My answers: Current read is Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England by Susan Higginbotham. It was offered free for the Kindle and I thought I’d give this author a try. Most enjoyable so far.
Recently finished reading: The Mother Hunt by Rex Stout. Enjoying time with Nero and Archie is always good.
Next up is: Bird in Hand by Christina Baker Kline. Mostly because I just got it from the library and those loans tend to expire. HA!
Spotted this beauty today. Had to grab a photo, so we “borrowed” someone’s driveway, and I got a few photos before anyone spotted me (yes, they were home). Anyhow this is the US Coast Guard Cutter Fir, based in Astoria, Oregon. Her nickname is “The Bar Tender”, and her motto is: No Bar Too Tough, Too Rough, Too Far. If interested, you can read more about her…
I followed the “recipe” from here, adjusting the numbers a bit to suit my pictures. Both pictures below were taken in Yaquina Bay, Newport, Oregon. The bridge view was from the north side of the bay looking westward. The NOAA R/V was taken from the south side of the bay, looking north.
Finally had a chance to take some photos. It was cool and breezy, and would have been nice to have a nice camera … but still my little point and shoot did okay. I have added a tripod to my “gift list”. Both photos taken at Alsea Bay and Lint Slough, Waldport, Oregon.
I just finished a 30 Day Movie Meme, and rather than drag it out for 30 days, here it is all rolled into 1 post.
Day 1 – Favorite Film: Harvey
Elwood P. Dowd quotes:
Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.
Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.
And my all time favorite quote from this movie is one my husband uses, and it’s always a kick to watch the faces of folks to see who knows where it’s from and who doesn’t:
Attractive sales lady at a department store: What can I do for you, Mr. Dowd? Elwood P. Dowd: What did you have in mind?
Day 2 – Least Favorite Film: Blazing Saddles
Day 3 – Favorite Comedy: Oscar
Chazz Palminteri as dumb, dopey, lovable “Connie”.
Snaps: Connie! Am-scray!
Connie: Do I have to, Boss? Every time I leave I fall behind.
Day 4 – Favorite Drama: Godfather series
To me, this movie is also a slice of America. The good, the bad, the evil, the corrupt politicians and cops, and the average citizen who turns a blind eye to the evil in front of them.
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed. Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?
Day 5 – Favorite Action Film: Golden Eye
[Q has blown up a dummy with an explosive pen]
Q: Don’t say it…
James Bond: The writing is on the wall.
Q: Along with the rest of him.
Day 6 – Favorite Horror: I don’t watch the new horror films, much too gruesome for me; and the few “horror” flicks that I’ve watched give me the shivers. After more than 40 years I still don’t like to shower when I’m home alone thanks to Psycho (and we won’t discuss how freaked I got when hubby was in hospital and I was staying in a guest house and the shower had a curtain similar to the one in … well, now I’ve got the creeps all over again!)The Birds was good, and it still gives me the frights, but I think for all round it scares me and I love it - Arachnophobia is tops.
Dr. Ross Jennings: Come on, let’s go find that spider. And let’s find your mom to take care of that spider. Honey, we’re in the living room. We need you to kill a spider.
No blood and gore, no slashings, no guns, nothing but normal folks living normals lives with normal spiders. Or so they think. And since I have a real fear of spiders, this movie is therapy. Yeah, right. I’m jumpier than ever after I watch, but watch it once a year is what I do. With the lights out. HA!
Dr. Ross Jennings: [after killing a spider] Therapy.
Day 7 – Favorite Animated Feature: Gnomeo and Juliet
Juliet: He’s a Blue!
Gnomeo: She’s a Red!
Featherstone [pink plastic flamingo ]: And I’m Pink – who cares!
It’s been several months since we saw this movie and I still have this desire to add Gnomes (one red, one blue) and a couple of pink flamingos to my garden. Hehehe
Featherstone: A weed by any other name is still a weed.
Day 8 – Favorite Thriller: I’m not always good at picking just one. Actually, I have trouble making decisions in life. So, in alphabetical order, here’s a few of the thrillers that I watch over and over, and they never fail to thrill.
Absolute Power
Charade
Day of the Jackal (1971)
Deceived (with Goldie Hawn)
Dial M for Murder
Entrapment
Jack Ryan movies: Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Sum of All Fears
Jennifer 8
Laura
Midnight Lace
North by Northwest
Notorious
Sneakers
Sorry, Wrong Number
Three Days of the Condor
Day 9 – Favorite Musical: The Music Man, but South Pacific is a close second.
