Review: OliClips

I did not receive compensation of any kind for this review. I paid for these products myself when they had a sale.

I've been using magnetic bookmarks in my planners forever. Years ago, I picked up a set of three at a craft store, and paired with some decorative paperclips that I received for free with sticker orders, I managed to separate my planner.

It wasn't until I got into the Tomoe River Paper planner community that I heard of OliClips. There's like an umlaut involved, but I don't know how to make an umlaut in Blogger, so apologies.

My first attempt was an OliClip knock off. It was okay, but it looked like a knock off. It was out of alignment, kind of banged up in appearance, and generally not ascetically pleasing.

When the real OliClip maker had a sale, I tried some of their small clips. What a difference! These were awesome and so much better than the craft store magnetic bookmarks I'd been using. The next time they went on sale, I tried a bigger size clip and the new (at that time) slimline version.

The big clip is excellent for thick sections of paper. I'm using this in my everyday planner to separate the weekly section from the daily pages. The smaller clip couldn't handle the thickness.

And the slimline. I love the slimline. It seems to have less magnetic power than the small OliClips, so I reserve them for particular uses, but the reason I love them so much is how they work in my time tracker booklet.

I was using the small size OliClips in my time tracker, but the bottom righthand clip covered up the page at the bottom. One of the things I use my time tracker for is to record the number of words I wrote that day and I put that number on the last row of the grid. It got annoying having to slide the clip up and down at the end of the week. Too high and it covered up my timeline. Too low and I had to move it to record my word count.

It took me until the end of January to go, hmm, I have a couple of extra slimline clips. I wonder if that will solve my problem? It did.

I was using a decorative paperclip in the top left, but it kept falling out, so I added another slimline up there. Another problem solved. All my annoyances were solved with two small switches.

Anyway, if you were wondering if the OliClips are worth it. I think they are. I wish I'd found them earlier because they are so much better than those weak magnetic bookmarks I had been using before I bought them.

Highly recommended. Your size depends on how much magnet you need, so choose wisely.

And as a reminder, I did not receive compensation of any kind for this review.

Planner Review: Part 2

Just an FYI, I received no compensation of any kind for this post, and I paid full price for all my planners. My credit card is still unhappy about this fact.

On Tuesday, I talked about my 2025 planners, including the monthly, weekly, and the EveryDay Carry (EDC) planner. I also reviewed how those were working for me. Today, I review my daily planner selection. The winner is at the bottom!

Since I was switching from the planner I'd been in since 2015 to a new planner, I bought a number of different ones because I wasn't sure which one would work.

The Hobonichi Cousin in A5. It's fine. All the other planners I bought are boutique planners, so if worse came to worst and they ceased to be created, I could move into this planner. I'm not a huge fan of the quotes because they squeeze the page, the colors are not my choices, and the timeline on the daily pages is not usable for me, but I found a shop that sells a sticker timeline that goes over it and I can deal with the rest. If I had to.

Hemlock & Oak Dated Daily. Hemlock & Oak makes a really nice, nice planner. I used it as a daily journal in 2024 and loved the hell out of it. This is the only planner I tried for 2025 that didn't have Tomoe River Paper, but a thick, regular paper that doesn't show any bleed through and I also have zero ghosting. I still love this planner for journaling, but I don't think I would want it for my daily planner. It's in an A5 size and is thick and heavy. I don't carry my desk planner with me, so this wasn't a deal breaker for me and there's plenty of room to write. I'll continue this as a journal.

Sterling Ink Daily Planner A5 and B6. I really like Sterling Ink planners. I had a weekly for 2024 that I journaled in, and I enjoyed it immensely. My weekly was a B6, and I like that size, but I wasn't sure it would be big enough. The B6 might be a little small for me because I would have to record my water, vitamins, etc. in here on the daily page. The A5 has more room. The biggest drawback for me is this planner has no weekly pages--only monthly and daily.

Plans by Just Scribble Horizontal in A5. I really, really like this planner, and if it were in one volume, it would be a contender for my winner. Unfortunately, it's in two volumes and that's a deal breaker for me. I'm using it as a secondary everyday planner. As in it's a reminder for me to glance out when I'm on the other side of the house, but it's not my primary planner. I'm hoping that for 2026, there's a single volume option.

What I like about this planner is that instead of being setup with all the months together, then all the weeks, and then all the days, Plans has it setup so that the month comes, then the week, then the 7 daily pages for that week, then the next weekly pages, then the next 7 daily pages, and so on. I like this setup a lot. I also love the horizontal weekly setup with the blank page. This planner is so awesome! But as I said, two volumes are a deal breaker for me. I need/want one book. I'm not looking for portability in my official planner. That's what my EveryDay Carry planner is for.

The winner for me is Nisha Fernando Designs Journey Planner in A5. I found this planner late, after their preorder closed, but as soon as I saw it, I was like, I think this planner would be perfect for me! And I was right.

What I like about this planner: It has an entire section to record meals. It also has space for water and vitamins. I adjusted it slightly because I take medication for my acid reflux with every meal, so I needed AM/Noon/PM and not the single vitamin dose the planner offered. It was a simple fix. There's also a section off to the right (not in the picture) that I was able to adjust to record how much sleep I was getting every night. And there's the little barbell to check off workouts. Win!

All planners have a monthly section, so nothing unusual here.

