How I escaped 2009

2009 Movies (62 of them)

• 28 Days Later AND 28 Weeks Later ... Zombies, they just keep coming back ... C
• 7 Pounds ... Will Smith, guilt, sacrifice ... A
• Adventureland ... not another teen virgin trying to get laid? C
• Aliens in the Attic ... Elisha thought this was pretty funny ... B
• Aliens vs Monsters ... eh ... C
• Angels & Demons ... not bad (but not DaVinci Code, either) ... B
  
• Bedtime Stories ... kids movie that did NOT make me laugh ... D
• Body of Lies ... diCaprio spy semi-thriller ... C+
• Choke ... with Sam Rockwell ... A+ Loved it!
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ... Good story with LOTSA food ... B
• Coraline ... too dark for kids, from Neil Gaiman ... B+
• Crank ... silly with Statham ... C
• Dan in Real Life .. predictable ...C
• DaVinci Code ... so Chuck will be ready for 'Angels & Demons' ... A
• Deception ... Hugh Jackman & Ewan McGregor so it can't be ALL bad ... C
• Eagle Eye with Shia Lebouf ... A
• Fight Club ... a true classic ... A
• Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais ... A
• Greenfingers ... Sweet & funny ... B
• Hot Fuzz ... Simon Pegg does Dirty Harry in the UK ... hilarious! B+
• Hotel for Dogs ... with Elisha ... C
• I've Loved You So Long ... Loved it in French with subtitles ... B+
• In the Electric Mist ... based on book series by James Lee Burke "Dave Robicheaux" ... B
• Inkheart with Brendan Fraser ... Dinner & a movie with Elisha ... B+
• Julia & Julie ... chick flick - redeeming feature is Meryl Streep as Julia Child ... B+
• Land of the Lost ... Stupid ... D-
• Little Miss Sunshine ... because Chuck hadn't seen the classic!! A+
• Mad Money ... silly fun ... B
• Miller's Crossing ... Coen brothers ... B
• Moon ... loved Sam Rockwell & Sam Rockwell in space ... A ** BEST OF THE YEAR **
  
• Neverwhere ... actually a BBC 5-part show by Neil Gaiman ... A+
• Night at the Museum 2 ... a funny kids movie that made me laugh too ... B+
• Paranoid Park ... Thought-provoking... B
• Pride & Glory with Edward Norton as NY cop... B-
• Primer ... 2 guys accidentally invent a time machine - you really have to follow this one closely! ... B
• Rachel Getting Married ... B
• Right Outside Your Door ... Dirty bomb in LA (felt like a tv movie) ... C
• Run, Fat Boy, Run with Simon Pegg ... Hilarious (romantic) British comedy with a couple scenes that made me laugh OUT LOUD! ... B+
• Shorts ... kids fun with Elisha ... B
• STAR TREK ... LOVED IT!!! A++
• Sunshine ... SciFi ... C+
• Surrogates ... Bruce Willis & scifi ... A
• Taken with Liam Neeson ... C
  
• Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 ... the original with Walter Matthau ... B+
• Ten Things I Hate about You ... fluffy ... B-
• Terminator Salvation ... It's nowhere near the first one, but I still enjoyed it ... B
• The Bank Job ... true bank heist story ... B
• The Big Nothing ... exactly. D
• The Contract ... John Cusack & Morgan Freeman ... predictable yuck ... D-
• The Informant! ... Soderbergh & Matt Damon - I'm still trying to figure it out... B+
• The International with Clive Owen ... B+
• The Mist ... a Stephen King story with a NON-SK ending ... C
• The Sorcerer ... excellent thriller from 1977 ... A+
• The Wire from HBO ... I watched the entire series from Season One all the way through... love it! Thanks Sherry!
• Traitor with Don Cheadle ... C+
• Transsiberian ... too slow & dull ... D-
• Tropic Thunder ... F (Total waste!)
• Up ... Pixar does it again ... A
• Wanted ... Angelina Jolie & assassins! A rollercoaster ride! A+
• Watchmen ... Exceeded Expectations! A
• White Out ... a TV murder mystery set at the South Pole... C
• Wolverine (the new XMen) ... at the drivein... Hugh Jackman ... B+
• Yes Man ... pretty funny Jim Carrey ... B

2009 Books (37 of them)

• "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman - I loved this story of what happened to all the gods immigrants brought with them to America A++
• "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman - I LOVE the way Gaiman tells stories ... A
• "Bare Bones" by Kathy Reichs - I somehow missed this one in sequence (ohno!) ... B
• "Death List" by ? Thornton? - reinforced my ability to skip entire sections and still know who-dun-it ... D+
• "Devil Bones" by Kathy Reichs ... Gotta love Tempe ... B
• "Everything's Eventual" ... 14 short stories by the Master, Stephen King ... A+
• "Frankenstein series" #1, #2, #3 by Dean Koontz - I went back and re-read the first two books to better enjoy the grand finale of the trilogy ... B
• "Girl who Played with Fire" by Steig Larrson - another in his excellent series - an absolute page turner ... A
• "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson - wonderful Swedish mystery interweaving multiple plotlines for multiple climaxes ;} ... B+
• "Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls ... memoir of the opposite to my family ... REQUIRED reading! A+
• "Good Omens" another by Neil Gaiman - Hilarious look at Armaggedon in a Monty Python kind of way ... A
• "Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society" by Barrows & Shaffer ... a one day read (and it was a work day) - horrors of ww2 with sweetness of life ... B+
• "Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill ... Stephen King's son wrote this excellent thriller ... B
• "King of Lies" by John Hart ... typical legal thriller a la Grisham or Greg Iles... fairly predictable ... C+
• "Lace Reader" by Brunonia Barry - Schizophrenia, suicide and not much story... C
• "Lion Among Men" by Gregory Maguire - Third in his "Oz" series, this time about 'guess who'? ... B
• "Lush Life" by Richard Price - a novel like "The Wire" was a TVshow A
• "Mistress of the Art of Death" by Ariana Franklin - Forensic dr in 1150's England B-
• "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon - his 'coming of age' story ... B
• "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman - Exquisitely delightful look at what's under London's Underground ... A
• "Odd Hours" by Dean Koontz ... Odd Thomas the 4th ... B
• "Predator" by Patricia Cornwell - I think I read this just after we lost Anna - I remember snippets, but was surprised by the ending ... B+
• "Scarpetta Factor" by Patricia Cornwell - surprised me with how much it kept me on the edge of my seat ... B+
• "Scattershot" by David Lovelace - his memoir of growing up with four of five family members being bi-polar B+
• "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova ... Wonderful. Excellent! A+
• "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb ... Heavy reading, physically and for the spirit . An epic story . Definitely NOT Lamb's finest ... C
• "The Shack" by William Young ... NOT my usual choice of reading material, but Jessica insisted ... D-
• "Under the Dome" by Stephen King ... A heavyweight epic that mixes "High Noon" with "Lord of the Flies" with "1984" ... loved it! ... A
  
• "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen ... Thank you Jessica for my delightful xmas present! ... A
• "Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon - Another new favorite author - this is a wonderfully engaging book! A+
• Stephanie Plum Series - 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 - Hilarious, fun reads ... B+