The Catherine Tate Show (2004-2006)

There is no summary for this show.  It doesn't need one.  I might have officially found my absolute favorite tv show ever.

Catherine Tate is a British actress (for those who don't already know) who is freaking BRILLIANT! Everything she does is hilarious.  I have watched every episode at least twice, if not more often because most of the clips are on YouTube.

I waited a while to review this show because every time I discover something I have a fangirl period.  All I do is watch and read everything I can find about said thing.  About a month or two later I'm back to reality and can assess how good or bad said thing is (from a normal point of view).  I have been obsessed with this show for over 2 months now and it's still going.  If I'm bored I'll Google clips of this show, it's honestly gotten me through a lot of my summer boredom.

A con is that it is a British tv show.  I don't always understand all of the references or quite catch exactly what they're saying so I have to watch (and re-watch) carefully.  But once you get it, it's HI-larious.

To illustrate my point:

Everyone I have shown this video to has laughed out loud.  It's just rude enough to be borderline offensive, but it's so true that you can't help but laugh.  Seriously watch it and let me know what you think.

Back to my review, Catherine Tate is a genius and superiorly funny without trying too hard.  The relatable and everyday situations she portrays give everyone a good laugh because, well, everyone can relate to something.

My rating: 5 stars (I would give more but that would defeat the point of a scale)

Just watch it.  It WILL grow on you and soon it will be ALL you can think about :)

Sassy Pants (2012)

Desperate to get out from under her overprotective mother, a home-schooled teen runs off to live with her dad, and forms a bond with his much-younger boyfriend.

I didn't read the description before watching this movie.  It was raining, I was on Netflix, enough said.

The main character is played by Ashley Rickards, who plays Jenna in Awkward; a tv show I used to love to pieces.  Maybe I'm growing as a person, but I don't seem to like anything anymore...it's frustrating.  Anyway I recognized her so I watched this movie.  In hindsight, that was not a good enough reason to watch this indie film but it's too late now!

So Betheny (Ashley Rickards) has a suckish home life.  Blunt, but the truth. Her mom collects money from her dad--parents are divorced--and she doesn't let her kids out of her sight.  After her ex-husband left her for another man she has been very self-conscious and needs to be in control.

Lots of mundane things happen but Betheny is determined to leave that house and she does. Circumstances change and she ends up back there again.  Her dream is to go to fashion school and in the end she does.

Sorry to ruin the ending but this movie is pretty predictable:  from the next-door boyfriend to the cliche first job nothing surprised me enough to watch this movie again or even sympathize with the characters.  I didn't know if I was proud of Beth getting out of her mom's house just to come right back.  Her life was one big disappointment after another so of course 80 of the 90 minutes of this movie would be somber, frustrating and mundane.

That being said, I was strangely entertained by this film.  God knows why, but I could sort of relate to it I guess.  When I graduated from high school I wanted nothing more than to leave my parents' house and get on with my life.  So I went to college as far away from home as I could, but I still ended coming home more often than not.

I don't have much else to say about this movie.  It left me with a blank expression and feeling MEH about my 90 minute experience.

So if you have to escape the boredom of a rainy day, then by all means watch this movie...but remember there's a reason it got 2 stars on Netflix.

My rating: 2 stars...I'm sorry to be redundant but all I can say is 'MEH'.

Safe Haven (2013)

A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.

I expected too much of this movie. Just seeing it associated with The Notebook made me think this was the reinvented version, but it wasn't.

Of course it was a love story, not a bad one, just slowwwwwwww.  It took half the movie to get the guy and girl together even though they had chemistry from 10 minutes in.  I also didn't like that she had to bond with a widower--the fact he had two children was kind of weird and unnecessary.  The movie would have been fine without the kids, but I guess it would have made her less lovable (but only slightly).

