Saturday

Word of the day: stravage
                                           : to roam 

Well, we've gotten to the end of the week.  Here are the Fischer's News and Notes:

- We're off to the Fall Festival at Gabriel's school today.  Could be fun - maybe not.
- We finally had a lawn service guy out to the house yesterday, and, boy, does he have our bushes looking good!
- Daisy, one week after having her neck collar removed, is back to her old frolicsome self!
- My cousin Steven gets married tonight!  Sorry I couldn't be there... Hope it goes well.

We watched this last night:

I thought it was a lot of fun!  Emily Blunt, a very talented, rangy, and beautiful actress who lets her remove down at times here in a way she hasn't before, and Jason Segel (in sarcastic, sloppy, teddybear-adorable mode) have good chemistry as a San Francisco couple (he's a sous chef, she's a psychology student) who constantly put off their engagement.  When Blunt moves to Michigan for a post-doctorate fellowship at Ann Arbor, Segel comes along with her, but it isn't long before he realizes - and can admit to her - how much he hates the Wolverine State.  (I say to him: give Statesboro, Georgia a try.)  As relationship dissatisfaction - bolstered by the fact that he can't find a worthy chef job - settles in, it's clear that their wedding will be put on the backburner even longer.

It's a gentle, occasionally observational comedy about the ways in which modern life - particularly life in academia - constantly threaten to hamper the dreams and goals of couples.  Most things seem to not work out as planned or expected, and the film is balanced and fair enough to treat both main characters - and their flaws - equitably.  It's R-rated, although it's not as frank as most other Judd Apatow productions; it was co-written by Segel and Nicholas Stoller, and directed by Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).  There aren't many laugh-out loud moments, but it's constantly amusing, and there are scene stealers galore, chief among them Chris Pratt and Alison Brie as, respectively, Segel's brother and Blunt's sister.  Rhys Ifans is Blunt's boss, Mindy Kaling is a fellow student, Dakota Johnson (Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith's daughter) is the absurdly-energized new girlfriend of Segel's, and David Paymer and Mimi Kennedy are Segel's uncommunicative parents.  Kennedy gets one of the film's best lines: Chastising Segel, who has separated from Blunt, she taunts him about his past choices, shutting him up with a "F--- you, dummy."
(Nice to see the University of Michigan on screen too.)

*

A performance today for my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:

Daniel Day-Lewis
as Gerry Conlon in In the Name of the Father (1993) 

Confession:  I wasn't that wowed by Day-Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood.  Sure, I thought it was good, but for me, it was ultimately too much, too distractingly actor-y and fruity (and what was with that bowl-of-plums accent?).  I thought he was much better here, in his second Oscar-nominated turn, as Gerry Conlon, one of the Guilford Four, four young me falsely convicted of a bombing that killed four off-duty British soldiers and a civilian in 1974.  Day-Lewis, sharing the screen with Oscar-nominated Emma Thompson (as the lawyer who takes his case) and the late Pete Poslethwaite (one of Day-Lewis' real-life idols and mentors), as his imprisoned dad, is bracing here, clear-eyed, hauntingly physical and emotive, with geysers of inner strength and integrity.  Day-Lewis is the rare actor whose being, whose temperament, look, mannerisms, seems to differ from film to film.

*

Here are my NFL picks for the weekend.  Hopefully I'll do as well as I did last week:
(so far, I'm 1-0, with St. Louis prevaling Thursday night)

Cincinnati over Miami
Green Bay over Indianapolis 
NY Giants over Cleveland
Baltimore over Kansas City  (though it could be close)
Philadelphia over Pittsburgh  (don't feel great about this one, but I like the Eagles' defense)
Atlanta over Washington 
Carolina over Seattle  (I think this a good time for Seattle to derail) 
Chicago over Jacksonville
Minnesota over Tennessee
New England over Denver  (should be a great one)
San Francisco over Buffalo 
New Orleans over San Diego  (the Saints, horrid defense aside, are too good to go 0-5)
Houston over the NY Jets  (though I do think the Jets will come out inspired and aggressive) 

Season Record, pre-Week 5:  34-29 

* 

Happy birthday, Le Corbusier.  (Hey, that rhymes.) 

Dear Le,

I don't think I've ever seen one of your buildings.  This will be amended if Julia happens to get a job at Assumption College in Worcester next year.  Surely the Fischer fam will ride over to Cambridge to see this beaut: 

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Carpenter_Center.html

Sincerely,

Le Charles

















Images provided by:

http://www.reellifewithjane.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/five-year-engagement-poster.jpg

http://thebestpictureproject.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/in-name-of-the-father2.jpeg