Verbatim

Hi, everyone!

I apologize for the lack of, um, ambience here. It’s like I got a new apartment and invited everyone over but didn’t bother unpacking anything! I still need to do some decorating. But in the meantime, I regret to inform you (and myself) that my 20+ years of photos did not make it over here in the Great Typepad to WordPress Migration. So if you want to see photos of my kids when they were in elementary school or that awesome meal I cooked, you can ask me and I’ll try to dredge it up on my phone … but it ain’t gonna be on the blog. I’m nearly sick about it but trying to “let it go” as the song says. I’d like to try to get a recipe list up if I can, as that is as useful to me as it is to you (likely more so) and will let you know if that happens.

In the meantime, I found a scrap of paper with a list of movies scrawled on it, which suggests to me that I had intended to review them for you. So:

The Accountant: Andy had seen the trailer for The Accountant 2, so we watched the first one first. It was good—your usual exciting shoot-em-up but with a side of autistic anti-hero (played by Ben Affleck). And Anna Kendrick, who … well, what’s not to like? The interesting thing was that throughout the movie I kept asking Andy a particular question about a particular character and he kept not answering (no spoilers here!). Turns out that the trailer for Part 2 (which I had not seen) had a big revealer if you hadn’t seen Part 1. So I got a nice surprise ending, and he got a bitten tongue for not caving and telling me throughout. (Oh, and we still haven’t watched Part 2, which precipitated this whole thing.)

The Phoenician Scheme: If you like Wes Anderson, you will love this, because this is about as Wes Anderson as Wes Anderson gets. Two points: Benicio Del Toro (LLOOVVEE) is in every freaking scene, and that is reason enough to watch. Also, there’s a new girl on the block! Mea Threapleton joins the usual crew and is absolutely fantastic. It doesn’t matter what the plot is. Loved this.

The French Dispatch: I was so high on Wes Anderson that I decided it was time to watch the only one of his films I had somehow missed. Well, ugh. I’m sorry, but DID NOT LIKE. It should’ve been right in my wheelhouse because it’s kind of a love letter to fans of The New Yorker (me!), but what can I say. It felt disjointed and not interesting. Sorry.

Freakier Friday: A bazillion years ago, Steph, Julie, and I went to see Freaky Friday, so it seemed only fitting that we all go together to see the sequel. It did not disappoint! Frankly, I could watch Jamie Lee Curtis wait for her nail polish to dry and be happy; she was excellent, and so was Lindsay Lohan. And there were many little treats and “Easter eggs” for those of us who had seen the original. It’s exactly what you think it’s going to be, and that’s a good thing.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: I don’t know why it took me so long to get to this one because Frances McDormand is one of my favorite actresses of all time, and she is a major badass in this! She plays a woman whose daughter was raped and murdered 6 months earlier. She is dissatisfied with the way the local police chief (Woody Harrelson) has handled the case—or not handled it, more precisely, so she buys space on three billboards to complain about him. Although the subject matter makes this the polar opposite of a feel-good movie, there’s quite a bit of quirky, small-town humor, and I found myself laughing quite a bit (and getting weepy, too). I liked this one a lot.