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In Flight Entertainment Review (thanks, Air Canada!)

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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cinema, entertainment, indie films, movies, Safety Not Guaranteed, Take This Waltz, Your Sister's Sister

I have just returned to the UK after ten days in North America, where I went to a lovely wedding on Martha’s Vineyard and met up with my parents and sister for an absolutely overdue reunion.  But at the moment I’m reeling from the in-flight movie offerings, which included an incredible selection of indie movies that I’ve actually been really keen to see. There and back I watched:

– Your Sister’s Sister
– Take This Waltz
– Safety Not Guaranteed

I also watched Brave, The Big Year and The Artist, but I was more interested in the independent films.  As it happens, all three are just about to be released on DVD, or have been released recently, and so if you’ve been thinking about adding them to your LoveFilm or Netflix queue keep reading:

Your Sister’s Sister

I’ve decided that I’m a huge Mark Duplass fan.  I saw “The Puffy Chair,” one of his earliest projects, in 2006, loved it, and then forgot about it until he resurfaced in Your Sister’s Sister and I saw the trailer last year.  The movie revolves around Jack, played by Duplass, whose brother died a year ago and who is still struggling with the loss.  After he makes a scene at a party, his friend Iris offers her family’s cabin as a place where he can find solace and, as he puts it, “take a sabbatical.”

(this summary from Rotten Tomatoes.com:) Tom’s best friend Iris (Emily Blunt) offers up her family cabin on an island in the Pacific Northwest so Jack can seek catharsis in solitude. Once there, however, he runs into Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie Dewitt) who is reeling from the abrupt end of a seven-year relationship and finds solace in Tom’s unexpected presence. A blurry evening of drinking concludes with an awkward sexual incident, made worse by Iris’ sudden presence at the cabin the next morning.

The rest of the movie revolves around the three characters and the painful, real-life stuff they have to go through.  The initial meeting between Jack and Hannah feels authentic and plausible, and their awkwardness and panic when Iris shows up the next day is eminently believable.  A movie with only three characters allows for a nuanced and intimate character study of each.  Your Sister’s Sister lives up to the challenge.  I am certainly a member of the movie’s target demographic – one of the things I liked most about the movie is that the people in it felt like my friends, or people I’d want to hang out with – but I think that it paints a portrayal of losing and finding that will appeal to many (I recommended it to my parents, for example).

I also loved the sweet relationship between Hannah and Iris – the movie highlights the best and worst parts of being and having a sister.  While the end was a bit of a cheap shot, I finished the film feeling satisfied with the broad strokes if not with the particulars.

Safety Not Guaranteed

This is another Duplass joint.  Jason Segall has been my favourite actor for a while, but with this one-two indie movie combo, Duplass is definitely in contention for the #1 spot.  This movie originates from a (true) classified ad that someone placed in 1996, looking for a partner in time travel but warning: safety not guaranteed.

The ad is picked up by a bored writer, who recruits two interns to do a story on the person who thinks he can time-travel – Kenneth (played by Duplass), a paranoid check-out clerk at the local grocery.  One of the interns, Darius (Aubrey Plaza), is sent in as the prospective partner.

The movie is quirky, to say the least, but it portrays its characters (a narcissistic slacker boss; a depressed, sulky intern; and a probably-insane would-be time traveler) with sympathy and grace, allowing them each room to breathe.  In the end, you’re rooting for all three of them, somewhat in spite of yourself.  The best part of the movie is the relationship between Kenneth and Darius; the scene where Darius first approaches Kenneth, and their awkward yet magical repartee, sets up the entire rest of the movie, allowing the viewer to be taken in by the ridiculous twists and turns along the way.

The side-plot with Darius’ boss and intern #2 is a little clunky; Intern #2 is the only character who never becomes three-dimensional.  The production values are not Hollywood standard (although that didn’t really bother me). And there were a few things that were not satisfactorily explained, even by the standards of an open-ended movie.  But all in all, I loved this movie.  And as a bonus, I’ve been listening to the theme song, “Big Machines,” pretty much on repeat since I saw it.

