Category Archives: Movies

Movies, Winter

Three months of March

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For most Mainers, March is the worst month of the year. After the long dark cold of December, January, and February, what we would like is a softening, some sign of spring. Instead, what we traditionally get is wet heavy snow, sometimes lots of it, followed by snowbanks packed with pebbles and dirt and then worst of all, at the end of the month, thick, dirty, oozing Mud. And, yes, I intended the capitalization. In March in Maine, Mud is a force of nature to be reckoned with. I have lost a shoe in the mud going out to the compost bin.

This winter, it feels as though we have had three months of March, with so little snow that some outside events in the area have been canceled. This February, we’ve had mud. The chickadees are singing their spring song, and friends have spotted red-wing black birds. Really? In February? So it seems.

Readers, fair warning: This does not look as though it’s going to be a good year for Snow-Gauge Clif. More about that next week.

Here is what our backyard looks like right now.

So many pine cones had dropped that I decided to go outside to gather them for kindling for our wood furnace down cellar.

How to cap this odd month? With a trip to Absolem to meet friends for drinks. My drink, which is featured below, was a delicious blueberry cider.

What will March bring? We shall see.

Watching

Drive-Away Dolls
Directed by Ethan Coen

Ethan Coen is one half of the talented Coen brothers team—the other brother is Joel—and together they have made and directed terrific movies such as Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and The Big Lebowski.

Recently, they have parted ways creatively. Joel Coen would go on to direct a striking version of Macbeth. Ethan has given us Drive-Away Dolls, a stinker of film that leads me to conclude that Joel was the talented brother of the team, and whatever Ethan might have contributed was guided and controlled by his older brother.

The plot is a classic Coen brothers set-up and should have been fun: Two young women, an odd couple, decide to go on a road trip and hook-up with a company that allows them to drive a car for free to Florida. In the trunk is a brief case hidden with the spare tire, and it turns out the women were given the wrong car. A bickering pair of gangsters come after the women, and what mostly ensues is explicit sex, lame jokes, and a stupid denouement, which all come together to make the movie seem far longer than its 1 hour and 24 minutes runtime. However, in all fairness, I must add that some people at the cinema were laughing away at jokes we thought were lame. Even though the jokes left us cold, they tickled the funny  bones of other folks.

I decided to write about this movie for two reasons: One, to warn fans of the Coen brothers what they are going to get if they decide to go to Drive-Away Dolls and are expecting a quirky, snappy movie reminiscent of the brothers’ past films. And two, if readers do decide to go see this movie, I would be very interested in reading what you think about it. Did you love it or hate it?

I enjoy reading opposing views as much as I enjoy reading views that match mine. So do let me know what you think of the movie if you see it and have a chance to leave a comment.

 

 

 

Flowers, Movies, summer

For the Rain it Raineth Every Day

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As I noted last week, you can get too much of a good thing, and this certainly applies to the nonstop rain we’ve been having.

WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station, recently featured a newsletter with the headline “Weather whiplash hits home.”  Nik DeCosta-Klipa wrote that the “historic rain caused severe flooding in Vermont and washed out roads and farms in western  Massachusetts.”

In her post this week, Judy, of New England Garden and Thread, writes about the west side of New Hampshire, “which has seen a dam break and roads just disintegrate leaving communities land locked until it is safe to start repairs.”

In western Maine, heavy rain caused washouts and extensive road damage. However, in central Maine, where I live, there was not much damage. This reminded me that sometimes luck—or Fortune as the Elizabethans would call it—plays a big roll in life. If we lived fifty or sixty miles inland, we might be landlocked, too. But while the rain was heavy in our area, it wasn’t heavy enough to cause extensive damage.

While my gardens definitely look beaten down, the flowers are blooming, bringing spots of color to my shady yard.

A toad peeks through an opening of the green leaves of  a platycodon.

Various daylilies are in bloom.

I know I posted a similar picture last week, but I just can’t resist the red against the blue.

Finally, more peeking, this time it’s astilbe through ferns.

We’re supposed to have a few sunny days in a row this week, and I  am looking forward to them. We don’t have central air conditioning, and every thing is damp and sticky.

I’ve heard that summers are only going to be getting hotter as we go forward. We have to adapt, but we also must do what we can to stop the situation—climate change—from getting worse.

Perhaps this is foolish of me, but I remain hopeful.

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Book Reading

This Saturday, July 22, at 2:00 p.m., I will be giving a presentation at the Vassalboro Public Library.

