Movies

  • Boyhood

    ‘Boyhood’ is the story of Mason and his family, and follows them from the summer of 2002 until the autumn of 2013. At the beginning of the film, Mason is in 1st grade. His parents are divorced, and he hasn’t seen his father in a few years, as he’s been working in Alaska. His father (Mason Sr., played by Ethan Hawke) has come back to Texas and wants to get to know his kids again. Mason’s sister, Samantha, is two years older than he, and is always ready to goad and torture him if she can get away with it. Their mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) is a loving, though imperfect…

  • Belle

    Belle takes real life characters, switches their stories around a bit, and puts them into a Merchant Ivoryish version of a Jane Austen book, if Jane Austen had written a novel about race, and does so compellingly and satisfyingly. Dido Elizabeth Belle was the mixed-race daughter of a wealthy, titled British soldier in the late 1700s, when Britain was still very much involved in the slave trade. After the death of her mother, she is brought to the sumptuous country estate of her Great Uncle and Great Aunt to be raised, alongside her cousin Elizabeth. The girls grow up together as best friends and almost equals, though Dido doesn’t eat…

  • August: Osage County

    August: Osage County is the story of a brutally toxic family brought together for the funeral of the patriarch. This family is so dysfunctional it’s painful to watch. Based on the play by Tracy Letts, and starring Maryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard, Abigail Breslin, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, and Benedict Cumberbatch, August: Osage County begins with Sam Shepard explaining the lay of the land to a new caretaker (Misty Upham, who plays the only sane person in the house). The lay of the land is that he drinks all day, and his wife takes pills all day, and they barely tolerate each other.…

    Comments Off on August: Osage County
  • Merry Christmas to All!

    It’s morning on Christmas Eve.  I was watching Tim Minchin sing “white wine in the sun”, my favorite secular Christmas song by far, so I thought I’d share it with you.   Gifts have been purchased, delivered, and wrapped. Cards and packages were mailed early last week. Cookies have been baked. The house is decorated. Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of Cinnamon rolls (from a tube) is in the fridge, as well as the ingredients for our contributions to Christmas dinner. Ted is at work, and Maya is still sleeping. I’m not sure I can face the grocery store today, and I didn’t plan a Christmas Eve dinner, so it’s…

  • The Book Thief

    The Book Thief is the story of Liesel, a German girl who is given up for adoption by her mother, who is a Communist and is perhaps being taken away by the Nazis. The story takes place in the lead-up to and during World War II. On the train with her mother and younger brother, Liesel’s brother suddenly dies. No explanation is given, other than harsh living conditions and not enough food. He is quickly buried, and as they family walks away from the grave, Liesel picks up a book dropped by the grave keeper. Rather than calling out and giving it back to him, she hides it in her…

  • Catching Fire

    Ted and Maya went to see “Catching Fire” on Friday, and they liked it enough that they were willing to go see it again with me yesterday. Perhaps luckily for me, my memory is crap for books that I only read once…Gone With the Wind and Little House on the Prairie, I know every word. Catching Fire, I have vague impressions, though I know they were good and I was hooked and HAD to get into the next book asap. So it was although it was new to me, which I’ll admit, I enjoy. Side note that the bad part of the film, for me, was that I didn’t eat…

    Comments Off on Catching Fire
  • What Maisie Knew

    I remember reading Henry James “What Maisie Knew” many years ago, perhaps in college. I’m not a good one for remembering books years later, plot lines and characters and so on. What I remembered from this book was, “Wow, these parents are assholes”. Fast forward to 2013, and there’s a film version. I was kind of scared to see it, because I remember being somewhat depressed by the novel, and I don’t always want to be depressed by films. Sometimes it’s OK, I guess. Then it got really good reviews, and my MIL went to see it and loved it, and I thought, OK, I’ll go. Well, it was apparently…

  • The Way Way Back

    “The Way Way Back” is a summer coming of age movie, in which Duncan and his mom, her newish boyfriend and his daughter, go to his beach house to spend the summer. Gosh, how can anyone in their 40s afford to take the summer off from work, aside from (perhaps) school teachers, who are generally out of work all summer anyway? Yes, we thought that. Let it go. Duncan is about as awkward as a teen without braces and glasses and a neck-gear can possibly be. He desperately needs his father, but his father is out of the picture, and he’s stuck with a toad in the body of Steve…

