Why Have a Husband?

Today is my 31st Wedding Anniversary. 

 

I guess I should say "our" 31st Wedding Anniversary. 

Hubby and I have been married for 31 years today.



However, I ask this question - Why Have a Husband? - because of a recent interchange Hubby and I had.

I had a conference in Seattle which is about 20 miles from where we live.  Since the conference started at 8am (and you know I am NOT a morning person), I had this bright idea that I would book a hotel room near the conference and spend the night so I could just walk to the conference and avoid having to get up really early and deal with rush hour traffic. 

It just so happens that the famous Edgewater Hotel was near the conference venue.  I have always wanted to stay there. I mean if it was good enough for Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, it was good enough for me and I wanted to experience a little of that.  It was the site of The Beatles fishing from their room and Led Zeppelin's infamous "shark incident" (and if you don't know about the infamous shark incident, click on this link). 

However, for this plan to work, Hubby would have to drive me both ways.  He couldn't stay over because, unlike me, Hubby has a job and somebody has to stay with the dogs. 

When I told Hubby about this great plan, he balked.  He knew that another option I had was to take the bus that was going down so why should he have to make two trips into Seattle, one of which would be in rush hour?

And that is when I replied, "What good is it to have a husband if he won't do what I want him to? If he doesn't do everything he can to make my life as easy as possible?"

So he kind of said, "Well, if you put it that way..."

And I said, "When you come to pick me up we can do Happy Hour."  (You have to throw them a bone from time to time).

So that little incident made me ask, why have a husband?

What's a husband good for, especially if he won't do what you ask him to do?

I mean, why put up with taking care of another person, having to listen to his opinions about decorating and his bitching about how much money you are spending or that the TV is too loud after he goes to bed, having to do his laundry, entertain him because he really doesn't have that much going on, cook his meals, clean his house and, you know, all of that other stuff, if he won't comply to your brilliant ideas and requests?

We working women no longer need men to support us.  Most of us are liberated enough to go to movies alone, pump our own gas, mow the lawn ourselves and take out the garbage.

So why have a husband?

So with much deep thought, I have come up with a list of what a husband is good for.


---Killing bugs
When my son was little he heard a ruckus in the bathroom and came to investigate.  Hubby was in there killing a large scary bug of some kind.  When my son asked what he was doing, I told him and said, "When you are a man, you will kill bugs for your wife."  He burst into tears and said, "I don't want to be a man!"

Sorry, husbands.  Killing bugs for your wives is on your job description (or if you are particularly humane, capturing them and setting them free outside).


---Taking out the garbage
I know I can do this myself, but as long as he's there, he might as well do it (one less housekeeping chore for me).


---Running to the store when you realize you don't have a key ingredient for a recipe you are right in the middle of
Your hands are full of flour and you look like hell and you don't have baking powder (I know, you should have checked all of the ingredients before getting started).  But Hubby is right there sitting in front of the TV watching football with his hand down his pants, so why shouldn't he get up and get you that baking powder?


---Putting the lights on the Christmas tree
Though every year I threaten to do it myself.  However, we have created a Christmas tradition.  He puts the lights on wrong, I bitch at him, he threatens me ("Why don't you do it yourself, then?! Cripes!"), I bitch some more, then I put the ornaments on the tree and we both admire it.

---Getting up on the roof to clean the skylights
Even though the last time he did that, he fell off the ladder.  I'm afraid of heights, so no way am I climbing up on the roof!


---Travel Plans
I tell him where I want to go and what I want to do and he makes it happen.  I know I could just as easily make the reservations and buy the plane tickets, but why should I when he is a know-it-all, take-charge type?  He likes to put the notebook for our itinerary together and all of the other little OCD stuff he likes to do.  I want him to feel important.

---TIVO and Computers
I often wonder what it would be like if something happened to Hubby and I had to connect all of that stuff to a network myself and keep it running properly. I would be afraid to move because then who would set up my TV and computer just the way I want it?  I would probably just stay where I am forever and they would find me here sitting in my chair, covered in cobwebs, holding the remote.


---Making sure the house is well-stocked with wine
That one is a no-brainer.



After all is said and done, having a husband is a good thing because when you get old and wrinkly and fat he still has to love you. 

