Tag: The Fall

Posted on

Snapshots

By Amy Spiegel

Brief comments on film by Amy.
Some old, some new.  Domestic films and foreign too.

Boyhood — I forced Jim to take a break from all his kitchen renovating and watch this one with me. We both considered it time well spent. Jim was so impressed he watched it again the next day. There is patient character development, and then there is Boyhood. Filmed over the course of 12 years using the same actors, Boyhood is a fascinating window into the life of a boy and his family. The viewer not only watches the character of Mason grow and mature but also watches Ellar Coltrane, who plays Mason, grow and mature as an actor. Written and directed by Richard Linklater of Before Sunrise, etc, Boyhood’s strengths are its weaknesses.

From Wikipedia
From Wikipedia

Using the same actors over more than a decade not only adds to the realism of the film, it also endears the characters to the viewer in a completely unique way. Additionally, I think the relationships these actors have with one another must have developed over that time, adding to their onscreen chemistry. That being said, it also creates an unevenness to the performances as the actors, especially the children, hone their craft. Boyhood is definitely more successful than Before Sunrise and its sequels in drawing you in. It’s worthy of the award attention it is getting and well worth the watch.

Night at the Museum 3 — I love movies that I can watch with the kids—lighthearted and kid-oriented—but during which I don’t have to fake laugh or fight off the temptation to catch a quick nap. The first two films in the Night at the Museum series were two such movies and #3 did not disappoint. Thank you, Ben Stiller, for not thinking yourself above simply entertaining us.

The Maze Runner — I am up for a good dystopian young adult flick as much as the next gal. The key word being “good.” Don’t think it is worth wasting any more space on this one than I already have.

Neighbors — I have no problem checking out films from the library when I know they will probably be bad. It’s free and, hey, you never know. This one wasn’t worth the effort it took to swipe my library card. Despite fast-forwarding many of the more graphic scenes of this “comedy,” I still felt like I needed a long shower and several hours of soul cleansing viewing to recover from this one. The fact that there are people out there who would find anything about this movie humorous is just plain tragic.

Honorable and not so Honorable Mentions — This is my favorite time of the year for television viewing, when all the good BBC stuff comes out to tide us over till baseball season starts. Here are a few I recommend, or don’t.

Downton Abbey (Season 5): This should have ended it when they had the chance to wrap it up on a high note. The episodes feel crowded with storylines and several of the actors feel like caricatures of themselves, simply going through the motions. I still love to hear Maggie Smith’s flawless one-liners but otherwise its a bit like meeting a high school crush years later only to see he’s got a beer belly and ear hair.

Grantchester — The real star of Masterpiece this season. Love this series thus far. The protagonist, Sydney Chambers, is a delightful combination of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, only most haunted and better looking.

Broadchurch — Watched the first five minutes of the American version of this series and turned it off after having seen more than enough. Watched the British version in its entirety and wished there was more. The finale was disappointing but worth the ride.

The Fall (Series 2) — Gillian Anderson is amazing as always but this season lacked the tension of the first and fell flat for me.

The Honorable Woman — Maggie Gyllenhaal annoys me. Maggie Gyllenhaal with a stuck-up ice queen British accent is almost more than I can take.

Case Histories (Series 2) — Pure guilty pleasure, crime solving goodness.

Posted on

The Best and Worst of 2014

By Jim Spiegel

It’s been another exciting year, and we want to thank you all for reading and, if applicable, posting comments on our blog. Once again, we would like to close out the year with some summary remarks about good and bad stuff related to film, music, books, sports, and family.

Best and Worst Film Experiences:

  • Jim:  This was a down year for me in terms of watching films. I viewed a lot of “tweeners” that wouldn’t fall anywhere near the “best” or “worst” categories—e.g., Interstellar, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  Probably the best film I watched all year was the Israeli drama Fill the Void, a powerful story of a young Haredic Jewish woman who is pressured by her family to marry the widower of her older sister, who died in childbirth. On a lighter note, but just as memorable, is the endearing Jon Favreau comedy Chef. As for my worst film experience of the year, the choice is easy: Gone Girl, which Amy and I reviewed here and here.
  • Amy:  While Jim was in California, I pretty much anesthetized myself with any television series I could get my Netflixed hands on. While there was a great deal of loving or listing it, hunting for houses and cousins with kitchen, I did watch some quality shows, most of them dark and mysterious. I think the new paradigm of shows created directly for streaming and released in their entirety has real potential. Here are a few to which I became hopelessly addicted, with the usual disclaimer that since they are mostly British, they tend to be a wee smutty and anti-religious, but well-written and well-acted: Hinterlands, The Killing, Happy Valley, The Fall. My best experience, however, was watching Mockingjay: Part One with my older boys. I know it isn’t saying much to say it is the best in the series so far, but it was. There was popcorn and bonding, so take that and stuff it in your high culture hat.

Jim’s Best and Worst Musical Experiences of the Year:  The highlights for me were Morrissey’s World Peace is None of Your Business (despite the Moz’s increasingly sardonic perspective on life) the Black Keys’ Turn Blue (my review of which is here), and U2’s Songs of Innocence (despite the popular trend of hating this album just because it was simultaneously gifted to millions of people). The low point, as it probably could be most years, was catching “highlights” of the MTV awards. Blecch.

