Three sentence movie reviews: Just Friends

I hated this movie.  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated it.  I watched it for Anna Faris, because I enjoyed her so much in What's Your Number and I thought she acted up a storm, but the movie itself was a trial.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2005/just_friends.html

Moneta Work Uniforms. Tricks with the clear elastic, attaching it to the skirt.

I found it helpful to mark the stitching line on the top of the skirt where the elastic will be sewn. It was too hard for me to try and manage stretching elastic and keeping track of where the elastic should be sewn on the fabric.  Drawing in that stitching line gave me a guide for this.

In the Moneta sew along, the instructions are to divide the elastic into five parts.  I think that is fine if you have a relatively small waist, but mine is not and so I had to stretch the elastic over very long distances, which resulted in some uneven elastic attachment in the first dress I made.  So I did the five marks and then found the middle of each of the five segments and marked them.  I found the middle of the official anchoring points and marked them. 

So here we see I have less length to stretch the elastic.  This was quite successful.

I also found it easier to not sew the elastic in a circle before pinning it to the skirt.  Here's one end here.

Then I just pinned the other end over the first, matching my ending places.  This way I could start at that point and do some firm back stitching to join the circle of elastic right to the skirt.

I have no idea if this is a correct technique, but I found it easiest to stretch my segment out so the elastic pulled tight against the fabric and then plop my fingers down on the sewing machine, keeping the elastic taut.  I then sew until my fingers hit the presser foot and repeated the stretching process.  Because I have more than five points of contact between elastic and skirt, this worked well.

Three sentence movie reviews: Girls Season 2

Dissatisfaction is the word that sums up my feelings about the ending of season two with almost every character in a place I am not really thrilled with. Our main girl Hannah had a big change during this season which I didn't buy because if it had been part of her life since high school, why are we just finding out about it mid-season?  Still, I had fun watching it and I love how actresses of a certain age rotate in as mothers and other older women.

Cost: free from libary
Where watched: at home with Matt.

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723816/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt

Postcards from Kansas and Kansas

These are from H., who is luring me to Kansas.  Here are some Oregon Trail immigrants, which is fitting since those immigrants likely started their trip in Missouri, not far from where I am visiting.  So I'm doing the reverse commute.  But in an airplane, not a covered wagon.  I don't have THAT much vacation time.

And here is one of the sights at Fort Leavenworth that I might get to see.

Three sentence movie reviews: Runaway Bride

part of the Ruby Oliver Film Festival

Julia Roberts is so damn likable that I didn't mind watching this fairly mediocre movie that was completely predictable.  I just love to watch the various emotions spool across her face.  Plus, Joan Cusack was in this, which is always a treat.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1999/runaway_bride.html

I loathe this poster.  It's so obvious. Not unlike the movie.

Three sentence movie reviews: Boyhood

Sometimes I read something written by someone from the past and they mention, just in passing, that they saw Oscar Wild give a talk or went to a reading with Mark Twain and I think, "Do you realize, random person from the past, how incredibly cool it was to be there  in that moment?"  And so it is with this movie, getting to be there in the theater seeing actors age in real time as they tell a story that is both specific and universal.  I can't recommend this movie enough meaning, it's not the be all, end all of film making, but there was a time before someone made a movie over 12 years with the same actors and there is a period where that concept now exists, and I'm happy to have experienced the changeover.

Cost: $9.00
Where watched:  at Cinema 21 with Stephanie North.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/boyhood.html

Three sentence movie reviews: The Goodbye Girl

Part of the Ruby Oliver Film Festival.

There was a lot to like about this movie and it has aged quite well.*  I also appreciated how it incorporated many things that could  have gone off the rails,** but never did and it says a lot that the movie is 111 minutes of mostly fighting, but still very fun to watch. However, I found Marsha Mason's voice grating (unfortunately) and has an uncanny resemblance to someone in my life, so that was incredibly distracting.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

Poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1977/goodbye_girl.html

*Especially considering there's a subplot with a gay Richard III, which manages to be funny and not offensive, at least in my mind.  Other people can feel free to weigh in about this.
**For instance, Quinn Cummings as Lucy McFadden could have gone the way of grating, abrasive child, but instead she managed to perfectly walk the line between world-weary and innocent.  Also, there's something inherently creepy about random dude moving into an apartment with a little girl living there and the movie managed to not venture into that territory.  Plus, I could have completely become judgmental of Paula McFadden's quick attachments with (and subsequent dumpings by) men, but for all her grating voice, she managed to charm we away from that line of thinking.