#30 Days of Gratitude - Day 29: Guilty Pleasures

 

I love to read in bed. Hubs doesn't mind. LOL He just pulls the covers over his head, even though I turn out the light. Often, I'll be so engaged by a story that I read into the wee hours.

Unlike my mom, mother-in-law, and most women, I'm not that fond of chocolate. Heresy, I know. Now, mix chocolate with ice cream . . . mmm.

Movies. Either at home or in the theater (not now, of course), I love movies. Like books, movies transport me to another place or time, even another world. Give me an action-adventure flick or a romantic comedy and I'm thrilled.

I'm thankful I can enjoy all my guilty pleasures.

What are yours?

 

Here's info about the #30 Days of Gratitude.

It's not too late to join in. Here's the Form: 30 Days of Gratitude 2020 Blog Hop

Stop by Tara Tyler's blog to see who else is participating.

Star Wars, Christmas Program, & Friends

The title of this post was our weekend. Busy and fun. We met friends for lunch on Saturday, finally getting together in over a year. I can’t believe it’s been so long. The good/bad aspect of retirement is we have time. Time to travel, to play with/visit grandchildren, to write, to do all kinds of things. We would agree that “we have to get together” then not set a date. I’m ashamed that I didn’t. My vow for 2018 is not to neglect my friends.

Our granddaughter (10-year-old) is a dancer. Saying she loves to dance is an understatement. Her enthusiasm is evidenced by her big smiles as she dances on stage. This weekend was the holiday program by her dance studio. In years past, they performed “The Nutcracker.” This year they combined dance numbers with little skits. We saw another side of our g’daughter. An actress. In one scene, she scolded some children. She explained later that she was channeling her mother scolding her brother. Very effective. Proud grandmother here.

Yesterday, we saw Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi. Nothing is more fun than watching a movie with fans—daughter, son-in-law, g’daughter, and grandson (almost 8). Did you know that fan is a shortened word for fanatic? Oh, yeah. We are a family of Star Wars fans. I’d heard raves about this episode. Even if it had met with disgruntled reviews like Episode VII, I still would have gone and enjoyed. Without spoilers, I'll say this movie had several surprises, cliffhanging scenes, and great lightsaber fights interspersed with humorous one-liners. The most poignant, though, was seeing Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and knowing she was gone.

After the movie, we went to dinner and talked and talked about the movie. G’son, who never sits still unless he’s playing with Legos, didn’t move during the movie. He barely ate any popcorn, and then only before the movie began. He sat next to me, transfixed by the action. During dinner, he bounced on the bench in his excitement to talk. I knew he’d read several Star Wars books and watched the TV shows. I didn’t realize how knowledgeable he’d become. Wow. Not sure I want to play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit against him. SIL is very observant. He mentioned things I totally missed. Not unusual for me. I focus so intently on the main action that I often miss what’s happening (or is shown) off to the sides. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I have to watch a movie a couple of times before I catch everything. (side note: I had to watch Inception five times before I got it all. I think.)

I love discussing movies. Books, too. One of the reasons I belong to a book group is to get others’ take on what we’ve read. It’s so much fun to delve into the reason behind a scene or subtle hints with others.

The holidays are upon us. No surprise there. Our grandkids had a snow day last week, the day we were babysitting Toddler Girl. The three cousins helped decorate. (With releasing Romance Rekindled, I’m still so behind.) The older two had fun standing on the kitchen counters to put my nutcracker collection on top of the cabinets. TG helped by handing them up to the older ones. She was fascinated by the stackers I only put out at Christmas time. (She’s played with the plastic Star Wars set that I keep out all year.) Between the three, our house is about half decorated. TG is coming over today. Maybe she can help put ornaments on the tree. LOL Thank goodness, the tree has lights or it would look very bare. Where does the time go?

My New Release Alert (newsletter) went out last week. Did you get your copy? Be sure to sign up so you don’t miss getting it. You get a free short story when you sign up. Use the signup in the top right corner above.

Here’s the link to read the latest. http://mailchi.mp/97b6c4bfa19c/a-new-release

I hope you and your family enjoy the holidays. 

Television, Traveling, and Tigers

Have you been watching “Feud: Bette and Joan”? Very interesting series. I remember watching Whatever Happened to Baby Jane on television back in the late 1960s. Freaked me out. The following day, one of my first graders talked about watching it. WTH? What were those parents thinking?

