Category Archives: Television / Movies

friday five – where’s the turkey, chuck

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  1. All I can say is thank goodness Apple TV loosened their capitalistic stranglehold on the Peanuts holiday specials and are allowing them to be shown on PBS after all. I bitterly railed against the loss of the Halloween special and can’t imagine getting through the holidays without seeing Snoopy fight with a lawn chair and Linus bring us to tears with his simple reminder of what the holidays are all about, Charlie Brown. At the age of 47 I will still be sitting in front of the TV at 7.30 EST Sunday night November 22 with Miss L and my snacks (maybe popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans and toast?) to bring back a taste of my childhood.

2. Some weekends, all I want to do is sit and knit with something soothing to watch. I love vlogs and am so excited about Vlogmas coming up. Some of my favorite crafting vlogs include Ina Knits, Sandy by the Lakeside, Birch and Lily, and Mandarine’s (all available on YouTube). I also love Christine McConnell although that’s less crafting and more aesthetic (achievable crafting, anyway), Talasbuan, and Northern Heart, and I recently found a new one that I love called Simple Swedish Life. This is a very quiet, peaceful vlog about a young Korean man married to a Swedish woman living in Sweden with their toddler. It’s very aesthetic, full of poignant musings and images, not much (if any) spoken word, and some great cooking and recipes. If you’re looking for an excellent accompaniment to an afternoon of working quietly with your hands with a cup of your favorite beverage, I would highly recommend any of the above.

3. I don’t think I’ve shared yet, but I cast on my holiday socks in the post-election trauma and have been busting away on them ever since. They are the Summer Camp pattern by Jill Zielinski (which is not seasonally appropriate, I know, but looks great with the yarn I chose and a contrast heel / toe) in two colorways from West Yorkshire Spinners. I can’t remember them offhand and the ball bands are downstairs so I will just say the socks are Raveled and I’ll add the colorways later on. Whilst I was taking the inaugural picture for Ravelry, Emmett decided he wanted to help display their attributes and I let him. He’s a handsome model, don’t you think?

4. For the first time perhaps ever, I am almost finished with my Christmas shopping before Black Friday. Making a budget and lists in advance helped. My biggest project left to finish is Brandon’s Advent calendar. I don’t want to reveal it here, but I found the base idea on Etsy and have to buy the supplies for each day. I have 6 days done but need to hit up some shops over the weekend to finish it up. I didn’t quite realize that the month was going so fast. All three of us are getting Advent calendars this year and I look forward to sharing them here on the blog and also over on my Instagram (link in the side column).

5. For the past two weeks I’ve been scheduling my workouts in advance and blocking off time on my calendar. Over the summer, it got light early enough that I could be up and out and get back and shower and not have to delay the opening of my home office, but with the shorter days and darker, cold mornings, I find I have to make accommodations. Setting aside a few mornings a week where I don’t schedule meetings too early has been great and I’ve stuck to my scheduled workouts every time – either getting out for a walk or run or, if the weather is inclement, going into the basement for a strength workout. It’s not always going to be possible this winter to do this, based on my work schedule, but anything is better than the nothing active I did last spring during early work-from-home times (and the corresponding weight gain). Could it be that I’m getting the hang of this “adulting” thing? (Questionable.)

Anyway, I hope you are all well and safe and your families, too. What’s on tap for this weekend? I will be finishing up the Advent calendar for Brandon, picking up the last bits and bobs for our Thanksgiving dinner next week, knitting and enjoying my books and vlogs. Take care and enjoy. xoxo

‘halloween is upon us’ – hubie

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Happy Halloween!

It’s become a bit of a tradition for us to spend the month of October engaging in a horror movie marathon that’s become known as our ’21 Days of Halloween’. There’s no real logic behind that number except that shooting for 31 horror movies felt waaaay too much and 21 seemed challenging yet achievable. We rarely ever actually hit 21 (last year I think we made it to 17) and this year we are coming in with a somewhat lackluster showing of 15. But it’s all in good fun and without further ado, here is our complete listing. Our starred reviews follow the list and if you can stick around until the end of the post you can see my lovely daughter in her Halloween costume.

