The Twilight Saga: New Moon

My Review
As a fan of the Twilight books, I was looking forward to watching New Moon for several reasons. First, I wanted to see what the new director did with the story since there was a much larger budget for it, second, I was hoping that the acting had improved from the first movie, and lastly, I wanted to see the relationship between Bella and Jacob develop on the big screen.

I've broken down my review into the four typical categories as used by yahoo movies: story, acting, direction, and visuals. I've rated New Moon as follows:

Story: B
Acting:C-
Direction: B
Visuals: B-
Overall: B-

Story:

Overall, the director stayed true to the original story that Stephenie Meyer created in New Moon. Because we're dealing with a movie we need to keep in mind that it needs to be concise and stay within a reasonable time frame. The movie was about 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it definitely did not feel that long to me. In fact, it felt much, much shorter than 2 hours, and that could be attributed to the fact that I enjoyed watching New Moon.

Some parts of the storyline were merely touched upon, while others were expanded in the movie for which I felt were unnecessary. One of those unnecessarily long story lines that bothered me was seeing Bella having nightmares and awkwardly screaming while sleeping. You could see the awkwardness on Kristen's face during those scenes and that just made me cringe while watching.

What did I want to see more of? I wanted more Bella and Jacob. This was the book where we would see more of Jacob and see how the relationship fully develops with Bella, but it was not elaborated in as much detail as I would have liked. Even though there wasn't much of Edward in this movie, I still felt that I saw too much of him when Bella was "hallucinating". I wonder if it would have been more powerful had we just heard his voice as she hallucinated instead of having to see his agonizingly painful face with those hot red lips (what's with the lipstick on Edward?) All in all, the story in the movie was pretty faithful to the original and that's a great thing. I must point out though, that this movie won't make much sense and it'll be hard to believe why Bella is so depressed after Edward leaves if you haven't read the books. Story: B

Acting:
Where do I start on this one? Well, there were plenty of characters in this story, but nearly everyone was minor in comparison to Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) which is a bummer since there was strong acting from others. For example, even though Dakota Fanning had very few lines, it was very evident that her acting skills are above and beyond those of Kristen Stewart. It's very tough to believe that Kristen has some acting experience since she's so horrible. I don't know how she manages to make nearly every scene so awkward, but that really bothers me especially since the whole story is about her and she's in nearly every scene.

Robert Pattinson wasn't in the movie very much, but in the scenes that he did have, you can also tell he's not a very good actor. Was he always supposed to be in so much pain? Well his face always had this expression of extreme pain even in scenes where he was supposed to look somewhat happy or even neutral. Too much for me. Robert needed to turn it down a notch. I'm sure with more experience, his acting will get better, I hope.

Go Taylor Lautner!!! He was the best lead actors in this movie. The feelings that he was trying to portray were very believable and I could feel his excitement when he would see Bella, and I could sense his anger/pain when he couldn't do everything he wanted to do for Bella. I also liked his transformation (I know, has nothing to do with his acting).... don't we agree Jacob looks much, much better with shorter hair?

Look at the pictures below and see if you can figure out what Jacob was feeling or trying to say.... Like I said, I think he did a good job. I was expecting to go from Team Edward to Team Jacob after having watched this film, but because I felt that there wasn't enough Jacob storyline (cut short for the movie), I didn't find myself switching to Team Jacob.
What about the other characters with small roles? I did like the wolf pack because they acted the exact same way that they were described in the book, and I'm excited to see more of them in the next installment of the twilight saga. Acting: C-

Direction:
Chris Weitz did a much better job directing this movie than Catherine Hardwicke did on Twilight. There were a few things that bothered me, and therefore, earning a B from me. In a few scenes are the camera is a bit shaky which I didn't think many people would notice since they are so entranced with the storyline. Also, because I easily get motion sickness, the scene where Bella is depressed and the months are passing by as she stares out the window... the camera rotates around her as the seasons change, but I had to look away since I was starting to get dizzy. I did notice the camera man reflected in the mirror before I looked away and waited for the scene to pass. Anyone else notice the camera man?

Isn't it the director's responsibility to expect superior acting from the actors? Like I said before, the acting was not good, and I feel that the director was to blame, at least, partially. He should have challenged and pushed Kristen Stewart to portray Bella Swan correctly, but as we can see from watching New Moon, Mr. Weitz was content with the mediocre performance from the leading lady.

Something that I really enjoyed were the action scenes. The Volturi really got the chance to shine, there was no Bella, and they were fast paced that they kept everyone's attention. The action spiced up the storyline even though they were somewhat tame when compared to the type of action you'd normally see in an action movie.

