Film Review: American Sniper

My husband, Jeff, read the book American Sniper several months ago. Since the news about the Clint Eastwood film was released, he has been itching to see it. Couple it with a few Oscar nominations, and I was on board.

Being from Texas, I remember when the procession for Chris Kyle’s funeral graced the news. At the time, I wasn’t sure who he was or what he had accomplished. I just knew that he was an American hero. In Texas, that’s all you had to know. But with his book being adapted for the silver screen, I was curious to know the rest of the story as described by Hollywood. 

Film Review: Birdman

Birdman: or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance has already gotten many awards this season including Golden Globes for Best Actor (Michael Keaton) and Best Screenplay. So, I made my way to the Curzon Soho (the famous theatre in central London) to see the film that sported the long and inapplicable title. I was unsure of what to expect, but what I saw surprised me in more ways than just one.

Film Review: The Theory of Everything

‘Tis the season for Oscars. One of my most favorite times of year! And one of the biggest films out is The Theory of Everything. I was thrilled to see Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking especially after the critical mess of Les Miserables (though he wasn’t so bad in it, I’ll admit). But he has taken the silver screen by storm recently along with many teenage girls’ hearts.

Film Review: Whiplash

I have been a fan of J.K. Simmons for years. Our family Christmas movie is The Ref where he plays a blackmailed Army officer in charge of a student academy teaching yuppie kids who are too smart for their own good. Since then, he has popped up in various films from Spiderman to Juno, but Whiplash is where he gets his Oscar nomination for the perfection-obsessed jazz teacher. I guess he hasn’t gotten as far away from the teaching kids role than I thought. His character has just become more defined.

Film Review: Olive Kitteridge

I am a sucker for award shows. To be more specific, The Oscars. But lately, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to television. Me and the rest of the world, it seems, with the “original series” trend that has swept the internet by storm. So, I caught a glimpse or two of the Golden Globes that aired last Sunday night and saw how dour Frances McDormand looked. Her facial expression got swept up on the Twitterverse much like McKayla Maroney during the London Olympics in 2012. They were unimpressed.

But it made me curious to see Olive Kitteridge, the HBO miniseries McDormand was nominated for. Told in four, one-hour segments, the “film” is a series of vignettes or stories that happen to Olive over twenty-five years of her life. We open with a very telling scene between an affectionate husband, Henry, trying to show his love in the form of a Valentine’s Day card to his sarcastic and abrasive wife. Their son, Chris, is in the middle of the two, adoring his father and hating his mother with every snide comment she spews.

Goodbye Ealing, Hello Acton!

Jeff and I first moved to London just over a year ago. In fact, one year and 12 days. But who’s counting. When we arrived, we had the luxury of staying in a company two bedroom flat with two bathrooms and plenty of space for roaming around including an open floor plan kitchen. We only had this space for a month before we had to vacate and find our own abode. Since I was unemployed, this became my job.

Well, my first year “on the job” was a failure. The place I found for us was about 350 square feet in size, sub-ground (so humidity was everywhere), and our shower was underneath a staircase keeping us from having a standing and satisfying shower every morning. We lived in our box made for ants for an entire year all the while listening to bus brakes, grackles, and drunk patrons of the neighboring pub. More than the size of the place, I couldn’t take the noise anymore. Day or night, police would blare their sirens as they screamed down the high street. It became very disruptive for someone who works from home. Or sleeps at home.

We Found Paradise: Christmas in Chamonix

Our Christmas trip ended with a five day stay in Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc in France. It’s rather easy to get there from Geneva, but I will supply a couple of pointers. If renting a car is on your radar in Switzerland, I would definitely recommend getting a car with GPS and first programming the location of the rental place so you can find your way back easily. We read countless blogs and pointers about renting cars and driving in Switzerland/France, and all of them seemed to agree that renting from the Swiss side is easier than the French side. We took that advice, but we still had difficulties finding where to go through the windy roads of Geneva.

I was absolutely thrilled to have a car again. I hadn’t driven in about a year and miss it dearly. Road trips are one of my favorite things because of the freedom of the open road. As soon as I got behind the wheel, it was like riding a bike. Well, riding a bike in shoulder-less, traffic-filled roads in a foreign country.