  • Before Midnight

    If you’re a fan of the Julie Delpy/Ethan Hawke films, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, then you’ve likely been looking forward to the third installment in the story, Before Midnight.  Sunrise tells the story of Jesse and Céline, who meet on a train in Europe.  Jesse is on his way to the airport in Vienna, and Céline is on her way home, to Paris.  Jesse has hours to kill before his flight leaves in the morning, and no money for a hotel, so plans to walk the streets of Vienna until sunrise.  He convinces Céline to join him, and they walk and talk and fall in love, and promise to meet…

  • The Great Gatsby

    For Mother’s Day, instead of sending Maya off to an AP U.S. History study group with her friends, we went to see ‘The Great Gatsby’ and then out for dinner. We both really liked Gatsby a lot…especially Leonardo DiCaprio, whom I think was a far better, more vulnerable, weaker Gatsby than Robert Redford. And at heart, Gatsby is a weak man surrounded by tough guys, trying to finally grasp his unattainable dream. Carey Mulligan does a fine job as Daisy Buchanan, though she didn’t seem quite sparkly and shimmery enough to me. Daisy should be Champagne bubbles tickling your nose, and Mulligan is more like a serious Chardonnay. I liked…

  • Friday Randomness

    We went to see ‘From Up On Poppy Hill‘ last weekend, which is the latest film by the creator of Spirited Away, Ponyo, and My Neighbor Totoro. This film is different from the others in that there are no supernatural forces or characters at work. Rather, this is a story about two teenagers in Japan at the lead-up to the 1964 Olympics, and deals with the juxtaposition of tradition vs. modernism at that time. It was very sweet, very enjoyable, and I recommend it, though the ending was a bit abrupt. I do like all of these films, quite a bit. Is Obama an idiot for suggesting that the answer…

  • The Call

    Jordan Turner is a 911 operator in Los Angeles, taking panicked phone calls from people who are having their worst days ever. Gah, within the first minute of the film, I knew this was a job far beyond my personal coping level. No way could I stay calm and help people through the stuff that’s going on. Jordan (Halle Berry) is cool, calm, and collected, but not as detached as she needs to be, and soon, she makes a critical error. Fast forward 6 months, and Jordon is no longer taking calls in the call center. She is haunted by her mistake, and unable to take the chance that something…

  • Friday Randomness

    Friday again…what’s new pussycat? I hope you’re well. I haven’t been around here much lately, and it’s not because life is so darned exciting that I haven’t the time, or so darned horrid that I can’t manage it. It’s just how it’s been lately, I guess. The spirit hasn’t moved me. But it’s moving me a bit now, so I’ll give you some random ‘Thinking About…” type stuff, OK? Maya and her chorale group from school sang at a swanky fundraiser last night at our local swanky rep center. The fundraiser was to raise money for the city education foundation, which spends its money on crazy, extravagant things like librarian…

  • The Hobbit

    Our local paper had this to say about The Hobbit: “‘The Hobbit,’ a movie that is exactly one Jar Jar Binks away from being as bad as ‘The Phantom Menace’.” In other words, the reviewer hated it. We read the review, and decided to go see the movie anyway. I didn’t hate it that much, but I’m not sure I really liked it, either. For such a charming story, I’m sorry to say that the film felt bloated and somewhat boring. Part of the problem, I think, is that a book is not a film, and a film isn’t a book. You have to do some trimming if you’re going…

  • Rereading ‘Gone With The Wind’

    The story of Scarlett O’Hara and the ruin of the south is so tied in with the film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, “Gone With The Wind“, that if you’ve seen the film, it’s difficult to separate the two in your mind.  I first read “Gone With the Wind” in the 8th grade, and the love triangle between Scarlett, Ashley, and Rhett absorbed me completely.  I’ve read the book so many times since that I can open it at any page and know what’s going on, just by reading one sentence.  It’s one of those books.  I was thinking about it recently, however, and I realized that I’ve only read…