Category: movies

Gnomeo and Juliet: Vacation week with your tween

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, local fun, movies, tweens
Gnomeo and Juliet

When it’s winter and the “Can we go out and do something today?” questions are about to put you over the top, give in. I did; we headed out to the 2:45pm showing of Gnomeo and Juliet at the Wells Five Star Cinema.

There has been a dearth of (good)  movies for kids lately, have you noticed? I wasn’t that excited to see this one (I don’t even like gnomes), but it was the only game in town. This movie was actually very good, adorable and funny (and~did I mention?~ I don’t even like gnomes…or pink flamingos!).  All of the kids in the audience seemed to really enjoy the movie (one little girl was talking to the screen at one point, but in a cute, non-annoying way). I even laughed out loud more than once. In case you’re a fan, Elton John sings the songs in the show. 

Gnomeo and Juliet are just so so darn appealing you can’t help but love them and root for them. Don’t worry that it’s just all about the kids though; this movie has plenty of adult humor. My daughter even got one of the subtle play-on-words jokes that went over my head (hel-lo; how embarrassing!). One of the funniest parts was the scary lawnmower from h-e-double hockey sticks sequence (“Your grass will be afraid to grow!” Heh heh heh…).

This movie was a very manageable hour and 24 minutes long, so the whole afternoon will not be wasted even if you don’t agree that it was worth your time, but I’m pretty sure that you will.

P.S. Stick around for the “Crocodile Rock” full cast dance at the end of the movie. 🙂

What this woman got: Valentine edition, part 3

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Holidays, local fun, movies, restaurants, tweens

First order of business: skip the gym.

White chocolate chip, chocolate chip, and craisin cookies for bake off

My husband and I had planned to celebrate the day during the child-free hours we had, from 7am until about 3:30pm (the school day). There was a medical appointment (mine) at 10:30am, but that was quick and we didn’t let it mess up our day.

Which was good, because there were other things ready and waiting to do that.  My daughter’s school is having a bake- off today and we thought that the cookies she was entering had to be there by 2pm Tuesday. Wrong. She called me at 9am to say the cookies actually had to be there by 2pm Monday, the day before.

Valentine’s Day. The day of our date. So, I scrambled to get the dough made before my appointment, then rushed home to bake them after my appointment. Got them to school at 1pm, ahead of the deadline, but that left us only a little part of the day to celebrate.

We had lunch a quick lunch at Jake’s Seafood on route one, then headed to the Harbor Candy store where (surprise!) they did NOT have any chocolate dipped strawberries, which was my purpose for going there. I was on a mission! That was the thing that I wanted. 😦 Plus, it was a little disconcerting to see that they had more Easter candy for sale than Valentine’s Day candy. Huh? When is Easter, anyway? (Hel-lo? It’s more than two months from now!)

Dark chocolate dipped strawberry from VFM

I always get a dark chocolate covered cherry and eat it at the counter when I go to Harbor Candy, but today was an exception. I was too annoyed. We left without buying anything, and we went into the Village Food Market in Ogunquit (just a few doors down) and (hurray!) they had a whole tray of them! Something finally went our way. They were even dipped in dark chocolate, my favorite, but  Bill? not so much. I swear I’m going to convert him to the dark side, but my efforts thus far (with the dark side of candy, at least :)) have met with failure.

Next, to Ogunquit Beach to look at the ocean. Can you believe that it was 51 degrees at 2pm on Monday?? That was the best gift of all, dont’ you think?

Then we were headed home with about an hour left before the tween got off the bus from school when (surprise again!) she sent me a text saying that the after school activity was canceled and she was on her way home.

I mean, are you kidding me?

After homework, supper, laundry, and tween bedtime we  got into bed to watch our Netflix movie: Glee: Season one: Disc one. Well, I laughed, I cried, yada yada. But hey, really, what better way to end your Valentine’s Day than a little Glee in bed? Ha!

Today was  a day where not much went according to plan, so not the best Valentine’s Day ever, but that’s okay, because I have the best Valentine ever: my husband!

P.S. It’s day 5 but my bouquet is still looking great!

February date night

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, movies, restaurants

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to have a date night due to college classes resuming for our elder child (who babysits our younger child), but the planets aligned so we got our dinner and a movie.

The dinner part was at Ruby’s in York. We got the coupons from the SuperCoupons monthly mailer and I actually remembered to bring them this time and they even hadn’t expired yet, so we were off to a good start.

