Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

Movie Review by Andy

Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie to go see on the big screen. Just suppress your inner movie critic and it is really fun. The movie has a great premise: orphaned muslim kid from the slums of Mumbai gets on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' because he thinks the love of his life could be watching. He gets farther on the show than anyone before. In fact, the host of the show doesn't quite buy it that this uneducated slumdog knows so many of the answers.  Is he somehow cheating, is he just that bright? No.  The answer is "it was written". A theme of destiny is at the core of this movie. Everything that has happened in this young man's life serves to bring him to this game show. It just so happens that every question corresponds with a pivotal moment from his life since he was a little boy, which is why he knows the answers. Since it was all meant to be, that means you have to suspend your disbelief a little for certain scenes and just enjoy the ride. Sometimes the dialogue was a little corny too. Some of the scenes of the main character and his brother when they are boys that show them running from the cops and stealing from tourists are cute but seem derivative of some other movies I've seen (but can't think which ones). But, as I suppress the inner movie critic, it was so much fun to finally see a movie with my wife about a young man whose every step in life is toward finding the only girl he's loved since he was six years old. Very romantic, almost overdone but barely holding back. Great music, including a couple tracks by M.I.A. (perfect fit) and awesome, grainy, fast paced cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (see Lars Von Trier's films). I think I heard some reviewers say they thought he glamorized the Mumbai slums too much with bright colors and what not. I didn't find that at all but now that I think of it, I think it would have been good to show even more of the grimier, dirty Mumbai (I'm thinking of Pixote (movie from Brazil)). My favorite shot is of two main characters when they are young and running from cops. An over head shot shows a patchwork of corrugated tin roofs with a hole in the center of the frame showing the kids running through a yard in between homes. Then it pans out wide twice to show this huge shanty town in Mumbai. Great scenes. Definitely stay for the closing credits to see some great choreographed Bollywood dancing.

A Few Favorite Holiday Cards

How much do I love handmade and letterpress cards? A whole bunch. Here are some good ones.

This was a Christmas card that was drawn by my dad, Frank when I was about two or three.

  

(front)                           (back)

The next cards were made by Visionaries and Voices artists, Barbara Moran and Antonio Adams.

    

                                         (inside detail)

  

                                   (inside detail)

Below are two cards made by Saturn Press in Maine. We sent these out in 2006 and 2007.

Here is our 2008 holiday card made by Elum press. Photo by Michael Wilson.

Pizzelles

Every year at Christmas we make a special Italian cookie called Pizzelles for friends and neighbors. Andy helped make them this year.

Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo

Colleen's favorite light display was the seahorse.

This was Lia's first trip to the Zoo. There was a lot to look at. She saw elephants, leopards, turtles, monkeys and manatees. She especially loved looking at the large lit up earth.

Christmas Day

We spent Christmas Day in Melbourne, Kentucky with Adrienne, John, Melissa and Rob. In the morning we walked to their neighbor's house - Sandra's - for brunch. The boys had to carry their own chairs.

Sandra made homemade marzipan.

Andy chopped wood for the wood-burning stove. 

Tons and Tons of Ravioli

Each year for Christmas, Colleen's Italian family make a few hundred ravioli. This year the count was well over 300.

Guido, Colleen's godfather in the kitchen of his restaurant where we make massive amounts of pasta dough.

Michelle and Lisa by the big mixer.

La Famiglia

Layers and layers of pasta

Mary Lou and her mother's famous sauce recipe. The sauce cooked all day long. It's the best!

This was probably close to half of all of the finished ravioli.

Christmas Time

Our front hedge.

Our Christmas Tree. 

Feather Tree.

The fireplace and mantle.

So Far, Our Favorite Picture of Molly Thunderpants Due in Recent History

Our good friend Molly lives in Hawaii and we miss her terribly. Thank god for her totally awesome blog which we check often so we can see what she's up to or listening to or what makes her laugh. Molly happens to have a great sense of humor which is why she legally changed her middle name to Thunderpants and so her blog makes us laugh out loud all of the time. (Molly's blog.) Our friend Doug visited Molly recently and we are JEALOUS and he took this picture of her on the foggy beach.

Hazel Roy in Hickory Grove

Tenth Anniversary Southern Music Issue

The best mail came today - the latest Oxford American. There are 2 CDs included and one of the highlights is a version of 'Hold On, I'm Comin' by Jerry Lee Lewis.  We've talked about this magazine before. If you haven't checked it out yet, now would definitely be the time to get a copy.

Movie Review: Synecdoche New York

Movie Review by Andy

Two weeks ago we went to see Synecdoche New York, the new movie by genius Charlie Kaufmann, our favorite screenwriter who wrote the classics: Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation and especially Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...................

...........and Synecdoche New York sucked really, really bad.  Who wants to watch this depressing playwrite loser (played fantastically by Phillip Seymour Hoffmann) who can't finish a play lose his stuck up artist wife (played fantastically by Katherine Keener) and daughter to weirdo German lesbians.  Okay, yeah, that sounds great but it's not.  Wife and daughter run away to Germany and later on when we see them again they are talking like Dieter from Sprockets - you know: pretentious German artist types- a tired German stereotype.  We are tired of going to see movies about middle age married couples who are unhappy and cheat on each other (see Burn After Reading - another disappointing movie from great directors, but not as disappointing as Synecdoche NY).  bottom line: not confusing, not funny, not interesting.  I give this movie no stars and two thumbs down.

Thanksgiving in Hickory Grove, South Carolina

We had a great Thanksgiving. There were close to 60 people at the Wilkerson family cabin for the big meal. These first two pictures were taken by Andy's cousin Will.  

Here is Andy's cousin Colton playing possum after the meal.

A nice day to take a long walk.

Andy's great aunt Ginger gets the best pecans off of the tree.