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Some of you may remember that last February I tallied up all the movies I saw in the theater in 2009 and was surprised by how many films I had see in the theater. Well, its that time again, so I took a look at all the movies that came out in 2010 and this is what I found.

• I went to the theater 33 times in 2010 (Only 6 times less than in 2009! I thought it would be far less, I guess Eva is not as much of an anchor as I projected.)
• I flew solo to see 16 films by myself
• Erin and I went to 6 films together, sometimes with other friends.  (Which means we probably only had 6 date nights all last year, since we always try to catch a movie.)
• I saw 4 films with friends
• I took my fellow cinephile Ella to 8 movies
• It became clear to me that 2010 was not a good year for films, 2009 was way better! Four of my favorite 2010 films just came out in December or it would have been a terrible year.
• I am not a huge Leo fan by any means, but he happened to be in two of my favorite films in 2010 (Shutter Island and Inception)

Here are the movies I saw in the theater in order of release date,  favorites in bold:

• Avatar (Actually a 2009 film)
• The Book of Eli
• Legion
• Shutter Island
• Alice in Wonderland
• Repo Men
• Greenberg
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Kick-Ass
• Iron Man 2
• Shrek Forever After
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
• Splice
• Get Him to the Greek
• Toy Story 3
• Jonah Hex
• Grown Ups
• Despicable Me
• Inception
• Salt
• Dinner for Schmucks
• The Other Guys
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• The Expendables
• Machete
• The Town
• Alpha and Omega 3D
• Red
• Megamind
• Due Date
• Tangled
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Tron: Legacy
• True Grit

2010 films I have already seen on dvd (in random order):

• Daybreakers
• Youth in Revolt
• The Social Network
• The Wolf Man
• Sherlock Holmes
• Edge of Darkness
• Valentine’s Day
• Cop Out
• The Crazies
• Green Zone
• She’s Out of My League
• The Bounty Hunter
• City Island
• Dancing Across Borders
• Chloe
• Hot Tub Time Machine
• Clash of the Titans
• The Losers
• The Human Centipede
• Harry Brown
• Killers
• The Last Airbender
• Exit Through The Gift Shop

2010 films I still want to see:

• The King’s Speech
• 127 Hours
• Winter’s Bone
• The Kids Are All Right
• Stone
• Inside Job
• Buried
• Howl
• The American
• The Extra Man
• The Ghost Writer
• Holy Rollers
• Solitary Man
• Micmacs
• It’s Kind of a Funny Story
• The Killer Inside Me
• Cyrus

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At Emily’s request, here are my “things I love this week”:

• Taking an afternoon nap with Eva – in Ella’s bed, it was sweet and we both needed the rest.
• Watching Ella display some amazing dance moves around the house, clearly her ballet class is really inspiring her to explore new movements.
• Finally got to start watching Dexter, Season 3 tonight, so bloody good. Thanks Netflix.
• Had wonderful Eggs Benedict with spinach and mushrooms at Granite City for Sunday brunch – oh it was nice to see Mike and Jane too. 😉
• Saw Exit Through The Gift Shop and Dead Poet Society this week, and have not been able to get either of them out of my mind. (Yes, I love this – its mind tingling)
• Erin and I went out on a double date with Nick and Jess. We ate some great sushi and went to see Black Swan.
• Eva saying “Da Da” all the time, although she also calls the cat that, so maybe instead of “dad”, it means “fuzzy”.
• Downloaded Risk on my PS3, and it includes a wacky version with robots, cats and zombies.
• Had a good friend send me his novel, I will be the first to read it front to back.
• Loving our new DSLR camera, Canon T1i and all its lenses and gadgets. I really missed having a great camera to play with – and its HD video capabilities is a nice bonus.

To my fellow bloggers – join in on the fun that is “things I love this week”.

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To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
— Robert Herrick, 1600s,

I watched Dead Poet Society the other afternoon while I was working, and it was very nostalgic for me. The film came out when I was 15-years-old and the message of Carpe Diem affected me profoundly. It changed my whole perspective on life, just like Keating’s lesson of standing on the desk, things in my own life suddenly looked differently to me.

Sort of like Jim Carrey in “Yes Man”, I suddenly started enrolling in everything, sports, show choir, drama, running for school mayor, all these things I wouldn’t have done before, not because I was scared really, just because I was unaware of the concept of taking my own life by the reins. I to that point let life just happen to me.

I was also strongly drawn to the ideas of rebellion in the movie, because in the real world in 1989 I was completely obsessed with what was happening in Tiananmen Square in China as millions of people took to the streets to be heard, only to be quashed by an oppressive government ruling with an iron fist. But that is a whole other story.