I decorated my monthly page with washi tape. February was a nice, light month. All the monthly reminders are out of the picture. If you look closely, you can see some ghosting. That's that Tomoe River Paper does, but that doesn't bother me at all. I love the crinkly texture of this paper, and the major win is that I can have the room and pages I need in one book because of how thin the paper is.

This is a vertical weekly planner which I work around with washi tape and stickers. I don't plan in my weekly pages because my brain doesn't process information in this mass of days. I tried weekly planners before switching to daily and it was too easy to ignore everything when it was all lumped together.

Here's a picture I sent a friend to show her what I was doing. I used thin washi tape to divide the page. At the top, I'm keeping track of the temperature, and I have a stamp set for sun or rain or clouds that I use up there as well. The bottom section is for word count. My goal is 1000 words a day. I record what I actually wrote below the goal.

The most important section is the "THIS WEEK" part on the middle right. This is where I record any weekly tasks that need to be done. Since this picture was taken right after I setup the planner, I only have the four tasks I want to do every week.

There wasn't enough space on the side bar of the monthly pages (above) to keep track of my monthly To-Do list, so I needed a work around. The Journey Planner has a blank page at the beginning of each month of daily pages. I found a sticker company, Mandy Lynn Plans (again, no compensation was received by me.) that makes monthly dashboards. Problem solved.

The colors of the stickers are much more vibrant than the picture shows. Apologies for being a horrible photographer.

The sticker kit gives me a variety of options for the headings on each section, but the ones I use every month are "This Month," "Important Dates," "Goals," and "Notes." There are tasks I do every month like my newsletter. Important dates can be things like doctor appointments or holidays. Goals are whatever I want to do that month. The important section for me is "This Month." I put check marks in the circles to the left as I complete an item.

And last, but certainly not least since this is the most important for me. The Daily Pages.

You can see the thinness of the Tomoe River Paper in this picture because the stickers on the other side of the page are clearly silhouetted there. Stickers are from the Scooby Doo collection from Capitol Chic Designs (Again, I received no compensation for this post. I bought my stickers from this shop.)

The timeline is printed on the left side of the page and goes from 6am to midnight. There's space above the 6am, so if I need to write something in earlier, I can. Same with space below midnight. There are small marks to divide the page, but I didn't want it halved, so I took a light marker and drew a line down the page to separate the timeline from my daily To-Do list.

I was going to use a dot marker to create check circles to mark off when I accomplished an item, but I discovered that the ghosting was too much, and I switched to a highlighter with a square nib.

I've done other little things to the planner. I've added tabs to all the sections. I've decorated my pages because the A5 allows me room to do that. There's also a section full of trackers, but I've found that I don't really keep up with trackers, so I'm haphazard on using them.

This planner is amazing for me. It gives me the space to have everything in one place and to organize it in a way that makes sense to me and works with my brain. I found my new everything planner and I'm so grateful it exists.

Review Time: Office Supplies

I thought I'd do a quick review of some of the office products I was excited to try.

I blogged about them when the products arrived.

These involved sticky notes/flags that were not name brand sticky notes. There's a reason why I love buying the brand name in this category of office supplies. These products reminded me why.

No matter how cute these sticky notes/flags appeared, I can not recommend them. The stick was horrible on both, although one was worse than the other.

The planets/moons sticky notes were so cool! I took one off, put it down in my notebook, and wrote something. Then I started making real book notes and realized the moon was in my way. So I moved it.

In the name brand, that would be no big deal. In these notes? The sticky note never stuck well again. It curled up where it was supposed to stick. I had the windows open, and with hardly any breeze at all, the note was blown off my notebook and onto the floor. I thought it was a moth and I was slapping at it before I identified what it was.

Epic fail.

I was really looking forward to these little sticky flags. Not only to bookmark pages in my writing notebook, but to use them to highlight important notes. I have a dedicated Paladin League notebook, but the couples are all mixed up because I write notes as they come to me.

I knew it wasn't going to be good immediately. I was right. These things hardly stick at all, even from the first time. Definitely not worth the money.

Brutally disappointed.

Review: Top Gun Maverick

I'll try not to give spoilers, but the movie has been out for a minute.

Over the weekend, I felt like watching a movie. Usually what happens is I go to Prime or Netflix, scroll around endlessly, give up, and watch something I own or watch the backlog of TV shows I have on the DVR. This time, that didn't happen.

Amazon had Top Gun: Maverick available for Prime members, which means free to watch! It took minutes to find and start the movie.

Top Gun: Maverick is the sequel to Top Gun which came out sometime in the 1980s. Sorry, too lazy to do a search for the info. Both movies star Tom Cruise. I will admit that I am not a huge Cruise fan and tend to avoid his movies, but I'd heard good things about the sequel and I did like Top Gun, so I decided to take a chance.

Pete Mitchell (Cruise) is a test pilot in the Navy when he receives orders to return to Top Gun and train a group of pilots on a difficult mission, one that only he has the skills to teach. Among the young pilots is the son of his friend Goose, who died during Top Gun training in the original movie. He's not a fan of Captain Mitchell.

There's also a side plot about a former lover he left behind at Top Gun--not the scientist from the original movie. She's never explained and it's never explained when or how he met the new woman.

