Recommendations Round-up!

After exactly a month of August/September Recommendations month, I’ve managed to go through 15 movie recommendations and 2 book reviews from fellow bloggers and given them some credit.

In case you missed some of them, here is the entire list.

1) Dirty Dancing

2) Tai Chi Zero

3) The Descent

4) Forgetting Sarah Marshall

5) The Killer Inside Me

6) Romancing the Stone

7) Best Laid Plans

8) Say Anything

9) Kai Po Che!

10) Upside Down

11) Raising Arizona

12) Shaun of the Dead

13) The Jewel of the Nile

14) Sixteen Candles

15) Jab We Met

Along with the two e-books

16) A Woman Lost by T.B. Markinson

17) The First Pillar (Everville #1) by Roy  Huff

I had lots of fun with this! Did you?

It was an eye-opening experience and I actually was exposed to a lot of movies that I probably wouldn’t have watched otherwise.  Learned about the existence of Jake Ryan and Lloyd Dobler, Casey Affleck and his act of being a crazy guy, a world with opposite gravity, plans gone wrong, a claustrophic cave experience, adventures with jungle man and famous author, both inspiring and/or romantic Bollywood flicks, even had some zombies thrown in the mix.  I’d say it was a very colorful month 🙂

I certainly am thinking of doing this again but with a lot more advanced preparation to get recommended movies together instead of winging it day by day.  Plus, I only managed to mention to a small fraction of bloggers and I want to let everyone know about all of YOU 🙂

Remember to drop me more recommendations after reviews and if you have published a book, I’d love to include it in to share your work.  If you also want to recommend books, I’m totally down for that also!

Would you want me to do another recommendations month? Tell me what you thought about it: suggestions, comments, maybe a different way to set it up?

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)

Earlier this year, I wrote a review for Bad Teacher (find it HERE) and talked about how I really liked my first experience of watching Jason Segel.  Thats when my actual friend and fellow blogger, Jelliefishie, suggested that I should check out Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  I hesitated on this one a while but then after horror and action lined up, I felt like it would be good to get some comedy in, even if it included the annoying Russell Brand.  Let’s check it out!

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Cast: Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill

Struggling musician Peter (Jason Segel) gets dumped by his 5 year TV celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).  To escape from his pains, he goes to a Hawaiian resort where he coincidentially ends up at the same time with Sarah Marshall and his new boyfriend Aldous Snow.   (Russell Brand).  As he makes friends and tries to move on, he meets the resort front desk employee, Rachel (Mila Kunis) who helps cover up and encourage him to break out of his shell and embrace life.

I had no idea what to expect from this mostly because Jelliefishie recommends awkward humor movies.  Last time was The House Bunny which I grew to like a lot.  Funny enough, when Forgetting Sarah Marshall started, I had that feeling.  I should mention that I watched the Unrated version, since Rotten Tomatoes seem to view it as two different films.  Anyways, as the movie progressed, it actually had a lot of really funny moments and turned into a nice balance between romance and comedy.  I ended up having a really good time with this.

Jason Segel is a pretty awesome actor.  He has this silly adorable vibe.  Sometimes, thats just the charm that brings out the right level of not too sappy romance.  Maybe he was a tad overexaggerated, (or do guys that break up really act that way?) and in this unrated version, we saw him fully naked.  Did they do that in the original theatrical version? Either way, he had great chemistry with Mila Kunis.  On that note, I have seen Mila Kunis a few times in movies.  She’s actually a pretty fun actress and in this one, even I thought she had really nice style.

On the other side, Kristen Bell fit right into the role of the crazy ex girlfriend who is super full of themselves matched with the very well-deserved (still annoying) boyfriend in the form of Russell Brand.  Honestly, I don’t like him anymore after this.  I walked away halfway through one of the scenes because it was just ridiculous… That was the only downside for me.  I can see how if that type of humor was your type of thing then he was supposed to be the comedic relief.  I found many other parts funnier.   However, in the parts with him and Jonah Hill (as the waiter), those scenes were pretty epic.

Jelliefishie definitely gave me a decent recommendation.  Will it be my fave comedy? Probably not but it sure was fun! It was what I needed to lighten my mood. It had a good amount of hilarious moments, a solid cast with Jason Segel, Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell and a great supporting cast with Jonah Hill and even a cameo with Kristen Wiig.  Plus, the girls had a beautiful wardrobe and even I started wondering, how can I get Kristen Bell’s core… That aside, c’mon its in HAWAII! Who is in for a vacation Hawaii? I know I’d go in a heartbeat (if I had the money)!

I talked about Jason Segel before.  What do you think of Russell Brand? Are you into his comedy style? How about the two beautiful girls in this: Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell? Do you like them? Any notable performances that come to mind? Did you see this flick? Love to hear your thoughts 🙂

Remember to go check out Jelliefishie’s awesome blog! She’s very artistic and take awesome photos and she writes awesome stuff, even recently dipping into the world of movie reviews 🙂 I linked her up on top!