Month: May 2018

Three sentence movie reviews: Tully

Hoo-boy can Diablo Cody write mundane normal life in a way that is both interesting and realistic. I loved that this movie easily could have had a villain–checked out husband Mark Duplass–but there wasn’t because he wasn’t the bad guy, there is no bad guy, there’s just life. Charlize Theron is her usual excellent self, and I loved watching the relationship between Theron and Tully (Mackenzie Davis) develop over the course of the movie.

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst by myself, which was too bad because it’s one to discuss afterward.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2018/tully.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Molly’s Game

Sorkin brings the dialogue, as he is wont to, and Chastain and Elba bring the sizzle, as they are known for. I’m a fan of a steely woman, some bad choices and a conundrum or two, so this movie worked for me. As usual, the “based on a true story” aspect was annoying* though there was Michael Cera as a skeevy actor/poker player, so that was fun.

Cost: $1.50 via Redbox
Where watched: at home with Matt, who tried to resist Sorkin’s dialogue, but was pulled in by the first scene.

*It distracts me because I find myself wondering just how much of it was real.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/mollys_game_ver3.html

A Royal Wedding


Rising too early has been a thing this spring. Waking up at 3 or 3:30 happens on most days of the week. Extreme morning lark, that’s me. No need to wait until old age to start that phenomenon.  Massive bummer.  However, it did come in handy in the case of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Up at 3:30 to see the last of the guests arrive and in plenty of time for the 4 am start?  No problem!

Plus, I painted my toenails, which was a good use of my time.

It was a very nice wedding (I watched the coverage on PBS) though around about the time the sermon started I had the realization that I’d gotten up at 3:30 in the morning to attend church.

SKS postcard: diorama part III


Sara wrote this on 5/13/18 which she pointed out is 5+13=18. She often does fun things with dates, which is left over from her time as a classroom teacher.

This is the last of the creepy diorama postcards from New York City and I find this one to be less creepy, possibly due to the character’s face turned away, and the red hue. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be learning from this diorama though. Photo developing in a pre-digital era?  I’m already familiar with that, having taken photography in ninth grade, but perhaps people younger than me wouldn’t be.

Three sentence movie reviews: Bunheads

Recommended by one-half of the Cube Critics, I started watching because I enjoy the rat-a-tat dialogue of Amy Sherman-Palladino but do not have the time to watch 150+ episodes of the Gilmore Girls. This has some annoying TV things–continuity from episode to episode; sometimes the characters can feel very one note–but every episode has funny lines, an engaging hook and–my favorite–includes a choreographed dance number.*  It’s too bad that this only ran for 18 episodes, but they are a fun and interesting 18 episodes.

Cost: free via Freeform (I got to once again experience the fun TV-watching exercise of muting the commercials. There were five of them and they played repeatedly. )
Where watched: at home

*There are also three generations of characters (teenagers, 30-something, woman of a certain age) and I enjoyed seeing a variety of older actresses rotate through as minor characters.  I suspect many of them regularly turn up in Sherman-Palladino ventures.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/tv/bunheads_ver2.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Before We Go

Chris Evans’ directing debut* that will be of interest to everyone who likes Before Sunrise-esque movies.  In this case, Evans is in town for a big audition (he plays trumpet) and Eve has just missed the last New York-to-Boston train. While this movie has been done, the performances were engaging, the mechanization keeping the actors together felt real and overall, this was a nice film for a Sunday afternoon.

Cost: free from Netflix
Where watched: at home

*DVD extras have a quote from Evans that says something like: “My first time directing, I figured, why not make it easier and only have two people in it?”

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/before_we_go.html

Great Aunt Virginia’s Obituary

More of the old gaurd passing away.  This is my Great Aunt Virginia, who married into the Whitmore clan and had the most children in that generation.  Nine!  Her husband came from a family with fifteen children and she from a family with seven, so they were quite familiar with large families.

She always had a cheery smile and wave at all Whitmore family functions.

Postcards rotated

I think the last time I rotated the postcards was 2015. I remember doing it on the weekend before I started my job at Sabin, having just quit the Emerson School. Let’s look back at the blog and see if I’m right.  Indeed!  It has been more that 2.5 years!

So here is the new setup. Once I was done I realized I put them up in the wrong order, so the oldest are on the second row, right side, and then they work their way to the newest, which are the top row, left side.

Matt’s only question was “Where did the PCC come from?”  As chronicled here, they were from Sara, and they look great on the wall, just as she imagined.

New place for photos

It took a long time to figure out where these photos should go.  I didn’t want them above the TV anymore. We discussed having them on the wall under the heat pump, but I eventually discarded that idea because I thought it was too close to the kitchen and I would have to scrub grease off of them on a regular basis.

Instead, I put them above the bathroom door and above the picture that hides the fuse box.

Now they are still hanging around, but not quite so prominent.

It was good to get this project done.  I had to take a day off of work to do it, but it was worth it.