**note: video doesn’t work in Canada, but I would still recommend you find another version. It’s lovely.

Take this Waltz

This is another movie I’ve been keen to see for a while.  It came recommended by a friend, had an incredibly alluring trailer, and starred Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman – a seriously good cast.  The film has a hazy, late-summer feel, with lots of sunlight, and is set in Little Portugal, a picturesque neighbourhood of Toronto, with a beautiful, lazy soundtrack to match both the bohemian setting and the time of year.

And yet – I hated it.  This movie actually made me angry.  It centres on Margot, played by Michelle Williams, a writer who falls for Daniel (Luke Kirby), the artist across the street. Her dopey husband (Rogen) is too absorbed in his cookbook project to notice.  There are several problems with the premise, but the most noticeable one is that Margot is annoying and cloying, and her extramarital dalliance is as unlikely as the idea that Rogen would have married her in the first place.  What is meant to feel like sexual tension just feels like navel gazing, and the scene in which Daniel makes his intentions toward Margot clear was creepy and pornographic rather than sweet or sexy or… remotely appealing.  Margot is ponderous and unlikable almost from the very beginning, when she meets Daniel on an airplane and tells him that she’s scared of “connections….in airports.”  I actually thought, as I watched it, “who would go for this girl?” – she speaks in babytalk throughout the movie, with both men, and harasses Rogen for sapping her confidence moments before she dumps him.

While I don’t want to give too much away, the conclusion of the movie was deeply unsatisfying.  It brought to mind Lost in Translation, if that movie had sucked.  The movie received mostly positive reviews, so I’m clearly in the minority, but I found the “sexual tension” to be tedious and the main characters to be mostly unlikable.

Stuff I’ve Been Made Aware Of

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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book review, entertainment, Girls, internet memes, media, TV

Here are some important things I’ve learned in the last few days:

1. The book The Giver was the first of FOUR BOOKS.  Do you remember that book? The ending wasn’t very satisfying but I took it as  stand-alone text.  This is very exciting news.

2. The Bic Crystal for Her! OMG!  Read the reviews.

3. My favourite vice, Made in Chelsea, is BACK.

4. Lena Dunham is writing a book.  This news is a few days old, but will fill a feminist-book-shaped-hole in my heart.  I’m thinking of buying the hardcover.

5. The band Farewell Milwaukee is my new obsession, and not just because MKE is my hometown.  Check out my favourite song of theirs:

Bath Tourism Highlights

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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Bath, books, England, entertainment, history, Jane Austen, Persuasion, photography, Roman Baths, travel, UK

Ian and I are headed to Oxford this weekend after attending the Kings College Garden Party (because we’re fancy!).  I am super excited to visit my old stomping grounds – we’re going to hit up the Pitt Rivers Museum, Worcester College (alma mater!) and Ben’s Cookie Bar, because I’m obsessed with that place.  And maybe the botanic gardens and the Ashmolean.

We can really do a tourism blitzkrieg when we set our minds to it – which we proved in Bath.  We got in on Friday, and went to see School for Scandal (as I mentioned in a previous post).  On Saturday, after going to Jika Jika for breakfast, (a bar owned by rugby players) we hit up the Roman Baths (Bill Bryson has his own audio tour, which actually was a disappointment.  It wasn’t funny, although it wasn’t trying to be.  The actual informative audio tour was great.  Two hours (plus 30 minutes spend queuing) well spent.  After a leisurely morning, we went to The Circus for an amazing lunch, and then went to the Assembly Rooms, which also houses the Fashion Museum.  I was particularly excited because the Assembly Rooms are featured in Persuasion, which is possibly my favoritest favorite movie ever (there’s a photo in the montage above). It was so evocative of Jane Austen for me – even more than the Jane Austen Centre.

