This reminds me of the suggestion to change my password to ‘incorrect‘ so that when I can’t remember it, the prompt will say ‘your password is incorrect’.
No, I don’t know why two such dissimilar things seem to me to be connected but there you go.
We spent an excellent weekend with kids and grandkids, and although I hate to say so and jinx it, the weather was BEAUTIFUL! It’s actually still beautiful today. We were sitting outside on lawn chairs beside our snow mountain watching the kids try to pummel it into submission, but it’s a pretty hard packed hill that will be around for a while yet. There was also a dog catching snowballs. Entertainment like that is hard to find.
When I got home from work today there were three messages with gorgeous artwork sitting on the pillows of my bed, and another one on top of my computer. See how well these kids know me? Those are the two places I would be certain to find stuff, that’s for sure. And my fridge is completely papered over once again with delightful works of art.
I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend and a fun April Fools Day. Think Spring.
Watched this on Netflix the other night and was pleasantly surprised by some excellent casting and a feel good story with a better ending than anticipated. There were some funny parts and some thought provoking moments. Movie watching doesn’t get much better than that.
Cast/Synopsis:
Jesse (Josh Radnor) introverted and uninspired 35-year-old admissions officer at a school in New York, recently dumped by his latest girlfriend, is invited to speak at a retirement dinner in Ohio for a former college professor. He goes back to this nostalgic place where his life held the most passion and promise to face some truths and revelations about himself. He encounters some influential people in his quest for connection and meaning in his life. (Josh Radnor wrote the screenplay, by the way.)
Peter Hobert (Richard Jenkins) the retiring professor who is second guessing his retirement. (Nobody feels like an adult. It’s the world’s dirty secret.)
Judith Fairfield (Allison Janney) One of Jesses favourite teachers – brilliant, but cold, cynical, and condescending. (Put some armour around that gooey little heart of yours.)
Nat (Zac Efron) free spirit visiting a friend, killing some time, navigating life at university on his own terms. (Don’t say no – fortune never smiles on those who say no.)
Dean (John Magaro) intelligent but angst ridden undergraduate student, always with his nose in a book, seen as a younger more self-destructive version of Jesse himself, depressed and suicidal. (I kind of just wish this would all be over with as soon as possible. Why did you love it here so much?)
Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen) seemingly wise beyond her 19 years, embarks on a relationship with Jesse. (Age is a stupid thing to obsess over. What if reincarnation is real, huh? Think about that – what if I’m like thousands of years older than you?)
Ana (Elizabeth Reaser) the clerk in the bookstore back home who has been patiently waiting the entire movie for Jesse to finally notice her. (I want to be an old lady with long, gray hair in a ponytail….and I want a really, really wrinkly face….and a small house, maybe by some water. I think getting old could be really nice.)
Warning:
This film contains classical music and references to great works of literature. And no real violence or nudity or bad language. So I guess it’s not for everyone.
Why You Should See It Anyway:
All the acting is good, but Elizabeth Olsen shines. We get to look at life from the points of view of three different age groups. Zibby wants to rush forward into her future, Jesse looks back in order to find out how to move forward, and Peter finds himself looking back and wondering what happened, regretting that there is no going back.
Best Quote:
Zibby: I sometimes feel like I’m looking down on myself. Like there’s this older, wiser me watching over this 19-year-old rough draft, who’s full of all this potential, but has to live more to catch up with that other self somehow. And I know I’ll get there. It’s just sometimes I think I want to rush the process, you know? And I don’t know, maybe – maybe I thought you were some sort of shortcut. Does that make any sense?
Jesse: If I wrote you, I would be like, “This is the best rough draft ever.”
Yesterday it snowed and melted and snowed some more. When I drove home from work the roads were icy, dry, and icy again. Mostly the ice was at stop lights and around road curves of course, so the going was slow. And it unnerved me just enough to decide venturing out again, even three or four blocks to go out for something to eat, just wasn’t worth it. Never mind sliding into someones bumper from behind, I don’t want to slip and fall on my butt in a parking lot either.
So what to do with a quiet couple of after-work hours (before reading myself into oblivion) while W watches sports on tv? By the way, I’m not totally out of the sports loop. I’m cheering for the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. And no, I haven’t watched a game yet, but when it’s closer to the end I’ll probably get sucked in like everybody else. If there’s a contest for world’s worst sports fan, I’m a contender. Meanwhile, time to check out new arrivals on Netflix.
And this is the delightful movie I decided to watch; Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, starring -
Chace Crawford (Cole), Elizabeth Olsen (Zoe), Jane Fonda (Grace), Catherine Keener (Diane), Jeffery Dean Morgan (Jude), Marissa O’Donnell (Tara) and Nat Wolff (Jake). Do I pay attention, or what??
