Movie: Its a Wonderful Life

A classic Christmas movie, but I'm sure a lot of the younger generations, like mine have yet to see it.

Stars: 4 out of 5



Plot:
This movie starts out with a conversation among the Angels about sending someone down to George Bailey, who is ready to give up the greatest gift from God (his life). Before someone is sent down a story of George's life is told.

It starts when he is young and sledding on shovels with other boys and ends up saving his brother. After this, it shows a clip about a job George had where his boss has just received word that his son died. His boss ends up starting to take pills and becomes a little crazed and hits on George before coming to his senses. George never told anyone about the confrontation.

After this, George is older and buying a suitcase, which he receives as a gift from his old boss. He is planning on traveling overseas and this is his last night in Bedford. There is a party he attends after having a conversation with his dad at dinner. While at this party, he meets a girl from his childhood (Mary) and takes her from her date to dance with her. Mary's rotten date then opens the floor to the pool where George and Mary fall in and then everyone at the party ends up jumping in.

On the walk home, George tells Mary about how pretty she is and how he would give her the moon if she wanted it and about his plans for life. When they stop at a house, Mary looses her robe and George teases her about it. Just then a car stops to tell George that his dad has just had a stroke His dad ends up dying and George gave up his boat trip and had to give up school (he ended up giving his school money to his brother) because they board of his father's business would only keep in business if he took over.

When his brother Harry comes back from school he is married. George gets a little lonely, and ends up at Mary's house and she's so excited to see him, but he ends up pushing away all her invitations. He ends up going to leave and comes back to get his house and Mary is on the phone with Sam which leads George to kissing Mary and then they get married. Before they get to the honeymoon, a bank closes and George needs to use his honeymoon money to keep his business open. With all the drama, Mary managed to create a romantic night for their honeymoon in their new home (the house where George and Mary threw rocks through the windows when they were younger).

Mr. Potter continuously tries to buy the business from George, and at this point in the movie he offers him a job to manage his affairs and make $20,000 a year (which is a lot of money at this time in history), which George declines. When he gets home, Mary announces she is pregnant. It happens she has a boy, and then later a girl and years later during the war she has 2 more.

This is where the story catches up to real time, the day before Christmas. After having a confrontation with Mr. Potter, Uncle Billy loses $8,000 at the bank by accidentally hiding it in a newspaper he hands to Mr. Potter. When Uncle Billy tells George about it, they got on a frantic search for it before George loses his temper with Uncle Billy. When George gets home, he then loses his temper with Mary and his kids. He soon realizes, but not before scaring his family.

In a time of desperation, he goes to Mr. Potter. During this encounter, Mr. Potter says George is worth more dead then alive, which gives George and idea. He ends up at a bar, praying to God. On his drive home he crashes his car and ends up walking to a bridge and looks down at the moving water, when he sees a man jump in and screaming for help. George jumps in to save the man. This stranger ends up being the Angel that came down to help save him. Of course, George doesn't believe that he is an Angel, and says it would be better if he were never born and his wish is granted.

The name of the town is changed to Pottersville, and no one recognizes George. He sees his old boss from childhood and finds out he was in jail for 20 year from poisoning a little kid with pills, the pills George had stopped him from taking. His house is abandoned and worn down from no one living in it for 20 years. His mother doesn't know who he is and Uncle Billy is in the asylum after losing his business. His brother died at the age of 9 after falling through the ice, which George had originally saved him from. Mary never married and when George goes to see he, he freaks her out and causes a scene which attracts the police.

He ends up on the bridge again and pleads to live again. The cop comes over to him and George realizes that the cop recognizes him.When he gets home, the police are waiting for him and says "isn't it great? I'm going to jail." When Mary gets back, Uncle Billy comes in with a basket that has enough money in it from all the people in the town. All those people whose lives George impacted. The police rip up the warrant and even drop a few bucks into the pile. In the end, George opens up a Tom Sawyer book from Clarance that is in the pile and a bell rings announcing an Angel (Clarance) got his wings.

The End

Shows: Prince and the Pauper

This is a collection of 5 short Disney Shows, I broke them down by show.