Watching Dead Poet Society again, I was still sickened when the students capitulated and signed the faulty confession making their mentor out as the scapegoat for their classmate’s suicide instead of his bully father. To me, it showed that they only changed superficially and never truly became individuals and non-conformists. But I assume without that moment of weakness the movie could not have ended with the students standing on their desks and calling out “O’ Captain. My Captain.” I cried like a baby. I am impressed by the director’s choices for Cameron, the fink, to not stand, and to also have other unnamed students that were not in the Dead Poet Society to stand, because they too had been affected by Keating’s teaching of self-awakening even if they were not told in the main plot of the film.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Then as I got older, I moved on to making my life extraordinary by taking different kinds of risks – trying things far less wholesome as school activities. I wanted to open my perspective to the world and try all things to decide for myself what was truth and what was merely dogmatic. Perhaps, that path involved too much partying, but I have no regrets. I sucked the marrow out of life and truly enjoyed the ride much more than had I just taken the road MORE traveled.

Sadly, I live far less deliberately these days, except with my kids. I try to remind myself constantly, that these are precious times with them, and I should be 100% engrossed in the moments I spend with my girls. I fail at this about as often as I succeed, but at least I try far more with them than the rest of my life. I did just find this article with 15 tips on how to live more deliberately, it has some great advice.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
— Ferris Bueller

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I took a one-meal break from my “common sense” diet last night so I could try Braised Pork Belly. When I saw it on the menu I was amazed to realize I had never tried “the Filet Mignon of pork”, even though I have seen pork belly raved about on dozens of the cooking shows I watch. Yes, I am a sucker for competitive cooking reality shows like Top Chef, Chopped, Kitchen Nightmares and Iron Chef. Anyways, it was delicious! We must eat at Shorty’s Steakhouse more often. So I have no regret going for the pork belly entree, however I should not have thrown the diet completely out the window by adding loaded fries with cheddar, bacon and scallions as my side dish. Oops. I did stick with water to drink though (Pats self on back.)

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Ella: “Did I take a long nap?”

Me: “No, it was a short one.”

Ella: “Was it a little long AND a little short?”

Me: “Ha. Well it can’t be a little long and a little short.”

Ella: “It could be medium then.”

Me: “Yup, I suppose so, you little genius.”

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After the success of Ella’s first mix tape, she decided to make a second one yesterday. She called this one, “Ella’s Secret”. Here is the songs she chose:

• Bee Gees – Staying Alive
• Blind Melon – No Rain
• Joan Jett – I Love Rock & Roll
• Ray Charles – Hit The Road Jack
• Smasmouth – Walkin’ On The Sun
• Snap – I’ve Got the Power
• Soft Cell – Tainted Love
• Tom Petty – Last Dance With Mary Jane
• Frank Sinatra & Bono – I’ve Got You Under My Skin
• Percy Sledge – When A Man Loves A Woman
• Paul Simon – Leaves That Are Green
• Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal
• Arrested Development – Mr. Wendel
• Barenaked Ladies – One Week
• Black Crowes – Too hard to Handle
• Cat Stevens – Wild World
• Elton John – Tiny Dancer
• Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – They Can’t Take That Away From Me (Ella was very excited to find a song by another Ella)
• Starship – We Built This City
• Stray Cats – Ally Cat Style
• Beatles – Twist and Shout
• Paul Simon – Father And Daughter

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Leonard Cohen is a singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist extraordinaire. His work often deals with the exploration of religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships. Famously reclusive, having once spent several years in a Zen Buddhist monastery, and possessing a persona frequently associated with mystique, he is extremely well-regarded by critics for his literary accomplishments, for the richness of his lyrics, and for producing an output of work of high artistic quality over a five-decade career. I first recall hearing his deep mysterious voice when Christan Slater’s character plays Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” on his pirate radio station in Pump Up the Volume, circa 1990, over 30 years into Cohen’s career. Here is the trailer to the film in case you forgot how awesome that movie was, Cohen is the first thing you hear in the trailer:

Here are my favorite original Cohen songs:

Everybody Knows

Hallelujah

Democracy

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People always say they can tell I have lost weight. Unfortunately, I usually have not lost any recent weight, and even worse I often know for a fact I gained weight since last time they saw me. So what does that mean? It means that their lasting impression of me is an even fatter version of me!

So, once again I have made the resolution to get in better shape, but this time I feel I have a realistic shot at being successful. Recently, it has dawned on me that I really need to get more fit in order to be around for my girls as long as I can.

