Movie Review - Aquaman, BirdBox, Dumplin'

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Jason Momoa is gorgeous.  The muscles, the tats, the intensity.  I'm normally not a long-hair-on-guys type of gal but I'll make an exception here.  I looooved Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones and hope to the heavens that there will be at least a cameo in the final season. 

Jason Momoa is beautiful

Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo, rocking the guyliner

(Sidebar: to me, Game of Thrones is best enjoyed by watching the HBO series as well as reading the bookes. There's no hecking way I'd understand what was going on just by reading the books - there's so much detail and so many characters, even the maps and family trees in the books are only moderately helpful. Likewise, the series is amazing to watch but I still miss some of the nuances the book contains.  And while the books are way too daunting to re-read, I've watched each season of the series 2-3 times each and always find something I hadn't seen before. And every now and then there are Khal Drogo dream sequences. So the books and the series are companion pieces. It also helps that I've got a friend who is a GoT savant and can explain anything in gob-smacking detail.)

Anyhow, despite the dreck that was the Justice League movie, Momoa's Aquaman character was a fun breath of fresh air so I was eagerly anticipating the stand alone flick. And then there's promo photos like this:

Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry aka King Arthur aka Aquaman; he even makes a manbun look good in this movie

I managed to stay awake for the whole movie and Momoa is fabulous (did you see him on Saturday Night Live? He did a good job, especially as an Elf on the Shelf) but he's just about the movie's only redeeming quality. The one other redeeming quality? Yahya Abdul Mateen who plays one of the many (too many) villains.

Yahya Abdul Mateen as Black Manta in Aquaman

Yup, muscles and intensity. It appears I have a type. Hello, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman (aka my husband) as Wolvering in X-Men Days of Future Past

Honestly, it's Jackman's back that really does it for me.  Not even the backside, the back.  I mean, the front is OK too but it's the back that gets me. Seriously, I gasped out loud when he first came on screen in the original X-Men.

Be still, my heart

No, really, be still...

A few years ago I read an article that referred to this type of character as the 'noble savage' which I guess is the male equivalent to the 'hooker with a heart of gold'. Whatever.  These guys are hawt.

I got myself all side-tracked.  In sum, Aquaman sucked but the eye candy was fun; go watch GoT; Hugh Jackman is at the top of My List and the original X-Men movie happened to be really good as was X-Men Days of Future Past and I can't count how many times I've watched either of those Two Boops Up-rated movies.

Sadly, not every movie ever made can star Hugh Jackman. But there are a couple on Netflix that are Must See: Bird Box, and Dumplin'.

Yes, Bird Box is all the rage on social media now and has over 50 million streams. But I first heard about this I think in an Entertainment Weekly book review a couple of years ago.  If I could only read one magazine for the rest of my life it would be EW. It covers movies, TV, music, theater, books, video games, and overall entertainment zeitgeist. (They also happen to have an awesome GoT blog.) So I read Bird Box in hardcover. It was one of the most atmospheric, paranoid stories I've ever read. I turned my teenage nephew onto it and he has talked about it for years. The Netflix movie was good - I wasn't expecting to see John Malkovich in it - but there were a few scenes I'd hoped would be in the movie that were only in the book. If you haven't already watched it, read the book first. Movie by itself: One Boops Up.  Book: Two Boops Up.

And finally there is Netflix's Dumplin' where the overweight, Dolly Parton-loving, high-school-age daughter of a former beauty queen decides to enter a pageant. I was expecting a basic everyone-tries-to-stop-her-but-she-goes-on-to-win-the-pageant-and-everyone's-heart plot but it was surprisingly much richer than that. I don't want to hand out any spoilers, but know that I was misty-eyed almost through the entire movie. (Sidebar: I can't stand Jennifer Aniston. After watching her play the beauty queen mom, I still can't stand her.) Two Boops Up, check it out.

My Weight Loss Journey - Part II

FYI, from time to time I'll include links in a post that take you to whatever it is I'm talking about.  I may get compensated if you purchase something from clicking the link.  My blog is purely for my personal amusement, but if you make a purchase because of something I said, well, it's cool to get something back from the provider. 

