Michael Clayton was next, but a family member who also wanted to see it is dining elsewhere tonight, which is a story unto itself, and perhaps one day we will go into it. But to go with the chili, I dug out a movie that has been in the collection for some time. I knew it was not going to be pleasant, but figured I’d be finished with dinner before that part got started.
I was right, and I was wrong.
It is not a good dinner movie, especially the beginning, which is the birth of our hero. But I stayed till he emerged from the cave, and found the second redhead. By then I had finished my chili and salad, and came in here to watch this.
Wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe a depressing film at best, given the synopsis. But it’s a delightful surprise, bewildering at first, but very, very funny.
Back into a few more carbs since the family member still faithful to the South Beach diet is now coming apart. Dinner was spaghetti and Vietnamese spinach soup.
Let’s see. The Spanish Inquisition. Stellan Skarsgard. Javier Bardem. Natalie Portman. Natalie is tortured and raped. Some movies I’d just rather skip. But a quick glance or two told me the look of the film is riveting.
I come across this sort of thing when I’m looking for work-related info. You think I’m kidding. Actually, I was trying to find a reference to that J-Lo, Jon Voight movie that we sat through so long ago.
And people keep talking about Angelina Jolie’s ‘bump’. Now this is a real bump.
He had a disturbing resemblance to the mailman in Three Days of the Condor. If I had any doubt he was other than who said he was, this was dispelled when he scaled the telephone pole out back in record time.
Mired in January doldrums, a bug that won’t go away, an inability to get ahead on work thanks to that bug - this is the perfect kind of film to watch in the evening (after a visit to my tax person). Nothing too deep here, highly entertaining, somewhat nifty special effects, child actors who are not annoying, set in a place where I used to live (Seattle).
Dinner was the leftover beef stew from last week. The meat was more than tender, the potatoes all melty in a tomatoey broth. A big spoon, a big bowl.
The beef stew cooked for over four hours while I dealt with taxes. Don’t ask. This is the perfect movie to be entertained by after such an ordeal. While scooping up warm stew full of potatoes, carrots and beef so tender it made me glad I’m not a vegetarian.
I knew the movie would be fun, and didn’t require a lot of heavy thinking. The other choices were Bourne Ultimatum and Jindabyne, neither seemed right for a Friday night.
Just as good the second time around.
The roast duck was purchased, but the apple slices cooked with a bit of cinnamon and sugar, and peas in cream were home-cooked.
No Dark and Stormy drinks were ingested for the first time in two nights, because the family bartender was having dinner out.
Warm and homey, tender, hokey, familiar as an old friend.
The stew as pretty good too.
The film is about dreams and the stubbornness of dreamers. So much of the real world wants to destroy dreams and those who have them. Or else ridicule or otherwise discourage. Why is that?
The special effects, especially the ones involving Iorek Byrnison are truly remarkable, and I was worried for the young children all around during the fight scenes. The little one next to us breathed a huge sigh of relief after Lyra escaped from certain calamity, to the amusement of those all around.
For those familiar with the book, necessary deletions and combinations of events might be confusing, but it’s a film to be caught up in immediately, and it never lets up.
If you ignore the religious quibbles, and just go because it’s the holidays, when we could all use a little fantasy, then it’s sheer fun. If you’re feeling that it should totally be faithful in every way to the book, you’ll emerge grumpy and humbuggy. But you’ll still like Iorek and Lyra.
Family members have insisted over the years that I must see this or that on the big screen. I much prefer the comforts of home, but for this movie, I’ll be at the theater, squirming with excitement. I may have to go two or three times. Perhaps I’ll read the book again for the third time.
One of the libraries I frequent had The Golden Compass in the children’s section, and The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass in the young adults. After reading the trilogy, I went back to the children’s section, and looked for the Sally Lockhart series. Alas, the library only had The Ruby in the Smoke, The Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well. But I found Count Karlstein. Loved them all.
