Summary

Stephanie Plum is desperate for money – she’s behind on her rent and her car is about to be repossessed. She visits her cousin Vinnie’s bail bond office to check out a job as a file clerk. Instead she hears about some quick money to be make as a bounty hunter.

The big money involves bringing in an old high school boyfriend, Joe Morelli, now an undercover cop who’s wanted for murder. Stephanie uses common sen=se to figure out how to catch the “skips.”  She also finds that people are more willing to talk to her because she isn’t a cop.

There are a few skills she needs to learn and a fellow bounty hunter, Ranger, is willing to help her out. As Stephanie is trying to bring in Joe Morelli, she realizes there’s more to the story. She sets out to solve the mystery and bring in the big bucks at the same time.

My Thoughts:

I’ve read all of the books in this Janet Evanovich series through number 15. I honestly have loved them all. I know, I’ve heard all the complaints about the later stories being a rerun of the earlier stories. I’ve heard (and participated in) the Morelli vs. Ranger debates. I don’t care. I still love the books because they are great escape books and because they make me fall out of my chair laughing.

I really debated on whether or not to see the movie version of the first book. More often than not, the movie just doesn’t live up to the book. At the last minute I decided to see it anyway. Frankly, the only other options were “blow-em-up-car-chaser” style movies. My husband really wanted to see Contraband so we divided up.

One For the Money stuck to the story-ine for that first book. It was a good introduction to Stephanie Plum and her cast of wacky friends. There was a bit of mystery in the story and it did a good job of featuring the “burbs” of Trenton, New Jersey, which is definitely a “character” in the books.

What I didn’t like was the casting of two of the main characters: Debbie Reynolds was NOT Grandma Mazur. She played Debbie Reynolds. Also, I was not happy with the guy (Daniel Sunjata) who played Ranger. That’s not what I see in my imagination when I’m reading about Ranger.

Katherine Heigl and Jason O”Mara were okay as Stephanie and Joe. The one who was perfect in her role was Sherri Shepherd as Lula. I thought she went above and beyond the role. She WAS Lula.

If you are a Stephanie Plum fan, I think you might want to wait for the DVD version. My laugh meter only went off a couple of times. I wish I’d skipped it. I give it a C+.

Lunch and a Matinee is Joyfully Retired’s version of dinner and a movie. I love going to the movies in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. It was something I wanted to do back in the days when I worked all those long hours.

Lunch:

While visiting with the granddaughter in Portland we offered to take them to their favorite restaurant before going to the movies. Any place – pick your number one favorite. With no hesitation, they both answered at once: Sushi-A-Go-Go. Sushi? Seriously, sushi? “Oh, we can go to a burger place, Nana, since you don’t like sushi,” they both said. They are very nice girls, but I agreed to sushi because, after all, I did say any place.

The girls are sushi pros. They know the names of the rolls they like and they know them on sight. Sushi-A-Go-Go has a conveyor belt  that surrounds the sushi chefs. We sat in a booth next to the conveyor belt and could pick a dish of whatever we wanted. I do not remember the exotic names of the sushi eaten. Me? I ate one roll that was nothing but one piece of shrimp and a clump of rice. I also had veggie tempura. Very good.

The Movie: The Muppets (2011).

Three Muppet fans learn that the classic Muppet Theater is going to be torn down by an evil businessman so he can drill for oil. They band together to help. They find Kermit and with him they persuade the other Muppets to come back for a special show. The goal is to raise enough money to buy the theater.

When they start searching for each Muppet they find them doing something you’d never expect and living all over the place. For instance, Miss Piggy was living in Paris. She was the plus-size fashion editor  for Vogue magazine. Animal was at a rehab center with Jack Black. They were working to control their anger.

What We Thought:

The girls, Jay and I, and the entire audience loved this show. The audience was about 25% children; the remainder were adults who came specifically for the Muppets. Everyone laughed, clapped, and sang along. Our youngest (6) felt compelled to get up and dance during one of the musical numbers. She wasn’t the only one. When’s the last time a movie gave you that kind of experience?

I think anyone who grew up with the old Sesame Street and/or the Muppet Shows will enjoy this movie. I didn’t grow up with it but my kids did and for that reason it was great to see all our old friends. Among our favorites was, of course, Kermit and Miss Piggy. We also loved Fozzy Bear, Rowlf, Animal, the Swedish Chefs, the Robot, and those two old guys who always sat in the balcony. There was also a new Muppet, Walter, one of the main characters. He was a great addition to their line-up.

The Muppets aren’t playing at any of our major theaters, but I noticed it is at one of the discount theaters. I’m sure it won’t be long until it’s out on dvd. Add this one to your list. You’ll love laughing out loud.

