A month in review

If anyone knows where January went could you have her give me a call? She left and I totally didn't notice! Despite the fact that January took off before I could say goodbye, this year is looking good! I'm on track to complete everything on my resolutions list!!

 First off I need to Organize my bucket list! (which is actually on my bucket list but I won't count it for my 12 :) ) DONE! I even posted two sections this month as well.

1. Books to Read (from 1001 Books to Read Before You Die):
Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut 01/03/12
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré 01-13-12
Choke – Chuck Palahniuk 01/08/12
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel 01/05/12
Less than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis 01/27/12
Rabbit, Run – John Updike 01/31/12


2. Movies to Watch (from the list of movies that won Best Picture):
1971 - "The French Connection" 01/12/12

8. Plant a vegetable garden, Can't be crossed off yet as nothing got planted. BUT we did create the garden, hauling wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the farm so that Craig can smell "home" when we wants.




9. Donate platelets once a month for a year. Contribute to a microloan at kiva.org This change is chronicled here.

10. Spend 3 months getting my body in optimum shape STARTING TODAY! Cannot be crossed off, but one month down. I have worked out at least 5 hours each week. I plan to work out more when I get back from the cruise, and some day I will actually start watching what I'm eating too!

February is a short and sweet month and I plan to do a lot of reading and some movie watching. I have Slumdog Millionaire on Tivo too now. Who wants to watch this and Hurt Locker with me this month???

A dilemma of stubborn proportions

I have a tendency to make rash decisions and stick with them come hell or high water. Years ago I realized I decided I didn't like chocolate cake or cheesecake and somehow this morphed into me not liking any chocolate or cream cheese. This is not necessarily true, but I've scraped far more chocolate and cream cheese off my tongue than vanilla or coconut. Discreet, I am not.

I've done this with pop culture as well. Best TV comedy? Never seen a single episode. It took me a decade to watch Reality TV. I had watched Real World in college and when it started to become a genre in its own right, I backed away sneering. This high brow elite would rather read a bad book than watch good reality TV (if such a thing exists). Until Real Housewives. This series was put here on this Earth to confound me. I don't know what other people do when they watch reality TV but I pass judgement. I watch to see mispronunciations. And who holds their wine glass by the bowl and not the stem. Who laments being so busy while 5 housemaids works behind them. The sheer number of entertaining points may be artificially created by editing but they are oh so fun to watch. Which Andy Cohen knows I'm sure! But other than the RH series I still eschew most reality TV. I'll watch with my family if they happen to like something (my kids adore Storage Wars...my youngest has a crush on Brandy). But I don't record them or rewatch them over and over and over. {Cough} As I do for RH.

The same could be said about me and movies. Once a movie reaches a certain popularity I swear I will NEVER see it. Like Avatar. And Titanic. To this day I have PROUDLY never seen the movie. Imagine my chagrin when I decided to see all the Best Picture movies and there on the list was Titanic. ARGH. I might also make this a big deal, leaving the room when people are watching it. Did I mention my inability to be discreet?

Before bed conversation:

Andrea: I have a dilemma.

Craig (reading and not paying a lot of attention): What is that?

Andrea: I decided to watch all the Best Picture movies for my Bucket List.

Craig: Yeah? So?

Andrea: Apparently, Titanic won.

Long pause.

Craig: Ooooo. I'll let you make an exception for that one.

Le Sigh.

I wish I could do that. Oh how I wish. But instead I will put it off and when I am old and senile and won't remember it anyway I'll have my great-great-grandchildren set up the newfangled video player that I won't know how to use to watch it. I will put it off for the very last. I can be stubborn that way.

On Location: Morocco

Apparently I really need to watch Inception. My son has been trying to get me to watch this for years and it's got several future travel places in it!

Inception
The Bourne Ultimatum
Green Zone
Mamma Mia! I can't remember where this was in the movie. I've seen it several times!
Sahara
Sex and the City 2 (though really not wanting to see this one!)

On Location: Paris

I think I will watch Bourne Identity again to get a feel for Paris. Other movies with Paris as a location (just a few because there are tons!!!) The Italicized ones I've seen before.

The Truth About Charlie

French Kiss

Gigi

Le divorce

Inception (which we own and my son has been trying to get me to watch so maybe I'll give in!)

