Land's End Men's Oxford Water Shoes

Lands' End was having a sale online about a week and a half ago. I purchased a couple pairs of Chino pants. I didn't know what Chino pants was at the time of thinking about ordering so I had to Google it. After educating myself that they were basically khaki pants, I decided to purchase two pairs. I got the Desert Khaki (on sale for $13.98 regularly $44.50) and Vintage Brick (on sale for $10.48 regular $34.50) colors. I haven't ordered pants from Lands' End before so I wasn't sure how they'd fit as far as the waist size compared to other stores. I figured $10 was a decent gamble to find out especially since I can return them for free at the Sears down the street or any other store that accepts Lands' End returns. I can also return via mail/UPS but it's like $7. I'm a fan of the FREE!

I did purchase a couple of outdoorsy shoes. I have previously purchased a pair of slippers, my current pair, from Lands' End about 4-5 years ago. I saw a really good deal on them. I think back then they were something like $40 and I got them for less than $10 including tax and shipping. Very good deal! So, I saw these Men's Oxford Water Shoes (pic to left). Regularly $39.50. I got them for $10.49. Again, I went with the knowledge of free returns at Sears and $10 was a good investment if they fit. So, I invested in two pairs. I liked the more sporty look of the Majestic Navy color scheme but also thought the Light Stone could double as somewhat of a casual dress (really just not so sporty on those days I want to differentiate). I really wanted the Rich Red color but they didn't have it in my size at the time of ordering. I like the boldness of the Rich Red but it also made me think of Tom Hanks in the movie, "The Man with One Red Shoe."

I ordered these items on August 17^th. I got them yesterday, August 29^th. I wasn't impressed with the shipping time but I guess I did have four items. I tracked the package and it seems that part of the problem was it was picked up by UPS in Illinois on 8/23 and then delivered to a local post office in Dallas, Texas on 8/26. Apparently, the local post office tried to deliver it to the wrong place on 8/27 and it was taken back to the post office. It seems it was sent to the wrong "local" post office and was transferred to another local post office on 8/29 and it was delivered the same day around 5:30pm. Not very good transit if you ask me but I guess I wasn't in a hurry for the items.

I opened the box and took out my shoes first. They were the most important part of the package I was looking forward to. The pants were ordered mainly for work so they were less exciting, although I may occasionally wear them outside of work. I first pulled the right foot of the Majestic Navy pair and tried it on. Perfect fit! Sweet! I next pulled the left foot of the Light Stone pair and tried it on. Another perfect fit although it was to be expected since the different pairs were the same size.

I walked around the house and even visited a few of the neighbors with the different shoes on. I got a compliment on both.

I do like them both but there is just something to me about wearing shoes without socks. I know these are "water" shoes and shoes in water feel much different than out of water but I didn't intend to wear them just in water. They don't have a lot of padding in the soles but they are comfortable albeit not for an extended amount of time...like the 4+ hours that I wore them one Friday evening.

Anyway, if you need a decent shoe for those hiking, camping and wading moments then this might be the shoe for you even if you have to pay full price.

Oh yeah, I haven't worn the Chico pants other than to try them on because the leg length is too long but I did like them as well.

Beastly (2011, Unknown (2011), Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)

I saw these some time ago...maybe at least a month ago. I've been busy.

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011). This wasn't too bad of a movie. The basis of the storyline is pretty obvious but they did it in a "cute" way. It wasn't written, filmed so childlike that adults won't enjoy it as well. A lot of the voice overs are easily recognizable but then others are like "who the hell are they?" I wouldn't run out and rent this unless (1) you have kids or (2) you have kids and there isn't anything else to watch that's say at a leve 6 or greater in excitement level to watch or do. It's not a bad movie. It's just not an "Oh my gosh, I am so glad I saw this movie" movie.

Unknown (2011). Without fully knowing what this movie was about, it had a surprising twist. I didn't expect this twist but I also don't fully pay attention to all the movies I watch at all times during the movie. The twist caught me a little by surprise. Overall this movie was pretty good. It's weird to realize how many movies Liam Neeson has been in over the past two years or so. The different plot lines like Liam's character's memory loss, the assassination plot, the trying to kill Liam's character even though he's the best...it's just all over the place but at the same time nicely pulled together in the end. It is a little predictable in the sense that you know the hero of the movie is going to turn out all right and this movie didn't disappoint in following along with this tradition. I'd say this is worth a rental. Maybe even a full-priced one...but on someone else's dime would make it even better.