Overall, I liked this movie. I would have preferred a little more focus on the younger pilots and a little less on Cruise's character, but I already admitted I'm not a fan of his. Maverick flew circles around the kids the entire movie and I'm not sure they ever bested him in any exercise, which also gave it a flavor of being all about Cruise and only Cruise.

That being said, it was exciting! The climax had me on the edge of my seat and I was like whew! when the climax ended. I feel like the scenes after the final climax needed a little more wrap up, especially the romance between Maverick and the bar owner, but that part almost felt thrown in to the movie anyway, so I'm not calling it a major flaw.

I'm giving it 4/5 stars. It was an awesome way to spend a couple of hours.

Review: The A-Team (2010)

***WARNING: There might be spoilers!***

The A-Team movie is from 2010, so I'm going to assume that anyone who's really concerned about spoilers has seen it already. That said, I'll do my best not to reveal anything too critical, but I can't promise.

I had no idea this movie existed. If I had seen it advertised, I blocked it from my mind. Probably because as a kid I really enjoyed the television show and these remakes and reboots aren't always awesome.

Anyway, it was brought forward in time. Four Iraq War veterans are framed for a crime they didn't commit and they work to clear their names.

The movie was very much about clearing their names--kind of a prequel to the TV show where they were wanted men who took assignments to help people.

The plot was a little convoluted, although I was watching it in the waiting room of a car service place, so it was hard to hear everything and the movie had already started when I sat down, so I missed the first few minutes. I also had no intention of paying attention to the film, and played around on my phone for a while before my interest was captured.

As you might have guessed from the previous paragraph, I enjoyed this movie. It's the kind of over-the-top action/adventure that I love so much.

I thought the actors did a good job recreating the characters, but doing it in a way that made the roles theirs. I liked that it stayed true in appearance and attitude to the series (at least as I remember it), but that I didn't think of the original actors once I started watching.

I wish they'd made more than one movie because I'd have enjoyed seeing these four in the roles for more than a couple of hours. This makes me want to re-watch the original A-Team television series, but I'm a little scared it won't live up to my memory of it.

I'm giving the movie two thumbs up. Is it perfect? No. Is it enjoyable? Yes. Yes, it is.

Review: One Small Hitch

***Warning: There might be spoilers. The movie was released in 2013.***

It's the time of year when I watch romantic movies. The one I'm talking about today is called One Small Hitch and I streamed it with Amazon Prime.

Our heroine is Molly (Aubrey Dollar) and our hero is Josh (Shane McRae). They've known each other all their lives and Josh is friends with Molly's older brother. They're both on their way to a wedding in Chicago, and before they arrive, they agree to pretend to be engaged.

Josh's father is dying and they want to make him happy and Molly is getting family pressure. They do admit to a couple of people from the beginning that they're only pretending.

I expected this movie to be shallower than it was. More surface stuff and happy ending and all that. It wasn't. The movie opens with Molly discovering her boyfriend is married. Josh is a player and while they're in Chicago, he's hooking up with some woman he knew in high school or something like that. And got caught by his mother in a hotel when he was with this friend with benefits.

There's also some seriousness because Josh's father is dying and there are no miracles.

Overall, I liked the movie. Molly and Josh were engaging characters and I was rooting for them to be together. I did not like Josh sleeping with that other woman while he was pretending to be engaged to Molly. You'd think he could manage to keep his hands off other women for the time he was in Chicago.

The other thing that made me scratch my head was their stay in Chicago was extended. What did Molly and Josh do about their jobs? What about their apartments? Their mail? Did friends handle everything for them? But still, didn't they run out of vacation time? I mean they're gone long enough for Josh to work at his father's business in Chicago.

There is a happy ending and a little surprise amid the credits at the end, so don't immediately turn it off if you decide to stream it.

With the caveats I mention in this review, I say if you're looking for something to watch, you could do worse than One Small Hitch. It's not all sunshine and roses and it does violate some romance novel protocols, but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

Review: You Cast a Spell On Me

***Warning: There might be spoilers ahead***

You Cast a Spell On Me has a release date of 2015, so I'm going to assume that if you wanted to see it without worrying about spoilers, you would have.

You Cast a Spell On Me stars Nikki Deloach, Ryan McPartlin, and Harley Jane Kozak and it's a paranormal romance. Light paranormal romance. I don't know if it's available anywhere else, but I streamed it with Amazon Prime.

The description of the movie doesn't make it clear that it's paranormal romance. I had some confusion in the beginning of the movie who had powers and who didn't, but it sorted itself out and didn't impact my enjoyment.

Basically, the hero is a witch (he calls himself a warlock, but only dark magic users refer to themselves that way and he's not that) and the heroine is mortal. She's dragged to a Halloween party by her friend and meets the hero. They spend all night talking out on the patio, but nothing more. She's got a boyfriend who's working in Geneva and he's been forced into an arranged marriage with another witch.

Somehow, the heroine starts exhibiting magical abilities afterward and she doesn't know how to control them. There is some very light humor here, but it's not played for laughs.

The movie was cute. I know that's what I said about the last movie I reviewed, but that word fits this one, too. I guess I'm in the mood for those frothy Christmas films, but not quite ready for the ones actually set around Christmas.

I found the relationship between the hero and heroine relied a whole lot on fated mates and didn't provide much depth. In fact, they're apart for most of the movie. This isn't my favorite thing, but it was cute enough to keep watching and both hero and heroine were engaging enough to make those scenes enjoyable.