  • Alice Sweet Alice (1976)
  • Prom Night (1980)
  • Asylum (1972)
  • Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
  • Weekend Murders (1970)
  • Hubie Halloween (2020)
  • Final Exam (1981)
  • Last House on Massacre Street (also released as The Bride and The House That Cried Murder) (1973)
  • Night of the Demons (1988)*
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 watches Boggy Creek II (1984)
  • The Boy (2016)*
  • Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
  • The Birds (1963)
  • The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS STARRED REVIEW (by Sara) – This raunchfest came out of nowhere to be my favorite film of the season. It’s a great example of the 1980’s horror movie genre, complete with an exceptionally lame party at an abandoned funeral parlor / mansion, an Indian burial ground, bad girls doing spine-bending interpretive dance to a truly awful 1980’s power ballad soundtrack, lots of gratuitous boobs and butt cheeks, early death to the sexually promiscuous, demons, and the virtuous Final Girl. There’s also a side plot featuring a crotchety old man and the urban legend of razor blades in Halloween offerings which has a very satisfactory ending. It has it all!

THE BOY STARRED REVIEW (by Brandon) – An outrageous concept so sure, why not? Lets see where the hell this goes. Well executed, well paced, and with a nice little twist to boot. The sleeper hit of our little marathon.

Miss L – Plague Doctor – that’s my girl!

I hope you all enjoy your Halloween weekend! xoxo

friday five

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What a week. I almost didn’t show up in this space today but I do have five things and I’m enjoying this little weekly exercise, so without further ado, let’s jump right in.

  1. So did we need ANY MORE PROOF that Trump is a criminal, a liar, a bully and a racist who defends, protects, and promotes white supremacy? I didn’t. He’s been showing those things via his actions for years. The minute he appointed a poster boy for the Breitbart alt-right to his administration, that was all I needed to know, and by the time he defended white supremacists in Charlottesville (“very fine people”), the horse was waaay out of the barn for me. The fact that he could not wrap his fat mouth around the simple words condemning a fascist, alt-right, Holocaust-denying organization is no surprise to me – but when people tell you who they are, believe them. The sad thing is that his base doesn’t care. His time in the White House has given credence and a voice to a segment of the US population that should be living under rocks, in the boondocks, being generally scorned by the civilized public and allowed to die a toothless death on a sagging couch under a stained Confederate flag wall-hanging. Instead, our President, our Commander in Chief, has them on standby when he refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power. What the ever-loving FUCK, people. (Although I did love the suggestion from one Tweeter that said that if he were Biden, he’d open the debate by putting a tin cup in front of Trump and flipping a quarter into it.)
I will always be here for the Biden / Barack bro memes. 🙂

2. If you are on IG and NOT following Quentin Tarantino’s account @quentin.quarantino, you are missing out on some extremely funny shit from someone who hates MAGA and the right-wing and has an amazing sense of the bizarre, the incisive, and the hilarious. Also some great merch in his shop, and I think he donates some portion of the profits to charities although I can’t find any verification of that (I think I remember him posting a Story about it?).

3. On a complete 180, I’ll move into television entertainment and say that we were excited to see a new ep of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. It is more subdued than previous seasons, but Noel, Paul, and Prue were a breath of fresh air and although we miss Sandi, Matt Lucas seems like he’ll be a fine addition. It’s such a nice show to have for family viewing times with Miss L and when she’s with her dad, Brandon & I have been dipping into Season 2 of The Boys which is just as totally off the hook as Season 1 with just as many crazy “WHOA” moments.

4. I am making hay while the sun shines. Working from home has given me no excuse to get my shit together so this week I made dentist appointments and flu shot reservations for me & Miss L, went to the doctor for a physical and a prescription refill, had the chimney swept, and bought firewood. My car is completely up to date with service, and I am going into the winter with a new furnace and water heater. And yes we broke down and turned the heat on yesterday. Bring on the winter.

