Movies to Skip

(1) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (still in theaters)


Here is a review I found with which I coldn't agree more (but I have only included part of it). It was 2 hours of my life I can't get back, not to mention the high ticket prices and the cost of a babysitter!



Review By Kirk Honeycutt


Bottom Line: A wearying onslaught of action and effects gives Indy little chance to charm as he did in days of old.

What do you know, the film billed as a return of Indiana Jones turns out instead to be a sequel to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Extraterrestrials and a spaceship mix it up with well-lit caves, tumbles over waterfalls and swings through the jungle that would make Tarzan gape. Director Steven Spielberg seems intent on celebrating his entire early movie career in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Whatever story there is, a murky journey to return a spectacular archeological find to its rightful home -- an unusual goal of the old grave-robber -- gets swamped in a sea of stunts and CGI that are relentless as the scenes and character relationships are charmless.

(2) Grace Is Gone (out on DVD)


Well what do you know, I agreed with the same reviewer. I may have to start following him. Overall this movie was just a huge downer without much of a point.

Review By Kirk Honeycutt

Bottom Line: A disappointing and manipulative look at one family's loss in the Iraq war.

"Grace Is Gone" is not a dishonest film for you sense the fledgling filmmaker's sincere desire to deal with grief, the natural outcome of war. But the grief in writer-director James C. Strouse's "Grace" is so heavily manufactured that everything rings hollow. In John Cusack, Strouse has one of the screen's more versatile leading men. Yet Cusack seems strangely remote in a surprisingly one-note performance that requires the audience to supply the emotions.From the sounds of sniffles in the Eccles Theater here, many will do just that.

Much of these feelings owes to the highly manipulative use of two very young actors who play Cusack's adolescent daughters. The eldest, Shelan O'Keefe, is the best thing about the movie. But the younger one, Grace Bednarczyk, is Strouse's go-to person when he needs a quick emotional jolt.Sensing a hot property, the Weinstein Co. snapped up this picture over the weekend. As an antidote to the Bush administration's determination to keep images of grief over Iraq out of the media, the film may work at the boxoffice as a political statement. In theory though, shouldn't this movie be about any war and any family's loss? The marketing campaign may have to be as manipulative as the movie itself if the distributor is going to convince adult audiences they need a good weep.Instead of creating an air of normalcy before news of the tragedy breaks, Strouse allows the film to open with a sense of melancholy, loss and anger. One can rationalize this approach, but the film never undergoes a dramatic tonal shift to reflect the impact of unbearable news.

(3) August Rush (out on DVD)

This movie nearly but my sister-in-law Jen and me to sleep. Plus it was just plain bizarre.

Review By Lou Lumenick

They'd better stock some insulin along with the popcorn in theaters showing the extremely sticky and moist musical fantasy “August Rush." This is the sort of movie that requires you not only to suspend disbelief, but to check your sanity at the ticket counter.

The title character - named after a slogan on the side of a Daily Snooze delivery truck, no less - is an orphaned musical prodigy. In the space of six months, he is offered a scholarship to the Juilliard School and composes a symphony which he conducts in performance by the New York Philharmonic. Remarkably, August's only previous musical training is a brief stint with Wizard, played by Robin Williams in a red toupee as a cross between Fagin and Don Imus.

Wizard instructs August and other under-age street musicians by yelling at them in the ruins of the Fillmore East - which appears to have mysteriously moved from the Lower East Side to Queens - and delivering epigrams like “Do you know what music is? It's a reminder there's something else besides us in the universe."

No plot twist is too shameless for the unintentionally hilarious script attributed to James V. Hart and Nick Castle, who turned Williams into a middle-aged Peter Pan in his earlier, uh, triumph “Hook."
August has inherited his musical talent from his parents, a classical cellist (Keri Russell) and an Irish rock musician (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who conceived him during a one-night stand on a rooftop overlooking Washington Square Park.

A Healthy Addiction

My mom just mentioned finding several bags of edamame in her freezer, and I was overwhelmed by a compulsion to make a trip to Central Market. Of course this cost me over $50 - a trip to CM puts way too much temptation in one's path to only buy the target item.

Now I find myself snacking on this frequently. It is very addictive!

That is One Giant Cupcake

There is a picture of a giant cupcake on the cover of my magazine that I really want to make for July 4th. I was especially excited about it when I realized that you buy a cake form which does most of the hard work for you:

Then you end up with (theoretically) something like this!

I frost about as well as a first grader, so we will see how it turns out. If I can locate the cake form and actually get it made, AND it doesn't look ridiculous, then I will put another post up to brag about my giant cupcake.