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a smart and honest young man who is willing to work hard for a cause he believes in. In this case, it’s the campaign of Governer Mike Morris (George Clooney) for president. Stephen is the “brain trust” – the speech writer and media manager. Stephen strongly believes Mike Morris is the right person for the presidential job and that Morris’ values line up completely with his.

Through a series of events, Stephen has to deal with some things that challenge his beliefs. One person is dead and, for a while there, it’s up in the air as to what’s really going on. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will let you know that the ending is not one that is tied up neatly. It ends with the flavor of real life.

The acting was very good. I especially liked Ryan Gosling who was in every scene, and Marisa Tomei, who played a minor, but dynamic role. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Glamatti, and Evan Rachel Wood were also convincing in key roles.

George Clooney is, of course, good to look at. I liked the idea of him as a possible president. He was also the director and producer of the film. He did a great job in all his roles. I don’t know a lot about his politics, but he took a big swipes at the Republicans.

I recommend The Ides Of March for the big screen. You’ll get good acting, a good story, and it will make you think about the nature of people. And besides, you’ll get to see some very handsome men the size of a two story building. I guess it would be okay to wait, if you have one of those giant TV screens. Then I’d recommend waiting for the dvd.

Moneyball

The Oakland A’s have the lowest budget for personnel in professional baseball and the General Manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), knows there is no way the owner is going to allow more money to replace the missing players

Billy Beane is determined to find a way around this unfair system.  He has a whole team of experienced scouts trying to find replacement players. And then Billy Beane meets and hires a young man, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who has a new way of looking at baseball players.

Peter believes in computer statistics. His basic theory is that Billy should find players whose numbers show they have the ability to get on base. They shouldn’t pay any attention to the fact that the potential first baseman doesn’t know how to play first base. They figure, if he’s a good ball player and knows how to get on base, we can teach him how to play first base.

So getting on base becomes the primary criteria for all new players. As you can imagine, that criteria and the use of computer statistics doesn’t sit well with his scouting team or the team’s manager/coach. They want to evaluate potential players the way they always have.

In spite of the opinions of the veterans, Billy Beane, with Peter Brand’s help, sets out to staff the Oakland A’s with this new strategy. For all sorts of reasons, the team goes into a colossal slump, losing eleven straight games. But Billy Beane is not a quitter. Through a variety of creative maneuvers and his single-minded resolve, the team begins to win a few games.

This was an excellent movie. I’d rate it an A. The story is centered around a baseball team but it’s not your conventional sports movie. There are very few scenes on the field. I’d classify it as a thinking-person’s movie. It captivated my thinking as I watched it and I’ve been thinking ever since.

I couldn’t help compare the story in this movie to my work as a Human Resource Director. My message to hiring managers back then was this: First decide on the key qualities needed to be successful in a particular job. Second, recruit and hire only to those qualities. And third, don’t pay attention to anything else. Don’t listen to anyone who says the future employee has to look a certain way (age, gender, race, big hands) or any other quality other than the ones that make for a successful employee. I would have loved using Moneyball as a trainging film. It would have led to some great discussions.

Moneyball is smart and very intelligently done. Alan Sorkin (West Wing, Social Network) and Steven Zaillian (Gangs of New York) wrote the script, and it shows. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill were also very good. Brad Pitt, if you can get past all that movie-star hype, is a very good actor. You will see that in Moneyball. Billy Beane is a complex man and Brad Pitt convinced me that he understood that. I did not think about Brad Pitt while watching the film. I believed I was watching Billy Beane. He carried the movie.

If you have a chance, go see this one. Come back and let me know what you think of their method of choosing player personnel. I’ll bet the movie makes you think about it for several days.

I saw the movie last Wednesday and, at the end, I also just sat there for a long time. Now here it is, five days later, and it is still fresh in my mind. In my opinion, it’s a powerful story. It’s a part of our cultural history that should not be forgotten.

For those of you not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick synopsis. The term “help” refers to the black maids working for white women in Jackson, Mississippi in the sixties. A young white woman, Skeeter, returns home from college and begins to notice how poorly the black “help” are being treated. Skeeter wants to write about it. She partners up with first Aibileen and then Minny to tell their story. This was a very risky move at the time. The women are very careful to keep it secret. Gradually they enlist more black maids and the book is finally published.

The movie was superbly produced, written, and acted. I could tell they were trying to keep in tact the spirit of Kathryn Stockett’s book. There were only a few things from the book that were left out of the movie. They were minor and didn’t interrupt the story at all. I felt like the movie enhanced the book in that I could visually see the town, the houses, the cars, home interiors, clothing and hair styles. In addition, the dialog was spot-on. I was transported back to the sixties.

