Media Mommy–I am a plugged in Mom. I love my kids, social media–and a good deal!

My husband and I got the chance to go out on a child-free date a few weekends ago. Ironically, we chose “Morning Glory” a movie about the TV industry!

No matter what I do, I’m never far from news. While some of the characters in the movie were a bit like what it’s really like in the TV biz, some were just caricatures.

Rachael McAdams plays the producer, Becky Fuller. I’ve been in her shoes–a morning show producer. Underpaid, sleep-deprived, trying to lead a somewhat normal life. In the beginning of the film she’s on a blind date in the middle of the afternoon. Been there!

Later her alarm goes off at 1:30 a.m. so she could get up and go to work. As she leaves, her neighbor is coming home from walking the dog. Done that!

I wondered what “normal” people would think of the movie, since so much of it is about the business. I was surprised it didn’t just turn into a romance movie—though there is romance— it focused on her career as she jumps to a network morning show job from a local station. From the girl with bad bangs–to the polished New York career woman.

The whole movie is centered on the “Today” show as the mecca for producers. In the end, after working her tail off to prove herself over at a made-up network “ibs,” Becky gets the big interview at NBC–but in the end makes an unexpected choice.

I felt bad for Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton as the lead anchors. There wasn’t a lot of “meat” in the characters they played. Again–characters at best.

I give it an “A” for folks in the business. Probably a C+ for normal people.

Yes, dear friends, I paid for a movie. For my entire family. And it was worth every penny.

Of course we’d seen the first two and loved them both. So my expectations were high and I just didn’t think we could wait for the DVD. So last Sunday all five of us went to the evening show. I believe the tickets were $33.50 (we saw 2D not 3D) and the popcorn and drink set us back another $10.50. Ouch. But so worth it.

The movie starts off with scenes of Andy playing with his Buzz and Woody dolls in old home movies, then cuts to Andy as a teenager. He’s heading to college and hasn’t played with his toys in years. What’s left of the old gang are in his toy box in his room. With Andy leaving his Mom has an ultimatum–attic, trash or donate.  Andy chooses to put most of his toys in the attic, and surprisingly he planned to take Woody with him.

Here’s where the plot twist comes in. As usual, I don’t want to give anything away–you’ve just got to see it. In the end, grown-up’s and older kids will cry, but the young ones will love it. The next day my son told me he had rearranged all his stuffed animals on his bed to show them he loves them. How cute is that?

Toy Story 3–A+++

I’m a little behind on my movie watching, considering Iron Man 2 is out on the big screen, but I recently watched the first Iron Man–twice.

It was pretty good, lots of action, some adventure. Robert Downey, Junior did a good job convincing me he was Tony Stark a cocky, super-intelligent jerk turned superhero.

I didn’t appreciate the fact that this movie was targeted at kids. Foul language, innuendo and the beginnings of a sex scene don’t really go hand in hand with Burger King kids meals in my opinion. I’m not sure why the movie producers thought the movie needed the adult content. It didn’t.

I give this one a C, glad I saved my money.

My Netflix red envelope contained The Last Unicorn this week. This was one of my favorite movies from childhood. Growing up, it was a rare treat to go to the theater to see a movie. This was one of three I can actually remember seeing on the big screen.

I loved it as a girl. My girls loved it, the rest of us thought it was pretty bad. Too bad, I’ve ruined a childhood favorite by watching it as a grownup. Oh well.

I’m not even going to rate it. Yes, it was that bad.

I couldn’t sleep the other night and luckily had this movie on hand to watch.  I know it’s based on a book and a lot of people say the book was better, but since I haven’t read it I can’t compare the two.

It’s set in the 70′s and centers around one family. Their little girl Susie Salmon was murdered and she’s stuck in the “in between” place.

She can see everything that’s happening from a sort of emotional wonderland. The actress that plays Susie is amazing. Her name is Saoirse Ronan.  I have no idea how to even say that. She’s not only the center of the movie, she’s the narrator taking you through the entire storyline. She has a great voice and fit into her 70′s girl look just fine. Many young actresses couldn’t pull off the bell bottoms.