Lastly, some parts of the movie was too cheesy and really unnecessary. Mr, Weitz, did we really need to see this? Too silly and just lame. The audience burst out laughing for this scene. Direction: B
Visuals:
Not bad. At times the wolves looked really awesome, but at times looked super cute and not scary at all. I think the hardest thing to portray on the screen was the wolf phasing. Sometimes, it looked amazing and sometimes it was too cheesy. One of those cheesy moments was when Bella upsets Paul and he phases (which was kinda cool), but when Jacob comes to Bella's rescue and he phases, it's so lame. It just seemed too fake which translated to being too cheesy. Another issue that I had, was the sparkly vampires, but that's nothing new. That's the same issue that I had with Twilight. It's just so lame, and that part of the story doesn't translate very well to the movies. Visuals: B-

Overall:
In my book, this movie is a B-. When comparing it to the first movie, Twilight, it is much, much better. I think if the quality of the acting were better, this movie would have rated much higher. Remember, I am rating this movie based on the fact that I'm a Twilight fan and I've read all of the books. I'm not sure if someone who hasn't read the books will enjoy this movie, but as someone who likes the characters and the story, I did enjoy watching this movie very much.

Another Man Down

Where is the support for us newbies?

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that a fellow colleague was leaving my site several weeks before school ended. I was somewhat shocked to hear about his dilemma, but at the same time I was reminded off all the bullshit that new teachers can go through in their first years of teaching especially if they don't have someone in their corner to guide and support them. So what happened to my fellow co-worker?

Well, he was given the shittiest kids to work with all year long, he didn't have the support of administration, and he was not given a chance to prove himself as a teacher before he was forced to resign. Many of his kids were failing and he was struggling to gain control of his students/classes, and I know this because he came to me several times asking for advice. I tried to help out as much as I could, but it's very tough for new teachers to get by when those in charge (our administration) don't follow through with consequences (when students breaks the rules) to stupid rules that they "establish" at the beginning of the year.... So what happened? Well, instead of administration trying to help out this poor teacher, they corner him with "evidence" of how awful of a teacher he is and they tell him that he must willingly resign from his teaching position or get reprimanded by not being allowed to work for the district AGAIN! What is a poor, intimidated, new teacher supposed to do?

Yeah, he asked for help. He went to the rep of our union for help, and she accompanied him to all the meetings that he had to endure with the principal and whoever else is pushing our new teachers to "willingly" resign. Did the teachers' union rep help at all? I don't know, but he's no longer working with me, so I'd have to assume, NO, she didn't help very much. I'm very much upset by this because this is the second year in a row where a friend of mine (a new teacher with NO support from anyone) is asked to leave the school. Their students are then feed some bullshit about how the teacher left early due to personal reasons. Why can't administration just have the balls to come out to the students and say, "We fucked up. We put all you assholes into the same classes and gave those classes to a new teacher, and we didn't help the teacher when he needed our help and support. You kids are ungrateful brats, but we fucked up." ?

I was very fortunate to have gone through a great masters/teacher's prep program through UCSD where support was always available. I feel that my personality is strong enough to handle the types of kids that come through my school, but I also feel that I was taken care of my by supervisors through my program. If I ever needed someone to stand up for me, guide me, give me tips or console me, I knew that I could always count of my supervisors. With that being said, I think that all new teachers should have someone that is not part of their work site that they can count on for help and support. I know that the district has this program for beginning teachers and that program comes with a person called a "support provider", but its not the same thing. These support providers have an agenda, especially if they work at the same site as the new teacher. I could go on and on about this issue, but I think I'll stop for now.

So, what is my point?

Why are people so damn surprised that new teachers don't last long? Well, fuck, they don't get support! Teaching is a tough profession and I wasn't aware of that until I became a teacher. We're very much under appreciated by principals, vice principals, parents and especially students.

Happy For My Well Deserved Free Time! ☺

Spring Break Stuff Week 1 (4/6-4/10/09)

Being so busy with work and other lame work-related stuff keeps me from doing what I like and watching my favorite shows, but now that I have free time during my 4-week long spring break, I’ve been catching up on my faves.

Baseball Season:
I tend to not watch baseball as much when I’m working, but the 2009 opening day game was great, and it got me excited all over again. What’s my team? Ever since I’ve been a little girl, I’ve been a Dodgers fan. Go Blue! I need to get myself a nice Dodger jersey. ☺

I’m happy to say that they’re off to a good start by winning 5 out of 8 games. Our roster is not bad, and I think we’ll be fine as long as they don’t get hurt and as long as no one is on the DL for long.

