Author Archives: Lenora Good

Mudbound

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Netflix, 2017
134m

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Yes, it’s one word.

A marvelous movie on the south (Mississippi Delta) shortly after two young men come home from fighting WWII. The black man was enlisted and a tank commander, the white man was a bomber pilot. Their families are bound by the mud of the delta, owned by the white family and sharecropped by the black.

The two veterans served with honor and have grown past the racism of their families and the local KKK. 

This movie should be seen by everyone. It is not a feel-good movie, it is what I would call American Noir. It shows life as it pretty much was, and in many places is regressing back to. We’ve come too far to regress back to that time. If you liked the movie The Help, you need to see Mudbound.

Sand Storm

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Netflix, 2016
1h 27m

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Somewhere I read where this movie was a collaboration between Bedouins and Israelis. Most places list it as an Israeli movie about a Bedouin family living in a settlement/ghetto someplace in Israel. The sand storm is not an haboob; it is the central family. The oldest girl learns to drive from her father, she goes to school, she dreams of marrying a man of her choice, of controlling her own life. Her parents have other ideas. Her father takes a second wife, mother is not happy, and when she fights for her older daughter, father banishes her back to her parents. Two women (mother daughter) fight to change the ways of their culture. 

I found this movie to be very interesting, a look inside a different culture of today, not times past. The ending, though not what I hoped for, nonetheless, is the perfect ending for this movie. Well worth the time to watch.

Trailer for Sand Storm 

Slumberland

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Netflix, 2022 PG
1h 57m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Nemo and her dad live in a lighthouse. Mom is no longer living, and Dad goes out to rescue someone and is lost at sea. Uncle Philip, a staid, single man with no sense of adventure, becomes her guardian. Nemo discovers that if she dreams, she can find her dad again. While dreaming, she meets the outlaw, Flip, and the two of them search for, and find, a secret treasure map, and the magic pearl to grant their hearts desire. Flip wants to know who he really is so he can wake up, Nemo wants to see her dad. 

This is a kid’s movie, so you know how it’s going to end. And you know there will be all sorts of adventures and dreams before that end. My friend and I thought it was a nice change of pace, we laughed, I cried, we totally enjoyed it. It was not at all difficult to get totally immersed in the movie.

Trailer for Slumberland

Weird Laws of Physics

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Weather in the Tries:

Hoo Boy — the lows will be 30 down to 26. The highs will be 34 to 45. No wonder a lot of animals hibernate. I think I’l like to be a bear, I could get my fill of fresh salmon and berries, and then go sleep it off all winter, to wake to spring sunshine and warmth.

Weird Laws of Physics:

Okay, it may not be physics, it may be a weird law of nature, or a weird law of an old God somewhere. I truly don’t know. If you do, please enlighten me in the Comment section.

I’m sure you’ve noticed when with another person and he yawns, you can’t help yourself, you yawn too. And more often than not, tell him to stop doing it. If the room is full of people, it doesn’t take long for everyone in the room to start yawning. Why? Surely, we aren’t all suddenly wanting a nap, or are we?

This sort of falls into the category of, “An interesting thing happened on my way to the Forum.” Oh, wait, it’s been so many years since I’ve been to the Forum I can’t remember. It was for sure, B. C. (before children). I was writing a text to a friend and wrote: “…pleasures of any size always expand when acknowledged. One of those rules I’ve never understood. Kinda like yawns. Once someone in the room yawns, everyone has to take a turn.” (A funny, as soon as I wrote the word ‘yawn,’ I had to yawn.) He responded that he did too. Several in a row. Once for each yawn typed. As did I. (yawn)

Did you just yawn, or want to? I had no idea I was susceptible to yawning just seeing the word, let alone typing it. 

I looked up Yawn Contagion, and the answer is, nobody knows what causes it. People who study that stuff have all kinds of ideas, but no solid, cast in bronze, answers. Everything from mirroring to evolution, that if one person does it, it must be good to do, so everyone does it. 

Ann Rice:

The gothic queen dies Saturday night. I believe it was from effects of a stroke she suffered. I enjoyed the books I read by her, except the Lestat books. My three favorites were and are, Ramses the Damned, Feast of All Saints, and Cry to Heaven. I understand she and her son, Christopher Rice wrote a sequel to Ramses the Damned that is due out next Spring. I can hardly wait.

Entertainment:

TV: MSNBC: Watched a delightful documentary, Paper and Glue. Even if you don’t normally watch that channel, check out when they will replay it again, or go online and see if you can find it. It’s about an artist named JR and his art is very large photos. He started as a graffiti artist in Paris. He has brought communities together, helped men in US Super Max prisons. It’s just a great 2 hours. You will feel better for having watched it than not.

Books: Remember, if I finish a book, I review it Rainy Day Reads

I’m a little over halfway through Humans of Climate Change: A Cultural Journey to Explore Climate-Change Impacts, Solutions, and Hope —by Kaden Hogan. This is a fascinating book, and no matter what you think of Climate Change, I think this book would interest you.