Because remember when we were young, smooth-skinned and thin, we asked him, "Will you love me forever and ever and ever, even when I am old, wrinkly and fat?"

And what could he say?

And then we said, "Promise?"

 

Happy Anniversary, Hubby!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for Reading!

 

See you Friday

for my review of the new movie 

"Hot Pursuit"

 

and

 

The Week in Reviews

 

(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)

and the latest on

"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before

 I Die Project."

 

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to click on the share buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, email it to your friends and LIKE me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer

 

"The Longest Ride" and The Week in Reviews

[I review the new movie "The Longest Ride" and DVDs "The Last Days in Vietnam" and "The Wedding Ringer." The Book of the Week is Chuck Palahnuik's "Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon."  I also bring you up to date on "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project: the moving classic about the generation gap between parents and children "Tokyo Story"]


The Longest Ride

 

A handsome bull rider (Scott Eastwood) and a lovely young art student (Britt Robertson) meet and fall in love - Nicholas Sparks-style.

 

Luke Collins is a North Carolina cowboy and bull rider.  A year earlier he had a devastating fall but now he is working his way back up to becoming the best bull rider in the world, not for vanity but to keep his family farm going after the death of his father. He meets Sophia, a young art student at the local college and after the usual "meet cute" scene, they fall in love.  However, it becomes apparent that Luke doesn't fit into Sophia's artsy world and she doesn't plan to have a life on a farm.

 

Enter Ira Levinson (Alan Alda).

 

It's a dark and stormy night.  Luke and Sophia are headed home when Luke spots a broken guard rail.  He dashes down the embankment to discover a car that had run off the road with its inhabitant unconscious.  He pulls the gentleman out of the car.  The gentleman mumbles to Sophia, "The box."  There is a box on the front seat of the car and Sophia grabs it right before the car blows up.

 

The box contains the love letters between Ira and Ruth Levinson (Oona Chaplin, the daughter of actress Geraldine Chaplin and granddaughter of one of the most important figures in film history, Charlie Chaplin) and thus begins our parallel love story, 70+ years earlier.

 

Sophia goes to visit Ira in the hospital.  His car had gone off the road because he had a heart attack.  Sophia reads the letters to Ira and in flashbacks, the love story of young Ira (Jack Huston, "Boardwalk Empire" and the grandson of Director John Huston) and Ruth is told:  their separation while Ira was fighting the war, his war injuries and their despair over not having children because of those injuries.

 

This could have just as easily been called "The Box," it so parallels Sparks' book (and the subsequent film) "The Notebook."  At least with Nicholas Sparks stories, you know what you are getting: beautiful star-crossed lovers, a love spanning generations, gorgeous, romantic locales, steamy sex in water of some kind (rain, shower, lake), tearjerker moments, a death, a twist and then the plot all neatly tied up at the end with a big bow. And lots and lots of schmaltz. 

Speaking of beautiful lovers, the draw here is beautiful, or should I say, handsome Scott Eastwood, Clint's boy.  I first saw him in a B-movie "Enter Nowhere" (2011) and thought what a handsome guy. I predicted then that he would make it big, and now I will predict he is on his way to People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive."  I might have to push Chris Hemsworth out of bed.

Robertson has been languishing on TV ("Under the Dome" and "The Secret Circle") and in small movie roles until now.  She is a lovely screen presence and it looks like her movie stardom is taking off with this and her starring role in the upcoming "Tomorrowland" with George Clooney.

Director George Tillman Jr. does the Sparks genre proud despite the contrived and implausible ending.  But romantic movies like this are in a class by themselves.  They serve a purpose.  We all need a little romance.

Speaking of which, guys, this would make a great date movie.  You might like all of the bull-riding footage and after your date gets a load of Scott in his love scenes, she will be hot to trot.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a big budget Lifetime-like Movie with the usual sex and two-hanky moments, but who doesn't need sex and a good cry from time to time?  And I could watch Scott Eastwood do anything!

***DVDS***

You Might Have Missed

(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)

 

 

 

 

The Last Days in Vietnam (2014)

 

The chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War are chronicled by Rory Kennedy (youngest child of Robert F. Kennedy) in this 2015 Oscar nominated documentary.

