Several months ago I wrote a post with the title “All sci-fi movies are bad sci-fi movies” — but I never hit the publish button because, I dunno… my conclusion just didn’t feel quite right. I guess what I really meant was “Most modern blockbuster special effects extravaganza movies with spaceships are bad sci-fi movies.” Then a couple of days ago we took the kids to see what turned out to be a REALLY GOOD science fiction movie, and it inspired me to take another crack at that dusty old draft.
Category Archives: Entertainment
Embedding videos with WordPress 2.5
Seems to work just fine, thanks to the improved HTML editor that doesn’t mess with your code.
Enjoy…
Movie review, and a bone to pick
Steve and I watch a lot of movies, actually, but I hardly ever write about them. Probably that’s because I’m so tired by the end of the day that I can barely remember what I watched, even assuming I was able to stick it out to the end. As well as the fact that highbrow “films” are not my thing at all — this is a source of pain to my dear dad, whose favorite movie of all time is Aguirre, the Wrath of God — in fact, I can barely even sit through a Merchant Ivory. Let alone come up with something coherent to say about it. Give me a blockbuster comedy action thriller special effects extravaganza starring beautiful people any day.
Nancy Drew
I took Joey and Lena to see the Nancy Drew movie this afternoon.
Were you a fan of Nancy Drew? Boy, I sure was. In fact, the first chapter book I ever read was The Whispering Statue. I was lucky enough to have an older neighbor girl give me a big box of books she’d outgrown, a box that included umpteen Nancy Drews, some Trixie Beldens, and even a Bobbsey Twins or two. I devoured ‘em all. To this day there are certain words and phrases that still remind me of Nancy Drew: bungalow, titian, hunch (as in I have a hunch), sleuth, and of course “come to.”
Bookworm goes to a show
It’s May and that means it’s time for the annual high school musical. Our high school — and this is not only the high school where my husband teaches, but also the one we both graduated from — has a pretty amazing music program. Not to brag or anything, but this year the orchestra won a Grammy award for being the best in the entire country. I said, the best in the entire country! And let’s just say their musical theatre program is not too shabby either. They did a great job with Hair last year, and before that there was a truly amazing production of Little Shop of Horrors. This year: Tommy.
Busy bee
In the last few days I sent out drafts of three brochures, a website, a flyer, and half of a newsletter. I went to a marketing committee meeting where I made deeply insightful comments about the virtues of using plain text rather than html for electronic newsletters. And I got hired for a big website that I am very excited about! Woo-hoo!
Self-torture 2
I watched Little Women last night. The 1994 version with Winona Rider. I saw it once before, when it first came out.
Why do I do this to myself? That movie is… dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. I don’t even know where to begin. The casting of Eric Stolz as Mr. Brooke [sputtering with indignation]? The outrageous and totally pointless liberties they took with the plot [further sputtering]? Winona Rider’s portrayal of Jo as a goody-two-shoes [even more sputtering]? The fact that not one actual line from the book was used in the movie except as a corny voice-over when Jo was writing her novel [really angry now]?
