After feeling very disappointed by Smokin's Aces the other night, decided to go see Pan's Labyrinth. Well in one word, I would say it's pretty intense.  I checked rotten tomatoes this time to see how it ranked. 96% Nominated for 6 Academy awards, including Best foreign film. Wow!

 

So I decided that's the one, off to my favorite movie theater - Lincoln Square. Well, after purchasing tickets, I was surprised to see that film was playing in the biggest theater that they had. That was quite a surprise, doubly surprising was the fact that they had one of the attendants standing in the doorway as people walked in. Shortly, there after I found out why. He announced that the film was very gory and that parents shouldn't take their children to it. Didn't take long to agree with him, although it's a very good and intense film, the gore was a bit much.

 

The storyline is set in Spain at end of WWII. A young girl and her pregnant mother are traveling to their new home where the mom will meet up with her husband. Turns out this is her second marriage, because her first husband died. They spend a lot of time on that aspect, only to say that the girl resented the new dad, and rightfully so, turns out that he is a sadistic man that is trying to kill off the resistance move. He tortures and manes a prisoner that they find as well as being to the town folks. The movie though isn't as much about him but instead about the girl who lives in a fantasy world which becomes reality. She is visited by a ferry that eventually leads her to an underground kingdom, where she is the lost princess and they have waited a very long time for her return. The movie deals with how she tries to prove she is worthy to return to the kingdom, while mixing in scenes about the captain and how he is trying to deal with the rebels. Needless to say the gory stuff is wrapped around the captain.

 

This is very much an adult themed movie even though it's a fantasy at heart. If you want a good film, this is the one to see but if you have an issue with gore, even though they don't show some of the worse stuff, then I'd say read as many reviews as possible before deciding to see this one.

I decided, after hearing a lot of folks why aren't you blogging about the movies you see, that maybe I should. Especially after seeing the stinker that I saw tonight.  You can see a clip for the movie that I pasted on the front page of my space.

 

Smokin Aces is the last Quentin Tarantino's film, that has no humor and is just an excuse for raw violence and bloodshed. With the array of folks, that are in this film, I have to wonder why Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta even considered this film. The plot of the movie if you can call it that, is for the FBI to protect Buddy "Aces" Israel (played by Jeremy Piven) from the mob who put out a contract on him. Since the bounty is so high, Buddy has multiple hit men (or in this case hit people because they even have a set of women after him) and the FBI must protect him long enough to reach trial. Needless to say, the film spends the majority of the film having everybody shooting after everybody, not to unusual for a Tarantion's film, but this one has absolutely no humor and is just plain bad.

 

Latest RottenTomatoes rating for it was a 27%.

 

I give it a Thumbs Down!

 

It's been over a year that I've been struggling with my knee problems and finally the doctor (long story but this is doctor number 1 that did my surgery several years ago but who I didn't think was figuring out the problem, only to find that doctor number two didn't real find the issue so  I went back to doctor one) figured it out. He sent me for an MRI where they shot dye into knee. To be honest, I was pretty much a baby on that one, after the pain of doing the shots to my knee, having another needle shot into me made cringe.

 

But I got through it. Just happens the day that they did the MRI was the same day that we had another snowstorm in Seattle. Lovely, took two hours to get home on a trip that normally takes about 15 minutes. Can't complain though, there were people I work with that had a much worse commute. Goodness was that the power didn't go out, hey, way to go Puget Sound Power.

 

As it turns out I had to wait a week to get the news of what they found. Well I wasn't exactly ready for the news. Turns out that all the cartilage is gone from the inner side of my knee. And this is supposed to be the good knee that I'll depend upon when I have the knee replacement in the other leg. Needless to say I was pretty much in shock and didn't know what to say, took me a couple of days to handle it. The doctor basically said that my options are to have a partial knee replacement, an osteotomy (wedge, same as what I went through with my other knee), or live with the pain. The last option though is only an option until I'm ready to say uncle, which is what I'm doing right now.

 

So needless to say, my exercise routine has to completely change for me to be able to continue. I have to admit that over the past several months, it's been hard to be motivate and I have gained more than I lost. I haven't been that dilligent because of the pain and have let the whole thing get to me, thus losing any desire to lose weight or even watch what I eat. The operation last year was suppose to help me and it basically didn't do anything of any value other than cause me to waste a year going through various routines that didn't seem to do anything for me. I've done the physical therapy routine and question whether that is even of any value, since most of what they showed me is the same as what I was doing during my weight loss program. 

 

Hopefully now though that I know what I face I can get motivate again.

As a family, we finally went to New York City this year for the Christmas season. It's something that I have been talking about for a long time and every year we watch the Home Alone series and I talk about how wonderful New York is at Christmas time. This year we decided to go. It's the not the only reason though because my dad is getting along in years and its much harder for him to travel, thus we thought it would make a good excuse to go back and see him in Pennsylvania.

 

The start of trip was off to a very rocky start. We lost power in community for 4 days thanks to heavy storms in the Northwest. Being without power rotten and thankfully we got it back the day before our trip was to start. But I ended up getting sick before traveling which was a real bummer. We visited Philadelphia, New Jersey (staying over night in Mt. Laurel) and then up to Scranton, from there we traveled to New York for a few days staying at the Sheraton Manhattan. We saw Jersey Boys which is a play about Frankie Vallie and the Four seasons. We toured New York including the Home Alone tour of seeing Trump Plaza, FAO Schwartz and Rockafeller center. We then did a tour of Radio City Music Hall and even took in the show. We topped it off with a visit to Macy's but really didn't get to see much of it since it was so crowed. We saw the Phantom of the Opera the last night we were in New York.

 

From New York we went back to Scranton, visited some relatives and friends and finally traveled to Reading to visit Uncle Jason and his family. Our trip home though was anything but pleasant. We have a two and half hour delay in Philadelphia because of weather. We were afraid that we were going to miss our connection, but thankfully the connection was delayed as well. What should of turned out to be a 10 hour trip (yes, even that is long) turned out to be more like 18 to 20 hours with all the delays. Needless to say we were pretty tired when we got home. I went to the doctor the very next day and was able to get some medicine which seems to be helping. The kids didn't fair so well, they had their wisdom pulled. They were suppose to have it done before we left, but the power outage took care of that.

I haven't been keeping my blog up todate because to be quite honest I'm frustrated with the progress I've been making lately and not doing so well. I somewhat lost my motivation because of all the pain I have had in my knees. After getting the three shots I've been in a great deal of pain when I try to push myself. Walking has become a chore and that just leads to my own frustration. I've put on 20 pounds which I hope with the New Year that I can take off. That simply is my New Year's resolution.