Prince and the Pauper

This is a cute little one. Mickey Mouse is the Prince and the Pauper. This is about a common peasant going into the castle and the Prince sees that they look the same and decides to trade places for a day. The Prince goes and hangs out with Goofy (the friend) and finds out that his father's army is stealing people's money and food in the name of the king, but the king is sick and dying and would never do that.

Meanwhile Pete (the evil commander) finds out that Mickey is just a peasant and tries to use him so that he can own the town forever with the help of the "prince"

During the coronation, Mickey (real price) comes to the rescue to defeat Pete and take his spot on the throne, now that his father is dead.

Pied Piper

In this short story, a town is over run by rats and the mayor asks that anyone who can get rid of them would get a lot of money. This one guy says he will do it and pipes a tune and the rats all leave with him.

When he returns for the money, the mayor says he doesn't deserve it because he didn't do anything. So the Pied Piper uses his tune to take the kids away from the town.

Old King Cole

I'm so beyond confused on this one it's not even funny. It's like a lot of different plays that the king has playing that are a bunch of legends, I think, don't quote me. I didn't like it.

A Knight for a Day

In this one, Goofy is a squire and the knight he serves gets injured during this competition to get the princess's hand, so Goofy takes his master's place and faces the toughest knight in the competition.

Through sheer luck he wins and the princess wanted him to.

Ye Olden Days

This is the only black and white one in the group. Minnie is being given away in this episode and she refuses, so her father locks her up and so Mickey fights her pursuer and wins and takes Minnie away

Movie: Stuck In Love

I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this movie or not, but I didn't think it was that bad.

It's a story about three different relationships that aren't perfect and involves a lot of gives and takes. Oddly the three relationships are that of a father, daughter and son all trying (or not really trying) to find love.

The father is still in love with his ex-wife who left him/cheated on him and lives with this new guy now. It's odd, but you find him kinda stalking her in the beginning trying to find out what she's doing. He's a famous book writer and he lives on the beach and has a friend with benefits who is trying to get him out there in life and move on. His son wants him and his mom to get back together, but the daughter wants nothing to do with her mom anymore.

The daughter is in college, she's just kinda sleeping around with different guys, she doesn't believe there is love in the world, but one guy is really trying to get her attention because he likes her. She just published a new book and when her mom shows up to her book premiere she pretends not to know her and then finds out her boyfriend (the one that was trying to get her attention, he finally did) was the one who invited her mother she breaks it off with him until she hears that his mom died from her cancer and that brings them closer again. This also leads her to go to her mom and try to refoster their alliance.

The son is the one I thought would have at least a decent relationship but his is actually the most screwed up, kinda. The girl he likes in high school is kinda a drug addict and a whore (please excuse my language, but it's kinda true). At a party one night he punches her boyfriend who is being an ass to her and then she and he start hanging out together. At his sister's book premiere, she gets drunk and then leaves the party, when they find her she's drunk, high, and passed out in some guy's room. After this she pretty much goes to rehab and then at the end at family dinner you hear him say that "it might be her" when there's a knock at the door.

It's actually the mom at the door (this is after the daughter and mom reconnect)

Show: Power Rangers: SPD

So this wasn't a bad spin off of the Power Rangers. I thought it was good, but started to get too complicated towards the end.

It starts out with three of the rangers, they are in SPD (Space Patrol Delta) and they are training to be rangers. While on a mission they run into Jack and Z. They are in trouble, but they end up becoming the last two rangers after the Commander sees them.

In this series, the bad guys are people from space (again) and they are a little girl and her uncle, although for a portion the little girl is an adult and she hates it and complains.

In each episode, there are different monsters that the rangers face and some they have to face alone and they learn some kind of lesson. Towards the end of the series, they end up gaining some more rangers. Doggy (the Commander) is Shadow ranger, then there are Nova and Omega who are from the future that come to help. Then in a few episodes they bring rangers from the past (from Dino Thunder) to the series. This is where I think it got to complex, but it's all the same really.

Show: Being Human

After 4 long seasons of Being Human, the American version finally came to an end this year. It was very strange doing the countdown. I wasn't a fan of this from the beginning; I was home on fall break one year and saw my family watching it and thought it might be an interesting pass time at school and so I watched season one all on my own, and once I start a show I have to finish it.