I spent a lot of time in the kids’ library, what with Harry Potter and all. It was there that I found the film Spirited Away. And of course, the secret of that room was very simple: hardly anyone was at the computers in the evening, as opposed to the packs in the main rooms.
Billed as the French ‘Top Gun’, we had high expectations. While the jet sequences were wondrous, I would rather have sat through 90 minutes of the titles alone. Now those were exceedingly well done.
A very simple meal of shrimp sauteed in their shells, greens and rice. But coconut cream pie for dessert.
The boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese (Blue’s Clues version) brought back from the boys’ college apartment needed to be used up. Using a trick from one of Jane and Michael Stern’s books (I think), I used two boxes but three cheese packets. The proper proportions were two packets to each box of macaroni, but I didn’t push it. I added half a stick of butter.
The salmon was served with garlic butter and fresh dill (which is also very photogenic, but tends to turn brown before I get it photographed).
Loved the movie the second time around just as much.
About 2/3 of the way in, I started saying this was another movie that was never going to end, but it was meant in a positive way. We didn’t want it to stop till there was proper closure. One of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen this year, going to watch it again in a day or so.
Dinner was pulled pork (homecooked for 4+ hours in a
slow oven) on white. I really should cook a veggie sometimes, but thought the bag of salad would be okay. It turned out to be brown from a long stint in the crisper. No, I wasn’t that desperate.
After a session at the dentist, I was sedated and in no mood to cook. Luckily my teeth were functional, so we dined on the Colonel’s finest, and watched the movie till I fell asleep at 7:00 p.m, maybe before.
Ryan Gosling more than holds his own against Anthony Hopkins, and I’m looking forward to the conclusion this evening.
Tonight, there might be chicken pot pie, depending on how my workload goes. Not from KFC leftovers, but from a Costco chicken.
Excellent dinner, steak with chanterelles, potatoes au gratin, cantaloupe. For dessert there was coconut cream pie because there was a birthday this weekend.
I heard it was funny via a source that will be regarded in future as being somewhat unreliable. In other words, what he says about a movie must be weighed against what he doesn’t say. Which can get tricky. But the only other option was The Lives of Others, deemed not a better choice to dine by.
So I didn’t expect the heavy weaponry and elaborate bloodshed, but then it was a parody, so it should have been okay. Who seemed to have the most fun? A tossup between Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent.
The steaks, hash brown patties and broccoli were mostly eaten by the time the mayhem began.
Half a barbecued brisket sandwich (light on the filling, eaten very slowly). Much gratitude that there were no more food scenes than there were. Pondered why there hasn’t been a movie with Edward Norton and Sean Penn as brothers.
Most importantly, by the time a main character was shown in the throes of cholera (including loss of essential fluids orally), the worst of my pistachio episode had diminished.
See, I still can’t deal with that word yet.
Would I recommend this movie for a sick person? Well, no, I can think of better ones. A movie about a cholera epidemic is not going to be uplifting. But don’t go renting ‘Horseman on the Roof’ either if you’re queasy. While the disease there might not be the cholera of The Painted Veil, although it’s referred to as such, there are several scenes to cause much distress to the nauseous viewer.
It’s that good, just as funny the second time around, and clearer since I didn’t catch some stuff earlier. This time, I misted up at the end. Don’t turn it off as the credits roll, there’s more.
We spent most of the day outlet shopping, and had leftovers. But such tasty leftovers: barbecued baby backribs, duck legs with duck potatoes, potstickers from Cho’s in Palo Alto, beef stew and corn on the cob.
Because at least two family members are Bruce Campbell fans, we watched this film with varying degrees of enthusiasm a while back.
I’ve seen worse, and I’ve seen better. One could say this about many movies, but this one involves a world where Elvis is alive, but old and living in a nursing home. Perhaps for the 30th anniversary of his death, it’s worth a look. I found the copy we watched at the local library. It seems to always be available.