So a quick synopsis, because one-liners from imdb are not really sufficient:

Girl is abused by husband, leaves him.  Husband is a cop and tracks her down (slowly). Meanwhile girl makes friends in a small town and decides to live there for a while.  Falls in love with widower and his family.  Husband finds her and abuses her until she finally kills him.  Girl and widower can finally be together in the end.

I don't know why it took 2 hours to explain that to me in movie form.  A lot of scenes were filler crap that had no place in the movie.  Honestly it was like a really long crime drama...like a really bad episode of Law and Order: SVU!

The ending did make the movie though.  If you do decide to watch this movie the last 10 minutes are worth the wait I promise!  I love Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother but her performance in this movie was unexpectedly amazing and heartbreaking at the same time. Keeping true to Nicholas Sparks tradition, he made me bawl like the baby I am at the end of this film.

In short, if you're interested in this movie then just watch it, but if you don't have time to invest in Safe Haven then don't worry about it...you're not missing much.  This is a good movie for a rainy day or if you're stuck home alone with nothing to do.

3 stars, I wouldn't watch it again, but seriously the ending was phenomenal!

Unwind/UnWholly by Neal Shusterman

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end...people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens while simultaneously providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question.

Cam is a product of unwinding; made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds, he is a teen who does not technically exist. A futuristic Frankenstein, Cam struggles with a search for identity and meaning and wonders if a rewound being can have a soul.  These books challenge assumptions about where life begins and ends—and what it means to live.

So I LOVED the first book of this series, Unwind.  It was thrilling, realistic and the very thought of unwinding made me cringe.  The main characters are Connor (the troubled kid), Risa (a ward of the state) and Lev (a child born just to be unwound).  The book progresses from all three different viewpoints until they all converge at the end with the culmination of some epic craziness.

I normally don't like these types of books, I like to know the point of view I'm reading from and if it changes I tend to get annoyed and generally dislike the book.  I'm not sure why Unwind was different, it just was so intriguing that I got over the annoyance of the viewpoints fairly easily.  I cannot say the same about UnWholly.  This story line wasn't that bad looking back at the book as a whole.  I just hated the viewpoint shifts.  For this book the author decided that each and every passerby deserved their own chapter which was confusing and redundant. 

For example, Connor would have his narrative about a situation, then some kid near him would get a chapter saying the EXACT same thing.  Like literally, exactly the same.

Connor:  I need some more food for my friends and it's really hot here.
Other kid:  I'm hungry, Connor should get more food.  I'm hot.

It was ridiculous.  And the second book introduced new characters that I wasn't fond of.  Miracolina was so brainwashed that she spent the whole book trying to be unwound.  Cam was a person, but not technically a person because he was only made of other people.  He was the most annoying in my opinion.  Because he had all different brain bits his speech wasn't normal, or understandable at all.  He would say things like "caboose behind tails!" and we're supposed to understand that he means 'the end'.  I still don't get it to be honest.

Then on top of all the new characters and their drama there was the forced love triangle between Cam and Risa (and technically Connor, but he wasn't actually there for any of it).  I say forced because it didn't need to be included in this book.  Connor and Risa were rocky as it was, but adding Cam into the picture was just something to entice teens to read this book.  Their romance was strange because reading Cam's parts (he LOVED her with every ounce of his being) you really felt a connection between them, but Risa could care less (she's still in love with Connor).  Overall their 'love' was just a media charade (Hunger Games anyone??).

I decided to put these two books into one review because they are a series.  Unwind was amazing and didn't need a sequel (let alone another 4 books in the works) so UnWholly was a giant disappointment.  The characters I fell in love with were pushed aside to make way for the new characters and no one wants to see that in a sequel.

Mr. Shusterman, your original story was fantastic, I'm discouraged that you decided to keep writing this story after everything was wrapped up sufficiently.  I feel like these next books are going to be grasping at straws and I'm nervous to read them, but I'm an optimist and will hope for the best in your next adventure.

