From my commute.

I’m still waiting for my Poetry Post to appear in front of my house. In the meantime, I enjoy other people’s posts.  I particularly like the style of this one, and the nice bird perched on the edge.  If you would like the full text of the poem, without glare, go here.  This particular post is outside TaborSpace, which is my favorite multi-use space/Presbyterian Church in Portland.

On the way home, my heart sang at the sight of this overly spotty young man being dwarfed by this balloon, clicking through his Rubik’s cube. Just when I’m getting resentful of the time it takes to commute via bus, the universe presents me with something like this and I’m in love with the world again.

Three sentence movie review: The Art of Getting By

Probably the best thing I could say about this movie is that the actors all said their lines very well.  I could say plenty of things that are not at all nice, but I shall not traipse in that direction.  Points for the mom not falling into a domestic violence victim role and choosing instead to protect her son, but sadly, this one redeeming quality does not make any of this movie worth the watch.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home (Spring Break double feature!)

Interestingly, this movie is called “Homework” in all but the movie poster title. See how it says Homework_ver3?  When I searched “The Art of Getting By” it gave me a movie titled “Homework.”  Which was the same movie.  
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/homework_ver3.html

Three sentence movie reviews: What’s Up, Doc?

As the poster tells us, this is Bogdanovich’s attempt to bring back the screwball comedy, which, given that I can’t think of any other screwball comedies made in the 1970s, apparently did not start a huge trend.  I found both Streisand and O’Neal off-putting in their roles at first, but they grew on my and the great chase scene at the end won me over.  This is also one of those rare family friendly films, plus Madeline Kahn is fantastic and very much worth watching.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

A Ruby Oliver Film Festival choice.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1972/whats_up_doc.html

Dennis Lehane at Powell’s Cedar Hills Crossing

Thanks to Kelly, we rambled out to Cedar Hills Crossing to see Mr. Lehane, author of the Kenzie/Gennaro P.I. murder mysteries, Mystic River, Shutter Island, The Given Day and its two sequels.  I took several photos of Mr. Lehane, none of them great.  He’s a good storyteller, he is and while reading from the first chapter of his new book, you can see how he drew these people in.

I learned that he misses Boston terribly, (he lives in Santa Monica), he’s a Boston Celebrity (Lahane, you’re a treas-ah!), the Wire was only renewed for five seasons because HBO didn’t have anything else, and no, he still hasn’t found his dog.  I hope Portland showed him an okay St. Patrick’s Day.

Coming home the Rose Garden was lit up for the holiday.

Three sentence movie reviews: Austenland

Overall, this isn’t the best romantic comedy, but it scores points for originality (Live in the world of Jane Austen!) and for being funny throughout (Jennifer Coolege’s inexpertly applied Cockney accent and random British phrases never got old).  It also wins points for having Brett McKensie as a plausible romantic lead (hurrah the small, skinny, hairy guys) and for fooling me in its plotting.  So all in all, it was a good way to spend two hours.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

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

On their way to Italian Style?

Heidi and I were on our way to the Portland Art Museum’s Italian Style show.  We stopped at the Picnic House for a bite to eat first.

There was an entire table of ladies in fancy dresses and hats and I wondered if they were headed to the same exhibit we were. 

The Italian Style exhibit was quite nice and I loved looking at all the detail of the clothing.  I only wish they had postcards of the items at the end, so I could send a few to my regular postcard friends.  But alas, no!