This is the library I went to as a child, and it is one of the libraries featured in my Great Library Series.

I know many readers are far-flung, but if there are readers in the area, please do stop by if you have the chance.

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Watching

Movies: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Last week, we had such a wonderful time seeing the new Indiana Jones movie that we made a bold move: We bought movie passes at our local cinema. For $20 a pass, we can see as many movies as we want. Normally, because of the cost of tickets, we are very judicious about which movies we watch at the cinema. Now, we can take a chance on movies we normally wouldn’t go to the cinema to see.

Mission Impossible is such a movie. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of Tom Cruise—sorry Tom Cruise fans. But this seemed like a fun summer movie to see with some great supporting actors—Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, and Simon Pegg, to name a few—and off I went with Clif and Dee.

How was it? Well, there was a lot of action, including one extremely suspenseful train-wreck scene. (That seems to be a thing in movies.) Not surprisingly, Mission Impossible was short on character development, and in both books and movies, I love character development.

The plot revolves around a sentient AI gone rogue and the race to find two keys that will stop it. There will be a Part Two, and I couldn’t help but think that if some of the action scenes had been trimmed, one movie would have been just fine.

Mission Impossible wasn’t exactly a bad movie, but it wasn’t riveting either. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Tom Cruise is no Harrison Ford.

Next on the movie docket: Barbie and Oppenheimer. Or Barbenheimer as the two movies have come to be called because they are opening on the same weekend.

Stay tuned!

Addendum: I forget to mention how long the $20 movie passes were good for. They are good for a month. Going to two movies pays for the pass. After that, it’s gravy. Vegetarian, of course. 😉

Birds, Flowers, Food, Movies, summer

Birds and Blooms and Rain. Plus, a Review of the Newest Indiana Jones Movie

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In Maine, June was a very rainy month, and it seems that July is following suit. I know, of course, that too little rain is a terrible problem, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Although my perennials are thriving, my annuals are a bust this year. The tomatoes are tall and spindly with few blossoms; the cucumber plant looks stunted; and the nasturtium seeds rotted in the ground. According to Maine Public, this was one of the rainiest Junes on record, and if the weather gods don’t relent, this also will be one of the rainiest summers on record.

On Saturday, the weather gods must have been looking elsewhere because there was no rain for the entire day. Before they could change their minds, Clif, Dee, and I hurried out to the patio, where Clif made his legendary grilled bread. As we Mainers would put it, that bread was some good. We had small bowls of marinara sauce for dipping.

We also had drinks to salute this day without rain. The owl wine glass belongs to Dee, and we toasted Jackie Knight, a lover of owls.  (Jackie is the wife of blogging friend Derrick Knight.) Jackie, we love owls, too.

July is the time for fledglings, and with my wee camera I was actually able to catch this pair of woodpeckers. The one at the bottom is the fledgling, who with a squawking and fluttering of wings, followed and pestered its parent for food. I do love those fledglings, on the edge of independence but still young enough to want to be fed.

In the front yard, there are bursts of yellow and red to add variety to all the green.

Here is a closer look.

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Watching

Too Many Nazis

Movie: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

On July 4, Clif, Dee, and I went to Regal Cinema in Augusta to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  Because of Covid, it had been three  years since we actually went to a cinema to see a movie. With all that’s available on streaming, I thought I was just fine not going to the movies. After all, we have a really nice television with a good sound system.

Turns out, I was wrong. As soon as I settled into one of those big recliners, and the room went dark, I was completely absorbed, enthralled, even. Once a cinephile, always a cinephile. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I was watching Harrison Ford, one of the biggest and most charismatic stars of my generation.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny followed the usual contours of the previous Indiana Jones movies: There were lots of bad guys—Nazis, again; a magical artifact that would cause big trouble if it fell into the wrong hands; a thrilling opening sequence where a digitally de-aged Indy ran across the roof of a long, long train; and chase scenes galore.  As you can see from the poster, Indy had his trademark whip and hat.

These repetitions could have made the movie feel stale, but they didn’t. Instead, it was a thrill to see Indy on the hunt again, this time for Archimedes’ Dial, which supposedly opens fissures in time. On that train, in 1944, Indy escaped with half of the dial, outwitting the Nazi astrophysicist Jürgen Voller (played by the excellent Mads Mikkelsen).

Is there another half of the dial somewhere? Is the Nazi astrophysicist obsessed with it? Does Indy, spurred on by his goddaughter Helena (a luminous Phoebe Waller-Bridge) go after the other half? Yes, yes, and yes.

