Best Movies of 2000-2009

Post your comments below for the Best Movies list.  Find the list here:

http://www.cloften.com/?page_id=307

Suggestions for best movies for 2000-2009

What were the best movies of the last decades?  While I am semi-open to suggestions such as Million Dollar Baby and Slumdog Millionaire, keep in mind who you are trying to lobby here and pick movie less artsy and more awesome.

Fellowship Journal

This year as a church, we will be reading through the New Testament together in the newest version of the Fellowship Journal.  Check out the site here.  There will be a daily blog and you can join the conversation.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel

I know that I just said that I won’t do many of these just a few days ago, but here we are again with another movie review.  If there was going to be another one, surely it wouldn’t be this.  Shouldn’t it be something more manly?

Nonetheless, here it is the much anticipated sequel to Alvin and the Chipmunks.  I went to go see it with my nine year old daughter Lauren. It returns Earl from My Name as Earl as Dave and “What was that guy in?  Arrested Development? Yeah, that’s it.” as Ian.  It also stars Chuck from NBC’s Chuck and that retired model from Just Shoot Me.

Expectations:  I saw the first one and loved it.  I am not ashamed to enjoy kid movies.  It was cute and it made me laugh.  We ended up buying it for the girls and I watched it again.  I tell you that so you will know that I am not a hater or too cool or manly to say that I enjoyed a kid’s movie.  All that to say, my expectations were very low.  There’s no way it could be as bad in reality as it was in my head.

Reality: Really you have to add the Chipettes in the second movie?  Where can you go for the third one? Do you have to add the Budweiser frogs?  Was Jason Lee too good to really be in this?  Was he contractually obligated to be in, but only was willing to break his neck in the first 60 seconds and essentially be done? Anyway, Chuck did a good job in his place, but his role was minor, as this was mostly about developing the characters of the three brothers (that can’t be a serious statement) and introducing the Chipette’s.  All that to say, it was better than I thought it would be.  Again, it would have to be.  It was cute in parts and tedious in parts.  It has already, one week out, been successful enough for a third which is preliminarily titled: Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: The Battle for Christmas with Emmet Otter and His Jugband.

Appropriateness:  It’s rated PG, I suppose because Chipmunks giving wedgies is inappropriate for some children as well as swirlies and a Dutch oven reference.  Sorry, I may have given away some of the best parts.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a take your kids to the dollar theater, if they will wait.  When they ask, say “Let’s go get ice cream instead.  We’ll see that later.”  You may get fat on the ice cream, but you will be glad you only paid $1/$1.50 per ticket instead of $6-$10.

(By the way, people keep googling Alvin and the Chimpmunks w/ misspelling.  Mine was misspelled and I changed it.  I am adding in the misspelling again.)

Date Your Daughter

I just got back from a date with my younger daughter Lauren.  We went to go see Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakuel (more on this later) and then had lunch at TGIFridays.  However, what we did doesn’t matter near as much as that we did it.  I love spending time with her.  I love spending time with each of the three ladies in my life.  It is amazing how lucky I am that I am the most important person in the world to three different ladies.  Last night when I told her that we would have a date today, her face lit up.  I would do anything to see that look on her face.  How special it is that spending time with me would be enough to make her light up like that.

How do I want her to remember her dad growing up?  My dad was so cool, he had a blog.  My dad was great, no one could watch sports on TV like him.  He was great at playing video games.  I think not.  I want her to know and remember that I would often take time out of my week to spend one on one time with her, talking to her, doing the things that she loves to do.  I want her to remember how much I loved her and how valuable she was.

What I have to remember and all dads need to know is that how I treat her greatly affects three views she has.  How does she view herself?  Is she beautiful? Is she valuable?  How does she view what to expect in a boyfriend/husband?  How will he treat me? What does love mean?  How does she view God?  She will continue to read in the Bible and hear at Church that God is Father.  What image will she have when she hears that?  What is a father like?

I want Lauren to know that she is of immeasurable value, and that a date should treat her with utmost respect.  Most importantly, I want her to think that a father, like her heavenly Father, loves her unconditionally and would sacrifice himself for her the way God did/does through His son, Jesus.  I want her to know that her dad loves her deeply.

Sherlock Holmes

I do not watch many movies in the theater, so do not expect this too often.  The ones I do see are guy movies that are cool visually that make it worth it to see on the big screen.  I am a guy who likes to own movies and for the price of two people going to see a movie when it’s new, you could own it.  So I go to see movies in the dollar theater or rent them and then decide if I want to own them.  I say all that because I will not do many movie reviews.  If I did, it would be for movies you saw 3 months earlier, and I’m not sure that would be helpful or entertaining.  Also, I am not the kind of person who will ever give spoilers, so if anything my reviews will seem incomplete.

