useless writers' strikes. My mom's conspiracy theory is that the strikes kept building up until the climax and subsequent abrupt termination of the strikes focused all of the media's attention on the 2008 Academy Awards. In short, the strikes were all a sick, prolonged way of promoting the show.

Believe what you want, but when I came back in April I was able to reconnect with my favorite show -- Grey's Anatomy -- in time to see the remaining episodes of the season as well as the season (perhaps series? doubt it....) finale.

But I haven't been watching much more beyond the occasional sports broadcast. (I saw Tiger's dramatic come-from-behind U.S. Open playoff on the final day, as well as the Lakers' EMBARRASSMENT in Boston, slamming the door on the 2008 NBA season. Honestly, that was the least fundamentally-sound basketball game I've ever seen in my life, and I've sat through J.V. and freshman high school games.)

Until today. After organizing many drawers and cabinets throughout my new house, I needed a relaxing television break.

And completely forgot that Drew Carey is the new host of The Price is Right! While he is the same bumbling personality that he was in Whose Line, I'm interested to see if he's going to take on any of Bob Barker's crankiness. Though, that may have been due to his age. So maybe Carey will pick some of that up if he stays on for 50+ years.....

The girls' half of our freshman hall who came out to see a screening of The Price is Right in Los Angeles, posing as the infamous "Barkers' Beauties." Because we had at least 25 people in our group, one of the residents from our hall made it on t.v., while the rest of us has to sit through Bob's crankiness and rude shots at guests during the commercial breaks. It was awesome!

Also, I saw an ad for a new series running this fall called The Ex List. So that pretty much means that the Eva character is no longer going to appear on Grey's Anatomy, because the actress is going to be the main character in this new show. At the end of last season, Eva's character took a total nose dive and I will happily say, "Good riddance" to that storyline.

Oh yeah, and as you can tell: I spent some time last night tweaking with my blog and this is how I think it's going to look from now on out.

...Or until I get bored with it next year.

Oh yeah

I just remembered why I was a lit major instead of film studies...

After receiving our latest Netflix arrival last week -- P.S., I Love You -- I sort of began to organize my room again. It's a really good movie and I'm now kind of on this Hillary Swank kick after seeing Freedom Fighters two weeks ago.


So I kind of organize my little corner of the house little by little -- such a French saying. What, like you'd actually expect the French to take on daunting tasks and set to work on them until they're completed? Right, I knew I was partially French! Well anyways, I began sorting out my books most recently. That was a.) convenient because I only finished reading Suite Française a few hours before and b.) good for me because I'm such a nerd and can't stop reading.

Oddly enough, the books I picked out to read on the plane back to France after spending my February "winter" break in California surfaced to the top of my book stack. The two I picked -- narrowed down from a pile of 18 more specifically -- were Eat, Pray, Love and P.S., I Love You. No wonder the plot seemed vaguely familiar when I was watching the film. Duh, the film jogged my memory back to one February day in Costco, reading the backs of handfuls of book jackets. I'm sure you can guess, I never actually brought those books with me to France because of my limited packing space.

Well, after seeing the movie, I'm nearly halfway done with the book.

And it's a thousand times better than the movie thus far! Even though I enjoyed the movie, the producer/director took a lot of creative liberty in changing up everything from the main character herself to the actual setting of the story.

So I'm interested to see where this will take me. Even more interested to finally get to reading all those books thrown under my bed -- due to the lack of space in my three other bookshelves -- that I've yet to read in my 23 years of existence. Ok, let's be serious here, 19 years of literacy.

Wanna know the funniest part of it all? I've only spent about three to five hours of the past three weeks studying for my GRE test in June. Between reading, friends, movies, working out, church and Wii, I hardly have time to study! And to be truthful, mentally gearing myself up to brush up on high school math and diving straight into practice problems is tiring enough to actually feel like I've been studying for hours.

At least I've already been accepted to UOP by virtue of my job. Hopefully I won't be the first person to score negatively on a graduate entrance exam.

(UPDATED) Hi, make up your mind....

Maryann et moi, holding our beers.

Alright, you've heard me rant and rave about how much I miss home and don't want to stay in France forever. After this weekend, I finally feel like I'm finding my place here. Maybe that sentiment has to do with the recent acquisition of my long-stay residency card, but I doubt it. I think I'm getting more attached because I'm finally going back to the U.S. for a little bit.

Figures...

