The wind has been blowing most of the day, and my eyes are itchy and feel gritty. Is it because it’s Friday after another week of PhotoShopping numerous photos and therefore, simple eyestrain, or is there stuff blowing from Santa Cruz?

Enough work for now. Tonight I get to choose between Coraline, Slumdog Millionaire and a British series, Pie in the Sky for a dinner movie. The latter seems promising for supper: the cop is also a chef.

Where The Wild Things Are, to the kids gathered for the annual Easter Egg Roll. While it wasn’t the favorite choice in our household, it got picked enough times that I could read it in my sleep, and probably did more than once. And to think those were my younger, energetic days.

In case you missed it, here’s the trailer for the upcoming movie, which looks very promising.

It was 90° at suppertime last night. No Netflix movies left. Need distraction badly. I grabbed The Bourne Identity, and we cheered at all the memorable scenes of the first 45 min. (I had to do some work in anticipation of the even hotter temps today.) The park bench cops, the climbing down the building, the intruder in the apartment. Then I got to thinking, could there be another Bourne in the works?

Apparently so. Although just when it begins shooting is still up in the air.

Family members know that I leave the room during ultra-violent movie scenes. Ditto torture. While I had read that Brosnan’s singing was not the high point of the film, I was not prepared for the depth and breadth of badness.

Having been a fan since Remington Steele days, I was willing to throw him some slack. But after enduring his first number, I did indeed leave and put up the supper dishes and leftovers, and wiped down counters, etc. during the second. Little did I know he was to be brought back again and again.

And to think that Meryl Streep gazed upon him with adoration during his singing. Such a great actress.

If you missed the movie, you can catch my drift during the first minutes of this video.

Watched the first half last night, finished up tonight. I had steeled myself for massive amounts of violence, and was pleasantly surprised.

For dinner, I took last night’s tri tip, sliced it up and briefly cooked it with potatoes, onions, carrots and cauliflower. Because I put the onions under the meat as it roasted, they had some added punch. The carrots were roasted today, and I’m afraid I ate a goodly amount of them before they could be added. Thanks, Chris, for introducing us to roasted vegetables.

Jeff Bridges will be back. Will it be as good as the original?

I know that as actors age, some move into the bad guy slots. Jeremy Irons seems to have found a home in such roles. But what intrigues me is that Lance Hendriksen is in the cast, along with Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris.

I’ve been meaning to see this, but kept putting it off, knowing it would be an emotional wringer. It had gotten excellent reviews and when I saw it at the library sale, I knew it was a keeper.

As a dinner movie, it didn’t work so well. It begins with the death of the heroine’s mother with subsequent scenes of the girl dealing with her grief. A lump in the throat makes eating a bit difficult. While the story is based on reality, the insertion of a child is a Hollywood invention, but one that works wonderfully well.

Looking at the geese closeup in flight put me in mind of Winged Migration, and I wondered if this film was a source of inspiration for its conception.

The flocks of Canada geese that regularly visit the junior high grounds are back. Now I know I’m going to head over one day and get some pictures.

Dinner? Meat loaf and cauliflower and sugarless apple pie for dessert.

The Bruce Willis/Richard Gere one. The library was having a by-the-bag sale, and I tossed it in - why not. We had to keep turning the sound down, but it seemed as if we were turning it higher. Not such a bad film, if you’re easily entertained. I skipped part of the middle, and went back for the finish. Sadly, I’m the only one in the family who likes Richard.

For dinner, I made two potato soups, one with milk, one with Rice Dream. Mine was the watery looking, Rice Dreamy tasting one. Next time I’ll have to add some stuff to enhance the flavors a bit. It was still nice to have a carby soup to go with the cold crab, which was very fresh and tasty.

How do I know? I’m sitting here going, ‘WALL-E! EVA! EVA! WALL-E!’