While reading the book, I loved the four main characters of Skeeter, Hilly, Aibileen, and Minny. Getting those characters right in the movie would be the breaking point for me. The actresses did not disappoint at all. In fact, they completely understood the characters and made them even better.

Emma Stone played Skeeter perfectly – just the way I read her.

Octavia Spencer (Minny) and Viola Davis (Aibileen) were the absolute stars of the movie.

Bryce Dallas Howard was excellent as the evil Hilly.

I also liked seeing some of my old favorites: Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson and Sissy Spacek.

Whenever I see that a movie is going to be made from a favorite book, I worry about it. Is it going to be as good as the book or will it disappoint? Often the movie doesn’t live up to the high standards of the book. But when it comes to The Help I’m happy to say that for this reader and movie-goer, it was E for Excellent. I give it a solid thumbs up. Have you seen it? What did you think?

*Photo credits: All photos from Internet Movie Data Base

The last four weeks I’ve been “off.” First it was very hot and then I got really sick. I’ve had a hard time reading or doing my normal things. My solution, besides the antibiotics, has been to persuade my husband to take me to the movies. (He’s a really good guy.) A sign that I’m feeling better is that I’m finally able to tell you about these three movies. Here are our opinions:

Midnight In Paris

Stars: Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. Directed and written by Woody Allen.

A romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital for business. The party includes a young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.

I liked it but Jay did not. We both thought the female lead was too negative. How could the character played by OwenWilson have fallen for her in the first place? Jay thought the plot went nowhere. the movie, however, made me want to do several things: visit Paris, reread Hemingway and learn more about Gertrude Stein. I loved Kathy Bates in the role.

Jay C+ / Margot A-

Bad Teacher

Stars: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel and Justin Timberlake

A comedy centered around a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague — a move that pits her against a well-loved teacher.

We both usually like Cameron Diaz in whatever role she is in. In this one she still gave a good performance, but she portrayed such a poor example of a bad teacher that it was hard to see it as believable. The roles of all the teachers seemed to be based on the opinions and stereotypes of high schoolers.

Jay C / Margot C

Friends With Benefits

Stars: Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis

While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan and Jamie soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complications.

Even though Jay and I are twice the age of the two main characters, we found them likable and easy to identify with. (We can still remember those days.) We liked the witty dialogue and the chemistry between Timberlake and Kunis. We absolutely loved the performance of Woody Harrelson. Overall, it was a good romantic comedy, just not over the top.

Jay B / Margot B

Three good summer movies but not great summer movies. We don’t necessarily expect to see great movies every time we go to the theater, although it would be nice. In this case we should have waited for the dvd versions. That is, except for Midnight In Paris. I liked seeing Paris in the early twentieth century on the big screen. Have you seen these movies? What did you think?

But Chaucerian Girl suggested I might give them another chance by starting with one of the lighter works. Also, I might enjoy seeing it in movie form. I accepted her advice and acquired Much Ado About Nothing – The Movie from the library.

What a lovely surprise – it’s wonderful!! The first actor I recognized in the film was Emma Thompson. I thought, “If anyone can help me love Shakespeare, it will be Emma Thompson.”  She and Kenneth Branagh and Denzel Washington.

It turns out I’ve been reading a version of this story for years. In other words, this is a romance novel. Actually, it’s a romantic comedy. Can you believe it?

There are actually two couples in the story. One is the young couple, Hero (Kate Beckinsale) and Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard) who set eyes on each other and fall madly in love.

The other couple is a lot more fun. That would be Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson). They are the two who talk very fast about how much they despise each other but, of course, in beautiful, literary language. We, the reader/viewer, know the truth behind all those protestations. Their friends and family actually trick them into confessing their love for each other.

There’s a bit more to the story but that’s the nuts and bolts. It was sweet and laugh-out-loud funny. Denzel Washington was great as the Prince, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves also played key roles.

So, now I’m a lover of one of Shakespeare’s works. Next, I’m going to read the real thing. Well, as real as it gets on my Kindle.

Any suggestions for my next try at Shakespeare?

I confess, I like to read stories about lawyers and the law. In my career I spent a good amount of time with various attorneys, all of them Employment Law specialists but lawyers just the same. I find the stereotypes and jokes about lawyers way over-worked. There are, however, some personality traits that I’ve found common in the attorneys I’ve met personally and in books. That is, I find they have the ability to look at issues and details in a situation from multiple viewpoints. And that’s a good thing. A good attorney should be well versed in all aspects of the law as well as human nature.

When it comes to defense attorneys like Mickey Haller, the main character in Lincoln Lawyer, we often say they are all about playing the angles. We say it like that’s a bad thing. I don’t see it that way. I see it as being a good lawyer who looks at the law and a case from as many viewpoints as possible.

