LIKE DANDELION DUST

This movie was released in 2009; straight to dvd. Its a gem of a movie; surprised both of us with the good story and the great acting.

the affluent Campbell's adopted a baby boy 6 years previously. On the low economic scale are the Porter's. The wife is played by Mira Sorvino (terrific) and the husband by Barry Pepper who was nothing short of amazing and where the hell has he been lately in reference to the cinematic world?

Pepper is Rip who is a rage-aholic and alcoholic and wife beater and the movie starts with the cops arresting him for breaking his wife's arm. shortly after he's imprisoned, she finds out she's pregnant and gives the baby up for adoption. At this point, she feels incapable of taking care of a baby by herself plus not even sure if she's going to stay with Rip after he gets out of prison.

Well, she waits for him and he comes out rehabilitated and clean and sober and seemingly calm and able to find other outlets for the annoyances of life. So after she tells him about the baby, he is determined to get the boy back. and this is the story.

The movie has twists and turns that were totally unexpected and it did a great job of highlighting both sides of this adoption issue and the child's role in it which is often forgotten in the possession battle of the couples.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER

I rate the entertainment value of this movie a 10. Matthew McConaughey as the smarmy, cunning, glad-handing, slick, shrewd, crafty, sly, wily and extremely good-looking lawyer (as in Lincoln Lawyer because his office is the back of a pimp-mobile Lincoln Continental and he is driven around by - you got it! - a black man named Earl) i rate a 27!!

For plot believability and reasonableness, i give this movie a 6. As simple as the 'twists' were, i have to confess that i got lost early on; however, it made no difference in my enjoyment of this movie. McConaughey was absolutely perfectly cast. His ex-wife was played by marisa Tomei (who had a fantastic 1940's wavy hair style) and she was wasted in this role - plus her relationship and behavior with The Lincoln Lawyer (including a Blair Witch photographed short sex scene) had me puzzled as to why they were divorced. They had one brief argument in the entire film and that was very forced and wimpy.

William Macy was the investigator and Ryan Phillippe was pretty good also. The music was wonderful - rap and hip hop - but it wasn't overdone and there were no group dance scenes. So it was a very fun evening at the movies for us (bill felt the same way as i did) and i'd hire McCoonaughey as my lawyer any day.

HORSESHOE CAFE & BAKERY - BENSON, AZ

We met my sister, Kathie and her husband, Greg and my niece, Bonnie for lunch. They were heading back to Las Cruces. The delightful company added a lot to the very pleasant dining experience.

Its a large place with 3 separate rooms. They got really busy starting shortly after we arrived (post-church worshippers, i think) and Kathie overheard one group tell the waitress that they had been waiting for 40 minutes for their food but we had prompt service - or did i lose track of time given the scintillating (word for the day, Greg) conversation.?

Bill ordered an open face roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes. He declared it one of the best sandwiches he's ever had. I had a meatball sandwich with sweet potato fries and coleslaw. Excellent plus the fries were very good. A lot of times the potatoes are fried too long and sweet potatoes rapidly become tasteless but these were done just right.

Now to give a balanced review from the Bernat-Lennes side of the table - no one bitched about their food but Bonnie said she never got her avocado with the chicken tender entree and Kathie said she never got the bread with her chef's salad. I tried some of her thousand island dressing and it was just the way i like it.

Glad that this restaurant was so good because we are staying in Benson in a couple of weeks for a hiking trip and this will be a welcome addition to Wendy's and Denny's.