Feeding Your Soul

Out of all of the new shows I had decided to watch this year, it comes as so surprise that the one show I have kept up with the most is the show from the same producers as Lost – Once Upon A Time.    The show is about a boy, Henry, who believes that his town – Storybrooke, Maine – is really the Enchanted Forest and everyone has forgotten who they are. He came to that idea from a book he was given by his teacher, Mary Margaret who Henry believes is really Snow White.   He believes his adoptive mother, Regina, is really the Evil Queen, his therapist is Jiminy Cricket, the John Doe in the hospital is Prince Charming, and the one who can save everything is Emma, his birth mother who gave him up for adoption 10 years ago. And did I mention that Henry believes Emma to be the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?   Henry also believes that the Evil Queen cast a curse on the whole Enchanted Forest which is why they can’t remember who they are. Still with me? Good. Let’s move on. Emma Swa

This is one of the ultimate questions in life - what would you do for the person you love? Would you step in front of a speeding bullet? Would you carry them on your back 100 miles to get them to safety? Would you let them go to find the truth? The is the dilemma facing Luce in the second Fallen novel by Lauren Kate - Torment . This books picks up right where Fallen left off.  Daniel is taking Luce far away from Sword and Cross, somewhere safer for the time being while Daniel and Cam have a truce of sorts and fight off the things that are coming after Luce trying to killer.  But the strangest part of the book isn't the pale, while (albino color) Outcasts are after Luce; no the strangest part is that Daniel keeps her in the dark about everything - her past, the truce he has with Cam (who is a "bad" fallen angel so on the opposite side of Daniel - they want to kill each other as seen at the end of Fallen ).  Luce is left to herself and her new friends at Shoreline (the p

I will admit. One of the only reasons I started watching this show is because of Sarah Michelle Gellar. I loved her when she was Buffy (and to me she always will be Buffy) and was thrilled when I heard she was returning to television. When I read what the premise of her show was, I was even more intrigued and happy because this show sounded like something I would watch no matter who was the lead. The plot of Ringer is Bridget, a recovering addict and alcoholic is in the witness protection following a murder she witnessed by a well-known crime boss who has never been caught because he has all of the witnesses killed. Bridget doesn’t think she will live to see the court appearance so she disappears, to her identical twin sister Siobhan’s place in the Hamptons. There, they reminisce and a little more back-story is given as to why these two sister’s are estranged (I believe Bridget was high or drunk and drove a car with her nephew, Siobhan’s son in it and killed him but nothing has been m

I finished this book in early August but it has taken me this long to put my thoughts about this book on paper.   Let me start with the recap. The book starts off introducing the main male character, Mikhail Blomkvist who is ending his trial for slander against a very powerful businessman. He loses the case and his reputation begins to dwindle as does his publication, Millennium.   He gets a strange phone call from the lawyer of an even more powerful businessman who has a job offer for him – to solve the 30 year mystery disappearance of his niece.   Mikhail accepts the offer, albeit reluctantly at first and begins his journey into the land of the Vanger family and corporation.   A parallel storyline introduces the real character, Lisbeth Salander. She is the girl with the dragon tattoo and that is as far as someone gets to knowing the real her. She is a loner (for good reason) and a sociopath. She doesn’t dwell on issues too much unless those issues are hurtful either physical or ment

How long do you hang on to the memory of a deceased loved one? In the book, it was 13 years; the movie was only 5 but that is 5 years of hanging on too long. The movie is Charlie St. Cloud starring Zac Efron. For 5 years Charlie holds onto his younger brother who died in a car accident while Charlie was driving. For 5 years, Charlie plays catch everyday at sunset with the ghost of his brother and his own life gets put on hold. That life included a boating/racing scholarship to Stanford and an amazing future in the racing world. But he gave all of that up for a promise he made to his little brother. Then (as per most stories like this) a girl who is another boat racer walks into Charlie’s life and he has to choose between the promise he made to Sam and possibly the woman of his dreams. Letting go is probably one of the hardest things to do, especially when you have to let go of someone that you hold dear and don’t want to forget about.   The predicament here is that no matter what Char

Hello Everyone! I have been slacking big time on my blogging duties so I apologize. I know you love to read about all that I am reading, watching, playing, etc.  Well, I have good news for you all! I am in the midst of finishing my 11th book on my list of 26 to read in 2011 and I am finally seeing a new movie this week so keep a look out for that review (guesses on which movie are welcome!) I also have been busy because I recently got engaged at the beginning of June so I have been busy planning and imagining what my wedding will be like. It is very exciting! So keep a look out in the next week or so for at least 1 new post about either the book or the movie I am going to see. I will get back on track....I promise!

