(13 movies watched)
Third time, still good
Issues of race and sumptuous costumes
Classic for a reason
Rainy hope
The end
Stark and meditative, until that one part.
Much to my surprise, it actually worked.
The poster doesn’t lie
And neither does this one.
What a great movie month!
It’s been a week of Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! taking care of the floors and I can say that it has never been so clean under my bed. Under the couch is probably looking good too.
Rudy takes a long time to do his job. He’s supposed to run for an hour and then return home, but most days he runs for an hour, I get a notification he’s done and then he runs for another 45-60 minutes. I don’t love this.
I have to do about 5-10 minutes of prep work for Rudy. Here you see the most extreme version. He tends to get caught on the Ikea chair, though–report from the future–in about another week I will realize I can prop the back legs of the chair up on 1-cup mason jars and he will be fine.
Reading all the reviews on Amazon, I was worried he wouldn’t clean this carpet. The sensor that keeps him from falling down stairs might have interpreted this as a void, but he is not deterred.
Antares mostly still hides while Rudy is doing his cleaning, but Sentinel will sometimes keep an eye on the vacuuming process.
And Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! still spends a goodly amount of time trying to figure out how to get out from under chairs.
While I am not completely in love with the robot vacuum cleaner itself, I do like the clean floors. Perhaps my affection will grow.
I knew from the trailer this was going to be a movie I would love as it included striking colors, an engaging main character, and a moment that made me laugh out loud. The movie delivered, with a gentle humor that kept going throughout.* The physical comedy** was a treat, as was Fiona Gordon’s French accent that was so bad even I winced, and I look forward to other movies by Abel & Gordon.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home
*In the DVD extras, Abel & Gordon comment on how much of modern humor is sarcastic and mean, and that they work to avoid that in their comedy.
**The DVD extras also include a primer on the type of comedy Abel & Gordon do, which is called Burlesque. This is not what we in America think of Burlesque, but a comedy tradition with a long history in France.
I include the trailer so you can see if it’s a movie you would love:
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/paris_pieds_nus_ver2.html
In two hours, we got some good work done on our backyard. Here you can see Matt smoothing out dirt we’ve moved to bring the grade up. We put strings on our stakes and made things level. Also, this is the widest part of the yard we have to grade, so that means that the work from here on out will go even more quickly.
I couldn’t bear to kill off the asparagus that has performed so well for me for so many years. So my job was digging up the old crowns and putting them in the trench I dug to plant the new crowns.
The old crowns are huge, especially in comparison to the spindly new crowns.
Here you can see one of the new stalks poking its head above the ground.
Once again the rain part of the day started after we finished our work. Good job, weather.
Friends Mark & Amanda live at the end of the Avenue of Roses Parade route and host a party. I love a good parade, especially a good small parade, so I went. Here are some highlights.
While 82nd Avenue does have problems with prostitution and I certainly support this group’s efforts, I kept imagining the questions posed along the parade route, “Mommy, why don’t real men buy sex?”
Who doesn’t love a good scary dragon?
I was intrigued by these characters, and unfortunately, missed capturing the group’s name.
Gotta love returned Peace Corps volunteers.
I also loved this cool holder for the saint carried by this Catholic church. It allowed for smooth carrying and left room for waving.
These puffy air-filled dinosaurs were delightful. I’d never seen puffy characters before.
Some cool parade goers make some noise and wave the flag.
It became apparent that the classic cars were turning right off of 82nd, and we were to the left, so we missed them, but we did get to see a lot of the parade. Thanks to Mark & Amanda for hosting.
“Bill Murry” Matt Nathanson
This is another from KINK Sunday Brunch. Which, now that we’ve started working in the yard on the backyard project, I don’t get to listen to.
This is the kind of song I really love. Weird theme, the kind that makes me look up from my cooking and wonder what in the hell I’m listening to. I think I made Google tell me. There’s a Portland reference. The video is also wacky.
The chorus is a good one: I won’t only love you when you’re winning/Other fools pretend to understand/Come on take my hand, we’ll go down swinging/Let me be your man, let me be your man.
YouTube and Wikipedia also inform me that this artist also covered James’s “Laid” for the American Pie movies. He’s aged a little since that song was recorded. And haven’t we all?
My second song was the song from the end of Outside In. I liked it. The Internet is not telling me who sang it.
We met at the 45th Parallel for Heidi’s 40th Birthday. There was wine. It was delicious.
So delicious that I didn’t notice how out-of-focus the picture was when I took the picture of Heidi and all the party-goers wearing plaid.
Five people wearing plaid. Portlanders know how to get fancy.
First of all, this is one of those movies where the male main character is insufferable through most of the film,* however, it should not stop you from watching, because this movie is brilliant. The acting**/plot/setting/everything is great and you will do best if you follow the advice on the poster, written before they had the handy word, “spoiler”: “It’s climaxed by the 10 breath-stopping minutes you’ve ever lived! Don’t reveal the ending–please!”
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home
*I will throw him a small bone in that medical practices in the 1950s infantilized the patient in a way I would have found insufferable.
**Una O’Connor as the housekeeper! Marlene Dietrich as the wife! Tyrone Power as the husband and murder suspect! Even Elsa Lanchester as the insufferable Nurse Plimsoll was great.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1957/witness_for_the_prosecution.html
I’ve always liked this stamp, and also this postcard of this stamp. Sara reports that there is a lot going on as she creeps ever closer to the end of the semester. She also used a Mister Rogers stamp for postage, which isn’t even a postcard stamp! They had just gotten them and she couldn’t resist. I loved it, so it was well spent.
Maureen sent me this great map postcard of the Orange State. She and her son went there “NOT during Spring Break” she says in an aside, to meet up with her Mom and her sister’s family. Not only was it sunny (it was not sunny here) but they also got to hold a baby alligator.
Once again, two postcards in one day. Where do they hang out together before making their way to my mailbox? Maybe I should post a reward for evidence?
I wouldn’t have guessed that my reaction to the close of this movie was going to be an astonished, “What the hell?” as I was expecting this to be a bloated, overly long movie experience with too many stars and too much story. Instead, I watched a movie that deftly bounced between different players, places and campaigns, picking up stories seeded over the course of 10 years. Even the integration of the Guardians of the Galaxy–something I initially thought was going to be a schlocky spin-off tie in–was brilliant.
Cost: $6.00
Where watched: St. Johns Twin Cinema with Matt. (We were first in line for Friday’s show!)
