Time to reflect and to watch movies

During this unexpected time off, I have time to reflect. I will hopefully be spending time figuring out what kind of job I want next. Yesterday at class, we dissected a great case regarding Taran Swan and Nickelodeon. Taran seemed to be a great boss and had great ideas about developing her people and how to make them successful not just in their current job, but in all their future jobs. Last night's discussion and last week's great guest speaker about emotional intelligence have started these reflection ideas percolating.

Before that, I have been watching and seeing a fair amount of movies. First up was "Twilight", the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's hit book. I persuaded Lucas to join myself and our friends Andrea and Bryan to go see the movie on opening day. Wow - holy screaming teenage girls, Batman! They screamed when the lights dimmed, they screamed when Edward was on the screen for the first time, they screamed during the scene in Port Angeles, they screamed during the kiss scene. I think Lucas was a bit overwhelmed. Review - not bad; three and a half stars out of five. They did a decent job adapting the book and making Bella a little less dopey. Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, and Alice were great. Jasper had the odd habit of looking like a total sociopath the whole time. Carlisle was insanely and frighteninly pale. Jacob was a horrible actor. Charlie was phenomenal and Bella's house and Forks, WA were very much like I pictured them. I actually wanted to watch it again after it was over, which is always a good sign.

Next up was "Persepolis". Great movie - four stars. "Persepolis" is based on the graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi about her growing up in Iran pre- and post-revolution and her schooling in Austria. It is a cartoon and the drawings and visual style are very unique. The film is in French with English subtitles. The movie does a good job of portraying the circumstances around and after the Iranian Revolution. While it is obvious now that the Shah probably wasn't the greatest leader in the world, the Iranian people were hoping to replace him with a more democratic and fair leader. What they got, as we know, was fundamentalist oppression. What would Iran be like if the U.S. had intervened?

Last weekend, Lucas and I were treated by my parents to "Four Christmases". I had high hopes for this Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon flick, especially when I saw the trailer featuring the quote by Vince Vaughn about rather being hunted by a crazy millionaire on an island. Priceless. Unfortunately, this comedy is not. I give it two and a half stars - there are some funny moments (the Christmas pageant is a good one), but it is a lot like "Step Brothers" - you can tell that more lines/scenes were supposed to be funny, but they fell FLAT.

I have also watched "The Golden Compass", but I am going back for a second viewing before making any judgements. I'm looking forward to increasing my diet of Netflix once school is over for the semester and for the slew of end of the year award contender releases like "Frost/Nixon", "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", "The Reader", "Revolutionary Road", and "Slumdog Millionaire". I also still need to see "Quantum of Solace". And maybe "Doubt".