Saturday, March 18, 2017

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

I heard about this book as a book recommendation at Posie Gets Cozy a looong time ago [back in 2013] it is so embarrassing that it has been on my must read for so long. But during this last library visit I said 'today is the day' and checked it out and I am glad that I did.

The main premise of the story is about a 15 year old girl - Bee - and her quest to find her agoraphobic mother - Bernadette. Bernadette goes missing shortly before the family trip to Antarctica to bittersweetly celebrate Bee's acceptance to the boarding school her Mother attended as a teen. Bee and her Mom have this Gilmore Girlish relationship where they are super close friends. This mainly came when Bernadette made the decision to leave her career and be a stay at home Mom and made Bee her whole life. Their odd language or description of things was also a plus - Bernadette describes the other Moms at Bee's fancy private school as 'gnats' [''Because they’re annoying, but not so annoying that you actually want to spend valuable energy on them”] -- the feeling is mutual since these Moms do not like her in the least - her language, rude behavior, absentee PTSA parent, her appearance - all are fuel for the on-going feuds with the other Moms .. especially with one instigator Audrey Griffin which is also her neighbor. Before Bernadette is missing .. her husband - a Microsoft guru - is told of some incidents regarding her neighbor by his new intern who happens to be a very good friend of Audrey [so it is hear say and very one sided and she has an agenda of her own ]. He is starting to doubt his wife's state of mind and during an intervention the FBI come over and the family finds out that the virtual personal assistant she hired to put together this trip is a con-artist which with everything else that is happening overwhelms Bernadette and she escapes out of a bathroom window. And 'POOF' vanishes. Bee is desperately trying to piece her mother's life through a series of emails and speaking with people who truly knew her in an attempt to find out where she might have gone.



Sunday, March 5, 2017

Disappointed! Disappointed! Not Disappointed!

Whew!! That was a super busy 2016. Now thinking about it I think it was mainly from September all the way to December .. just one giant blur. So busy in fact we didn't really get much time to relax. But with the start of February we have finally added movies onto our movie list and I am telling you those are 4 hours I can't get back and another 2 spent wisely.

We will start with the one we knew off the gate that we were hoping would be good but knew down deep inside it wouldn't be and that is San Andrés. Premis is that the San Andrés fault line is finally shifting causing cataclistic events and an emergency helicopter rescuer who is trying to save his family. The beginning reminded me of the opening scene of Cliffhanger but quickly turned into an over computer generated version of Day After Tomorrow (which is a better movie on every single level - definatly add to your movie list). And I can't even go into the acting.

Rosebud .. is often the only word needed to identify the classic film Citizen Kane. Rosebud was the last words of the eccentric newspaper millionaire Charles Foster Kane. The story is about one newspaper reporter who went looking to find out who Rosebud was. This movie is in true Orsen Wells style .. a little dark .. a little dismal and a looming question. At times it can be a bit hard to follow the story since the timeline overlap with each person's version of an event but for the most part it is just for clarification. I had my hopes up with this movie since I LOVE Well's The Third Man and it is on all the top movie lists but it just wasn't as great as I hoped for. Side note .. this movie was based 'loosely' on William Randolph Hearst the newspaper mogal and his enumeration for his girlfriend's uhm 'flower'. Hearst hated the idea of this movie being made so much that he tried to stop the movie from being made .. he even went as far as calling Wells a Communist to stop production. Which didn't work but what he did was sabotage the movie post-production. Since Hearst owned large amounts of new papers and media chains .. he made sure none of his newspapers wrote about the movie or ran ads and since he was a giant of his times, he got the theaters to limit the amount of show times which caused Wells to lose profit. Another fun fact .. Wells was just 25 years old when he co-wrote, directed, produced and stared in such a widely acclaimed film.

The last movie on this list is Kingsman : The Secret Service. Truth be told I saw this poster and I knew I had to watch the movie. I thought now THAT is organized .. like if Martha Stewart and Marie Kondo had a child THIS would be what his closet would look like. But beyond the poster I didn't have any high hopes .. even though I do really do like Colin Firth. Well I am happy that this movie disappointed me. I can say it was really clever and super funny. Colin Firth kicking butt while listening to Free Bird is awesome .. very bloody and overkill but awesome none the same. The bar scene makes me want to walk around with an umbrella and say things like 'manners .. maketh ..man' to anyone who is ungentlemanly. But know the language is a bit strong .. this one might be best for higher teens and up.