Having never seen this holiday classic, we filled the traditional Movie-on-Christmas-Eve-Afternoon slot with Will Ferrell as-human-raised-as-elf. The theater was sprinkled with families, so I was clued into the parts that kids found hilarious, and did a lot of laughing of my own. It was a good way to spend the penultimate day of the Christmas season.
Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Kennedy School
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2003/elf.html
A repeat viewing, partially to loop the boyfriend in, and partially because I can’t get enough of Lucas Hedges, post-Lady Bird. This held up nicely on second viewing, remaining as sad and tragic as it was the first time. I’m happy to report that the sometimes overwhelming soundtrack I experienced in the theater had been pulled back to a reasonable level on the DVD.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, with Matt.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/manchester_by_the_sea_ver4.html
(My hatred of this poster remains the same. Michelle William’s total screen time? Like five minues, max. And who got a best supporting actor nomination for this? That’s right Lucas Hedges. At least put him on the poster. Also, this scene? They were standing by a wall.)
Year two of two I’ve fallen asleep during a Star Wars movie.* However, I enjoyed the parts I was awake for (I missed the First Law of the Jedi, or something like that?) I thought were very well done, especially since the plot divided our main characters for most of the film. There were some good fight scenes,** the final battle was stunning, and in this “me too” era, it was incredibly empowering to see so many women driving the plot arc of the Star Wars universe.
Cost: Matt paid for us both, because he was tired of my kibbitzing about movie prices and just wanted to see the film. His total price: $19.90
Where watched: Regal Lloyd Center. We attempted the Baghdad, but it was sold out. I was angling for our usual Regal Vancouver City Center, which is cheaper on Sundays. This was the theater in between the two, geographically, with a convenient showtime.
*To be fair, the hours of 1:00-3:00 PM are not the best for me in terms of: alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.
**This coming from a person who isn’t enamored with fight scenes
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/star_wars_the_last_jedi.html
While I had a poor quality print with random classical music songs* (beginning with the graduation earworm “Pomp & Circumstance”) the actual story overcame these handicaps. Buster Keaton’s antics were fun to watch (and exhausting when thinking about filming them.) For a movie that is over 80 years old, this holds up nicely.**
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home
*Because this is a famous movie filmed in Oregon, it’s not unusual for it to play at one of our many theaters. I’d like to see it again, with a sensible score and a crowd to help fuel the laughter.
**Aside from the fact that if you sympathize with Keaton’s plight you are rooting for the Confederacy, which depending on which side of “heritage not hate” you fall on, might or might not be a minus.
This is also a movie on my scratch off poster. I get to scratch this one, and two I’ve already seen. Here they are:
words
words
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1926/general.html
Do you want to scratch your movie poster itch? Get the scratch off poster here.
This was a re-watch so the MAunts could see it. I think the Aunts portion of the MAunts, was not overly blown away, but the Mother part of the MAunts enjoyed it. On this re-watch, I enjoyed how much the actors seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Cost: $1.50 from Redbox
Where watched: at home, with Matt, the MAunts & Kelly (who looked at her Facebook feed through part of the movie, so count her in the Not Impressed category.)
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/logan_lucky_ver3.html
I can see all the early-90s comedy things going on here, meaning this film’s comedy is over-exaggerated. It’s a nice time capsule back to Target-in-the-90s, which doesn’t look that different than Target in 2017.* Frank Whaley gives it his all, but this was, alas, not a star making turn for him, though it was a solid resume builder for Jennifer Connelly.**
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, catching up with a John Hughes film I had missed.***
*Though I am not a regular patron of Target, so perhaps there are nuances?
**It’s also one of those movies where the female motivation (specifically, her relationship to Whaley) doesn’t really make a ton of sense, but is, instead, a plot device.
***Sadly, John Hughes in the 90s is a like Cameron Crowe after Almost Famous: not nearly as satisfying as before.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1991/career_opportunities.html
It was a big YA month this month. As YA is my favorite, it was a good month.
Picture Books: Questions Asked
Young Adult: Moxie (though this was quite a strong month)
Young Nonfiction: Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library
Adult Fiction: Station Eleven
Questions Asked
Gaarder/Duezakin
Read for Librarian Book Group
On the one hand, a book made up of questions asked. On the other hand, alert readers will notice the other half of the story played out through the illustrations.