As the North Vietnamese army descended on Saigon in April 1975, South Vietnamese who had been working with the Americans stormed the American Embassy, desperately try to get out of the country, facing certain death if left behind. In the meantime, American officials faced a dilemma:  do they follow orders from The White House to evacuate Americans only?  Or do they follow their morality and try to save as many Vietnamese as they can?

Using archival and private footage, Kennedy also found some of the actual people who had been filmed by the news media at the time trying to escape and they recounted their experiences.

One powerful scene shows the South Vietnamese flying little helicopters to get people out but they had nowhere to land.  So American ships allowed them to land and as one landed others hovered waiting their turn.  There was only room for one helicopter at a time so in the interest of time, as each landed and unloaded its passengers, each helicopter was pushed into the sea to make room for the next one.

Another poignant scene shows people running on the tarmac chasing after a jetliner as it's taking off.

This film highlights the heroic efforts of everyone involved such as Ambassador Martin, who could be criticized for not calling this evacuation sooner.  However, he stayed trying to help as many get out as he could and was the very last American to leave. It killed him to leave over 400 behind at the Embassy.

This film is utterly moving and should have won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature (instead of "CitizenFour"), so as to honor those who saved so many South Vietnamese instead of honoring Edward Snowden for what he did.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a must see for history buffs, students and those of us who lived through the Vietnam War era.  It will make you cry.

 

The Wedding Ringer (2015)

 

 

Doug Harris (Josh Gad) is getting married. Unfortunately, he is a socially awkward geek who doesn't have any friends.  Who can he ask to be his Best Man and groomsmen?

 

Doug is marrying Gretchen Palmer (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) who is planning a big wedding with seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen. Doesn't look like her father (Ken Howard), who is a big strapping social ex-athlete type or her mother (Mimi Rogers) particularly approve of Doug, so it doesn't help that he can't find anyone to be his Best Man or his groomsmen.

 

Enter Jimmy Callahan (Kevin Hart), the owner of "Best Man, Inc., a company that supplies groomsmen for socially challenged grooms like Doug. When he finds out that Doug needs seven groomsmen, Jimmy at first says it can't be done.  But when Doug says "I don't care what it costs," his ears perk up and Jimmy says he will have to invoke "The Golden Tux Package," something that has never been done before.  And Jimmy himself will be the best man.

 

So Jimmy assembles a group of guys that are a motley crew indeed.  So much so that when he sees them for the first time Doug utters one of the funniest lines in the film:  "They look like the entire cast of "The Goonies" grew up to become rapists."

Another funny line: when Jimmy finds out Doug and he supposedly met freshman year at Stanford, Jimmy says, "That means I'm smart.  Shit."

 

Each of the "new best friends" has a schtick they must learn to make them respectable and to prove they have known Doug for years.  But Jimmy makes it very clear to Doug that this is just business.  They all will never be friends.  Once the wedding is over they will all go their separate ways. 

 

The scene where the Dads have a touch football game with the hired groomsmen is also funny especially since some of the Dads include Joe Namath, John Riggins and Ed "Too Tall" Jones.

 

There is a sweet moment too, when Jimmy and Doug share their stories.  Doug doesn't have any friends because his Dad moved around for business so much.  And it turns out Jimmy doesn't have any friends either. You can kind of tell where that is going.

 

Wedding film homages abound. Edmundo (Ignacio Serricchio), the gay wedding planner, harks back to Martin Short's take in "Father of the Bride (except with a twist)," there is always the goofy grandma and there is even a nod to "Lost," as one of the motley crew of groomsmen is Jorge Garcia, with a funny moment at the end when the plane they are in takes off.

 

I have been bemoaning the lack of actually funny comedies lately. However, despite what this film lacks in plot and that it wallows in sentimentality from time to time, it comes closer than any others to actually being funny, because Kevin Hart is just one funny guy. I would like to see him host the Academy Awards after the Neil Patrick Harris debacle.

 

Rosy the Reviewer says...a funny idea that couldn't quite sustain its one hour and 43 minutes but it's a light diversion that is funny at times because of Hart.

 

***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***

263 to go!

