Pictures from Southport

Here are some pictures from our annual Southport (Oak Island) trip. Jacob loved the beach.

Southport 2007

Movie Review: Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Summary: Gay transvestite punk rock singer sings and tells his/her story.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

Review: Not my usual movie. In fact, the plot summary almost made us not watch it. But, it was sent to us from Netflix, so we had to give it a try. Actually, it was a pretty good movie! Hedwig and the Angry Inch is adapted from a stage musical, so there is a lot of singing. And the lead actor can sing really well. The music is really good and it makes the movie. I would recommend this to anyone who can handle the different plot (and that should be everyone).

Airport Fun

We land at the airport at about 6:30pm in Columbus. We get off the plane at head towards the shuttle to take us to the long term parking. I don't remember exactly where we parked, but I know the area of the parking lot. We got to the shuttle and discover that there are three different lots: green, blue, and red. I don't remember what lot color, but Sarah says she thinks we're in the red lot. So we get on the shuttle and start heading out. Jacob is pretty relaxed because he's dead tired. The red lot is huge and I know that we are in the furthest corner of the lot. So, the driver drops us off and we start walking towards our car. Can you guess what happens next? Yeah. Our car is not there. We look around and I can tell that we are too far away from the airport. So, I lug Jacob on my shoulders and head off towards the airport looking for our car. It doesn't take long for us to realize that we must be parked in the next lot. After a half mile walk, we see the same driver pulling back into the lot. We sheepishly get back on the shuttle and ask him to take us to the blue lot.

We start talking about how stupid we are when we notice that he is heading way too close to the airport and that we just passed our lot. We are parked in green. When we get to the blue lot, the driver gets out and goes into a building to take a break. So, we walk into the blue lot, find a shuttle and head back towards the airport. Once there, we get on the green shuttle and head out ....... again. An hour after we got on the first shuttle, we finally found our car and started out 2 hour drive home. I love airports.

Harry Potter Midnight Release Party

I preordered four of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows books for myself and Sarah's family. This allowed me to be able to pick them up at the midnight release party on the Friday, June 20th. They started giving out line tickets at 9am that morning. So, I had my mother-in-law stand in line for 1 1/2 hours to get me a line ticket for the line later that night. Standing in line to stand in line. She got me number 81. So, I arrived at the store at 11:40 pm. The whole parking lot for 8 stores was 2/3rds full! Crazy. There were nearly 1000 people in the store. I got in there and found out that my number 81 didn't mean anything. BUT, the orange band did mean I was in the first of about 5 groups. So, I waited around and got my book at about 12:30 pm. Not too bad. There were still hundreds of people waiting when I left the store. A little better than the last time. I had to wait nearly 2 hours for the last book. I can't wait to start reading.

Movie Review: Garden State

Summary: A slightly surreal movie about a guy revisiting his past to find himself.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Review: Not a bad movie. Zach Braff wrote, directed, and starred in this movie with Natalie Portman. The two stars were the best part of the movie. They did a pretty good job. The plot of the movie was okay. I did laugh a few times. The movie just didn't do anything for me. Feel free to give it a try. My wife liked it a lot.

Movie Review: Shaolin Soccer

Summary: Hilarious mix of "crouching tiger" style cinematography, shaolin kung-fu, and soccer.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review: If you're a soccer fan, this is a must. It follows a young shaolin kung-fu practitioner who discovers a unique use of his skill: soccer. The movie starts pretty slow and takes a patient audience to get to the good stuff. Once the soccer starts, the movie is great. The final match is the greatest game of soccer ever played. :-)

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (IMAX 3D version)

Summary: The fifth installment of the crazily popular Harry Potter series.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review: Fantastic movie. They did a great job with the book to movie translation. Small things were excluded of course and one or two things were changed for the movie, but overall, great job. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't go into the plot. But, you have to realize that this movie is still just setting up for the seventh and final book/movie. Nonetheless, this movie has a well established plot and finishes with the audience satisfied. The whole movie you feel the kids pains and are rooting for them. There are even scenes where you want to jump up and shout "Yes!". The 3D part of the movie was only in the last 20 minutes during the climax of the movie. It was really well done and was not too distracting from the action.

Oh, and my favorite character from this movie was Luna Lovegood. The actress was fantastic and played her perfectly.