5. I’m hoping to get my Halloween socks finished to wear for Halloween but although my progress has been steady so far, I know that my sock-knitting productivity can take mysterious hits at any given time, so I am really trying to (see above) make hay while the sun shines. These are Ravelled, but just as an FYI I”m using Less Travelled 757 sock yarn in the Slutty Pumpkin colorway and using the Minecraft pattern by Heather Cox, which is also on Ravelry. This is resulting in a very satisfying knitting project and the Less Travelled yarn is lovely to work with.

I hope you’re all getting ready for a lovely weekend full of fall fun – pumpkins, woodsmoke, yummy treats, warm blankies and leaf piles. I’m going to be decorating the yard for Halloween with a variety of tombstones and a scary pumpkin-headed ghoul (that Miss L, in withering 12-year old fashion, thought was “a little tacky”). DON’T CARE – BRING ON THE GHOULS. xoxo

ice bath

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The first week back after the holiday is always a bit of an ice bath. I was actually somewhat refreshed from my holiday vacation and while not exactly “ready” to go back to real life, I’m at least holding up. I still feel pretty behind – I meant to post earlier this week, my birdfeeders are empty and I haven’t done a good job at keeping up with exercise this week – leaving in the dark, coming home in the dark, tired but pushing forward.

 

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It’s helped that I’ve been working my plan in three main areas this week:
First, it’s Dry January, which always makes me feel healthy and well-rested. It’s also No-Spend January, which means I only spend on necessities or things that I planned for / wrote down on my “approved” list.
Second, I’m making a concerted effort to get up and out the door early and not linger around the house, unwashed and in pajamas, delaying my eventual groaning slog into the office after taking Miss L to school. I’m dropping her off and heading straight in to work, and the office is pretty peaceful until about 9:00. I can get a solid hour-plus of work in before the phone calls, emails, and colleague drop-bys begin. This also capitalizes on my most productive time of day, so it’s a win. Pot Roast helps with this as she views it as her personal job to get Miss L and I up and out the door. She’s not happy until she knows we’re both dressed, packed, and moving in that direction and then, worn out, she retires to bed for a well-deserved nap.
Third, I am using my planner like a champ, meal planning, shopping, and getting things crossed off.

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Next week will be easier and every day the sun stays up for a little bit longer. We celebrated Elvis’ birthday this week (Brandon is a big Elvis fan) at our local historic movie theater – the Civic always shows an Elvis film on his birthday and this year it was “King Creole”. The audience is full of regulars who show up year over year, we’re indulgent and affectionate, we laugh gently at the cringy bits and applaud the singing.
I hope if this is your first week back in a post-holiday routine that you are putting one foot in front of the other, managing the stress and tragedy of the world around us right now, and staying healthy and safe.

you don’t just pull someone’s skull apart without a little lower-arm strength: 20 days of horror update

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Although it feels as though we’ve been watching horror movies for an entire year already, we’re only half done with 20 Days of Horror. We got a bit bogged down in two of the infamous Hammer productions, Twins of Evil and the Brides of Dracula, both starring Peter Cushing. These are Brandon’s faves, excellent campy old school horror, the equivalent of a spaghetti Western.
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But now I’ve insisted that we return to the era nearest and dearest to my own heart – the ‘80’s slasher franchises.
Today’s installment is the only Halloween selection NOT to feature Michael Myers and is honestly a pretty sad specimen – except for the omnipresent Silver Shamrock jingle. John Carpenter’s intent was to make a different Halloween-themed movie each year, but after this one flopped, Michael was reinvigorated for future contributions, and aren’t we all glad.
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Halloween III: Season of the Witch is overly long and has a lot of great snarkable moments. I can easily see that it was inspiration for at least some aspects of Stranger Things. There are also some cool references, such as the glimpses of the original Halloween – which is one of my all time favorite scary movies. Jamie Lee Curtis provided the voice for the telephone operator as well as the voice over the intercom in the curfew announcements. Just be warned if you watch this extremely odd contribution to the Halloween franchise, that, in addition to no Michael Myers, there’s only a fleeting reference to a witch quite near the end. No actual witch. Suffice it to say that the plot does not hold together very well. From IMDb:
“During a panel at 2013’s 35 Years of Terror Halloween convention in Pasadena, CA, Tommy Lee Wallace was asked by the moderator to explain, as the sole credited screenwriter, the connection between Stonehenge, Ireland, robots, and laser beams that both melt flesh and produce/conjure bugs and snakes from a human body. Wallace’s entire response was “It’s magic, man.””
10. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
9. The Brides of Dracula (1960)
8. Twins of Evil (1971)
7. Black Christmas (1974)
6. Season of the Witch (1972)
5. The Visit (2015)
4. Amityville Horror (1979)
3. C.H.U.D (1984)
2. The Changeling (1980)
1. Village of the Damned (1960)