Beastly (2011). I didn't know the concept of this movie when I first rented it. A few minutes in, I realized this was the retold concept of Beauty and the Beast. Someone at Disney or wherever must have decided it was time to bring this story to the teens that watch The Disney Channel. Smart idea but teenage angst and love stories is so overdone these days. Nowadays, I wouldn't have expected the "beast" in this movie to have any ill affects upon other people. He really just looked like any other tattooed freak. I mean in Beauty and the Beast the prince was a fully transformed "beast" so it would be freaky to see him for sure! If you have teenage daughters, this might be a good movie to pickup for slumber party or birthday party time. Other than that, it's passable. Been there. Done that. And the other ways were better.

Stone (2010)

Stone (2010). This movie is one of the slowest, most boring movies I've seen in a long time. I expected much more with well-known actors such as Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, and Milla Jovovich.

The story line was so sporadic that I didn't know this from that, what really mattered or what the hell the movie was actually about. It was just a miss mash of shit that wasn't even brought together very well. And the ending, what the hell was the significance of the bee noise? I don't know. I actually paid a pretty fair amount of attention to the movie and I guess I missed something somewhere.

On a perverted side note, Milla flashes her boobs a few times on camera. Gotta love her for it but it didn't make the movie any more likable. The wife and I were initially watching this movie together and the first time Milla shows her boobs the wife and I both were like, "What the fuck is wrong with her nipples?" They were enormously long and I actually like Milla's nude body in previous shots but this was just weird. The wife was sickened by the length (LOL). It's kind of like her boobs are like three inches thick (from chest to nipple) and then the nipple is like an inch and a half long. I've uploaded a screen capture of the offending (to some) image. NSFW pic here. Don't get me wrong. I'd still tag Milla with enthusiasm and glee but I'd have to wear protective goggles.

FINAL VERDICT: pass it and warn others to do so as well.

Drive Angry (2011)

Drive Angry (2011). I read some reviews before watching this movie on Blockbuster.com and a lot of them didn't like this movie. They compared it a lot to campy movies from the likes of the Grindhouse series. I thought it was a better movie than that when seeing the promos but I really didn't know the premise behind this movie. I tried to keep an open mind when starting it.

After watching it, I must say that it wasn't as bad as the comments/reviews on Blockbuster.com. I usually have low expectation of any of the movies I watch that way I can only go up...a lot or slightly...as the movie progresses.

Yes, some of the graphics, dialogue and action is like the Grindhouse movies or even Machete. I don't think it took away from the movie. There wasn't a whole lot of gross gore but there were moments of blood splatter from heads being shot and hands and/or legs being blown off. Nothing over the top like some of the movies I've seen. Some comments mentioned gratuitous boobs but I have to disagree. There were maybe 2-3 times I saw boobs for a max of 3-5 minutes and they totally went along with the scene...except maybe the last one where this skinny, naked girl gets tagged by Cage's character's shotgun near the end of the movie. That nakedness probably didn't need to be shown at the time.

It's a pity that Amber Heard didn't have a reason to disrobe. It may have made my rating of this movie much higher...NOT!

FINAL VERDICT: If you like quite a bit of action with a few shots of T&A thrown in, then you'll probably enjoy this movie. I won't be recommending it to anyone but if you happen to have the opportunity to watch it (for free-ish) then it's not a total waste of a couple of hours.

Season of the Witch (2011)

Season of the Witch (2011). Yesterday I picked up this movie. There wasn't a lot to choose from since it was Thursday and it's summertime. I should go earlier in the week.

Spoiler Alert!

Anyway, this movie turned out to be not what I expected. I mean the title has "witch" in it but it turns out there really is no witch. Instead there is a demon that has possessed a female and they think she's a witch...back in those witch-killing days of like 1300 AD.

Overall the movie wasn't too bad. The action was alright. The story was alright. So, I guess the movie was overall alright.

Funny thing is I got two movies at the same time. This one and Drive Angry which both just happened to have Nicolas Cage in them.

FINAL VERDICT: You can either watch it or not. Either way you won't be disappointed.

Multiple movie reviews as of July 7, 2011

Now that class is over, I have had a little bit of time to catch up on my movie watching. I've watched some movies that are recent and not so recent as well as adult-themed and kid-themed. I make a list of movies and I try to watch them as I get them or when I can. So, here are my thoughts on the ones I've watched:

No Strings Attached (2011). What can I say positive about this movie? It's very, very hard. It has Natalie Portman. She looks good in it and we get to see a little bit of her in just a bra and panty. Sort of worth it. Other than that, I don't think there is any else. I think the problem with this movie is it's WAY too predictable and it has already been done before as well as been done again (I've read there is almost an exact story in Friends With Benefits). I mean how many times can we see a movie about a slacker-type male that pursues or one-night-stands with a Type A personality, very smart, overly educated, somewhat successful female who doesn't want a relationship with him but he tries to be cute, romantic or whatever and eventually wins her affection!? Been there, done that...a gazillion times! Even though this movie has my woman, Natalie, in it I would have to say it's a pass. Ashton Kutcher cannot pull off the lovestruck slacker-type male. He can pull off slacker-type but that's it! I think the relationship that was between the two best friends of Portman and Kutcher was more interesting and more fun to see and they had minimal screen time. Anyway, watch this movie at a friends, or view it for cheap like if you already have Netflix of Blockbuster Total Access Plan. I really don't think this is worth a regularly priced rental.

