Reviews and More

I’ll always remember the original Die Hard as the vehicle that turned Bruce Willis into an action movie superstar. Prior to that 1988 film, he was best known for his role as David Addison on the television series Moonlighting, and for playing the lead in the semi-successful romantic comedy Blind Date (1987). But once Die Hard became an international hit, Willis’ destiny was sealed.

I enjoyed the first three Die Hard movies (though I don’t remember too many specifics from them) and was really looking forward to seeing the fourth installment, called Live Free or Die Hard. This latest film comes a full 12 years after With a Vengeance, but I still had high hopes that it would retain at least some of the fun, humor, and terrific action that made the first three efforts worthwhile. Unfortunately, I left the theater greatly disappointed with what I had just seen.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film opens with NYPD detective John McClane breaking up a make-out session on a college campus. It turns out the girl involved is his daughter Lucy (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and she doesn’t exactly appreciate her dad getting involved in her personal life. From the heated exchange that follows, we learn that McClane is divorced from Holly (his wife in the first three movies) and since then he hasn’t spent as much time with his kids as he should have. That pretty much brings us up to speed with McClane’s life.

After that, McClane gets a call over the radio saying that he’s to go pick up a computer hacker named Matt Farrell (Justin Long) and bring him in for questioning. Someone has breached the FBI system, and there are only 1,000 or so people who could have done it. McClane is to transport Farrell to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. for questioning.

McClane doesn’t know why they can’t ask someone else to do it, but he nevertheless follows orders. Of course, the task turns out to be a lot harder than originally anticipated. Shortly after McClane gets to Farrell’s apartment, it’s attacked by a team of snipers who clearly want the kid dead. But McClane manages to get Farrell out, and they head to Washington.

When they arrive in the city, all hell breaks loose. Someone has messed with the traffic signals, causing all stoplights to show green at the same time. There’s immediate confusion and chaos, which forces McClane and Farrell to walk the rest of the way to the FBI. Once they arrive, they see that the computer attacks haven’t stopped. The bad guys mess with the NYSE computers next, and cause a selling frenzy on Wall Street.

After seeing what’s going on, Farrell says that it looks like someone is running a “fire sale” on the country’s computer systems. It’s a textbook attack that first takes out the transportation system, then takes out the financial centers. The final target, the big one, is unclear for the time being, but McClane and Farrell are soon on the case to find out what’s going on.

The rest of the film then deals with McClane’s attempts to locate Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), the man behind the attacks. There follows a whole bunch of unbelievable (I don’t mean “outstanding” here) action seqeunces and fight scenes, plus the kind of resolution you’d expect to see from a Die Hard film.

My Reaction: I thought this was a terrible movie, and I can’t believe all the professional critics out there who are giving it a passing grade! Plus, Live Free or Die Hard has already cracked the IMDB.com top 250, coming in at #204. That has got to be a joke, right?

Look, I understand the concept of summer popcorn movies, and I ordinarily don’t hold these types of movies up to high standards — and I didn’t with this one, either. I went into the movie just hoping to be entertained, but instead found myself shaking my head in complete and utter disbelief at what was unfolding on the screen, which of course took me out of the movie and destroyed the experience.

I don’t normally nitpick these kinds of things, but I cannot believe how many blows the characters were able to take without showing any ill effects. Let’s run them down, shall we?

• In the apartment scene, there’s a huge explosion in the next room (big enough to blow out the windows), but McClane and Farrell are unscathed. Bear in mind that this is a college student’s apartment, meaning it is SMALL.
• In the very next scene, McClane is dragging one of the baddies down an alley. McClane rams the guy into a dumpster, but he’s up a minute later like nothing happened.)
• Don’t even get me started on Maggie Q (Mai Lihn). Her fight scenes with McClane were not the least bit realistic. Not. the. least.

  She first gets the crap kicked out of her in a regular fistfight, but manages to get up for more. Then McClane runs into her with an SUV, crashes through walls with her clinging to the hood, and slams into an elevator shaft. Maggie miraculously is not only able to hang onto a dangling cable to save herself from falling to her death, but also has the strength to climb up that cable and FIGHT AGAIN!!

  I twist my ankle playing flag football and I’m incapacitated for a week. These friggin’ people go through all that and aren’t even out of breath????

• WTF was up with the F35 scenes? Flying under highway overpasses? That’s some pretty sweet maneuvering there. That pilot should be with the Blue freakin’ Angels for God’s sake. And did I really see the plane hovering at one point (as though it were a helicopter)?? Is that possible???
• I can’t even list all the injuries McClane sustained throughout the movie. I mean, a couple other reviewers said his character turned into the Terminator, and that’s pretty much what it seemed like.

