These are my thoughts and experiences.
I’ve been watching quite a few movies of late, but I have to say that my favorite out of the bunch has got to be “An Education”. Its a story of a school aged girl that has everything going for her; she has straight A’s, means to not only get into a college like Oxford but a family to pay for it for her and set goals for what she wants to do with her life after college. All this changes after a chance meeting with an older man. I won’t give away the story, but when it comes down to it this film has a very clear and important message: you must never give up on yourself. Five stars! :)
Wish That Was You
Clunk, Clunk
Shuffle
Clunk, Clunk
Shuffle
A Muffled Grunt, A Cough, A Cleared Throat
Silence
Keys jingle
I hold my breath….
Exhale.
I love living close enough to the city that I am able to walk to the store and pick up a movie; I love living far enough from the city that there are trees, creeks and wildlife in my backyard
Easter in itself is a strange holiday. Its like they couldn’t pick just one thing to celebrate so they mushed fertility rituals, celebration of a god that rose of the dead and a big creepy easter bunny that puts candies and gifts in children’s rooms while they are sleeping and hides eggs in the yard when they are not watching all into one day and called it “Easter”. Personally, I just like looking at the cute, fuzzy baby chicks. Happy Easter, whatever you are celebrating, everyone :)
Rebecca, the film critic (at least for a minute or two)
Writing about “An Education” got me thinking, what else have I watched over the last couple of weeks? (way too many movies I am thinking) Here is a rundown:
How to Train Your Dragon: 5/5
Hiccup, a young viking boy desperate to prove to his father and his clan that he is deserving of the viking name, wounds a dragon that everyone is deathly afraid of. He finds the dragon, still alive, and contemplates killing it, but while his knife is raised all he can see is his own fear coming from the animals eyes so he decides to let him live. The problem is that its tail has been crippled and he is unable to fly. The boy helps the dragon get back in the air and proves to his village that dragons are not the beasts that they make them out to be. This was the first (and probably last) film that I have seen in 3D, and while it was good at the time the 3 hour headache I had after I got home pretty much made the decision to go 2D from here on out. The movie itself was cute, child appropriate and very entertaining to watch. Not only has it been requested that we purchase this film when it comes out, we actually went out and bought the books it was based on. A win/win in my book!
Coco before Chanel: 4/5
I love a good foreign film and this was French with English subtitles, which I know can be a turnoff for some, but this picture was good on more than one level. The costumes and the set design were done very beautifully, there was one scene where it was a little surreal seeing the french gentry on the beach in their corsets, flamboyant hats, lacy umbrellas and pompous fluff. Personally, I was really interested in the story due to my background, but I think it could have been a little dry for someone who didn’t admire Chanel for her impact to fashion. It was for this reason why I was glued to the story, but I doubt anyone who was uninterested in fashion would even think of picking up this film.
Brothers: 3/5
Set during wartime Afghanistan, this movie tells the story of an American solider who goes to war, is captured by the enemy and does the unthinkable to get back home. His wife is told that he is killed in action however and she starts to get on with her life back at home, namely, she starts a pseudo relationship with his brother who was there helping with the children (his nieces) cope with the loss. I think it does tell a great story of what happens mentally to solders that deal with the immense stress of battle and how they are not always ready to be simply immersed in “typical” society, but the movie itself was a little dry and boring. I was watching the clock, wondering when it was going to be over, which I think was quite unfortunate because they were telling a great story. I think I shall look for the original version of this film (this was a remake) and see if they did a more entertaining job.
The Time Travelers Wife: 2.5/5
A story of a man who travels through time against his will (how often does one little sentence sum up an entire story??) It was recommended I watch this movie by a friend and while I should have known the “greatness” was probably going to be lost on me (being mostly against sappy chick flicks) I didn’t find it horrible. It was slow, drawn out and a little cheesy at times, but the overall story was original and somewhat interesting. I wouldn’t really recommend it, nor would I ever watch it again.
Seven things I noticed while in the Emerald City and then some.
The sun was playing a little game with us on Monday and every time we stepped foot outside it started raining and every time we went inside of anything (my car, a coffee shop, the market, a tree) it would peek out and give us a mischievous wink. Maybe that is what is “supposed to happen” in Seattle, but thanks to the sun I spent a little more money than I probably should have.
