Sometimes the smallest moments can mean the most. I like to write about those.
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Both movies I saw in the theater last month featured one-track minds: The first being chosen by a man determined to get home against all odds, Gods and enemies; the second being forced upon a woman against her will and knowledge: Obsession. Grade: A. This movie was better than I expected, a feat that was nearly impossible given all the hype it received, and one that was achieved nearly entirely…
There are three cool things I remember about staying at my grandmother’s apartment in San Jose when I was a kid: 1. Cheeseburgers: While my grandmother was at work, my sister and I were allowed to walk to Marie Callender’s for lunch. I loved everything about that restaurant, especially their cheeseburgers with a magical mix of American cheese, Thousand Island dressing and iceberg lettuce. 2.…
The movies I saw in May continued a distressing trend: The ones I catch in the theater are now often the ones I like the least. By a lot. In April the dud was “Normal,” and in May the stinker was “In the Grey,” a confusingly bad offering by Guy Ritchie, who I know can do much better. In The Grey (In the theater). Grade: D- For all the talking this movie did explaining the small amount of action…
The movies I saw in April were full of violence: violence between spouses, violence between a woman and her captor, and, in my least favorite of the four, violence that takes over an entire town: Normal (In the theater, 4/18/2026) Grade: D . I like Bob Odenkirk so much, I could watch him eat oatmeal. And I bet I would enjoy that more than this movie, which I only gave a passing grade because of a…
Poster for Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. I saw a lot of movies in March while trying to catch as many Oscar nominees as I could before the Academy Awards were handed out. And since I really wanted Michael B. Jordan to win Best Actor but fully expected Timothée Chalamet to get the award instead, I particularly wanted to watch Marty Supreme before the ceremony in case I needed to grudgingly admit…
My cousin posing with a postal box in Copenhagen in 2024. I was sad to hear that the Danish postal service recently decided to stop mailing letters, because one of my favorite stories about my family members in Denmark involves two women with the exact same name sending letters to each other. That was cool. See, I have two aunts in Denmark with the same name, first and last. For the sake of…
The movies I saw in February delivered a nice dose of nostalgia, especially the re-release of Pretty in Pink, which my high school friend and I both fell in love with 40 years ago. “I felt seen,” my friend said when I asked her recently why she enjoyed that movie so much, and I agreed that the main character of Andie was very much like both of us: Not-rich girls who attended a high school full of…
Long before our phones could instantly show us every photograph we take, we had to develop the film inside our camera before seeing what images we captured. And while many of us just dropped off that mystery mix of magic and mistakes somewhere that could churn out both negatives and prints in about an hour, my father always took his film rolls to a local photo lab for more personalized service.…
I didn’t see many movies in January, but those I did watch packed a surprisingly satisfying punch; all three featured women defying the control of others to carve new paths for their lives, with most carving those paths straight through their captors with very sharp knives. That was cool. And while my favorite movie of the trio features a woman realizing that the VIP club she desperately wants to…
How to stay forever young? Swim in the wild! One of my favorite places to visit is the beach at Big River in Mendocino County. Not just because its beautiful and full of wildlife, but because I always seem to find something a bit magical every time I walk its sandy shore. Like one foggy morning when horses were trotting on the sand. Or another morning when I met the person I want to be in old age:…