The next time I get sick, Wall-E goes in the player. For sure, I’ll feel lots better. When he is fully charged up with solar power, he makes the Mac startup sound. That and a thousand other touches make it a wonderful thing.

Leftover spaghetti (the whole wheat kind) and steamed broccoli. Oh yes, we are eating healthy around here.

Of course there was torture in the movie. Every film I watch lately has some, almost as essential as a soundtrack, it seems.

Dinner I took some care with. A few days ago I brined the pork chops, and then because there were other things to eat, didn’t get around to cooking them till tonight. I browned, then simmered them in a garlic broth, which I later reduced. Then I sauteed some zucchini with curry powder. Reheated some small white beans. Added sliced mushrooms to the meat pan juices. Thank goodness we ate during the first part of the movie.

Netflix should have a special notation on films like this. Something along the lines of ‘long, lingering closeups of torture with accompanying prolonged screaming’. Because they should. Would I have watched had there been such a warning? No. I left the room at the line, ‘Give them five minutes, then shoot him in the knee.’ And this wasn’t the one being tortured.

But I came back to watch the end. Most of it is very, very good.

Then there was apple pie, also very good for a sugarless pie.

Most of the older actors are gone, Redford and Hoffman are rail-thin, but the film stands the test of time very admirably.

I actually needed one of the healing movies we keep around, Red October, Sneakers, etc, so I could mumble along with the dialogue. My choice had been Jumping Jack Flash, but we weren’t sure how to reconnect the vcr. So we watch ATPM on my Mac.

Leftovers for dinner, and because I haven’t eaten much in almost a week, peach pie for dessert.

The Masterpiece Theater version with Rupert Penry-Jones as Captain Wentworth and Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot. Just perfect for New Year’s Eve, spent quietly recovering from a nasty bug. I’m getting to a very exciting episode in Battlestar Galactica, but don’t need something quite so dark.

After eating nothing but soup all day, steak and a baked potato was a no-brainer.

Having run out of Battlestar Galacticas (till season 3 arrives), I was set for an evening without scenes of torture and faces in varied states of cuts, contusions and worse.

Well. I only had to leave the room once. But highly entertaining with an intense coolness factor. Somehow, Jeff Bridges’ villain put me in mind of a stout, bald, evil Steve Jobs. Which, of course, made it that much more fun. It’s okay, Steve got his product placement in.

Dinner was meatloaf and cauliflower.

Do you find Netflix’s suggestions to be less than satisfactory? Have you quit looking at the recommendations because they fall short of the mark most of the time/all of the time? For example, if I liked Foyle’s War, I will also like Ghosts of Rwanda: Frontline. Or I will love Reservoir Dogs since I rated Raising Arizona highly.

If you can make Netflix recommendations more accurate, you could win a cool million. Quite a few programmers, computer scientists and psychologists are trying to do just that. Because the problem involves very high math skills, some tap into their offspring’s calculus abilities.

From time to time, we have breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, link sausages, eggs, sometimes fried potatoes. No potatoes this time due to work. A family member cuts up everything and mixes it all together in a disgusting mass with syrup. I can’t watch, hence the handiness of a dinner movie.

The film is a charmer. After recently seeing State of Play, it was fascinating to see two stars from that series in different roles. If The Band’s Visit dealt with awkwardness, The Girl in the Cafe is a study in different sorts of vexing situations. But wonderfully realized and acted.

Twice a year, the waste management company offers a pickup service of bulky items such as water heaters, sofas and such. When I took evening walks, I marveled at the things people considered junk. It didn’t take long before collectors heard about it. When we put out old bunk beds and some of the kids’ college apartment furniture, they were gone before morning.

The movie is a celebration of such collectors, and those who move in after the major harvest is over. Set in France, it covers the historic aspects of gleaning, features paintings in which gleaning is the subject and the range of individuals who come with their bags, baskets and bikes. The filmmaker inserts herself into the activities, sometimes in a poignant way, sometimes a bit annoyingly. But these instances serve to enrich the documentary by giving us glimpses into her attitude about aging.