Then there’s “Kiss Me Kate”, “Brigadoon”, “Paint Your Wagon”, “Chicago”, “How to Succeed in Business…”, “Holiday Inn”, “White Christmas”, “Singin’ In the Rain” … and more. LOL! We love musicals and own a shelf full of them.
Day 10 – Favorite Foreign Film: Le Pacte du Silence (“The Pact of Silence”) with Gérard Depardieu.
Day 11 – Favorite kid’s movie: E.T.
Elliot: He’s a man from outer space and we’re taking him to his spaceship.
Greg: Well, can’t he just beam up?
Elliot: This is *reality*, Greg.
Day 12 – Favorite Love Story: Kate and Leopold
Leopold: Are you suggesting madam that there exists a law compelling a gentleman to lay hold of canine bowel movements?
Police Officer: I’m suggesting that you pick the poop up.
My favorite bit:
Leopold: That thing is a damned hazard!
Kate: It’s just a toaster!
Leopold: Well, insertion of bread into that so-called toaster produces no toast at all, merely warm bread! Inserting the bread twice produces charcoal. So, clearly, to make proper toast it requires one and a half insertions, which is something for which the apparatus doesn’t begin to allow! One assumes that when the General of Electric built it, he might have tried using it. One assumes the General might take pride in his creations instead of just foisting them on an unsuspecting public.
Kate: You know something? Nobody gives a rat’s ass that you have to push the toast down twice. You know why? Because everybody pushes their toast down twice!
Leopold: Not where I come from.
Kate: Oh, right. Where you come from, toast is the result of reflection and study!
Leopold: Ah yes, you mock me. But perhaps one day when you’ve awoken from a pleasant slumber to the scent of a warm brioche smothered in marmalade and fresh creamery butter, you’ll understand that life is not solely composed of tasks, but tastes.
Kate: [mesmerized] Say that again.
Day 13 – Favorite Chick Flick: The Mating Season and The Model and the Marriage Broker. Both were filmed in 1951 and star Thelma Ritter (whom I adore!). If these ever hit blu-ray, they are so mine!:
Day 14 – Favorite documentary: I don’t normally watch documentary’s, so the closest I can come is Gettysburg or HBO’s John Adams.
Day 15 – Favorite Play Adaptation: So many good answers for me, but my top picks are:
Drama: Casablanca
Comedy: Harvey
Day 16 – Favorite Book Adaptation: Biggest problem is that if I love the book I normally dislike the movie, and if I love the movie I seldom go read the book. LOL! Still here are a few that are good adaptations, in alphabetical order:
Absolute Power – mainly because the movie doesn’t try to be the book, and they both work.
Day of the Jackal.
Eye of the Needle, although the book is steamier and way better.
Harry Potter series – even with the few changes and all the items that had to be left out (who’s going to sit through a 9 hour movie?), the movies are excellent adaptions of the books.
Day 17 – Least Favorite Book Adaptation: Oh, it has to be “Raise the Titanic”. Grand book, horrible, horrible movie. Even the author thought so. This is from wiki:
Author Clive Cussler was so disgusted with the film that he refused every film company that wanted to adapt a film from one of his books. (When the film Sahara was made, Cussler sued the filmmakers.)
Day 18 – Movie That is your Guilty Pleasure: None. I don’t watch things that I’d feel guilty about watching. Seriously. I know it sounds snobbish, but I don’t mean it that way. When I was younger, my response might have been “Eye of the Needle” (or a movie similar), simply because it was “racy” (although the book is racier!) — but now? I’m old enough to really not give a rip what others think about what I watch and I watch the racy parts and think “ho-hum”. After all, years of being married … well, never mind. LOL!
Day 19 – Film That Made You Cry the Hardest: Schindler’s List, and we never finished watching it. Didn’t take long before my heart was totally broken and I was sobbing out loud. Hubby had tears running down his face. I remember saying, “NO! Oh no!” Hubby turned it off and that was that.
Day 20 – A Movie with your Favorite Actress: I don’t have a “favorite” actress, so here’s what I did: Searched wiki for a list of the Oscar nominations for best actress. Went to my birth year, looked at the list, picked one at random and picked a movie of her’s that is a “favorite” with me:
Loretta Young: The Bishop’s Wife
Day 21 – Movie with your Favorite Actor: Just like yesterday, no “favorite”, went to wiki: Oscar nominations for best actor, to my birth year, picked one at random and came up with:
Kirk Douglas: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Day 22 – Movie You Wish You Could Live In: I originally wanted to say “Downton Abbey” as daughter #4, but now … now I want to live in Cranford where women are FRIENDS. Even though life is tough, they survive and support and encourage each other.
Miss Pole: This is no occasion for a sport! There’s lace at stake!