supernatural or a bad clam?: 20 days of horror update

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Hoo boy, we’ve seen some things during this year’s 20 Days of Horror, but today’s check-in spotlights yet another selection featuring interesting hair choices (James Brolin’s blowout that gradually degenerates into greasy limpness, reflecting his descent into madness; and Margot Kidder’s pigtails which have no symbolic meaning except possibly to foreshadow her future tragic mental illness) and memorable lines:
 
Rod Steiger: “I AM NOT SOME PINK CHEEKED SEMINARIAN WHO DOESN’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SUPERNATURAL AND A BAD CLAM!”
 
“Chiller about a family who are terrorised by supernatural forces when they move into a new house in New York State which was the scene of a recent mass killing and the home of an 18th-century satanist. When swarms of flies appear from nowhere and the pipes and walls begin to ooze slime and blood, they call on a local priest to exorcise the evil spirits.”
You guessed it – Day 4, Amityville Horror!
7. Black Christmas (1974)
6. Season of the Witch (1972)
5. The Visit (2015)
4. Amityville Horror (1979)
3. C.H.U.D (1984)
2. The Changeling (1980)
1. Village of the Damned (1960)

get those flamethrowers working: 20 days of horror update

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We’re rolling with our 20 Days of Horror selections!
C.H.U.D (1984)
Synopsis: “A New York City police officer and a homeless shelter manager join forces to investigate a series of disappearances, and discover the missing are taken by humanoid monsters that live below the city.”
Review: Exceptionally disappointing except for Daniel Stern’s comically bad acting and hair. Also features a consistently earnest John Heard who even in 1984 had chops. 40 minutes in before we saw anything of the CHUD. Brandon says that if he and his childhood best friend had snuck into a theater in 1984 to watch this they would have been pissed.
The Changeling (1980)
Synopsis: “Composer John Russell (George C. Scott) is vacationing with his family when a car accident kills his wife and daughter. Distraught with grief, Russell leaves his home in New York City for a giant, secluded house near Seattle. Soon Russell starts to feel the presence of a ghost, a boy who drowned in the bathtub there.”
Review: Not so bad. We spent a long time discussing how old George C. Scott might have been in this movie – anywhere between 45 and 75.
Village of the Damned (1960)
Synopsis: ““One day the peaceful village of Midwich is cast into a mysterious sleep for several hours, but with no obvious consequences, until soon all the women of child-bearing age turn out to be pregnant. Their children are all born at the same time, and grow quickly into very spooky young people.”
Review: The kids were exceptionally annoying and there aren’t really any famous people in this film, except for one that Brandon recognized. The adult actors were British and there were several scenes in which they dressed for dinner. The best thing this film had going for it was the length. Can we please get back to one hour and seventeen minute run times??

