Three sentence movie reviews: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

I read half the book, became confused and hoped this movie would clear things up.  It did a little, but I found the film just as boring as the book and nearly as confusing.  There are flashback scenes that I only could tell were flashbacks because I’d read the book, so overall, this was a dud.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched:  at home.

The Baker’s Chocolate rip off

I’ve been cooking with Baker’s Chocolate all my life.  I’m sure the box has changed a bit since my birth, but probably not by much.  And it’s certainly always included eight individually wrapped 1 oz. squares, just like it says on the box.
 
I like Baker’s Chocolate because it’s familiar and a good product and also because it’s a good buy.  When they say 2x more product than competitor package, they are talking about Ghirardelli, which is good chocolate, but comes in four-ounce bars for nearly the same price, so I don’t buy it very often.
 
But look!  Baker’s (since 1780) chocolate, has reformulated.   Now, instead of eight individually wrapped 1 oz. squares it comes in a 4oz Easy Break Bar.
 
First of all, I didn’t need an easy break bar. Those individually wrapped packages were fine for me.  Secondly, they have given us half the product and are charging the same price.

Are you kidding me?  The price break was their selling point.  I may just abandon them for the Ghirardelli.  Talk about not knowing your audience.

Apron


I’ve finished the Provence Smock featured in the book A is for Aprons.  I love it, though I will make the next one a little big bigger. It appears much looser on the model in the book than it does on me.  But I have to say, after all that fitting with the Laurel, this felt like it came together in no time.  It was pretty fun, despite the horrid instructions.  Also, thanks to Julie, who brought her sewing machine into work, so I could make the button holes.

Three sentence movie reviews: Friday Night Lights Season 4

Oh Season Four, you did something few television shows do: throw off the majority of your lead characters, tumble the fortunes of the others, while deftly introducing four brand new characters.  And you managed to make me still tune into the fortunes of a small-town football team, even though I’m still so football illiterate I can never read the entire scoreboard before you cut back to the football action.  How do you manage to do this?

Cost:  free from library
Where watched:  at home, with Matt.

poster from: www.amazon.com

Three sentence movie reviews: the Spectacular Now

What was spectacular about the Spectacular Now was the acting and the actors.  Both sank into their roles in a way that I don’t often see in a movie with teenagers and for that alone this movie is worth seeing.*  I had problems with the ending–it felt revised and tacked on in an unsatisfying way–and I didn’t feel a tremendous depth, a problem I solved by reading the novel, which was quite good.**

Cost:  $7.00
Where watched:  Living Room Theaters with S. North.

*There were a lot of interesting non-standard teen movie things to like about this movie.
**In novel/book comparisons, I observed that it is very difficult to bring to the movie screen a book character like Aimee, the female protagonist/lead.  I think the problem is that everything is shiny in the movies, making it difficult to project the inherent awkwardness/uncool persona that easily comes across on the page. Nerds live in books, easily.  They don’t really exist well on the silver screen.

Prompt writing: Letters.

This spring, I took a writing class offered through Write Around Portland.  It was called “Prompt” because each week we would meet and write for a limited amount of time–usually somewhere between 2-8 minutes–to a number of different prompts.  As the school year grinds to a start and I have less time to write, I will be featuring excerpts from my writing class in lieu of the weekly essay. 

The prompt here was more complex and came near the end of the series.  Everyone thought of a number between 8 and 80 and then wrote it down.  Then we passed that number to the person on our right.  The number passed to me was 15.  Then, we had to write a letter to ourselves at that age.  After we were done with that prompt, our next prompt was to write back.  

Dear Patty,

In six years, you will shed that nickname, reverting to the three syllable name of your birth.  It will be a relief, the metamorphosis, but you will always love those who knew you when your name was two syllables.  Those boys?  All of them?  They are all consuming, I know.  And they will be for awhile and let’s face it, your teachers aren’t going to be fabulous the next few years. A few standouts, sure, but academically, you are going to be a bit bored.  So get some homework done somewhere, but there’s nothing you can do about the boys.

You are going to stop writing creatively.  Not because you aren’t good, but something will happen and it will go away. But keep writing in those journals.  The writing will come back eventually and the feeling will be tremendous.

You will have your heart broken and it won’t be easy, knowing what to do when you feel like that.  You will make a lot of wrong choices.  I wish I could say differently, but I can’t.  It sounds grim, no?  But you get out.  You leave the town, your friends and your family–everything–behind and it’s all you ever wanted it to be.

Your twenties will suck too, but in a different way. I don’t even want to go into that now, it’s too soon.  But you are fine.  You will muddle through and you will look back on this time with a crimp in your heart and you will laugh at your joys and sorrows.  And you will never want to be fifteen ever again.

Sincerely,
38

Dear 38,

Wow.  Could you make it sound any worse?  I mean, Jesus Christ, according to you, school is going to suck, boys are going to suck, writing will suck and it will just keep on sucking for a long time. You’re really making me want to fucking age, chica.  But the getting out sounds good.  And I’ve grown to hate being called Patty.  It’s too much sorority tea party and not enough bad-assed rebel.

Am I really fine?  Will any of those boys every like me back?  I mean really, you skimped on some pretty important details.  What about Craig?  He seems promising.  Does anything happen with him?  Oh!  Or Shawn?  Maybe things move in a good direction there?  Come on, I need more details!  Just about the boys!

Yours,
15

Postcard from Norway

This arrived after the naked hiker, but was written before.  It’s from Sara too.  She was loving Norway.
 
I experimented with trying to trick people in to thinking I’d been to the fjords myself by taking a picture of the postcard, but I’m working with a different camera (great sad story there, which I won’t tell now) so I couldn’t get a crisp shot.