The story is predictable (not just somewhat contrived) fun, with great casting. I cannot imagine anyone but Jane Fonda as the beautiful Grace, stuck in the ’60′s forever. Diane is an uptight New York City lawyer whose equally uptight lawyer husband tells her he wants a divorce. She packs up her teenage kids and goes off to visit her estranged (for 20 years) hippie mother at her farmhouse in the countryside near Woodstock. It turns into a summer adventure of romance (for all three of them). They attend a war protest and a music festival, participate in some moon howling, learn a few family secrets, and make some very clichéd self discoveries.
Perfect. I wanted some mindless diversion, and this delivered. I don’t care that the movie got less than rave reviews – every movie doesn’t have to be some powerful statement about some controversial event. Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding is harmless fun with a delightfully happy ending. Good for the hippie soul.
On Tuesday night I was all set to watch this movie after work, but the DVD wouldn’t play! So I had to take it back and exchange it for another one. The customer service person told me it was possible they got a ‘bad batch’ of the movie, and if the exchanged one also didn’t work, my next move should be to take it back to a different store where they were more likely to have a ‘good batch’. At that point I began to question how much I really needed to see the damned thing. I mean the movie sleeve shows an angst ridden Kristen Stewart looking glum, Chalize Theron all poised and gorgeously, wickedly evil, and a hatchet wielding Chris Hemsworth ready to kill somebody. Or something. That part isn’t clear. But really, I already know the story, right?
Well not really. The second DVD worked just fine, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the delightful twists and turns as I watched it last night. But here’s the most delightful thing of all – Kristen Stewart. Give the girl kudos for this one. She is good. And she almost smiles a couple of times. Even though she sees her dead father with a bloody knife embedded in his heart and is locked up in the north tower of the castle for half of her young life, escapes to the perils of the dark forest, and has her life saved by one of the dwarves when he sacrifices his own for her. Then there’s the small matter of her heart being a big part of the wicked queens quest for immortality. There is not a lot to smile about.
I love the fact that it’s not the prince who breaks the poisoned apple spell. If that’s a spoiler, sorry. And the ending isn’t exactly happily ever after either, but you get the feeling that it’s a definite possibility.
And then there’s this – beautiful and haunting music to go with a rather sad part.
Maybe you won’t be blown away by this movie as the sleeve suggests, but I don’t think you’ll be unmoved by it either. There’s some incredibly beautiful bits and some excellent special effects. For lots of reasons, I want to watch it all over again.
I hope it’s a clear night tonight so that we can all get a good look at that big old blue moon! Because I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen one before.
Here’s a song to watch blue moons by. It’s also a reminder that they don’t make background singers like they used to. And a nudge to dig up that old American Graffiti VHS tape and watch it one more time.
Yesterday I went to see the first 3-D movie of my life. It was one of those spur of the moment things to decide to go at all and a last-minute decision as to which show to see.
So suddenly there we were, crazy glasses on, watching ParaNorman with things jumping off the screen into our faces.
There were some scary gruesome bits, so it might not be suitable for the very young, but kids quickly get to the age where they think it’s fun to be grossed out by ghosts and zombies. It’s a great bold story with a strong moral lesson. I don’t think it’s just for kids.
The Big C is a television series I’ve been watching on Netflix. Is this not the absolute best way to watch these things – having the power to skip all the intros and the credits and cut to the next episode with no commercial interruptions? Although I rarely watch anything on tv anymore, I guess you could call this a condensed version of doing just that.
Thinking it was a movie when I first clicked on it turned out to be a happy accident because otherwise I wouldn’t have started watching it at all. Days later and almost to the end of season 2, I’m still hooked. So I suppose it’s safe to say I like many things about it. The acting, the writing, the portrayal of not one but several messed up lives and how they intertwine. Some of the situations seem a little too contrived, but the excellent acting always saves it.
After having listened to bits of the theme song a dozen times I was compelled to hear the whole thing. And I’ve come to love it too.
Wikipedia has a well detailed article on the premise and cast here . The show is into its third season, so they must be doing something right.
Every person living with cancer or close to someone fighting the disease has a story to tell. Some of us have been given a heads-up on how long we’ve got to get our shit together affairs in order. Most of us think we have forever. But the only thing for sure about the life we’re living is that it ends. You take the life you are given and you deal with it. It’s the living and the dealing that make you who you are and your life what it is.
Grabbing life by the balls seems to me like one of the best options we’ve got. So let’s just do that.
Two days off = five movies. Is that better or worse than an entire trilogy in less than a week? As in, more or less productive? Or not productive at all?