Tokyo Story  (1953)

 

An elderly couple travel from their village to Tokyo to visit their two married children.  However, their children are too busy to spend much time with them, only to realize there wasn't much time left.

 

Parents living in the Provinces who have never been to Tokyo make the effort to visit their adult children only to be shunted around because, basically, their children have their own families and their parents are disrupting their lives.  They exclude them from activities and barely disguise the fact that their parents' visit is a pain in the neck to them.

 

The parents realize they are in the way so they split up to stay with other people, the father to an old friend and the wife to their daughter-in-law, Noriko, whose husband (their son) died in the war.  She is the only one who seems to care about them.  And even when the mother is dying the children find it a pain in the ass to have to go see her.

 

This film may be 62 years old but some things never change.  Adult children can forget that their parents were once their age and are people who get bored when left to their own devices in a strange and new environment with little to do. This is a cautionary tale.

 

Why this is a Must See:  "All of this is observed with a static camera...So how does [director] Ozu hold our attention?...It all comes down to the contemplative quality of [Ozu's] gaze, implying that any human activity, however 'unimportant,' is worthy of our attention...his characters' experiences, emotions, and thoughts are as 'universal' as anything in the movies -- a paradox that has rightly enshrined this film's reputation as one of  the greatest ever made."

---1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

Rosy the Reviewer says...a classic story of the gap between the generations and a must see for all adult children who live far from their parents and take their existence for granted.

(in Japanese with English subtitles, b & w)

***Book of the Week***

Fugitives and Refugees : A Walk in Portland, Oregon by Chuck Palahnuik (2003)

 

There are signs around Portland that say "Keep Portland weird."  Portlanders are proud of their weirdness and here Palahnuik celebrates it.

He starts with a vocabulary lesson.  If you are  going to enjoy Portland, you must know the lingo.  For example, if I say meet me at The Big Pink, would you know to go to the tallest building in Portland, the 43 story U.S. Bancorp Tower?  Or the Enema 21 (Cinema 21 theater on NW 21st St)?  Or Psycho Safeway (the Safeway on SW Jefferson St, famous for the antics of insane street people, drug-addicted shoplifters and students from Portland State University).

Once you have the lingo down, you can continue on to interesting Portland sights such as The Self Cleaning House, Eviction Court and must-go restaurants (with recipes).  There are haunted bathrooms, not to be missed gardens and where the sex trade hangs out.  It's a potpourri of Portland weirdness that is fun to read and fun to visit.  Palahnuik intersperses all of this with "postcards" of his own experiences.

Palahnuik is a funny and edgy writer who is probably most famous for "Fight Club."

Rosy the Reviewer says...even if you will never go to Portland, you will enjoy this zany view of it.

 

 

Thanks for Reading!

That's it for this week.

See you Tuesday for

"Why Have a Husband?"

 

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to click on the share buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, 
email it to your friends and
LIKE me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer.

Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.

 

Note:  Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database). 

 

 

Find the page for the movie, click on "Explore More" on the right side panel and then scroll down to "External Reviews."  Look for "Rosy the Reviewer" on the list. Or if you are using a mobile device, look for "Critics Reviews." Click on that and you will find me alphabetically under "Rosy the Reviewer."

 

 

Things I Can't Resist

I have a fetish.

No, it's not a freaky kind of thing.  I'm not going all "Fifty Shades of Grey" on you. It's fetish in the obsession sense, a fetish for certain items. Items I can't resist.

I mean, do you ever find yourself buying yourself another handbag, even though you already have 20 at home?  Or shoes.  Shoes are one of those things some people can't resist. Or golf clubs?  Or cars?

My Dad had a fetish for trumpets.  He kept buying them, hoping to find the one that he thought would let him hit the high notes like Doc Severinsen.

Some fetishes come from childhood, I think.


For example, I have this fetish for jackets. 

I just cannot resist buying a cute jacket. 

I think it's because growing up I wasn't able to buy all of the clothes I wanted.  We were comfortable but my family certainly didn't have the money for me to have all of the latest styles I would see in "Seventeen" magazine. And I hung with some of the popular girls in high school whose family could afford all of those cute things - plaid skirts with matching vests, expensive jeans, little suits, though my Dad did get me this one.  I was over the moon.  It had been on the cover!