Sorry to be such a buzzkill here, but Live Free or Die Hard sucked! I give it 4.0 stars out of 10 and advise you not to waste your time or money on it. Wait for the DVD if you have to, but there’s really no need to see it in the theater.

Back when I had an office job outside the home, I would occasionally help the Human Resources department with various administrative tasks. At one point, this included testing and evaluating new payroll software in an effort to find a program that could easily accommodate the ever-growing number of employees at the company. The HR people wanted input from someone who was completely unfamiliar with payroll software because they felt it would give them a more accurate assessment of the learning curve and ease of use.

I thought that was a pretty good idea, and was happy that they actually ended up purchasing a software suite that I recommended as being both simple and versatile. The software worked out great, so you might want to consider using this approach if you’re trying to find a new payroll management solution for your organization.

A few years ago, I went through an extended phase where I only wanted to buy purses, wallets, and shoes from top designers. I thought nothing of spending $500 on a pair of Prada loafers or dropping even more than that on a couple of the latest Louis Vuitton handbags. Of course, my budget couldn’t keep pace with my expensive tastes, so I eventually had to stop making so many purchases.

Now that it’s been a while, however, my bags and wallets are showing the expected signs of wear and tear. There’s no way I can afford to buy the genuine articles anymore, so I’m thinking of going with designer replica handbags instead. I’ve been reading up on replicas, and learned that not all knockoffs are the same in terms of quality, durability, and attention to detail. The ones that are good are well worth the money, but I refuse to waste my time with the really cheap stuff.

As far as top-quality replica handbags go, I’ve heard some excellent things about the products at Ashley’s Boutique. The site is run by a woman who used to work for a luxury retailer, so you can bet she knows a good knockoff when she sees one. Ashley uses her expertise to ensure that her customers get only quality replicas at affordable prices, which is certainly reassuring from a buyer’s point of view.

All told, I’m confident that I’ve found a great website here. When I’m ready to make my next handbag purchase, I’ll be heading back to Ashley’s Boutique first!

I mentioned a little while ago that that I was looking forward to watching the new USA series Burn Notice. Well, the premier was last night, and I did indeed tune in to see if the show would live up to the generally good reviews it has received in the early going. Here’s a quick recap and my reaction to the Burn Notice pilot, episode 1×01.

Plot Summary (with possible spoilers): The main character of the show is an ex-CIA operative named Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan). Actually, at the very beginning of the ep, Michael is still part of the CIA team, but then, when he tries calling in for a wire transfer right in the middle of an operation in Nigeria, he finds out that he’s been “burned,” that is to say, he’s been blacklisted, so he no longer has access to any of the government’s resources and no one’s going to do business with him anymore.

After that, Michael makes it onto a plane and ends up back in Miami, where he has passed out at an ex-girlfriend’s house. Her name is Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), and apparently she’s ex-IRA and is familiar with the whole spy game as well. Michael convinces Fiona to help him try to discover who was behind the burn notice. But first, he takes on a side job in order to get a bit of cash since his assets have been frozen and his credit cards deactivated.

So then the show takes a detour as Michael focuses his attention on clearing the name of a caretaker who has been accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of art and jewelry from his wealthy employer. Michael puts his spy skills to good use, and solves the crime pretty quickly (as did all the viewers, I’m sure).

Add to this mix a few scenes involving Michael’s mother Madeline (Sharon Gless) laying guilt trips on him for never calling or visiting, and you’ve got one very packed pilot episode.

My Reaction: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the pilot, and now I have very high hopes for this series! I thought there was a great mix of action and comedy throughout the hour-long episode, and although it was a bit slow at the beginning, I pretty much expect that out of a pilot since we have to go through a bunch of character introductions and background stuff.

I have never seen Jeffrey Donovan in anything before, but I already love him as Michael Westen. He’s good-looking, charming, and intelligent, and he’s not above fighting dirty to give himself an advantage. Plus, he can rig all kinds of cool MacGyver-like inventions to help accomplish whatever he needs to do.

I don’t have much of a handle on the ex-girlfriend or Michael’s buddy Sam (Bruce Campbell), but they seem alright in the early going. Let’s hope Michael and Fiona stay exes because they didn’t have any chemistry at all in their scenes together!

I’ll definitely be tuning in next week, and hope that Burn Notice gets picked up for a full season!