Here are a few more things I noticed while in the Emerald City:
1. Like Portland, umbrellas are pretty much pointless because either there is not enough rain to justify opening it or there is too much wind to keep the dang thing from flipping inside out every other minute.
2. Coffee is Cheap! Maybe it had more to do with the fact there were three coffee shops allocated to each city block or maybe I just got lucky with the location that I went to, but I WISH I could get a medium latte for $2.50 anywhere here in Portland! The fact that it was delicious
3. I love my car. I guess I should have already known this due to the fact that I drive it everywhere, but after filling my gas tank for $42 (at THREE DOLLARS A GALLON) I was able to make it up there and back on about 2/3 a tank! While on the way up and back I kept wondering why I didn’t fly, but this beats getting a rental car and having to give a strip show for airport security any day.
4. Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t the Space Needle due a facelift? It looked exactly the same as it did when I actually went up the elevators in 1994: dirty, dingy, rusty, smelly, need I go on?
5. “Emerald City” = Seattle. Care to venture to guess who “The All American City” is? Oh that’s right! I’m surprised you knew that Olympia, Washington has this title… which leads me to ask, who comes up with these “titles”? What is Portland’s? The only thing that comes to mind when trying to come up with its “title” are the “keep Portland weird” bumper stickers… oh wait, “The Rose City”… yeah, that is weird enough in itself.
6. I cannot stand the smell of fish. Sure, I have officially been a vegetarian for a month on the 8th (or 4 weeks on Monday), but seafood used to be some of my favorite dishes! Crab legs were divine! Now? I was gagging while walking through and Pikes Place Market (maybe this was more due to being in the touristiest part of the city? I’m not sure…)
7. I hate streets that are at 89.995 degree angles. I hate driving up them even more. I know it is because of the water, but some of the streets there reminded me of San Francisco (or this one in San Diego that I had to *try* to drive down without screaming too loud, let’s just say it was a good thing I was driving a rental car that time) and since I was in my own car I wanted away from the shoreline as quickly as possible.
When it was all said and done, I have to admit that I had a good time in Seattle. I’m sure I’ll come again, but next time it won’t be on a day that I am boating up and down the freeway.
and then do what you have to do.
Educating the Stomach.
There are only a few things worse than waking up at 4am on a day when you are supposed to be able to sleep in until seven. One of those things may very well be when you are floating in the depths of a peaceful dream only to be jolted awake with the gut-wrenching need to get into the bathroom and drain your stomach of its contents from the night before. But what if you went to bed with an empty stomach? That stomach is still going to be empty at 4am, so now you get an even worse scenario: sitting in the cold bathroom dry heaving for 20 minutes or more at 4am when you should still be in your warm bed preparing for the busy day ahead.
Now it is 4:30am. My stomach is somewhat appeased so I head back to bed, hoping that the worst is over. And it was, until around 7am when I was given the honor of reliving the entire incident first hand.
Since I didn’t technically HAVE to be up until around 7:20am I decided to go back to sleep with the hope that when I woke it would be more like a bad dream then something I was going to have to deal with all day, but that was when the heart burn started. I don’t know if it was due to the acid that came up from my stomach, but never have I had such excruciating pain in my chest before. It was at this time that I decided that heading to work was probably not going to happen so I called in and got Ethan going for school. Once he was on the bus and on his merry way I got back in bed and had dreams of ways to get rid of the heart burn..
I woke again at noon, again with the dry heaves, again with the heart burn and decided to look up causes of my extreme discomfort. Naturally, the first thing that pops up when you Google “chest pain” is “heart attack” and after reading over all the symptoms it did seem like it was plausible, but not likely so I moved on. Another site that I came across said that Stomach Ulcers are a big cause of heart burn, and that if that is what is causing the issue, it should go away after eating. Since it was now 4 hours after the start of the pain I was desperate for anything and decided that if it didnt go away soon I was going to have to visit the doctors (I have insurance, I just don’t like going in unless I know its something that is not going to go away on its own). I went out and got myself a bowl of honey nut cherrios and what do you know? Not ten minutes later all pain has ceased.
Done.
Not an ail in the world.
Ok, stomach, I have a request. In the future if you are wanting food, it is probably a good idea to send HUNGER signals instead of NAUSEA pains; the last thing I am going to want to do after sitting in front of toilet for 20 minutes is put anything in my stomach that I will get to feel come right back up at anytime in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
