The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for the ‘Movie Review’ Category

I tried to review movies here on The KariAnnAlysis, but was watching way more movies than I could review. Recently I recorded Magic Beyond Words: The JK Rowling Story.  JK Rowling is one of those authors that I would love to get inside of her head and see what goes on and where her stories come from. This movie gave me a little insight and answered a few questions I had about the amazing author.

The movie follows Joanne from the time she is a little girl until her movie for Harry Potter premieres. It shows her ups, her downs and everything in between and how Harry Potter was born.

If you don’t know all of this and want to be surprised when you watch the movie, quit reading now! I am going ot talk about a few parts and don’t want to be the spoil sport for you!

If you are an inspiring author, you need to watch this movie. That’s it. Plain and simple. Joanne knew from day one that she wanted to be an author. She tried to go to college for writing, but didn’t get in and ended up with odd jobs throughout her life. She got the idea of Harry Potter when she fell asleep on the train one day. And just like that, BAM!, magic was born! Joanne was married, had a baby and then her life changed. She up and left her husband and one day got the nerve to show her sister her writing and finally got serious about it. Oh and did I mention that while she wrote Harry Potter, Rowling was on welfare? She went from being so poor that she needed help raising her baby, to being worth $1B. How about that?

I always like to see how other writers do their work. Joanne had a box full of notes, pages, chapters just strewn about. I couldn’t do that. I am very OCD and a perfectionist. I always think that I can take notes here and there and write down ideas on napkins and random sheets of paper, but I just can’t. I read twitter feeds of authors who do this and kind of admire them for not being so uptight. I do all of my writing on my laptop. I always save it to my desktop and to my little flash drive. I have a little red notebook that I keep track of everything in. It had all of my notes for my books, ideas and the days that I write and how many words I get in. But it is very organized and if it gets out of order, I have to get a new notebook and transfer. I need help, anyone agree? Maybe one day I will have that idea that just comes to me and the different parts come, like they did with Joanne and Harry, and I won’t be able to help it. Fingers crossed!

One of the things that I loved about this movie was that I learned that Joanne didn’t just write Harry Potter overnight and it become  a success. It took her a few years to get it all down and get that box of hers organized. It’s been over a year since I’ve started writing. I have completed a YA novel and am in the Kari-edit stage of the second one in the series. I have also started a love story, but am not sure where it’s going to go. I loved it when I started it, but am now losing steam. I feel like I have a few ideas that are swimming around in my head and here pretty soon, one of them is going to take me by storm. I hope it happens sooner rather than later. I need a great idea for NaNoWriMo.

One of the things I disliked about this story was, and I don’t know if it’s really the case, Joanne only sent Harry Potter to two agents before it was picked up. Granted Harry Potter is a work of genius, and spectacular compared to my little YA murder-mystery, but still, TWO agents? C’mon! It looked so easy. I have sent requests out to nearly two dozen agents and ZILCH! I understand Joanne’s book came at a time where children’s books were still a budding genre and now everyone has a YA book, but STILL!

And although I felt a tad inadequate about my writing compared to miss JK Rowling, like I’m sure most authors do, this movie inspired me. She wasn’t some little rich girl who had an “in” and took advantage of it. She started with an empty box and filled it with her ideas that formed to be Harry Potter. She worked her way from rock bottom to the top of the literary world.

Have you seen this movie? If so, did you find it as inspirational as I did??

For this year’s Holiday Reading Challenge, I had a big old pile of books with snowy covers and Christmas themes. One of those books was The Best Girl by Emma Harrison.

As soon as I started reading this book, I knew I wanted to pick a movie cast. The main character, Farrah AKA Jane has wild read hair and is trying to figure out who she really is.

Her mom, also a red head is kind of uptight and a little hoity-toity.

I think I have found the perfect ladies!

For Farrah, Rachel Hurd-Wood:

Rachel, 20 years old and from England is probably best known for her 2003 role in Peter Pan.

Now to her mother, this one was easy, thanks to Desperate Housewives, Marcia Cross.

I originally wanted Deborah Messing for this role, but once I saw an episode of Desperate Housewives after reading the book, I changed my mind immediately.

And if you ask me, I think these two could be long-lost family members

Oh, and there is a boy that we also have to cast. I don’t remember in the book what exactly he looked like, but this is how I picture him:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure the gentlemen have quit reading by now, but let me introduce you to Matt Lanter, AKA Liam on the new 90210. I wanted someone who was kind of badass for this role. It has to be someone steamy, but someone who you can also imagine on the slopes and working at a resort. Sometimes I have a hard time imagining guys in roles that I haven’t seen them play before. I know they are actors and they are just playing roles, but I couldn’t imagine, say Teddy from 90210 working as an employee at a resort over Christmas vacation.