Of course, we get our HEA. I won't spoil how that comes about.

Is this the best movie ever? Definitely not. Is it an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour and a half? Yes. If you're looking for a holiday movie that's light and fluffy, but not Christmasy, this is a good option.

Review: Just Like Heaven

 ***Warning: There might be spoilers. Stop here if you want to watch the movie and be surprised.***

Saturday night I streamed Just Like Heaven on Amazon Prime. It stars Reese Witherspoon as Elizabeth and Mark Ruffalo as David. The movie was released in 2005, so I decided not to worry about spoilers.

Elizabeth is a doctor who cares about saving people and neglects her personal life to stay at the hospital. She appears to work in the emergency room? It was hard to tell.

David was a landscape architect, but when he lost his wife two years earlier, he started drinking and appears to not have a job any longer? It was hard to tell.

Elizabeth's sister has set her up on a blind date, but she's running late because she's busy saving patients. When she leaves the hospital, it's raining heavily and she's hit by a truck.

David is looking for a furnished apartment, but nothing is right. Until he sees this one apartment that's being sublet on a month by month basis. He takes it. He continues to drink and doesn't use a coaster for his beer cans. Something Elizabeth points out to him when she appears. It's her apartment and she doesn't appreciate him squatting.

Through a series of events, it becomes clear Elizabeth is a spirit and David goes from trying to get rid of her to trying to help her.

This movie was really cute. I can't believe I'd never heard of it before I was scrolling through, trying to find something to watch. It sounded like it might be interesting and it was!

Is this movie a masterpiece? No. It's cute. That's really the perfect word for it.

Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo were cute and sweet together. There were a few coincidences, but it didn't detract from anything.

It's definitely more of a movie for women than men, but if you're looking for a movie and just want something cute (yes, that word again!) and enjoyable, Just Like Heaven is worth checking out.

Review: The 12 Dates of Christmas

I seem to watch more television and movies around the holidays. Or maybe it just feels that way? I don't know, but I've been finding some shows/films that I've enjoyed.

My latest watch was The 12 Dates of Christmas available for free streaming for Amazon Prime members on their service. I don't know if it's available on the other streamers or not.

So it was late, but not late enough to go to bed last weekend and so I flipped through Netflix, hoping to stumble across another awesome find like the TV show I blogged about last week. Nothing grabbed my attention, so I switched to Amazon and started scrolling the "Free to Me" section. 12 Dates caught my eye.

First, let me mention that a little searching revealed that there are two projects titled The 12 Dates of Christmas. One of them is a TV series. I did NOT watch this. I watched the movie from 2011 starring Amy Smart as Kate Stanton and Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Miles Dufine.

Second, of course, I received no compensation of any kind. This is just me talking about a movie I liked.

So Kate is in advertising and on Christmas Eve she's been setup on a blind date, but wants to get her ex-boyfriend back even though they've been broken up for quite some time. The blind date doesn't go well because she's intent on cutting out and finding the ex. She does, only to discover he's about to propose to his new girlfriend.

Kate's in bed at midnight when the clock rewinds and she wakes up again on Christmas Eve. In the same department store she'd been in the day before. Of course, she's confused and it takes her some time to believe what's going on. Then it happens again.

I'll stop here because I don't want to give out any spoilers. This movie is basically Groundhog Day, but for Christmas. And as you might have guessed from the title, Kate lives through Christmas Eve 12 times.

This movie was fun! If it wasn't a holiday movie, it probably wouldn't work as well because part of it's charm is the time of year. It's got romance. It has a heroine who changes and grows through these 12 days and I love when that happens. Are some of the changes happening a little fast? Probably, but I didn't care. I was hooked. And it has likeable characters. There is no bad guy here, just people trying to do their best.

Recommended for the holidays.

Review: Dash & Lily

Late on Thanksgiving, I was flipping through Netflix, trying to find something to watch. I wasn't ready to go to bed yet, but I didn't want to stay up for a two hour movie either. Everything that intrigued me was long, though. And then I spotted a show that was only a half an hour long.

Dash & Lily is a Netflix original series that kicks off with the hero finding a red hardcover notebook at the bookstore. In it, he meets a girl who gives him some dares.

I was hooked. My "quick" show ended up being a major binge. It actually would have taken less time to watch that two hour movie than I spent watching episode after episode.

IIRC, there are eight episodes. And through them, we see Dash and Lily become intrigued with each other through their written words. They don't meet, and for part of the series, they don't know each other's names. And then once Dash finds out Lily's name, he still withholds his because of how unusual it is.

Oh, FYI, the characters are teenagers. At one point we learn they're seventeen. The storyline makes a lot more sense if you have this information.

Dash is cynical. His parents are divorced and it seems both are self-involved. Neither even realizes Dash is on his own for Christmas.

Lily comes from a loving extended family and she adores Christmas. But this year, her parents are in Fiji and her grandfather is in Florida. It's her brother and his boyfriend that start the notebook game for Lily because she's never dated.

Dash and Lily are good for each other. He gets her out of her comfort zone, and she gets him to stop reacting the same way to things as he has in the past. So when Dash ends up at dinner with his father and the father's girlfriend of the month, he's able to avoid an argument and build bridges. Something he wouldn't have been able to do before the notebook game with Lily.

