As per Ipe New Year’s Eve tradition, my wife and I ignore all the regular hoopla, and settle in for a nice, personal evening. This NYE, we celebrated it with drinking wine and watching Adventureland, a 2009 film written and directed by Greg Mottola (yes, of Superbad fame.)

The move takes place in 1987, and is about a recent college grad Jim (Jesse Eisenberg.)  He was to go to Columbia for graduate school, but needs to raise money over the summer, so he begins working at the Adventureland amusement park in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. While working the summer, he meets various people working the park, bonds, and experiences an interesting summer. He also meets Emily (Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame), and falls for her. You know, one of those deals. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig also star in this movie, but they are only supporting cast members.

This was a pretty good movie. It’s similar to many other movies in this vein, but it was still an interesting movie to watch.  I liked the direction, the acting was rather excellent by non-famous actors/actresses, and it was entertaining. Best of all? I loved the 80’s soundtrack.  According to the Wikipedia entry, 41 songs were licensed for use.  The original film soundtrack on iTunes doesn’t have all the songs, but I will have to check out the rest. Here’s the listing of songs [from Wikipedia]:

Additional songs

A selection of the songs not included on the soundtrack album:

• “Here She Comes Now” by The Velvet Underground (plays during the opening credits)
• “Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest
• “Taste of Cindy” (acoustic version) by The Jesus and Mary Chain
• “Limelight” by Rush
• “Bastards of Young” by The Replacements (opening sequence)
• “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake
• “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes (used in the trailer)
• “Tops” by The Rolling Stones
• “So It Goes” by Nick Lowe
• “Let the Music Play” by Shannon
• “Point of No Return” by Exposé
• “Obsession” by Animotion
• “Dance Hall Days” by Wang Chung
• “I Want Action” by Poison

And that makes 42 movies for Joel in the year 2009. It’s a wrap!

Adventureland (2009)

I watched movie 41 of the year 2009 on cable TV — My Super Ex-Girlfriend. It’s a terrible 2006 movie starring Luke Wilson (before he was shilling for AT&T) and Uma Thurman (who I mistakenly thought could do no wrong.) The movie also stars Anna Faris and Rainn Wilson.

Oh, did I say terrible? Did I let the cat out of the back? Whoops, my mistake.  The movie is terrible. The premise of the movie is that Luke Wilson starts dating Uma’s character, but she has a secret identity of….. G-Girl! “G-Girl” is a heroine who can fly, invulnerable, etc. However, Uma’s character is fruit loops, Luke breaks up with her, and the story is all about what would happen if your crazy ex-girlfriend used her super powers to get revenge on you. You know, like throwing your car into orbit.

Yeah, I kid you not.  The movie was dumb. Forced laughs, and nobody was interesting. Rainn Wilson’s character was a jerk, but not even an interesting jerk.  I can’t believe I liked Anna Faris better in her Wayan Bros. farce movies. And this was directed by none other than Ivan Reitman. Dammit, man, he directed Ghostbusters. Sad.

Don’t waste your time on this movie on TV.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

Much like last year, this is last week of the year is pure vacation for us, so we’re spending it together watching movies, hanging out, and running errands. Today, we had lunch at Big Fish in Princeton, and then went to see Up in the Air. It’s a newly released movie that’s getting great reviews, so I made the suggestion we go see it. Wow, what a great idea.

Directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman), this was certainly one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who works for a firm that has him travelling around the country laying off people for various companies. He’s isolated from a relationship standpoint, and relishes the accumulation of frequent flier and loyalty program points.  The story itself is about himself opening up, and involves two other people as well in his life.

The music was great, the direction was great, the story was great, and the acting was fantastic.  As a traveller, I secretly enjoyed watching him pack, and knowing the ropes of getting through security and such with efficiency.  Loved it.

Up in the Air (2009)

This is pretty amazing.  A pregnant mother in Colorado went into labor, but she and the baby seemingly died.  Later after the baby was born via C-section, she revived.  Furthermore, the doctors were able to revive the baby too. Crazy.

Tavern on the Green is closing on Dec 31st? It’s world-famous, and yet I’ve never eaten there. That sucks.

I got two new PS3 games for Christmas this year. Both highly rated. Both cool.

The first is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the 2009 sequel to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I loved the first Uncharted and the character of Nathan Drake. This sequel has great gameplay, a great story, and is just fun to play.  It’s truly like being in an action movie. At the time of this posting, I’m about halfway through, and it’s absolutely phenomenal.

The second is Batman: Arkham Asylum. The game was written by Paul Dini, and features the voices of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill.  Dini, Conroy, and Hamill were all involved in the original (and beloved) 1990’s Batman: The Animated Series, of which I’m also a huge fan. I haven’t gotten too far in this game yet, but it’s interesting.

New games - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Batman: Arkham Asylum

I know it’s a popular event to get a chance to ring the opening bell the NY Stock Exchange, but this was just weird. Why is Darth Vader allowed to ring the opening bell this morning?  Flanked by Imperial Storm Troopers?  Were the traders wondering what was going on that morning? I love Star Wars and all, but that’s just weird.

Pretty neat.  Anyone hear about this National Geographic documentary, Extraordinary Animals In The Womb airing last year in the States?  Maybe it was just in the UK? I would have watched it if I had known about it. More fascinating photos posted in the original i09.com article. There’s more about the documentary in the original Daily Mail article as well.

In its documentary Extraordinary Animals In The Womb, National Geographic captured rare highly detailed images of animals at various stages of gestation. Now you can see fetal dog, elephants, penguins, and dolphins still inside the womb.

In-utero elephant fetus gestating in the womb

Read about this a while back. Pretty neat accident, but I think there’s a market for security robots in the home. In Israel, a couple came home to find that their Roomba had killed a venomous snake that snuck into their house.

…one of the autonomous vacuum cleaners took down a certain Vipera palaestinae (a venomous snake found in the Middle East). Considered a leading cause of snakebites within its geographic range, the snake was found mangled ’round one of the robot’s rotating brushes when Eli and Efi Frida returned to their home in Galilee, which they share with their two children, aged four and seven (as well as several cats and dogs).

After weeks of sitting around and collecting dust (uh, not me, the DVD), I made time and watched American Splendor. It’s a 2003 movie starring Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar, the creater of the American Splendor comic book. What a odd, odd movie. I heard good things about the film years ago when it originally debuted, but never got around to watching it. I was under the impression that it was another Hollywood biopic. 

The answer is yes and no. It does have Giamatti, Hope Davis, and other actors playing the original Harvey, the original Joyce, etc. And yet, the real Harvey, the real Joyce, etc, also appear to talk about the film. They’re interviewed, they talk about stuff. At one point, you even see Paul Giamatti complete a scene, then walk over and watch the interview with Harvey from a director chair. How weird is it to watch a biopic that features both actors, and the original subjects also are filmed discussing their lives, the comic books, and how it feels to be depicted onscreen by actors?

It was certainly a different kind of film. When Harvey was on Letterman’s Late Show back in the 80’s, the film intersperses it with actual footage, and the real Harvey is on screen in the footage. According to IMDB, the film won a few awards, and was nominated for a few major awards, including Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay back in 2004.

American Splendor (2003)