Movies
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One Battle After Another
Saturday, Ted and I went to the theater to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, One Battle After Another. It starts off rough, especially if you had just been reading about the immigration raid in Chicago where children had their hands zip tied together and elderly people were thrown into U-Hauls. The film begins in 2009, with a left wing revolutionary group (the French 75) overwhelming a migrant detention center and freeing the immigrants that were being held there. Among the French 75 are “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). Perfidia ends up alone with the commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) and she…
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Downton Abbey – The Grand Finale
Saturday afternoon I had my favorite lunch, popcorn and Coke Zero at the movie theater. The movie in question was Downton Abbey – The Grand Finale. In the first film, it was a visit from the King and Queen. The second film, there was a trip to the South of France for 1/2 of the clan, while the other half stayed behind and a movie crew filmed at the Abbey. Now in this third film, Mary is newly divorced, and London society is scandalized. The effort is to keep her from being shunned from the local community as well. What else is going on? Mrs. Patmore and Carson are getting…
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Sinners
Sinners is a tale of monsters, both supernatural and immorally human, that takes place in the early 1930s Jim Crow south. Identical twins Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan), veterans of WWI, return to Mississippi from Chicago, where they’ve been working with the likes of Al Capone. Their dream is to open a juke joint in an abandoned warehouse, and they have the savings to get it done. They come to town and hire a crew of locals, including cooks, grocers, musicians, a bouncer. Their young cousin, Preacher Boy (Miles Caton) dreams of playing guitar and singing, and after hearing of his talent playing a famous guitar, they invite him…
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Friday Randomness
The most exciting thing this week was time spent with Birchie and San (!!!), but that deserves its own post, so you will have to wait on that. Instead you will get my regular weekly roundup type post. What else then? Well, I had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. On Saturday, Maya took me to lunch downtown, where she had Penne con Vodka, and I had a citrus and arugula salad. We did some shopping and she bought me expensive face cream to add to my collection. Ted’s mom is awaiting hip replacement surgery, and isn’t up to going to a restaurant, so he brought her a seafood lunch from…
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Flow
Last night we watched a charming animated film, Flow via our HBO/Max app. Flow is the story of a cat who survives a cataclysmic flood in a world that is devoid of humans. There are traces of humans – a house, statues, sketches, boats, temples…but nothing very modern, no real idea of what has happened and where the people have gone. Where the people have gone is not important, nor is the reason for the sudden flood. The story is told from the cat’s point of view, and the cat does not know the cause of the flood. Flow is different than most animated films. There are no human voices,…
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My Old Ass
On Elliott’s 18th birthday, she and two of her friends decide to blow off any other plans they might have (including the family birthday party at Elliott’s house) and go camping on a small island and take hallucinogenic mushrooms. Her friends are tripping and Elliott is feeling disappointed because she is not, but then her 39 year old self shows up to give her some life advice. 39 year old Elliott suggests that she should spend more time with her parents and her brothers, and that she should avoid a guy named Chad. Of course, Chad shows up, and Elliott has to figure that out, because 39 year old Elliott…
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The Substance
This weekend, Ted and I went to see The Substance, which is described as feminist body horror. I did not know that going in (and not being a big fan of horror movies, I wouldn’t know what that means). I just knew that it starred Demi Moore as an aging actress who finds a way to split her body into older and younger versions, something like that. Think The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Faustian bargain, etc. The Substance is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen. Did you see and enjoy Boxing Helena? The Fly?* Crash (the super creepy 1996 movie, not the 2005 one with Sandra Bullock)?…
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Staycation, Part II
The second half of our Staycation began on Wednesday, when we drove to wine country on our new tires. Ted’s uncle, aunt, and cousin live in Sonoma County, so we started the day having lunch with them. Long-time readers may remember the wedding we attended in 2019, with two ceremonies, beautiful horses, and a big family reunion. That was Ted’s cousin. She now has a 2 1/2 year old daughter, and is on the beginning of her maternity leave with a new baby, due in early October. We had lunch with Ted’s uncle, aunt, cousin, and the pre-schooler. That is one smart kid, and she’s so sweet. It was fun…
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Staycation, Part I
As mentioned in my last post, Ted and I took this week off from work for a staycation. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and people come from around the world to visit, so sometimes it is fun to play tourist in our own area. We decided we wanted to do a variety of things…some days chilling and maybe getting things done, some days out and about. Here’s a recap of the first half of our staycation. Saturday, we went to Ted’s parents’ house to celebrate his step-dad’s birthday. It was a low key party, just us, them, and Ted’s brother. Instead of cooking, we brought in take-out,…
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Bastille Day Randomness
Happy Bastille Day everyone! Bastille Day holds a special place in my heart, as my first full day in Paris on my honeymoon 31 years ago was on Bastille Day. I fell in love with France that day, and have been fortunate enough to go back twice since then. When Engie asked me to help her celebrate her 20 years of blogging (WOW!), and told me my day would be July 14th, I decided to write about France (again). So I’m her guest today! I’m sorry, I know I’ve written about my 2022 trip a LOT, and my 2018 trip less but still a lot, so likely you will not…
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Hit Man
Yesterday Ted suggested that we go in to San Francisco to see a movie, because it got a good review in our local paper, and because we really like movies by the director Richard Linklater. We didn’t have any plans, so off we went to an old school movie theater. When we lived in San Francisco, we used to go to the movies a lot, and as there were a lot of theaters around town, and this is a good one, it’s in a good neighborhood and there is a local bookstore next door, which is always fun pre or post movie, to peruse the books. We’ve seen a couple…
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Miscellaneous Monday
First off, look at my beautiful Mother’s Day breakfast. We usually get danish for Mother’s Day, a tradition born when Maya was little and Ted worked early (before the sun came up) on Sundays, so this was something that he could put together before he left. She’s old enough to make me anything I might want now, and he works normal hours, but the tradition remains because I love danish, and the only time I eat them is Mother’s Day. Now look at this picture and tell me whether you think I have a skin cream addiction. I love skin cream, and I think I collect it now like I…
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Miscellaneous Monday
Lest you worry about my whereabouts, I decided to post something today. But what? How about some randomness? I noticed the sign above on one of my morning walks recently. In the unlikely event that you’re unfamiliar with the Monty Python skit, you can watch it here. This is my favorite tulip tree in our area. This house has a much bigger one in the front yard, with darker colored blossoms, but this one charms me. I love the way they keep it shaped. One of our local public art pieces, nicknamed ‘Fountain Head’ was taken away for restoration the other day. Not my picture, I saw it on our…
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Recent Movies
We’ve watched a few movies lately, The Holdovers, You Hurt My Feelings, and Good Grief. In The Holdovers, Paul Giamatti plays a crusty teacher at an elite New England boarding school, who has to stay behind to chaperone the handful of students that don’t have anywhere to go for winter break in 1970. At first it is Mr. Hunham (Giamatti), the school’s head cook, Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and 6 students, but 5 of the students conveniently leave pretty early on, leaving 1 student behind, Angus (Dominic Sessa). Without giving away too much of the plot (I was going to imbed the trailer, but I felt it gave away too…
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Top 4 / Bottom 4 / Meh 4 Christmas Movies
Elisabeth had a Top 5/Bottom 5 Christmas movies post, which looked like fun. Here are mine, though I couldn’t come up with 5 of each category, so we’ll only have 4, so I added a meh category. Top 4 Bottom 4 Meh 4
