I had Saturday off and the kid was in school so Heather and I went to see “Her” an intriguing movie set in the not so far future about a lonely guy who falls in love with a computer program. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly a lonely, sensitive, recently divorced guy who works for a web service that writes emotion laden handwritten letters for people. His life consists of work, a creepy video game, and anonymous phone sex. Plus he and the other guys in the movie wear really weird high waist-ed pants.

He hears about a computer operating system that purports to listen to you and conform itself to your needs. So he buys it and as part of the install process the program asks him questions about himself and Theodore hems and haws and stumbles around. The program installs and he meets “Samantha” (voiced by Scarlett Johanssen) his new friend and operating system. Samantha sounds a lot nicer than Siri, if you know what you mean.

Samantha starts out helping him organize his emails and such and then later on she starts providing emotional support for Theodore who is still not over his divorce and doesn’t know what he wants.  Then later on she starts having emotional needs of her own. And then they fall in love.

And this is set in the near future and by then emotional bonds between operating systems and people are becoming accepted and there is even cheating by operating systems.

Pretty soon ole Theodore is pretty much full on in love with Samantha but then the dust bunnies start showing up. One thing that happened in is marriage was that his wife grew and Theodore didn’t grow with her so they grew apart. Personally I think his strange pants also played a role. Now Samantha is also starting to grow.

In a certain sense I loved this movie. It is very creative and brave and I thought it had a lot to say about our love of technology and how we are letting it take over our life. I mean everybody is staring at their handhelds now days whereever they are, including me. We have an incredible number of apps to play with and interact with total strangers. It is just amazing. It is not that much of a jump to a highly programmed friendly accepting voice that wants to help us is it?

I also thought it had to say a lot about relationships and what makes them succeed and what makes them fail.

This is a first rate story and a first rate movie and I give it five stars out of five. I just wished it had told its story without so many f words and explicit sex scenes. The phone sex was just plain embarrassing.

So if you haven’t figured it out, leave the kiddos at home if you are going to see this.

Sweetie and I went to see Gravity on Friday. This isn’t much of a review because I don’t know how to tell you about the movie without major spoiling the thing. I will tell you though that George Clooney does a great job but Sandra Bullock…. If Sandra Bullock doesn’t win an Academy Award for her acting in a movie, well then, then, well I don’t know what I’ll do but I’ll be mad.

This is really a great movie.They call it Gravity but it could also be called Survival. I love it. Go see it. Let me know what you think.

I give it five stars out of five.

It is 3D! Take a selfie, post it on Instagram. I’m yogiab on Instagram.

The Yogi’s loaded up and went off to the movies last week to see Star Trek Into Darkness. The latest Star Trek movie. This one was a “prequel” in other words it takes place before the action in the television series and other movies. So we got a young Spock and a Young Kirk and so on. I get so confused.

The plot is pretty familiar, things are rocking along pretty good and then an impossibly complex and powerful foe comes into play so then Cap’n Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest figure out how to defeat the impossible enemy.

This time it is a little different. Eve Jones character is on a mission with one of the guys and then all the sudden she has to take her clothes off for some reason.

So here she is in her underwear ready to do some major space combat. After we get a good look at her then she puts her clothes back on. Of course all sorts of people got scandalized and their nose out of joint and all that because some pretty young girl takes her clothes off. Better her than Spock is what I say. I mean pointed ears could be just the beginning of his differences from humans, right? Or regular humans I should say since he is half human. Doesn’t matter, I’m just thankful that he kept his clothes on.

I know the reason for the scene. The movie was running out of money is why. They went over budget on the special effects and so they didn’t have a costume for her. I bet she wore cut offs and an old tshirt to work that day and they told her. “Well darling, you can’t wear that during the scene and we don’t have anything else that fits you, so your choice, shoot the scene in your underwear or no underwear.” Of course being the trooper that she is she did what she had to do. Am I wrong?

By the way, except for the puzzling underwear scene, the movie really is quite good. Chis Pine makes a great  Kirk. I give this five stars out of five. Go see it. Check the links for the movie web site. Lots of good stuff there.

