Yes, I ended up becoming a reporter. Funny thing is, there are a number of movies and TV shows I enjoyed in my childhood that featured a reporter (or some other figure of journalism) as a main character. And I never realized until sometime last year just how many there were. A partial list for your perusal: Roman Holiday Early Edition (TV show) It Happened One Night (sidenote: the plot is practically identical to Roman Holiday!) Assassination Bureau (Diana Rigg is splendid as the investigative journalist, if completely unethical) Superman (comics/movies) Crocodile Dundee Godzilla (the U.S. one with Matthew Broderick) Twister (the lead guy was a weather reporter - and on an irrelevant note, Cary Elwes is a fantastic villain here) Hoodwinked More recently, a few other movies have featured reporters/editors in a lead role. 27 Dresses Hitch (well, she's a gossip columnist) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Fascinating (at least ...

It’s March 4, and the last day I saw a movie was Feb. 1. Not that I’ve noticed much. The first week or so, I felt like watching a movie almost every night, and had to restrain myself. After that, I kind of forgot that I was purposely abstaining from movies. I had books to read. (I’m currently working on two, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and The Complete Father Brown collection of G.K. Chesterton short stories. I’m aiming to read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman as soon as I finish one of those two books.) I had an apartment to clean. (It’s clean. Even most of the dishes are done. I vacuumed today, thinking the whole time about things that don’t like bowties .) I had friends to hang out with. (At a friend’s inaugural jewelry party, at a living history fair, at church, at my cousins’ houses, and so on.) I had a church missions conference to attend. I had taxes to do. (Done, but not filed. Yet.) I had a new phone to order, activate and play...

It’s easier to say super-smashing movies than “movies starring superheroes and supervillains smashing each other to smithereens.” Don’t you think? Among the quirks that my sister and I share in our friendship is the fact that I don’t watch superhero movies without her. Sissy, you’re the one I was always tracking down in the Graphic Novel section of the library when we were little – you remember? I thought they were silly books beneath my notice, apparently, except where Superman was involved. I’m pretty sure I had a Superman compilation out from the library that was the size of a laptop and at least as thick. But those new-fangled superheroes from Marvel and D.C. Comics, I had no patience for them. I mean, really? A Green Lantern? And Batman, to me, had to involve George Clooney (or later Christian Bale) to be interesting. Even the Batman movies were ones that my sis watched before I did, I’m pretty sure. All I remember is that several years ago she was over-excited that something c...

I'm taking my sister's advice to tell about what I've just been doing the past several days. Not particularly enthralling, I warn you, but here goes. I learned today that it takes precisely 8 seconds to cross a two-lane, one-way street downtown, walking at a rate of two steps per second. That is, one complete set of steps per second, one right-footed and one left-footed. If that makes sense. And yesterday, I checked five books out from the library. Three of them were related to journalism: "Letters to a Young Journalist," Sam Freedman "Newsonomics: 12 new trends that will shape the news you get" "The Best Business Stories of the Year: 2004" "Studies in Words," C.S. Lewis "Spanglish: The making of a new American language" I've already read bits out of "Letters" and the business stories compilation. Quite interesting. Once I get my laptop back up and running, I'll write a little more about the bo...

After watching “Bride and Prejudice” with my friends, one gal (who had seen B&P) said she actually possessed a Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.” Naturally, I was all agog to see it. And fortunately I did, pronto. “I Have Found It” is very different from “Bride and Prejudice,” not least because you have to use the subtitles because it’s legit Indian. It still has fantastic costumes and lots of musical numbers, and the star of the show is the same gal (speaking really really fast Indian this time though, or whatever the language was…. Punjabi or Tamil I’d guess). Odd thing was, they were really really random musical sequences stuck in there. One was in Scotland of all places… Scotland has nothing to do with the storyline; it was just pretty, apparently. (Same thing with the sequence in Egypt.) But it was a decent adaptation, really. And I thought the equivalent of Colonel Brandon was fantastic in his role. And to think, I was not even aware of the ex...

My dad got “Up” for Christmas from my uncle’s family (that’s my uncle who’s his brother). And we are now watching it, supposedly to make sure that the DVD isn’t scratched. I know it’s partly that, but also for the pure entertainment that Dad finds in this movie. And it is highly entertaining—for once, it’s a good movie that’s neither a sequel nor a new version of an old superhero. The main reason I like this movie is that it’s witty and true—Carl is so much a member of the elder generation that it’s perfect! (He reminds me of my dad sometimes.) And little Russell is a perfect male version of my eleven-year-old friend Bee and her younger sister. The interaction between the two of them kinda reminds me of Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson in the comics. (I never saw the Dennis the Menace movie, though.) It’s great to see a movie encouraging interaction between these generations… and such a well-made one, too. Maybe more kids will talk with older adults now. (And maybe older adults will...

My sister treated me to “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” at the local cinema yesterday. I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to re-read the book immediately. Of course, I do not own this book; my sister does. She had first dibs and finally finished it late last night. Now that I’ve also finished it (a feat accomplished early this afternoon) and have also been able to compare the two (my memory of the book was kinda foggy), I have a few observations: At least they didn’t add too much of a love interest this time… but still… The way in which they sliced, diced and spliced adventures from the book to make the movie was kind of odd, but it seemed to work. There were more wishy-washy “believe in yourself” type messages in the movie than in the book. Eustace in the movie was PERFECT! As in, the movie seemed to capture his character quite well. The movie was definitely darker than the book… but aren’t all modern movies? I’d at least feel comfortable reading the book to younger kids, whereas the...

Yep. My dad and I watched it again—at his behest. That makes twice in one single week. And I still loved the movie! Reasons? I can recognize all the little episodes in the movie as adaptations from episodes in the book. Take the sister’s snake dance, for instance. Totally a ripoff of Mary’s embarrassing pianoforte performance. Music. Awesome. My dad watches this with me. And he says it’s his new favorite movie. And to top off the astounding occurrence, we watched Becoming Jane , too—this same night. Not as fun of a movie—weird acting I thought, but that could be just me—and of course, not a musical, so it would be hard pressed to top Bride & Prejudice. Overall not a movie I’d bother watching more than once. My mom and I were guessing throughout the movie which Austen character the leading man was supposed to resemble. I settled on Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility , with a dash of Darcy thrown in at the beginning, but I could also see some Wickham in there too. Of...