Three sentence movie reviews: The Nativity Story

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I was hopeful that Catherine Hardwicke’s direction would make this a better movie than it seemed like it would be.  And then I was hopeful that Oscar Issac would do his usual thing and be amazing.  Both hopes were crushed and I spent the movie contemplating if it was so boring because I’m so familiar with the story.

Cost: free due to give subscription
Where watched: at home, while removing the unlikable yellow and putting on the very likable spring green.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2006/nativity_story.html

McMenamins Edgefield

And so our McMenamins Passport quest continues, today at Edgefield.

Our first stop:  Power Station. I’m noticing how amazingly I backlit Matt in this photo.  That was totally planned. 🙂IMG_5160

Next we walked up to the Distillery, where we found out the Distillery tour was beginning momentarily.  Score!  That means another experience stamp, which got Matt a $20.00 gift card.

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Our tour guide (who gave me a hard time for taking his picture when he had his mouth open) told us all sorts of interesting facts about the distillery process.  I learned that whisky in the US is aged in oak barrels and most of those oak barrels are then sold to Ireland or Scotland because they reuse the barrels, because the US doesn’t.  At McMenamins, they do reuse the barrels, but not for whisky.  The law requires whisky to be aged in fresh barrels.  Instead they use them to age rum and then on down the list until eventually they become planters.

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I also learned that McMenamins whisky demand is high enough that it’s one brewer’s job to make enough beer wash to make McMenamins whisky.  Below is a picture of the second still.  It can make a lot more whisky than the first one, which was in the photo above.

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Look!  Whisky barrels reused!

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We forgot to take some pictures outside of a few locations, so here we pick up at Jerry’s Ice House, which had some great tucked-away tables hidden inside.

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My favorite sign of spring was coming into bloom.

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The winery tasting room.

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And then we had to find the artwork in the hotel that matched this description.

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Check!

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Current prizes:

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I went for the opener.  Matt went for the chocolate drops in the decorative tin.

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The view from the front porch.  I still have the plan to vacation here, hike in the Columbia River Gorge during the morning, soak in the soaking pools every day, hang out on the porch all afternoon and eat a good dinner every night.IMG_5181

Front porch self-portrait.IMG_5183

A failed attempt to look stern and grumpy.IMG_5184

Guess which house is on the cover of the Spring Proud Ground Newsletter!

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Did you guess that the Orange Door was on the front cover?  Yes?  You are right!  And guess who took the picture?  Did you guess me?  Right again!

Ah, Proud Ground.  Thanks to you, I can say I have photo credits. My photos show up regularly in your publications.

I’m a one percenter!

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On December 6, 2007, I joined Goodreads.  I’m not sure on which day I posted my first review, (of Tom Perrotta’s The Wishbones) but since that time I’ve written 1067 reviews.  And that’s actually writing reviews, not just doling out stars and continuing on my merry way.

Would you like to see a graph of all my books on Goodreads by publication date?  I thought you would.  Can you guess what all those dots down around 1600 are?Capture

Did you guess Shakespeare?  You are correct!  The three in the 1800s are Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.  And that diagonal cluster of mid-twentieth century books on the right are the Betsy-Tacy series.

Isn’t data fun?

If you would like to be my friend on Goodreads, search my name.  You’ll find me.

Three sentence movie reviews: Plush

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I’ve been watching enough women directors that I can differentiate their styles and Hardwicke is the rock star director*  So it’s good that she directed this tale of a rock star who has lost her way and is working her way back.  It was creepy and disturbing in a way that I did not at all enjoy,** but think it was well done overall.

Cost: free due to gift subscription
Where watched: at home

*I think she herself doesn’t have a tremendously rock star persona, but man, her films are balls-to-the-wall in that excessive way of the rock era with the huge caravans with the masseuses and the scores of backup singers and gaggles of groupies, not to mention picking out all the brown M&Ms and drinking Jack for breakfast.
**Physiological thrillers are not my deal.  It didn’t help that the DVD synopsis was so vague I had no idea it was a psychological thriller.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2013/plush.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Barton Fink

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Thanks to the Next Picture Show Podcast, I finally took in this movie.  And I loved it, from the incredibly awesome hotel hallway to the performances, especially by John Goodman.  I can already tell that there are going to be scenes from this film stuck in my head for decades.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home while painting my toenails a color of yellow that I was not at all happy with and set outside with the also previously disliked Scandalous.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1991/barton_fink_ver2.html

#52moviesbywomen

16927432Letterboxd made me do it. Okay, maybe they didn’t make me, but they gave me the idea.

Letterboxd is the Goodreads-like website where you can track your movies, post reviews, and make movie review friends.

In late January, Letterboxd called attention to the Letterboxd users who had taken up the #52moviesbywomen challenge. The challenge was to watch 52 movies either written or directed by women. So I started my list.  I figured I was already behind, but miraculously, five movies I watched in January fit the criteria.

plushI was keeping up okay getting movies from the library, but my new job made this challenge much easier.  They bought me a year gift membership to Netflix (officially DVD.com) and I filled my queue with movies directed by women and they just keep arriving.

At this writing, I’m two above my quota meaning it’s week 16 according to my calendar and I’ve watched 18 movies.

You can see my list by clicking here

Also, I just searched the hashtag on the site. It found at least 250 matches.  But let me say that I’m doing MUCH better than the people on the first page of search results, all of which are in the single digits.

Three sentence movie review: Brooklyn

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This third viewing in the theater came about because Matt hadn’t watched this yet.  Which meant I got to enjoy it all over again.  And Matt got to enjoy it for the first time.

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst, with the aforementioned Matt.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/intl/misc/2015/brooklyn_ver4.html