The series is charming and the actors do a great job making it all seem so believable. Even the secondary cast did a great job. There's a lot of layers and nuance for our hero and heroine, which helped me engage in the series.

I don't want to give too much away, but this is a great series to watch around Christmas since all the events take place around the holiday season. 

The downer is that when I finished the episodes, I checked to see if there would be a season 2. There won't be. Netflix cancelled the series. The good news, though, is season one felt complete. In fact, maybe it's better this way because in my imagination, I can have Lily and Dash date through college, get married, and spend their lives together. Living their own HEA. If there were a season two, the series writers would have to think up ways to keep the drama going. 

If you're looking for about four hours of watch time--available in half hour episodes--I highly recommend Dash & Lily. I'm giving it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Review: Next

***WARNING: There will be spoilers. This movie was released in 2007, so I'm going to talk freely***

I started out watching baseball, but my team was losing badly and the manager wasn't pulling the pitcher, so I went looking for something else to watch. I found a movie that looked intriguing. It was titled Next.

***FYI, this movie was available on Amazon Prime and I received no compensation of any kind for this review.***

Next stars Nicholas Cage as a low-rent Las Vegas Magician named Cris Johnson who can see two minutes into the future. If he's involved in this future. He uses this in his act, but not with any great panache and he supplements his income with some gambling. Not big scores, but a lot of medium wins.

The FBI is after a group of terrorists who have a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. They need to find it before it's detonated, and FBI Agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) thinks Johnson can help them locate it. Only he uses his talents to evade her.

Johnson's Achilles heel is a woman he knows will walk into a diner at 8:09 and goes there morning and night until she arrives. Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel) affects Johnson's talent. With her, he can see farther into the future than two minutes. And he's going to need this skill to save her, himself, and stop a nuclear bomb.

I'm not sure how I never heard of Next before. This type of movie with time travel and adventure is the kind of thing I enjoy. And I did like this movie a lot!

There were plot holes. There were frustrations. There were story threads that were introduced and never picked up again. The ending left me screaming, noooooo! Despite all this, I'm thoroughly recommending Next. It was fun!

The romance was lame, but I expected this. The premise, though, was cool. Beyond cool. The Cris Johnson character is greatly flawed, yet I could see why he was the way he was. He was tested and retested as a three year old. Now, all he wants is to be left alone. But when the FBI becomes interested in him, the terrorists do, too. Their mysterious boss wants him dead.

The ending is probably the biggest problem with the movie. It's largely a cheat, but I could forgive this because of how it fit with the rest of the film. What had me frustrated was that it left me hanging. Wikipedia claims a sequel is (was?) in the works, but since it's been 14 years, I doubt it's coming out. I did try searching online, but "Next" is such a generic title and adding Nicholas Cage's name brought up Face Off and National Treasure news, so I gave up.

With all the caveats, I highly recommend this movie. It was a super fun way to spend an evening. Two thumbs up!

Review: The Final Countdown

***Since this movie was released in 1980, there will be spoilers.***

On Friday night, I was looking for something to watch and started flipping through the movies on Amazon Prime. I was about to give up, when I saw The Final Countdown. I'd seen this movie on television years ago and I knew it involved time travel, so I was in.

The movie stars Kirk Douglas as the captain of an aircraft carrier, Martin Sheen as an efficiency expert from the Defense Department, James Farentino as the air group commander, Charles Durning as a US Senator, and Kathleen Ross as his secretary.

The aircraft carrier is out near Hawaii on maneuvers when it encounters a strange storm. When it clears, the ship is undamaged, but the radio broadcasts are strange. They sound as if they're pre World War II. When a plane come backs with recon photos showing Pearl Harbor as it looked on Dec 6, 1941 and ships that have been long destroyed are sitting there, they begin to contemplate time travel.

This movie is seriously not the best ever made. It's cheesy in spots, and I'm sure it was cheesy even in 1980. Something about it, though, is extremely entertaining and I was engrossed for the length of the film.

There are issues. Oh, so many issues. None of the characters are really fleshed out, maybe because there are so many of them, and there's never a reason given for the time travel. The captain had sent out his ship's airplanes to attack the Japanese on their way to attack Pearl Harbor, but the storm reappears and they're forced to abort. And they're returned to 1980 with nothing have happened to be a compelling reason this ship was transported. I wanted a why!

Despite the problems, I enjoyed this movie a lot. I started to wonder if maybe the script originally had an explanation for the time travel and it was cut from the film version. So I did an online search. And discovered I'd have to pay for the script. No. I guess I'm going to have to live with the questions.

I guess ultimately despite the deficiencies, the idea of a film is to entertain the audience. I was entertained. Recommended.

Review: Holidate

Over Christmas, I caught up on a lot of movies. Let me rephrase that--A lot of movies for me. I generally have a hard time watching movies because of plot holes, but I had a pretty good run in December. I'm going to talk about them off and on.

First up. Holidate.

This is on Netflix. I heard about it when I saw another author online complaining about how crude and crass and unwatchable the movie was because of this. But everything she complained about made Holidate sound intriguing. I had to watch it.

I loved it! Enough that I want to watch it again and I rarely do that.