I was surprised to see Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg as her parents. Besides pretty poor wigs, they did a good job showing the kind of emotion you’d expect from parents who have lost a child. The standout star is Susan Sarandon as the drunk grandma. An unexpected role in this story.

Stanley Tucci is amazing as always. This time he plays the murderer. He’s disgusting and I hated his character–very believable.

I don’t want to give too much away about this one. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll want to see the surprises. It made me fear for my children (especially because it was the middle of the night!) because these kinds of men are out there. A good lesson for me to remind the kids not to go anywhere with strangers. Even neighbors.

I give this one a B+. Good actors, some silly imagery that had me tuned out at times.  And LONG–more than 2 hours.  Rated PG-13 and not for kids. I would watch it with my older niece maybe, just to show her what’s out there.

Did you see this one? What did you think?

This past Friday night I was again doing my duty to really use my NetFlix account so I stayed up until all hours after work watching Duplicity, starring Julie Roberts and Clive Owens.

This movie is sexy and cool, but a bit hard to follow. You really have to pay attention to this one (husband fell asleep–geesh!).

Roberts and Owens play Claire and Ray and they just happen to be spies. Who love each other. Who dress in amazing clothing–all the time. Who don’t trust anyone or each other.  I don’t want to give away too much, but I give this one a B+ for style, good writing. A pretty blah ending though.

PG-13 and probably too complex f0r most tweens.

Have you seen this one? Do you have a suggestion for my Netflix Que?

This weekend I finally got a chance to watch Sunshine Cleaning. This is another indy movie–I tend to lean that way when I make my own movie choices.

It stars Amy Adams. I love her in Enchanted and Julie & Julia. She’s one of those actresses I can believe. By that I mean I don’t see Amy Adams on the screen–but the character. I love that.

In this movie Amy plays Rose, the former cheerleader who was dating the star football player in high school. At some point her life took a turn–she ended up a single mother of a sort of strange little boy, cleaning houses for a living.

Her son needs a better school and being the type of mother who will do anything for her kid—she comes up with an idea. She convinces her sister Norah (Emily Blunt) to go into the crime scene cleanup business with her! They call it “Sunshine Cleaning” because Rose believes she is really helping people at the lowest point in their lives. Somebody has to do it–right?

They are not ready to do this–at all. They had no cleaning suit, no masks even. They dump a mattress into a dumpster that’s soaked in blood! But they move ahead, as most Moms will, making it work and eventually getting good at it.

It’s ironic that I watched this movie on Mother’s Day weekend, as the Mom-theme runs deep. The entire story shows the depth of a mothers love as we learn about Rose and Norah’s mothers death. I won’t give too much away about that because you need to learn that late in the movie.

I give this movie an A. Good writing, solid acting. Not for kids in any way–grown up time only.

Did you see this one? Comment to share your review please.

If you’ve been following along, I’ve been blogging about the latest round of DVD’s I’ve watched. My family doesn’t go to the movies–that’s a luxury we can’t afford right now.

I also don’t buy very many DVD’s anymore. Another luxury in my opinion. I rent from Netflix, the library, and the “boxes” at grocery stores and Walgreens. We make our own popcorn and enjoy!

The Answer Man

A pleasant indy film staring Parenthood’s Lauren Graham and Jeff Daniels. Daniels plays a man who basically wrote the book on spirituality (it’s called “Me and God”). The problem is–he’s grumpy and wants to live a life of seclusion.

Then he throws his back out in a hilarious way and meets a chiropractor played by Graham. Sparks fly and he tells her his name–Arlen Faber. She has no idea who he is. She might be the only person in the world who doesn’t know.

The rest of the film is like a dance between the two main characters. There is also a sub-character woven in–with a sweet, sad story centered around the bookstore down the street.

Nice film. Reminds me of the days I used to watch Indy films all the time. (Pre-kids)

I give this an A. Good story, good laughs. Bad language though–so sorry–no kids allowed.