I know several people who have recently had the opportunity to transfer their favorite photographs onto canvas. They absolutely raved about the results, and once they posted pictures of the finished products, I could understand why. The canvases were simply stunning, and I’m now looking to do the same thing with one of our family photos.

During the course of my research, I came across a press release from a website called PhotoFiddle.com. This site offers the kind of photo-to-canvas service that I want, but with a twist: the customer has complete control over how their photo art will look. That’s because the PhotoFiddle site features a unique tool that allows users to create artwork with the help of ready-made templates. Then, customers can preview their choices — all at no cost, of course — before placing their order.

I spent some time viewing the online tutorial, and it looks like the entire process will be fun and easy. I can’t wait to get started with this! We’ve never sat for a formal family portrait before, but if I can transfer one of our photographs to canvas (with an oil painting finish), then it will look just as good!

I’ve been renting a few more comedies than usual recently because I find that, if nothing else, I can at least enjoy a couple hours of mindless entertainment rather than always having to pay close attention to all the minutiae of a film. So on my last trip to the video store, I grabbed several more comedies, among them The 40-Year-Old Virgin starring Steve Carell. I’d heard that this as actually a pretty good movie, so I was looking forward to watching it — and for once, I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s my review of the 2005 film from Judd Apatow.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The movie starts off by showing us a typical day in the life of Andy Stitzer (Carell). We can see from his apartment that he’s something of a nerd, as the entire place is full of action figures in original packaging. He also has a video game chair, and other accessories that you’d associate with introverted, socially awkward bachelors. It also appears that Andy’s only friends are an elderly couple that live in the same building.

Andy works at an electronics store that reminded me of Best Buy or Circuit City. He doesn’t really interact with his co-workers much until one of them, Jay (played by Romany Malco), invites him to a poker game — not out of friendship, but rather because Jay thinks Andy will be an easy mark. Also in attendance at the game are David (Paul Rudd) and Cal (Seth Rogen).

During the card game, the talk inevitably turns to women and sex. Jay, David, and Cal start telling stories about their various conquests, but when it comes time for Andy to say something, he fumbles along with a story that he’s clearly making up on the spot. Once he says that a woman’s breasts feel like “sandbags,” the other guys realize the truth: Andy, at 40 years old, is still a virgin.

At first the guys give Andy a hard time about the whole thing, but then they decide to help him get a woman. Andy resists a bit, then relents, which of course leads to obligatory bar/drinking/messed-up encounter scenes. Eventually, Andy meets a nice woman named Trish (Catherine Keener) who is obviously interested in him. He dates her, they have a good time, and then the usual misunderstandings of the romantic comedy genre drive them apart.

The rest of the film then focuses on how Andy works to get Trish back despite all their initial problems.

My Reaction: As I said above, I put The 40-Year-Old Virgin on with the intention of just having it be background noise while I did some work on my computer. But I was drawn into the plot right from the start, and found myself hooked on the film because of the characters. I thought the supporting cast was wonderful, and particularly liked Jay and Cal. David’s one-note lamentations about his ex-girlfriend got to be boring after about four minutes, but I’m giving the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt about him and believe that they meant for him to be annoying when talking about his past relationship.

But the main reason this movie worked for me was because of Steve Carell. I’m not a Carell fan in particular. I never really heard of him before this movie came out. I know he’s on The Office (I’ve seen a few eps of that show, but didn’t like it) and I also saw him in Little Miss Sunshine, but that’s about it.

Anyway, I have to say that I think Carell is a tremendous comedic actor. He played the three roles that I saw him in so differently that I could hardly believe it was the same guy. That is such a welcome change from other actors like Adam Sandler, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson who basically play the same characters from movie to movie. Carell is now on my radar for sure, and I’ll be looking for more stuff that he’s been in.

Overall, I thought The 40-Year-Old Virgin was one of the better comedies I’ve seen in a long time. I give the movie 7.5 stars out of 10 and definitely recommend it to everyone!

I’ve come to the conclusion that my husband spends far too much time and money riding motocross. Now that summer’s here, he goes riding every single weekend. That cuts into our family time, plus destroys our budget since he has to pay for gas for both his bike and his truck. I’ve tried asking him to cut back, but he doesn’t think it’s a big deal. He just looks at the $20 track fees he has to pay, not the additional $30 in gas and $10 in lunch and drinks that he also spends.

I can’t ask him to quit MX entirely, since he was into bikes long before I came into the picture, so I’ve got to find another way to salvage the situation. Maybe I should get him a big fuel transfer tank, fill it with gasoline, and tell him that once he runs out, that’s all the riding he can do this summer.

