Ithaca

Movie Review: True Grit

The day after Christmas, Colleen and Frank and I went to see True Grit and it's awesome. Well, it's not like the action is so kick ass and the plot isn't necessarily all that interesting. Nothing in the movie will particularly surprise you, it's just that it is such a well done, pleasurable movie. Fantastic cinematography, acting and direction. A great Christmas movie that just barely gets sentimental without getting sappy. The score constantly plays instrumental and vocal versions of the hymn "Softly and Tenderly", with awesome shots of snowy night time skies. Perfect. In fact the movie opens and closes with some of the most beautifully shot scenes in any movie. Opening shot: a house at night lit be a street lamp while snowing. Shown from far away at first and slightly blurred by the snow ("Softly and Tenderly" playing) the scene looks pretty and quaint in the way of a Thomas Kinkade painting. As the camera gets closer you see a man is lying dead on the ground and a horse and rider ride quickly away. One of the final shots of the movie show beautiful closeups of a horseback riding scene through a starry night (again: "Softly and Tenderly") and it looks like a pretty dream. All of the actors are really terrific: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld and no one outshines the other, but Hailee Steinfeld who plays the tough 14 year old protagonist Mattie Ross is really great and as good as the whole movie was I'm sure it wouldn't have worked so well if the part of Mattie Ross wasn't played right, and she nailed it. It's really a flawless movie and I think the Coen Brothers are masters and the best at making artful movies with wide popular appeal. Now I really want to read some of Charles Portis's books because the dialog in the movie is so good and apparently repeated verbatim from the book. Now my only question is since the Coens have started doing literary adaptations with No Country For Old Men and now True Grit, when are they gonna get together with Elmore Leonard? They seem perfect for each other.

Lake Ontario at Winter

On Christmas Day, Andy and I went down to the lake which is only a stones throw away from my grandma's house. Unfortunately the pier was closed for repair. It was also covered in ice so it would have been a treacherous walk. We opted to walk along the beach instead which was a beautiful mix of snow and sand. Below, the beach by night.

Crescent Beach Hotel

The Crescent Beach Hotel has always been one of my families favorite restaurants! Not for the food but for the ambiance. We visit every time we are in Rochester but it is most spectacular at Christmas. The staff start decorating on Sept. 1 and are finished by Thanksgiving. That is more than two and half months of work. They wrap each branch of each tree with lights and the effect is marvelous. They add more decorations each year. There are train tracks laid around the inside perimeter of the restaurant. There are mechanical reindeers inside. It is truly a winter wonderland. If I tried to document all of my favorite decorations there were be well over 50 pictures here. I've never even tried to take any pictures in the past because pictures just can't capture the magic of the place. However I thought I might as well take a couple this year.

This is the famous stage where Andy sang karaoke in front of my family. When it's not Christmastime, of course the stage doesn't look like this and there is a wonderful dance floor below. Andy had a couple of drinks to work up the courage and sang Bob Dylan's 'Lay Lady Lay' dedicating it to me. It was really quite something.

Christmas in Rochester, New York

Frank, Jeanne, Lia, Andy and I drove up to Rochester to visit my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins for Christmas. I often made this trip as a kid and one of favorite memories was when Santa or really my grandpa and my dad made an enormous gingerbread house covered in candy. It was magical. Now Lia will have a similar memory! This year Frank built a beautiful house form that can be reused year after year. Jeanne helped bake sheets of gingerbread to cover the house and everyone helped decorate the house with candy on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning! Lia was adorable and loved her 'Candy House'. She looked at it all day long and seemed to like it even better once she could started pulling the candy off to eat. Her favorite - the candy canes!

Lia seemed to be the perfect age to enjoy Christmas. She loved opening all of her presents and playing with all of her toys. It was so sweet. She got lots of vintage Fisher Price toys for Christmas including this schoolhouse.

The magical gingerbread house. Perhaps the most amazing feature is that it is illuminated. Check out all of the small twinkling lights that line the roof!

I really love this picture because Andy reminds me of my grandpa. I have so many pictures of Jack just like this after our big Christmas dinner asleep in this very chair or on the couch! Well, maybe without the reindeer ears. My grandma who is 89 has still got it! She turned out a huge turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, her signature carrots in cheese sauce, and all the other fixings!! Just amazing and sleep inducing.

Sexy Santa

What is he doing in the dog house?

Cider, In All It's Glory

The glorious cider is racked. Abraham Lincoln, it's great protector, watches over it to keep it safe from harm.

Limoncello

This must be one of the easiest liquors to make. It's a good thing we don't have a lemon tree in our back yard or we'd be making this all the time. We are trying two different recipes for comparison sake. One is lemon peel steeped in 100 proof vodka. The other is lemon peel steeped in everclear at a whopping 190 proof. Can't wait to do the taste test!