Sunday we hit of the Jane Austen Museum and then did a small tour of Bath crescents.  The Royal Crescent is the famous semi-circle (crescent) of Georgian buildings; they were actually built by the George who gave his name to Georgian buildings because he was the first monarch to get really into spas and taking the waters.  The crescent shape caught on, and there are a few of them scattered around the city. We were also able to work in more of the sets from Persuasion – there is a gravel path where Anne and Wentworth walk together (one of the only places they would have had any privacy, apparently – the picture of me was taken there, during the five minutes that it wasn’t raining); one of the less fashionable crescents where Anne’s family took rooms (it looks pretty down-at-heel today, to be honest).  And it turns out that our hotel was immediately adjacent to the place where Jane stayed on her first stay in Bath.  She wasn’t ever very happy in Bath – she grew up in the country – but as the setting of many scenes from her books, it still comes alive.  There’s Georgian stuff everywhere.  There’s plenty in Cambridge, but its a whole other thing in Bath.

The best part about the ramp-up to Bath is that Ian and I considered many potential destinations before settling on one, so we’ve got a backlog of fantasy holidays locked and loaded.  Bring on the adventure!

 

 

Eating your way through England: Bath

13 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Snacks

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Bath, entertainment, food, The Circus, travel, UK

Ian and I are champion eaters.  In fact, its recently occurred to me that I’m really going to have to step up my fitness regimen if we’re going to continue to travel like this – the trips we’ve taken recently have included Valencia (restaurant week!), Brussels (moules frites!) and Bath (just….food.  so much food.)  And we’re not exactly abstemious in our day-to-day life, either.

Anyway.  With the exception of a disappointing Thai meal (and it was still Thai food, so how wrong can you go?), we ate phenomenally well.  We went to Gascoyne Place, a gastro-pub, for an early meal before the Theatre Royal Bath (apparently its a big deal.  We saw School For Scandal.  It was pretty good).  Then we went on a mini-bar crawl – we went to The Raven, a pub we liked so much that we went back for lunch, and to the Canary Wine & Gin Bar.

The food highlight of the weekend was The Circus, a tiny, unassuming little cafe (it turned out to have a huge downstairs – way less tiny that I thought) with amazing food.  I had grilled peppers, peaches and chorizo with rocket salad, and Ian and I split an heirloom tomato salad.  I was ready to just set up camp in the corner and stay forever.

Still to come: the tourist attractions! The Roman Baths and the Jane Austen tour.

Navajas!

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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entertainment, hiking, nature, Navajas, outdoors, Spain, travel, Valencia, walking

For our trip to Valencia, I got a giant guidebook to Spain out of the Cambridge library.  It had a tiny little text box in the section on Valencia stating that the town of Navajas, about 60 miles outside Valencia, had a picturesque little central plaza called Plaza D’Olmo (Elm Plaza).  From the plaza, the guidebook promised, there were four scenic walking trails in the countryside that were clearly signed.  I thought that sounded just perfect, so Ian and I rented a car, maneuvered it through roundabouts and onto the open road, and motored toward a place that only warranted four lines of guidebook.

So Ian and I rocked up to Navajas, pulled into a campsite for an early lunch (because you EAT WHEN YOU CAN in countries with siestas.  Wait too long and the joke is on you, sucka), and then drove through a beautiful town (it was a sort of Adirondack camp for the well-heeled Valencianos of a bygone era, and the houses were crazy).  We found the plaza no problem, but the tourism office closed ten minutes before we got there, and there were no hiking routes to be seen.  We circled the eponymous elm four or five times looking sadder and sadder before appealing to the locals, who spoke zero English. One of them called his brother, who passed Ian onto the local English guy, who was just in the middle of giving us directions when the mobile phone ran out of credit. So then two people marched us about a quarter of a mile down the road to the city hall, where someone dug around in a file cabinet and came up with huge stacks of English language brochures that had apparently not been required for years.  They presented us with English and Spanish versions of everything, pointed us out the door and sent us on our way.

