Month: December 2019

Parasite: With Whom Does Your Loyalty Lie?

The review:

The glee about Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite had me reluctantly adding it to my list; when I finally watched it, I was rewarded with a roller coaster of a movie that was just as good as I’d been hearing. Ki-taek and his family’s plight—living in poverty in a sub-basement—had me rooting for them* as Ki-taek seeks to better himself by taking a job as a tutor for a rich family. From there I cycled through so many emotions as the narrative shifted and twisted leaving me gasping aloud several times and reacting verbally** more than once.***

The verdict: Recommended

Cost:$9.00 (though free due to gift card. I did buy $9.00 worth of popcorn and wine)
Where watched: Hollywood Theatre

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Throughout the film I loved the family’s interactions. They enjoyed each other’s company and were all in it together, no matter how dire their situation. I rarely see such close-knit families on screen.
**What? No! Oh my god!
***This review is intentionally unspecific because it’s best to just go in cold and be rewarded. It gets a bit bloody there in one part, but it’s doable to shield your eyes if you need to.

Questions:

  • What was your favorite scene in this film?
  • What do you think the title refers to?

Other reviews:

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The Parks’ house, said in the film to be designed by a fictional architect named Namgoong Hyeonja, was a set completely built from scratch.

Plaque: Gunter Ernst Car

Today I rode on Car 205, better known as the Gunter Ernst Car. This was the first car of this type that was delivered.

The Gunter Ernst Car is one of the Type 2 Max train cars, which, according to MAX FAQs “have a raised upper deck by each of the cabs, and the sideways-facing seats in the middle of the train (called the C-section, though it has nothing to do with babies) are slightly higher, presumably to have room for the wheels, brakes, and sanding tubes underneath.”

The Type 2 is my favorite of the Max train cars. I like to sit in the raised upper deck.

The Best White Elephant Gift

Friends Heidi and Kevin had their annual White Elephant Gift party and Matt came home with a toilet paper air gun.

He took to it right away.

It was satisfying having wads of wet toilet paper hit the fence, or recycling bins.

Huzzah for dumb present fun. (The present was an actual gift from one of the party goer’s mother.)

Crane Coming Down

Would you like to make dozens of people look up? Even while walking? If so, install, and then disassemble, a crane. Not only was I looking up while walking past this, so was everyone else I encountered.

Also, look at this! The wheels aren’t even on the ground! They are being held up by these hydraulic lifts that extend from the crane dissembler thing.

Also. This isn’t a fast process. When I walked by at before eight a.m. they had started and when I left at 4:30 they were still going.

Note from the future. When the quarantine happened in March, the street had still not been reopened. It was close, but hadn’t happened yet.

End of the bus station

The Greyhound Station, a block-sized center of transport, has closed. No more will buses pick people up for parts unknown from inside a building. Instead, it will pick people up from a street.

There is a great undulating wall on this side of the station. I hope it will be preserved through the next development, but I’m guessing my hopes will be in vain.

SKS Postcards from Boise & Florida

Here is postcard 1 of 2! Sara said that she meant to send the Boise postcards from Boise, but alas, they came to me from California.

I quite like this Basque card!

Also arriving is this postcard from Tampa where Sara was attending a conference. She reports that this was her hotel and that the Florida weather has been lovely.

Apparently not for Floridians, who keep saying it was cold.

New Spot for Cats

Ikea advertised this cat cave insert for their standard bookcase and soon after I learned about it, I bought one.

This brings the hideyholes the cats have to three: this, plus a tent I bought from Ikea years ago, plus a plush sided tent that Matt’s mom gave me because her cat wasn’t interested.

Reporting from the future I can say that Sentinel uses the plush sided tent multiple times per day, they both go into the Ikea tent when they need to blow off steam, and they almost never use this hideaway.

SKS Postcard from Boise

This came as postcard 2 of 2 so we will have to wait to see what the first one says.

I love this, though, because it’s from the Basque Museum in Boise. If you grow up in Boise, you grow to love the Basques. Who wouldn’t, with their complex last names and delicious food?

The back of this postcard says: “‘You’re cutting the onions and the leeks…and you look across the table and there’s a second cousin,’ Ed Orbea says. ‘So then everything stops and hugs and kisses and back pats.’ Orbea stirs leeks and onions on a stove top in the basement of the Basque Center in Boise, Idaho. These ingredients are used to make mortzilla sausage for the Basque community’s annual Mortzilla Dinner & Bazaar.

Sara says that she and Shawn can’t get over how downtown Boise has transformed. There’s a whole new skyline.