Auntie Lenora’s Bookstore:

Please note, my Web Guru (I have a hard time calling her my Web Mistress because as you well know, Auntie Lenora does NOT like arachnids, and web builders remind me too much of the 8-legged critters. BTW, I have a rule, if I see one inside my house, it’s dead; if I see one outside in their house, I step around it, maybe photograph it, but I respect their home and by golly they should respect mine!) Anyhow, we have a new tab on the page: Bookstore, and if you have a book you’re written for sale, I’m happy to put it up there with all the information, such as how many pages, how much money (incl s/h if you ship). The ISBN so they can get it from their local bookseller if they want.  

Quotes of the Week: from https://www.inspiringquotes.us/topic/3683-yawning

“A Yawn may not be polite, but at least it’s an honest opinion.”

“A yawn is a silent scream for a coffee.”

You may have noticed your Coffee Break Escape is a tad later than normal today. That’s because a very good friend of Auntie Lenora sent her a manuscript to read and comment on, and she was soooo excited about reading it she forgot to schedule it last night. It’s really Sammy Brave Dog’s fault—he is falling down on his chores and will have a sit-down with HR either later today or tomorrow to discuss. And isn’t that a shame, so close to Winter Holidays and all 😉 Happy Shopping!

Chocolat

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Netflix, Miramax 2000
American, closed captions
2h 1m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Chocolat, starring Johnny Deep, Judi Dench and others, and I just now learned it’s really a story of Paganism v. Christianity. Fortunately, the pagan has chocolate on her side 😉 All this time I marveled at Depp’s acting, at Judi Dench’s character and the stories that unfold in the village. And how a nomadic mother and her young 6-year-old daughter come to a French town that is pretty hide-bound and arrive at the beginning of Lent to open a chocolat shop. 

She shocks the Mayor of the village when she tells him she’s never been married and doesn’t attend church. The Mayor has his own problems as his wife has left him, but he won’t admit it. The old lady from whom the shop is rented is estranged from her daughter who won’t let her see her grandson. Gypsies arrive on river boats and are shunned. And no one understands our heroine who hires a Gypsy (Johnny Depp) to do some work, who attends a party the Gypsies throw, who works the magic of her chocolate on all in the little village. And that chocolat is magic.

If you haven’t seen Chocolat, or if it’s been a few years, it’s time to see it again perhaps for the first time. One of the all-time bestest movies ever! Oh, and the Priest. He’s wonderful.

This movie has an R rating for its positive messages about acceptance, living life to the fullest, and love. It also contains a wee teensy bit of sexual content and discussions of illegitimacy. Which really only exists in America and I imagine, Islamic countries. Other countries aren’t that hung up on whether the mother is married or not. A child is a child is a child. 

Chocolat trailer

The Old Guard

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Netflix, 2020
American, closed captions
125 minutes

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This was a total romp! It was magnificent. Charlize Theron is the star, and she stole the show. It’s about a 4-person group of immortal mercenaries who roam the world doing good. Okay, they aren’t really immortal, but they all have the ability to heal themselves until they don’t. Dreams play a part in the discovery of ‘new’ immortals, and they find one in Afghanistan, a Marine who should have died and came back. Of course, she’s going to be sent Stateside, probably forced to stay in a hospital while they run tests on her. But she’s a Marine. She follows orders. Until Andy shows up and kidnaps her. Andy is Andromache of Scythia, played by Charlize Theron.

And the fun begins. Nile, the newly discovered immortal doesn’t want to be part of the team. She’s a Marine. The team breaks its rule and works for the same person twice. Someone films them self-healing and wants to capture them, hold them prisoner until science can learn how they self heal, and save humanity, or indoctrinate the army of the highest bidder, whatever. Nile walks away. But–she’s a Marine.

The fight scenes are absolutely fantastic. Well, of course. It is a Superhero movie. The choreographer did an absolutely marvel-ous job of fights. (Didja notice my homage there to Marvel comics. Huh? Didja?)

In fact, this movie is a comic brought to life and is more fun than you can imagine. AND, next year, we get the next movie, it’s already “in the can,” as they say.

The Old Guard trailer

Kingdom: Ashin of the North

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Netflix, 2021
Korean, excellent subtitles
1h, 33m

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Ashin is probably 11 or 12 and her mother is dying. She goes into the forbidden forest to find the magical herb to save her mother. Her entire village is killed in her absence. When she returns home to find everyone dead, she goes for vengeance. I’m not normally fond of vengeance movies, but this one held me. She belongs to a tribe of, I believe, Jurchen, who were from China and looked down upon. The War Lord likes her father and holds out acceptance to him for some under-cover work. When Ashin goes to the War Lord and says she will do anything if he will look into the slaughter, he uses her as a spy. She has a place to sleep in a drafty barn, and is spurned by the villagers. Her father taught her martial arts, and she watches the soldiers, becomes proficient in the use of a bow and arrow. (for fun, count the arrows)

The horror part of the movie comes in rather early, but I was too naïve to see it—the magic herb she found, turns the dead into zombies. We don’t really see them, until she uses it for revenge, and then it’s a delightful twist, worth a couple of good laughs, and makes for the perfect ending.

Kingdom: Ashin of the North trailer