Review: Miami Ink

TLC sure does have some great shows. What Not to Wear, Little People, Big World, and Take Home Chef are all some great shows that the channel offers. Miami Ink falls in line with the great lineup they have. It focuses on a tattoo parlor in Miami, and follows the lives of each person. It's very interesting to me, because it's a completely different life than I live. The artists do not do silly tattoos, they will only do ones with meaning behind them. On the particular show I watched, the female artist did a portrait of a young man's brother, who died in a car accident. Another tattoo artist did a dragon around two flowers, which symbolized his protective nature over his two children. The show is an intriguing one to watch, especially for the artistry. The way they draw on people's skin with ink seems almost like a pen and ink, rather than writing on people's skin. It's really amazing, and beautiful to watch.

Review: Take Home Chef

While watching TLC today, I came across a show, "Take Home Chef." Take Home Chef stars Curtis Stone, a handsome chef with an even handsomer accent. He goes to the supermarket and picks whoever he first sees to cook for. Surprisingly, it's normally a drop-dead gorgeous woman. When he walks up to them, they are incredibly surprised, and he asks them if they want him to cook for their family that night. Almost always, they agree, and Stone walks around the store with them, interviewing them and asking questions about their food preferences. They pick out some food, he pays, and they go back to the person's house to cook for them. Normally, they make some amazing recipes. It's a great concept, and a very fun show to watch. In the show I watched, a woman helped cook a stir fry for her boyfriend with Stone. It was an entertaining show, and very interesting. It was hard to miss the eyes and the giggles that the woman kept making towards Stone, but it's hard to blame her!

Review: Newsies

Newsies, which came out in 1992, is a movie about poor young men, who have to make a living for themselves (and sometimes their families) by selling newspapers. It is a fictional story starring Christian Bale and Bill Pullman, as well as David Moscow. Christian Bale is "Cowboy," a rough teenager who really needs love. When the price of the papers that they sell is raised, Cowboy insists that they protest the increase. He isn't very good with words, so his friend, David (David Moscow) helps him rally the troops. They don't get too much support from the community, until a writer (Bill Pullman) starts to document everything, which allows them to garner more followers. The movie is actually a musical, and has some of the best music I've heard in any movie. Newsies is really a great, feel-good movie.

Review: The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada is pretty much one of my favorite movies. It stars Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, and is about an average girl who decides to work for a fashion magazine, Runway. The movie is based on a novel by Lauren Weisberger, of the same name. She wrote about her work at Vogue magazine, and her terror of a boss. Hathaway is Andy Sachs, and is dating a gorgeous guy (Adrian Grenier). When she goes to work at Runway, she deals with a horrible boss (Streep) who makes her bow to her every whim. Runway begins to take over Andy's life, and it isn't long before she makes sacrifices that she had no intention of making. She makes good decisions in the end, though, and all of the loose ends get tied up.

Review: The Last Kiss

The Last Kiss, starring Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson came out in 2006, among fair reviews. What appealed to me was the fact that Paul Haggis wrote it, and everything I've seen from him is awesome.
The movie focuses primarily on Braff and his girlfriend's relationship as an average couple in Wisconsin. They find out that they're about to have a baby, and Braff sees his life flash before his eyes. Just at the moment when he's feeling as if "there are no surprises" left for his life, Rachel Bilson steps in. They met at a wedding- she's a college sophomore, and really into him. He has to decide which life he wants to have. While this is going on, there are sub stories with 3 of his friends, as well as his girlfriend's parents.
All in all, this was an engaging movie with a great cast. As with all of Braff's movies (such as Garden State), it has a great soundtrack, as well. I'd call it a must see!

Review: Idiocracy

Today I rented Idiocracy, starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, and Dax Shepard. You won't find many copies at your local Blockbuster, because it's not an incredibly popular movie.
The movie begins with showing the viewer a common man (Luke Wilson) who works on a military base. He's not stupid, but he's not very smart, either. As part of an army experiment, he is placed in a freezer along with the only woman they could find, a prostitute (Maya Rudolph). Unfortunately, the military base goes under, and they are forgotten until about 500 years later. As a result of a garbage landslide, their freezers are opened, and they are released into the future. As the movie explains, throughout history, stupid, white trashy people had too many kids. Also, people with high IQ's do not have any, so the world has turned into a complete dumb biosphere. Pretty much everyone in the world seems to have a slight form of retardation. When they test Luke Wilson (by having him put a square peg in a square hole, add 2 + 1, etc), they find that he's the smartest guy in the world. As a result, they make him fix their problems, and he becomes president. It is a completely satirical film, but really makes you think about the future of humanity.

Entertaining websites

While on one of my favorite websites, Slickdeals, last week, I came across some codes that could be redeemed for free Blockbuster movie rentals. Because of this, my next few blogs will be mainly DVD's I've rented using these coupons. Sorry, the codes are gone now, but feel free to browse through the forums to find great deals. I've found some amazing deals in the past few months, such as a free Senseo coffee maker, free wedding planning book from State Farm, and even had Walgreens owe me money by the time I finished shopping. Try it!