Battle Los Angeles (2011). This movie reminded me a lot, a whole lot, of Independence Day but without garnering as much interest during the "slow" times and then slow to start action thereafter. It also had a hint of Transformers and even District 9. I don't know if it's because I have seen the previews or knew what to expect but the movie seemed too familiar and known to me. It felt like I was watching something I had literally already seen. The humans fighting back was predictable and expected. Finding out that the flying alien ships were drones, that there was a "control center" for these drones and knocking it out should/would give humans the advantage they were looking for was so Independence Day not to mention a few of the aliens had tentacles just like those in Independence Day. So this movie could have been called "A-Different-But-Still-Very-Similar Independence Day remake." I can't really say it was a horrible movie but I can't say it was that good either because of the too-close comparisons. If you go in knowing this movie is very similar, it probably is a good movie. If you start to compare it to others, you may start to think why you rented it.

Sucker Punch (2011). I blindly "rented" this movie based on the fact that it looked like it had interesting cinematography and the comments I've read from a techie blog that was tracking this movie before and after its release. After seeing the movie, I Googled it and found that it is another interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. I can sort of see this correlation but I can also say, "WTF ever!" Being that I didn't go into this movie knowing the background or anything, I would have to say it wasn't too bad. The cinematography was very interesting. The characters were interestingly matched from the "real world" to the "fantasy world" Babydoll creates. The action was fairly non-stop when those scenes were going on. The female characters were smoking hot and kicked ass. If I thought of this movie as anything more than an action flick with hot chicks, I would probably have been disappointed. As it is, I am disappointed that the female characters did not show a little bare T & A here or there because it kind of went with the plot line of the "job" they did in the fantasy prison. In the end, I was a bit confused on Babydoll's status: is she a vegetable or is she still aware even though she had a sort of lobotomy? It wasn't totally conclusive in my opinion which makes me think they could make a sequel of sorts. Anyway, I would rent it for cheap or borrow it from a buddy. I'm a tight wad and not many movies are worth the $1.99-$3.99 rental fee at Blockbuster. Maybe rent it at the Red or Blue Box for a $1, right?

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010). I put this on my queue a long time ago when I thought my kids or the neighborhood kids would all want to watch it. I saw part of it on TV a few weeks ago and thought it looked cheesy. I was going to say that I saw it (even though not all of it) and remove it from my queue but I forgot. Once it came in the mail, I had to watch it because that's what I do. This is another one of those "don't take it too seriously" movies. For what it is...a kid's movie...it wasn't too bad. The bald cat, aka Kitty Galore, is just hilarious and gross looking at the same time. The acting by the human cast wasn't the greatest but the voice-over wasn't too bad. Again, it's a kid movie and that's the way I had to watch it. Kids around the ages of 4-7 might like the movie a lot. Anyone older may be wasting time and money renting it.

I guess that's all I got for now. On to the next round of movies until my vacation and then the start of the fall semester a few weeks later. Man summer has flown by!

Crazy Heart (2009)

Crazy Heart (2009). Finally got around to watching this movie. I had it at my home for almost two weeks but I had been busy with summer school, kids, family, and work. All good times but at least now I have been able to catch up on my movie watching.

I don't know what the big deal is about this movie. I think I remember Jeff Bridges being nominated for an Oscar or some movie award. Don't get me wrong. I think Jeff Bridges is a very good actor and he's played some great roles in some good movies. He's played some shit too but what thespian hasn't?

This movie was pretty slow to start and didn't pick up much pace to the end. It's a been-there-done-that-seen-it storyline and the performances of Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal didn't add any excitement to a tired, over-used plot. I don't think Bridges' acting was Oscar-worthy but what do I know. It's not like he lost weight, gained weight, or did any drastic physical changes for the role. He played a has-been, drunk country singer/songwriter.

It was neat to see/hear the singing "talent" of Bridges, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell. I wouldn't have believed Farrell sang anything if I didn't see the song credits run with him listed as "performed by." It's not far-fetched to think he could pull off "country singing" since he's had to change his natural dialect (Irish, I think) for his various movie roles. But it was still weird to see him with a pony tail singing country music.

FINAL VERDICT: I personally think this movie is passable and forgettable. I'm not saying it was horrible but I am saying that given a choice, I'd much rather watch reruns of The Brady Bunch and I was never a fan of 'the Bunch.'