Amy’s Best and Worst Eating Experiences of the Year: Best: Finally got to experience (free range) pork belly and it did not disappoint. Like pork chops wrapped in bacon. Thank you, Barn Brassiere in Muncie, Indiana.  Worst: The hundredth Subway tuna sandwich on flat bread I ate with the kids while traveling back from California. Every woman has her fast food sub-sandwich limit and I reached mine somewhere in Kansas.

Jim’s Favorite Sports Moments of the Year:  It was a thrill to see both the Ole Miss and Mississippi State football teams in the top five, with the latter enjoying the #1 position for several consecutive weeks of the season.  I also enjoyed the Kansas City Royals’ exciting run to the World Series.  And as I write this I’m enjoying the Detroit Lions season culminating in a playoff appearance, though I expect the end of their run will make my “most disappointing sports moments” for 2015.

Amy’ Favorite Sports Moments of the Year:  Watching all my kids play soccer this fall. I had to step up my spectator skills in order to do play-by-play for Jim while he was in California. I saw Bailey score his first goal in a high school game, Sam play keeper (a position he and his high threshold of stimulation were born for), Maggie deceive many an opponent with her flighty demeanor, and Andrew take charge of his defense. So fun to watch them all, though the rides home were admittedly a little stinky (but only literally).

Jim’s Most Disappointing Sports Moments of the Year:  Although I’m not a Kansas City Royals fan, I got caught up enough in their improbable playoff run to be really deflated by their falling just short in game 7 of the World Series.  If Salvador Perez swings just half an inch higher on that final pitch, the Royals win the championship on a walk-off two-run homer rather than losing on a feeble pop-out. It’s a game of inches… And speaking of disappointments related to teams I don’t normally root for, it was also painful to watch Peyton Manning’s Broncos so thoroughly dismantled by the Seahawks in the Super Bowl.

Amy’s Most Painful Sports Moment of the Year: Having to tell Jim, who was suffering from amnesia at the time, that Peyton Manning didn’t play for the Colts anymore. He looked so devastatingly baffled. At least he forgot about it five minutes after I told him.

Satisfying Reads of the Year:

  • Jim:  I was delighted to have the time to finally read Melville’s Moby Dick, my reflections on which you can see here.  I also enjoyed Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead—an achievement that is as subtle as it is profound.  The best work in philosophy I read this year was Jason Baehr’s The Inquiring Mind, a rich and insightful work on virtue epistemology.  Also, I greatly enjoyed—and was happy to do a back-cover endorsement for—the book Rethinking Hell, a compendium of important articles and essays defending the doctrine of hell known as conditional immortalism (the view that the damned are eventually annihilated, as opposed to suffering eternally).
  • Amy:  I read so many good books this year. From contemporary fiction to 19th century memoirs, this was a great reading year for me. Here are just a few of my recommendations: The Warden by Anthony Trollope, People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (though I hated Brooks’ March), Where’d you go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple, a couple by P. G. Wodehouse, 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, Half-Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, Extraordinary, Ordinary People by Condoleezza Rice and The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Best 2014 Memories of Our Kids:

Amy:  Our trip out west was the big one. Sitting on the beach with Jim at Big Sur watching the kids playing in the water and looking for creatures was a near perfect moment. Looking at their happy and surprised faces when Jim told them we were getting a dog was priceless. Not being found first every time during Christmas bedtime hide and seek was pretty sweet too.

Jim:  Traveling through Arizona and California with my family in October, experiencing together such sites as the Grand Canyon, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Pacific coastal highway, and Alcatraz. Our kids have always been good travelers, but they blew us away with their endurance on this extended sojourn.

Best Maggie Quotes of the Year:

In the past we’ve reserved this spot for memorable quotes from all of our kids, but this was such a great year for quotes from our daughter Maggie (who is ten years old), we decided to simply list some of her more memorable ones:

  • “When I grow up, I’m gonna make an exact copy of the earth, then cut it in half with a big knife to see if the center of the earth is really so hot.”
  • “Sometimes being hungry can be satisfying. Unsatisfaction can be satisfying.”
  • “I never talk to myself when I’m alone in my room. I just talk to the Beatles and my stuffed animals.”

Most Satisfying Shared Experiences of the Year: 

  • Amy:  There were quite a few this year: Kayaking through the beautiful mangrove forest and onto the open ocean while in the Bahamas. Seeing so many beautiful places on our trip out west. The night Jim surprised me for my 40th birthday by driving me around to collect lovely, encouraging notes from my friends. However, number one has to be picking him up from the airport in December, knowing he was home to stay.
  • Jim:  Dittos on all of that.

New Year’s Resolutions:

  • Amy:  Somehow managing to maintain the new perspective Jim’s being gone gave me. Appreciate him more, worry about the little things less. Enjoy and encourage my kids more, criticize and hide from them less. Accomplish the fitness goals I set but didn’t quite reach for 2014. Watch more quality films with Jim. Put more time and energy into plans for my professional future and of course, read lots and lots of books.
  • Jim:  To read half as much as my wife did this year, which would mean reading twenty-six books next year. Good luck to me on that.

Happy 2015 everyone!