It has been in the queue forever since most of the family members aren’t into this sort of thing. But work has been unusually stressful, so it was time. All I knew was that it had to do with penguins, Hugh Jackman and Robin Williams were part of the voice talent, and it was probably uplifting.
If you haven’t seen it, that’s all you need to know. Oh yes, and there’s music.
The barbecued beef ribs were a bit overcooked and on the dry side since I forgot to add more sauce. I was feeling creative, so the beans came out of a can, but embellished with my famous sauce.
Last night’s leftover pasta tasted even better the second time around.
It is fortunate that a family member has already seen the movie, and could advise on appropriate times to leave the room. I got to scrape my plate, put away the leftover leftovers, go outside and feed the new goldfish in the pot pond, and get some work done while not watching scenes of brutality.
One of us had not seen the movie, two had forgotten most of it. We were all tremendously entertained.
Two kinds of pasta were on the menu: the usual with spaghetti and meat sauce, and penne with mostly fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion and butter. There was a platter of sausages and peppers. Most of dinner was eaten before things got messy onscreen.
Pan’s Labryinth was once again passed over as being unfit for dinner viewing.
Homemade burgers, no sides (give me a break, it’s been a long and tough week). ‘Deja Vu’ was going to be saved for when other family members show up, but it won out over the film pulled out of our vast vault of old movies, ‘The Horse Whisperer’, which I’ve still not seen.
If expectations are low, enjoyment is usually high, so ‘Deja Vu’ was very, very entertaining. I had to erupt with a ‘WHAT?’ when the physics part was introduced, not having been clued in to what to expect, which is also a good thing. And part of my brain kept saying ‘WHAT?’ for a large portion of the last half of the film, because one usually does not connect Denzel Washington with that sort of thing, which I won’t give away if you haven’t seen it. And definitely don’t go, ‘Now wait a minute, how. . .’, because you’ll ruin it.
The burger was oversized and fell apart. Must have happened during the chase scene with all those drums on the soundtrack. Gotta get the soundtrack.
The shrimp that I cooked this afternoon for photos was succulent and so fresh-looking . After reheating for dinner, they looked bad but tasted fine. Very enjoyable movie, first I’d seen of Will Farrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal. I wouldn’t have gotten it if one of my kids hadn’t recommend it.
Thanks, Chris. You can have my copy of ‘The Ruins’ in return.
After finishing ‘A Certain Slant of Light’ by Laura Whitcomb, I dove into ‘The Ruins’ by Scott Smith. I found the former more intriguing than the latter, but Smith’s band of luckless characters and awful villain kept me up long past my bedtime for three nights.
Perhaps I’ll just finish watching ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ this evening and avoid the stack of books on the nightstand.
It could have been a completely different movie, one that would have had Edward taking his glasses off, and paying more attention to his wife.
‘Are you going to save the world, Edward?’, she asked demurely, checking her ammo. ‘Let me help you.’ Little did Edward know he was also married to Lara Croft as well, who would have livened up those tired Skull and Bones dinners a bit.
And the kid. He would have turned out differently too, if only they’d given Angelina a chance.
Shrimp patties, mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas. Thank goodness they were eaten before the torture scene, which I managed to skip almost in its entirety.
In the last six months, I’ve seen more movie torture than in many years past. It seems that my definition of ‘torture’ may differ from other family members’. Any scene involving a whip and bloody lash marks qualifies for me. Normally I don’t have a plate of food in hand if beatings are expected. But I knew little of this movie. A few minutes in, I started remembering, but apparently I only saw less than half once upon a time.
Braised pork with potatoes and other veggies make a fine dinner, even the leftovers. There are several scenes where even the most wondrous food has to be put aside. But such a gorgeously filmed movie otherwise.
I should pay more attention when one of my kids tells me a movie is ’strange’. There I sat with my Wendy’s steak sandwich and fries (all I managed to do with the planned dinner was brown the pork roast pieces).