It felt like more than 4 seasons, don't know why, just did. I wasn't really sure how much longer I would be watching this show. It started to get a little complicated towards the end.

Season one starts with an introduction to Sally, Aiden, and Josh. Aiden and Josh are close friends who work in the hospital together. They find out they share something in common, they are both living secret lives they don't want to. Aiden is a vampire and Josh is a werewolf. They decide to move in together. When they move into a house, they find that it is haunted by a ghost Sally who was murdered by her fiance, but everyone thinks it was just an accident.

In the first season, Aiden is confronted with taking out his maker. With the help of Sally, Aiden is able to kill his "father".

In the second season, Josh and Nora (his girlfriend that he ends up turning into a werewolf) are set on finding a cure to being a werewolf, Sally become haunted by the grim reaper and Aiden is stuck trying to help the Queen.

In the end of the season, Josh and Nora find out that to be cured they must kill their maker. Josh knows who his maker is, all he has to do is kill him, but Nora won't be able to be cured. Aiden watches the love of his old life die and gets buried deep in the ground and Sally gets lost in Limbo. 

In the third season, Josh is stuck adjusting to his life as human again and Nora still being a werewolf, meanwhile they search for a way to bring Sally back from Limbo and find Aiden. 

Someone ends up digging up Aiden and it just so happens that there is a plague that is killing vampires and so Aiden is unaffected. There is a blood market going on now to try to keep the blood source cleaned. Josh and Nora find a way to bring Sally back to life through a witch. 

While Sally is a live she finds that she starts to fall apart, quite literally, but she can heal herself by eating living creatures. 

It starts out pretty small, but before she knows it, she wants to start eating her friends. She decides that it's time for her to go again because she can't live like this.

After she passes, Josh and Nora finally get married, that's where the end of the season is, but during the season, Aiden befriends a boy who is like a bubble boy and this boy wants to be turned into a vampire, which Aiden does turn him, but it doesn't turn out the way he had hoped and instead of killing the kid, he lets him run away. (Oh, the cure to the plague, Werewolf blood, which has a bit of a nasty effect on Vampires)

There's a bit that goes on in the final season. Sally gets dragged to the underworld like place with the witch that brought her back and they are linked. Sally makes it back, but every time she uses magic she ends up time warping to some other time. The most pronouned one she lands in, is her past right before she dies where she possesses herself and saves her life. It changes a bit of things, but she falls in love with Aiden. She still ends up dying in her life and Aiden becomes a really vicious vampire after she dies. She finally finds a way back to her time and then the evil in the house (this little girl) tries to ruin it. In order to save Aiden, Sally takes away his being a vampire, but it costs her her life and then Aiden is so old and dying anyway that he ends up dying in the season finale to take out the evil in the house. 

Nora and Josh end up getting pregnant, but it's a wild road for them. In the end of season three, Josh becomes trapped in his wolf and only on the full moon is he human. When Sally makes it back she does a spell to free Josh, but it's never completed, so Josh pretty much can turn whenever he wants and he's got a very mean streak to him that ends up making him the pack leader and chases Nora away from him for a while. That is until Sally shows him who he really is and helps him face his fears. 

It was a really good series. I can't compare it to the British version because I've never seen it, but I've heard it both ways. 

Movie: Season of the Witch

I really enjoy this movie, it's great at playing with people who like to guess the ending of the movie from like the first second. Really great at that, so if you have one of those in the house/family, have them watch this movie with them and then laugh when they don't get it right.

The movie starts out with a witch trial... pretty much a witch execution, because let's face it, there was no such thing as a witch trial, if they survived, they were executed anyway. Anywho, it starts with three women, one old lady, one middle age, and one young. The two younger ones plead for their lives, while the last one tells the priest to pretty much rot in Hell. They hang her pretty fast. The youngest confesses after the priest tells them that he would save their souls if they would confess. They hang her anyway.

After hanging them, the priest pulls each of them up after they've been drowned to make sure that they won't come back. He's got one done, two done, three... oh wait, he gets pulled into the water and scrambles to get to his book which is burned by the witch and then he's thrown over and hung. Guess who that one was... the youngest one! I thought it was going to be the oldest lady who told them to go to Hell. Wrong.

