Movies

Froot Loops

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments
Daily writing prompt
List your top 5 favorite fruits.
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Just kidding, everyone knows there’s not one speck of real fruit in Froot Loops.

This is one of the many jokes in Jerry Seinfeld’s new film “Unfrosted” on Netflix, which I recommend if you’re an American between the ages of 55 and 70.

Did your mother watch Jack LaLanne on TV—or even own one of his “calisthenics” records—like my mom did?

Did you ever make a newsprint transfer with Silly Putty?

Did you have a Milk Man?

If you ever ate astronaut-inspired “food” or grew Sea Monkeys in a fish bowl, this movie is for you!

It’s basically 90 minutes of non-stop jokes and cultural references to our 1960s childhoods. The premise of the film is the battle between Post and Kellogg’s over the race to invent a breakfast pastry kids will love even more than sugary cereals like Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops. (Spoiler alert: Kellogg’s wins with the ubiquitous, sugar-filled Pop Tart)

I don’t typically like the comedian Bill Burr, but he’s really funny as JFK in this movie. Plus, there’s a ton of other celebrities in roles both large and small.

My generation ate bananas (sliced up into cereal), apples, and dry navel oranges. In the summer, there was watermelon and the occasional strawberry shortcake (especially on the Fourth of July). I’ll stick with those as my top five fruits. Thank goodness the citrus options have improved!

A fun time in 1968

Zeitgeist

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What topics do you like to discuss?
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I like talking about the zeitgeist—current events and popular culture (especially movies and TV). I also love talking about books with my book group and music with my choir peeps. I enjoy hearing about people’s travels (to a point). I’m not a big sports fan, but if a Boston team is in the playoffs, I like to know what’s happening with that. Go Celtics ☘️! (and Bruins, I guess)

And as anyone who follows my blog knows, I despise Trump with a deep, burning, crimson hatred I’ve never felt for any other public figure in my lifetime, so I’m always up for any conversation which involves trashing him.

Am I the only one with a sign like this on display in my kitchen for the past 8 years?

The late comeback

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
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I’m not typically someone to not say something. I will speak-up when needed. I trust my instincts.

For example, when an ambulance (with no siren or lights in use) nearly ran over a woman in a Boston crosswalk, I made a mental note of the name of the ambulance company (which was from a different part of the state), called the main office, and got the driver in trouble. Another time a FedEx driver (a complete stranger) beckoned my young son to his truck when he was walking by himself and asked him to carry a package up the driveway. I got that guy in trouble too.

Being a native-born Masshole who participated in the hellish Boston commute for decades, I’ve also been involved in my fair share of road rage flare-ups. I’m quick to flip the bird to the deserving. I’ve been involved in one or two shouting matches with other drivers while sitting at traffic lights.

One time two young men with a Harvard window sticker cut me off dramatically on a winding thoroughfare, only to end-up at the exact same ATM as me minutes later. I went up to them and said, “Did they teach you to drive like that at Harvard?”

The only times I remember regretting not saying something are when I couldn’t think of a comeback fast enough. I hate that.

Ponytail Harvard guy from “Good Will Hunting”

Click here to watch the best comeback in the film.

The Brainiacs

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t understand?
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Oh gosh, I don’t know. Physics? I certainly don’t understand physics…or…chemistry…or calculus.

Here’s to the scientists and engineers. May they use their powerful brains for good not evil.

Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Princeton in 1947
(image from http://www.life.com)

“For better or worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world.” ~Cillian Murphy

Saying yes

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
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I was good at saying “no” to things for many years, especially volunteer roles in my church and in the schools. I had too much going on with the kids and work. I did my part for various fundraisers and events, but I wasn’t one to get roped into running the whole thing. In fact, a woman once told me she admired my ability to say “no.” (possibly a backhanded compliment)

Now that I’m retired (there, I said it) I’m ready to say “yes” to more things, especially if it’s something fun. Kudos to my husband, who is still working, but says “yes” to quite a few of my proposals. He doesn’t agree to everything I want to do together, but I’d estimate that he says “yes” 75% of the time. For example, we went and saw ALL TEN Best Picture nominees before the Oscar broadcast. And he’s been especially good about visiting museums with me. (He likes museums too, but it’s a bit more of a sacrifice for him to make the time to go.)

On Saturday, we went to a very cool exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts about Hallyu (Korean Wave)—the surge of popular culture from South Korea that started with K-drama and cinema in the 90s and then spread across the globe with K-pop and its massive fandoms in the mid 2000s. K-beauty and fashion has also been a huge cultural export and Korean designers’ work was on display. After that, we went to a Korean restaurant to round out the K-culture experience.

A K-pop idol’s costume at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Reconstruction of a set from “Parasite,” the 2019 film directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho. It was the first non-English language film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The costumes from Squid Game
Fashions by South Korean designers
Korean “sticky ribs”

Related post:

Are you retired?