If you haven’t seen it, this is not a movie to dine by, at least the first few minutes. I only watched about half because I have to work tonight. But I’ll get back to it, fascinating stuff.
Watching a movie with eyes still semi-dilated can be taxing. The opthalmologist assured me my corneas are fine despite the shingles, but that could change. She launched into a description of a retinal tear (which thankfully I don’t have) that made me wonder if she thought I needed more fearsome images of calamitous conditions.
I needed the movie to erase the pretty pictures from the handout given by the dermatologist yesterday. Some unfortunate souls have much worse cases of shingles, and there are many photos to prove it.
The movie was diverting, Brandon was handsome, the cape should have gotten an award, and the leftover beef stew was perfect. What I really want is a large piece of chocolate cream pie with a big dollop of whipped cream on top.
I don’t think I had beef stew three nights in a row, although this perpetual fog of a cold can’t be trusted. Fri. night must have been chowder night. Every night has been good for chowder or stew, doesn’t matter, it’s still raining.
GoldenEye. So long ago. So many things forgotten. Back when Pierce Brosnan was new to the role.
I’ve stopped trying to eat supper while watching the wonderful BBC series ‘MI-5′. Unrelenting suspense resulted in tension headaches two nights in a row, plus the cast interviews gave away another killing off of a key character.
So it was that I sat down to a warming bowl of rib stew and a bunch of hybrid pirate/sea creatures. Long movie. I’d truly forgotten almost everything about the first one except the zombies.
Since I generally work through breakfast and lunch, dinner means it’s time to shift the mind to idle. After a while, I was somewhat amused by the premise of a wind-up kraken. Then I wondered how different ‘The Matrix’ would have been if the Oracle had been played by Naomie Harris. Were Johnny Depp’s kids frightened by his Tortuga many-eyed makeup if he allowed them to watch this? Mostly I kept saying, ‘Is this an extra-long movie?’
For those who remember the old Mac game, a good use of Silas would be as the whip henchman. In place of the original guy, there Silas would stand, flogger in hand. After Prince Duncan got his punishment (cue the sound effects - was it tuh - AAAH?), then Silas would grimace, focus and by golly, he would flog himself. Grab some elixir, and get the hell out of there.
For the curious: no, I’m not weird like that. I am just ticked that The Da Vinci Code was such a relentlessly bad film.
I had the misfortune to try to eat dinner during The Da Vinci Code. Each time Paul raised the flogging device, I put down my plate of braised pork and veggies (as did other family members).
If you braise pork belly just right, which I manage to do from time to time, it takes on a melting texture that is quite fine. I resented that I had to put down my plate so many times.
Days later, I am still resentful. So, if there were a Silas action figure, I could push a button, there would be a meaningful pause as he prepares himself mentally for the pain, then would come the flog. The beads of blood would appear.
My plan to lose ten pounds would take on a new dimension.
Having a large baked ham in the fridge means a series of easy meals. Unlike other things I’ve watched recently, Wordplay has no gruesome, stomach-churning scenes like those in Wire in the Blood, for example.
After steaming some broccoli, making the garlic bread and a little ham gravy, I settled down to a movie I had no expectations about. The conclusion was enormously tense, not Hoosiers-tense, but spellbinding.
The excuse was a good one: nasty cold, need something entertaining, not choosy at all. The food: leftover chicken pot pie from Costco (not bad). Result?
Surprisingly good despite some confusion. The dog part was a little strange. I would have cried at the end, except I think I’m dehydrated from all the nose blowing.
One should not try to eat fish during this film, and if eating something, make it pizza, which figures in the plot.
A family member carefully deboned our striped bass, which went well with the cucumber/tomato salad and fresh peaches with mascarpone. However, this is a fork-in-mid-air kind of movie, one it is not wise to look away from. I think I need to see it again.
At the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar, a customer can ask a staff member to dress up as someone he would like to beat up. Then he can do so. It’s all part of the plan.
