movie night

Did everyone have a fun holiday? DF and I were out housesitting for our friends, the ones with the great big old house in the country but no internet. Which meant lots of time to read books, watch TV and cook. We came back to our place yesterday afternoon and I was commenting to DF how nice it is to have an apartment that we actually enjoy coming home to. In times past, we would have stayed at the other place until the last possible minute, dreading returning to the dreaded roommate-filled house where I used to live. Not anymore!

After catching up with emails and stuff, I rolled up my sleeves to make some pizza dough. I've got a recipe that works pretty well now, and I decided to make a small test pizza on the stone. As luck would have it, the one I baked on the pizza stone turned out better than the larger one I made on the pan. If only I had one of those wooden paddles to slide the pizza on and off the stone, I think I would retire the pan entirely. Something to put on my shopping list.

The previous night we had started watching a cheesy made-for-TV movie on the SciFi channel. During a commercial break, I surfed around and saw that Lifetime was showing some new Nora Roberts movies. However, since we had already started the other flick, DF was not amenable to changing channels. hrmph. So last night at home, I saw that the NR films were scheduled to be on again and I let him know that we would be watching MY movies. heh.

The first one had already started. Northern Lights. I had not read the book, but the movie was entertaining. He wandered in and started watching it with me. We tried to figure out whodunnit and he cracked me up by commenting about the hero during the first sex scene: "He's hot!" lmao. I could tell he was trying to get a reaction out of me. Overall, it was a pretty decent flick. Good production values, nice scenery. Leann Rimes is no actress though and should stick to singing. The guy playing the lead was (as DF observed) pretty hot and worked for me as a romantic lead.

Then came the movie I had been waiting for...Tribute. I just read (or listened to the audiobook as the case may be) this one a few months back and was very curious to see how the movie would stack up. Not to mention, it is supposedly set in Virginia in a location just down the road from us. To start, Brittany Murphy is a horrible choice for casting. For any movie. Anytime. Just...no. She's supposed to convince me that she knows what she is doing with that hammer. In the book, Cill is completely competent in construction gear and houseflipping. You wouldn't have known from watching this movie. That said, I can watch Jason Lewis any time of the day. I wasn't sure going in how the smooth guy I remembered from Sex and the City would get the geeky Ford Sawyer vibe down, but I think he did a credible job. Main complaints would be that the extra characters were trimmed way way down (I know, it's a time constraint but it really took away from the feel of how Cilla became part of a larger family), and how the villain's identity was obvious pretty quickly. Too bad.

But like I said, there is Jason Lewis to gaze upon, so all is not lost.



Me to DF halfway through the movie: "So, do you recognize the actor playing the hero?"
Him (with a slight eyeroll): "Of course! Sex and the City. Why do you think I watch TV?"

Sometimes I could just kiss him. ;-)