Movie Review: Ratatouille

Summary: Pixar movie about a rat cooking.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review: Pixar can not go wrong. They continue to have great movies with Ratatouille. Once you can get past the creepiness of having a rat in the kitchen, this turns out to be another hit from Pixar. If your greatest fear is seeing a swarm of rats in your house, don't rent this movie. I could see someone getting totally freaked by the sea of rats in a couple scenes. Good movie, though. Totally impossible, as all Pixar movies seem to be; but there is a lot of clever dialog that makes this a keeper.

Movie Review: Borat

Summary: Guy from Kazakhstan visits America and is totally ignorant of our customs.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review: This was one funny movie. For some reason, I wasn't expecting to like this movie as much as I did. The concept of the movie is that Borat is a foreigner who is visiting America to learn the culture to better Kazakhstan. The guy who plays Borat is a comedian and did a fantastic job with his foreign character. He kept in character even when his life was in danger! Now, that's devotion.

It was very funny to watch people pushed to their limits with the idiot Borat. The movie tried to see how much weirdness people would put up with before finally breaking down and stop helping or just leave. For some reason, it seemed like the conservatives, "Go America" people, Texans, police, and religious types turned out to be the biggest jerks to Borat. It was the prostitutes, minorities, and women who were the most accommodating to the foreign visitor. Excellent movie that was far funnier than I expected. And I went in thinking it would be good.

Jacob's New Bed and New School

Jacob will be starting "school" next week. He's going to Kinder Garden DayCare. It seems like a nice daycare/school. They do a lot of interactions with the kids and Jacob will be exposed to a lot of new things. Plus, he will get to hang out with a lot of kids his age. It should be a good thing.

So, the other day, Jacob went down for a nap. After about an hour we could hear him moaning and starting to wake up. A few minutes later, the floor above our head gave a loud "thump!". I walked upstairs and opened the door, and Jacob was standing there with a look like "I did it!". He had flipped out of his crib, which is about 4-5 feet above the ground.

So, combined with the fact the he can now escape the crib and the fact that he will be napping in a cot at daycare, we decided to move him to a "big boy" bed. We got him backyardigans sheets and pillowcases, so he loves that part. He does cry when we put him down, now. We're only on day 2, though. He's actually doing pretty well. He was hilarious that first morning when he woke up in his new bed. He was looking around like he had no idea what was going on.

Movie Review: Zathura

Summary: Jumanji set in space.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review: This movie was lots of fun. This is somewhat a sequel to Jumanji. Zathura is a board game that two kids start playing and the game becomes real, too real. Jumanji was set in the jungle, this was in space. Excellent. If this movie had come out before Jumanji, I would have voted it much higher. Unfortunately, this movie had the same exact feel. It just wasn't "new" enough.

Overall, I thought it was a really good movie with some exciting space scenes. If you liked Jumanji, you would like this as well. Too bad this one didn't come out first.

Movie Review: Dan in Real Life

Summary: Chick flick with the guy from "The Office".

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

Review: Good chick flick. Steve Carell is great! It is a chick flick, though. But, a funny one. So, I'm torn. Funny actor, funny movie versus a chick flick. Oh, well. I guess I liked it a lot.

The movie is about a widowed guy and his three daughters. They leave for the annual family vacation with all the relatives in a cabin on a lake/ocean. He finds love, gets yelled at by his daughters, and gets advice (even though he doesn't want it) from the rest of the family.

I told you it was a chick flick. But, really, it is a good movie. Lots of laughs.

Movie Review: Sin City

Summary: Dark, "comic book" style, film noir about murder, torture , and all things violent.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10

Review: Visually, this movie was great. It combined film noir with a good dark comic book style. You felt as if the comic book had come alive and you were watching the story from inside the book. The problem was with the violence. About half of the way through the movie I was hoping that it would end so that I didn't have to watch another torture scene. There were a lot of torture scenes. It felt like a Quentin Tarantino- style film (in fact, he was a guest director). You can tell this was a Frank Miller movie, though. It had the same kind of look as 300. Another problem was that the plot was pretty confusing. I normally enjoy a confusing plot, but this one was kind of hard to follow. Maybe I closed my eyes too many times. If you like Quentin Tarantino, you may like this movie. It was not for me.