Glassware can be destroyed, and yelling is also permitted. Spraying the aquarium with real bullets is frowned upon, however.
That last was not part of the story, but it was such a memorable scene in F/X.
This has been on my list of must-sees for some time, mostly because the soundtrack is excellent driving and working music. Because butt doubles have been brought up recently, George Clooney’s bare rear was the subject of much discussion, even after we finished and went out for ice cream.
I had been given a hint of what the movie was about, so I was on guard. It was still entertaining, but then I’m not real choosy on a Sat. night when there’s homemade pizza that’s much better than bought.
And you happen to be a big name star getting ready to bare onscreen, you can pick a prettier one from a picture book of butt photos, as did Owen Wilson. Or if you’re Keira Knightly, you choose from live bottoms.
Monday night it must have been 95° in the living room. Dinner was steak, salad and baked potato, which meant the oven had been on for at least an hour. It was not a good time to watch Cache, but it had been sitting around for a while. Once started, it was impossible to look away, even at the very last, when the viewer is left waiting for an answer.
Two of the most vivid eating scenes in recent memory occur in this delirious film. One involves the hero, the other pits the heroines against an abundance of frogs. Neither scene is conducive to viewer dining.
Not the most optimally balanced meal - hot dogs with sauerkraut, zucchini with mushrooms and corn on the cob. Triplets is the most fun I’ve had with a movie this year.
Lemon chicken and spinach soup. Brokeback Mountain was the first Heath Ledger movie I’d seen, wanted to see how he was in a different setting. Since I didn’t expect much, it was a surprisingly entertaining film.
There was the bag of lemons that had turned a dark, forbidding green. Spinach and scallions that were just this side of completely dissolved. Old, squishy apples. Liquid lettuce. In my rush to get them out fast, I moved the wastebasket right next to the crisper and started flipping stuff out.
Of course my zeal backfired and I got a frontal splash of brown goo. Not quite the mess that Clive Owen got in Greenfingers when he plunged a toilet too enthusiastically. Nor was it the ungodly consistency of the measles medicine Nanny McPhee doled out. But still.
Whenever I get what is perceived around here as a ‘child’s movie’, there are groans and exasperated sighs. I had heard it was an excellent movie, but knew very little other than that Emma Thompson had a prominent nose and various facial afflictions aimed at striking dread in the hearts of bratty kids.
I’d also forgotten that Colin Firth was the father. In My Life So Far, he had a large brood as well, but a bit more help. Angela Lansbury’s remarkable makeup would have sufficed by itself, but when she became animated, it was amazing to watch. And Derek Jacobi in a minor role. The baby, great editing.
Dinner was not memorable, but filling - sausages and corn on the cob.
Too hot to cook tonight so grilled cheese and fruit salad had to do. Helen Mirren is always fun to watch and Clive Owen up to his elbows in gardening was fetching as well.
Roast chicken, baked potato (first in many months thanks to low carbs), and fruit salad. The movie? I’d watch Maggie Smith and Judi Dench read the back of cereal boxes, and find it wonderfully entertaining. Toss in a young man who washes up half dead on their beach, and that’s a nifty evening.
Naomi Watts gets to eat a restaurant meal heartily while Jack Black tries to persuade her to star in his movie. Later, there are scenes of eating, but they are not of humans eating restaurant meals.
Chicken salad. Luckily I finished before all the action started. I knew very little about the movie, did not see the original. Heard that some people didn’t like it.
Easily the most movie fun I’ve had all year, maybe even in two years. Gaspingly good special effects. My only regret is that I didn’t have a giant tub of hot buttered popcorn. But then, still watching the carbs.
A remake I can understand, but will George be donning a kimono? Will he take on the role of Kikuchiyo, played by Mifune in Kurosawa’s film? Will there be a golden moment when he introduces himself, which we’ll compare with Pete Postlewait’s Kobayashi?