And now for a brief explanation of this weekend's events: My classes at Juan-Gare FINALLY behaved, all of them, for the first time in the five months I've been here!! I actually gave a damn Friday and got all dressed up because I was not going to the gym after class. When my students saw me, they all told me, "Comme vous êtes belle aujourd'hui!" I honestly hope that was not the reason they paid attention. Especially my CM2 boys, who last time in very vulgar French said something about my chest which I did not want to think too hard about translating.

Anyways after class, I waited for the train in the direction of Marseille, hopped on and took it 20 minutes to Cannes. Then I quickly figured out the bus and took it up to Le Cannet where I met Maryann and Elizabeth. After a brief stop at Casino, we had all we needed to make a big assistants' dinner for about six of us. Bellies full, we then hopped back on the bus towards downtown Cannes (I believe it may have been La Croisette) where I FINALLY enjoyed my first move in France! Well, I'm not sure how much I really enjoyed it per-se, but we did see Sweeney Todd in English. I will admit it was very different and I'm kind of weak when it comes to blood and gore, but it was well done. Maybe it was the wine in me that thought so.... I'm not so sure if wine dinners before the movie theater is such a good idea.


Afterwards, we went to an Irish pub nearby and Maryann and I ordered a Monaco and Demi-Pêche -- light beers with cherry and peach syrup, respectively. You can probably guess WHAT provoked this idea, but we all decided to hurry back to Maryann's and took the 12:30 bus to her place in the middle of a downpour accompanied by thunder/lightning on a mission to make a dark chocolate orange cake from scratch. It was DELISH and I was probably the only one who fell promptly asleep around 3 a.m.

Saturday was pretty lazy -- gosh I wonder why -- but the morning started off well with freshly-cooked French Bread and maple syrup, followed by a big chili lunch with the rest of the chocolate cake. Then I boarded the 3 p.m. train back to Antibes and hit up the gym. Today was pretty lazy again, but Maryann returned the favor when she came to visit me here and I made a reallllly yummy summer salad. I think I'll have to post the recipe later!

But I've been thinking a lot about what I want/should do when I get home. None of the job "offers"/suggestions/thoughts I initially had seem like they're going to be working out. Because of that, I've begun to think more about this whole "travel" thing.

And, though I'll explain more in the future, I'm seriously entertaining the idea of teaching English in a Spanish-speaking country for a (very) short amount of time. Not like what I'm doing here, but possibly on an island or in Central/South America, just until the end of the summer.

Ah, I doubt it'll happen, but it sounds like a neat idea.

Ask me next week what I want to do with my life -- I bet it'll be the eighteenth different response you'll get from me. My flavor of the week if you will...

Goodbye January

I think I may have written a similar post in November.

Either way, today's the LAST day of January and I don't really have anything exciting to say other than I GO HOME IN TEN DAYS!!! That in itself is enough, I think. (For me, the writer at least). It'll have been FIVE months since the last time I was home, in California, the United States, so let's hope I don't get any reverse culture shock in there. Either way, I'm ecstatic about going home for over a week! Please come and visit me :)

Presumably, you, the reader, want more from my post than just that.

Well, then call me a push-over.

In preparation for the unit tests I'll be giving out this/next week, I'm going to post a complete list of everything I've taught my students thus far:

UNIT ONE (October, November):

-Cultural Activity: American names, U.S. geography
-My name is/What is your name?
-Where are you from?
-Family/"I have"
Cultural Activities: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas
-Pets
-Colors
-How are you
-Weather
-Days of the week


UNIT TWO (December, January):

-Body parts/Face
-Adjectives
-Numbers/How old are you?
-Months/When's your birthday?
-Verb Conjugations, yep I'm teaching them how to conjugate: Motion verbs to go with body parts (i.e., to clap, to jump, to touch which leads to a game of SIMON SAYS), to be, to have, to make
-Food/Verbs: to like, to love, to hate
-Clothes
-Cultural Activity: Movies/songs in English after the test
-Cultural Activity: Valentine's Day, though I think this will be for after the vacation, when I'll have conversation hearts from the United States to share in class!!

All things considered, I think the progress here is spectacular, considering how their last English assistant left the program quite a few months early and consequently canceled all English classes during the third and final trimester.

Whatever, it's almost the weekend and I'm going to Cannes to see Sweeny Todd in English! Wish me luck in my first cinematic experience in France :)

...TEN DAYS UNTIL CALIFORNIA!!!

The Silver Screen

This is just a quick update because it's late and I should be getting to bed soon.

Although I'm not really much of one to go out and spend $10 on a movie in the theaters often -- that's what boyfriends are/were for, right?! haha kidding -- it has been quite a while since I've seen any new American movies.

