With nothing better to do on Black Friday (I don’t do Christmas), I treated my child self to a kid
flick – Moana. It would have made Walt Disney, the master of animation, proud as punch. The vibrant, saturated colors were all there. The fluid motion characteristic of masterpieces like Cinderella and Fantasia made you feel like you were on a magic carpet ride. The music by Lin- Manuel Miranda of “Hamilton” fame was memorably beautiful. With a story line that truly projected girl power, this feature-film-length movie made a powerful point of letting little girls know their potential is limitless.
Moana is a two-Kleenex movie. One is for some of the poignant scenes that will bring a tear to all but the hardest of hearts. The other is for the laugh-out-loud comedic scenes that had me rolling in the aisle. Although a good deal of the story line, the pathos and the humor might certainly be lost on the youngest audiences, it certainly is enjoyable fare for the child-like adult.
With so many adult films to choose from this holiday season, one might wonder why I chose an animated feature. In my day they were called cartoons and I have always loved Disney cartoons. They had a simple premises — good triumphs over evil — someone gets lost then gets found — hardships are always overcome — love conquers all. They are beautiful to watch, sort of like watching fish in an aquarium. There is never any need to search for deeper meaning. They envelop me like a warm, fuzzy blanket.
Moana embraces Disney’s best, more so that any other modern-day animated feature I have seen. It is a treat for all the senses. There is need to wast your money on the 3D version. Disney films of old did not rely on 3D for effect, and it cannot add anything more to this magnificently created masterpiece.
If nostalgia beckons you during the holidays and you want a taste of things past and your childhood memories included Disney’s Bambi, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland among others, then by all means go and see Moana. You will not be disappointed.
Nearly one week after the cataclysmic upset of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump in the national election, my stomach is still churning. I can’t look at photos of her without breaking into tears. I feel the earth shaking under my feet and the sky feels like it’s tumbling down. Oh Carol King would you have been a better candidate?
a movie. Friday and Saturday evenings beginning at 8pm until midnight, there are live music performances. How perfect can it be? Have a bite to eat and a glass of wine during the movie. Enjoy a liqueur or Irish coffee and live music afterward.
Viggo Mortensen isn’t the first person that comes to mind to play the character of Captain Fantastic until you realize that 
I just came in from toiling in my yard. Obviously, I don’t have the money or somebody else would be toiling away in my place. When I bought my little house (854 sq. ft.), I had no idea how much yard work it would entail. Whereas it takes me little more than 2 hours to thoroughly clean my house, it takes days and weeks to maintain my yard even though it probably isn’t more than 2000 sq. ft. with about 850 sq. ft. of that being grass.
garden needed watering literally on a daily basis. Even so, a lot of things didn’t make it through the near month of 90-degree+ days. If I left the house for more than two days, I had to pay someone to come and water everything. That didn’t set particularly well with me, so I installed a drip irrigation system that solved the problem, and it was a whole lot cheaper than an underground sprinkler system. Now I can leave for weeks and not have to worry about plants dying from thirst. Of course the grass still needs mowing, but fortunately it only takes 15 minutes from start to finish. I can afford to hire than out.
As it turns out, mofongo can be made in different ways, but the way Boriken serves theirs is probably a step above even restaurants in Puerto Rico. They start with cooked and mashed plantains which are a kind of banana. Then they line a bowl with the mashed plantains and fill the cavity with chicken, beef, vegetables or seafood in individual sauces. This is a presentation that you don’t see everywhere. OMG, just writing about it makes my mouth water!!
D is for Depp and it’s the letter grade critics have been giving Johnny Depp’s movies for way too many years now. Whatever has this man done that critics love to hate him. In my opinion, Johnny Depp is one of most talented character actors in the past two decades. He gave an unforgettable performance as Tonto in The Lone Ranger. What did he get for it? A “D.” His Mad Hatter in Alice Through The Looking Glass was a fantasy masterpiece. What did he get for it? A “D.” OK, Mortdecai wasn’t an award-winning film, but Depp’s performance as a character actor was still a cut above.
And therein lies the answer to why health insurance in America is so expensive. Between a billing system that is more confusing than a Rubik’s Cube, a system of what’s covered and what isn’t covered that isn’t understood by any customer service rep I’ve ever spoken to, and providers to include doctors and facilities with no sense of what is meant by fair and just compensation, the entire healthcare system, including health insurance, is quite simply a conspiracy to bilk each and everyone of us out of billions and billions of dollars each year. Confound and confuse is obviously their modus operendi. Why else can you never receive a straight answer. Even worse, are the conflicting answers often proffered.
Who would have guessed almost one year ago that, above all odds, Donald Trump would come out on top of the heap of Republican presidential hopefuls. I can’t say I was surprised. If you stayed on top of the news (and I don’t mean campaign news, but news in general), it wasn’t difficult to correlate Trump’s rhetoric with many of the national headlines. As bombastic as he was, he spoke to a largely disenfranchised middle and lower middle class – those that have lost jobs to technology, failed to save for retirement, failed to see that the world was changing faster than they were, and blamed their demise on anybody but themselves.