Three sentence movie reviews–Harry Potter and the Book 6


I’m not a huge fan of these movies, though I think they do the best they can to bring the books to the screen. This one was “fine,” although I don’t understand why they eliminated the huge battle at the end and the big death scene was wrong, wrong wrong! The young love parts were very well done, which made me happy as the contrast between adolescent yearning and the increasing drumbeat of war are what makes this my favorite book the series.

Bechdel review. Two women: nope.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince_ver19.html

Three sentence movie reviews–Last Chance Harvey


It didn’t come with the best personal review from a person I actually know: “I fell asleep during that, but I had been walking around all day, and I still want to see how it ends.” Indeed, it was a snoozer. There was so little chemistry between the main characters, Kelly and I spent the last 20 minutes listing movie couples with good chemistry.

Bechdel review. Two women: nope.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2008/last_chance_harvey.html

Mixer

I inadvertently burned out the motor of my superfabulous Kitchen Aid mixer last winter and have yet to get it repaired. I needed to make a cheesecake for a Bat Mitzvah gift and so I ended up buying a small hand mixer. It came with all sorts of things:

The usual beaters

A whisk

Some dough kneaders which I will never use.

A drink mixer, which I also will never use.

And, inexplicably, cookie cutters.

It even says right there on the label that it includes cookie cutters. Amused, I showed it to Matt who looked at the box and suggested that the cookie cutters could be used to make the decorations that were shown on the box. I guess so, but really? I was just in it for the basic mixer.

A few surprises

I had errands to run after work today. I hate running errands after work. At the end of the day, even a short three hour workday like today, I only want to quickly get myself from work to home. But this day’s errands brought some fun surprises.

I had to stop by Kaiser to pick up a prescription. On the way to the pharmacy I was waylaid by this display case. It was filled with the wood turning work of Mr. Agne Pearson.
The sign with the works explains that Mr. Pearson was born in 1922 in Sweden and brought to the US by his parents when he was an infant. He has lived in his house, where he has a wood shop, for 57 years. He likes to cut down the trees and cure them himself and then creates things.

His work was beautiful and I loved his handmade sign.
Buoyed by the beauty of unexpected art, I picked up my prescription and continued on my way. I took a winding route to my next stop, the Goodwill, and ended up crossing over my favorite pedestrian overpass in Portland.
I love how secret this overpass feels. Today though, I happened to glance up.
Locks! Many locks! They were in various stages of rust, and so many styles. This was almost as much fun as Mr. Pearson’s works.
Goodwill didn’t have what I needed, but my two surprises on the way home were good enough finds.

11 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

This was a very dark picture and I had to resort to harsh photo editing to make myself visible. At the airport, I unpacked all the alcohol I had carried home for the youth. Several of them bought alcohol as gifts for their parents and were surprised that they couldn’t bring it back to the states themselves. People who spend time with teenagers may be suspicious of this story, but I know that their parents did actually receive the alcohol because I handed it to them directly.

I waited for the last youth to be reunited with her mother and then I took a long Max ride back home. It was early or mid afternoon. How to stay awake until my bedtime? After I took this picture, I took a very long shower, grabbed that book you see on the table and got back on the Max. I took the yellow line to the streetcar and rode it all the way to the Spaghetti Factory where I had my favorite meal. This was the first meal I had eaten alone in two weeks. It was nice, but I missed the chatter. I realized on this trip that I don’t like the number of meals I eat alone.

Meal done, I reversed my commute, successfully killing several hours. I’m not sure what happened after that, but I’m guessing I started in on the photos. I didn’t manage to stay up for my normal bedtime, but I made it much longer than I would have if I had stayed home.

Coming home on a Friday was great. I had the better part of three days before returning to work and by that time most of my jet lag was gone and I had a good start on the photos and scrapbook.

So ended my trip.

10 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

On the back page of my scrapbook, I affixed this note:

Why I’m so tired:

Wednesday
9AM get on bus in Toroko
11PM get off bus in Budapest
11PM-12:30AM repack and shower and go to sleep

Thursday
3AM up and to the airport
7:10AM flight leaves Budapest (slept 1/2 hour or so)
10:20AM flight leaves Amsterdam
Watch 4 movies
Play trivia challenge
Read
(no sleep)
11:20AM arrive in Portland
Stay awake as long as possible which I’m guessing will be 7:15 or so.

Traveling is fun, but traveling to and from your destination? It can be hell. Oh beautiful ocean liners, how I mourn that I missed your era.

9 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

We left Toroko and drove to the city where King John Sigismund is buried. Sadly, my notes don’t include the name of this town, and a quick Google isn’t spitting it out either, so that town shall remain unknown. We then drove to Deva, where Francis David was martyred. (AKA, died in a cold prison cell on the top of a windy and cold hill.)

In 2005, this was a very “pilgrimage” moment of the trip. We walked up to the top of the hill silently, thinking about religious freedom. At the top, where the memorial to Francis David is, there were picnic tables, a snack bar and loud music playing. Eva got very angry and yelled at the snack bar people. They turned off the music and we had a very moving ceremony. Because of my past experience, I was looking forward to this part of the trip.

This time, instead of walking, we were going to take the brand-new funicular to the top. I would have preferred the walk, but having never had a funicular ride, I was looking forward to that. Alas, neither were to be. The entire top of the hill was closed for renovation. We didn’t even get to ride the funicular to the top. Instead we had a makeshift ceremony in the park that was not nearly as moving. Then it was back on the bus for a very long ride back to Budapest.

8 July 2008. A picture from the Hungary/Romania trip.

On our way to our final destination of Torocko we stopped briefly in Segesvar. (AKA, Sighisora & SchaBburg–with an umlaut over the “a” and an esset where the “B” is.) One of the reasons this town is currently drawing tourists is because it is the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, but we Unitarian tourists look down on that and instead went to see the mechanism of the clock in the clock tower (very cool) and to the Church on the hill which we got to by climbing the Scholars’ Stairs (scroll down to read about them.) These were covered stairs climbing straight up the hill. Eva told us that legend says if you climb up in pairs and both count the stairs, no two people will get the same number. We took off like shots, climbing and counting. Halfway up I thought, “this has a feeling of a snipe hunt” and indeed, though we did come up with different numbers, the only reason that story is told is so people will zip up the stairs without complaining. Eva said her grandmother told her the story when she was little and so she told us.

A winding and slightly nausea-inducing bus ride delivered us to Torocko, which was a village we visited overnight in 2005. Torocko has become much more tourist-y in the interim. It improved the postcard situation, which was nice, but it was strange to see all those tour buses where previously there were none. In 2005 this was the village where we walked into the sleepy town and twenty minutes later a woman appeared with ice cream to sell. Though there aren’t enough tourists for her to have a shop, yet, I think that she must be very busy now.
Toroko is beautiful, not only because of the pretty houses, but also the huge mountain that looms above it. Legend has it that this was where the Pied Piper of Hamelin brought the children after he piped them away. The evidence is that the embroidery of Torocko is very Saxon and none of the surrounding villages show the Saxon influences. I just skimmed the article on Wikipedia and indeed, one of the theories is that the children may have been stolen/recruited to settle other parts of Europe. Also that the “children” may have not been actual children, but residents of the town who moved elsewhere.