The hardest role to fill for me was Buffy AKA Biff. I wanted someone young and hip and fun, preferably with already crazy, spiky hair. But, I was having a hard time finding someone, so I just went with one of my favorite young actresses.

This is Lucy Hale. She’s currently on Pretty Little Liars and also had a role in Privileged, which I also loved. I chose Lucy for this role because I think she has the right genes to portray that she is from a very wealthy family, but with some funky shoes and clothes and maybe some blue streaks in her hair (like in flashbacks of PLL she could definitely fit the role).

Does anyone else imagine actors/actresses for the books they are reading? Has anyone read this book and have someone else in mind for these roles? I’m always interested to see who other people see as these characters.

So I recently read my first Debbie Macomber, Call Me Mrs. Miracle. And in case you missed my review, I loved it. It was cute, cheesy and full of Christmas spirit.

Little did I know, until I was scrolling through my DVR movies one day, that I had already recorded the movie to go along with this book. Of course, being a book worm, I always like to read the book before I see the movie. I’ve found in most cases, this is necessary. I cried equally in The Notebook movie and book, I really liked The Lovely Bones book, but if I would’ve seen the movie first, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with the book because it was too sci-fi for me. The only book to movie that I can watch and read over and over again in either order are the Harry Potter movies and books. Those books were so powerful alone, but translated so well to movie that when I watch them, I want to read the books again just to remember how exactly certain scenes were written.

In Call Me Mrs. Miracle, the premise of the movie is the same. Holly is struggling to find a way to connect with her nephew, whose mother has died and father is in Afghanistan. She bumps into a handsome stranger in the coffee shop and the continue to bump into each other as the adoration for each other grows. And Mrs. Miracle is in the background, saying things that no one understands how she knows and working her magic.

There was one major part of the movie that was different from the book. In the book, when it came to the Intellytron, Jake bought way too many and no one was buying them from the store. In the movie, Jake didn’t buy any and they were the hot toy. I hated this setup at first. Just because I know in the book how Jake’s dad expects so much out of him and Jake needs to do something good, just for a little positive reinforcement. Towards the end of the movie, the turn of events, because of the store not having any Intellytrons worked remarkably and I actually ended up liking that ending better. But it’s just one of those things, it’s different from the book and different is scary.

A few relationships were changed from book to movie. Jake’s dad had one with a co worker in the movie that he didn’t have in the book. And Gabe hooked up Holly’s boss with his dad in the book and in the movie, that didn’t happen. But that was a good change. In the book, she was nasty, but in the movie, I can’t say the word I want to to describe her.

I would suggest reading the book first with this duo if you are going to watch the movie as well. But if you do it the other way around, let me know! I want to know how you feel about some of the plot points.

Now I am going to break one of my own rules in the near future. I have the original Debbie Macomber’s Mrs. Miracle on my DVR.  I know there is a book that coincides with it, but it’s getting too close to Christmas for me to keep holding off. And one thing I just noticed in looking for a picture for this blog, Mrs. Miracle is the same in both movies. Verrry interesting. Now, I must sweet talk my husband into watching it with me

Don’t even get me started on that TV show from Nickelodeon from when I was growing up. I have always loved spooky movies, but for some reason, that show was too much for me. But the movies, I could do them all day long, except for when it was bedtime, then I would have to watch a cartoon or something silly to get the scary thoughts out of my head. I still have to do that lol

This year, Halloween week, my husband is out of town, so I am watching these creeptastic movies by myself. I am ok with that, because he really doesn’t like them anyway. But, that also means I am alone when I go to bed and I feel like a goof being 24-years-old and leaving the light on. To prepare for this week, I have DVR’d all kinds of scary movies and plan on spooking myself out to the max. This is very easy to do thanks to SyFy, AMC and ABC Family. They are all running every scary movie possible this week.

I am going to do two things with this post. 1. I want to leave a list of my favorite Halloween’ish movies and 2. Leave a list of the movies I am watching this year.

There are two types of Halloween’ish movies that I love. I love the uber scary ones, but I also like the fun witchy ones.

