My Fav Five

My sister-in-law Aly asked me who my favorite five actors were. I thought it would be a lot harder, but my top 5 came surprisingly easily . . . all 5 are my favorites because of the unconventional films that they do. Ones that I've loved and ones that a lot of people haven't seen.

Johnny Depp is a fairly recent addition. My favorite movies that he's in are Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Finding Neverland and Sleepy Hollow. I love that he and Tim Burton have teamed up to put Johnny Depp in some of the weirdest and more memorable rolls. He made the Pirates movies which I didn't particularly like but would have been complete crap without Johnny.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt hasn't been in many main stream movies. My love of Joseph started when I saw the movie Brick and The Lookout. He tends to stick to the independent films and that's what I love about him. Nick and my brother-in-law Ryan got to meet him at Sundance this year, and I'm totally jealous!

I got a crush on Ben Foster when I was in Junior High and he was on a show for the Disney Channel called Flash Forward with Jewel Staite. I thought he was so cute. He always plays small roles in movies, but that's what I love about him. Most people probably don't know who he is, so let me enlighten you . . . Get Over It with Kirsten Dunst, in Hostage he was the creepy guy with long, black hair, in Alpha Dog he was the main kid's brother, in X-Men the Last Stand he was Angel, in 3:10 to Yuma he was Russell Crowe's right hand man, and in 30 Day of Night has was again the creepy guy in the jail cell. He's my absolute favorite!

I loved Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, what girl didn't? However, he became one of my favorites after I saw him in Fracture with Anthony Hopkins and Lars and the Real Girl, which is one of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen that movie you need to. He plays a guy in love with a mannequin, it's not dirty at all like it sounds and it's a great movie!

Christian Bale is my longest love. I fell for him when he was 'Cowboy' in Newsies and I haven't hit ground yet. I loved the movie Swing Kids because of him, he stole my heart in Little Women, American Psycho made me realize what a phenomenal actor he is, and his dedication to lose 60 pounds for his role in The Machinist is amazing. He turned around and gained it all back, plus copious amounts of muscle a year later for Batman. Me put The Matrix to shame in Equilibrium and was a broody mystery in The Prestige. He made me want to hunt dragons in Reign of Fire, and made me depressed in Rescue Dawn. 3:10 to Yuma was lucky enough to have him as their leading man, and I'm looking forward to seeing his machine killing lust in Terminator this summer. Christian Bale is the epitome of a great actor, markedly one of the best out there!

I'll make a list of my top 5 actresses later, but that might take some thought.

Other Favorites Who Didn't Make it to the Top 5: Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pierce, Brad Pitt, Cillian Murphy, Ryan Reynolds, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Bateman

My Twilight Change of Heart

My Mom asked me if I wanted to watch Twilight with all the girls in the family. I was immediately game. I figured that since I didn't like the books, maybe this was a chance to get a new outlook on the whole series. My Mom and sister-in-law, Rachelle both read the books and liked them. My sister, Ashley and I mainly went to mock and enjoy some merriment at the expense of the infamous Twilight Stars.

If you read my review on the first book in the Twilight series, you'll be surprised to hear that I actually liked the movie.

http://lizzmd.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-twilight-attempt.html

Don't get me wrong, there were a few cheesy parts, but I was genuinely shocked that I really liked it. There were some bad special effects, but some great ones that made up for it. I'm not sure if the reason I liked the movie was because I didn't like the books, or if I went in not expecting anything and was pleasantly surprised. Either way, I'm giving Twilight its props!

I've come to the realization that women love these books because they love the idea of an Edward. It has nothing to do with the writing, which wasn't anything special, but just the concept of having a perfect man love you so perfectly.

I'm undertaking a project where I'll have to use Twilight as a reference, so I'm swallowing my pride. I'll be there in the theatre to see the following movies. I won't have fake fangs in or anything, and I'll still cringe when the vampires sparkle like diamonds, but there you have it.

Zombies

I was introduced to the phenomenon of the zombie by my husband. I hadn't seen any movies with zombies before that, and I didn't realize that my husband was a zombie-ologist.

My husband loves zombie movies; Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, I would say that they're his favorite kind of movie.



There are zombie books, for real, there are. When I was in the hospital with Asher, Nick read me World War Z while I was in bed. It's actually a really good book. It's a story about a fictional war with zombies from all different view points. He also owns the "Zombie Survival Guide," which tells you how to survive a zombie attack, which or course is immanent.

Did you know that there is actually a series of Zombie Superheroes! Captain America, Spiderman, The Hulk are all zombies. I'm not sure if they eat people, and are bad rather than good. But they're pretty gory, just like all zombie things are.

My brother in law, Kristo told me that this year was the first annual Zombie Walk in Salt Lake. A bunch of people met in downtown Salt Lake all dressed as zombies and walked around. I actually found out that they do this in large cities all over. I had no insight into this side of Salt Lake, before now.

Zombies; can't live with em', can live without your brain. Dilemma . . .

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