While activities such as reading, writing, fiddling with the servers, and general upkeep of the house and yard have fallen off my list of things I regularly do (thankfully bathing and brushing my teeth are still on it) movie watching has spiked largely due to the fact that putting Gabi to bed involves an hour of two of cuddling before she actual will stay asleep. This week I’ve watched more movies than I have in the past year and even managed to stay awake through all of them. Some were fantastic, others visually tantalizing, and some execrable. Here’s the short list:
- Into the Blue
This picture sums up the first hour of the film which can be mathematically represented as [(Jessica Alba + (Sun*Surf))^Bikini] = [Motivation to sit through an insipid plot]. I honestly think that this was the intention of the producers as that first hour was filled with one beautiful shot after another of Ms. Alba frolicking around the coastal waters of the Bahamas in the tiniest of outfits whilst demonstrating supernatural lung capacity. At the end of the hour, like some peepshow, the shade is drawn and she dons a wet suit and the viewer is faced with the cold hard reality of a limp plot, something about cocaine and lost pirate treasure. I don’t know but I do know that they could have just edited the last hour out and I would have been more than happy with the film.
- Domino
Management recorded this one for me, likely not because of Kiera Knightly offering lap dances in her unmentionables to a collection of portly stereotypical Socal thugs, but because it was supposed to be an action packed flick involving guns and explosions. Here’s a tip: if the movie features Mickey Rourke you should turn around and walk quickly in the opposite direction. The movie could be nothing more than Ms. Knightly grinding in her panties but the moment they allow Rourke to emote the entire film collapses. He just has that power, it’s his gift.
- Howl’s Moving Castle
Now this one was more family friendly–especially if you are questioning my viewing choices as a parent at this point. It has a great storyline that blends together several fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, The Frog and the Prince), giving them a fresh coat of paint and updating them to make the female lead more independent and self-sufficient. The Steam Punk world that characters inhabit is fantastic and I often found myself ignoring the dialog to just marvel at the visuals and the leaps of imagination that were committed to celluloid. See it.
- Papillon
Steve McQueen. Dustin Hoffman. Solid acting. Solid plot. All those add up to make a film that is on the top of my list of favorites. I hadn’t seen Papillon since high school and was happy to see it show up on AMC last week as its long running time and high strung drama makes for perfect late night viewing (the added bonus is the condition of their teeth serves to make me feel better about mine–Capt. Cavity here). The movie is an adaptation of what has been argued to be a largely fictionalized autobiography of Henri Charrière but disregarding all that this is one of the best damn prison break films ever made. See it. Now.
Still left on the DVR is some 80 hours of movies including Brick which I am very eager to see as well as The Night of the Hunter–Robert Mitchum gives me the willies.
Any other recommendations? (and if it involves Jessica Alba in a bikini I’ll see it quicker!)
There isn’t a day that goes by where Gabi doesn’t amaze us with something so small that we take it for granted. this past week it is sitting and her instance that she sit for every occasion, that is when she isn’t demanding that we help her practice her standing. On this day we were rushing, as usual, to get everything packed up to take her out for breakfast at our favorite local eatery, and she demanded that she get seated in a place where she can see all of the activity from Peri running around to Management stuffing extra diapers and bottles into her bag–this is what she is looking at in this picture.
It has only been a little over twelve weeks since she was born and was just this tiny little bundle of pinkness that terrified me to my core. Now she is a little busy body and chatterbox that offers a play-by-play of everything in her endearing coos and giggles. She has found her grasp and delights in pulling earlobes and beards as well as tugging on lips and squealing when she sees your teeth. Everything is a source of joy and mirth to Gabi.
This summer we are looking forward to spending more time walking about town with Peri and Gabi–she loves being outside squinting up at the sun and darting her tongue out quickly to taste the air when a breeze floats by. I am looking forward to setting her down on the playing fields near our house one warm spring day and watching her explore the world. Her curiosity and excitement is truly contagious.
So a while back I wrote about a mysterious black plastic wrapped trashcan that Peri and I stumbled upon during one of our walks and how my imagination ran away with the thought of abandoned gangster loot or the remains of a serial killer working Greater Hartford. Yeah, it turns out that reality is much more bland than that. It was a barrel full of sticks. Not something at least useful like Pick-Up Sticks. No. Just sticks as in twigs. Nice.
Last week Gabriella was laid up with a cold. A miserable cold that had the little girl suffering from a stuffy head, runny nose, and persistent post-nasal drip cough. A cold that she eventually passed on to us and as if we did not have enough on our plate Mother Nature left us a nice sheet of ice to chip off the driveway while we both coughed and sneezed and ran fevers. Last night, Gabi was so uncomfortable she demanded to sleep with Management, no amount of bribes or deal sweeteners would get her to sleep in her crib nor stay in my arms. So here we both are, on the cusp of wellness only to find ourselves scrabbling for a foothold on health as we slide backwards due to a complete and total lack of sleep.
This is the little sweetness that kept me home for two days as she suffered from a terrible head cold. This shot is from day two of her sniffling and sneezing. Precious, isn’t she?
Last night she awoke at 2 AM convinced it was time to eat then play. An hour on her tunny time mat, another on my lap, and one more in her little chair before she nodded off for a scant forty minutes of shut eye before beginning her day anew.
Gives one pause about the precious comment.
The days seem to be falling behind us rapidly as we watch Gabi get bigger, stronger, and more active. Here she spends an evening playing on her tummy-time mat, exploring a stuffed dragonfly and a rattle-teether. That evening she spent almost an hour enthralled by the activity while listening to Andy McKee’s Art of Motion–she seems to have a thing for acoustic guitars and I really ought to re-string mine.
Nearly every morning, we are awakened by her holding board meetings with the stuffed animals in her crib, issuing performance reviews to a lazy hippo or the giraffe that missed monthly projections. She is a hard taskmaster like her mother, fair yet stern. Overall, she is a happy baby who spends more time giggling and laughing than crying or fussing but at times she appears to be concentrating hard on a particular problem furrowing her brow much like I do as she stares something down, like her stuffed frog, trying her best to get a handle on where it is coming from. She does much the same when I take her on walks with the dog, her head is on a swivel trying her best to take it all in and not missed a single bird chirp or sigh of the breeze among the reeds by the stream. There is a magic in those moments quietly being with her as she examines and catalogs the world about her.