Is it a perfect movie? No, it isn't. Is it fun? I thought so. Is there swearing? Hell, yes! :-)

Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) agree to be each other's holiday dates throughout the year. Sloane picked this up from her aunt who has a different boyfriend at every holiday. She doesn't even remember their names, that's how fungible they are for her. Sloane is on a path to becoming a lot like her aunt. Until she meets her Holidate. The more holidays Sloane and Jackson spend together, the more feelings develop between them.

It's a romantic comedy so I don't think I'm spoiling anything with the feelings part.

First, this isn't only a Christmas movie. They spend all the other holidays together, too, including St Patrick's Day, Independence Day, etc. So just because it's March, don't think you can't watch it now.

Second, it does have some crudeness, so if you're someone who doesn't like this kind of thing, I'd recommend avoiding it.

That said, I thought Sloane and Jackson were cute together and I thought the script kept them true to character throughout the movie. The actors playing these parts had real chemistry between them and I was rooting for them throughout the film.

I'm giving Holidate 4.5 stars and two thumbs up. Highly recommended, with caveats.

Review: Romancing the Stone

I saw Romancing the Stone years ago and I remember liking it, but I also don't think that I ever rewatched it. Recently, though, it was used as an example in a writing craft book I was reading, so I watched it again. To my surprise, it mostly held up.

Romancing the Stone was first released in 1984 and stars Kathleen Turner as romance novelist Joan Wilder and Michael Douglas as Jack Colton. It's hard to describe him--maybe adventurer?

***WARNING: There will be spoilers! The movie is 36 years old.***

Joan Wilder is a timid, non adventurous woman who writes characters full of daring. She's just turned in her latest novelist to her publisher when she gets a phone call from her sister who lives in Colombia (and recently lost her husband). She's been kidnapped and the men who are holding her want the envelope the dead husband had mailed to Joan. Though it's the last thing she wants to do, Joan flies to Colombia to save her sister.

Thanks to the bad guy, she ends up on the wrong bus. When she figures out that she's nowhere near Cartagena, she tries to talk to the bus driver who hits a Jeep parked on the side of the road. Everyone on the bus leaves, but the bad guy tells her there will be another bus and she should wait. Luckily for Joan, Jack Colton arrives to save her before she can be murdered.

Joan hires Jack to get her to a phone so she can get to Cartagena and that's when the story (and the romance) start to take off.

Throughout the movie, we see Joan force herself to do things that scare her and she comes into her own, becoming the woman we suspect she wanted to be, but lacked the courage to become without this need to save her sister.

There's Danny DeVito who is also a bad guy, but he's not working with the man that would have murdered Joan. Danny (Ralph) is working with his cousin and things just don't work out for him.

The film has humor. It has action. It has adventure. And it has romance. It's actually exactly the kind of story I like.

There are things that date it. 1984 was a long time ago. But overall, I thought it held up well. Recommended.

Review: The Umbrella Academy - Season 2

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of The Umbrella Academy. For a long stretch, it was the only reason I kept my Netflix subscription. I almost gave up a few episodes in to Season 1, but I'm glad I kept watching. It ended up being my favorite show.

Season 2 had a lot to live up to. 

***WARNING: There might be SPOILERS ahead***

At the end of Season 1, Five was taking the rest of the Umbrella Academy back in time. He glitched a little and they end up in the 1960s. In Dallas. And when Five arrives, it's another apocalypse. He has to go back in time to stop the USSR and USA from going nukes with each other. And he has to find his errant siblings who have been running amok in the 1960s.

First of all, I hated Vanya in the first season. I thought she was Too Stupid To Live (TSTL) and I didn't think there was any way imaginable that the writers could redeem her for me. I stand corrected. They pulled it off. By a few episodes in, I did like Vanya. Who'd have thought it?

Klaus is still all that is awesome. He's my favorite character and I know I'm not alone on this. In Season 2, he is mostly sober, still making questionable decisions despite Ben's input, and a cult leader. I wish I could have seen how that happened.

Five is still Five. The actor who plays him does a tremendous job. He's goal-oriented and the rest of the Academy is off on their own tangents. He's trying to herd cats.

A lot of new questions arise in this season. LOTS of new questions. Episode 10, the final of the season, leaves us with a cliffhanger that's extra frustrating since we're going to have to wait forever for Season 3. FOREVER! It's really too bad Netflix didn't tell them to film two seasons back to back, so that we could avoid this long wait for more.

Seriously, this is my favorite show on television and (for once) I'm not alone on this one. Usually, I only fall in love with shows that get canceled. (Limitless, the series, anyone?) I would love to get my hands on the series bible for this show.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

Review: Scoob

***I received no compensation for this review.***

***WARNING: There might be spoilers ahead!***

Movie review time! Today's film is Scoob. It's an animated Scooby Doo movie.

I love Scooby Doo and have since I was a small child, so when I saw that there was a new version called Scoob, I was all in. I had no idea what it was about, although with Scooby Doo I was pretty confident there would be a mystery and a bad guy to unmask.

That's kind of what we got here, although not entirely. The movie opens with the origin story of how Scooby and Shaggy became best friends. It was a cute meet story and seemed in keeping with their personalities.

Then we flash forward to when the Mystery Inc. gang are at the ages we're used to seeing them at. They've decided to branch out and get investment funding. Their investor thinks Fred, Daphne, and Velma are a good risk, but that Shaggy and Scooby are not. They go off dejected...and face a robotic threat alone. Until they're beamed up by the Blue Falcon and Dyno Mutt.