The whole famdamily went to see an early showing of Iron Man 3 today. I’m not going to give you a review. You can get all sorts of good reviews all over the place including my favorite, IMDB dot com. I’ll just tell you what the movie is about. It’s about bad guys getting the comeuppance they deserve by a hard working underappreciated good guy and about how the love of a good woman will cure anything.

Robert Downey Jr. does a good job playing a wisecracking superhero with panic anxiety disorder. He’s also got a new iron suit that could be great but he hasn’t worked out all the kinks. When you are fighting bad guys you gotta have an iron suit that you can depend on.

Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as the damsel in distress. You can tell she is a big star because she keeps all her clothes on. It’s only the new actresses trying to make their way that have to make movies half naked. I think what the deal is is that these action movies cost so much to make what with all the cars blowing up and special effects and such that they run out of money for costumes for the actresses so they have to play a lot of scenes with nothing on. For some reason they always have plenty of money for the guy’s clothes. Obviously Ms. Paltrow makes enough money to afford her own clothes if the studio doesn’t provide any. My advice to young actresses is to keep extra underwear in their purse just in case the studio can’t afford to give them any. That way your Mom and Dad can still be proud of you and not embarrassed by you showing off all your charms to the world.

I also don’t think they feed these young ladies enough either. They are all really scrawny looking. I’m thinking about starting a new charity where you can adopt one of these women for about $50 a month or so. The money would go toward extra clothes and food. I mean we do the same thing for starving kids in the Phillippines right? We need to take care of their own. Are you willing to help out? Keep in mind that you will get a letter from your adoptee every now and then telling you about what a difference you have made in their life.

Well I’m digressing from the point of this post, and while I’m at it I’ll digress some more. You know what I wrote above about the love of a good woman can cure anything. I was lying. The love of a good woman will never get the Dallas Cowboys to the SuperBowl but that is okay because neither can Jerry Jones or Tony Romo.

Well I’ll just wrap this puppy up. The movie gets four stars out of five and the Cowboys are definitely not going to the SuperBowl. Also, SuperPizzaBoy reminds me to tell you that since the movie is a Marvel comic movie to not just jump up and walk out when the credits role because there is a short post credit feature. Because “everybody” knows that is what happens with Marvel movies.

Well Sweetie and I had the best of intentions. You know the Academy Awards are coming up Sunday and I had Friday off and we have only seen one nominated movie. So lets go see Argo, everybody is going crazy over it. Okay we got to the line and I bought tickets to A Good Day to Die Hard with Bruce Willis. Hey, I didn’t feel like doing anything good for me alright. Can’t help it, I’m impulsive like that. And besides Sweetie didn’t seem to mind.

So the story, who cares about the story. Bruce goes after bad guys, this time in Russia. Really bad guys. Take my word for it. He gets involved in a car chase, the bad guys are chasing his son, and Bruce is third in line. The bad guys have an armored vehicle that hip chucks BMW’s and Mercedes out of the way like nothing. But they are smart, when Willis is after you, you best run, while you can. Bruce also takes on helicopter gunships, machine guns, atomic radiation. Everything the Russkies throw at him Bruce just laughs off. I hope that I didn’t spoil the movie for you.

This is Jai Courtney, plays Willis’s son. He does okay, but he is no Bruce Willis. He hasn’t got anything that Bruce can’t do one better.

This is Yuliya Snigir. She’s no Bruce Willis either but I didn’t mind. She has lots of talents that Bruce cannot do one better on. For one thing she is former professional chess player. Above is the first obligatory, totally unnecessary,  cheesecake shot. The second obligatory totally unnecessary cheesecake shot is when a helicopter blows her skirt up around her waist. I am not going to tell you if she is one of the good guys or one of the bad guys but I will tell you that she has nice legs. I hope I haven’t spoiled the movie for you.

So I give this movie five stars out of five. Don’t worry, it won’t be nominated for anything, but it is a good flick.

