BOYHOOD

i cannot describe how wonderful and uniquely illuminating and interesting and poignant and funny and sad and bittersweet and scary and loving this movie is! well, that sort of describes life doesn't it?

and that's what the movie is about; life over a 12 year span involving the mother and father of a boy and a girl. But the amazing thing about this film is that it was actually filmed over 12 years! so we get to see aging and physical changes and  alterations in communication styles "for real" and not through costume or makeup.

Ethan Hawke (Mason, Sr. the dad) and Patricia Arquette (Olivia, the mom, though they are already divorced when the film starts) are simply marvelous in their roles; stunningly brilliant. They have 2 children, Mason, Jr. and Samantha (who happens to be the director's daughter).

And the story is about empty nests,  and growing old and moving on and getting divorced and divorced again, and making economic ends meet and adolescents getting interested in sex and drugs and deciding what the future will be and relationships between spouses and siblings and boyfriends and girlfriends and the rules one lives by and how those rules get put into your life.

Oh i could go on and on. Words do NOT express how magnificent this film is and how totally engrossing. The movie running time is almost 3 hours and i was disappointed when it ended.

THE GIVER

Really enjoyable movie and it wasn't too long either. Plus it was suspenseful with great acting; though Jeff Bridges over did the growly mumble voice.

He was the Giver in this film which was adapted from a young adult novel written many years ago. Bridges optioned it and wanted his dad to play the Giver but Lloyd died and Jeff had trouble getting the money guys interested in the film until now.

The society that is the backdrop of the movie is a monochrome city with everything and everyone looking and acting the same. everyone took daily injections so they wouldn't question anything plus it dampened any feelings that would arise. The reason for this was the elders plus The Teacher's  (Meryl Streep) belief that pain and war and poverty and torture would be eliminated if emotions were erased and if there was no competition between everyone; if everyone wore the same clothes and had no religion and obeyed the same laws etc. etc. there would be no
DIFFERENT
to rebel against or to be jealous about.

This also meant no one had any memories of how things used to be except for the Giver who every so often would give the collective memories over to a Receiver. However, in the film the receipt of those memories to the Receiver had unintended consequences for the community.

So the message in the movie was that this new society was NOT better than the old and when one takes away all pain and difficulty, one also takes away compassion and love and joy.

We both rated it an 8.

ENOUGH SAID

Wonderful heart-warming melancholy poignant bittersweet funny movie starring James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. They are both excellent actors and played divorced people who begin a relationship; however, Julia's new massage therapy client is the ex-wife of James and gradually her perspective and feelings about the relationship change as she takes in all this negative stuff spewed by the ex.  And to make things worse, Julia doesn't tell either the ex-wife or her new boyfriend.

The movie is not predictable and doesn't paint any of the characters as all good or all bad. The dialogue is beyond perfect and there are no scenes which are unbelievable. and its not just about the new relationship; its also about friendship and neediness and parents and children.

This has now become my favorite Nicole Holofcener film. But her other ones are very much worth seeing; especially Friends with Money.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

We weren't going to see this movie at all but the reviews that i read and heard from friends were so good that we changed our minds. Both of us were disappointed and rated the movie a 7.

Even though one doesn't really expect a plot or coherent story line in these types of movies (uniquely freaky creatures with extraordinary powers gamboling in the universe creating havoc or restoring calm), the story in this movie was especially garbled and silly.

I like when songs are placed in a movie in places or situations where you wouldn't expect to hear such music. This happened in this movie A LOT; too much, in fact, so instead of being humorous or adding to the scene it got annoying.

Also Chris Pratt was a bad choice for the most human of the guardians because he can't dance and there were 2 parts in the film; one that was right at the beginning setting the 'mood' that required him all by himself dancing and he moves similar to Al Gore - very wooden and self-conscious.

There certainly were funny parts and dialogue during the entire movie but they could have been more frequent with a corresponding decrease in the fight and battle scenes which got tedious.

The best characters were Groot and Rocket, the weasel. Rocket had the best dialogue but it  should have been even more irreverent  and sarcastic and cocky. (like that cigar chomping dog, Triumph).

So we finished the evening with a meal at Elmer's which was one of our frequent dinner haunts in Gresham. The quality has gone down and the prices went up.

GET ON UP

Great lively musical toe-tapping, shoulder rolling, arm flailing movie about James Brown. I rated it a 9.

 Mr. Brown (as he insisted everyone call him except for his manager played by Dan Aykroyd and his right hand man, Bobby) had a horrific upbringing. He was born in poverty in South Carolina in the 30's. His father beat him and his mother and the mom  eventually left and moved to town where she was a prostitute. His dad also left him in the care of an aunt. The aunt ran a whorehouse where young James saw his mother with some 'clients'.

So this background, which is interspersed with current scenes, explains his larger than life ego, his control freak ways which included fining members of his entourage who didn't obey his rules, his sudden bursts of violence and his casual firing of his band when they protested not getting paid and having to work on "off" days. James was always only  interested in James Brown.

I was totally mesmerized by the movie and the 2 plus running hours went by unnoticed. I didn't even get up to pee; not even ONCE. (rare for me).

The music and dancing was fantastic. I never really appreciated James Brown's incredible talent and variety of songs and great great voice. He danced better than Michael Jackson.

And we then finished our date night with a delicious dinner at a Russian restaurant on Division and 111th. The market was huge and they had their food offerings on top of and inside a big glass case. Then they heated everything up and we ate in their small restaurant. We shared a samosa which was a delectable multi layered dough pocket with 4 kinds of cheese and meat and onion. wow; this was absolutely delicious.

Then we had chicken kabobs; very tender and flavorful and the best cabbage roll i've ever had and some rice which was sooooo good. It had garbanzo beans in it and veggies and  pieces of the most tender beef. Everything was spiced just perfectly. and all of this food (oh, a big pot of sour cream; Russian sour cream is less sour and more creamier than the kind you buy in the dairy case at grocery stores) was only $17.

We are going to come back and get a bunch of food to bring home and eat. The restaurant was noisy because it fronts Division Street which always has loads of traffic on it. There were 5 or 6 women/girls in the restaurant/market but only 1 had a smattering of English so it was interesting and fun to have the food choices identified.

MT. ST. HELENS, WASHINGTON

 hiking out of Cougar, WA. We wanted to do the Plains of Abraham which we last hiked with Alicia 21 years ago. It was very very hot and exposed to the sun so we didn't finish the loop. Both Bill and I were surprised there wasn't more vegetation in the area because it looked the same.  We found the ONLY shade for lunch; hunched under a tree by the side of a dry creek bed. but there were no bugs and it smelled heavenly; must have been some kind of wild herb.

This is Spirit Lake and all the logs that got blasted into it during the 1980 eruption. They are slowly sinking to the bottom.