We ordered a McCann’s pizza which is bbq sauce, chicken, bacon, and cheese on a thin crust. We also got an order of fowl fingers with torch sauce on the side. These two menu items were the reason that my husband wanted to go there, so he was happy. The big letdown for me was that they were out of sweet potato fries, which was the reason that  I wanted to go there, so I wasn’t so happy

(NOTE: It’s worth it to go early for dinner since from 4-6pm on weeknights the appetizers are half price).

It continued to be a boy’s night because it was Bill’s turn to choose the movie. He chose True Grit, and just in case the title doesn’t tip you off, I’m here to tell you this: chick flick it is not. I actually (in hindsight) would not consider this a good choice for a “date night” movie…warm and fuzzy it also is not. Not one little bit. Not for one instant. It was all hard edges and angst. (Okay, there were one or two little laughs, but they were wrapped in blood and gore and so therefore hard for me to appreciate).

My husband thought that this movie was great. I thought that it was difficult to watch. It was violent, grossly (heavy on the “gross”) violent at times, and there were a couple of occasions of violence before which there was no fair warning (read: time to cover my eyes). My husband managed to tell me “don’t look” just in time for one of these, which I greatly appreciated.

We didn’t even agree on the ending. I said, “It didn’t even have a happy ending to make up for all of the difficult-to-watch parts!” and he said, “What? It did have a happy ending,” bewildered by my assessment.

And there you have it: men and women are different.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So there you go.

Snow day! Top ten (fun) things to do

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, italian, Karen's Kitchen, movies, recipes, writing

I have not had a snow day for quite a while  (the Christmas Blizzard doesn’t count because I was too worried about my husband and son driving home from work in it to enjoy it). I decided to plan ahead for the next one, so I was ready to dive into distraction at a moment’s notice.

Stuff to do:

  1. a.Crack out the crock pot. The big one. Make soup. Here’s a recipe for Minestrone using whatever you have in the pantry and fridge. Whatever is left over can be frozen to bring to work to eat for lunch during the week.  b.Pull out the frozen gravy, meatballs and sausage from the freezer; place in crock pot. Add whatever odds and ends of meat you have leftover. Supper is almost ready!
  2. No crock pot? Here’s a great recipe from Stephen Lanzalotta (author of The Diet Code, and baker extraordinaire at Micucci’s on India Street in Portland) that uses stuff (once again) that you have in the pantry right now. Really. I’ll wait while you go check. It’s for Tomato and Tuna Soup for one. Not alone (or just really hungry)? Just employ a little math to double or triple the recipe. Done.
  3. Got Netflix? Load up your instant queue so now that the flakes are flying, all you’ll have to do is hit the “play” button.
  4. Bake! You can mix up a bucket of bread dough (keeps in fridge for up to two weeks) so it’s ready when you are. Not much gets those endorphins going like the smell of fresh bread baking.
  5. Read! Got a stack of books by (or under) the bed? A stack of magazines you’ve had no time to read? A Kindle? Go for it.
  6. Write! Keep a file that you toss your little scraps of napkins, post its, notebook paper on which you’ve jotted down ideas that came to you while driving, watching TV, listening to a boring lecture at school so you will always have your own prompts and projects ready.
  7. Got kids? Play Wii! (or Uno, or checkers, or whatever!)
  8. Take a nap. You know you want to.
  9. Virtually  visit with friends and relatives via FB or email. In other words…DON”T DRIVE!
  10. Be grateful the fam is all safe and sound.

🙂

Date night: payback for the chick flick

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, movies, restaurants
promotional poster

Our last date night movie was chosen by moi: How do you know (as in, “how do you know” it’s a chick flick? When your husband looks around the theater and says, “Hon, I’m the only man in here,” that’s a big clue).

This time we went to see The Fighter (his choice). Now, this is not typically a movie I’d have one iota of interest in seeing, but hey (as he cheerfully pointed out as we left the theater last week)…I owed him. I was a good sport about it.

Here’s the thing though: it was a great movie. I loved it. What it had going for it was that Mark Wahlberg was in it. A bigger thing that it had going for it was that Amy Adams (I think that she’s a terrific actress; I’ll even go out on a limb and call her the next Meryl Streep) was in it. It was well paced, interesting, and (of importance to me, not so much my husband) not overly bloody.

It’s based on a true story about a (you guessed it) fighter and his brother, and how he tries to pursue his dream both with, as well as in spite of, the support of his wildly extended family.