Friday was my day off and Sweetie and I went to see “Silver Linings Playbook.” I don’t know what kind of movie to call it. It is not quite a romantic comedy although that seems what the posters and websites seem to be angling for. Maybe it is its own movie. Does everything have to be in a category? Can’t anything just be its ownself? I have a friend who likes to tell me, “Yogi, you are just like _____.” I don’t appreciate it. I am not much but I like to think that maybe I have a little uniqueness no matter how boring. What do you think? Are you your ownself or are you just like ole ______?”

Sorry, I’m digressing. Bradley Cooper (does he really go by Bradley??? Jeez I hope not, It is bad enough having a last name for a first name without humanizing it a little. I bet his family calls him Brad. Brad is a first name, Bradley is a last name. Sorry you generation Xers and Yers, the truth hurts I know but you’ll be thanking me later, believe me. You guys don’t know everything you know, yes that truth hurts especially.) Wow, I’m really off my meds today. Anyway Brad(ley) Cooper plays Pat who as the movie starts is sprung out of a mental hospital by his mother after eight months. He was in the hospital because he came upon his wife having sex in the shower with one of Pat’s coworkers and beats the the crap out of the guy.

Turns out that Pat had undiagnosed bipolar and other issues and he avoided prison by going to the mental hospital. I love how Brad(ley) plays Pat. His Pat is out there, he is edgy, nervous, unpredictable and just barely under control. In other words the opposite of me. But he wants to work hard, lose weight and become a better person. (Again, just the opposite of me.)

Anywhoo, he gets back home and we meet Pat’s dad, Pat, Senior played by Robert De Niro. Pat, Sr. is a mess. He has lost his pension because of the economic turn down and is bookmaking to make money. Pat Sr is also a fanatic Philedelphia Eagles fan and his best friend is a an avid Dallas Cowboys fan. And as a Dallas Cowboys fan I love the give and take between them.

Anyway, Pat meets the luscious Tiffany played by Jennifer Lawrence (who had the starring role in The Hunger Games). Pat wants to reunite with his wife Nikki but she has a restraining order against him but you can tell he is really lusting after Tiffany. Tiffany turns out to have lots of problems of her own. Her policeman husband was killed in a car accident and she turned into a sex addict and lost her job. So she is edgy and unpredictable in her own way.

I’m not going to replay the whole movie for you. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of it. I’m just going to say that I love the dynamics between Pat and his dysfunctional family and between Pat and Tiffany. There are many hilarious scenes in the movie and I think it may end up being a classic. I think it shows Jennifer Lawrence as a serious actress.

I give this movie five stars out of five. Saturday night is date night, take your wife or your  husband or if your wife or husband can’t or don’t want to go take your girlfriend or boyfriend. The language is a little rough. The one sex scene doesn’t show any more body parts than what you’ll see at the beach next summer.

Warning Spoiler Alert!!!!














Plus this movie is the only thing in the world that could make me be glad that the Philedelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys.

Thursday we went to see one of the most creative and entertaining movies I’ve seen in a while.

It is “Wreck-It Ralph” and it is an animated film starring video game characters. The star is Wreck-It Ralph who is the bad guy in a video game and has been so for 30 years and he just wants a little video game love from his fellow characters in the game who shun him because, well because he is the bad guy and nobody likes the bad guy.

So Ralph takes matters into his own hands and leaves the game and tries out another game in order to find the love he wants. He meets a little girl Vanellope who is a video game glitch and also doesn’t get the recognition that she desires. They team up and soon are battling video game viruses and truly evil video game characters. Ralph in the process of helping Vanellope achieve her dreams comes to realize that being the bad guy is not so bad after all.

And they live happily ever after. I have to say that I was a little leary about this movie and thought it would mainly be a good opportunity for a nap but it is fun, well done, and is thoroughly entertaining. A movie for both the kids and the parents.

Five stars out of five for this one!

Check out Disney’s web site for the move. Lots of games and stuff to check out.  Wreck-It Ralph