Important Lesson r.e. Swim Diapers

I am discovering there are many things you learn as a parent that you have absolutely no need to know before you have kids.
Today KK and I had our usual "Pool Friday". As usual I put her in her swim diaper and bathing suit immediately before leaving our house. When I got her out of the car, I carried her on my hip for awhile. It wasn't long before I noticed that she was completely soaked and so was my shirt - from pee. Oh, yet another golden opportunity for me to be covered in bodily fluid!

I should have realized this from looking at one, but they don't absorb too much pee... They are really designed to keep #2 inside should that happen while at the pool. Her car seat cover is in the washing machine as it was drenched as well. Next time we will change at the pool!

Our Strange Night Out

Tonight our little peanut is spending the night with Nanna and PopPop. So Gene and I decided to take advantage of the time and go out to Uncle Julio's to enjoy a lazy dinner on their beautiful porch. There would be no little one to stick her hand in the guacamole or other assorted dishes that tend to get spread all over the table at Mexican restaurants.

We had to wait a LONG time for the porch and started to wonder if it was worth it - but it was so pretty outside. We finally got our table. 5 minutes later a strange storm mysteriously appeared.... after many a forecast stating it would be 100 degrees and sunny all week long. We started to get pelted by quite a bit of rain and had to retreat to the interior of the porch. We located a dirty table that had just been abandoned... ages later it got bussed and our fajitas showed up. We joked that the sudden appearance of a rain storm was "just like Kauai."

OK, maybe not.

I was eating my last fajita when suddenly it was soaked. The mother of all storms had appeared, and it made the first storm seem pretty wimpy. Everyone on the porch had to RUN inside. I took my fajita with me and stood inside eating it while the waitress got our check.

Then, we figured we might as well become one with this crazy storm and made our way to the car. I have never been so drenched after 10 seconds in the rain. I stepped in a puddle that went halfway up my calf on the trip to the car.

It was a strange but memorable evening out. We realized on the way home that this if the 4th time in a row we watered the lawn the morning of a big storm. (Gene's response to this was: "DANG!") At least we got to eat our delicious Mexican food!

Municipal Pools "These Days"

Summer has now become a time to explore the municipal pools of the DFW area. When I was growing up, we were privileged to have our own "recreation area" associated with my dad's employer. It had an enormous olympic sized pool complete with a 10-meter platform (that no one was allowed to use). It was pretty exciting at the time, but it pales in comparison to all the facilities that the cities around DFW have put into place now. They are like miniature waterslide parks. (Side note: Now that I am a parent, I find myself pointing out all the things kids have access to "these days" that didn't exist when I was growing up... I am sure this will annoy my child to no end at some point in the future!)



Yesterday I found the perfect park for Katelynn's age range, in Lewisville, TX. It had 3 "spraygrounds" similar to the one pictured above. KK loved those and I didn't have to watch her in fear every single second since she couldn't go underwater. She loved to sit on the fountains and lift up the top of her suit to make the water go in it. Pretty funny. They also had a 2 feet deep kids play area with a small slide. I was forced (by KK of course) to climb up that thing about 6 times and take her down the slide. I was the only mom going down it and she was the only kid that little going down it. I think my child may be a daredevil. There was also a big slide that she kept pointing to, but she isn't quite 48" tall yet... and a 4 foot deep area with a lazy river where we played together. And this is Lewisville's "small" municipal water facility! We had so much fun together. She was on cloud 9 the whole time, and my kid is not easy to keep in that state.




I have also been made aware by my friend Sarah that there are enormous inflatable waterslides that adoring grandparents purchase for their grandkids and put in the backyard. Here is a pic she sent me... it isn't an ad - it's her actual kids!

Somehow that looks a little more fun than the sprinkler! Kids "these days" are pretty lucky...

Lettuce Wraps

Gene and I have agreed upon a "one new recipe per week" household policy. Sometimes I get a little carried away with wanting to try new recipes, especially thanks to All Recipes. Gene is pretty picky... he calls himself a super taster thanks to my mom informing him about this "condition." New recipes are a gamble with him. So, once a week is about as adventurous as we can get.

Tonight I made my new recipe of the week - Asian Lettuce Wraps. We both enjoyed them a lot and I was very excited that they came out just like the wraps served at PF Changs.

Here is the recipe link in case anyone else is intrigued! Note that the recipe fails to tell you to mix the meat back in at the end - which you need to do. My only other variations were to use ground pork instead of beef and regular ground ginger instead of pickled. Also, I bought the really hot chile pepper sauce at the Asian grocery store and used 1 tsp of it. That really made the dish, I think.