And lo, there were movies

Last week the boy and I went to visit my family in California.

We had a ball.

It was the perfect mix of watching movies and chilling out and doing touristy things. Perfect. Absolutely.

A while ago I blogged that my basic nature is to be selfish, and it was only a childhood trauma that makes me go against that nature. Now? I'm not so sure. I spent almost six full days with my cousin who is one of the most selfless, giving, kind-hearted people I've ever met. I'm pretty sure she would give her left arm to someone she loved with no questions asked - and they wouldn't even need a good reason to need it. I know I'm not that giving, but if that's her basic nature, maybe it runs in the family? Hopefully? At least it gives me something to aim for.

Her husband? Well, he kept insinuating that I wouldn't like him. But anyone who will patiently answer my endless litany of questions about comic book superheroes and never once insinuate that I'm an idiot...well, he gets thumbs up from me. (I have now learned that Marvel comics = good. DC Comics = not as good. And the Hulk? He's sort of good AND bad. And Superman kind of sucks. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

There are several aspects of this vacation that I want to cover, so I'll take it in pieces. The first one is movies. Seeing as how the boy and I are on a tightly controlled budget (ie: "No Money") we haven't been to the movie theater in ages, and we haven't purchased a DVD since lord-knows-when, so we arrived in California starving for new movies in a way that we didn't even know we were starving. When we arrived at my cousin's place, it was like heaven. They are total movie buffs and owned every movie we wanted to see, plus some we didn't know we wanted to see (yet.) Needless to say, we watched some movies. (Bless my family for sitting through movies they had already seen and through my endless questions about "What happens next?" or "Does he die?!")

Some highlights? (NOTE: If you haven't seen the movies noted, there are some minor spoilers. Don't blame me if you want to see these old movies that are already available on DVD, haven't gotten around to it, and yet choose to continue reading.)

The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton was good. I would rate it as an "I'm glad I watched it, but probably won't own it." I will say, however, that it has one of the best fight scenes I've ever seen. Ever. Seriously. I know you might have the impression that I'm a girly girl (can't imagine why you would think that...) but I do love me some things that are definitely in the "boy" range. A fight scene where Hulk fights Abomination and pulls out his arm bone and stabs him with it would fall into that category. One might say I was impressed with that scene. Perhaps enough to continue talking about it all weekend long. Seriously. He pulls out Abomination's arm bone and then STABS HIM WITH IT. It was so cool.

Taken was another good one. It's relatively new, so I won't spoil anything. I'll just say, as my cousin so succintly put it, "You don't fuck with a Jedi master." I'll put this one on the "I'm glad I watched it and I might own it someday" list. However, it's all about the suspense, and that's one thing that I can't handle. At all. Kudos to my family for not duct taping my mouth shut.

Iron Man was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I'll put that on my "Must own SOON" list. I seriously can't say enough about it. It's 126 minutes long but felt like it was no longer than an hour. It FLEW by. Flew. I recommend you go see it now if you haven't. Right now. Go on. This blog can wait. I'm not even going to spoil it for you except to say that the creepy guy is the bad guy. You know, the one who's always the bad guy? (and even when he's not, he's still creepy.)

Which brings me to Watchmen. This one is on my "Wish I could get those hours of my life back" list. But my mom once told me that if I can't say something nice, then I shouldn't say anything at all. So I won't say anything at all. Except maybe to say that it might have been over my head, because I just didn't get it. Oh, and there's a bright blue penis that's pretty distracting in some scenes. Consider yourself warned.

There were other movies also, but I would hate for you to think that we spent the entire 6 days sitting on the couch. Because that would be wrong. Sometimes I sat on the floor :-)

Seriously, we did other things too, and I'll get to those (with pictures) as soon as I can find the motivation. As alluded to previously, we saw redwoods. And we took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. I'll share soon.