I enjoy seeing the differences in publication for children across different cultures. This is a prime example of a quality story that would NOT be first published in the US.
Piecing Me Together
Renee Watson
Read for Family Book Group
Some great discussion came from reading this book. The kids especially enjoyed the Portland connections.
Turtles All the Way Down
John Green
This is a book about a girl with OCD. In my opinion, that is the point of this story existing. I have a feeling “book about a girl with OCD” was deemed not big enough to sell, so there’s talk of a plot of missing billionaire and a tuatara. And there’s a romance. And all of those things are in this book, but mostly, it’s a story about a girl with OCD.
As a book about a girl with OCD, this book delivers. It’s very clear how this mental illness affects every aspect of Aza’s life, and that along makes for a gripping story. The missing billionare is a side dish, as is the tuatara. Come for Aza’s story and you will be satisfied.
Turtles All the Way Down
John Green
Having no other books to read (there was a lull in my holds, and I forgot to pick out some other books to read) I re-read this right after finishing it. This time my reading was more leisurely, and I really enjoyed the descriptive writing.
There’s a thing about John Green books that I can’t mention here, because it’s a spoiler. But I really appreciate that aspect of his storytelling.
Long Way Down
Jason Reynolds
Read for Mock Printz
A fatal shooting, an elevator ride, a story told in poems.
Landscape with Invisible Hand
M.T. Anderson
Read for Mock Printz
What happens when the aliens arrive and colonize the earth? For most humans, it’s not so great. There aren’t jobs anymore, because the technology the aliens bring can run everything. Despite this, the view persists that if you just have the right can-do attitude you can be successful. Adam’s mother is forever optimistic that the next job application is going to work out, despite evidence to the contrary.
Adam is an artist, and when a family moves into their basement, he and the girl start to liking each other, eventually licensing their romance for alien viewers.
A slim volume, this is slightly heavy handed in its worry about technology-taking jobs and what will become of the people. However, I did appreciate the overall message, one that I don’t often see in YA literature.
Moxie
Jennifer Mathieu
Read for Librarian Book Group
This would make a great movie, if movies about teenage girls were of interest to the people who make the movies.
Vivian spends a lot of time at her small Texas high school ignoring the antics of the jocks, who are given to doing things like saying “make me a sandwich” during class discussion whenever a girl is trying to make a point. Though Vivian is the kind of girl to ignore rather than to confront, one day something snaps. Inspired by her mother’s Riot Grrrl past, she makes a ‘zine name Moxie and anonymously leaves it in the girls bathrooms.
The publication of Moxie doesn’t light the school on fire, not at first, but it lays the groundwork for several transformations.
This book manages to juggle so many changing relationships: family, romance, old friends, new friends, sexist school administrations. Mathieu steers the narrative with a deft hand that practically begs to be translated to the big screen.
(Random note: Book 1 of 2 this month where the romantic lead is named Seth.)
You Bring the Distant Near
Mitali Perkins
I’m a fan of generational sagas, so I was into this multi-generational story of Indian immigrants to the US.
What Girls Are Made Of
Elana K. Arnold
Read for Mock Printz/Librarian Book Group
I hurried through this because the book did a great job of creating a teenage girl who desires only to be the girlfriend of Seth. I suspect there are still a lot of girls out there who fit this description, alas. The book is graphic in all it’s descriptions, painting a bleak portrait of the particular adolescent’s life. It reminded me of the movie Palo Alto in that regard.
(Random note: book 2 of 2 this month where the romantic lead was named Seth)
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Erika Sanchez
Read for Mock Printz/Librarian Book Group
This book has a great cover and a very good title. People were curious when I was reading it at work. I thought it captured the disconnect when a parent and a teenager have different values, and the ensuing frustration.
It was, however, a book that meandered. When it’s been a week, and I’m still reading the same book, then there’s a problem with the narrative. Two-thirds of the way through, the writing style changed to reporting on Julia’s feelings, which increased my distance. This book was rich in detail, but ultimately frustrating from a story-telling perspective.
Random note: the book design had no author bio, not on the cover or in the last pages of the book itself. I like to have an author bio. It’s the second thing I read, after the first paragraph of the story. Further note: no author bio on Goodreads, either. Even further note: I see that Sanchez’s earlier book is a poetry collection. That makes the narrative ramble of this book even more disappointing.
