Monday, October 30, 2017

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY


The Halloween edition.Or almost.
Not since 400 BLOWS have I seen a film as good about childhood as THE FLORIDA PROJECT. Amazing performances in a story of welfare hotels just outside the Magic Kingdom. Interview with the director credit his love of THE LITTLE RASCALS in getting the sort of performances he wanted.

Some ambivalence about THE MINDHUNTER on Netflix. It may be just a bit more graphic in its detail than I want. But STRANGER THINGS starts out well. And THE GOOD PLACE does not disappoint me although my husband is not a big fan. Nor a big fan of BETTER THINGS, which I also like,

Not much family stuff. Kevin''s hockey game was canceled and he lost a tooth (baby) in PE. I envy those of you who have so much interaction with your family. Ours is small and spread out.

Speaking of which, my nephew in VA had a baby girl so I am now a great aunt. Welcome Marley Nase. How beautiful you are.And Marley has a beautiful mother Michelle. Congrats to them all.


And what about you?

14 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Will have to check out that movie

Jerry House said...

Little girls are very special. Congratulations, Great Aunt Patti! Wonderful times ahead for you and Phil.

Today is my birthday, so I'm very happy that I have made it this far and for all the people I've met along the way.

I'm happy about chicken wings. Yesterday my daughters and their kids treated us at Dave's Wings in Pensacola (with 26 different flavors of wings!). A fantastic time with a lot of laughter...and I think our waitress fell in love with the Kangaroo.

Mark has made it to the high school cross-country regionals. Mark qualified with a time of 18:39 in the 5K with a course that was a muddy, flooded mess after the previous day's rainageddon. Yay, Mark!

Binge watched both THE MIST and the latest season of STRANGER THINGS. THE MIST was pretty good, but veered far from the Stephen King novella. (And why did the credits say, "based on a novel by Stephen King"?) STRANGER THINGS 2 was darker, funnier, and more nuanced than the first season. We have dumped cable in favor of streaming services so it will be a while until we can see season 8 of THE WALKING DEAD.

First indictments are in. Looking forward to many more.

Jeff Meyerson said...

We tried the first episode of BETTER THINGS. Neither one of us liked it at all. Not watching MINDHUNTER either. I did read the original non-fiction book years ago. We are still catching up on things we missed in Toronto, as well as finishing up series we'd started, but will get to STRANGER THINGS soon. We finished the last series of THE WIRE (the newspaper stuff was a little disappointing, but overall a great series) and series four of ORPHAN BLACK (one more to go). I cannot remember a year when there was not a single new network series I watch, or even one that even tempts me to try it. (Jackie watches THE BRAVE.) Sad. We are watching BERLIN STATION and GRAVES (meh) and THE WALKING DEAD and BLINDSPOT (first episode of the new series was a big improvement from last season's main storyline, I thought), all of which resumed recently.

The weather continued great for most of the week - I believe this will be the warmest October ever in New York - but yesterday was a day of torrential rains, plus wind.

I did get four books finished this week, and we have theater tickets for next Sunday - SCHOOL OF ROCK, which should be fun.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Phil hates BETTER THINGS too. But I find things that resonate with me.
Happy Birthday, Jerry. Have a great day.

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Never watched Better Things. Hated The Mist-poorly written and acted.
Been watching The Deuce, Ray Donovan and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Binge watched Stranger Things and Suburra on Netflixs.

George said...

Loved MARSHALL and PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN. Both movies deserve larger audiences.

I just finished reading the best book I've read in 2017: FANTASYLAND by Kurt Andersen. Brilliant and fun!

Colder weather finally triggered the foliage change. Love red leaves!

The Buffalo Bills are 5-2 and most fans are in shock. No one predicted this!

Rick Robinson said...

No surprise I have seen none of the films/TV series mentioned by you or in any of the comments. My watching is pretty much limited to sports (Seahawks game was terrific yesterday). Otherwise I read.

Had a very nice birthday last week, and the weather has been mostly sunny but cool in the low 60s. Rain expected later this week. I go for an eye evaluation in a couple of days, will have cataract surgery soon.

Fall color still nice but wind has stripped many of the leaves. Probably only a week or so left 'till they are gone. Lots of raking and leaf blowing has been done, more to do.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Leaves still have a long way to go in MI. Usually the end of Nov. before the trees are completely bare.
The Lions looked good for five minutes the first few games and then reverted to their usual stuff,
Phil's cataract surgery made a huge difference for him. Hope yours does too.
I miss Ray Donavan. We surrendered SHOWTIME last year.
Watching STRANGER one episode at a time. Never have binge-watched.

Jeff Meyerson said...

The warm October apparently caused a slowdown on the leaves changing color this year. We saw more colors driving up through Central New York a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how many leaves came down with yesterday's storm and wind, but it was probably a lot.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Colors here much less intense than usual.

TracyK said...

My happy things are the same every week. I love watching TV episodes or movies with my husband and son. Last week I saw Jack Reacher for the first time. We have been going through all seasons of Big Bang Theory in the last month.

Reading. I have been reading some great books.

This is new: In the last week, the high temperature here went from 100 to 68. And it might rain next weekend.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Reading great books is an absolute joy.
We have seen every BIG BANG more than once.
Yes, these temps going up and down is hard on the body.

Gerard Saylor said...

I watched the second Jack Reacher movie with my 11 year old. We made fun of the film and it's gratuitous violence.

My in-laws visited for several days last week and it was nice to have them in town.
On Saturday my wife and I attended a Halloween costume party themed as "Area 51". I dressed as a Martian with all red clothes and red face paint from the neck up and forearms down. The hosts are starting up a brewpub in town.

My son's cross country season ended the previous weekend but the girl's team ended their already excellent season with a third place finish at the state championship.

TracyK said...

The only thing I did not like about the first Jack Reacher movie was the violence. It stuck pretty close to the book it was based on, dropping some important characters, but that was still OK. Don't know if I will see the 2nd movie or not.