Favorite Scary Movies:
1. Halloween: Halloween is by far my favorite scary movie of all time. To this day, when I hear the theme song for Michael Myers, I get chills. I’m not quite sure why, but I feel like there’s something about older scary movies that give me the willies more than new ones.
2. Halloween 4: The second Halloween movie is ok, I hate the third one, but coming back to the 4th and 5th, I’m a fan. These are the two that have little girl in them. Her name is Jamie and from this movie, I learned that if kids are involved, the movies are scarier.
3. The Skeleton Key: Based out of the swamps of New Orleans, pure witchraft is the source of this movie. I have seen it tons of times, but each time, it still intrigues me and makes me want to learn more about old witchcraft traditions.
4. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: When it comes to newer movies, this one takes the cake. It’s one that freaks me out, but I can laugh at the same time. For my senior prom, we actually rented this movie and ordered pizza before the dance.

If you can tell by my movie choices, I am a fan of anything that could be real. Those are the worst kind to go to bed on, but I still can’t stop watching them.

Favorite Fun Halloween Movies:
1.  Hocus Pocus: Does this surprise anyone? I think this is a fan favorite of the ages. I have always loved this movie and get in the true Halloween spirit when I see it.
2. Practical Magic: Another witch movies. You may see a theme here. Most of the fun Halloween movies I watch yearly deal with witches. I am a huge Sandra Bullock fan and actually watch this movie year-round when I need a good cheering up.
3. Any Harry Potter flick: I could watch these movies over and over and never get tired of them. I saw one on last night and wished that it was a Harry Potter weekend on one of the channels.
4. Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride: I still love me a little cartoon action and this one takes the cake. Although it is very dark, I love this movie. I caught it a couple of years ago on ABC Family and look forward to it every year.

Ok, so those aren’t the only movies that I have come to know and love. As promised earlier, I will be adding and updating a list of the movies that I watch this week right here on my blog. My movie watching actually start on Friday night. And if I don’t like a movie, I normally don’t watch it all and wste my time because there are so many great ones to offer.

1. The Skeleton Key

Friday:
2. The Hitcher- This was my first time watching this one. It was really creepy. The bad guy was a hottie though, so it was hard to hate him
3. The Final – OMG, the non-popular kids are fighting back against the ones who made fun of them in a really screwed up way.

Saturday:
4. Kill Theory – Could you kill your best friends to save your lives?
5. Final Destination

Sunday:
6. The Reeds
7. Prom Night (new one)
8. Corpse Bride
9. Secrets in the Walls - the was kind of crazy on Lifetime

Monday:
10. House on Haunted Hill - this one always freaks me out but there’s so many famous people in it

Tuesday:
11. Halloween – although it’s my favorite, I have so much reading to do, I may not be able to get all the way through it. Plus, once that song gets in my head, I can’t get it out!
12. The Craft

Wednesday:
13. Halloween 4

Thursday:
I took Thursday off – spent the evening with my mom, soaking up the Project Runway finale.

Friday:
Friday… well I am taking Friday off too. Tonight I am going to the Miranda Lambert concert with a friend and some family. I may be able to talk the girl’s into watching one with me late tonight when we get home

Saturday:
14. Scared Shrekless

Sunday:
15. Hocus Pocus
16. Halloween - Yes I watched it again!
17. Halloween 2
18. Hide and Seek

Why did I wait so long to watch this movie? Oh My Gosh, I will preface this post with I absolutely loved it!

This movie is about Margaret Tate, Editor in Chief at a major book publishing company, and her very scared assistant, Andrew Paxton. Margaret finds out she is going to be deported back to Canada for not taking the proper procedure in updating her Visa. And the only thing that can keep her in the US with her fabulous job (if I do say so myself) is getting married. She chooses Andrew and to make it look real, they go to Ryan’s home in Alaska where they are very surprised at how wonderful their weekend is.

This movie was very predictable, but I really liked it. And by the way he was laughing, I am pretty sure Michael liked it. It’s funny, it’s girly, it’s got love and marriage, and it’s got emotion. Yes, I cried during this movie (laugh all you want, I cry at almost every movie I watch and weekly at Grey’s Anatomy).

The characters in this movie are great. I am a huge fan of Sandra Bullock and I haven’t watched a Ryan Reynolds film that I haven’t liked! And Betty White, she’s proved herself. You don’t even have to say anything other than she is in the movie. Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson play Andrew’s parents in this movie. I haven’t seen Nelson since Coach. My mom LOVED that show!

I really don’t have any complaints about the movie. It had me laughing most of the time, at some times so hard I was almost crying. I suggest watching this movie, if you haven’t already. Even if you are a man!

I give this movie 5 popcorns!