J.M. Filipowicz's Blog, page 4

Journey to NYC*

Today we took a long journey from our home in Burlington, Ontario, to our campsite at Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, a trip that took us eleven hours. There were some nice moments in between long stretches of sitting in the car. On the way we picnicked at a rest area which had a beautiful view of rolling hills, dotted with trees and farms. The final stretch saw us driving through a downtown that seemed to go on forever. The route took us past many landmarks I recognize from movies, including a distant view of the Lady Liberty.

*Note this was written as my post yesterday but published today when We found a WiFi hotspot in Central Park

NYC Movie Review: Big

Josh Baskin makes a wish on a carnival fair fortune teller, and wakes up to find that he now has the body of a thirty-year-old (Tom Hanks). His Mom doesn’t recognize him and thinks he’s a creepy kidnapper, so he is forced to find work at a New York City toy company.

What makes the movie a gem is Hanks’ portrayal of a 13-year-old trapped in a man’s body. When he plays laser tag with a random boy at the toy store (and then famously plays the giant floor piano), double dips at a fancy party, or plays with toys at a business meeting, what we see is a kid being a kid.

Which makes the romantic plot all the more creepy. Tom Hanks gets to 2nd base with Elizabeth Perkins on screen with a home run implied. I’m sure the filmmakers chose thirteen as the character’s age on purpose. It is a time when we are halfway between childhood and adulthood. I know that thirteen-year olds have hormones and those hormones cause urges. And yet, during the intimate scene all I see is a child making out with a grown woman. Ew.

The child actors in this movie, who are both turning 40 in few months, did an excellent job in this too. One lovely moment comes when Perkins identifies herself as Hanks’ girlfriend and Jared Rushton, who plays his best friend, giggles genuinely. Perkins seems more embarrassed than creeped out that she’s dating a thirteen-year-old. Still she didn’t really do anything wrong, so I hope she doesn’t get arrested for kidnapping if the neighbours see her driving her little boyfriend home.

All told the movie holds up to the test of time, despite questionable wardrobe choices. We definitely have to visit FAO Schwarz toy store on our trip to New York because of this movie.

Note: for some reason wordpress isn’t letting me upload pictures today. Hopefully this problem will be corrected in time for me to show you shots of NYC!

Are You my Mother?

Today I found a baby bird in the grocery store parking lot. I picked it up, stroked it’s feathers, and then was unsure what to do. Then I remembered that my dog’s vet was in the same plaza. I carried the bird to the vet’s office and, feeling a little silly, presented it to the girl behind the desk.

“Oh, we get these all the time,” she said. “We have special formula and feed them through a tube until they are old enough to be released.”

I left, relieved to know that the bird would be taken care of. I also petted a new puppy today and held a snake, so it was a good day for animal interactions.

Tonight was my Writer’s Group

I feel very fortunate to be part of this incredible group of talented authors. We recently had a couple members quit the group (I hope temporarily) and another one join. I was incredulous about meeting a new person (as intraverts so often are) but I quickly discovered how that she is as awesome as the rest.

Though I am currently the youngest in the group, age has never mattered. We are bonded by something that transcends years. We are writers. We get it, the self doubt, the characters that live inside our heads, the pain of slogging through the middle. We understand why we write despite it being soul-killing work with little monetary gain. Well, maybe we don’t completely understand why we do it, but at least we all know the compulsion and the struggle.

Carcassonne

Today’s post is about one of my favourite games, Carcassonne, which is named after the French city pictured to here. I like the game because it has enough strategy to engage a room full of adult nerds and yet is simple enough that my five and seven year old can play. Also, my in-house board-gaming partner likes to play it as well, which is more than can be said for most of the games I enjoy.

Game play goes like this, on your turn you pick a tile, add it to the ever expanding puzzle of a kingdom, then add one of your little men to one of the features on the tile you placed so you can claim the points later. Cities, which look a lot like the town the game is named for, are typically worth the most. Everyone takes turns playing tiles like this until there are no more tiles to play. There’s also the fun power trip of trying to steal an opponent’s city, and the satisfaction of creating a kingdom with friends.

NYC Movie Review: The Muppets Take Manhatten

There’s something about the Muppets that warms the heart. Here the gang travels to New York City to get their show on Broadway. The thin plot is sewn together by some cute scenes, random cameos, and musical numbers.

The Muppets are so cash poor at one point that they don’t have enough money to pay for soup and have to stay in lockers at the train station instead of a hotel. And yet somehow they have the funds to take carriage rides through Central Park and visit the observation deck at the Empire State Building. Also Miss Piggy pays for a train ticket leaving New York, only to come back in secret to spy on Kermit and his non-puppet female friend. In any case, none of this matters because (spoilers) they do eventually get their show produced.