I'm going to leave off with the plot summary here.

I really loved this movie! I consider it among the best Scooby Doo movies made and recommend it. I had a lot of fun watching it!

The story has a lot to do with friendship and what it's value is to us as humans, which I thought was a cool message. We see the friendship between Shaggy and Scooby form, and later, get tested. We see the same thing happen with the Shaggy/Scooby pairing and the Velma/Daphne/Fred trio becoming friends and having their friendship tested.

But the underlying message isn't the movie. It has the usual high jinks you'd expect from Scooby Doo and Mystery Inc. It has the laughs and the action. It has a bad guy who needs to be unmasked. And it's definitely an enjoyable ride.

I'm giving this movie two thumbs up with a highly recommend tag. Keeping in mind, of course, that I was predisposed to like this movie from the start.

***Minor Spoiler. Stop here if you don't want the surprise ruined.***

Blue Falcon is actually the Blue Falcon's son who is searching for his own courage, although Dyno Mutt is the original Dyno Mutt. But this isn't the only cartoon character who makes an appearance. We also et to see Captain Caveman! I loved Captain Caveman when I was a kid! I'd love to see more Scooby Doo mashups with other cartoons like this. It was so much fun! Now we need Jabber Jaw.

Review: Knives Out

I'd been hearing a lot of good things about the movie Knives Out, so I decided to watch it. I also heard there was a major twist at the end and to not read any spoilers ahead of time.

I normally love spoilers, but I've had a suspense movie ruined for me in the past because I accidentally caught the last few minutes and I wasn't going to have another one go down the tubes, so I carefully avoided spoilers. I will not give away any spoilers here!

The movie is about a millionaire crime novelist who dies after his birthday party. The police are ready to rule it a suicide, but a mysterious detective shows up to investigate. There is plenty of family members with a motive to kill the old man and plenty for the detective to investigate.

The movie stars Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit and Ana de Armas as Marta Cabrera, the old man's nurse. The family members include Jamie Leigh Curtis, Don Johnson, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon and others.

I knew going in that there was a big plot twist at the end, so I spent a lot of the movie guessing at what it would be. I thought I knew, but I was wrong. I'm rarely wrong, so that was a win for the movie, although the actual plot twist was a bit anticlimactic compared to my guess. :-)

I'm a very harsh critic of movies and television shows because I'm always picking apart the writing. Occupational hazard, I guess. Knives Out kept me entertained throughout and I was willing to forgive a couple of convenient moments that happened in the plot. Daniel Craig's detective started out slightly irritating to me, but as the movie progressed, I grew to like him and Nurse Marta as his sidekick was a very likeable heroine.

The structure of the movie is a bit unconventional with the current-time story interspersed with flashbacks from various characters of their last conversation with the deceased crime writer. (Among other scenes.) This could have been distracting or confusing, but I thought it was handled very well.

I would have liked the plot twist to be a little more twisty than what I got, but it was a twist and I really didn't guess what was going on until right before it was revealed.

Bottom line: I recommend the movie, but probably wouldn't pay full price to see it. One thumb up (instead of two).

Review: Fitbit Inspire HR

***I received no compensation of any kind for this review and paid full price for my Inspire HR***

In April, I switched from a Fitbit Zip (it is basically only a pedometer that you clip to your clothes) to the new Fitbit Inspire HR. This one has all the bells and whistles--heart rate, sleep, exercise tracking. But it's been a little difficult to transition.

The first difference is that the Zip runs on a regular 3 volt battery so no charging required. If the battery level gets too low, I just swapped it out and kept going. The Inspire is chargeable. Allegedly it has a 5-day battery life, but the most I've ever made it was three days, but I usually charge every other day because I'm one of those people who has to fill up early.

I also struggled to get used to having something on my wrist. I haven't worn a watch since the early 90s. It took a while before this stopped being annoying. The Zip just clipped onto my pocket and mostly stayed out of my way. The Zip was also virtually invisible inside my pocket while the Inspire is out there for the world to see. With it's silicone band. I thought about buying a leather band, but...

The Inspire is waterproof. A leather band means taking it off before I shower. Not a big deal at home, but kind of a PITA when I'm at the gym. I also am not fond of the dampness under the band--either from the shower or from sweat when I'm working out, but the convenience outweighs this.

 The two features I thought would be cool leave me wondering how accurate they are. For example, the heart rate monitor told my my Beats Per Minutes was 121 while I was sitting. That made me go OMG! and put my fingers to my neck to try to time my pulse. It was not 121 BPM. Later that same day, I'm working out and I can feel my heart throbbing and the heart rate monitor read 89. Um, I don't think so.

The sleep monitor has also shown me asleep when I know I was awake or vice versa. I wonder if being still and trying to fall asleep confused it?

The other frustration is that it will nag me for 250 steps an hour. That's not bad because I tend to sit in one position for too long and this helps. The frustrating part is that the app won't record all my accomplished hours. This is apparently a known bug that hasn't been fixed in a really long time because people have been complaining about it on the Fitbit forums. The other thing that's frustrating is that the device doesn't always nag me when I don't get my steps in for that hour and then I've messed up my perfect day because I lost track of time. Why doesn't it nag me every time?