Maybe I’m stock piling ideas for my book that I keep thinking I should write but at this rate won’t start until I’m 90. I did get other things done. I DO know how to work the pause button.
It all started with The Importance of Being Earnest. I guess the rest of the cast was good, but it’s hard for me to take my eyes off Colin Firth. And that’s why I saw him trying really hard to keep a straight face in some of the more ridiculous scenes. Reese Witherspoon can do a British accent. Although since I’m not British I could be completely wrong about that, but it sounded fine to me.
Then good old Netflix suggested I might like Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. This was a little more intense. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor’s work versus Coco’s radical ideas in women’s fashion. So of course they hit it off, but the relationship was doomed.
Wings of the Dove was also about a doomed relationship, and it’s all Helena Bonham Carter’s character’s fault. She wanted it all, and in movies that usually means you end up disappointed.
So – from London to Paris to Venice to Tuscany and Shadows In the Sun. And another kind of love story altogether. This movie was more about the love of writing and the fear that can paralyze a writer when he thinks he might have nothing left to say.
Well they should all just sit down and watch more movies. Tons of ideas there.
Giancarlo Giannini as Father Moretti was delightful. So was Joshua Jackson, but only when he forgot to slick back his hair with grease. Yuck. And the beautiful scenery will make you want to book a flight to Italy and never come home. Unless of course you live there already, in which case, gawd I envy you.
As good as all of these were, TheYoung Victoria turned out to be the best of all of them. You’d think by the time I got around to this one I’d be all sapped out, but nope. Emily Blunt is a perfect young Victoria and Rupert Friend is an excellent Prince Albert. I think there were sparks.
If I’d seen movies like this in school I might have had a better appreciation for politics and history. Well, that’s debatable. I might have wanted to meet Rupert Friend.
The next thing I’m going to tackle is a thousand page novel. Going to sleep and to work can be such annoying interruptions.
There have been so many horrible reviews written about the Fifty Shades Trilogy by E. L. James that my mind was made up to not bother reading any of it. But Book One got downloaded to our shared Kindle (by either one or the other of my daughters, doesn’t matter who) (and if I did it myself, I don’t remember!) and so there it was, and I thought, what the hell, and started reading. Finished it and downloaded the second one. Finished that and downloaded part three. Seriously, it’s like some kind of strange addiction to the weirdest fairy tale ever written. Somebody called it “literary crack”. It’s a modern-day fairy tale fantasy for a day dreaming adolescent, unbelievable in so many ways, and yet I found myself reading away, wanting to believe the unbelievable. Because it’s just so f***ing unbelieveable I can’t believe it.
Quick character synopsis – Ana Steele, a socially awkward 22-year-old virgin (rolling your eyes already?) who has no idea she’s brilliant, gorgeous and desirable, meets Christian Grey, a drop dead handsome 27-year-old billionaire control freak who flies a helicopter, owns a jet, lives in a penthouse, employs full-time security staff, has darkly erotic tastes, plays the piano, suffers flashbacks and nightmares from early childhood trauma, was seduced as a teenager by a family friend old enough to be his mother, is heavily into sexual role-playing, has self-loathing issues and been in therapy all his life, and is using his vast wealth to combat world hunger. Yes. Really.
Even Quicker plot synopsis – They can’t keep their hands off each other or be physically separated without feeling suicidal. There is a lot of angst. They work it out.
There is really not much of a plot, very little character development, repetition that will drive you mad, a bit of melodrama here and there, but never any doubt whatsoever that it will all end blissfully and happily like every good romance does. Oh yeah, and physical intimacy and gratification on every other page. Sometimes every page for pages and pages and pages. If there were a sexual olympics, Christian and Ana would definitely be contenders.
Who can say why this trilogy is a runaway best seller? It’s not literary genius by any stretch of the imagination. There are many more talented writers out there. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. But I did read the entire thing. Just like I read the entire Hunger Games Trilogy. As for Twilight and Sleeping Beauty – couldn’t make it past book one in either case.
Anyway, now I guess I have a better idea what all the fuss is about. Much ado about nothing much. So of course perfectly suited to being turned into a full length movie or two! My head hurts just thinking about it. Read it for fun or diversion or to be a critic or to become a six star fan. Or not at all. More power to Ms. E.L. James who is laughing all the way to the bank in spite of what we think. And threatening to write MORE! I am SO biting my lip (and rolling my eyes) in breathless anticipation.
Follow the rainbow..they say this wordpress.com site is ENDLESS..but who knows, you may find a bag of skittles, Neil Gaiman, or that greedy little leprechauns stash o'lucky charms.
