The Cheese Stands Alone

Th 1/31/19 Up 6am; cloudy, not as cold, but the temperature was hovering around zero when I pulled the trash bin to the curb this morning. It was too cold for a pickup on Wednesday. Temps to crack the mid teens later. Watched 'AMERICAN ANIMALS' (Xfinity)  An interesting heist movie, but I put off watching it because of the photo for the film- four figures with bird heads, and the description that it was about a book robbery at 'Transylvania University'. I thought it would be some kind of a fantasy film because I didn't realize that Transylvania  University actually exists- it's in downtown Lexington, KY, and the film's photo refers to the theft of very rare Autobahn books that are archived at the university. Watched 'RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS' (Amazon Prime) Gritty tale of growing up in Astoria, Queens, NY in the mid 80's. Star-studded cast; Robert Downey Jr./ Shia Labeouf/ Chazz Palminteri/ Diane Wiest. Midway through the film I got a call...

We 1/30/19- DOWNED BRANCH/ POLAR VORTEX Up 545am; "The Springfield area will be colder than the top of Mount Everest and the North Pole and some parts of Antarctica,” said National Weather Service". Sunny and temps could reach 50 on Sunday. I noticed that a large branch from one of the pine trees in the backyard has fallen on a neighbor's shed. I can't tell if it's straddling any utility lines. Watched 'HAPPY AS LAZZARO' (Netflix) A crooked land owner, The Marquise de Luna, has a collection of families living on her tobacco farm as modern day serfs. Lazzaro is a 'good man', 'saint', holy fool', who befriends her son, Tancredi. In a random accident, Lazzaro falls off a mountain, and apparently dies. About twenty years later he comes back ( Christ figure? ghost? saint? apparition?) and finds most of  his old village living in a city. The more that Lazzaro tries to do the right thing, the more he is thwarted. When he goes to a bank t...

Tu 1/29/19 Up 650am; bright and sunny with frigid temps and far below zero wind chills, and tomorrow it will be even colder! It's so cold that school is cancelled.....FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS. Watched 'CHURCHILL' (Xfinity) (Brian Cox/ Miranda Richardson)  Some fine acting, but apparently the premise of the film is not even close to being historically accurate. Winston Churchill WAS NOT against the Allied Invasion at Normandy, and this is the biggest bullet point of the film. It is true that a couple of years before 'Operation Overlord', Churchill was doubtful, but by 'D-Day' he was completely on-board with the plan. Cox, however, does a good job portraying Churchill's battle with depression (The Black Dog) and Richardson, as his wife, is both believable and inspiring, yet it's too bad that the film was so historically inaccurate. Then, 'LOST IN THE SUN' (Amazon Prime) Another semi-sweet surprise.  A stranger picks up a teenage boy right af...

Mo 1/28/19 I awoke around 3am and finished 'EXIT WOUNDS', then I used the phone to check the news and weather. After about a half hour, I lost the internet signal- 'ken is disabled'. When I got out of bed at 550am, I turned on the PC and all was well. I wonder what happened? Overcast with some light rain and it's 37 degrees! This is probably the high for the day as temps are to plunge to the single digits with far below zero wind chills  tonight. Wrote up 'EXIT WOUNDS' for the blog. 'BLADE RUNNER 2043' (Xfinity)  I had seen this before, but I'm not surprised that I didn't remember until almost forty-five minutes in. Almost three hours, and very slow, deliberate, and nearly glacially paced. A female replicant has given birth and the child must be found because robots CAN NOT reproduce and an LAPD 'blade runner' (Officer K- R. Gosling) must find the child. To his dismay,  he learns that he is 'it', and he also has a tw...

Su 1/27/19 Up 545am; More frigid temps, sunny, low teens to low twenties. Strange Weather Pattern Approaching- temps to rise almost to forty, then rain, and then temps back to single digits on Monday. Monday morning could be one for the books....or nothing. Watched Netflix disc, 'WONDERLAND' At the twilight of his career, John C. Holmes, adult film superstar, is addicted to drugs and tells his criminal friends of a plan to rob a rich Los Angeles restaurant and nightclub owner. They do the heist and get over a million in cash, drugs, and merchandise. In retaliation, the restaurateur organizes a hit on the gang and four people are bludgeoned to death in the apartment on Wonderland Avenue; with Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, and Eric Bogosian. Then, 'HOME AGAIN' (Reese Witherspoon)  A woman with two young daughters living in LA invites three aspiring young film makers to live in her guest house. An odd rom-com because it reeks of such excessive privilege and entitlement ...

Sa 1/26/19 Up 6am; very cold with snow showers beginning later this morning. Less than one inch predicted and temps only to low twenties. Wrote up 'THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME' by Mark Haddon for the blog. Watched Netflix disc, 'SLENDER MAN' Four high school girlfriends watch a video that allows them to call up 'Slender Man'. They become entrapped by this entity- a faceless spirit that steals young people and has been around in numerous cultures since the dawn of time; a very interesting soundscape. Then, 'LIMEY' Terrance Stamp plays a very English ex-con (he sometimes uses Cockney rhyming slang) who comes to LA to investigate the death of his daughter. She was supposed to have died in a car accident, but he isn't buying it. His daughter had been working for a shady record company mogul (played by Peter Fonda) who killed her accidentally when she threatened to turn him in to the police. Stamp murders a slew of bad guys i...

Fr 1/25/19 Up 6am; low single digits with wind chills of fifteen and twenty below zero. Watched Netflix disc, 'MEMOIR OF WAR'   Based on the experience of an actual French writer whose husband was arrested by the Germans in Occupied France near the end of the war. She tries to find out where he is by contacting a French cop working for the Germans. Weeks after war's end, she learns that he is alive and at the Dachau concentration camp. Members of her resistance group are bringing him back to Paris, but he is so sick that he only has days to live. He recovers, but she decides that she is not in love with him, and takes up with her lover who was also a member of the group. 'The Lover' and 'The Divorce' are only covered in the last minute of the film and this causes more than a little confusion. The, 'WONDERLAND' (Amazon Prime) A collaboration between ten Swiss film directors that examine the Swiss national character in an entirely different light...