Here's the roster:
* Infielders - Casey Blake, Blake DeWitt, Rafael Furcal, Orlando Hudson, James Loney, Mark Loretta
* Outfielders - Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Juan Pierre, Manny Ramirez, Delwyn Young
* Catchers - Brad Ausmus, Russell Martin
* Pitchers - Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Clayton Kershaw, Hiroki Kuroda, Hong-Chih Kuo, James McDonald, Guillermo Mota, Ramon Troncoso, Claudio Vargas, Cory Wade, Randy Wolf

Being that there are many games and teams, and a few channels where they show the games, I don’t get to watch the dodgers all the time unless if they’re on espn, fox or playing against the padres, so I gotta get my game scores and news via the internet and Ms. Alyssa Milano’s tweets from twitter :-D

House:
I absolutely love watching this show. Sometimes I miss it, but I’m glad that hulu has full episodes so I can catch up during my free time like my spring break.

I’m writing about it because I was so SHOCKED that my favorite doctor, Dr. Kutner killed himself in the episode last week (4/6/09). I was so surprised since there were absolutely no clues that he’d be leaving the show, so I went online to see if there was any news about it. I found out from entertainment weekly that indeed there was a HUGE story behind his death, but that we wouldn’t know that story until everyone around the U.S. got to see the episode. After waiting a few hours, I found out what happened. The actor that plays Dr. Kutner, Kal Penn, decided to leave the show because he got a job at the White House. You can read more about that here:

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/04/house-exclusive.html

I’m definitely bummed that he’s no longer on the show, but it appears that he’s following his other true passion of serving the public. I must say though that I would have preferred that his character not commit suicide, but instead leave the hospital for some reason, so that sometime in the future he could come back as a guest star. Oh well. I wish him well. I bet he’s excited to be part of the Obama administration.

Hobbies:
1. Painting – So I can’t really paint, but I have fun doing it. I had John draw something for me (Hello Kitty) on canvas, and I loved painting it in. As soon as I’m done, I’ll be posting a picture of it on here.

2. House hunting – This isn’t really fun, but it’s something that needs to get done during my break. It’s very exhausting when I work all day then go see homes in the evening and I don’t get home until after 8pm, blah blah blah. I found something that I like, but it’s a little out of my price, so I made an offer and I’m waiting to see what will happen. I’m excited about having my own home!! I hope that it all works out for me and I have my own place soon.

3. Working out – Wow, this one is a toughie. It’s easy to be lazy, but I do like working out and I just have to find ways to keep motivated. I have a stationary bike in the living room, so I’m using that while I watch TV, but I’d like to join Elena on her running training. See sent me a link to the workout plan, but I haven’t gotten around to starting it. I asked her to be my workout buddy in terms of motivating me to start running. We’re both on twitter, so I’ll have her tweet me motivational quotes, etc perhaps on a daily basis to ensure that I start and keep up with the workout/training plan. So why start running? Well, it’s a great way to get a good workout and I like doing the 5k-8k runs/walks, but I bet it’s more fun if I were in better shape and capable of running the entire distance. We’ll see how this goes in the next few weeks. There’s an 8k coming up, so that’s a good way to motivate myself to work on endurance training.

"Is everyone in your family healthy?"

F1rst Wednesday, Holy crap!

I went to lunch at Souplantation with my co-worker on Thursday last week, and the weirdest thing happened to me. As I was getting out of the car in the parking lot, the lady in the car next to us was also getting out and she smiled at me and asked me how I was doing. I thought it was a little odd, but I didn't think much about it. Once we were inside, I happened to pass that same lady's table, and she looked up at me and smiled. (AWKWARD!) What did I do? I had to smile back.

After that, my co-worker and I enjoyed our lunch. Nothing much happened until the weird lady was about to leave, and she felt the need to come to our table to talk to me. She asked me if everyone in my family was healthy. Um, what? I had no idea what she was talking about. At first, I thought she was asking me if people in my family were obese since I had just served myself some chili and bread and that may appear as eating way too much. I was so confused by her question. I thought that somehow she was mistaking me for someone else. I told her that everyone was healthy, so she proceeded to give me a flyer for her church.....



She said that Jesus had told her that she should give me the flyer so that my family and I could join her "church" and get healed. She assured me that going to her congregation would save me. WTF? I took her F1rst Wednesday flyer and said thank you. She smiled and left.

My co-worker and I just looked at each other and we realized how creeped out we both were because of what had just happened. I'm not really sure what it was about that lady or her flyer, but I would NEVER go to a meeting like that. I would be worried for my life! It had cult written all over it, and I'm sure I'm wrong about that, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Plus, I don't need to be healed or saved or whatever, and I don't think that people need to go to church as long as they have faith.

