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

I haven’t watched a movie in a while: hence no movie reviews! But we did recently get “Sherlock Holmes” in the Netflix red envelope.

I love Robert Downey, Jr. I love Sherlock Holmes. I do not love Robert Downey, Jr’s English accent. It made it very difficult to figure out what the heck was going on throughout. It did not get better.

I did like director Guy Ritchy’s use of flashing forward and back to tell the story. That helped me figure out what was going on. This was not the best choice for the kids though. But once we were into it, we couldn’t turn it off. We were too tired from moving all weekend. (see previous post)

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.

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.

Congratulations to KVasquez, Erich, Lallo, and Lisa-you’ve won gift cards to Netflix!

I’ve talked about Netflix a few times before, it’s a great way for my family to keep up on the latest movie releases without the deadline of returning them to a store. Right now, I’ve had the same two movies for several weeks–so I don’t think I’m getting my moneys worth. But that’s my fault! I haven’t even had a chance to watch them, which means I will probably return them without seeing them and add them to my list again. Oh well.

I digress. Netflix has sent me four gift cards to giveaway for a free month of the service. You can watch online or get DVD’s in the mail like I do. If you’d like to try it out, leave a comment with your email. If I have more than four responses I’ll do a drawing (the old fashioned out of a hat kind). No, I am not getting any kind of compensation for this.

Geez.. this is my first giveaway and my 101st post. Seems like only yesterday….

Again.. I digress. Hope to hear from you! Stef

While everyone else raves about the just released movies they’ve seen, I am waiting. Waiting for Netflix or the RedBox to get the new DVD’s. With a large family on a tight budget, we don’t get to go out to the movies much. Our last trip to the theater was a huge disappointment–we saw Alvin and the Chipmunks Part 2 and it was terrible. That’s a lot of money to spend to hate a movie.

Recently our waiting was rewarded, we were able to catch several of the movies on our list in the comfort of our own home. The popcorn is cheap, the screen is big (enough), and there are no crying babies (unless they are ours).

Here are my reviews, even though I am pretty sure you saw them already.

The Blind Side

Sandra Bullock did a wonderful job of portraying someone many women would like to be more like. I’m not talking about the clothes or the hair, but the self-less act of taking in a homeless young man. What an inspiring story. There were a few times I yelled out, “yes!” because of something the character said or did–that’s not something you could do in a movie theater! My son watched this one with us and seemed to really enjoy it. There were some moments in there that were good lessons, like being homeless and seeing teenagers on drugs. It made for some interesting discussion. I give “The Blind Side” an A+, worth the wait but wish I’d seen it months ago.

Food, Inc.

This movie made me want to hide under my bed and become a vegan. We watched in horror as the film laid out for us the reasons why there are so many beef recalls now. The entire family watched this together. One of the 4 year old’s said she’d never eat another cow. They forgot pretty fast, but Daddy didn’t. He went out and bought chicks to raise in our barn. I’ll let you know how that goes at another time. I give Food, Inc. an A, worth the wait. Just don’t eat dinner while you watch this.

More to come.. we watched a lot of movies this weekend!

If you make any kind of on-line purchases—you need to Google “codes” to see if there’s a promotional code you can use. I recently started using Schwans home food service, Fandango and Netflix. I was able to find a coupon code on-line for each. For Schwans I got $5 off my order on-line and at the door. I got a buy-one get one deal for movie tickets and a free trial for Netflix. Never pay full price!