Day 23 – Movie that Inspires You: Pay It Forward:
Chris: Is that what you want for your birthday? Everybody it forward?
Trevor: I can’t ask for that.
Chris: Sure you can. Why not?
Trevor: It wouldn’t work.
Chris: Why?
Trevor: [Long pause] I already blew out my candles.
Day 24 – Movie with Your Favorite Soundtrack: The Mission: ”Gabriel’s Oboe is hauntingly beautiful, but the movie? A 1-star from us.
Day 25 – Movie with the most beautiful scenery: A tie between “Sound of Music” and “Hero”.
Day 26 – Movie with Your Favorite Villain:
Counting down …
5. “Die Hard” with Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber.
4. “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Potter.
3. “Chinatown” with John Huston as Noah Cross.
2. “The Usual Suspects” with Kevin Spacey as “Verbal”.
But my number 1 is Deceived with John Heard as Jack Saunders.
Day 27 – Movie with Your Favorite Villainess:
Counting down …
In 3rd place: “Dangerous Liaisons” where Glenn Close plays the Marquise de Merteuil
“When one woman strikes at the heart of another she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.”
In 2nd place: “Golden Eye” where Famke Janssen plays Xenia Sergeevna Onatopp:
“It’s clean. I had to ventilate someone.”
And my top pick: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Helena Bonham Carter plays Bellatrix Lestrange and is dispatched quite nicely by Molly Weasley.
“[singing] I killed Sirius Black!”
Day 28 – Movie with your Favorite Hero: Perhaps an odd choice. I know that when I read these questions ahead of time I had an entirely different answer in mind, but now … this is my hero … Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham from “Downton Abbey”. To explain may include a spoiler for those who’ve yet to watch this, so be careful if that’s the case. (Sweep across to read)
Second season (series as they call it), episode 5 (not exactly sure), where Violet FIGHTS to bring William “home” to Downton, even though he’s not an officer. Every part of this touched my heart, but what clinched it for me was when they were at the field hospital and William’s dad tells the doc and Violet that he knows that William will do better once he’s “home”, and the doctor starts to say again that the wounds are fatal, and Violet stops the doctor, and says:
“See, sometimes, we must let the blow fall by degrees. Give him time to find the strength to face it.”
Gads, I adore Violet here. Not for her sarcastic wit (which I love), but for her compassion — something that I found horribly lacking in the doctors when my husband was fighting for his life and they brutally told me things. So based on my life experience, I’m picking Violet.
Day 29 – First Movie You Remember Watching: Glad this wasn’t first movie ever watched as my brain doesn’t go back that far. HAHA We didn’t have the money to go to the theater, although I know my brother and I went to the Saturday matinees in the summer, but I would have been around 10-12 at the time and we would have most likely watched Disney films and other kids movies. Not one of which sticks in my brain. I know we watch Wizard of Oz at home on TV, but the first time I remember doing so was, wow, again, I would have been around 10, my brother 5, and he went to bed before it was over because it scared him and we didn’t watch it again for several years. Since I do remember that title, that’s what I’ll say. LOL
Day 30 – The last film you watched …
A. In the theater: Red Tails
B. At home: Despicable Me: “It’s so FLUFFY!”
MizB at Should Be Reading hosts Friday Finds. What great books did you hear about/discover this past week? Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!
Two finds for me this week:
Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England by Susan Higginbotham—I’d heard good things about Higginbotham’s books, and when this one became free for the Kindle, I snatched it up and started reading. Looking forward to reading more of her books.
The Diplomat’s Wife by Pam Jenoff—This was mentioned on a book list, and it looked interesting. Now on my TBR list.
My normal book rating is 3 out of 5. I seldom grant a book a rating of 4 or 5. All of my April reads were just above that—so a good reading month for me.
Book #13: Gambit
Author: Rex Stout
Genre: mystery
Rate: 3.75/5
Comments: Better than average Wolfe mystery. Complicated, with broken habits, a female living in the house and more.
Quotes of note:
…your mental processes are stultified
[Regarding Voltaire]: To call him a great man was absurd; strictly speaking, he wasn’t a man at all, since he had no palate and a dried-up stomach. He was a remarkable word-assembly plant, but he wasn’t a man, let alone a great one.
I wonder if the author of Princess Bride read this book?
…he [Wolfe] raised his shoulders an eighth of an inch and said, “As you please.”
Book #14: The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian
Author: Lawrence Block
Genre: mystery
Rate: 3.5/5 – Liked & Recommend
Comments: Another good offering from Block. The characters remained true to form, and the mystery was interesting with a slight twist.