Picture this...it was Sicily, 1927...  Kidding.  That's from one of my favorite shows, The Golden Girls (note: if you, too, like The Golden Girls, you can get shot glasses and play drinking games whilst watching reruns).

Okay, for real.  Picture this... it was Sydney, Australia, October 2001.  You don't really have to picture it because I've done it for you:

I'd started off in Texas in 1994 at 130ish pounds, and by October 2001 I was up about 50 pounds from that. Yes, 50 pounds.  I stunned myself, really. That's the kind of weight gain you read about in magazines.  Or blogs.

Anyhow, what's 50 pounds amongst friends, right? I didn't let it stop me from a bucket list vacation to Australia, where a friend and I climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, went to the aquarium (where I learned that male platypi are deadly - they have a claw on their hind flippers that is full of poison; I swear everything in Australia is trying to kill you), the Taronga Zoo (got to hang out with koalas in their eucalyptus-filled enclosure; did you know Hugh Jackman used to dress up as a kangaroo, and that I harbor a massive fangirl crush on Hugh Jackman? More on Hugh Jackman later), the Sydney Opera House (where I slept through a beautifully-staged opera, yay jetlag), Manly Beach (got shit upon by a seagull, that rat bastard) and Bondi Beach.

It was a great trip (despite being shat upon) but I was wearing Eddie Bauer jeans in a size 12 and I remember distinctly telling my friend at Sydney Harbor I needed to take an escalator instead of the stairs because my jeans were too tight.  Ugh.

And despite feeling fat and uncomfortable, I kept getting bigger and found myself three months later at 186 (have I told you I'm only 5'2"?). I don't know what prompted me (was it the Duchess of Pork commercials?) but for the first time I joined Weight Watchers®. By then the low-fat thing had passed, but they had 'points'! I could go to their website and log what I was eating - each food had a 'point' value and it was like a game to see if I could stay in my 'point' budget.  I was also supposed to track the number of servings of fruit/vegetables, glasses of water, and servings of calcium - more games to challenge myself with! And you could 'earn' a few 'points' for working out which meant...drumroll please...eating more!

The whole gamification thing was perfect for me: I'm abnormally competitive (THAT'S a long story, but suffice to say Mama and Papa Boopsandbugs had high expectations of their children) and I love-love-loved meeting the various daily and weekly challenges. And lo and behold it worked! The weight melted off, and I loved the way I felt, the way I looked and what clothes I could wear.

I returned to Australia in October 2002, going to Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef) all by myself.  I'd alternate a day tour on the water with a day tour in the rainforest.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  I weighed 162 then.  Thank you, Weight Watchers®!

I kept up with Weight Watchers® for about six months after this trip, and got down to about 155 and a size 8 for a hot minute. And I mean HOT. I looked and felt great, was wearing the cutest clothes, and then took a business trip to NYC in January 2003.  All of a sudden it was restaurants every meal for ten days.  And there was a crippling snowstorm (like, over a foot of snow - the drifts were taller than me), so not a lot of walking around the city to burn off what I was eating.  I was also away from a computer (back in the days of desktops!) so I couldn't track my food really well.  And there wasn't a ton of time to use the hotel gym. And blahblahblah excuses upon excuses.  The weight started creeping back.

In May 2003 I went to Cancun for the first time.  I'd re-gained about 10 pounds, but I felt great.  I played in the pool and the ocean, I went jet skiing, snorkeling with squid, snorkeling in Cozumel. I wore swimsuits and shorts and dresses, I danced on the bar in some club... Life was good.  Who needs Weight Watchers®!

But going to Cancun with a friend that looks like THAT does awful things to one's self-esteem.  I remember her delight in finding a Zara, and my crushing despondence that even at this relatively-low weight I STILL couldn't fit into their clothes. By the time I returned to Texas I'd chucked all pretenses of tracking what I ate, I stopped going to my personal trainer, my new boss was stressing me out, and by February 2004 I was close to the weight I started at two years prior.  Who needs Weight Watchers®? Apparently I did.

Gah. It was another ten years before I got control of my weight again.  But that's another story.