So I saw Sherlock Holmes today with my wife, brother and mom.  Sherlock Holmes has Iron Man as the lead and also stars that weird playboy robot from A.I. and that girl from the Notebook.

Expectations:  It has Robert Downey as the lead so that means Holmes will be a little edgier and more of a cad than what he normally has been portrayed.  They will have British accents, so I will miss a lot of the dialog, and I will be wishing there were subtitles.  I think it will be very intelligent and have a lot of action.  It is going to be good not great.

Reality: Robert Downey was incredible as was Jude Law.  The spin that they gave those two classic characters were great.  The way they interact with each other is both clever and funny.  The Rachel McAdams character was. ..zzzzzz.  I didn’t care and I found it hard to believe that she was some sort of challenger/foil to Holmes.

The action was exciting and the plot was very smart, but without being hard to follow.  (My barometer for this is Heidi.  This was what I call a 1 “what?” movie.  A “what?” is the number of times Heidi leans over and asks, “what?”)  Any movie that my mom, wife, brother and I all enjoy has to be working on a lot of different levels.  I like great plot twists.  There are no huge plot twists, but zigs and zags enough to make it quite interesting.  There were no “Dude!!” moments which is something that is so awesome that I will shout that out in the theater or at least in my heart.  However, it was consistently entertaining and I never lost interest.  I never messed around on my phone, which is quite rare.

Appropriateness:  There was no profanity that I can recall.  There was almost no sexuality in it at all.  If you have seen the preview of him mostly naked and chained to a bed, that’s a small part of the movie and not what you think.  There is violence and some grossness, namely some pig carcass slaughter that made me laugh and freaked my mom out.

Rating: (Here is the system)

See it in the theater and will definitely own

See it in the theater and might own

See it in the theater and will likely rent it

See it in the theater and be done

See it at the dollar theater

Rent it

Avoid it.

I rate it a see it in the theater and might own it.

Words we love to misfrounounce

Post your comments here for the Words We Love to Misfronounce List

http://www.cloften.com/?page_id=238

Community and Christmas

Guest blogger JohnO

My Christmas tree growing up was made up of what is affectionately known as “homemade” ornaments.  NO, not just any old ornament would do, these had to be original.  They were lovingly assembled by children who thought that what they had crafted was nothing less than a masterpiece.  I grew up loving our tree and the different symbols displayed for all to see.  I often wonder what others who visited our home thought about when they saw the ornaments hanging on our tree.  You see, the thing is, my tree growing up represents true community.     We had collected an assortment of different pieces; large and small, red and blue, green and purple–different.     Each ornament had it’s own identity.  Each represented a thought, a creative idea, a picture of Christmas.

I can’t help but compare my tree to how I see living in community.  We all bring different thoughts, feelings, and ideas to our local church.  We have colorful pasts and each of us brings a unique story to this journey called the Christian life.    Individually,  the ornaments may not have been much to look at, but together they do what could never do alone…..tell a story about an amazing Savior.

Fashion Poll

My wife and daughters are trying to stretch my fashion sense.  They bought me a vest today.  I am naturally skeptical, but I resist change.  So we need honest feedback here.  You can also mock me if you want, but we would like honest assessments as well.

No Stress at Christmas

I want to give you permission to not be stressed the rest of this week.  I wish I had told you this earlier this month.  For many of you it is already too late.  If you’ve been stressed, take a break.  Also, if you are stressed, I want to give you permission to not feel guilty about it.  Too often one of our Christmas traditions is to be super-stressed at Christmas and then feel guilty about it, because we are forgetting the real meaning of Christmas.  We then go to church and a well-meaning (?) pastor heaps more guilt on us for being too materialistic, stressed and not focusing on God enough.

I would like for you to give yourself a break from that.  The fact that we are too stressed, materialistic and we don’t focus on God enough will still be true in January and February.  You can work on those issues then.  For now, just take a deep breath, finish your checklist and enjoy your family, enjoy giving gifts to each other, go to a Christmas Eve service at your church, or another if you don’t have a church home or your church doesn’t have a Christmas Eve service.  Remember this, God loves you, Jesus came to give you life, and he really doesn’t want you to be overly stressed at his birthday party.

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