French movies... I don't think I really need to say anything at all here other than they're, um, different.

Anyways, after weeks of seeing the same thing over and over again on BBC and CNN, today was the day my dad decided to go out and purchase a 29 euro DVD player and get a membership to a local movie rental place here in France. And the best part is that they still rent out tons of VIDEO CASSETTES in the back of the store, excellent.

Long story short, I remember hearing about the movie "Hollywoodland" last year in the U.S. and I thought about putting it on our Netflix queue (and no, we can't get American DVDs over here because Europe DVDs and players are on Zone 2, while the U.S. is all Zone 1, or vise versa, I can never remember). We actually rented and watched it tonight. I guess this means that my next step in the whole "film abroad" saga is to actually see a movie in the theaters -- obviously it'd be an American film, because nine out of 10 films here come from the motherland. Dubbed or subtitled, that is the question?


So, we christened my dad's DVD player with Hollywoodland -- a movie loosely based on the investigation of George Reeves' "suicide" in 1959. And oh yeah, he was the first actor who played Superman on television.

Today's entry then, is nothing more than me thinking about this movie out loud. Ok, technically this isn't "out loud" but I'm just working all the weird thoughts out in my head. I'm not writing this because he sometimes reads my blog, but it's funny to me because that movie seemed like the perfect intersection of the two classes I took with Professor Newfield at UCSB: Global California and Detective Fiction. (See, my English degree is getting me somewhere..... right??)

What's more California than Hollywood in all its glitz and glamor during its Golden Age? Maybe the actors themselves, attending what must have been a dizzying amount of cocktail party after cocktail party? But what about taking it a step further and peeking into their real lives, when their luck is so hard-pressed that they're driven to allegedly commit suicide, you know like one of those "Behind the Glory" segments? And then throw in the investigation of a down on his luck, tragically noir "Private Eye" who always seems to stumble across the wrong people at the wrong time....

Honestly though, I'll have to see the movie again. It seems that the director took a lot of creative liberties in working out the details of Reeves' life, love affairs and acting credits just before his death. And while there are many many holes and conspiracy theories surrounding his suicide, the movie itself ends in the very same untimely way that Reeves did: Incomplete and leaving the viewer with loose ends. But like I said, I think I'll have to see it again now that I know that time is not treated in a linear manner and after doing a little bit of research on the actual (known) details of Reeves' life and death. Funny how Reeves happened to be the name of two men who starred as the Man of Steel, is it not?

Either way, it's a very interesting movie that deserves watching. If nothing else, it helped feed my curiosity and fascination with 1950s culture, especially in Southern California.

I really do think I should have been a part of that decade. I just finished reading Eva Rice's The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, a British novel about growing up wealthy and as a part of the newly-developing concept of the teenager during the start of the Rock'n'Roll period. Total swoon. I loved it.

And another random side note, my kitchen will be pink some day. Today at Carrefour, I purchased a bubble gum butter dish to go with my pink polka dot glasses, tea cups, saucers and the pink KitchenAid mixer/blender I will one day own. Good luck finding a husband, right?

Freedom, Beauty, Truth and Love

Moulin Rouge is hands down my favorite movie -- EVER.

And since coming to France, the only movies I've ever seen the network television channels show from the U.S. are these super old and lame '90s flops. Even the t.v. series are at least a few years behind, so why wouldn't the same be true for movies?

I've also come to the conclusion that I'm on my computer watching American shows too much here. Plus with all the writers' strikes, that will soon no longer be a problem. With that in mind, last night I decided to go back to French t.v. and lo and behold, Moulin Rouge was going to be airing at 8 p.m. last night!!

I showered as quickly as possible and prepped myself for this musical/visual treat.

The most bizarre part about it was how they even re-recorded the songs with the French speakers' voices, however they still sang in English. So most of the songs were heavily accented. Besides that oddity, I was quite impressed because the casting was very true to their American counterparts. Whoever was dubbed over Ewan McGregor sang and spoke almost exactly like him, that if he didn't have an accent while singing in English, I could have believed that Ewan McGregor was actually reading off his lines in French. Not the case, but you get the idea.

So yeah, that kind of made my week and now I'm back to downloading Moulin Rouge songs for my iPod. :)

Unrelated: Since it's left over from Thanksgiving, my new favorite thing is French bread and brie with cranberry sauce spread on top! Fantastique!

...35 More Days Until France BANS Indoor Smoking! :)