For the dinner part of our date, we went to Mike’s Clam Shack. We split fried ravioli and Bubba’s Mixed Grill (steak tips, half a rack of ribs, and BBQ chicken breast), salad, shack potatoes, and I had a cup of chicken noodle soup (yup; still sick; see prior post). The chicken soup had more chicken in it than I’ve ever seen in a cup of soup that I didn’t make myself; it was impressive.

The waitresses were nice when, after sitting at one table in the middle of the room for about five minutes, I asked to be moved to a booth (did I mention that I hate to sit in the middle of the dining room? I need the anonymity of the periphery).

Here’s a tip: if you go to see the movie and sit in the last row in back, don’t spill your cup of Peanut M+M’s …they will roll loudly downhill to the front of the theater, for what seems like forever, while everyone in those rows in front of you will look back to see who the dope was that did that!

It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!

Okay, it was me.

🙂

New Year’s Eve, tween style

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, friends, Holidays, local fun, movies, tweens, writing

Today was a “Girl’s only” day for me and my tween. We had originally planned to go shopping to spend gift cards received for Christmas (both for her and for me) but then changed the plan to include a movie with a friend. (We never did go shopping with the gift cards, come to think of it…)

She and her friend went back and forth for a few days about which movie to see, Yogi Bear or Gulliver’s Travels.  Neither movie received great reviews, from the critics nor from her older brother, so as far as I was concerned, it was a toss-up. In the end, they chose Gulliver. I braced myself and we settled in for the show.

Well, from a parental standpoint, it wasn’t too terrible (except for when Jack Black was showing his “plumber’s crack” in the beginning. Eeew.). There were a few laughs, and the cast was likeable. The tweens gave it “two thumbs up!”  however, and those are the opinions that really matter, right?

After that, we did a quick food shopping (hey, Hannaford’s was right next door; why  make a second trip?), then back to the house. The girls had a few laughs playing Wii sports, Zsu Zsu pets, and listening to CD’s while I put away the groceries, paid the bills that came in today’s mail (ugh), and wrote quick book blog post.

Then we brought her friend home and came back to make supper: linguini, turkey, roasted red peppers in garlic, butter, and olive oil…pea pods added to Mom’s. After supper, we played a quick building game with magnets, thenwe finished the day with a little couch time, watching iCarly. I promised to wake her up if I am awake at midnight, but the odds of that are VERY SLIM. 🙂

Linguini with roased red peppers and turkey
...and pea pods added for Mom

Date night (vacation week edition)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, movies, restaurants
How do you know (promotional poster)

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to have a date night, what with the holidays coming, shopping for the holidays, wrapping for the holidays, hiding presents and then (forgetting where they were hidden) looking for the presents for the holidays….

It was nice to have Christmas behind us and get a little time together for a date (courtesy of our eldest child, who stayed with the youngest child). Going out one night during a week off from work feels totally different from going out on a “school night”. No worrying about getting home early, or having to get up at dawn to spoil things. It was nice to just think about what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go, without outside time constraints.

So, even though we decided to stay local and do the usual dinner and a movie, it felt…nicer. More relaxed. No rushing through the meal to get to the movie on time, since we didn’t have to leave after I’d gotten home from work.

First, we stopped at the Wells Public Library, because I love the library. That was pretty much the only reason. I dropped off some books, then chatted with my friends, the librarians (Cindy, Cindy, and Cindel), about blogging and the book that I’m writing (almost finished!!).

Next, we were headed to Ruby’s in York, when my husband (on a whim) made a U-turn and we went to East instead. What are you gonna do? It’s a man’s prerogative to change his mind at the last minute! The food was great, as was the service. The only annoying thing was the woman at the table next to us who wouldn’t shut up about how cold it was (it wasn’t) in there.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Then we saw How do you know at the Wells Five Star Cinema. I loved it. He did not love it (as evidenced by him saying to the ticket seller after the movie, “You could’ve warned me!”). Okay, so I’m saying it: Bill, you’re the best husband ever for sitting through that movie and still having a smile on your face at the end!

Tangled

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, movies, tweens

If you’ll forgive the tired old cliché, Tangled is a “coming of age story” for Rapunzel, Flynn, and even (in a weird way, a “coming of old age” ) for Rapunzel’s evil, passive-aggressive step mother (who continues the long tradition of evil stepmothers in Disney Movies.).