But Dial of Destiny, with its themes of sorrow, regret, and the trials of old age, rises above the average adventure movie. After the thrilling chase scene on the train, the movie shifts to 1969, when Indy is no longer young. We see him at a low point in his life—sad, sleeping in his boxer shorts in a chair, drinking first thing in the morning. His old cocky days are long gone, and it gave me a pang to see him like this. While things perk up when his goddaughter Helena arrives on the scene, that sadness threads itself through the movie, elevating it.

Readers, I loved this movie and would gladly see it again. If you are an Indiana Jones fan,  get thee to a cinema, where you can see it in all its glory on the big screen.

 

 

 

 

Celebrate, Movies, People

South of the Border for a Birthday

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On a brisk Saturday morning,

Clif, Dee, and I headed south, south, south…to Massachusetts, to celebrate our son-in-law’s fortieth birthday. Mike’s actual birthday was at the beginning of the month, and he and Shannon had a weekend extravaganza in Boston, where they went to a French restaurant and were served food  that was oh so good.

Mike is a pizza hound, and the natural choice for our get together was, of course, pizza from one of his favorite places.

The pizza was pretty darned good as my Yankee husband would put it.

There was a toast to the birthday boy. Some of us had wine, and others had beer.

The dogs waited patiently for their pieces of crust. Somara in her comfortable spot on the couch. (Sorry the picture is so out of focus.)

And Holly at attention.

Finally, there was chocolate cake, and here’s a happy picture of Mike and Shannon with Holly in between.

For a special present, we all chipped in some money so that Mike could pick out a nice watch. He is still doing research on various watches and hasn’t decided what he wants.  No need to hurry because as Mike noted, this is a watch he will have for the rest of his life.

So happy birthday, Mike. It’s wonderful that we live within driving distance and could celebrate with him, Shannon, and the dogs.

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Watching: Navalny

Navalny, a CNN documentary about the Russian opposition leader Alexy Navalny, is as gripping as any spy novel. In 2020, Navalny was poisoned in Russia, and what follows is so astonishing that I will end the synopsis here. Best just to watch this incredible story unfold without knowing too much. Navalny has been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature, and I hope it wins. This gripping movie is showing in theaters and is also available on HBO Max.

 

 

Birds, Movies, Winter

Winter Deepens: White on Red

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Deep winter in Maine and another snowstorm last Friday. The birds flocked to the feeders and ate their fill, trying to keep warm in the frigid weather. This red beauty always catches my attention. If you look carefully,  you can see the snow falling in front of the cardinal.

I wasn’t sorry to see more snow. The gardens now have a good layer to protect them from the extreme cold.

But I do wonder: Can a pig fly when there’s snow on his wings?

In the backyard, I like the way most of the bee balm stems stand at attention.

In the front yard, there was also red. By late afternoon, the snow was up to our car’s hubcaps, and we knew the time had come to clean the driveway and walks.

Judging from the snow on the deck’s rail, I would say we got about six inches.

Inside there was red, too, with my little book, which came in the morning ahead of the storm. In a rare example of getting ready way ahead of time, Clif and I have been working on the Dog Angel for the next holiday season, when—we hope—we will be going to craft fairs again.

More white on red, just like outside our home during the winter. I hadn’t made this connection before, but now that I have, the book’s cover pleases me more than ever.

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In the winter in Maine there is no better time for movies, and on Sunday we watched Joel Cohen’s incredible The Tragedy of Macbeth. As a word person, I have been smitten by Shakespeare since I was in seventh grade, when we read a couple of his plays out loud in class.

In Cohen’s version, the words are still there. This is Shakespeare, after all. But oh the cinematography! Shot in black and white completely on sound stages, this play of murder and madness has the pitch and look of a fevered dream—internal,  psychological, and utterly compelling.

Tour de force is often overused, but that’s what this movie is. If you like Shakespeare, do watch Cohen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth. The  short trailer below gives some idea of the tone of the movie.

Movies, Winter

Dead Calm and Zero Degrees

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This morning when I got up, it was dead calm and zero degrees. Actually, a little below zero.

The top window over the sink was so frosty that I couldn’t even see outside. (Fortunately, the frost is on the outside storm window.)

And here is the view from the window by my desk.

With the wood furnace going, it’s a balmy 65°F inside. We might have to turn on the electric heat tonight as the temperature drops further.