Anyway, the series about the ongoing feud between two aging superstars has been fascinating. I’ve always been a “star” watcher. I love movies, as if you couldn’t guess by now. Every chance I get I read People magazine, usually in a doctor’s office. I can just imagine how the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford would play out in today’s media. Susan Sarandon as Bette and Jessica Lange as Joan are perfect for the roles. I could believe that I’m watching the real Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

Another movie on television caught my attention ahead of time. So I set up the DVR to record it just in case we missed it. We missed it. Worse, the time allotted was wrong. Instead of a 90 minutes, To Walk Invisible the Bronte Sisters ran for almost two hours. When the recording shut off in the middle of the movie, I was so disappointed. Fortunately, it reran at 3 am the following week. I recorded it again (adding an hour to the time indicated). What a fascinating look at the family life of three classic authors and what they had to go through to get their works published. If you get a chance, it’s worth watching.

Rogue One came out in DVD last week. Haven’t had a chance to watch this. Again. We saw it at the show. Unfortunately, because much of the cast is British (and other nationalities) and Hubs and I have some hearing problems, we missed a lot of the dialogue. I’ve been waiting for this Star Wars affiliated movie to come out on DVD so we can get closed captioning. I didn’t have time to get to the store and purchased it, let alone watch it.

Rogue One came out on Tuesday. We left on Wednesday, driving to Arizona. We left behind rain, with a good possibility for snow, for Spring in the Southwest. After the first day of rain, we had sunny, warm days for the rest of our trip. How wonderful to see flowering shrubs and trees leafing out. The farther south, the more definite Spring had arrived. Our family back home assured us the snow went east of us. Still, we were happy to leave it behind.

In the month since we left AZ, Toddler Girl’s vocabulary has increased by leaps and bounds. She’ll be two next week (our reason for returning), and we’re fascinated by how many words she knows and uses correctly plus how much she understands. This is a fabulous time. I’m so glad we could spend so much time with her. Our lovely daughter-in-law (and son) welcome us so graciously and enjoy having us stay with them. We love the time with our granddaughter and they make it easy for us.

I’m anxiously awaiting the return of my edited manuscript—which will probably be here before this post goes up. Good thing. I’m almost afraid I’m cutting it too close. The finished ms. is due on Amazon on Thursday. The penalty if I miss that deadline is steep. No more pre-orders for a year. I won’t miss the deadline. The Case of the Meddling Mama will be released a week from today, April 17^th. While it’s on pre-order, it’s priced at $1.99. After release, it will go up to its regular price of $3.99. I’ve had a lot of fun offering snippets each weekend. I hope you’ve gotten a chance to read them. 

The Detroit Tigers won opening day. Currently, they’re in second place in the American League Central. What a great week!

I hope you have a great week.

Movies and the Oscars

Do you enjoy movies? If you're a regular reader, you know that I do. IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase) is my friend. I’ll be watching a movie and see a familiar face. Immediately, I want to know who s/he is and what movie or TV show I know them from. I love the ease with which I can find the information. That aside, I enjoy movies.

When I was growing up, we saw lots of movies on television. I saw few movies at the theater. When I did, it was a real treat. We did go to the drive-in. Dad would pile us all in the station wagon with bags of popcorn we made at home. No running to the concession stand for us. We brought our own refreshments.

Fortunately, I married a guy who enjoys movies, too. He introduced me to James Bond and I introduced him to The Lord of the Rings. I fell in love with action adventure. I can’t say the same for him with fantasy. Even so, he indulges me by sitting through The Hunger Games and Divergent series, and I watched Mad Max. One movie genre we both enjoy is science fiction. Together, we eagerly awaited the seventh Star Wars movie plus all the Star Trek movies.

So last night, we watched the Oscars. Sorry to say, a lot of the movies nominated were unfamiliar. And many movies we did see weren’t even nominated. Oh, well . 

We get a phenomenal amount of enjoyment from a couple of hours in a darkened theater with a shared box of popcorn and a soft drink. Or at home in our living room. Gotta have that bowl of popcorn. 

I know a book lasts longer. I love it when a book I’ve enjoyed is turned into a movie. I’m always skeptical that the movie won’t live up to the book. Most don’t disappoint.

I hope you enjoyed the Oscars. Did you see any of the nominated movies? What about the winners?

The Appeal of James Bond

In the summer of 1972, my husband-to-be took me to the drive-in where I saw my first James Bond movie. I’ve been hooked ever since. I’ve watched every one of the twenty-three films so many times I can recite a lot of the dialogue. Like every movie-goer, I have my favorites as well as a couple that I can pass up any time.

