HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

A Review of "Wonderstruck"

I went to see this movie on Wednesday to escape the smell of paint fumes (our basement had just been painted top to bottom) and the gray, dreary, weather was a perfect excuse to escape reality for a couple hours. It was just me and one other lady,* so we pretty much had a private showing. I only wish I was sociable enough to approach her and sit next to her, but movie watching can be such a solo activity.

“Wonderstruck” is another Brian Selznick (“Hugo”) masterpiece. The movie was about young Ben, circa 1978 and young Rose circa early 20^th century (just before movies added sound) and how their worlds eventually collide in New York City.

The official summary says this: “Ben and Rose are children from two different eras who secretly wish that their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he's never known, while Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue and Rose reads an enticing headline, they both set out on epic quests to find what they're missing.”

I had read that this movie hired a lot of deaf actors, which was part of the appeal, and a few of the non-deaf actors also learned some ASL as well, some of which I could follow. The  movie had the same sense of whimsy and childhood innocence as “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” (though, to be honest, I think I much prefer “Hugo Cabret”) and I could definitely recommend it, though I thought it was frustrating trying to read lips in all the scenes involving young Rose getting yelled at by thoughtless hearing adults. I guess I can better sympathize with how truly deaf people must feel a lot of the time (I am hard of hearing, but not that severely).

* We chatted afterwards and she said she had once taken an ASL class as well (at OSU I think) and was now a retired office worker. Although she didn’t much care for the ending, she said she’s a big fan of Brian Selznick and had the record containing the kids choir recording of “Ground Control to Major Tom” which was played while the credits rolled.

review of "The Florida Project"

The colorfulness of this film is somewhat reminiscent of Wes Anderson, but the plot is more like a reality show.

The movie is set in Orlando, not far from Disney World in the “less desirable” part of the city. There are two hotels – one called Future World (with a scaled down rocket near the sign)

and the other called (something like) Disney Village? (painted entirely in lavender).

“The Florida Project” is a glimpse into the lives of three children (all around 7 or 8 years old): Moonee (who lives in Disney Village), Scooty (who lives in the apartment below Moonee), and Jancey (a new friend who lives at Future World) as they spend their summer vacation doing what children do – sharing an ice cream cone, sitting in the shade trying to keep cool, and occasionally wreaking havoc on the other tenants.

William Dafoe is the hotel manager, Bobby, who seems to have a soft spot for the children. There’s a cute scene in the movie trailer where Bobby allows Moonee and Scooty to share an ice cream cone inside the lobby until one of them drips some on the floor. Bobby isn’t always so tolerant of the tenants’ misdeeds and has to call the police when an unusual amount of visitors are seen coming from some of the rooms (drugs, prostitution, etc.).

Almost everyone can recall the carefree days of their youth and how they spent their summer vacation, but most of us didn’t get up to the shenanigans of these three kids (spoiler alert – a felony is committed in a very big way).

When discussing the film afterwards, my husband and I were hesitant to say we “enjoyed” the film, though there are certainly some enjoyable moments. At times you just want to slap Moonee’s mother as it’s difficult to sympathize with her.

You have to feel for her kid who lives a life of both financial and moral poverty, and who will probably grow up to be just like her mother.

Highlights of the Last Week of Oct / Early Nov...

Meeting a veteran who had a ‘colleague’ of some notoriety…

I’ve been helping to serve lunch at the Upper Arlington Senior Center every Wednesday for the past five to six weeks. On my first day I met a WWII veteran by the name of John (97). I’ll never forget what he said to me, “You join our union and I’ll protect you.” Yes, a little quirky I know, but I thought it was sweet. Every week I watched as he always sat at the same table in the same seat. [It wasn’t until I had worked there a few weeks before I noticed the table was reserved for veterans.] He was always surrounded by fellow veterans (and fans?). I once overheard them talking about their experiences during the war “…landing on the island…” “…the food was horrible…” etc. One of the other lunch ladies told me he was a code breaker during the war. Since Wednesday was going to be my last time volunteering I finally struck up the courage to ask him about it. We didn’t talk long (I had to get back to washing dishes), but what he told me really surprised me and I only wish we had had more time to chat.

I told him I heard that he was a code breaker during the war. He confirmed that, and said he was in charge of a set of troops under President Roosevelt, and is the last survivor of the 25 under his command. What really wowed and amazed me was when he told me HE KNEW ALAN TURING!!! Being a code breaker during the war perhaps it was a given, but I was still really, really impressed! He said the subject of Alan’s sexuality was never discussed as it was an off limits topic, and that Alan was an absolute genius.

John also said he had the highest respect for all the 18 and 19 year old women (who Churchill had recruited from Oxford and Cambridge) who worked at Bletchley Park during the war not being able to tell their friends and family what they were doing for the war effort. As a code breaker himself, he too was leading a double life using a government created lie to successfully deceive his own family and friends. One of those lies was how he lost his right eye (he has a false eye). I’m not sure what really happened, but as far as friends and family were concerned it involved an accident on the shooting range. He said they all had to be trained on how to use various weapons should the situation ever arise that they would need to call on their expertise.

Finally getting to volunteer at a library…

I am now one step closer to my dream of someday working in a library (for pay) after finally getting to do my first shift of volunteering at the Grandview Heights Public Library. I’ve been assigned to the Young Adult section downstairs which is divided into two halves – one side for all the young readers (board books and some chapter books) and the other half for adolescents and teens.

My assignment was to see how many of the books I could locate from the lengthy Pull List (books reserved by library patrons) and put them on the cart I was pushing around. It took Rachel, one of the library employees, about 40 minutes to give me a proper orientation, so I lost a bit of time to that. However, I still managed to find most of the books (though I stayed a bit past my scheduled time), which impressed both Rachel and myself. The only section I didn’t get to was the picture books, which aren’t shelved with as much precision as the longer ones which get filed by the Dewey Decimal system. Hopefully next week I can actually complete the list.

Date night on Saturday (taking advantage of the extra hour and unseasonal temperature)…

This was one of those spontaneous evenings where I suggested we go out because it was too warm to stay home and I had some Graeters (ice cream) coupons burning a hole in my pocket. Hence, after dinner Andrew and I drove over and used our ‘Buy one sundae, get one free’ coupon. He got the 1870 special (a tiny choc bundt cake topped with a scoop of black raspberry choc chip ice cream and whipped cream with chocolate sauce drizzled over top)

and I got the Pumpkin sundae (a small piece of pumpkin cake with a scoop of pumpkin ice cream and whipped cream on top with butterscotch sauce drizzled over top).

We both polished them off with no problem and then went across the street to Half Price Books to look for any bargains (or at least I did as I headed for the clearance section). A dozen books and a CD or 2 later we staggered out with our overflowing book bag.

After we got home Andrew put the headset on me so I could try virtual ping pong. It’s every bit as difficult as playing it for real since I suck at ping pong. However, I love the décor of the studio apartment the ping pong table is situated in.

You can click around to see the apartment from different vantage points, which is super cool, but you have to stop yourself from trying to lean or sit on non-existent furniture. At one point I clicked and I was literally standing on top of a thin beam looking down at the apartment from above. That was a little scary, but I knew it wasn’t real.

We ended the evening by watching the second episode of “Stranger Things” on Netflix.