Month: July 2015

Three sentence movie reviews: Martha Marcy May Marlene

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I’ve checked this out of the library on more than one occasion, but never got around to watching it because the cult aspect scared me off.  Now that I’ve finally seen it, the movie was fascinating mostly because the woman* does not tell her sister** she was in a cult, just that she had a bad boyfriend.  So that made the reactions by her family to the after-affects of her trauma that much more interesting and intense, which made for a fascinating movie.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

*Martha is her given name, Marcy May is her cult name, Marlene is the  name the women in the cult use on the phone.
**Sarah Paulson! I would have watched it a long time ago if I had known she was in it. I love her!

Note that this is yet another good role played by John Hawkes.  I also recently loved him in the Sessions and he’s quite good in Winter’s Bone too.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/martha_marcy_may_marlene_ver3.html

Corner of Morrison and 20th unrecognizable.

On my way to Lone Fir Cemetery to see Portland Actors Ensemble’s production of Macbeth, I did a triple take at the changes that have occurred since Matt lived in this neighborhood and we regularly drove through this intersection.

On the Southwest corner, this four-story mixed use building. I couldn’t remember what used to be here and the portlandmaps.com 2013 aerial photo told me it was an empty lot.  Actually, if you look at this aerial photo from 2004 you can see the intersection as I usually saw it, albeit from a street level.

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This corner had a few two-story buildings, one of which held a recording studio or music-type place.

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This was an empty lot.  It’s now a big condo complex.

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And here’s the corner that hasn’t changed.  Because it can’t.  Because it has a cemetery.

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Down the street where these tall condos were, there were single family homes.

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Ch-ch-ch-changes.  It was weird how the place where one’s eye finds the sky had shot so dramatically upward in my absence.

This is the order to read the Betsy Tacy Books

I re-read all the Betsy-Tacy books in preparation for my journey to Minnesota.  They were read to me as a child and I read them myself in my childhood, but I wanted to review them before visiting the author’s hometown of Mankato, MN.

In my childhood I did not read what are known as the Deep Valley books, which take place in the same world as Betsy-Tacy but do not star Betsy or Tacy.  Or even Tib.  When I did the re-read I read all the Betsy-Tacy books then all the Deep Valley books.  Due to the fact that most of our main players wander through (or are even large parts of) the Deep Valley books, I found myself annoyed and wishing someone had steered me to read the books in chronological order.

So this is a list of the Betsy-Tacy books with the Deep Valley novels interspersed so the timeline is not interrupted.

 

1357930Betsy-Tacy

7904Betsy-Tacy & Tib

17256159Winona’s Pony Cart

3343248Betsy & Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

42486Betsy & Tacy Go Downtown

6403093Heaven to Betsy

6487858Betsy in Spite of Herself

477899Betsy was a Junior

6758030Betsy & Joe

(no image because I can’t find a good one)

Carney’s House Party

15939566Emily of Deep Valley

15939538Betsy & the Great World

15800605Betsy’s Wedding

All images from Goodreads.

Three sentence movie reviews: We Are the Best

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Hey, remember how I loved Kings of Summer but lamented the lack of coming-of-age movies with girls as the main subjects?  It turns out that Sweden is on it, with middle school girls and punk rock, rather than high school and the outdoors.  While being incredibly fun and heartfelt, this movie also captures a lot of nuance of girl-as-friend relationships, especially during the middle school, jockeying-for-position time period.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/intl/sweden/2013/vi_ar_bast.html
(aren’t they adorable, those little punk rock girls?)

Three sentence movie reviews: Say Anything

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This was playing at a park near the river during my visit.  We opted not to see it because it was too late, and I had a very early flight, but then, much like Ione Sky in the movie, we watched it at home anyway.  Alas, one of our party (who had never seen it) still has not seen it due to the lateness of the hour and work obligations the next day.

Cost: Sara owns
Where watched: Minneapolis home of Sara and Shawn.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1989/say_anything.html
I love how you can see the fold marks.

A few parting views of the Mississippi

We returned to Sara and Shawn’s house via my first time driving on a six-lane freeway. (Thank you Portland planners, who have helped me avoid doing that on a regular basis.)  We caught Shawn up on our adventures over dinner and took one last walk to the river.  Here are some final river views.

(S&S.  I can’t tell which photo is the one that would be totally worth it when you saw it.  I’ve got a guess, but just because it’s the best one of the bunch.)
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Maybe this one?

 

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Thanks to Sara & Shawn for being such excellent hosts.  I had a wonderful vacation.
(Houses & Homes!)