The Life and Times of a Midwestern Movie Addict

It’s Christmas Eve, I’m surrounded by family that loves and supports my husband and me...and yet I find myself feeling melancholy despite all the reasons to feel happy.  Don’t get me wrong, being with people I haven’t seen in several months is uplifting and knowing that I’ve been missed warms my heart - but ever since I became an adult, I’ve always felt that something was missing during the actual Christmas holidays. It shouldn’t be surprising that I feel this way, given that Andy and I rarely get to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas in the comfort of our own home.  We are childless and so there is an expectation that we will visit our families rather than stay home because travel is much easier for us.  Neither of us is ever upset by this; it’s just what we do.  But it isn’t home that I miss (though having my two cats with me right now would be a comfort), as I felt this same sense of melancholy even when we spent Christmas at home in 2016. So what was missin...

I've taken a healthy break from writing in the old blog this past week because, frankly I've just enjoyed having no obligations.  As I sit here on the sofa, enjoying the last work day off for winter break (yes I still have Saturday and Sunday off before I go to work...but those don't count) I have to contemplate this year's vacation.  Was it as good as I hoped?  Well, yes and no.  Christmas and New Year's were great, but these last few days of break have been poisoned with boredom and illness.  I suppose it is my own fault, as I didn't make any concrete plans for post-Holiday fun...largely because I knew I'd have a glut of films to watch before school started again leaving me with no time at all to enjoy them.  And no one could have suspected that I would have an ulcer flare up in the middle of this week, thus limiting my movements even more.  However, there is still some time left until work resumes and I plan to enjoy it (currently I have 6 films lef...

Every year there are a handful of films that I get obsessively excited about, and usually one of those occurs during the Holiday Movie Season of November and December.   Last year it was The Muppets , the year before it was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 , and the year before that it was Avatar .   You can usually count on me being gaga for one film or another and this Holiday Season was no different.   There were a great many films that came out in Novemeber and December that I wanted to see this year and was excited about (and several that I have not seen and either can still catch or have to see on disc) but only one worked me into an obsessive frenzy matching the excitement I felt for The Muppets.   It was sure to be epic, emotional, and full of beautiful music.   It is based on one of the most popular and well known musicals of the last 30 years, which itself was based on what is considered Victor Hugo's masterpiece...the novel "Les Miserables"...

You won't believe this, but I just wrote a fantastic post about Christmas miracles and the importance of family and all that rot while tying it to Miracle on 34th Street.   It's also one of the rare posts I wrote on my iPad because I couldn't get my laptop to work...well in trying to publish it and share some videos to it, it erased.  Nothing I wrote, as lovely as it was, was saved and there's no way to recapture it.  I'll admit, at first I just wanted to pout and say "insert curse here this!", but then I decided that that attitude would fly in the face of everything I just wrote.  How could I talk about the importance of Christmas and little miracles (especially when so many have so little to be happy about) if I let one stupid cock up ruin my good will? So, a little Christmas miracle just occurred and here I am...again writing this post...because I believe that it matters.  I have faith, and isn't that what this film is about?  So let's all enjoy...

Well it's Christmas Eve again and we are a mere 24 hours from concluding yet another Christmas season (fear not though, the holiday season continues until New Year's) and I honestly couldn't be more excited.  We've got a ton of good food in the house, good people to share it with, and a really good pile of gifts under the tree.  I know that the pile is only huge because now there are two kids (and let's face it, once you have kids Christmas is...nay SHOULD be...about them) but it still inspires excitement and visions of torn paper and tall stashes of loot.  Tomorrow seriously can't get here soon enough so it can reveal it's secrets to us (I for one can't want to find out what I got, but I also can't wait to see everyone else see what they got).  To add to this year's Christmas anticipation, I am scheduled to be one of the first in Gallatin, TN to see Les Miserables when it is released on Christmas Day (cue me singing "One Day More") so...

I'm currently sitting in the guest room of my sister's new home...it is a generous sized and comfortable room that I am only using because my sister has asked my mother to move out of it for a few days this Christmas so that there would be room in the house for my father and I.  Mom has been living here for a few months now as she waits for her new condo to be finished and so for all intents and purposes, this has become her home.  So you can imagine the enthusiasm with which she met this idea.  I can sympathize, and in fact I will be spending the afternoon with her to help her not feel so left out this Christmas, but I wish she and my sister were getting along better this Christmas.  I'm not saying either of them is being a huge witch or anything like that, but there have been more than a few choice words between them over the subject and really the situation is very simple: My sister wanted some quality time with my father (with whom relations are always ...

If there's anything that we all can agree on, it's that the Holiday season is largely about love.  We share love with our families, our friends, our significant others, and all the rest of the special people in our lives.  So it shouldn't be surprising that a good chunk of romantic comedies take place on Christmas, given the built in seasonal expectations and universal appeal of the holiday.  One of my favorites incorporates a great deal of Christmas cliches, music, and customs into an ensemble piece that features some of my favorite British actors and actresses.  It is a story about how love exists everywhere in the world around us in many different ways, all we have to do is look for it.  I give you, Love Actually . The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families w...