Movies
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Post 200? I think so…
OK, another Meme. Got this one from Wendy. I’ve gotta cut back on these things, and I swear I will. I’ll also stop drinking wine on school nights, staying up too late reading, watching crap TV, and letting the clothes-to-be-ironed pile up to the rafters. Yeah, right. The rules are: List three CDs, books, movies, and people you would take if you were stranded on a deserted island. For the people, you cannot choose your spouse or relatives. CD’s: Californication, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Way too much fun. The White Album, by the Beatles. Wendy chose this one, too, so we’d be OK if for some reason we…
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Much More Disturbing….
My mother-in-law and I went to see a movie this weekend, Water, that was the saddest movie I have ever seen. I came home wanting to see something cheerful and uplifting, like maybe, Romeo and Juliet. Madame Butterfly. You know, comedy. Water takes place in India in 1938, and is about the 2,000 year old custom of how widows are discarded after their husbands die. The main character is an 8 year old girl, Chuyia, who doesn’t even remember getting married. She is brought to an ashram and left there by her father. She is scared and confused, and convinced that her mother will be coming to get her soon.…
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The Good Girl
Did anyone see The Good Girl back in 2002? I did, and I really liked it. Didn’t have a blog then, so I’m writing about it now. 🙂 Ted was laid up the other night with food poisoning, which he suspects came from a veggie bagel at a deli with questionable cleanliness policies, so he went to bed really early. Like 7ish. Maya went to bed soon after, which pretty much left me to my own devices, which around here mean Rye Krisp, Tillamook Chedder, Chardonnay, and the Remote Control. I flipped around the channels awhile, but seeing as how I can’t stand Star Search American Idol, I ended up…
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Time to Finish High School…
I think it may be time for me to finish my High School reading for English class. Maybe then I’ll stop having those stupid dreams where I have to take a test for a class, and I haven’t been going and can’t really fake it because it’s physics, and I’ve never had physics or anything. I sort of decided that it was time for me to start reading some American Classics a few years ago. Ted’s eldest niece is in college, and she was reading The Grapes of Wrath. I realized that I had never read that, and it seemed kind of dumb for me to have missed out on…
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Regrets, I have a few…
I was thinking about all of the MEMEs that we see on blogs, and funny lists of music, etc. Which started me thinking of the songs that I HATE. That make me sick to my stomach. That I wish I could extinguish from the earth. So, I put together a MEME about things I regret having in existance… Songs I wish I Had Never Heard (because they suck) 1. Superman (It’s not easy) – Five for Fighting (can be switched with 100 years, same group, if you hate that one even more.) 2. You’re Beautiful – James Blunt (I know it’s popular…but please, kill me now…he just sounds like a…
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The place where you’re from…
I’m reading a short story called “Post and Beam“, by Alice Munro. The main character has moved away from her small town and her small town family, and is now living in the city. Her cousin hops on a bus and travels across Canada to come for a visit. One of the themes of the story is how we leave part of who we are at home when we leave. So here is Polly, the country cousin, who has come to visit Lorna, and is a bit put off by Lorna’s ‘post and beam’ house (reminds me of the Eichler homes that are popular around here…the picture above is of…
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Bubble
So last night we finally sat down and watched Bubble, which is the movie I told you about in January. We Netflixed it, and it took awhile to come, but it finally made its way into our DVD player. Summary? Worth a rental. It’s an interesting experiment, and amazing to know that the people in the film are not actors. None of them, I don’t think. Yet, they do a good job of conveying the desperation, or perhaps the boredom, of everyday life, and of how difficult it can be to escape from that. Not that everyone’s life is that boring, but theirs certainly is, and it seems like the…
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Dream symbolism?
Has anyone seen “The Straight Story“, about a guy who drives his lawnmower a couple of states over to visit his estranged brother? Well, I kind of had that dream last night, except my lawnmower thing was smaller than this one, with no trailer, and I wasn’t going to visit my estranged brother (I have a brother, but we’re not estranged, even in weird David Lynch type dreams). I was driving across the country, which I have done a few times, but usually in a normal car. With stopping for food and sleep, the drive from SF to Philly takes about 4 days. Well, in my dream it was already…
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Weekend Wrap Up
This weekend was jam packed with fun. Got to leave work early on Friday, in celebration of the long weekend. 🙂 I went home and started dinner, which was fancy tuna sandwiches. We went to Ted’s brother’s house to eat dinner and watch Battlestar Galactica, which we do every Friday now. We don’t get Sci-Fi channel on our cable, but his brother has satellite or something. We can’t get it, because of the trees near our house, and we’re too cheap to pay for the expensive cable that would come with the channel. But it’s fun anyway. Saturday was cleaning day. Ugh. My kitchen was so disgusting, it was embarrasing.…
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Trifecta of Neuroses….
Sunday afternoon, I watched a DVD and did some ironing. I hate ironing. But I hate that pile of unironed clothes even more, so…anyway, I watched part 2 in the trifecta of woman’s neuroses, “Babyfever”. These movies can be kind of scary, when you realize just HOW neurotic some women are about food, babies, and I’m assuming, shopping. Maybe we all are to some extent. On a small sidetrack, I read a book a couple of years ago called “Wasted“, about an anoretic and her experiences, and the two things that struck me the most were her comment that she STILL doesn’t know any women who are completely normal about…
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Weekend Wrap Up
Saturday, I went to the movies with Autumn’s Mom. We went to see “Walk the Line“. I’ve never been a big Johnny Cash fan, mostly because I’m not really into country music. Nothing against him. So, not being a fan, I didn’t know anything about him, except that he wore a lot of black, was married to June Carter (I only knew that because they died so close together a couple of years ago), and that he….well, that’s all I knew. The movie was really good…I definately enjoyed it. Very interesting, very well done. Did he come off looking perfect? No, far from it. It’s the story of his romancing…
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Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
SPOILER WARNING We watched this movie last night on DVD. It was really pretty amazing. If you’re not familiar with the story, I’ll fill you in. There is a flock of parrots that live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco…no one is sure when or how they got there, but there are many theories, including that they escaped from a ship that was here from South America, that an old woman owned them, and when she died, the person who came to clean out her apartment released them, and many others. Those parrots have not only thrived, they have been breeding for about 20 years now. There is a man,…
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Thinking about films…
While I was driving home from my Great Uncle’s funeral yesterday, I was listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR. Terry Gross was interviewing Steven Soderbergh, who I really like ever since he directed ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape’, which is one of those films I can watch over and over again. I haven’t liked EVERYTHING he puts out, but I do have a lot of respect for him. So he has a new movie coming out that is very interesting for two reasons. The film is called ‘Bubble’, and it’s about a strange love triangle “born in a doll factory” in a small midwestern town. The first interesting thing about this…