After this, it changes scenes to the Crusades where Nicolas Cage's character, Behman and his friend Felson (Ron Perlman) are two of the best in the army. After killing an innocent woman, Behman leaves the Crusades against laws and his buddy follows him.

They come upon a house looking for provisions and find the wife and husband in bed dead and all sickly. Well at least you think the wife is dead, I didn't really see it as a big deal, but my boyfriend felt it necessary to make a comment about how she should have been dead and it wasn't right for her to still be alive (lol). They burn the house and take the horses. They stop in a town to get better horses and food even though they know it's a risk, and it was and they get caught. After one of the priest see's the crusade mark on the sword of Behman he recruits him to see his sickly master who has the same thing as the couple in the house.

They say it's from a witch and they have to take the witch to the monastery so she can be judged. After seeing that the witch is this young girl, Behman makes the priest swear that she will be given a fair trial. She does look pretty innocent, but you kinda figure that she's playing the innocent girl to get Behman to feel bad for her and he does.

They need a guide so they find a swindler who has taken the path many times and then they are off.

The last in the group is a young alter boy who is really good with a sword.

Not long into the movie, the witch escapes the cage she's in and then kills one of the soldiers in the part by making him think Kay (the young alter boy) is his daughter. They keep going and through out it, you find that she uses the weaknesses of the men to understand them. She saves the alter boy when they go across this bridge and he's falling and does it single handed... not really a trait I know many witches are said to have (hint hint).

Then the guide is getting freaked out by her and he wants to kill her (he's not the only one, but he's the only one really set on it) and then wolves attack the group and in trying to get away, the guide is killed. They finally make it to the monastery. When they go inside, they find that the monks have the same disease that spread everywhere else. When the priest starts the prayer, the witch is saying things to Behman about how this is her "fair" trial. It dawns on the Priest that this -isn't- a witch at all. It's a possession by a demon.

They finally put it all together, the whole time, the demon wanted to come to the monastery. The first guy that got killed got too close and wanted her to be safe from the priest and wanted to let her go, pretty much he thought she was innocent. The guide, he almost killed her, so he had to go. Now why did she want to come to the monastery? The monks were copying the book, the one book the priest was holding to do the exorcism. The monks come back to life as zombie like demon things. Take off their heads and then they will be dead. Felson dies saving Behman from the demon and is burned. The priest has his head snapped, this is when the alter boy gets the book and continues. Behman takes his life to keep the demon from getting to the kid and pins him to the wall while getting stabbed in the back. After, Behman stays alive long enough to see that the girl is actually completely fine.

She didn't realize what had happened to her at all.

 

Movie: Set Up

This actually wasn't that great of a movie. I was expecting a lot more from it then what I actually got, so it was slightly a let down.

It starts out with three friends who end up stealing diamonds from a guy in a car. They end up killing him which apparently wasn't part of the plan.

Sonny (50 Cent), tells his one friend Vincent (Ryan Phillippe) that he shouldn't have killed the guy. Anyway, Vincent ends up killing the third friend, and shoots Sonny, thinking he killed him, takes the diamonds and runs off.

Sonny ends up getting fixed up by a friend of his and then he gets targeted by a hit man who Sonny tells Vincent has the diamonds and goes to meet the mob boss, Biggs (Bruce Willis). They team up to get the diamonds and money back and Sonny ends up taking the money and hides some of it in a Teddy Bear and some of it in a locker after his 'partner' (one of Biggs' guys) dies by his own dumb fault.

Anyway, you find the Vincent's dad is in jail and in trouble, and so Vincent is trying to pay this guy to keep him safe but needs the money. Doesn't take too long for the hitman to find Vincent's sister (the driver in the beginning) and ends up killing her.

Sonny goes back to the mob boss to tell him Vincent has the money (the money that Sonny hid) so they go to him and the mob boss and a bunch of others get shot (oh and Vincent ends up killing the hitman when he goes to Vincent) and then it's just Sonny and Vincent. Sonny let's Vincent go in the end.

The teddy bear went to the third guy's wife/girlfriend/sister/girl he lived with.