The films are derived from the books by Ian Fleming, who was an intelligence officer during World War II. Action, adventure, a compelling hero, beautiful women, and great villains make the James Bond franchise the longest running film series in history. Fifty-three years. Incredible. And more to come.

Every Bond aficionado has their favorite actor who’s played the famous spy. Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig are my favs. Connery and Brosnan epitomized the tall, dark, and handsome hero. When I heard that the short, blond Craig was supposed to be the next Bond, I was not impressed. How could 5’10” Craig take the place of 6’2” Brosnan or 6’2½” Connery? After the 10-minute chase scene at the beginning of Casino Royale, I changed my mind about Craig. Wow. His Bond wasn’t suave, he was a newbie just earning his double 0 status, making mistakes, even vulnerable. Hard-hitting, gritty, exactly what the assassin was before he gained polish. The relationship between him and his boss M (played by Judy Dench) grew during the films until it became more like mother and son.

My least favorite actor to play Bond was George Lazenby, followed by Timothy Dalton, and Roger Moore. Bad casting. Moore brought a lot of humor to the series, but too often he smirked. Two movies I could pass up are In Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Lazenby) and Licensed to Kill (Dalton).

The Bond villains are so distinctive. From the somber Dr. No to the arrogant Goldfinger, the villains have to give Bond a run for his money. Then there was the very physical Xenia Onatopp who “always liked a good squeeze.” The best villain so far (to me) is Javier Bardem’s Silva in Skyfall. He is such a creepy sociopath.

The writers are top-notch. Some of the dialogue was witty, some of the quips real groaners. I love the music, especially the title songs. I remember being surprised that Paul McCartney and Wings sang the title song for “Live and Let Die.” Other famous singers added their voices to the opening titles—Shirley Bassey, Duran Duran, Sheryl Crow, for example, The most poignant title song was Adele’s “Skyfall.”

As you can tell, I’m a fan. You can be sure to find me in the audience for the next Bond film Spectre in November.

Do you have a favorite? Film or actor?

I'm doing double duty today. As well as my post here, it's my turn over at Paranormal Romantics where I talk about science fiction TV series. Come on over and say hi.

Second Time Around Movies

Remember when you watched a movie more than once because it was so good? I still do. Every time Indiana Jones or Goonies or The African Queen come on television, I’ll watch them. Never mind I have all on DVDs and could watch anytime.

But sometimes I have to watch a movie because either I missed things the first time around or got hopelessly lost. People on the ‘net will talk about a movie I’d just seen and mentioned things I missed. One reason is that I have tunnel vision. Seriously. Not in everyday seeing—like when I’m driving, but while watching a movie. I concentrate so much on the main character that I miss all the stuff on the periphery. Another reason for not getting everything is the sound in theaters. Sometimes the music and sound effects drown out the dialogue. Thank goodness for closed captioning on the DVD or television. Am I showing my age or what?

A movie I had to watch three times before I really got it was Inception. Holy smoke! How many dream levels were there? And what was with that ending? Reality or a dream? Talk about complicated. Now Interstellar was pretty straight-forward. Search for an alternate planet because Earth’s food supplies were running out. But then someone in a Facebook group mentioned the tesseract scene. Say what? Where was that? I thought I knew what a tesseract was from A Wrinkle in Time. So I had to watch the movie again to find it. Oh, yeah. They even mentioned the word tesseract in the movie. Totally missed it first time around.

This weekend, I watched Jupiter Ascending. First, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I knew it was sci-fi, but somehow I missed reading about the premise. I had to watch it a second time to figure out what was what and who was who. It would have helped if I hadn’t been reading email the first time around. I have to say the graphics were great, the space scenes terrific, and I enjoyed watching the relationship between Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. I caught a few send ups to The Matrix trilogy (same producers) and Star Wars. I’m sure there were others that I missed even the second time around. I’m glad I didn’t see it at the theater, though. Either the mix was poor on the DVD or they cranked up the music and effects in the space scenes while the dialogue was so quiet. Eddie Redmayne’s character practically whispered. Very annoying.

I’m not saying I don’t like complicated plots. I like movies (and television shows) that make me think, that have several layers. Shows that can be enjoyed on different levels. But mainly I watch to be entertained. On Saturday, my monthly post on Paranormal Romantics was about Science Fiction Friday and the new shows on the Syfy channel. I think I OD’d on sci-fi this weekend. As if movies and TV weren’t enough, we had our grandson overnight and had to watch three episodes of Star Wars Rebels and read stories from the show to him. Good thing I like sci-fi.

What do you think of movies? Do you rewatch or is once enough?