Day: January 1, 2019

3SMReviews: The Gleaners and I

3SMReviews: The Gleaners and I

The Gleaners and I was my first Agnes Varda film and I suspect it won’t be my last, even though I don’t watch documentaries all that often. Varda examines gleaners–from those groups of women depicted in paintings, to the individuals who glean today in the fields, or on the city streets.* Varda sometimes wanders a little far afield from her topic, but her delight at all things made for a good movie and the information about produce wasted provides much to think about.**

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting Madness 2019

*Given what they glean we might call them by more judgmental names.
**Yes I did just stop myself from typing “food for thought.”

Poster clipped from: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/les-glaneurs-et-la-glaneuse#pid=7038

Dishcloth: Pansy Patch

I haven’t been a very active knitter of late. I worked on this on Thanksgiving, when I figured out how to increase after knitting the fourth row, and then I did nothing until around Christmas time when I started up again.

I finished this dishcloth and laughed when I set it out to photograph it. I forgot to do the end border, which in this picture is missing from the top of the dishcloth.

And that’s what I like about knitting dishcloths. It’s a very low bar. If I give this to someone who likes knit dishcloths, they will be thrilled and not spend much time analyzing the flaws.

The dishcloths in the book I am working out of are winder than I would prefer. At their current width I should use more than one skein to make them square. But that would be a huge dishcloth, so they end up rectangular instead of square. Perhaps after I finish knitting all of them I will see if I can figure out how to make them not as wide, without destroying the pattern.

3SMReviews: Minority Report

3SMReviews: Minority Report

In Minority Report, Steven Spielberg spins a tale of a future world where three “pre-cogs” (special humans) can predict crimes before they happen. This is a visually stimulating movie, and while it is too long, it did go in some directions I did not expect, which is a nice gift when one is watching a movie out of obligation. Tom Cruise does his Tom Cruise thing,* Tim Blake Nelson completely overplays his scenes, but there is a really great scene with Lois Smith that may have made the whole movie worth watching.

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting Madness Best of the 2000s.

*I think this movie marks the point where I started activly avoiding movies with Mr.Cruise in them.