What’s totally great about Rapunzel is that she is a normal looking girl. This is huge for a Disney movie.  They have deviated from whatever mathematical formula that they have applied to prior princesses that make their faces flawless and perfectly symmetrical and give them bodies that are anatomically impossible. You know, like Barbie.

What’s also great about Rapunzel is that she saves herself from Flynn (the would-be hero), when he breaks into her, um… house, and without giving too much more away, she repeatedly saves herself in other situations thereafter. Flynn doesn’t save her; she saves him.

The horse Maximus and Flynn have a comical, sibling-type relationship going on throughout the movie which was so much fun to watch that it elicited a few disapproving “Mom! You sure laugh loud!”‘s from my tween.

This movie also brought to mind a few other clichés: “If you love something, set it free,” embodied by Rapunzel. “If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it,” embodied by the evil stepmother.

The lights that are launched annually recall the tune “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine”, which is reflective of Rapunzel’s optimism in spite of the deck being completely stacked against her…and I mean: Completely. Stacked. Against. Her.

Then there’s the frying pan, which is perhaps a nod to the woman who can “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”. At one point, Flynn asks: “A frying pan! Who knew?” A woman knew, that’s who!

Don’t get me wrong; all of these cliches are comforting, familiar. They help to make the movie accessible, and overall, EXCELLENT. Bring your kids and go see it (but try not to embarrass them by laughing “too loud” at Maximus and Flynn). 🙂

Dinner and a movie

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, movies, restaurants
Morning Glory promotional poster

In reviewing some of my past posts, I’ve noticed a date night trend toward Dinner and a Movie; this night is no different. The movie was “”What’s the Story?’ Morning Glory”, viewed at the Wells Five Star Cinema. It almost couldn’t be bad, with Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford, right? Rachel McAdams was the real draw for me though; she’s been great in all of the movies she’s been in (that I’ve seen) and was in this movie also. The first half of this movie was a little slow, but the lightning fast second half more than made up for it. Also, I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. It made me nostalgic for Broadcast News with Holly Hunter and William Hurt (the latter movie was a little better).

Dinner was at Mekong Thai in Wells. Our choice of restaurant is often based on being short of time and proximity to the theater, and tonight’s choice was no exception. That said, Mekong Thai has probably the best service of any restaurant I’ve ever been to.

When we were younger (in the late 90’s and early 00’s), when we had a little baby (and littler discretionary income) our dinner and a movie date night happened at home. We watched Dinner and a Movie on TBS with Annabelle Gurwitch and Paul Gilmartin. It didn’t even matter whether or not I liked the movie; I enjoyed watching Annabelle so much that was enough. I still have the apron with the Dinner and a Movie logo that my husband gave me one year for Christmas.

It is poignant to me now that the child that was sleeping in the crib in the next room is now babysitting our younger child so that we can have dinner and a movie out in the real world.

Dinner and a Movie  (with different hosts) is still on TBS; My Cousin Vinny is next up on December 17th, with Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei (back when she still was keeping her clothes on for the camera). 🙂 Enjoy!

Date night: Maine Diner and a Movie

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, movies, restaurants

Date night last night was short, but great. We unexpectedly had a babysitter when I unexpectedly got out of work early, so we made the most of it. This date night consisted of dinner and a movie.

Because with me it’s all about the food, even though we had barely an hour before the show started we still had to go somewhere to eat first.

It was my husband’s turn to pick, and he chose The Maine Diner, on route one in Wells. Even on an off-season Wednesday night, it was pretty full and we got the last table on the periphery (I hate sitting in those little two-seater tables in the center aisle of the restaurant).

We split the buffalo tenders and the seafood sampler (made up of fried shrimp, whole clams, and scallops), which was excellent. We had just enough time after it arrived to eat it and get to the theater for the 7:05PM show start time.

We saw this particular movie (thanks, Bill!) because I have had a thing for Robert Downey Jr for years.The movie was great, even though there was some violence (some of which had implicit jokes  that I didn’t get, but my husband did). It wasn’t the horrific, bloody-guts-and-death kind of violence though, so it’s all good. It reminded me of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles from (OMG) 1987.  Not quite as good as that movie, but definitely worth seeing.

Last, we went to the ocean. There was someone beach combing in the dark with a flashlight and a white bucket…what was that about? We never did find out. There actually were a lot of people (at least four others that we could see)  out running around in the surf in the dark…guess I missed the memo on that field trip. Since it was so crowded, we headed down to the other parking lot, which was empty, to…er…to watch the submarine races.

I didn’t notice who won. 🙂