The Love it/Hate It Meme

This meme discusses the highs and lows of popular culture. Fill it out with your opinions and send it on to 3 friends.

Three Movies Everyone Loved and You Hated:

1. Star Wars Episode Three: The Phantom Menace. Grown men cried when ole Anakin turned into Darth Vader. People were cheering, it was pandemonium in the theater. I slept through it. I thought it was AWFUL. Hours of torture.

2. Titanic. Yes, I know, the ultimate chick flick AND Celine Dion. After about 90 minutes, I was like "Go ahead and sink already."

3. Spiderman. I figured, Tobey Maguire... I liked the old Batman movies (Michael Keaton, not Adam West, although the Adam West one was hilarious) and Superman. So I thought I'd love it. Plus my dad and sister and Joe all loved it. Snore. The sad thing? I went to #2 to make Joe happy and snored through that one as well. Ugh.

Three Movies that Lived Up to the Hype

1. Little Miss Sunshine. Still one of my all time favorites. I loved the story, the acting, it had some dark humor which I always enjoy, just a great movie. Too bad it didn't win the Oscar.

2. Shrek 2. I thought the first Shrek was pretty good, but the second one was amazing. I absolutely loved it. It was the first movie I watched on the new plasma TV.

3. Wedding Crashers. I laughed till I cried, and I was convinced I would hate it. Enough said.

Three Books You Hated that Everyone Else Loved:

1. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Oh. My. God. I hated it from start to page 40-something when I finally gave up. Zzzzzzzzzzz. I hated the poor little goat being eaten by the tiger. I hated the writing. I hated the story. Even the overall story did not appeal to me. However, it was this book that made me vow I would read whatever came up in book club, whether I thought I'd like it or not. And this year, I've kept that vow.

2. Wicked by Gregory McGuire. Ok, in all fairness, I forced myself to read all the way through to the end. I was convinced that if I just went far enough, I would come to a place where it would all make sense and I would say, "Oh my gosh, this was fantastic!" Um, no. Definitely not. Boring. But finishable boring.

3. Blessings by Anna Quindlen. When it was written, Anna Quindlen's name and face were everywhere, and at the time I was heavily into listening to Imus on my way to and from work in Boston. He interviewed her and the book sounded great and was almost immediately turned into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, and I thought, well, this must be the greatest book ever. I finally got my hands on a copy with Paperback Swap, and read it in a day or two. It wasn't awful but it just wasn't amazing. Mediocre, didn't live up to the hype. A huge disappointment in my reading year.

Three Books that Lived Up to the Hype:

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Oh my gosh did I love this book! It was easily the best book I read last year and probably one of the best I've ever read--it's firmly on my favorite books ever list. I first heard about it on the Diane Rehm show and understand it did quite poorly in hardcover, but once it went into paperback, the book clubs started snapping it up and sales went crazy. With good reason. It was fantastic.

2. Freakonomics by Steven D. Leavitt. This book made a splash by suggesting that a drop in the crime rate was directly attributable to Roe v. Wade. Michael and I read the book and just loved it. In addition to the crime/abortion correlation, it talked about how real estate agents operate like the KKK, how much sumo wrestlers and public educators have in common, and how rich people decide the in vogue baby names of a generation. It was fascinating.

3. March by Geraldine Brooks. This won the Pulitzer last year and was all the rage. I usually hate books that are about classic characters from long ago, and I was sure I would hate this. I definitely had my quibbles with it, but overall, it was a great book and taught me not to be so prejudicial towards something without all the facts (ie don't judge a book by its cover).

Three TV Shows You Hated that Everyone Else Loved:

1. Survivor. I must admit that I watched 3 whole seasons of it: Survivor Australia and Survivor All Stars and the one where the fireman won. But it's been on for what? 10 seasons? And every last one has been the same. Sure, they mix up men vs. women, asian vs. hispanic, or some such, but at the end of the day, it's all blah. The "challenges" aren't particularly exciting, it's basically a bunch of pretentious idiots, losing weight, strolling around naked, and stabbing each other in the back for 30 days. It was new and innovative at the time, but really, who cares any more? (Plenty of people, just not me!)

2. The Office (USA). Everyone goes bananas for the US version of the Office. I watched it a couple of times and HATED it... Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Not funny. Ugh.

3. The Family Guy. Joe and Judy go bananas for this and every time I'm at their house, it's on. And I try, really I do, but it's just the stupidest show I've seen in a long time. They're literally doubled over. I read a book. I don't know why, it just really bores the snot out of me!

Three TV Shows that Lived Up to the Hype:

1. Arrested Development. While it was on, I kept hearing about it, and even managed to stumble onto it on TV once or twice, but never actually knew when it was on or anything. The critics were going bananas for it, but I never watched it. I think Fox was too busy promoting its other stuff. Anyway, then it was cancelled and then Judy said she had seen it with Joe when she visited him in Buffalo and loved it. Finally last year, with nothing to do for 3 months, I got seasons one and two on Netflix. Awesome. Definitely way too smart for network television. But an incredible show and I am now the proud owner of all 3 seasons on DVD.

2. Lost. I was extremely resistant to watching Lost. I'm not sure why, I guess I just thought it sounded kind of dopey--a plane crash on an abandoned island, who really gives a crap? I do. Again, three months to do nothing, I capitulated to Joe's demand to watch season 1, which I did, and then picked up on season 2 while it was on the air. This season, season 3, has been incredible. If you want to buy me something nice, buy me seasons one and two on DVD :-) I don't have them yet!

3. The Office (UK). I had seen ads for this on BBCA at my dad's house, but never really thought it'd could be entertaining. Boy was I wrong! What an awesome show. Funny, clever, not one week character in the entire thing. The episode where they have the guy in for team building or whatever it was is an absolute classic.

So that's it! I'm tagging everyone on my "friends and seagulls" list. You better do it, I'll be monitoring all your blogs :-)