The title of this post comes from one of my favorite documentaries, Alone in the Wilderness, in which one man, Dick Proenneke, filmed his experience of living by himself for one year in Alaska. (The documentary is narrated by Bob Swerer Jr.)  During that year—1968—he used hand tools to build his own cabin as well as many other things he needed for daily living. Proenneke’s skill, ingenuity, and creativity are nothing short of astonishing.

Here is a short clip that gives a sense of this extraordinary documentary.

During his time in the wilderness, Proenneke recorded the temperature every morning, and often it was “Dead calm and zero degrees,” just as it was this morning in Maine.

A little brisk, as my Yankee husband would say in his understated way.

Celebrate, Movies, Nature

The Air Had a Certain Chill to It

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On Saturday, we had our first dusting of snow, enough white to see but not really enough to count as a first storm. Still, the sky was a severe gray, and the air had a certain chill to it that let a person know winter was not far away. Even at my age that nip brings an expectation verging on exhilaration—winter is coming, a hushed time of brilliant and blue days mixed with stormy weather.

To take some pictures, I hobbled out to the slippery porch. To say I was mindful of where I put my feet doesn’t begin to describe how I moved.

Here are the pictures I took from both inside and outside.

This one is from the aforementioned slippery front porch.

Still on the porch, looking downward at the red bow on a wreath.

Then from an open window in the living room—snowy leaves on the hedge,

and a frosty birdbath.

Finally from an open window in the bathroom, a picture of the backyard and patio.

If the weather isn’t too cold, we’re hoping to have some more time on the patio with a fire in the firepit. We shall see.

My knee continues to improve but ever so slowly. I still limp from room to room and often use a cane. But, I can bend the knee now, and I don’t spend quite as much time on the couch. I haven’t returned to working on Book Four in my Great Library Series. I plan to do so this week. Again, we shall see.

With Dee’s and Clif’s help, Christmas decorating has begun, making the house look bright and festive. And, most important, now that Thanksgiving is over, we have begun watching Christmas specials. Not surprisingly, the ones that have fantasy and folderol are my favorites, and last night we watched Robin, Robin, a sweet, short stop-motion film from Aardman Animations (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit). Next on the list: A Boy Called Christmas.

I have some cooking planned—a tofu chocolate cream pie, a vegan tourtière pie—wait, what?—and other goodies. Regardless of whether I fail or succeed, I will be reporting on how they turned out.

The lights, the decorating, the cooking, and the holiday shows all combine to make dark December, right around the corner, a cozy month. Like winter, much anticipated.

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate, Movies

Just Clif and Me

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For the first time ever, Clif and I will be spending Thanksgiving alone. No children, no friends, just Clif and me. It hardly needs to be said that there will be no going to the cinema to see the beginning of the season’s blockbuster movies, a family tradition that stretches way back.

For the most part, Clif and I have accepted our situation with what might be called equanimity.  Or acceptance. Or whatever. We’re not angry, and we’re not depressed. However, I would be lying if I stated that we aren’t a little wistful as we remember past Thanksgivings. That’s allowed, I think.

More than anything else, this holiday feels flat. There hasn’t been a flurry of cooking and cleaning, the way there usually is before Thanksgiving. No planning. No anticipation. In some ways, this week seems like any other week during the time of Covid-19 and not like Thanksgiving at all.

However, I will be preparing a meal that’s a little special for the two of us: a green bean casserole made with with cheese and a sour-cream sauce, stuffing, potatoes, and carrots. For dessert we have a chocolate satin pie, commercially made but good nonetheless. No turkey, as Clif and I are vegetarians, but we will enjoy our veggie feast.

We have also put out our holiday lights, to brighten the long nights of November and December.

The wee camera has made the lights more purple and glaring than they actually are, but this gives an idea of how the lights look, a glowing spot on a dark country road.

We will be Zooming with the kids, which perks up any day, Thanksgiving or not. Thank goodness for technology!

We also plan to watch Babette’s Feast tomorrow, an oldie but goodie. The story, set in the 1800s, revolves around a French refuge—Babette—who is taken in by two Danish women, the daughters of a strict (and selfish) father who was a pastor. I don’t want to say too much about the plot in case you haven’t seen this delightful movie that deals with coming to terms with a difficult and disappointing past. And food. Lots of food. Hence its appropriateness for Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American blogging friends. I hope you find a way to make the day special even if there isn’t the usual gang of loved ones and friends around your table.

