Another Movie Weekend

So it was a very lazy, very grey (the sky I mean, not my mood) weekend.

Friday night we went to try out a new "all you can eat" sushi spot (Sakura is getting a little expensive at R130 a shot, I can barely eat more than that anyway, which doesn't make it much of a saving!), Kung Fu Kitchen in Grant Ave, Norwood (their's is only R90). We had a large group so the initial order of sushi took ages to arrive but afterwards they were quite on the ball! I think the winners of the day were definitely the Salmon Rose California Rolls :) Yum. I'd go back ... well, I'd probably rather just go to a closer one, actually (since this is a typical Chinese-Style restaurant and you're definitely not visiting for their plastic decor!)

On Saturday we got a little admin done and planted some Elephant Grass (we brought it back from the farm last weekend) for the bunnies. This is apparently a real novelty for them because we haven't hidden it away and rationed them (like with the poor veggies that would barely get a chance to grow if we didn't!). Okay, so that's not a fabulous pic of Bell (it's better when it's a bit bigger tho!), but I just wanted you to get an idea of just how tall the grass is compared to these two tiny buns ;)

They've both already got quite comfortable climbing right up into the pot to eat it ... especially Henna, our resident foodie! And it seems Bell is going thru a bit of a teenage thing. She has been acting weird all weekend and has started thumping! She just sits in the same spot for a while and then as soon as you go near her, she thumps her back legs on the ground (it is loud enough to hear!) and prances off. I say prance because she looks rather like a lipizzaner horse or something, all upright with her ears in the air. It's mostly entertaining, but also a little frustrating when we're trying to catch them to get them back into their hutch. Needless to say I think the overcast weather is her ideal sort of day ;) But we soon settled down to watch a movie.

Ryan Gosling stars as Lars Lindstrom, an extremely shy young man living in a small town. He purchases a sex doll online and proceeds to introduce her to his brother and sister-in-law as his girlfriend. Despite the concerns of his friends and relatives, a local doctor notes that since Lars otherwise has a highly functional personality that threatens no one, this delusion is a sign that he is working through some personal issues and his loved ones should play along in the meantime. With some persuasion, the entire town eventually participates as well with growing enthusiasm for this unusual, but enjoyable, activity as Lars continues to pursue what he perceives as a deep and meaningful relationship with the doll.

Now this was a bit of a weird one. I think it's entertaining to watch and wonder just how accepting we all might be of a guy rocking up at our Office Party with a mannequin doll in a wheelchair. I guess there are some saving graces to living in a small town, eh? Needless to say, it's a very sweet heartfelt movie.

We followed this with a trip to the cinema to watch Hancock.

There are heroes. There are superheroes. And then there's Hancock. With great power comes great responsibility - everyone knows that. Everyone, that is, but Hancock.
Edgy, conflicted, sarcastic, and misunderstood, Hancock's well-intentioned heroics might get the job done and save countless lives, but they always seem to leave jaw-dropping damage in their wake. The public has finally had enough. As grateful as they are to have their local hero, the good citizens of Los Angeles are wondering what they ever did to deserve this guy. Hancock isn't the kind of man who cares what other people think - until the day that he saves the life of PR executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), and the sardonic superhero begins to realise that he may have a vulnerable side after all.
Facing that will be Hancock's greatest challenge yet - and a task that may prove impossible as Ray's wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), insists that he's a lost cause.

Paha, now this I really enjoyed. It's just good fun ... and I think has a lightness and amusement needed after things like Iron Man and The Hulk (the more action-type super-hero movies). I gather the Americans didn't especially enjoy this because of the lack of action tho. Their loss ;) I thought Will Smith was perfectly cast and was impressed but the mid-way turn of events that I didn't see coming (without giving too much away there!). Watch it for a laugh ;)

On Sunday we took a wander around Rosebank and bought a couple of new books. When we weren't watching movies, we were probably in bed reading this weekend ;) And went to watch Wanted (Varen's ill-chosen movie) and The Happening (because for some reason I keep expecting Midnight to make something on par with Sixth Sense again ... silly, I know!).

25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy) was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but while away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut. Until he met a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie). After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity - a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad’s death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers that this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: Carry out the death orders given by fate itself. With wickedly brilliant tutors, including the Fraternity’s enigmatic leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), Wes grows to enjoy all the strength he ever wanted. Slowly, he begins to realise there is more to his dangerous associates than meets the eye, and as he wavers between newfound heroism and vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one could ever teach him: He alone controls his destiny.

I tried to warn Varen in advance about this one ... I'd listened to Mark Kermode's Podcast review. And it was as rubbish as I was expecting. In fact, I was lost right after the first car-chase (about 10 minutes in) where Angie's Gone in 60 seconds training came in handy once again. I must say also tho that I think this is probably the only movie she's stared in that requires her to have more tattoo's than she actually does in real life! There is just so much that is ridiculous in this movie (even if you can get past the bending bullets) that it's not worth the characters spent going into them all. That said, everyone beware the blog-post of fate ;)

And then, after we came out and he admitted it was a poor choice he volunteered that we should see another movie to cleanse our minds ... unfortunately we chose The Happening. It's a tough day at the movies when you realise that Kung Fu Panda would probably have been a better movie choice! Anyhoo ...

Don't look for the answer. It's already too late. A lightning-paced, heart-pounding paranoid thriller about a family on the run from an inexplicable and unstoppable event that threatens not only humankind, but the most basic human instinct of them all: Survival.
It begins with no clear warning. It seems to come out of nowhere. In a matter of minutes, episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason - and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness - erupt in major American cities. What is causing this sudden, total breakdown of human behaviour?
For Philadelphia high school science teacher Elliot Moore, what matters most is finding a way to escape this mysterious and deadly phenomenon. Though he and his wife, Alma, are in the midst of a marital crisis, they hit the road - first by train, then by car - with Elliot's math teacher friend, Julian, and his eight-year-old daughter, Jess, heading for the Pennsylvania farmlands, where they hope they'll be out of reach of the grisly, ever-growing attacks. But it soon becomes clear that no one, and nowhere, is safe.

Meh, where to begin. Let's start with what they refer to above as "A lightning-paced, heart-pounding paranoid thriller". Me thinks this movie might even be more tedious and slow that War of the Worlds, lightning-paced and heart-pounding it was not. This movie is fine (it sure beats his Lady in the Water!). But well thought out, it is not. Without giving too much away, let's just say that an awful lot of people appear to have been killed by this "inexplicable and unstoppable event" yet in the last scenes of the movie (3 months later) there was no property or financial or economic crisis ... I mean just picture what would happen if, say, 50% of just Gauteng's population (forget about large-scale like the whole of the American East Coast) was magically killed in the space of 24 hours. 3 months later, things would still be in serious recovery. Now that, that would be a more interesting movie ... that should give you an idea how dull The Happening actually was!