Now I know there are sleazy lawyers. They seem to capture our attention. In my lifetime I’ve also known sleazy teachers, ministers, health care professionals, business managers, accountants, and so on. These people have one thing on common that defines sleazy: they work the angles only for their own benefit. It’s all about them.

The character of Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is multi-faceted. He’s a little smarmy, manipulative, fast-thinking, hard-drinking and gives the outward impression of being Mr. Slick. But, when you look closely, as this movie does, you see he’s very respectful of the law, a loyal friend, a protector of the people no one else cares about, and he has a moral core.

The story centered around one of Mickey’s cases. A wealthy young man, Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillippe), is accused of raping and beating up a woman he met in a bar. Mickey knows this is his big money case but he’s suspicious. Louis looks completely innocent, but why would this Beverly Hills guy choose Haller? Mickey also discovers this case has a tie-in to a case he handled fifteen years ago.

Matthew McConaughey got Mickey Haller just right. He played him straight out of the book. It’s a small point but I noticed that McConaughey’s bottom teeth are crooked and it just seemed to fit.

There were also solid performances from the rest of the cast: Marisa Tomei as Maggie, Mickey’s ex-wife. is a very classy presence of the screen. William H. Macy was great as Mickey’s P.I. friend, Frank.  And Josh Lucas did a good job as the gung-ho prosecutor.

Ryan Phillippe as the innocent defendant was perfect too. (I couldn’t help myself – I thought about how that innocent face probably looked Reese Witherspoon straight in the eye and told her he wasn’t cheating on her. Phillippe is now Witherspoon’s ex-husband.)  One more good thing – this movie gave the viewer a good look at the streets of LA without the glamour.

If you liked the book, you’ll like the movie. It was very true to the story. If you like the movie, read the book. There is even more good stuff in the book. Either way, Lincoln Lawyer is good entertainment.

For some reason WordPress is not allowing me to show you the official movie trailer. I’ll have to send you over to YouTube so you can get a sneak peak. Click HERE and enjoy. Do yourself a favor and go see a good movie the old-fashioned way – on a big screen.

My choices for my favorite food movies are these three:

Eat Drink Man Woman

A senior chef lives with his three grown daughters. He cooks the most magnificent meals while attempting to cope with all the craziness going on in his daughter’s lives.

Chocolat

A woman and her daughter open a chocolate shop in a small French village that shakes up the rigid morality of the community. Chocolate is considered sinful??

Babette’s Feast

In 19th century Denmark, Babette, a French woman, works for two Protestant sisters as maid/housekeeper/cook. The sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of their father’s birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal. Although they are secretly concerned about what Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, might do, the sisters allow her to go ahead. Babette then prepares the feast of a lifetime.

What do you think of my choices? Have you seen any of these movies? What food related movies do you like? Don’t forget to visit The Bumbles for movie Monday Movie Meme.

My husband convinced me I would enjoy the film and that it contained very few parts that would be too violent or bizarre. So, off we went yesterday to the theater. And now, I can no longer say I don’t like Coen Brother’s movies. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.

In case you are unfamiliar with the story, let me tell you that it’s a remake of the classic Western movie starring John Wayne. It’s also based on the book by Charles Portis. The plot centers around the plan of a young girl who hires a US Marshall to help her find the man who killed her father.

Here’s why I liked it so much:

1. It was so REAL. The outdoor setting (forest, little cabins and shacks, western town), the dirty, tattered clothes and unwashed bodies, the speech patterns, and even the ugly teeth on Ned Pepper was exactly what I think it was like in that time period. (Actually there weren’t any Hollywood-looking teeth.)

2. It was historical fiction at it’s best. I already knew the basic story but it seemed new. There were lots of twists and turns in the story and little surprises.

3. When it comes to a movie like this it’s all about the actors. They were brilliant!

• Jeff Bridges played Rooster Cogburn. I didn’t think about him as Jeff Bridges at all. He really was Rooster Cogburn.
• Matt Damon was the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf. His stilted language was perfect. I also liked his gentlemanly protection of Mattie.
• Josh Brolin played the coward Tom Chaney.
• Barry Pepper played Lucky Ned Pepper.
• A newcomer, Hailee Steinfeld, played the 14-year-old Mattie Ross. I liked her much better than the actress in the original classic. She was so convincing as the intelligent and ever-righteous Mattie. The young teen has an amazing career ahead of her.

My husband thoroughly enjoyed it the second time. We decided we would buy it as soon as it came out on dvd. I won’t be surprised if we decide to go see it again in the theater. It’s definitely worth seeing again and again.

Treat yourself and see it on the big screen while you still can.

*Photo credit: Internet  Movie Database