We ended up hiking for about 4 hours through olive and almond orchards, across an old reservoir, along a stream and past have a dozen historic fountains.  It was perfect.

When we circled back to the Plaza D’Olmo at about 5:30, Ian (who in theory speaks Spanish) tried to order “un beer, por favor.”  The woman looked at him with an appropriately withering expression and said “un cerveza?”  He looked so sad and tired it was hard not to take pity on him (I had just marched him through 14 km of breathtakingly lovely Spanish countryside in 28 C heat).

I was so pleased with the day.  When I was in Switzerland, I realised how much I love being outside – the time I spent hiking up a mountain in Locarno was the high point of the trip, and I hoped to recapture a bit of that in Spain.  And I would say that the hike plus the cultural experience plus the navigating-Spanish-roundabouts-and-not-dying totally exceeded my expectations.

Big Night in the Big City

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Snacks

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Tags

adventure, England, entertainment, London, Nightjar, Scorpion bowls, travel

A few weeks ago, I had what for me amounted to an epic night out in London.  It began at 5:30 in the evening and ended roughly 11 hours later, as the sun was juuuust beginning to rise over Hampstead.

The night began near the American Embassy, where my friend Erin and I grabbed some tapas and then rendez-vous’d with embassy employees.  In the two minute walk between embassy and tapas, I had my friend English celebrity siting: Mark Francis, from Made In Chelsea.  And I freaked out a little.  If you’ve read the blog much, you know I regard Made in Chelsea as the ultimate guilty pleasure and I’ve been a regular watcher since arriving in this country.  So the night kicked off with a little thrill.

We went to a club called Amber, near the Barbican Centre.  It was a sprawling nightclub complex, really, which three different dance floors.  We stuck to the one that had a light-up Rubik’s Cube dance floor and go-go dancers (some on roller skates) wearing orange legwarmers.  For me, though, the highlight of Amber was the giant disco-ball drinks – the only other place I’d had communal drinks like that was at Asian restaurants, where they’re typically called Scorpion Bowls.  But these came served in the bottom half of a disco ball.

We were among the last to leave the club, around midnight, when we went to a bar a few blocks away (it had a sort of vintage feel and a big booth for all of us, but I forget what it was called or where it is).  And then around 1:30 am, we went to a Bar Nightjar.  I am obviously unschooled in London nightlife, but Nightjar is apparently a big deal.  By showing up at 1:30, we were able to waltz right in and get a booth in a little alcove in the back, and then we each got an incredibly complicated, lovingly-crafted cocktail.  When they kicked us out hours later, we paused at the little stage (pictured above, although the picture is an advertisement) to play some Beatles tunes. The waitstaff was so bemused by this display that they just stood there and waited for us to finish.

I didn’t realise until later, but when I told my friend Robert we’d gone there he said “And you just walked in? No waiting? No crappy table?So lucky!”  So my advice is, if you go, go really, really late at night.

The next day, having not really recovered, I left for Switzerland and had a mercifully wholesome holiday, with lots of looking at cathedrals and brisk walking and bread and cheese, but not a lot of copious quantities of alcohol.

 

Freiburg Details

23 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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entertainment, Freiburg, Germany, mosaics, street art, travel

Freiburg is a place that wasn’t on my list to visit, but that I absolutely loved once I was there.  And in addition to the crazy amounts of wisteria, the tiny canals (called bachle) all over the city, and the flammkuchen (crispy pizza), one of the things I loved was the mosaics in front of businesses.  Apothecary shops had a tile “A” in front. Jewelery shops had diamonds.  A mattress store had a bed.  The stork tavern had a stork. And so on.

There are two photos of shoe mosaics because one was outside a shoe shop and one was outside a bar called Schlappen, which means shoe.  Schlappen is my friend Sarah’s New Favorite Bar.  She couldn’t get enough of that place – we went three times in two days.