It was those little suits I coveted.  I must have thought if I had those cute outfits, I would be popular too.  So I guess that accounts for my almost 100 jackets.

Here is my latest acquisition.

I am particularly partial to military jackets.  I don't even want to get into where that might have come from!



In addition to jackets, I also can't help myself around luggage.

Like my Dad, I guess I think that if I find the perfect carry-on bag I will magically be able to take everything I want to Europe in a carry-on without being hassled by the airline staff.  When I get on a plane, I look like a homeless person wearing every article of clothing I own because I am so paranoid that I will have to check my carry-on.

Another fetish is faux fur. 

How many faux fur coats does a person need?   Mmmm, how about 10?  I know, it's crazy, but they make me feel glamorous.  And if it's leopard, I go even more nutty.  Leopard is the new black, you know.

I can also add anything velvet, suede or leather and blingy to that clothes fetish too.



I also cannot resist earrings, and the bigger the better.

Should a woman of a certain age wear big, flashy earrings?  Yes!  A woman of a certain age can do whatever she likes.  She no longer cares what others think of her fashion choices.


Books
I go to the library (and so should you!) and check out books and DVDs, but I also buy books.   For some reason, there are some I think I should own or that I think will take me longer to read, so I had better purchase them. But because I go to the library for the latest books, the ones I have purchased start to languish.  But I keep buying books, thinking that if I am ever bedridden, I won't run out of reading material. 

It's also kind of like Sarah Winchester (whose husband was the gun magnate, William Wirt Winchester) and the famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California.  A psychic once told her to move west and continuously build a house to atone for all of the deaths caused by the Winchester rifle. Sarah believed that if the house was ever finished she would die so she kept adding on to it, seven stories, strange staircases that went nowhere, that sort of thing.  Like Sarah,  I think I will stay around as long as I still have all of these unread books.




But how do I explain my fetish for poodles?

In my lifetime, I have had seven miniature and toy poodles.

Is it that they are just so darn cute?

So magically loving and sweet?

Or is it because they satisfy that other fetish?

Dressing them up.

 

 

 

I know. 

We all have our issues,
er, I mean fetishes.
 
Those are some of mine.

What are yours?



Thanks for Reading!

 

See you Friday

for my review of the new movie 

 

"The Longest Ride" 

and

 

The Week in Reviews

 

(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)

and the latest on

 

"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before

 I Die Project."

 

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to click on the share buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, email it to your friends and LIKE me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer

"Ex Machina"" and The Week in Reviews

[I review the new movie "Ex Machina" and DVDs "Finding Vivian Maier" and "The Voices." The Book of the Week is "Home Sweet Anywhere."  I also bring you up to date on "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project with "Tokyo Olympiad"]

Ex Machina

A young programmer thinks he has won a contest to spend the week with, and at the estate of, the head of his company only to discover the real reason why he is there.

Domhnall Gleeson stars as Caleb, a smart young programmer who wins a contest to spend the week with Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the rich reclusive head of BlueBook, a company that runs the largest search engine in the world.  When he arrives by helicopter at Nathan's remote estate, he discovers that he will be privy to Nathan's experiments in artificial intelligence (AI) and, in fact, was brought to the estate to test how "human" his latest robot is. 

Nathan introduces Caleb to Ava, a robotic woman, that Nathan wants Caleb to subject to the Turing test, named after Alan Turing, often called The Father of the Computer, and immortalized in the recent film "The Imitation Game."  This is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human's.  As Caleb meets with Ava in the series of test sessions, he is amazed at her "humanness" and they interact just as humans would.  Caleb starts to have feelings for her, much to his detriment.

Oscar Isaac seems to be everywhere these days.  From his splash on the scene in "Inside Llewyn Davis" to "The Two Faces of January" to "A Most Violent Year," and soon the upcoming "Star Wars," here he puts in an even more bravura performance as the strange, eccentric Nathan.  Likewise Domhnall, who started out as Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films but became a romantic lead in the charming rom-com "About Time," plays a computer geek who finds himself in over his head (he is also hot right now and will be starring in the new Star Wars movie with Isaac).  Alicia Vikander is Ava and makes a most lovely robot.  The body make-up is astonishing.  Her face, hands and feet seem to be flesh but the rest of her is transparent.  You can see the workings of her computerized body.