20 days of horror

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Last year, irked by the constant advertising (in September) for “25 Days of Christmas” holiday viewing, I reacted by launching a minor watching campaign of my own. “25 Days of Horror” was born mostly on Facebook as I attempted to plow through almost an entire month of scary movies. Brandon was still in Chicago for his job, so most of my watching was done by myself or after Miss L went to bed. I didn’t make it through 25 films, but I did get to rewatch some classics like Rosemary’s Baby, The Thing, and Children of the Corn, to name a few. By the end of the month I was feeling a little weird. 😉

This year, I have Brandon here with me and we’ve reduced our goal from 25 to 20. I think this is more manageable and a better way to stay sane.

I’ll be keeping track of our viewing and short reviews of each of our chosen films.
Happy viewing and Happy October!

regardless, there are always highlights

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No one really wants to hear about the weather in a blog post, unless it’s raining grasshoppers or something else unusual, but it’s stupidly hot in Michigan. I always forget that September really is still summer, despite my dreams of frost on the pumpkin.

I’m grumpy because of the heat and what felt like a short weekend mostly spent, it seemed, preparing for another work week. Nobody tells you that once you’re a grownup, a 40 hour work week is just the tip of the iceberg. You also need to count hours spent commuting and doing laundry and grocery shopping and food prepping and all that other stuff just so you have your shit together just to spend all those hours at work.

Regardless, there are always highlights. Brandon and his cousin got his shelves installed, and Emmett promptly had to crawl all over them to investigate.

Saturday night we walked down to our local 1920’s-era movie theater, which is a thriving contributor to our little Main Street, offering live music out front on summer weekend evenings and $5 shows for not-quite-second run films. We saw “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, Quentin Tarantino’s reimagining of the Manson Family murders. It was a bit bloated, but I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a movie more in the past year or so. I’ve done a lot of reading about that timeframe and being able to see the Spahn Ranch, Cielo Drive, etc – or at least reasonable facsimiles thereof – was fascinating. I loved both Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in their roles, and seeing faces like Timothy Olyphant and Bruce Dern in cameos was fun, too. Sharon Tate was miscast, and although Tarantino admirably restrains himself from his usual penchant for gratuitous violence during 98% of the film, the 2% in which he lets loose and indulges himself is pretty stomach-churning. Despite that, a very fun film, and we stopped off at our local corner bar to have a drink and decompress before walking home. I love that about our little village- Main Street’s bars, restaurants, movie theater and library are just a short walk away.

We went for a run that was supposed to be 10 miles but only ended up being 8, just due to our schedule, and Miss L and I hit up the season’s first vintage toy & collectible show. I love these things. The people are awesomely geeky and there are always treasures. I snagged a couple of vintage horror comics and a print of the Creature from the Black Lagoon for my retro horror mantelpiece display.

Pot Roast had another visit to our neighborhood vet last week and after a vitamin shot and another mega dose of probiotics, and another round of antibiotics (“time to pill the Roast” is a common evening statement in our house), she’s on the mend. Pooping in the litterbox is a vastly underrated skill in a cat that you don’t admire as much as you should until they don’t.

Hope you’re all enjoying your early week thus far.

xo

check in part three: entertainment

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ann arbor art fair – a summertime staple

I gave up my cable television several months ago because the only thing I tended to watch was the 6:00 news – I haven’t missed it. I’ve had a very lucky summer in terms of great books, podcasts, and original series on Prime & Netflix – so here are some of my favorites!

Books 

I’ve read several “just meh” books this summer (One Thousand White Women and I Was Anastasia spring immediately to mind) and yet in strokes of good fortune, these were balanced out with two of the best books I’ve read this year so far – Flat Broke with Two Goats and The Punishment She Deserves.

Going in reverse order, Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers are back together in the most recent Elizabeth George British mystery series installment The Punishment She Deserves and they’re as entertaining as ever. Lynley and Havers never seem to get old to me – their interaction is comfortable and funny and also refreshing and touching, all at the same time. I love stories of men and women who work together, will never have a romantic relationship or sexual tension, but truly love and respect each other nonetheless – I think that’s a hard dynamic to write well. And Elizabeth George always does it. Add in a typically convoluted case, complicated by a colleague dead set on bringing down Havers while struggling with her own secret alcoholism – and you have a beefy, satisfying read that ticked all the boxes.