Schomburg: The Man who Built a Library
Weatherford/Velasquez
Read for Librarian Book Group
Mind blown. Whitewashing of famous dead people? It happens. I recommend this book just for that aspect. You can also stick around for the story of a guy who made sure to preserve writing that might otherwise have been lost.
Sadly, the font used in this book is almost unreadable.
A Boy, A Mouse, A Spider
Herkert/Castillo
Read for Librarian Book Group
A good distillation of E.B. White’s life.
Maya Lin: Thinking With Her Hands
S. Goldman Rubin
Read for Librarian Book Group
Though I knew Maya Lin was an undergraduate at Yale when she designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, I’d never seen a picture of her, and, my goodness, she looks young in those photos.
I appreciated this book for the overview of Lin’s life. I live near one of the Confluence sites, so was familiar with that project, and the Wall, but this book filled me in on her other works and early life. I would love to see the Wave Field, either in Michigan or New York someday.
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mendel
When most of the world’s population is decimated by a virulent flu, the survivors carry on. The book begins at the flu’s outset, at a production of King Lear in Toronto where the famous actor playing Lear dies on stage during the performance. It then traces the experience of characters introduced during that scene.
The book jumps back and forth in time, filling in gaps about the dead actor and the people he knew. Most of the book focuses on Year 20, when things have calmed down a little and life is slightly less nasty, brutish and short. We see how life has changed by following the Traveling Symphony–a theater troupe who performs Shakespeare and gives concerts.
People’s connections, known and unknown, tie the story together. While this new life is far from the modern comforts of today, relationships endure.
This movie does a couple of thing very well. For one, it’s very gripping, what with all the things going on.* Also, every time I thought I had a good bead on them, each of the character would take a small turn, making for the most well-rounded characters I’ve seen in film this year.**
Cost: $9.00 (I know! I was invited, though, and I don’t mind throwing $$ to this particular theater.)
Where watched: at the Hollywood Theater with Kelly.
*It would make a nice study in upping the dramatic tension.
**For a very funny film, I did also walk out of the theater with a very dark feeling in the pit of my stomach. I think Martin McDonagh excels at tapping into something icky about the human condition.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/three_billboards_outside_ebbing_missouri.html
This movie purports to be a remake of the play the Reluctant Debutante, rather than a remake of the 1958 movie, and I can see why. Very little remains of the 1958 plot. This was clearly developed as a vehicle for Amanda Bynes and she does her Amanda Bynes best, as does Colin Firth,* but nothing is going to save this mediocre movie.**
Cost: $2.99 (I could have watched it for free on some site called bmovies, but I feel less okay about finding free versions of movies from this century.
Where watched: on my computer.***
*Apparently, there was a time in Hollywood when Amanda Bynes got top credit and Colin Firth wasn’t even mentioned on the poster.
**I do always appreciate a sighting of Anna Chancellor, whom I first encountered in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
***This will probably be the last movie watched on my desktop computer. I bought us a brand new TV the next morning on Black Friday.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2003/what_a_girl_wants.html
Set your mindset to 1958 to enjoy this delightfully funny film.* Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall show off their physical comedy skills, and Sandra Dee is perfect as the slightly bored American being put through the debutante wringer.** Aside from having a great selection of 1958 fashion to take in,*** it also clips right along, avoiding any of that “old movie” slack.
Cost: free, because I wasn’t going to pay to watch a movie from 1958. I googled “Reluctant Debutant free” and used one of the services.
Where watched: at home, on my computer.
*Because if you don’t do this, you won’t enjoy it, given the 17-year-old girl paired with a 23 year-old-man. There’s also several instances where a girl being wrestled into a kiss is played off as a minor irritant/no big deal.
**If a trivia note in IMDB is to be believed, she was 14 when this movie was filmed.
***I first encountered this movie at quite the impressionable age, maybe 12 or 13? The scene is set early on with a title card saying simply: London: The Season. I can remember quite clearly thinking with awe, “What is The Season?” I could tell from the title card it was a Big Deal. From that point on, I would intermittently wonder what my life would be like if I had a big debut when I was 17. (Which, given that I was an American middle class teenager, was never going to happen, even if I suddenly was transformed to a British citizen, but I didn’t know that.)
poster from: http://www.blu-ray.com/The-Reluctant-Debutante/386402/
