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Parenting Pleasures, or Are They?
Juno causes Chuck to rant on the positives and negatives of having a kid.
By Chuck Nice
I watched a movie last night that I thought I would hate. It's the story of a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant and decides to put her baby up for adoption. No, it's not Sex and the City; it's Juno. I thought I would detest this movie because I'm a contrarian and everyone loved it; also the subject matter really disturbed me. The movie is about a high school student, Juno (Ellen Page), who comes down with a bad case of pregnancy, and decides to offer her child up for adoption to an ostensibly perfect couple Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman). My prevenient hatred of the film was based on the fact that the movie is a comedy about teenage pregnancy, and as the father of a daughter I don't find that sh** funny at all. But I was wrong. The movie was great!
Reservations Needed
When The Dark Knight was sold out, Chuck went home and watched a movie about food and romance. Here, he breaks it down for us.
by Chuck Nice
I had a moment this week to go to the movies, so of course I headed out to see The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale. I had heard nothing but great reviews from everyone who saw the movie and even some who did not. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who had been told the movie was good, because the film was sold out. What is up with people trying to see a superpopular movie on a weekend? Don't they know that weekday afternoons are the time when theaters are empty? I couldn't believe so many people had the same idea to see the same movie at the same time as me. So I went home and watched No Reservations on DVD.
Age of Innocence
A day in the life of Chuck Nice as he films Cinematherapy
by Chuck Nice
This week WE tv is airing Age of Innocence, starring Daniel Day Lewis, Michele Pfeiffer, and Wynona Ryder. So you have a general idea of the film's tone, I will share with you the movie's tagline: "In a world of tradition. In an age of innocence. They dared to break the rules." If you don't know what that tagline means then you have obviously never watched a chick flick.
No Country for Me
No Country for Old Men left Chuck and his wife disappointed
by Chuck Nice
The other night I'm sitting on the sofa with my wife and, in
a very fetching voice, I asked what she'd like to do. She responded, "Let's
watch a movie." Just for the record, when it's after 10 p.m. and the kids are
asleep, the question "What would you like to do?" is the nicest way of saying
"Let's do it
like drunken co-eds in the back of an SUV." But a movie seemed like a suitable
replacement for hot prison relations, so I searched the On Demand menu for something
we could both enjoy. That something turned out to be No Country for Old Men. After a
brief argument, I convinced her that it must be a great movie because it was
critically acclaimed and Javier
Bardem won an Oscar...how could we go
wrong? Well, the town of
Kit Catastrophe of a Movie
Leave it to Chuck to find the good in a movie that even his eight-year-old daughter begged him to ditch.
by Chuck Nice
A washed-out Fourth of July turned into a perfect reason to go to the movies. Of course, whenever I say that I'm going to the movies, it turns into a perfect excuse to spend some time with my daughter, or as she calls it, "a chance to get away from the little monster"--my two-year-old son. We decided on Kit Kittredge an American Girl, and by we, I mean she. Oh goody, another opportunity for me to learn more about the minds of prepubescent young girls, this time during the Great Depression. The film moved with the lightning-quick speed of a shifting glacier, and less than halfway through my eight-year-old daughter whispered to me, "We should have seen Get Smart. Can we leave now?" Even though she was right, I told her we had to stay so that I could blog about the movie. Her face lit up like Christmas morning in WhoVille, and she asked if she could blog as well. I said yes because I never turn down an occasion to encourage her creativity, and including an excerpt from her means less work for me. So here it is:
Ideal Son
Chuck really wanted a second daughter after forming the perfect bond with his first... but instead he is learning to deal with his very own mini-me.
by Chuck nice
Every man wants a manly son; ideally, that first born male child. We see ourselves as some kind of conqueror; it really doesn't matter what we lord over as long as we've found something that makes us feel like we've just pillaged a village. This is why we want so desperately to have a son, so that we can have someone to leave our legacy of nothing. "My son, my son... I shall have a son; someone to carry on my name and inherit all that I am". He shall be strong and wise, he shall make up for all of my failures, and I shall glory in his success-because I have fallen short.
I Used to Be a Man Whore
True love can make you do anything...even change some of your beloved bad habits.
By Chuck Nice
In my last entry
I talked about how the title character in the movie You Don't Mess With the Zohan
and I had two life similarities. The first was that Zohan left his job and his
home to move to
Living with Zohan
An Adam Sandler movie makes Chuck reflect on what pushed him
to follow his dreams.
By Chuck Nice
I'm not a huge fan of Adam
Sandler, although I think he is exceptionally talented. That may sound like
a contradiction, but his movies just don't make me laugh, although I do admire
his work and accomplishments as a comic. So I was very surprised to find Don't Mess With the Zohan to
be a funny and entertaining movie that made me laugh, despite the fact that I
was prejudiced before I ever entered the theater. I was also surprised to find
that the two central themes in the movie hit really close to home: Follow your
dream no matter how silly others may believe it to be, and when your Jewish son
brings home a smoking hot Palestinian girl, be happy for him.
Purple Haze
Chuck's wife insists that he sit and watch The Color Purple
over and over again.
By Chuck Nice
Every woman has a deal breaker when it comes to relationships. Maybe it's love me, love my cat, or love me, love my child, or love me, love the fact that I'm into all five incarnations of Star Trek--including Star Trek Enterprise--even though it's not that good. Okay, the last example is my own little idiosyncrasy. Regardless of the passion or interest, even if it's not an actual deal breaker, there is something we all love and that we want our mate to love as well. That brings us to my wife's favorite movie, The Color Purple.
Neighbors- I Can Live Without Them!
Chuck's argument for why there is no need to be friends with your neighbors.
By Chuck Nice
Anyone who has children knows that there will be times when
you are forced to watch movies that you know you will hate. So when my daughter
asked me to watch Deck the Halls
(with Danny DeVito and Mathew Broderick), I chalked it
up to discharging my paternal duties. The worst part of accommodating your
child's viewing choices is that they can never reciprocate. It's not like I can
ask my little girl to sit down and enjoy an evening of There Will Be Blood
unless I want my wife to make me a living version of the title. If you have
children, then you know that