Flicks

** Before I get into Tuesday's post, just wanted to let you know that Mrs. LB has decided to guest blog once more so check out Thursday's blog for another guest spot from my better half **


There's not a lot of them but I've watched some movies about marathons recently and wanted to share my thoughts in case you had 90-plus minutes to fill and wanted some viewing options.

Spirit of the Marathon

This is a documentary so not the regular movie experience. This movie takes a look at six marathoners before the 2005 Chicago Marathon. But it also gives a look at the marathon itself and explains a lot about the race (for instance, where the .2 came from).

For a runner, this movie is inspiring. For the non-runner, it could give some insight into what people put into marathons and what they get out of them. The cool thing is, is that some of the people they follow are elites and some are not, but it doesn't matter what level you are at, a marathon is still a challenge for anyone, and anyone can run one - provided they train for it, of course.

Here's a trailer for the movie.



This movie is on Netflix's Watch Instanly feature and you might even be able to watch it here.

Run Fat Boy, Run

That movie is inspiring but this one... well, I don't think it was meant to be inspiring. It's actually a pretty funny movie.

The trailer pretty much sums it up. I watched it not expecting much but the movie was funny.





Saint Ralph

This movie I've not seen. I read up on it and watched the trailer and it looks good. It's about a boy whose mother has cancer, and the boy makes a deal with God - if he wins the 1954 Boston Marathon, then God will save his mother.

It looks like it's worth the investment.



This one's also on the Netflix Watch Instantly.

Friday Leftovers (Feb. 5)

It's Friday! That means it's almost Saturday!

But before we move on to the weekend... the Leftovers. By LB.

Ahem.

Word Association

Play here.

1. Furniture :: Chair
2. Beauty :: Beast
3. Sip :: A-Dee-Doo-Dah
4. Block :: Party
5. Forehead :: Sweat
6. Championship :: Trophy
7. Hurl :: Throw
8. Whip :: Crack
9. Destruction :: Eve
10. Leather :: Chains

Explanations: Nos. 2 and 3 are Disney-related of course, although 3 is really Zip-a-dee-doo-dah with a Z- in front of it. Not sure what's up with the cracking whips and leather and chains. Hey now.

More 'Splainin

Okay, so you may have noticed some strange songs on my Lala playlist. Let me explain.

Song 1 (That's How You Know) is because the girls like it... yeah, I can explain femme stuff like that, the girls like it. No, I did enjoy the movie that's from, Enchanted, quite a bit more than I used to.

The girls like Song 22 as well... no, actually one summer we spent down in Mexico with family and one of the things they had was a Beta tape of all of Wham's videos, so we watched that a lot.

Beta!! That's old school.

And the Into the Night song is just some more 80s cheese. What's up with that song? Is the guy really singing about a 16-year-old?

Freeze Or Not?

I made this recipe for dinner on Thursday. It's a Pasta, Pesto and Peas, and it is really good. Basically, I made some pesto, put it in a food processor with defrosted frozen chopped spinach, mayo, Parmesan cheese, then tossed that in some rotini and penne pasta, added peas and pine nuts and more Parm and !voila! dinner. It's served cold so I made it in the afternoon, which was nice.

My question to you is: do you think I can freeze the leftovers? It made so much of it that I'll have Pasta, Pesto and Peas overload pretty soon otherwise.

I did have a bit of a laugh when making it. The recipe is from Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa, and she can be a bit of a food snob. Her recipe said "good olive oil" or "1 1/4 cups of good mayonaisse." Well, I kept saying "sorry Ina but LB's using the cheap sh*t he got at Costco."

Oscars

Have I mentioned before that I used to love going to the movies? That's the first thing that went out the window when we had Yvie, our ability to go to the movies whenever we wanted. Our movie-going experiences came to a screeching halt, but we knew that would be the case. Since Yvie's was a scheduled c-section delivery, we went out to the movies and dinner the night before, and I remember that night pretty well. The calm before the storm, for sure.

Anyway, since we used to go to the movies so often, the Academy Awards were actually awards I would get excited about. One year, we had seen all five Best Picture nominees and that was pretty rare since there's usually one movie from the bunch that is sort-of obscure. Usually though the nominees for the other major awards, we'd seen. Maybe not all of them, but many of them.

But after we stopped going to the movies so often, I stopped following the Academy Awards as closely as I used to. Most of the time now, I'm lucky if I've even heard of some of the movies that were nominated, let alone seen them.

This year, though, is a bit of an exception. Maybe because there are 10 movies up for Best Picture our odds increased but not only have I heard of some of the movies but we've actually seen some of them. This is amazing, really, since we go the movies so sparingly.

We saw Up, of course. That one we saw right when it came out, and we took the girls.

But we also have seen District 9 and Avatar. The latter I suppose is the highest-grossing movie in history now so us seeing it isn't really unique. But District 9 wasn't quite the big-budget blockbuster that Avatar was. District 9 was such a good movie, and one that I really didn't know a lot about before seeing it. I'd read a story in a magazine on it and read a few things online and from that I knew I wanted to see the movie because I figured it would be good, the way the movie was described. Mrs. LB and I had a chance to go to the movies so I picked District 9 since it was my turn to pick (to avoid arguments over movies, we take turns).

Pretty cool that two of the movies I picked to go see were up for Best Picture. I told you I'm picky. I remember one year it was my turn to pick and I went and seen Million Dollar Baby and that was nominated for Best Picture later on as well.

But some things, though, never change. I've never heard of An Education, The Hurt Locker or A Serious Man... or Precious, although Mrs. LB swears we had a conversation about Precious, but I don't remember.

You Can Say That Again

Actually, this is somewhat common:

Mrs. LB swears we had a conversation about ________, but I don't remember.

You can put pretty much most topics in the blank and that rings true.

LB's Song Of The Week

My weekly nod to children's music.

By the way, didn't I call it last week? I said that Ziggy Marley would win the Grammy for best Musical Album for Children, and he did. I don't know if he had the best album, the songs I've heard have been good, but I figured his name recognition would help him, and I'm guessing it did.

Anyway, this song here is pretty funny. It's about a backpack and how, for some kids, a lot of things go into the backpack but not a lot come out. Yvie's backpack isn't quite as bad but last night she had that thing stuffed to the gills with... crap - her jacket, three water bottles, her lunch box...

This is Bill Harely's Down in the Backpack. And like the description says on the YouTube page:

"With apologies to The Drifters:"