Nah, he would never fall for that trick! Besides, we don’t have a safe place to store a full tank like that, so my plan wouldn’t work.

Back to the drawing board!

My family loves to travel, so we take at least two extended vacations per year, with several three- or four-day weekend getaways added into the mix. All told, we spend thousands of dollars per year on travel, so we’re always looking for new ways to save money on our trips. One idea that we’re checking out right now is buying timeshare points through a travel company like Leisuretime Promotions.

I have to admit that before I read the Leisuretime Promotions website, I had a preconceived notion of how timeshares work. I initially thought that you had to buy a block of time at a condo, resort, or rental home in a specific area, and that you were then stuck going to the exact same place year after year. That didn’t sound too appealing, so I never looked into it any further.

But after perusing the Leisuretime Promotions site, I learned that not all timeshares work that way. Leisuretime Promotions is affiliated with Resorts Club International, so when I purchase points through Leisuretime, I can use them towards a holiday at any RCI property worldwide. That means, I’ll always have a wide range of choices, and can book the vacations that my family really wants to take.

This definitely seems like something that will be worth our while to invest in, so I’m off to do more research!

I’ve just finished watching four more episodes of The O.C., which now means that I’m almost done with the entire first season. When I started this journey, I didn’t realize that there were 27 full episodes in Season One. That’s practically unheard of these days! FOX executives must have figured they had a big hit on their hands just from viewing the pilot if they placed such a huge order right from the start.

Anyway, here are some random thoughts about episodes 1×20, 1×21, 1×22, and 1×23, called “The Telenovela,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “The L.A.,” and “The Nana,” respectively.

• I was sad to see Anna leave Newport. Although I didn’t like that character coupled romantically with Seth, I thought she was awesome as a foil to Summer. Anna was just so refreshingly different from the other characters on the show and I really enjoyed all her scenes. I wish there had been a way for the writers to keep her involved in some way.
• Luke and Julie? This pairing still makes me want to vomit. Thank God it looks like it’ll be over for good in the very near future.
• I loved how Seth went on strike and wouldn’t have sex with Summer until she started acknowledging him at school. Summer was definitely treating him like dirt, and though it may have been justified in her eyes (that whole thing about not wanting to be “dumped by Seth Cohen”), it was just wrong. It was cool how he got up on the coffee cart and announced their relationship to the whole school, and of course it was very sweet when Summer joined him up there and kissed him in front of everyone.
• Marissa runs away and stays at Theresa’s house? Yeah, right. I’m not interested in this Ryan-Marissa-Theresa love triangle at all. Are Ryan and Marissa ever going to get together here? From the way Season One has been written thus far, it seems that Ryan is supposed to be the main character of the show and that his relationship with Marissa is supposed to be a major focal point. But in all honesty, Seth and Summer are far more exciting as a couple. Why can’t we get more of those two instead?
• I still don’t care about the adults and their escapades. Don’t get me wrong, I like Sandy and Kirsten for sure, but only as secondary characters chiming in every once in a while about what’s going on with Seth and Ryan. I don’t like it when their problems get a lot of screentime because it makes the show feel too much like a soap opera.

Well, four more eps left in the first season, then I can make a decision about whether or not I want to continue watching subsequent seasons of The O.C. So far, it looks like I will indeed go on, but you never know what could happen to change my mind in the next four eps!

I just read about a new website that helps people connect on a completely local level. The site is called Qwixo.com, and it allows users to post, view, and respond to classified ads, announcements, messages, and photos relevant to a particular zip code.

Personally, I think this is a fantastic idea and can see how Qwixo definitely fills a huge void. There are a bunch of similar sites that focus on a national audience, but if you’ve ever used those other sites (like I have), then you know how difficult it is to actually find what you’re looking for right there in your area rather than clear across the country.

With Qwixo, you’ll never have that problem because you can set the search parameters to cover a specific zip code. So if you want a job within walking distance, just go to Qwixo.com, select your state, city, and zip from the drop-down boxes, and you’ll be able to see what’s available. Is your band playing at a local club? Post an announcement on Qwixo and get everyone out there to see you. Left your backpack at the bus stop? Write up a message for the Lost & Found section and hope that some kind soul responds. The possibilities are endless!

In order for Qwixo.com to be as effective as possible, it’s important to get lots of people to register and start using the site. So check it out, and if you like it, sign up for free and tell all your friends about it!