Quotes of note:
“You know what the trouble is, Bern? There’s too many Mondrians. It sounds like a Nero Wolfe novel, doesn’t it? Too Many Cooks, Too Many Clients, Too Many Detectives, Too Many Women. And Too Many Mondrians.”
Book #15: Lake In The Clouds
Author: Sara Donati
Pages: 680 (qualifies as a chunkster)
Genre: Historical Fiction/Romance
Rate: 3.75/5
Comments: Third book in the “Wilderness Saga”. This book was everything the second book wasn’t and more. Wonderful story. Good character interaction, written in 3rd person, good commentary and storyline based on the issues and events of that particular time in American history. I enjoyed meeting grownup Hannah, and look forward to the twins growing up and developing more in the next few books (at least I hope that is what the author does). It’s a bit sad to have Elizabeth and Nathaniel more in the background, and it was hard to lose some folks, but it’s very much a story about life. Not glossed over, nothing swept under the rug, everyone’s warts and goodness revealed. If I were to pick, it would be over 2 items: 1) I hated chapter 11, and quickly skipped to chapter 12. I really didn’t want that much description of it all, and don’t see the point of the author going that far. 2) What was in the letter that Isaiah give to Hannah for safekeeping??? It seemed important considering what he went through to make sure the letter is safe, but the contents are never revealed. Frustrating! Still, the book was a wonderful read, I hated to see it end and it earns 3.75 stars from me and I’m eager to read the next book in the series.
Quotes of note:
A brash people, the Irish. I wonder if they will ever learn that discretion is sometimes the greater part of valor.
The more that is taken away, the more clearly will thou see what is left behind.
Book #16: Paco: The Cat Who Meowed in Space
Author: Homer Hickam
Genre: non-fiction
Rate: 3.5/5
Comments: A short little story, a bit geeky in spots, but a pleasant read—especially for cat and/or NASA fans. He’s a good writer, and I’m looking for his other books.
Quotes of note:
In fact, it has been scientifically proved that having a cat lowers blood pressure, decreases anxiety, wards off depression, and causes smiles.
Book #17: The Mother Hunt
Author: Rex Stout
Genre: mystery
Rate: 3.75/5
Comments: Another better than average Wolfe mystery. Complicated, Wolfe skedaddles, his client is a woman, and a nice twist in the solution.
Quotes of note:
“…just as Wolfe held it against Jane Austen for forcing him to concede that a woman could write a good novel.”
“No man with any sense assumes that a woman’s words mean to her exactly what they mean to him.”
I’ve always thought of a thriller as a movie (or book) with a plot twist, or a story that kept me on the edge of my seat as I watched (or turning pages as I read). Then I stumbled across this wiki article on the genre thriller, and discovered how much wider the definition truly is.
…Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre’s most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn’t thrill, it’s not doing its job.—James Patterson, June 2006, “Introduction,” Thriller[10]
Wow. Maybe my favorite genre in films isn’t drama, it’s thriller. HA! Anyhow, given this information, here’s a few (very few and in alphabetical order) of the thrillers that I watch over and over, and they never fail to thrill.
Absolute Power
Charade
Day of the Jackal (1971)
Deceived (with Goldie Hawn)
Dial M for Murder
Entrapment
Jack Ryan movies: Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Sum of All Fears
Jennifer 8
Laura
Midnight Lace
North by Northwest
Notorious
Sneakers
Sorry, Wrong Number
Three Days of the Condor
Here’s to thrillers that keep me returning for more!
The neighboring gardens of Montague and Capulet are at war, but the gnomes, Gnomeo and Juliet, are in love. [IMDB]
An edgy Shakespeare adaptation like no other, this animated musical transports the classic tale of forbidden romance between two star-crossed lovers from warring families to the unlikely yet hysterical world of garden gnomes. Featuring songs from legendary recording artist Elton John, this movie features the vocal talents of Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart and Michael Caine. [Netflix]
Cast:James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Ashley Jensen, Michael Caine, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne, Stephen Merchant, Patrick Stewart, Julie Walters, Dolly Parton
Juliet: He’s a Blue! Gnomeo: She’s a Red! Featherstone [pink plastic flamingo ]: And I’m Pink – who cares!
We found this movie to be totally delightful! Grand animation, good music, good PLOT (again, a movie with a plot), love the voice casting (and oh là là — Jason Statham is one of the voices – LOL!). Don’t miss the extras! It’s been several months since we saw this movie and I still have this desire to add Gnomes (one red, one blue) and a couple of pink flamingos to my garden. Hehehe
Featherstone: A weed by any other name is still a weed.