Favorites of February 2009

It's still early in the 2009 year, but I've already found a few things that I really like.

1. The Amazing Race: First of all, I've never really watched The Amazing Race before, but this year I wanted to give it a try because I wanted to see how Mike White (from School of Rock) and his father do in the competition. They are quite a funny duo. In the first episode of the season 14, they compete in a cheese challenge that is so hilarious even the people watching the contestants do the challenge were nearly rolling on the floor from laughing so hard. I loved it! Needless to say, I was hooked after watching the first episode. I'll be cheering for the Whites and I hope they're around for a while. I wonder what they will do with the money if they win. Dad wants Mike to donate it to charity, but Mike says hell no! LoL. I missed last week's episode, but that brings me to my #2. Hulu.com

2. Hulu.com: Hulu offers shows from a variety of networks, but not all of them yet. This site has full episodes and short clips from different shows as well. This site allows you to watch your favorite shows at anytime at no cost to you. I like this because I don't have TiVo, and I can go to hulu.com at any time and watch the episode of the amazing race that I missed last week. I'm hoping CBS will work with this site because I'd like to be able to have access to How I Met Your Mother episodes which they don't have yet. Oh, I almost forgot, Jillian Michaels also has some workout videos on there which I'm hoping to give a try soon.

You can register for an account and queque clips that you want to watch at another time, you can subscribe to episodes, etc. It's great. Give it a try and see if you like it too.

3. Luutit.com: I know some people might say that this is wrong, but when money is tight and you want to watch a movie for free, this is the place to do it. You can't find everything here, but it's not too bad. A lot of the popular movies can be found here and you can watch in the comfort of your own home. Plus, if you end up no liking the movie, then you don't feel stupid for having spend $11 on it as you would at the theatre. The popular go to site used to be watch-movies.net, but that site has been taken down, so this is where I go now. This is where I went to watch most of the award nominated movies this year.

4. Coraline in 3D: This was the first 3D movie/show that I've seen that didn't make me sick! Yey! Well, I think it had to do with the fact that the movie did not have as much 3D in it as I thought it would, but nevertheless, the movie was good. I really enjoyed watching it. At times it was a little creepy and a little inappropriate for young kids, but the story was great.

Next Month....

I'm looking forward to Dancing with the Stars. I've never liked this show because I've found it quite boring, but I want to see how Shawn Johnson does in the competition this season. I don't know if I'll watch each week or if I'll just go online to hulu and watch her performance only. I really like Shawn (she's an awesome performer), and she's an athlete so that might help her in the competition. I don't know when exactly the new season starts or what channel, but all I know is that it's starting sometime in March and that I have to see how Shawn does in the dancing competition.

The Oscars 2009

Like a car wreck that you just can't keep your eyes off of.... The Oscars 2009.

The Oscars are quite boring especially if you don't watch the movies that are up for awards. I did a lot of movie watching last year/early this year, so I was looking forward to seeing what movie would win the best picture award, but other than that, the Oscars are lame. I must say that I did enjoy the sexy Hugh Jackman did a great job as a host. I did not know that he could sing.

Anyway, overall, the show was lame, I hated the fact that Beyonce had to perform (hate her so much), and I don't like that the show is dragged out so much. They could present all the awards in about an hour but no..... they gotta do 3+ hours. It even ran over the allotted time and I missed some of the amazing race episode. Super lame.

Well, I was happy with the winners though. I really, really, really loved Slumdog Millionaire. I watched it at home when it was on limited release, and I fell in love with it right away. I can't wait until it's released on DVD. That's a must buy movie for me. Slumdog was up against Milk (also great movie), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (good movie), The Reader (great movie), and Frost/Nixon (which I never watched) for best picture and I was very pleased to see my favorite win. By the way, the female lead is super cute, and I like her accent.

My Recommendations?

If you haven't done so already, and you have some free time, I would highly recommend that you watch:

1. Slumdog Millionaire. The scenery from India was amazing! It's a very touching story to see how the kids go through a lot of crap during their childhood and then at the end, well, it gets better. I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

2. Milk. I learned a lot about the gay movement in San Fransisco. This movie was sweet at times, and infuriating at others because it reminded me of how people can be so stupid. Everyone should have equal rights regardless of who they love, but it will take a while before all (or most) people come to accept that.

3. The Reader (Kate Winslet was great in this movie). At first it was weird seeing so much nudity, but overall, the story was very good. I didn't like the way the movie ended, but the story was well written.

What was the point of this blog? Well, I don't like the Oscars because they're lame, but I still watch because I want to see with my own eyes how the winners of the best picture award react, respond, etc to the news that they've won. Ugh, I'm lame.