Like "Her," "Chappie" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," this film raises many questions about AI, what makes us human and what can happen when we play God. 

Alex Garland has deftly written and directed a smart thriller with many twists and turns.

Rosy the Reviewer says...another film that ranks as one of the best of the year.  If you like intelligent scifi, you will like this film.   It's mesmerizing.




 

***DVDS***

You Might Have Missed

(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)

 

Finding Vivian Maier (2013)

 

A serendipitous auction purchase leads to the discovery of an unknown photographer who now has a posthumous reputation as one of our best street photographers.

In 2007 John Maloof, who had a penchant for buying items at auction and at flea markets as well as whole storage units, won a box of negatives at auction for $380.  He was told who the photographer was - Vivian Maier - but when he tried to Google her, he found nothing.  He was struck by how masterful her photos were. He scanned 200 of the photos and created a photo blog to try to find out who she  was.  His post went "insane."  He then found those who had bought the other boxes of negatives at that auction and bought those too. 

But who was Vivian Maier?

Maloof found an obituary and located some people mentioned in it and discovered that Vivian Maier had been their nanny. That led to his finding her storage locker and buying that too. He reached out to some museums for some help with archiving the material and he applied for a show at the Cultural Center in Chicago.  It was a huge hit and the strange story of Vivian Maier took off.

Maloof and his fellow director and writer Charlie Siskel ask the questions:  why did Vivian take so many photos and why did no one know about her?

Vivian Maier was a housekeeper and a nanny (she even was a nanny for Phil Donahue's children for about a year), but her private life was a mystery.  Maloof went through all of her things in her storage locker - videos, mementos, collectibles - to try to find out more about her.  He interviewed people she worked for and everyone remembers her with a camera constantly around her neck.  She also wasn't a Mary Poppins kind of nanny. She could be kind of mean.  She was also a hoarder who hoarded her own photographs.  She was paranoid, eccentric and eventually fell into mental illness.

Today, because of Maloof, Vivian Maier's photographs are hanging in galleries in Los Angeles, London, and cities in Germany and Denmark.  But who she really was and why she didn't share her photographs remain a mystery  But Vivian Maier got the fame in death that she never got in life.  Likened to Diane Arbus, Maier's street photos were extraordinary and she took thousands of them.
 

I absolutely adore documentaries.  It all began with the extraordinary "7-Up Series" and now I am addicted (must explain my other addiction:  reality TV).

 

The film masterfully primes us to want to know more about this eccentric woman and to solve her mysteries.  And one can't help but think that Maloof was a bit of an eccentric as well to take on this massive project.  Museums were reluctant to show the work of a dead person, but Maloof made it his mission to get her work widely seen.

 

Rosy the Reviewer says...this 2015 Oscar-nominated documentary is a fascinating mystery that also deserves to be widely seen.

 

 

 

 

The Voices (2015)

 

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) is a likable schmoe with a mysterious past who just happens to live with a talking dog and cat.

Jerry works at a bathtub company, Milton Fixtures, in the small town of Milton.  He is a nice guy with a crush on one of his co-workers, Fiona, played by British actress Gemma Arterton. Fiona is not interested in Jerry.  We also discover that he is on probation, is seeing a court-appointed shrink, has to take meds and has a nasty cat with a Scottish accent, Mr. Whiskers, who berates him all of the time and a bull mastiff named Bosco, who tries to pump him up with his kindly southern drawl. 

Jerry asks Fiona out on a date and she accepts but then stands him up to go sing karaoke with her girlfriends.  On the way home, her car breaks down.  It's pouring down rain and Jerry just happens to come by so he picks her up and she apologizes for standing him up. The weather is so bad that Jerry hits a deer. The deer tells Jerry to put him out of his misery by slitting his throat.  Yes, you heard me.  The deer talked to him.  That's Jerry's problem.  He hears voices. However, Fiona doesn't so when Jerry slits  the deer's throat, that scares the crap out of Fiona and she takes off running.  Jerry goes after her wielding the knife and, well, accidents happen.  Jerry trips and accidentally kills Fiona.

