Tag: Artichoke Hearts

Pizza, Salad, and a Movie: The Lego Batman Movie

Last weekend’s Pizza Toppings at Corner Pizza:

  • Arugula
  • Jalapeños
  • Artichoke Hearts

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I had a wedge salad, but since it was the first Friday of Lent, I skipped the bacon. So it was basically iceberg lettuce, tomato, and blue cheese dressing. My husband joked that it reminded him of the salads his mom used to make. (But he doesn’t remember blue cheese dressing…)

Since I haven’t mentioned this in a while, let me say that the pizzas at Corner Pizza are very good. When I achieve my weight loss goal, I may have a slice or two. Until then, I’m happy just to take photos of them.

Movie:

The Lego Batman Movie

Whoever thought of making a movie using Lego pieces/characters? Someone did for the first one (The Lego Movie, I think), and because it did so well, they came along and did another. This one was clever, if a little silly, but it was well done and entertaining. A bit of a change from movies we’ve seen lately, and a welcome one.

Now – it’s old news that La La Land didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Picture (and how it didn’t win). I’m glad it didn’t, but we haven’t seen Moonlight and don’t really want to. I’m kind of over the Oscars, anyway, except maybe for the gowns on the Red Carpet. Staying up past midnight to see the announcers (or whoever it was) mess up the biggest award of the night – well, I’m glad I didn’t.

[I did wake up in the middle of the night though and checked Facebook (!) to see who won that award. I saw a post that said “That was nuts. #Oscars”, but for some reason, I wasn’t curious enough to look further. I went back to sleep and found out what happened the next morning.]

Incidentally, Bonnie and Clyde is one of my all time favorite films. Too bad its actors had the misfortune of being the ones who got the wrong card that night!

 

 

 

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Pizza and a Movie: The Nice Guys

This weekend’s Pizza Toppings at Corner Pizza:

  • Artichoke Hearts
  • Capers
  • Pineapple

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Movie:

The Nice Guys

I was all prepared to really like this Shane Black film, but I found it kind of disjointed and a bit of a mess, plot-wise. But because I prefer to talk about what I liked rather than criticize, here’s a (short) list of what I liked best:

  1. Ryan Gosling
  2. The actress who played his daughter (Angourie Rice)

I’m a fan of Russell Crowe, but I didn’t find him or his character very appealing. I did like Kim Basinger in it. I was okay with the movie being set in the late 1970s, too, and a kind of Lethal Weapon-ish redux (and Lethal Weapon is one of my all time favorite films), but this one just didn’t work for me.

Other films I’ve seen recently (sans the pizza) are Zootopia and The Money Monster. I thought the first was very entertaining, but I didn’t feel the same way about the second.

As for the pizza, I wanted only vegetables (and fruit), and he selected the artichoke hearts. You may have noticed we aren’t going every Friday anymore; sometimes we’ve been out of town, and other times, it didn’t fit into our weekend plans. For the next few months (at least), for the same reasons, we will probably only go once or twice a month.

And hopefully, the movies will get better!

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Pizza and a Movie: Bridge of Spies

This weekend’s Pizza Toppings at Corner Pizza:

  • Artichoke Hearts
  • Bacon
  • Sun-Dried Tomatoes

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Movie:

Bridge of Spies

This movie is my favorite one of the year, so far. (My second favorite is The Gift.)

I was riveted to this story about the exchange of prisoners (spies), and all the actors – especially Tom Hanks, in the lead role as Jim Donovan – did a fantastic job. I love stories set during World War II and the Cold War. This one was set during the latter, in the late 1950s. It was an amazing, true story, and well told. I predict at least one Academy Award.

Two things in particular about it touched me on a personal level:

  1. My parents went to Milligan College with the reconnaissance pilot who was shot down in the film, Francis Gary Powers. He was a year ahead of my mom in school, but she knew him well and they had a biology class together. She says he was very smart and somewhat shy. Like her, he grew up in a coal mining town in southwest Virginia.
  2. My daughter, who is studying in France this fall, recently visited Berlin.

