Movie Review: Dinner for Schmucks

I don't normally do movie reviews, I leave those more my much more entertaining friend, Audreya. And yes, She is the only follower I repeatedly tag - because most of the rest of you just stalk me and don't blog as well. Anyway, today I'm deciding to steal the topic. I wasn't going to blog about Dinner For Schmucks, but the lack of anything else interesting happening lately has made me do it.

I think the problem with this movie is those of us who love the actors go into it with too high of expectations. Steve Carrell and Zach Galifinakis are two of the most hilarious guys out there (in my opinion). And, Paul Rudd is just adorable. I could lick him. But, that's another blog. Plus, Carrell and Rudd have some pretty great pairings under their belt already, examples: Ron Burgandy, and 40 year old virgin.

The movie starts out OK. Rudd works in a financial company and he's trying to work his way up the ladder. He makes a gutsy, yet impressive move to get the CEO's attention. He is told he is in line for the next promotion, but first he has to come to dinner. "Great," he thinks. No - there's a catch.... they have to bring a "guest," someone "who is or does something special" at the end of the night the most "special" (a.k.a. most ridiculous) person there gets an award. And, the guy that invited him gets bragging rights until the next time.

Of course, Rudd is appalled - but he's overextended and needs this promotion so he agrees to go. He has no idea where he'll find someone. His girlfriend tells him he's horrible for considering it. He tries to figure out a way to get out of it. And then he hits Steve Carrell with his car. He didn't see him because he was "rescuing" a dead mouse from the street. hmm... Carrell then begins to describe how he saves the bodies, taxidermies them, and sets them up as art/sculpture/whatever. He hands Rudd a taxidermied mouse dressed as Jesus. Of course Rudd takes this as a sign from God that he must go to the dinner and take Carrell with him.

Chaos ensues. Galfinakis' role is small, but he is hilarious in it. He is one of the bright spots in the movie. Unfortunately, while funny, the movie is too long. It probably would have been more entertaining if less had actually made it to the screen. On the other hand the actual "dinner" was a very short piece of the movie, if they had chopped some of the material leading up to the dinner and left more of that footage in there, it could have been more entertaining.

I did get quite a few laughs out of it, but then there were pieces where I felt like they were trying to hard.  It is something I'd watch again but I wouldn't spend the money to buy it. For this reason I give it a C. However I did see several trailers for movies I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE. A new segment of Meet the Parents is coming out, apparently they now have children... this new movie will be out at Christmas and is called Little Fockers. And, Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galfinakis are teaming up with the director from The Hangover to make a movie called Due Date. They are trying to get across the country to the birth of RDJ's firstborn. Looks like lots of chaos ensues on their road trip and it should be a Planes, Trains & Automobiles meets Hangover laugh fest. I can only hope!

When Did I Become Old?

Today was registration day for oldest child. Let me tell you.... nothing makes you feel old like having to take your child to register for school. In the back of my mind, I'm still the young cool kid I once was (OK, I'm cooler in my mind than I really was because while not a nerd, I never sat at the popular table. Even though several of my friends did, I was one of those kids that "floated" from clique to clique). Anyway, in my mind I'm not old enough to have a kid that'll be 15 this weekend - and starting her sophomore year in less than two weeks. Walking around campus and looking at some of these rejects err.... youngsters... made me feel older than I really am.

Registration was uneventful. Except for the pictures part. Dear Daughter choose to wear a summer dress she bought herself a few days ago. It's cute. It's a little brighter (hot pink & white) than I'd normally go for, but age appropriate. Her dress has thin straps. Not spaghetti straps, but thin straps. They are about an inch wide. She goes to a public school. I knew this wouldn't fly at her previous school (a strict Catholic primary school) but when I asked and she said it'd pass here I didn't argue. I thought she sees what other kids wear everyday she'll be fine. She's fairly conservative in her tastes so I didn't think I should push the issue.

We get to registration. We are surrounded by girls in daisy dukes, so I'm not terribly worried about the dress anymore (it's an appropriate length). There's one girl a few kids ahead of us with some studs in her face (this is clearly against school policy but who am I to judge). There's several spaghetti strapped females. We go through the lines. Teachers who know H comment on how she's gotten taller over the summer (yep, she stands a whopping 5'1... we're a tall family, what can I say).I spend a small fortune at various lines and complain about how public school is supposed to be cheaper than private - why the heck do I always spend so much at registration, blah blah.

We get to the pictures. There is a lovely school security man standing there "inspecting" the girls before he lets them take their pictures. Mr. Security Man decides that H is in violation of dress code. He hands her a ridiculously hideous very fashionable black bolero sweater to cover up with. H is not amused. A small hissy fit ensues. Not to Mr. Security Man's face, but enough to where other parents were giving me the stink eye. The camera man laughs. He tries to cheer her up by hitting on her telling her what a lovely young lady she is. I give him the stink eye. Needless to say, we didn't order school pictures this year, but her student ID is truly one of the more "interesting" ones I've seen. Yes, a black bolero sweater jacket over a white and hot pink sundress is definitely a fashion statement to be reckoned with.