I am not one for full-fledged diets because they are usually to demanding and restrictive, so that once I end them I will just gain it all right back anyways. Instead I am designing my own common sense diet, which is basically one I used before to lose weight but then fell back in to old habits.

So here is how it will work:

• Exercise – all diets will ultimately fail without exercise. Y membership here I come.
• Get More Sleep – I simply do not get enough and at my “advanced” age, this can lead to all kinds of problems
• Drink Water – do you realize we are supposed to drink a minimum of 64 ounces of water a day? That is half a gallon and I come nowhere near drinking that much. So my goal now, is to drink 100 ounces a day – and it is tough!
• No soda or sugar drinks –  High fructose corn syrup is my enemy. I have cut way back in recent years, but would still drink a lot of non-soda sugary drinks and would always get large buckets of soda when I was out at restaurants or the movies – no more.
• Eat Breakfast – food just does not sound good to me in the morning, so I don’t eat anything until lunchtime. Well, it is a fact that eating breakfast helps your metabolism burn 200 to 300 more calories a day, so I need to eat something in the morning. My answer: Bananas. Have you heard of the banana diet craze in Japan?
• Eat Veggies and Fruit – I am going to try and default to eating veggies and fruit whenever I need a snack. I actually like them, but its always just been easier to grab some candy, cookies, or chips instead of carrots or pineapple. So I need to make it easy to go green.
• Eat Smart – No more blatantly bad food and no more huge portions. And I will make substitutions when I am cheating, so if I do get that cheeseburger, I can certainly not have fries and a coke with it. If I do have a cookie, I can not follow it up with 3 more cookies. You get the idea.

So that’s it. We’ll see how it goes, but so far I have been pretty good in 2011, and hopefully I will be saying that same thing a year from now. So next time someone asks if I lost weight, I can say “yes, I have” instead of wondering just how fat they think i used to be.

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Remember mix tapes? So awesome. I can not even count how many of those I made in my youth, I remember I would always listen to Casey Kasem count down the Top 40 and I would record my favorite songs when they came on – so that is at least 1 new  mix tape a week! Now I am not saying that CDs and MP3 are not huge improvements – they clearly are, I mean geez do you know how much time I wasted rewinding and fast-forwarding?

Anyways, Ella got a pink princess CD player for Christmas, which is great because she loves to dance and insists on playing some music to do it. Of course, the poor klutz dropped it and broke the feet off it before she had even turned it on, but it still works fine and she loves it.

Instead of getting her all the kids music out there and subjecting ourselves to that special kind of ear-bleeding misery, I instead decided to let her make a mix CD from my MP3 music collection.

Ella was all about making her own mix, as I knew should would be since we already knew a couple songs she likes from our “Sing Along Songs” we play in the car.

So anyways, we sampled a lot of songs and these are the ones she chose for her first mix (pretty proud of her choices):

• “It’s Oh So Quiet” by Bjork
• “Pump It” by Black Eyed Peas
• “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics
• “Gettin Jiggy Wit It” by Will Smith
• “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley
• “It Had to Be You” by Harry Connick, Jr.
• “Blackbird” by Sarah MaLachlan (Beatles song off the I Am Sam soundtrack, and Ella’s all-time favorite song!)
• “Say a Little Prayer For You” from My Best Friend’s Wedding soundtrack
• “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants
• “My Sharona” by Knack
• “Jungle Boogie” by Kool & the Gang
• “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong
• “Harder to Breathe” by Maroon 5
• “E.I. (Must be the Money)” by Nelly
• “You Can Call Me Al” by Paul Simon
• “Get The Party Started” by Pink
• “Soak Up The Sun” by Sheryl Crow
• “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” by Stevie Wonder
• “Stuck In The Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel (Another Ella favorite from our sing-along CD)
• “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats
• “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night
• “Drops of Jupiter” by Train
• “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison (She likes to point out that her and mom are brown eyed girls)

What a mix, eh? Talk about spanning multiple decades and genres. I guess she will have an eclectic taste in music like her pops. I am already looking forward to making the next mix. To me it makes sense to let her pick and choose from my music rather than let current pop culture determine what she should like. It’s just like how spending hours listening to all my dad’s albums on vinyl shaped my tastes in music, just as much as current radio did.

Of course the plan is not perfect – when we had company over for New Year’s Eve she insisted on playing her CD of Kid’s Christmas Music instead of her fun mix CD that we can enjoy. She also is not sure exactly what to call the player since her mom refers to it as a “Boom Box” and her dad calls it a “Ghetto Blaster” – both sad reminders of our cassette tape pasts.

Filed under: Fatherhood, Music | 2 Comments »