So this new post is going to be short and sweet but I just saw the trailer for the new Footloose and I loved the first one but this one is going to be good too! Go to movies.yahoo.com or imdb.com and check out the trailer and let me know what you think. Can't wait !  :)

You decide to take a trip to a far off destination. Let’s say Venice, Italy. You meet a strange and exotic woman on the train from Paris and you immediately become attached to her. You say goodbye to her on the train and expect to never see her again, a chance encounter. When you step off the train, you are surprised to hear the mysterious woman calling your name to join her on her boat to the island and hotel.   You think nothing of it and decide to go because there is something about this woman that you can’t put your finger on but you want to learn more.   From there, all hell breaks loose with bullets flying at you, boat chases in the canal and getting arrested and sold to a Russian who you have never met before. And it all started with one woman.   So sets the scene of Johnny Depp as The Tourist and Angelina Jolie as the mysterious woman whom Depp cannot get away from, even if he wanted to. Depp stares as a math teacher from the states on vacation to Venice by himself. Jolie star

I thought I would take this time to reflect on my New Year’s Resolutions that I made 5 ½ months ago and see how far I have come. And to make sure I am keeping on track. To remind everyone (and myself) below are my 7 resolutions: 1.    Try and eat at home 5 days a week 2.    Cardio at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes or more 3.    Eat some type of salad at least 3 days a week (can be a salad for lunch, dinner or side salad with dinner) 4.    Limit alcoholic beverages during the week. 5.    Read at least 26 books (1 every 2 weeks) 6.    Blog at least once a week 7.    Keep writing my stories. #1 – Eating at Home.   Over the past 5 ½ months I would say I have done about an 85% on my resolutions. I know that I have not eaten at home 5 days a week every week and that is something that has haltered my weight loss considerably. However, when I do go out I don’t get my usual carbs. I try to go for chicken or fish, especially salmon when places have it at a good price (The Border i

 Truth, lies, love, loss, words and judgment. Those are just a few things that Isabel Dalhousie ponders and struggles to understand throughout the 5 th book in the Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith.   The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday follows Isabel through her relationship with her much younger boyfriend Jamie, their son Charlie, her niece Cat and the newest moral and philosophical dilemma of her life – trying to figure out if a well-renowned doctor was really at fault for a patient’s death in his clinical trial. It might not seem that much of a dilemma to the average reader but to the reader who has followed Isabel from the first book, The Sunday Philosophy Club , it is one that she feels morally obligated to be involved in simply because she was asked. Isabel Dalhousie is a 40-something philosopher, editor of the Review for Applied Ethics journal, mother, girlfriend, aunt and as some say, meddler. She loves to be involved in things that have absolutely nothing to

Finding a strong female lead for any movie is tough. Finding a strong female lead for an edge-of-your-seat action movie is even tougher. But the executives in charge of Salt found that in Angelina Jolie.   In a movie originally written for Tom Cruise, the producers had Jolie read and decided to change the entire story around to focus on a female CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy.   One great characteristic of Jolie is that she is versatile – she can change roles, characters, anything in a heartbeat and make you believe that this is who she really is. That is a trait of a great actor. In Salt , Jolie jumps between the vulnerable Evelyn Salt, to the mysterious Evelyn Salt back to the vulnerable Evelyn Salt all in one scene. The audience has no idea which way is up or down. They are taken on a roller coaster ride of adrenaline and better yet, emotion with Evelyn Salt that you begin to feel for her no matter what situation she somehow gets involved in. To catch up those who have n

FYI: This blog contains spoilers. You have been warned. The Good Guy. That phrase has been around for quite some time and when one hears it, they might think of the perfect boy next store – cute, well dressed, well spoken and doesn’t get into a lot of bad situations. So with this movie starring Alexis Bledel and Bryan Greenberg, the question becomes who is the good guy: Tommy or Daniel? The way this movie started was interesting. It started with a scene in the present, Tommy going up to his ex-girlfriend Beth’s apartment asking for help and we feel bad for Tommy and make Beth out to be the bad person in this movie. Then, the movie does a flashback 3 months to when the real story begins: Daniel comes into play at Tommy’s work as a wannabe stockbroker and they form a friendship. And the movie goes back and forth between the good guy being Tommy or Daniel. You don’t know until the end. Alexis Bledel plays this role all the time (example Gilmore Girls) so she wasn’t anything special in

It took me over a year to decide that I did want to watch this movie. And I am glad I did. This isn’t your normal, Disney animated Alice in Wonderland. This is Tim Burton’s version of Alice and her travels down the rabbit hole and his version and imagination is a little scary at times. The movie starts with a flashback to when she was a little girl and her father was trying to convince people of a fantastical idea. She had a bad dream and her father comes to her room to comfort her. She says she saw a purple cat, a hatter, and a white rabbit with a clock. Her father tells her it was just a dream and she goes to bed.   The movie then jumps 13 years into the future. Alice is in a garden for a party that secretly (at least to Alice) is an engagement party because a lord is about to ask Alice to marry him.   Everyone is excited for Alice, telling her so, but the frown and unhappiness on Alice’s face is the exact opposite. She doesn’t know what to think and everyone is telling her what to

