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| High winds tore the roof off my local library |
Currently reading:
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino: Coming across an old school chum is never a good sign in these books.
Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter: TBH I've completely forgotten what these two are investigating or why.
Posted:
Discover the other wines of Champagne and meritage, the New World wine blend to look for if you love Bordeaux.
Movies:
LOVED IT. This movie shows exactly why I study art and why I think it's important: it tells us who we are. But it doesn't necessarily tell the story we think it does, or tell a single story. I ugly cried at the end and I didn't even care. The scenes of pre-War Vienna were also perfect; Tatiana Maslany really looked like she could be a younger Helen Mirren.
My only criticism is that Ryan Reynolds struggled with the whole mild-mannered nice guy persona. Sometimes he'd break character, and when he wasn't breaking character it was painfully obvious he was Acting!.
Scientists at the International Space Station collecting samples from Mars discover an adorable single-celled organism named Calvin that's all eyes, all brain, all muscle, looks like a vampire bat, and grows rapidly. What could go wrong?!
Idk about this movie; I spent most of it rooting for the alien. Also there are a ton of inconsistencies: lack of oxygen is supposed to kill Calvin, but it spent 20 minutes frolicking around in outer space like a kid in a McDonald's play area! I think it would have been better if the filmmakers had pulled a Jaws and not let us see Calvin for most of the movie. Because it was way too cute.
This documentary follows the life and adventures of top-tier foodie bloggers, who travel the world in their quest to eat at Michelin-starred restaurants. In other words, the life I wish I had.
If anything, this film made me glad I'm not one of these super food bloggers, or whatever they call themselves. Yes, I have scheduled portions of vacations around eating in specific restaurants before, but they weren't Michelin restaurants, and even if I could afford such a diet, I wouldn't even want to eat in these fancy-ass places for all three meals every damn day. I would have liked to have seen some questioning of the Michelin rating system and a few bloggers who don't slavishly follow it, as well. Overall just an okay doc.
You can really tell this movie was directed by Oliver Stone. For some people that might be a good thing. For me, eh. I enjoyed JFK, but that movie was actually entertaining. This one, on the other hand, is too vague and bland to be terribly interesting. Your time would be better served watching Citizenfour.
I did like the performances, however! I was impressed by how well Lebeouf–no–Levitt transformed into Snowden, but really all the actors do a top notch job. My favorite by far, however, was Rhys Ifans as Corbin O'Brien. He brought some very much needed personality and energy into this film.
Okay, but not as good as the book. I would have expected a movie like this to be totally up Tim Burton's alley, but he never went for the jugular with it. It could/should have been scary, or at the very least creepy, but instead it was all nice, bright skies, flowers, fun people with British accents, etc. Plus they kept the prologue and, while I can understand why they did, I still found it irritating.
Bonus:
Time is getting on, so I'm going to skip the updates for this week. I did want to share one link, though. Remember how I started keeping track of the nationality of all the authors whose books I read this year? Well, check out this handy map of every country's favorite/most famous novel.
Have a great week, everyone!
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