Star Wars & the musicals

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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As an adult, I’ve not been a big re-watcher of movies, or re-reader of books for that matter. Once is usually enough. Sometimes, if I really like a movie, I’ll see it twice in a movie theater. As an adult, I saw both Good Will Hunting and Barbie twice on the big screen.

As a kid, I watched a few movies five or more times. Other than Star Wars, they were all musicals:

Sound of Music (1965)

Leisl and Rolf in the gazebo

Stars Wars (the original 1977 film)

Grease (1978)

Hair (1979)

For the musicals, I also bought the soundtrack albums, so I could listen to them over and over, and act them out with my neighborhood friends. I remember fights over whose turn it was to be Liesl (from Sound of Music) and whose brother could be roped into playing her Nazi boyfriend Rolf. Unfortunately, nobody in the neighborhood had a gazebo, so we had to act that one out by jumping on and off living room sofas. (I am 16… going on 17…thud)

For Star Wars, I bought the sheet music for the main theme by the great John Williams and learned to play it on the piano. I still have it.

I had to pencil in the base notes, because they fell so far from below the staff lines.

Has a more perfect movie theme ever been composed? Are you really even GenX if this piece of music doesn’t give you at least a couple of goosebumps?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Related post:

Favorite films seen on the big screen

Dragonflies

~ MaryG ~ 8 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?
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No, I’m not superstitious, but my grandmother Lena was. She was an “Old World” Italian-American. She used to say something about dragonflies. I think it was that they would sew your ears shut, if you were bad (or maybe if you lied).

It’s funny, because I’ve always liked dragonflies, but from just one Google search, I see that there are tons of superstitions around them, many involving sewing things shut. I guess they do resemble sewing needles a bit.

I have a dragonfly necklace, dragonfly Christmas ornaments, and more than one dragonfly pin. I like how they look as if one randomly landed on your shirt or jacket.

My favorite dragonfly pin

And how about those dragonfly ornithopters in Dune: Part Two? Those were cool!

Related post:

My two grandmothers

The College Experience

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
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For me, there was no greater growth experience than college. The college experience is like no other. The sheer number of new people and new ideas you’re exposed to in a short timeframe is bound to change even the most “set in their ways” 18-year old.

I was lucky my parents paid the bills and my college had no core requirements whatsoever, so I could take whatever classes I wanted—from poetry to Russian history. (Amazingly, I didn’t take a single science class.) Throw in my semester abroad, internships, guest speakers, drug experimentation, and a winter trip to the Soviet Union, and it really was a mind-expanding time for me.

Hanging out in college: my roommates Ann and Carla and other friends in our on-campus apartment in 1984 or 85. The three of us shared one bedroom, but we had a nice living room and a kitchen.

It’s sad that the liveaway college experience has become so expensive and debt-producing. It’s not fair. I think the four-year model needs to go. Three years of college is plenty, and would be significantly cheaper. “Uni” – as they call it in the UK – is only three years. I mean, maybe a few select majors (like Engineering) need four years, but everyone else (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Business, etc.) could be done in three.

Speaking of the college experience, we went to see One Love, the Bob Marley biopic, based on DanLovesFilm’s recommendation (American critics be damned) and I had fun. There are definitely some weaknesses in the script and I had a hard time understanding the Jamaican/Rastafarian accent, but the music is the music and it’s great. Marley is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and he’s 🔥

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley

So, GenX: I recommend you have yourself a cocktail or a weed gummy (or both) and go see One Love. You’ll have a good time jamming in your theater seat to one of our key college soundtracks.

Related posts:

Legend

College: 80s edition

Semester Abroad

Back in the USSR

Ralph Nader

Freaky Friday

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I think this may be a GenX thing: a question like today’s prompt automatically makes you think of the movie “Freaky Friday” that came out in 1977 with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris.

It’s about a girl and her mother who wake-up in each other’s bodies on Friday the 13th and have to live life as the other one for the day. (It was remade in 2003 with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.)

There’s something about the mother-daughter relationship that makes the premise of these films irresistible (to girls anyway). If only she got me.

When you’re young, nobody can bug you quite like your mother. It’s a special skill! But I assure you, nobody—and I mean nobody—is ever going to love you like she does.

At 58, I am very lucky to still have my mother (and father) with me on earth. I am just wrapping-up a nice visit with them in Florida.

Mom and me on Saturday night

Related post:

Honor Thy Mother

Hi Barbie

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Write about your dream home.
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One of the best things about the Barbie movie was that incredible set—Barbie’s Dreamhouse come to life. I loved it! Imagine living in a matriarchal society in your own pink mini-palace—with all your friends nearby—under permanently sunny skies? The only thing I would add is a larger pool. I’d want to be able to swim laps at my dream house.

I’m with Ryan Gosling and everyone else who “could not be more disappointed” that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie didn’t get Oscar nominations for directing and acting. I’m counting on Barbie pulling off an upset win for Best Picture. I want to see Greta up there getting the last award of the night.

Free gift article from The Atlantic:

Why the Oscars Overlooked Greta Gerwig

Related post: Wrong question