Monte Carlo

Jumper

Think I will be renting Le divorce and Monte Carlo soon!!

On location: Prague

Thinking about the Bourne movies, I realized that there is no better way to get a feel for a future location and put you in the mood for travel than movies set in the city you are visiting. I already knew this in the back of my head because the night before my first trip to Europe as an adult Carrie and I stayed up all night watching movies set in London and Paris so that we would fall asleep on the plane. It worked for me. Her not so much. Of course I was still sleep deprived and punchy when we fist arrived and she still teases me today about how I found EVERYTHING hilarious. Accents! Haha! Buses! Haha! Almost getting run over because we kept looking the WRONG WAY when we crossed the street Haha!


You can type in a location on IMDB and get a list of movies filmed there. IMDB lists 1169 movies set in Prague. I think I will tweak that down a bit.

So sixteen movies:
From Hell (Johnny Depp and Heather Graham)
Affair of the Necklace (Hillary Swank)
A Knights Tale (Czech countryside actually... Heath Ledger)
XXX (Vin Diesel)
Timeline (which is actually a Crichton book I've been wanting to read)
G.I. Joe Rise of the Cobra (which I've seen and didn't realize was partially set in Prague!)
Casino Royale (is on my Tivo list right now Serendipity!)
Hellboy
Bourne Identity
Jumper (also seen! LOVE that movie for locations!)
Euro Trip
Spy Game
Chasing Liberty
Running Scared
League of Extraordinary GentlemanAVP (who would have guessed this one??)
Mission Impossible


Today I clean my house (FUN!) and then have dinner and a movie with my oldest and will pick up 5 movies to watch tomorrow in a Prague marathon.

Movies from the list I've never seen and would be interested in:
Eurotrip
From Hell
Timeline
Running Scared
XXX

Maybe another weekend I'll work to complete this list. I don't usually rewatch movies but am willing to see a couple of these again for the location alone. Of course I have to create a Berlin list too (of which there are 3902 movies!!!)

Some of these movies cover both Berlin and Prague (like Spy Game) so those will be a must watch as well. Off to clean...

Seven degrees of separation via WHERE ANDREA HAS TRAVELED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS

So it works like this: In the last year I have travelled to
Washington DC
Las Vegas
New York
Las Vegas (you may notice a trend)
Nassau, Bahamas (and Orlando as it was a cruise)
Las Vegas
San Francisco
and then next month Las Vegas

I'm not sure how that happened. I certainly didn't intend for every other trip to be Vegas, but as that is where Craig ALWAYS defaults in wanting to vacation we end up there. A few short distance trips within Texas aren't included but the purpose of this list is because I watched two movies. And if you can possible follow the crazy workings of my mind I would like to share the freakiness of these movies:


State of Play with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck


Duplicity with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts


Let me back up a bit and talk about my trip to DC (Where State of Play was filmed) I had asked my friend to take me to Ben's Chili Bowl because I had seen it on Samantha Brown (see I do love her!) and when we were there Ben himself was sitting upstairs and he signed a book for me about the restaurant. It was pretty serendiptous. I had travelled to DC for a conference with my friend's work and I had spent a little time at her office. So imagine my laugh as we watch the movie and I turn to my husband and say...oh I love Ben's Chili Bowl I made K take me there.

At which point I know he thinks I am showing off (which I tend to do in movies that show European locations). So I KNOW he thought I was full of crap when they show the outside of russell crowe's work and I'm saying OH MY GOSH. That is K's office! I was there too. I actually called up her address on goggle maps and used street view to show him it was the same place. FREAKING CRAZY HUH!

So then I'm watching Duplicity and i'm shocked that the movie plays like a WHERE ANDREA HAS TRAVELLED IN THE LAST TWO YEARS travellogue. (Minus dubai because frankly I have zero interest in being there anyway) I totally caught the Pantheon in Rome. It completely took me back to our trip there. Then New York and then ATLANTIS in Nassau where my friend K (the work place in DC person) and I snuck in with the help of our Cabbie Nigel who was an ex-cop and knew the guards at the hotel.

So it works like this
State of Play>
DC>
K's Work>
K>
Nassau>
Atlantis>
Duplicity

So I watched two movies from completely different locations that linked together for me through my travels. Wonder what other movies I can do that to!