The day might be lonely and quiet, but truly there are things to be grateful for. A very effective vaccine is on the horizon, and in January, we will have a new president.

Onward to the longest night of the year. Onward to 2021.

 

Flowers, Movies

Hot, Hot, Hot!

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It has been so hot this June that heat records have been broken all over Maine. In addition, there has been so little rain that I have had to water portions of my garden every day.

Unfortunately, our hose does not reach around to the front yard. Thank goodness for my little blue cart, which we originally bought for hauling books and display items to various fairs. This summer, with all fairs canceled owing to covid-19, I am using the cart to haul water.

Back and forth, back and forth, I go, feeling a bit like Gérard Depardieu in the excellent movie Jean de Florette. Fortunately, I don’t have to carry water on my back, the way he did.

And, I don’t have ratty Daniel Auteuil conniving to deprive me of water.

Still, hauling gallons and gallons of water out front every day certainly gives me a work out. My legs feel it at the end of the day.

In past years, Clif and I have casually discussed putting a water spigot out front, but in truth we’ve never really needed it. Usually Maine has an ample supply of rain, and I haven’t had to water much.

However, Maine is changing. The day might soon come when we put a spigot out front, just as we bought an air conditioner this year to deal with the extreme heat.

Fortunately, despite the heat, the backyard cools down at night. The evening primroses have started to bloom, bringing a jaunty touch of yellow to the various shades of green.

Around 6:00, Clif and I settle down to a light supper as the birds flutter and sing, coming for their own water and food.

Despite the heat, despite covid-19, we have our patio and backyard on the edge of the woods, a place of deep green beauty and mystery.

 

 

 

 

Books, Coronavirus, Food for Thought, Movies

Nature and Technology: The Reconciliation of Opposites

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The late great Canadian author Robertson Davies once wrote that the Jungian definition of balance is the reconciliation of opposites. That has always stuck with me, and I am thinking about this a lot right now during this time of the coronavirus.

As someone who loves the natural world, I’ve done a fair amount of grumbling over the  years about technology, screens, and the Internet. From the time I was a teenager, a part of me has longed to live on a small farm with chickens, apple trees, and a big garden.

But I am married to a computer geek, and a small farm was not one of his wishes. Therefore, as it is with many marriages, we have compromised. We live on a rural road, surrounded by trees and nature and wildlife. But our house is kitted out with computers and all the technology that goes along with it. And I’ve got to admit that during this period of self-isolation, I have been ever so grateful for computers and technology as well as the woods outside my home.

Last weekend, in our very own living room, we “visited” with our North Carolina kids via our laptop, where we could talk and see their shining faces. We chatted for about two hours, and it was great.

Daily, I have been visiting with various blogging friends, and through posts and comments, I am connected with folks all around the world. How I value these connections.

At night, Clif and I watch something from one of our streaming services. Last night it was The King of Masks, recommended by our librarian Nick and available through Kanopy. This poignant film took us to China in the 1930s, where it examined poverty, gender roles, love, and generosity.

Yesterday afternoon, via the Internet, our library’s movie club—Cinemates—got together to discuss the 2002 film The Hours, a moving and heart-wrenching look at Virginia Woolf, mental illness, caretakers, and how a book can ripple through the ages to affect both readers and family. One member of our movie club noted how you can tell an awful lot about a person by the way they fill their hours.

Maybe, just maybe, going forward, our society can reconcile these two opposites—nature and technology—and twine them together in a way that in a way that honors nature while electronically connecting us to each other and the world.

Coronavirus News from Maine

From Maine CDC

Maine’s number of cases of the coronavirus: 155

The News from All Over

From CNN

New York has become the national epicenter of the outbreak, as cases there are now doubling every three days, overwhelming hospitals. New York state’s hospitals have enough personal protection equipment for just two more weeks, Governor Andrew Cuomo has said, while it’s in need of 180,000 more beds.

To help stave off a crippling recession, the Senate voted to inject a $2 trillion stimulus into the US economy, a move that now needs approval from the House. President Donald Trump has pledged to get the economy “raring to go by Easter,” a goal that experts warn is too ambitious.

A record-breaking 3.28 million Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week…

The Latest Numbers

Global Cases: 487,648

Global Deaths: 22,030

My Own Take: Over this week, Maine’s coronavirus numbers have edged up ever so slowly. I am cautiously hopeful that with all the self-isolating and business closures, Maine will be able to stem the horrible  coronavirus tide. Only time will tell. Fingers and toes crossed.