Hockey, Canada and the Olympics

I really enjoyed the Winter Olympics this year and found myself more tuned into the games than I have been in the past.

After the tragic beginning with the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, I was unable to watch any luge, bobsled, skeleton or any sport on that track without cringing. It was just too sad.

Hockey, while I didn't watch a ton of the games, was what I was most aware of thanks to my husband's obsession. When the U.S. beat the Canadian team I was in shock and had such high hopes for our team.

Today, those dreams were crushed as Sidney Crosby, Canada's Golden Boy, brings them to victory once again. The U.S. players and goalie Ryan Miller really had a go at victory though, tying the game in the last 25 seconds of regulation play. It was an exciting game to say the least, but in the end Canada won.

The thing that bothered me the most was how much time the announcers and the camera man spent praising Crosby for his overtime goal win when he hadn't had a single point in the past two games before this. The camera was literally fixed on Crosby's face during the entire celebration on the ice, which I felt was unfair to the rest of the Canadian team. The TEAM won the gold medal, not just Sidney Crosby.

So now I am being bored to death by the closing ceremonies as I watch this, I watched the entire opening ceremonies just two weeks ago.

One interesting article I read was how the olympics in Vancouver have been one blunder after another, including death, bad weather, mistake during opening ceremonies etc. I found it interesting. Why the Olympics Have Been Bad for Canada.

Now I'm not saying the olympics were a bad thing for Canada, it brought them so many great things. The article just brought up things I didn't always notice.

One thing I hated about this olympics was NBC's covereage of it. Sports that were originally scheduled to be on one channel, ended up on another channel. Rarely was a sport actually live (for the west coast) and there was a tape delay for the west coast. What gives?! Finally we have an event in OUR TIME ZONE and we don't get to see anything in real time. Absolutely ridiculous.

So the olympics is over now, I am sad that I did not visit Vancouver as two of Mike's friends did, but I do hope to visit a Winter Olympics sometime in the future. I hear it is an experience not to be missed.

More movies, less reading

So I spent another weekend watching more movies, while I should have been reading. My excuse this weekend? I had horrible headaches each morning which worsened every time I tried to read.

As of tonight, I have now seen nine of the ten films nominated for Best Film for the Academy Awards.

I started off this weekend watching Inglourious Bastards. For as much as I dislike Brad Pitt, I really did enjoy this movie. A lot. I would have to say this would have my vote for best film, hands down. I was also surprised I liked it as much as I really did not appreciate the Kill Bill movies by Quentin Tarantino. I'm a sucker for Nazi-related films though.

The next day I watched Precious. Let me just tell you, gearing up to watch this movie was difficult because I knew it was going to be depressing. I had such a hard time starting the two-hour long heart wrencher. And boy did it live up to what I had heard. Great acting, good plot but my goodness was it just completely sad. Things just kept getting worse and worse for the character. The best part about this movie was its realism. There was no happy ending and that suited me just fine. I guess the semi-happy ending was that we saw her smile in the end.

Mike and I went out on a date night on Saturday night and we watched Shutter Island. I thought this movie was good, but it had me trying to figure it out from the get go. It played many mind tricks and had you leaving the theatre still thinking about the plot. Which story line did you choose to believe? I like a movie that makes you think. Leonardo DiCaprio was great in the film, the music was a bit dramatic (though that is Scorsese for you) and I'm not sure Mark Rufalo fit into the film well.

The last movie I saw this weekend was Pixar's latest Up. It was very cute and very Disney, but I was excited to see an original story line (not a recycled fairytale). It definitely pulled at the heartstrings and was just a heartwarming story overall.

So all that is left for me to see this award season is A Single Man, which I have not heard very much about so I'll be interested to see how I like it. I hear the acting is worth watching it alone.