A family member, skeptical of the subject, was reluctant to watch, but was mesmerized throughout. What did we eat. Hmm. Fried chicken livers, baked yams, spinach salad. Chili. Part of a sausage/potato casserole. It was leftovers night.

The leftover oxtail soup was perfect for a damp and chilly night. I haven’t seen Sigourney Weaver in anything for such a long time, and she is amazing to watch in a truly engrossing and excellent film.

It was the third appearance of the pot of rib stew, which tends to get better each day.

The young man cast opposite Joan Plowright reminded us of several other actors - Orlando Bloom, Olivier Martinez, Raoul Bova. But he is Rupert Friend, who was one of the actors considered for the James Bond role in Casino Royale.

Some critics will quibble that the movie should have been truer to the book in its setting of a 50s London, as opposed to the modern. There are still plenty of somewhat run-down hotels in many cities, and young people are constantly discovering old films to love, although Brief Encounter might not be tops on the list.

How Daniel Craig brought Bond into the 21st century, and the shortcomings of other Sean Connery successors.

I threw a bunch of garlic in the soup that was too bland, but what made it much, much better was the addition of a bit of the oil used to fry the shrimp last night. Then I sliced up the leftover shrimp, put it on toast, and melted cheese on top. Soy cheese for me, which wasn’t so bad. Then I made a blt with the sugared home-cured bacon for another family member, who inhaled everything.

Lest you think I only watch movies and eat on weekends, I paused the movie about halfway in. Because I have to work tonight.

It will break your heart for sure, but I started laughing in the first couple of minutes- it’s a very funny movie. And sad, of course.

Dinner was home-fried shrimp and vegetable soup. I didn’t salt the soup enough, left out some key ingredients, so it was underwhelming.

Steak. And because I didn’t get home till late, the carbs were a selection of Cho’s potstickers and egg rolls. The vegetables were in the egg rolls.

Lee Pace, who portrays one of the suitors, looks like the offspring resulting from an alliance between Keanu Reeves and Andy Garcia. I’m sure Amy Adams is perfect for the role of Delysia, but she began annoying me early on.

Tunafish salad with tomatoes from the garden. It was hot.

This review sums the movie up well, especially the line about the ‘zombie with hair’. Cranked up high, perfect for a summer night.

Leftover spaghetti. I left the room after what might be the cheesiest volcano eruption effects ever.

Dinner was not memorable. The rice noodles were a different brand than what I usually get, and did not survive stir-frying. They became a gelatinous mass in the wok. Luckily, there was a shrimp/potato salad from last week, roast pork and lots of Tuscan cantaloupe.

When I spotted the movie at the library last week, I thought, hmmm. Antonio Banderas dancing. Who cares how the rest of the movie is.

As it turned out, very entertaining, much more than I bargained for. As in Remember the Titans and similar films, it’s the transformation from rough to sublime that is so fascinating. Now I have to find the soundtrack.

A stack of movies from which to choose, and here’s how it went: Wild Hogs, billed as the ‘comedy event of the year’, on the box, it uses the word ‘madcap’. Nah. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, want to see it but not on a Sunday night. Unleashed, Morgan Freeman and Jet Li. Violent killing machine. Not on a Sunday night. The Kite Runner, no. Scoop, did it get any good reviews at all? Hence K/U. Good choice, very funny, very well done, good dinner movie despite a couple of morning sickness scenes.

Surely by now, you realize I don’t bother to review the movies. Others do that much better than I. However, if you have to double up some of your activities due to time constraints, I’m here to help.

I bought a package labeled ‘pangit noodles’ this morning. Never heard of them, but they looked interesting. The internets told me they were likely ‘pancit’ and easy to fix. And they were.

Watched it before the heat wave. First, it’s not a good dinner movie if you plan to start eating at the beginning, unless you don’t mind scenes dealing with the side effects of chemo.