In a totally different vein, Flat Broke with Two Goats is a mostly-lighthearted true story of a couple who lost it all during the 2008 recession and moved to a ramshackle cabin in North Carolina to try to get their finances and lives back in order. I love homesteading stories and by the time they’d acquired their chickens and the titular goats I was hooked. This has led me on a homesteading book spree and I’m sure at least one in the current stack by my bedside will end up in a future post.

Podcasts

My Favorite Murder, Criminal, and Thinking Sideways are perennial favorites that I’ve mentioned here before, but I also want to recommend Slow Burn, which is a Slate podcast with Season 1 about the Nixon Watergate scandal. It’s amazing to listen to the total fuckery that was Watergate and hear how Nixon’s supporters defended him – much the same way 45’s supporters defend him – by deflecting criticism back to Democratic candidates. During a lunchtime walk, I laughed out loud on the woods trail around my office when a scratchy old recording caught an indignant Nixon supporter screeching, “WHAT ABOUT CHAPPAQUIDDICK?” the same way today’s Trumpster might be heard to screech, “WHAT ABOUT CROOKED HILARY?”  Days or weeks before, of course, Nixon was forced to release his tapes and was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a criminal. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This podcast is also equal opportunity! Season 2 will be about Crooked Hillary! (well, okay, don’t get all Putin Passionate on me, my conservative friends, it will be about Bill’s impeachment.)
In the same socio-political vein, The RFK Tapes has been fascinating, too – an in-depth look at Sirhan Sirhan and the response to RFK’s assassination. This one is a bit more steeped in conspiracy theory – why did the actual autopsy not bear out the statements of eye-witnesses? Who was the girl in the polka-dot dress? What role did the Rosicrucians play? Was Sirhan the original Manchurian Candidate? But equally enjoyable and educational.
And Karina Longworth is back with the new season of You Must Remember This – Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon. I love old Hollywood and this season, Longworth deconstructs Kenneth Anger’s book “Hollywood Babylon” to examine the roots of many Hollywood myths. Recently released (and the accompaniment to a couple of my recent short runs) – Fatty Arbuckle and Virgina Rappe.

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street art by david zinn at the ann arbor art fair

Series 

My brother is famous for a few things – his hatred of crockpots, his affinity for chickens and Oreos, and his teenage confusion over states that start with a letter I, to name a few – and one of them is his propensity to drop into my life after a few weeks of radio silence to recommend a new series on Prime or Netflix that will ruin my life. I say “ruin my life” in a tongue in cheek way, meaning my productivity levels and desire to do anything except sit in front of the TV. He did this first with “Narcos” and I lost hours and hours of my life to  Pablo Escobar. Then it was “Bosch”, and I am ignoring everything else from him until I finish season 2 of “Marcella”. Which is good, but she fucks up so much that it’s hard to feel a lot of compassion for her…except when you stop to ask why her ex-husband is such an intolerable douche. And I actually really love her style. Great sweaters, messy-hair-don’t-care-I’m-solving-a-horrific-crime, cropped pants and brogues, great coats…

Honorable mention in this category to The Forest on Netflix, which is originally French, I think, so the subtitles made it hard for me to knit to – but suspenseful and interesting nonetheless, they sold it a bit as a sort of foreign Twin Peaks – a girl disappears in the forest and to find her, all her secrets must be revealed. Not in the Twin Peaks category or even close, but an absorbing diversion.

I hope you are well wherever you are – here in suburban Elysia we received a lot of rain this past weekend, which put a damper on the 5k that B & I ran on Saturday morning (my running shoes are still squelching). It did not, however, spoil our trip to Ann Arbor’s Art Fair on Sunday, as evidenced by the photos above. B is back to Iowa for a couple of weeks, then he will be back with me for a long vacation and to wait for his next assignment.

Summer sweeps past. xo

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