I’ve never been to Berlin–it was divided into East and West when I spent a year in France as a college student, and getting to West Berlin was just too difficult back then. Until I saw this film, I hadn’t realized when the Berlin Wall was constructed, or what that was like. (I thought it happened not long after the war.) As I watched the scenes in East Berlin, I wondered what the city of Berlin is like today, and what it feels like to live there, with its history.

There were some tense scenes, and some very scary ones, and I felt myself propelled back to that time as the story unfolded. The dialogue was great, too. If you see the movie, you’ll notice that one character repeats this line over and over: “Would it help?” I won’t tell you what he or she means, but trust me, it’s a good line.

Now for the pizza. My husband wanted artichoke hearts, which I always love. I picked bacon (why not), and we agreed on the sun-dried tomatoes. It was yummy, and just right.

After taking last Friday off due to Thanksgiving, it was nice to be back at the Corner Pizza together. The only problem was that we somehow forgot to take home our take-home box of the pizza we couldn’t eat. Oops. We left it on the table by mistake. Next time I’ll put it next to my purse, so when I reach for it, I’ll grab the box, too.

Maybe that would help.

 

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Pizza and a Movie: Mistress America

This weekend’s Pizza Toppings at Corner Pizza:

  • Artichoke Hearts
  • Bacon
  • Sun Dried Tomatoes

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Movie:

Mistress America

These pizza toppings were a particularly good combination. The pizza was tangy, yummy, and semi-healthy.

Ahead of time, my husband and I had agreed on the Artichoke Hearts. We waited until the last second to choose the other two toppings. Looking over the menu, my eyes fell on Bacon and his fell on Sliced Tomatoes, and after a short discussion, we modified that to the Sun Dried version.

A few weeks ago, we walked into Corner Pizza with no preconceived notions of what toppings to select. As we were discussing the choices, a young couple sitting at the bar watched and listened, and once we made our decision, they told us we were “cute.”

I took it as a compliment.

As for this week’s movie…well, I can’t give it more than a C. I didn’t think it was particularly funny or witty, and both of us later decided that the older step-sister was bipolar. I walked away thankful that A, I don’t live in NYC or up north, and B, I’m not the age of the characters in this film.

It would just be too complicated for me.

Now, if you’re a northerner, please don’t take offense. I love visiting “the city” and have traveled up north a good bit – but mostly in the summer and fall. Once I went to New York in January, but lucked out with the weather. It was simply very cold (freezing by Atlanta standards) but not horrible or blizzard-y. In fact, the folks I spent time with who live up there thought it was “nice.” Another time, I visited the city in December, and it was even colder (and windy) but it didn’t snow, thank goodness.

In the movie, I liked the fact that one character was a writer. But a lot of the dialogue seemed, well, pretentious. On the other hand, that worked (and was very funny) in the Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine. I loved that movie, and laughed a lot while watching it.

Now, I don’t like all Woody Allen films (who does?) but I admire the fact that he’s always working on something. He keeps on “showing up.” It’s what I try to do, as a writer.

When you think about it, Mistress America sounds like it could have been the title of a Woody Allen movie. Right now, I’m struggling with a title for my next thriller. I’ve finished writing it, and it’s been edited and is ready to go, except for its name.

I may just have to figure it out at the last second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pizza and a Movie: Woman in Gold

This weekend’s Pizza Toppings at Corner Pizza:

  • Artichoke Hearts
  • Italian Sausage
  • Red Onion

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Movie:

Woman in Gold

This week, I made the pizza topping choices and the movie selection. I’d read a little about the movie and wasn’t sure I would like it. But normally, when there’s art in a film, I do.

For example:

  • Big Eyes
  • The Monuments Men
  • Ocean’s Twelve (I think that was the one about art, and not Eleven or Thirteen, but I like both of those)
  • and even My Left Foot.*

I also usually like movies about World War II (too many to list, but The Monuments Men is one of those, too.)

And you can’t go wrong with Helen Mirren.

The story was engaging, and I loved the courtroom scenes. As a bonus, one of my favorite actresses from Downton Abbey popped in as a judge (although not on the Supreme Court).  It was based on a true story, something I always find intriguing. I’m not a fan of time travel in movies (or books), but I do like flashbacks, and in Woman in Gold, the scenes set in Austria when the main character was young were powerful and emotional.

And the pizza was great!

*What are some other movies about art or that have works of art in them?

 

 

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