It has been a very busy month for this blogger, hence why I haven't had any new postings for over a month. Well, that is all about to change. I need to get back into the swing of things and what better way to do it than an update Entertainment blog. So let's get started. Books - I still have 20 books to read by the end of the year. According to Goodreads.com, I am 1 book behind so I need to start reading more books. The last book I tried to read was The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie.  I got to page 145 after 4 weeks and decided this was not a book for me. I kept trying to give it the benefit of the doubt but just when the story would get good, the characters would get some screen time, Hardie would rush right back to historical fiction information and lots of description that most of the time I had no idea why she was putting that information in there. It felt as if Hardie was tryiing to put a story in the middle of her research on 15th/16th century England.  I kept expec

When it comes to love, sometimes a glance, a touch or a kiss will make you believe that they are the one for you. Other times, it’s the other person giving you the finger. At least it was for Luce in Lauren Kate’s Fallen .   Luce is the main character of the Fallen series (this is the first in a set of 4 slated to be written).   She gets shipped off to Sword and Cross, a boarding school for misbehaved teenagers after a horrible accident took the life of the boy she liked in a fire. She couldn’t explain what happened and she was the only witness so everyone speculated that she was responsible.   When she first steps into Sword and Cross, she knows right away this isn’t your average boarding school. Everyone wears black, there are cameras – or reds as they are called by the students – and the headmaster never comes to the school grounds.   She meets Arriane who instantly takes her under her wing but that is not the only person who catches Luce’s eye.   She instantly comes into contact w

As you can see, this post is unlike the other posts I have done. 3 things, entertainment wise have happened to  me in the past week and a half so I am sharing all 3 with you today. So let's jump right in to the first one, this venue being books. My reading list has grown and I am 1 book closer to my New Year's goal. The #2 spot on my list goes to Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCaffertty. The story follows a 16-year-old girl through her sophomore year of high school all the while having to not have her best friend right by her side. The story is being told through journal entries and letters to her best friend. It is perfect for the main character. She feels isolated and alone after her best friend moves away so her only solace and comfort is her journal where she can write anything she wants without being judged or ridiculed. McCafferty paints a wonderful window into the life of a teenage girl with only her journal to confide in. most of us readers can relate to her parents being

All I can say is I can't wait for Part 2. From the moment the lights went down and the screen lit up, I was hooked. Before the title was brought on screen, the viewer was hooked and the mood of the entire movie was set with the little to no dialogue from the 3 main characters - Ron, Harry and Hermione. The 3 of them looked out of their houses into the world, preparing for what they were all about to embark on, trying to digest what they signed up for. In my opinion, it was one of the best beginnings for a movie, ever.  What the beginning also did was tell all of the viewers this isn't like any Harry Potter movie you have seen - it is darker, more evil and more gruesome than all of the other six movies. And frankly, it has to be. Harry is fighting to stay alive and he is looking death in the face. Not to mention he is still a 17 year old teenager who is trying to fight the feelings he has and the worry he has for the Weasley family (his family), especially Ginny. The movie was

Almost everyone tries to outrun their past or at least part of their past. IN Joshilyn Jackson's The Girl Who Stopped Swimming the main character Laurel has a very unusual past that will not stay dead - literally. She sees ghosts. Specifically of her Uncle Marty who was accidentally killed on a hunting trip with her father, herself and her younger sister Thalia. The book starts with Laurel waking in the middle of the night to see the ghost of her daughter's friend Molly in her bedroom. Molly leads Laurel to her window and Laurel sees a body sunken to the bottom of the pool. Somehow Molly was in their backyard in the middle of the night and because of that Laurel now has to dredge up the past and her family in order to figure out what happened to the girl who stopped swimming. Usually I will know within the first 5-10 pages if I like a book and if it is worth it to keep reading. With this book the first chapter was all about Laurel seeing Molly's ghost so it caught my att

Before I begin this review, I must put a disclaimer. The only way I got through this movie was to look past Miley Cyrus as the lead. With that said, so starts my review. With imagination running out in Hollywood, producers have to look to other forms of entertainment for inspiration. Nicholas Sparks books have always been a very good place with hit movies such as A Walk to Remember, Message in a Bottle, and The Notebook. In 2010, Hollywood made 2 of his books into movies - Dear John and The Last Song starring Miley Cyrus and Greg Kinnear. Before seeing this movie, I made it a point to read  the book so I could compare the two mediums. This story wasn't a typical Sparks novel in the sense of about finding your true love. This is a story about the dysfunctional yet oddly functional relationship between an 18-year old teenage and her estranged father. Roni and her 10 year old brother come to live at their father's house in South Carolina, on the water, for the summer much to