Like last summer, this summer is shaping up to be a good ‘un. My main priorities are reading, biking, walking, enjoying the time off, etc. I’ll start this post with a humourous photo that I took at the Urbana Antique Show & Flea Market that the parental units and I went to. I first was drawn to the olde fashioned-e bug sprayer, but then saw what was defiantly sitting on TOP of the bug sprayer. Heh heh. Now that takes guts.

One thing that I forgot to mention in my previous entry was that I finally bought myself a lawn mower. My lawn boy finally retired from the biz (he wanted to spend some quality time with his kids before they were grown – what’s that about?!? Heh.) I first tried to hire my cousin to mow my lawn, but with her living in two different towns (divorced parents), it wasn’t as easy to get ahold of her as you might think. So I tried to figure out what I hated so much about mowing the lawn. Apart from the heat (which I have little control over) it was probably the noise. So I looked into electric mowers and bought a Kobalt electric mower from Lowes. It does a great job and if I don’t mow when it’s too wet or too long, I can get the job completely done before both batteries die. 🙂 And I can listen to my MP3 player, too!

OK, since I think of the summer as beginning over Memorial Day Weekend, I will start my tally there for movies/books/bike rides.

Total movies watched so far: 20
Total books read so far: 17
Total bike rides so far: 11

As you’ll see under the cut, most of the movies I’ve watched were DVDs borrowed from the library. (One day I picked up 7 – most of the videos I’d requested showed up at the same time!) Books are a mix of library and owned books, paper and digital, graphic novels and regular novels, but I’ll cover them in another post.

Movies are either theatrical (T) or library (L). Haven’t watched any through streaming (S) yet.

• Maleficent – T, very enjoyable and I prefer this telling to the original Sleeping Beauty.
• X-Men: Days of Future Past – T, was the movie that and and I saw when they were at the Lake.
• Beowulf – L, boring! And animated! Not what I was expecting. Big Finish’s Black and White is a MUCH better telling of the old myth. And Garundel (Grendl) is a hoot.
• The Aristocats – L, having seen Penn & Teller’s The Aristocrats a few years ago, it seemed only fitting that I should finally see the one with the cats. Cute.
• Becoming Jane – L, since I like Jane Austin and Anne Hathaway, it’s no surprise that I liked this movie.
• RED 2 – L, saw RED last year and wanted to see what these Retired and Extremely Dangerous folks were up to the second time around. Fun mayhem with ladies (and some dudes) who kick ass.
• Dredd – L, and speaking of mayhem… Excellent flick if you can stand the violence. Karl Urban was a great Judge Dredd.
• The Wolverine – L, I realized after watching Days of Future Past that this was the only X-Men movie I’d not yet seen. So I’ve finally seen it. Pretty cool.
• Thor 2 – L, and to complete the Avengers flicks, I figured I should watch Thor 2. I liked it much better than Thor. And they were smart to let Loki have a good chunk of the flick.
• Ender’s Game – L, didn’t want to spend any money on this movie (Orson Scott Card is a real douchebag) but was intrigued enough to want to see the flick. I knew NOTHING about the story, so the twist was a surprise (and something I thought “what they should do is… oh, that’s what they did!”)
• Kick-Ass 2 – L, another flick that I saw because the first flick entertained me enough. It was violent. Maybe not as fun to me as Dredd, but I liked the girl “sidekick.” (And did anyone else think about Doctor Who‘s “Love and Monsters” when they saw this?
• Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters – L, the book series was… OK. I’m thinking I like the movie series better. I’ve not been tempted to read any of the other series by Riordan.
• The Brother’s Grimm – L, eh… could have been more than the sum of its parts, but it was so much less. Terry Gilliam + Heath Ledger + Lena Headey (who I loved in Dredd and is wonderfully evil as Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones) + Jonathan Pryce = eh. Very sad!
• Julie & Julia – L, Streep stole this movie away from Adams (though Amy’s awfully cute in her part) and I’d’ve loved to have just seen a movie with Streep & Tucchi about Julia Child & her hubby.
• The Great Gatsby – L, BORING (moreso than Beowulf). I almost contemplated not finishing the movie. Maybe it was Tobey Maguire as narrator – he just doesn’t do anything for me.
• Cloverfield – L, knew nothing about it, so didn’t know it was a (is this a spoiler?) monster movie. Interesting idea, but never truly cared about the characters. Spent most of the time playing Doctor Who: Legacy (like I did with Beowulf and Gatsby).
• Mamma Mia! – L, love ABBA, think Streep is pretty cool, so enjoyed the flick. Much as I love Brosnan, they really should have cast Anthony Head in his role – he’s just as gorgeous and a LOT better singer. 🙂
• Dark Knight Rises – L, I realized that I haven’t seen most of the Batman movies. Not sure why I started with the last one of the Nolan flicks. Maybe cuz I love Anne Hathaway. Should see the other two now that I’ve seen this one.
• The Wolf of Wall Street – L, ah, decadence. And we wonder where all the money goes… 😉 Enjoyable, but man I hope this movie doesn’t convince kids these days on how to get ahead in life!
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – T, just saw this yesterday in the second run theater. Good stuff. Nice to see women kicking butts in movies. Need more of that, Marvel! (And, um DC????)

Dang, if I update more often, I don’t have to cover as many movies at one time!