Now Jerry just doesn't know what to do.  Bosco the dog tells him he needs to call the police, but Mr. Whiskers, that devil of a cat, tells him not to do that because the cops will arrest him.  Just imagine a little good angel on one of Jerry's shoulders and a little bad devil on the other.  Bosco and Mr. Whiskers continue to advise Jerry about what to do with the body and it ain't pleasant.  He cuts her up into little pieces and puts them in Tupperware containers.  Fiona's head is placed in the fridge and now the head is talking to Jerry too, encouraging him to continue to kill because she wants another head to keep her company.  A serial killer is born.

Ryan Reynolds is definitely trying to shed his rom/com image with this and his recent film "The Woman in Gold."  Here he does a good job of playing an endearing guy whose world is much brighter when he isn't taking his meds.  Unfortunately, without the meds, he is prone to those damn voices.  Reynolds also supplies the voices for Mr. Whiskers and Bosco, who are hilarious. I wish they had talked more. Anna Kendrick plays Lisa, another co-worker who actually likes Jerry and Jacki Weaver plays his shrink.

Directed by Marjane Satrapi, known for her comic book-style memoir "Persepolis" and written by Michael R. Perry, this is another dark, bloody comedy similar to "Home Sweet Hell," which I reviewed last week, except this one is better and much more visually appealing, kind of in the vein of "Little Shop of Horrors."   However, I didn't find it very funny.  One could say this was a satire on psychology, but I think it made light of schizophrenia, which is no laughing matter.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a relatively entertaining and stylish comedy if you like your comedy dark and bloody.

 

***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***

264 to go!

 

Tokyo Olympiad  (1965)

 

From the Opening Ceremony to the Closing Ceremony, director Kon Ichikawa captures both the athletic side and the personal side of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo in this documentary some say "ranks among the greatest documents of sport ever committed to film." 

 

Ichikawa captures the tension and drama of the events, the tension and drama experienced by the athletes and the tension and excitement of the crowd.

 

Though I enjoy the Olympics, I am not much of a shot put, weight lifting or wrestling fan, but Ichikawa's camerawork even makes those sports exciting.  I am more of a gymnastics girl and his coverage there does not disappoint.  "Poetry in motion" comes to mind.

 

The music used to illustrate and dramatize the film is enjoyable especially with the men on the rings and uneven bars.

 

My one caveat is that this film is two hours and 49 minutes long so prepare.

 

Why it's a Must See:  "Kon Ichikawa's record of the 1964 Tokyo Olympiad raised the stakes of epic documentary and achieved a level of artistic reportage subsequent sports programming has been clamoring to minic ever since...Putting action to image...is Ichikawa's strength.  Bodies are synecdochically represented with feet, buttocks, or straining neck, turning physical achievement into the very grace of existence.  Purposefulness is found both in preparing and executing athletic achievements and, as is often the case in documentary, historicity itself remains indelible."

---1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you are a fan of the Olympics, you will particularly enjoy this but fans of movies in general can appreciate the incredible camerawork and directorial choices that turned this event into art.
(In Japanese with English subtitles)

***Book of the Week***

Home Sweet Anywhere by Lynne Martin (2014)

 

A retired couple decide they want to live abroad full-time.

Tim and Lynne Martin are reunited in their golden years and decide to take life by the reins and make the whole world their home.  They sell their home and most of their belongings and head for Mexico.  That is followed by Buenos Aires, Paris, London, Ireland, Morocco and Portugal where they plan extensive stays and live like the locals.

This is a travel memoir, but it also provides practical tips for doing likewise in their chapter "The Learning Curve:  Things the Guidebooks Won't Teach You."  They tell you what to do before you go such as dealing with visas, mail and health considerations, how to get there and what they learned at each of their destinations.

I have always dreamed of doing something like this but I can never figure out what to do with the dogs!

Rosy the Reviewer says...this is a must-read for anyone planning on a similar lifestyle but it's also a great read for those of us who can only dream (those damn dogs)!

 

Thanks for Reading!

That's it for this week.

 

See you Tuesday for

"Things I Can't Resist"

 

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