Month: December 2016

Three sentence movie reviews: La La Land

This isn’t a musical to go to for the singing and dancing, because Stone and Gosling–delightful as they are–aren’t really much of either singers or dancers.  But it is a movie to go to and get caught up in the sparkle of the musical motion picture itself–the sets, the acting, the story.  The whole thing was so mesmerizing, I found myself clapping after one scene, completely forgetting I was in a movie theater, not a Jazz club.*

Cost: $11.50
Where watched: Regal Fox Tower, on opening night. Because I couldn’t wait for the matinee.

*Also, my hometown of Boise is mentioned several times,** at an important point in the movie.
**Note that they do not pronounce Boise like the natives do.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/la_la_land.html

 

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.

We cashed in our first round of Cosmic Tripster reward concert tickets to see Mr. Rateliff and his Nightsweats at the Crystal Ballroom.

We got there very soon after the doors opened as the mostly empty venue behind us can attest.  (What’s with the photobombing couple behind us?  They look like they are quite happy to be talking with each other.)

I liked the opening band, the Domestics, Matt thought they were too hipster. Between sets, I had fun watching this guy sell drinks to the crowd at the rail.  The Crystal Ballroom is an all-ages venue.  They segregate the drinkers by dividing the ballroom floor diagonally.  We were on the all-ages side.  It’s nice to be near the rail, as you get to watch the all-access traffic flowing back and forth.

I wonder if this guy every thought he would be the guy with the drink cart between sets?  I wonder who had the brilliant idea to have a drink cart between sets?  This guy struck me as incredibly rock and roll.

Nathaniel Rateliff

We had a good view of the Nightsweats playing keyboards and the trumpet.  The keyboard guy had great hair for flipping around enthusiastically while singing and playing.

I watched these bouncers a bit too. Earlier in the show one of the security guys (the same guy we saw working the Cosmic Tripster party) took out a guy who was pretty out of it.  I’m always impressed by people who can handle drunk people.

I’m much too old for a show on a school night, but this was fun, regardless.

XMas Eve Eve

We celebrated Xmas Eve Eve early this year.  Normally, we celebrate on 12/23 (the Eve of Christmas Eve) but moving it up allowed us to have more things to chat about.  When we have three days in a row of hanging out with the fam, we’ve exhausted all conversation.

We celebrated with the traditional soups and bread.  And Mom brought along this fun decorating kit purchased at Trader Joe’s.

I made these white chocolate peppermint covered brownies for dessert, which were delicious.

Our decorated sweaters.They were great fun.  Good choice, mom!

White Elephant Gift Winner!

This year, I again scored Jane’s favorite songs at the Heidi and Kevin’s White Elephant Christmas party.  Jane is eight now, and our musical taste still hasn’t quite lined up.

That “Closer” song by the Chainsmokers is always on the radio.  I kind of like it, even if it’s fairly repetitive and a little too overproduced for my tastes.  Matt was really annoyed by the Kidz Bop Kids version of “Call Me Maybe,” I’m not sure why he cared that much, but he did.

Hopefully I will have a threepeat in 2017.

Three sentence movie reviews: Sleeping Beauty in 70mm

The Hollywood Theater showed this in 70mm, so it was the really big screen.  The colors were great, the music was great, and the volume of the dialogue was very very quiet.  It was so quiet that it seemed as if no one in the audience (not even the children) moved for the entire run-time, so great was our straining to hear.

Cost: $14.00, which was refunded when the theater figured out what happened.  Thanks, Hollywood!
Where watched: Hollywood Theater

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1959/sleeping_beauty.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Star Wars Holiday Special

I’ve been living under the impression that I would have to wait for George Lucas to die before I could see this only-screened-on-TV-once feature.  But it turns out that this is the third year the Kiggens Theater has shown this film.  Now that I’ve seen it, I will have to spend the rest of my life un-seeing it, because it’s a terrible, terrible piece of the Star Wars world.

Cost: free
Where watched: Kiggens Theater with Matt

poster from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52RtCocVUzo

The weekend plan. And some ice.

Apparently there wasn’t much work to do during my work-from-home day.  Good thing I could fill the time with tasks.

That 11:00 list?  Library, x-mas stamps, grocery shop?  That was optimistic.  I thought the ice would have melted off by then, but it was just as slick as it was first thing in the morning.  I made it to the library and back home, but it was no 20-minute round-trip journey.  I made it to New Seasons, but Fred Meyer had to wait until the next day.  The Christmas stamps weren’t bought until the next week.

Here’s a backyard visual.  It doesn’t look bad, but man, it was tough to walk on.  I used my trekking poles and they kept me upright.