The Perfect Day and a Half in Freiburg

21 Monday May 2012

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bachle, cathedral, entertainment, food, Freiburg, Germany, photography, travel, Vauban

Freiburg is not a city that was on my radar at all – I’d never been to Germany before and figured when I did, I would probably go to Berlin.  But whilst traveling with My Friend Sarah, we did a nostalgia tour of Freiburg, where she studied abroad, and as a result I got the Insider Tour.  We wandered around the city and into a park with views of the city (we also found an AWESOME SLIDE; see above. I went down four times, although the first time my rip-stop trousers were too grippy and I ended up scootching down one bum cheek at a time.  After than I wrapped my fleece jacket around my waist and I flew down that thing, so much so that I almost face-planted at the bottom).

Anyway.  Here are some cool things about Freiburg:

1. The whole city has a system of tiny canals (ranging from 6 inches to a few feet wide) called bachle.  They are delightful.

2. There are vineyards all around the city.  Sarah and I took an easy walk along a creek that led us directly to public walking paths through the vineyards with panoramic views back toward the city.

3. The cathedral is just amazing – just breathtakingly beautiful.

4. There are mosaics in the sidewalk all over the city (images to follow on Wednesday)

5. There is a brand-new eco-village called Vauban that we strolled around for hours.  It was a major geek-out moment; I was so pleased to be there with another planner.  For my impressions, see my other blog.

6. It was way, way cheaper than Basel, and as a result I ate flammkuchen (thin-crust pizza) and drank Riesling to my heart’s content.

Monday Morning in Basel

18 Friday May 2012

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Basel, entertainment, My Friend Sarah, photography, Switzerland, travel

As I mentioned a few posts ago, my trip to Switzerland was an absolute whirlwind: although I was staying in Basel, I didn’t actually spend that much time there.  We did an overnight to Freiburg, a day trip to Strasbourg, and a balls-to-the-wall, eek-everything-out-of-this-36-hours trip to Locarno in the south. That said, what I saw of Basel, I absolutely loved.

Basel seems like a lovely, laid-back little city.  There are some things that are perplexing – for example, many shops are literally only open four hours a day.  How does that work? And for a European city, they were a little short on sidewalks outside the historic part.  But things that I loved included: tiny ferries across the Rhine; a map detailing where you can swim in the river (nevermind that its glacially cold); the spontaneous street party we attended with our host on Friday evening; and the view from the Munster (prominently featured above), the Italians who came barreling down the street after their team won the soccer/football match; and the variety of shutters (with hearts, crescent moons, and flowers cut out from the top.  I should have taken more photos).

Falmouth & Food

14 Monday May 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Snacks

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Tags

Cornwall, England, entertainment, Falmouth, food, photography, travel

Hola lovers (that was an obscure reference to one of my favorite blogs, GoFugYourself).  I am back from Switzerland! And I am spending hours on a Sunday evening queuing up blog posts about it, which is all the proof that I need that my social life is on less secure footing than I had previously thought.

Before I get into the details of my recent trip, I wanted to post about my trip to Falmouth, in Cornwall, at the end of April (my life is so great: two trips to Cornwall, one to Germany and Switzerland, and Valencia, Ireland, Wales and Southampton on the horizon).

So Falmouth was pretty great. Its home to an art college and a crapload of tourists and lots of cutesy shops and delicious restaurants.  All we did, all weekend, was walk around and eat.  Since Cornwall is a peninsula, the seafood is incredible. And since its very rural, its also known for its dairy – particularly clotted cream and ice cream.  So we made sure to immerse ourselves in local cuisine, which we earned by walking miles and miles every day.  As far as I can tell, eating and being outside are the only things to do in Cornwall.  Its especially important to eat cream tea (scones, clotted cream, jam, and tea), which we did enthusiastically.  As for the outside stuff, there are lots of options: walking, climbing, sailing, blokarting (seriously, that’s a thing), surfing…I think its pretty impossible to be bored, as long as the weather isn’t completely miserable.  And as we discovered, even miserable weather affords a certain amount of adventure and comedy.

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