I have been teasing her about the incident all day. She's complained about how other girls slipped through the line. I tried to cheer her up by saying the girls that slipped through looked like Marla from A League of Their Own and Mr. Security Guard didn't notice them, she told me I was being mean.

I've also caught myself giving her case in point scenarios from my days in college - as referenced in other blogs, I went to a small private college with a very strict rules. I was attending a press event with the journalism group and my advisor banned me from getting on the bus until I changed. I was in a suit. A non-revealing suit. But apparently my skirt was 1/2" to short and I was sent to change. She didn't really care that I lived an hour away. I had to go rummaging through a friend's closet to find something to wear, by that time I missed the bus and had to drive myself to Memphis (2 hours away) to attend the event. My mother was not thrilled when she found out I drove myself to Memphis (she really would have been mad to find out I made the trip in record time - even though I got lost in the ghetto along the way - exactly the reason why dear daughter will NOT have a sports car when she's old enough to drive).

But now dear daughter knows that maybe I'm not crazy when I question what she's wearing. And, she's even shown me her planned first day of school outfit for approval. Each year gets a little more disturbing, and each year I realize that how few school registrations are left before I'm helping pick out decorations for a dorm room. And, that in itself makes me feel aged beyond my years!

The Week in Repairville

Many people laugh at me when I say I have the worst luck ever. But, it's true. Take for example this week. It started out harmless enough. Middle child in the groove of school, oldest child and baby man chillin' at home. Just your average week in the Copic household.

Then Wednesday afternoon hit. Something as simple as warming up a hot dog for oldest child caused sparks to fly. Literally. Our home is 10 years old. It has 10 year old appliances in it. We put a new dishwasher in earlier this year, and every time we go into a home improvement store I eyeball a new oven. However, I never really expected the microwave to be what would bring a spark to my daily routine. First, I accused the kids of somehow managing to put something metal in there. It wouldn't be the first time a genius in the house put a thing of baby food in the microwave and didn't take all of the seal off the top. However, that was not the case this time.

Then, because you know I just wasn't sure, I had to clean it and try again. Yep, still sparky. So, I've been doing my internet homework the last few days. Finding out what to buy, where to buy it, who has the best rate at installation, etc.

Feeling confident in my decision we head out to Home Depot. Of course our evening can't end there. The hubs and I have to go to a couple other places and eyeball some items we're considering for the kids' birthdays later this month.

We leave the store, get in the car, the car doesn't start. hmm... of course, right away I go into full anxiety riddled Beth mode of how we're stuck at Wal-Mart and can't get home, in the middle of the night, and why is our car a piece of crap (mind you, it's never given us any problem and is probably one of the most reliable car types on the road). I then go on and on about how we're going to get killed and our kids are at home by themselves, but it's a good thing they aren't with us because then they'd die, too. And oh! We haven't written our will yet. And the house isn't clean enough for family to have to come in and pack it up to decide what to sell and what to keep. blah blah blah... (now you see why it takes a special kind of patience for the hubs to live with my neurotic self.) Oh- and for those of you who don't live here, I probably live in one of the safest neighborhoods around. There is a 99.9% chance that the guy who was looking at us from his parking spot across from us was weighing in on if we'd kill him if he offered to help, he was not a threat in the least bit. This is an area where we can go walking/running at midnight if we want and will be safe. But I had to have my usual freak out!

So, today I'm a little calmer. But still irritated. Now I not only have to buy a new over the range microwave (why the &^*% are those three times as much as a normal microwave), but I have to rescue the car from Wal-Mart and get a new starter installed.

Here's looking forward to a girl's day at the pool tomorrow, lots of fruity drinks, and forgetting about that little black thundercloud that follows me around. Unless of course, it decides to brew up a thunderstorm and chase us from the water.

It's Never too Late to Learn

The hubs and I have been married 9 years. In this time I have learned very little of his native language. I mean, in my personal opinion any language which actually considers the pairing of "Lj" as a single letter is not really comprehensible.

I have randomly made fun of his language saying it didn't have nearly enough vowels in it (citing especially the word for finger "prst" see? No vowels, that can't be a word, right?). But, it's somewhat hard for me to argue that my kids need to learn the language of their grandparents and me not learn it.

Of course, this was relatively impossible when we were in Arkansas. There were no other Croatians in Arkansas - at least none that we knew of. However, there is a large population of them here. Once a month we attend a Croatian language mass. In attending we've met quite a few friends, and I've been happy to realize that I am not alone in being the "spouse who only speaks English". So, a group of us have decided to get together and attempt to learn.

"Class" started last night. "Students" range in age from teenagers to an elderly couple (i.e. in their 80's). We started with the alphabet... yep all 30 letters of it and a few simple words. We'll see how this goes...

I took 4 years of Spanish in school, it started out as my minor in college. Today I know enough to count, say colors and get myself to the police station and/or hospital in an emergency. Hopefully, I'll fare a bit better in the memory skills with Croatian... In the meantime, I guess I'd better go study because moj Hrvatski je los (my Croatian is bad).