Getting you to care about the characters is what Muppet flicks do best. I mean this is a movie about a stuffed frog and pig and their puppet friends. Yet, I felt saddened and shocked when Kermit got hit by a car. And of course, I was happy to see Piggy and Kermit get married at the end (or maybe they didn’t really get married and it was just part of the show). Though despite a few nice moments, this isn’t the best movie, or even the best Muppet movie.

Anyway, we got lots of nice views of the NYC skyline and of Central Park to get us excited about our trip, which was the goal.

NYC Movie Review: Night At the Museum

In preparation for our trip to New York City next week we decided to show the kids some movies set in New York to get them excited about going. Tonight’s movie was Night at the Museum, starring Ben Stiller. Ben gets a job at the Natural History Museum in New York only to find that all the exhibits come to life at night.

The flick takes a while to get to the good stuff. We get a lot of preamble about Stiller’s character, your cliché divorced Dad who can’t hold a job. We don’t know what happened between him and his wife, but at some point she dumped him to be with Paul Rudd. Anyway we don’t care. Isn’t this supposed to be a movie with live dinosaur skeletons?

Stiller finally gets hired as a night watchman at the museum. The job should be extremely boring but turns out to be the coolest job ever because of a curse that makes everything come to life. (The whole curse thing seemed a bit contrived to me. After all the Toy Story gang doesn’t need a curse to come alive.) Anyway Ben Stiller keeps whining that he’s going to quit, despite multiple pep talks from Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams). Ben is going to lose his apartment and possibly his kid, unless he keeps the most awesome job in the world. Seems like a no brainer to me.

The joy of the movie comes in seeing all the museum exhibits running a muck. Mammoths, civil war dummies, Huns, tiny Romans and cowboys, safari animals, etc. All must work together to stop three legendary actors from stealing the cursed tablet and whatever else they can fence. I did enjoy seeing Mickey Rooney, Dick Van Dyke, and Bill Cobbs kick Ben Stiller’s butt. Honestly, this movie is so full of first class actors and comedians that no one knows what to do with them all.

Despite its flaws, Night at the Museum is entertaining to watch and also did an excellent job of getting us excited about seeing the real Museum of Natural History. My daughter asked to visit the museum at night when everything is alive, but we’re going to stick with a daytime trip.

 

Adam is Awesome

Fourteen(ish) years ago I met the man who would later become my husband and the father of my children. Today is Adam’s birthday, so here are some pictures of him being awesome (because he’s awesome in every photo).

Some cheesy photo booth shots from the early days of our courtship.

The two of us all fancied up for our wedding. Isn’t he handsome?

Here’s our family when the offspring were babies. Yes, this man makes beautiful children.

Here we are all skating together.

In this photo, Adam is demonstrating his manly strength.

He’s even handsome with green skin!

Here’s the family with uncle Shatner.

I have nothing to say about this picture, but don’t we look cute together? When you’re with someone as long as I’ve been with Adam, there’s a bond that develops that is stronger than friendship, stronger than family. Sometimes it’s easy to take a love like that for granted when you experience it every day. Today though, I thought I’d take a moment to remind myself how lucky I am. Happy birthday, Adam. I love you!

 

 

 

Zukes!

Today I will illustrate my post with photos because that’s the fashionable thing to do on the interwebs these days. First it’s my husband’s birthday tomorrow so we (mostly he) made the backyard all fancy for a backyard barbecue/pool party.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. Do you see the plants in the very back behind the muskoka chairs and event tent? That’s my vegetable garden. (There’s something about growing your own food that makes one feel powerful and godlike). The vegetable growing in the very corner of the yard is a zucchini.

Today I harvested this bad boy. The zucchinis are yellow. Who knew? I’ve never been a huge zucchini fan and only planted these because the seed packet came free with the cucumber seeds. The cukes never grew but the zukes did and here we are. Of course I had to cook our first home grown zucchini for lunch.

The internet said to slice them like this and pan fry them. Here they are all sliced up.

And here they are all salted and peppered and frying in olive oil. About three minutes a side.

 

And here they are all cooked and ready to go. They were delicious. At least I thought so. The rest of my family were more interested in grilled cheese. Legend has it that children will eat vegetables as long as they think that said veggies were grown in their own garden. Myth debunked! Whatever, more for me!

Nothing Says Summer Like the Drive-in

Tonight is carload Thursday at our local drive-in theatre and we are taking advantage of this retro summer activity and taking the kids to see “How to Train Your Dragon 2″.  When my eldest was an infant, the drive-in was the perfect way for the hubby and I to have a date night. No baby sitter required, and we didn’t have to worry about the appropriateness of the flick because he slept through the whole thing.

Later, the drive-in became an exercise in torture as we attempted to get children to sleep in the car so we could watch the ever-coveted second movie, which invariably contains more violence, sex, profanity, and general awesomeness. We were never quite successful, so in time we just gave up and only ever plan to see movie #1.