Second, if you like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, chances are good you’ll like it even if the critics didn’t.

I don’t recall what dinner was, things have been shimmering and blurry like the view just above a car roof. Probably cantaloupe. Been eating lots of the Tuscan kind, very chilled, very excellent. It cools the entire lower half of the face for a time, and that has been a big plus.

It was 95° when I thought about dinner. The temperature in SF dropped 30° in a very short time. While the peninsula is not cooling down quite as speedily, the idea of lower temps was cause for celebration. However, I wasn’t planning on cooking much. Dinnerwise, we’ve kind of grazed lately on tunafish and lots of melon, so we did go with meat and potatoes tonight. Pork steaks, hash browns (the frozen kind) and the cucumber/tomato salad that seems to be a fixture for Saturday night.

The movie? Eh. Halfway through, we went to Dairy Queen and got a chocolate covered cone and their banana cream pie in a cup. Resumed the movie, which didn’t get a whole lot better, but Benicio Del Toro is always a treat to watch.

Tomorrow, it will be cool enough to work off part of the dessert.

The idea of climbing a wall to another world sounded like such an appealing premise. While my expectations are seldom high, I was a bit disappointed with parts of the movie, but it was not bad for dinnertime viewing. This was several days ago, I think we had leftover barbecued ribs.

A family member who read the book said it pretty much followed the book except the ending wasn’t quite the same.

I seldom have expectations when considering new movies, and therefore am often pleasantly surprised. Loved this one, an excellent dinner movie and very, very funny. And yes, that seemed like not a lot of chicken for so many people.

A baked potato is a good standby when there’s no time to stand around the stove. One of us had Polish sausage, the other had Lousiana hot links. Big salad with cherry tomatoes that taste real.

After a trying but curiously productive week, this seemed like a good choice. First time I’ve seen Carell in anything, and it was very entertaining. Polish dogs are just the thing for this kind of film, if only I’d thought to pop some corn as well.

I didn’t pay much attention to the synopsis when I rented it. A family member is a great Daniel Craig fan, and it seemed the pairing of James Bond and Nicole Kidman couldn’t be that bad.

It was. Although I left the room several times, I did stay till the end, which must mean that even when top-notch stars appear in a less-than-wonderful movie, they’re still fun to watch.

The home-fried chicken and potato salad were exceptional. And even after a working weekend, I made some fresh strawberry mascarpone tarts.

What made the weekend was the raccoon.

We picked up Chinese takeout, and found the movie highly entertaining, although critics might quibble about this and that. On a holiday weekend, we’re not too picky about our films. Within reason.

A helpful family member cautioned me about the copious weeping of Ben Kingsley. I needed to be distracted from another day in the 90s, but the promise of cooling by Sat. made it more bearable. Dinner was a ham sandwich (my garden lettuce) and watermelon.

This is most definitely not a good movie to dine to. In fact, some feel this is a movie to avoid at all costs. But it kept me from thinking about work for awhile. I stopped watching about halfway, and I am kinda sorry I saw as much as I did.

I’m a bit behind on the action movies. On a night when it was still hovering close to 90° near sunset, it was time for a diversion. The movie was all that and more. For a change, I didn’t know what to expect. Turns out I was very familiar with the Batmobile scenes, just didn’t know they were from this particular Batman.

Dinner was leftover barbecued baby back ribs and cornbread salad, which is a Southern thing.

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.

A movie I’m kinda looking forward to, being a Gosling fan from Half Nelson and Fracture.

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.

Easily the most endearing animated movie character I’ve seen all year. More than Remy by a long shot.

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.

Some scenes will be painful to watch, but I’m looking forward to the special effects on the Spectors.

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.

For the third time, because two family members had not seen it, and it seemed a good choice for Christmas night.

Prime rib, potatoes roasted in the fat from the meat, pea sprouts. Dessert was sugar cookies still being decorated and not quite dry yet.

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?