Unwind:  5 stars!!! AMAZING!!!
UnWholly:  2 stars...disappointing at best

Pretty Little Liars (2010-present)

Four friends band together against an anonymous foe who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, whilst unraveling the mystery of the murder of their best friend.

I used to LOVE this show.  Like I would camp out every night it was on, break out the popcorn and glue my eyes to the screen like a fangirl for an hour.  Now the episodes are just disappointing.  Four seasons later we still don't know who killed Ali or who the entire 'A' team is.  I understand the show needs to retain some mystery but I would enjoy it much more if I knew I was actually going to get a piece of the puzzle each week.

A quick summary for those who don't watch regularly:

Ali and four of her closest friends did everything together in quiet little Rosewood, PA.  Being oh so manipulative (well as manipulative as a 7th grader can get anyway) Ali made lots of enemies until finally one day she went missing.  A year later her body is found and a funeral is held.  The four friends receive texts from 'A' after the service.  Is Ali still alive???

[The logical answer is no.  They found her body (I think twice as of season 4 right now) so obviously she is NOT sending texts from the grave.]

But A threatens to bring all the girls' secrets to light if they don't do what A wants.  A long series of events leads us to find out how-ish Ali was murdered and we're still figuring out whodunnit.

These girls are only in high school but still, shouldn't someone have figured out what happened by now??  Everyone has to keep what they know a secret because telling someone means A might find out and then ambush them with more threats.  But if you've been watching the show thus far then you know that A always knows EVERYTHING, regardless of who the girls tell or don't tell.

Then because it's ABC Family there's drama within the drama.  Foster kids, divorces, cheating on spouses all make a regular appearance on Pretty Little Liars.  No one in Rosewood is perfect but they all want to appear that way.

That is the one bone to pick I've been having with this show lately.  There isn't any mystery anymore.  The only thing that matters is who is having a relationship with whom and how does so-and-so know this other person?  This season is at the heart of the really boring detective work so I'm not very impressed with the storylines.

They have this poor character, Emily (the lesbian--so she's got more than enough drama there) fighting for a swimming scholarship, slightly addicted to pain killers and constantly in and out of the hospital.  No wonder her doctor called child services!  Well and the fact that she's a horrible liar.  She bruised her shoulder after dodging a car and landing on rocks but told her doctor that she fell off her bike.  WHAT?  What kind of lie is that?? But she HAD to lie because of course, the doctor MIGHT be A...you never know...

So that's how I'm feeling about the show right now.  Who knows, it could get better, the next season is supposed to be the last so they might pick it up a bit.  I really hope they do because this show could have a really great ending, if they play their cards right.

3 stars because I still watch it every week so someone on the advertising committee is doing something right.

Doctor Who (2005-present)

The further adventures of the time travelling alien adventurer and his companions.

Ok so lately I've been really into sci-fi stuff.  All my friends were on a Doctor Who binge and I was feeling out of the loop so I decided to join in.  I didn't know what I was getting myself into.  This is one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life...it's up there with Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer...two of my favorite shows ever.  I can watch re-runs all day, every day.  It's official...I'm a Whovian :)

But the best part about Doctor Who?  The fact that it is such a HUGE part of British media and it's almost a way of life.  I feel like I have just opened a door into something amazing and brand new.  Being American this show really didn't have an impact on my life or childhood in any way so when I finally did get involved it seemed crazy that people have been dedicated to this show for almost 50 years!

I don't want to go into details about the show at all, mostly because it's too complicated to explain, but also because I didn't know what I was getting into until I watched the first episode and that was the best possible introduction I could have had.  The writers really knew what they were doing when they set up that first episode (because as usual the Netflix summary didn't do the show justice).  There was enough action to keep me entertained, the humor was witty and ultimately made me want to watch another episode.  I especially love the chemistry between the Doctor and Rose's mom.  That is GREAT writing!

My advice to anyone interested in this show is to just watch it.  Find the time to sit down and let the time travelling doctor do the rest.  You won't regret it!

5 stars!!!