I do, however, really like being able to tell it I'm on the treadmill or using the weights. The only quibble here is why isn't there an elliptical option? I spend half my gym days on the elliptical. One time it self-identified the equipment, but other times it's labeling the elliptical as running.

One other annoyance is that when I turn my wrist to look at the device, the screen doesn't always light up. I often have to prompt it. Except at night when it's dark in my bedroom, I'm trying to sleep, move my arm and the damn thing lights up like Times Square at New Year's Eve. Gah! There's also a laser light on the bottom that is really noticeable in the dark.

I bought the lavender color and like that since it makes the information on the screen look slightly purple. The band seems secure, an issue I know others had with some of the earlier models of other Fitbit devices.

Overall, I do like the Inspire although it's not perfect by any means. I'd give it a qualified thumbs up.

Review: The Incredibles 2

***There might be spoilers. You've been warned.***

I saw this movie as part of my Netflix subscription, so no compensation to me of any kind.

With the disclaimer out of the way... I recently watched The Incredibles 2. I'm not sure why it took Pixar so long to make the sequel, but they finally got around to it.

If you've seen the first movie, you have a general idea what this one is about. A couple of superheroes get married and have kids with superpowers, but superheroes are outlawed and they're forced to be normal. Whatever normal is. :-) You know all this from the original film. In this movie, a billionaire approaches the Incredible family and wants to have Elasti-girl help get superheroes legalized again. Mr. Incredible is forced to be Mr. Mom which is mostly okay with his older two kids, but baby Jack Jack is coming into his powers and can't control them.

I'm not a diehard fan of The Incredibles, but I did enjoy the first film enough to want to see the second one. I kind of felt the same way at the end of The Incredibles 2. I liked it. It was good. I might watch it again in a few years if there's nothing better to do.

There was nothing I can really complain about with the film. The villain was fairly predictable, but this movie's audience includes kids so I usually don't subtract points for things like this. Other than that? I thought it was fine.

I loved that Elasti-girl was the one who got to do the superhero work while her husband played Mr. Mom. They didn't even play that up for too much humor because Mr. Incredible wasn't an incompetent father. His biggest problem was lack of sleep. Baby Jack Jack apparently has insomnia. His other big problem was the baby has incredible (no pun intended) super powers and can't control them.

The other scene I really liked was when Mr. Incredible left Jack Jack with the costume designer. She didn't seem like she could handle a baby, but she did it with seeming effortlessness and she designed a costume for Jack Jack that could help with his super powers. I would have liked more of her!

Overall, I enjoyed this and would recommend it as a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

4 stars.

Review: The Umbrella Academy

***I received no compensation of any kind. This review contains my unbiased opinion.***

The Umbrella Academy is a TV series on Netflix. Season one consists of 10 episodes.

If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know that I don't watch a lot of TV series. I mostly get bored or frustrated and give up on them. The few exceptions (Limitless, Life on Mars, My Own Worst Enemy) get cancelled quickly. That's part of the reason why I'm reviewing Umbrella Academy. I want enough people to watch it so that Netflix will order a second season. :-) Official Trailer below:

The gist of story is that 7 children with extraordinary powers are raised by an eccentric billionaire (my interpretation) to save the world. Only he isn't exactly a warm and loving father (he called them by numbers rather than names) and the children end up dysfunctional and almost all of them leave their home and go off on their own. They're reunited for their father's funeral.

It's when Number 5 shows up (he has the ability to time travel) and warns them that the world ends in 8 days that things really get kicked up a notch. It's a race against time--and against their personal issues--to prevent the apocalypse. Especially when there are those working to ensure it happens.

The show starts off a little slowly. After watching the first 2 episodes, I posted on Facebook that I wasn't sure what I thought. I was intrigued, though, and after numerous people told me to keep going, I watched episode 3 the next day. That's when I become totally hooked and I powered through the final 8 episodes in two days.

This is an ensemble cast, so if you don't like one of the characters, there are others to follow and root for.

For the most part, I thought the writing was smart and snappy. The one exception was a character I thought was TSTL (Too Stupid To Live). I debated with myself at first because the characterization was there to support the behavior, but as I watched further, it became apparent that it was mostly done for plot convenience. That's a large reason why I didn't like this part of the scripting. But that's about my only complaint about the series.

The acting was great! I especially love how Aidan Gallagher portrayed Number Five. This character is a 58-year-old man in the body of a 13-year-old boy. He made it believable. Everyone, though, made their character believable, even the TSTL one. When you're talking about a superhero series based on a comic book where almost everyone has some special power, this isn't necessarily an easy feat to pull off.

Also, the relationships between the characters added to the dynamics of the series. And contributed more than once to setbacks experienced in their quest to save the world.

One of the interesting choices made by the creators was in set design. I don't remember seeing any cell phones in the series anywhere. The characters use pay phones and home phones that would have been more in keeping with the 1980s than 2019. The other interesting choice was how dark and gray the vast majority of the sets were. Even the mansion where the children grew up seems dingy. My stretching my memory, but I don't believe there was any location in the show that was light and shiny.

This is not a show for younger children. It's dark, there's some violence that's stark, and the themes and nuances are for adults, IMO.

I highly recommend this series! You probably guessed this already. The first two episodes setup the rest of the series, but aren't as exciting as the final eight. I'm so glad I kept going because it turned out to be completely awesome.

5 stars and two thumbs up!