With mouths on fire, we marvel at the talent or Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf.
Dave: I made Joe pause this movie about 2 minutes in, when I said: “Wait, this isn’t a biopic of Ladybird Johnson?” Readers, apparently, it is not. Instead, it’s a coming-of-age film featuring the stupendous Laurie Metcalf as the overbearing, yet caring mother and Saoirse Ronan as her difficult and strong-willed daughter who really wants to get out of Sacramento. Those two shone brightly, but that was the one difficulty I had with the film. It felt like Metcalf and Ronan were acting in technicolor: bright, vivid, and sometimes over-the-top, while everyone else felt like blues, grays, and browns making up the scenery. The two leads’ characters were so outsized, along with the gamut of teen angst issues the script covered, I kept thinking it might turn into a musical at any moment. Thankfully, it didn’t. The conclusion left things at once too tied up (Ronan kind of loves Sacramento!) and too unfinished (Ronan’s parents mortgaged their house to send her to New York!). (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐1/2)
For the first time in awhile we did not make a popcorn recipe from scratch. Instead, we used a “gourmet” microwave popcorn flavored with ghost peppers that was part of my birthday present. I’m a fan of spicy stuff - I always have several varieties of hot sauce in the house - but this was next-level, mostly because the ghost pepper wasn’t tempered with anything except for fake butter and some salt. We finished the entire microwave popcorn bag, but the Carolina reaper flavored popcorn is still sitting there, taunting me. Judging from the intense heat in the ghost pepper popcorn, it might hang out until I’m having some severe sinus problems later this fall. The popcorn we ate tonight was delicious: the spice didn’t completely obliterate everything else even if it was pretty intense. Still, we were both glad our refrigerator’s ice maker was recently repaired. We needed a bit of respite after finishing a bowl of this. (️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Joe: Anyone who knows me knows that I think Barbie is just about the greatest piece of cinema since, like, The Wizard of Oz. I seriously love that movie so much. It was also, curiously, my first Greta Gerwig film. I've been meaning to see Lady Bird since it was released, but only pulled the trigger tonight. I know this much is true: I love how Gerwig writes. Like Barbie, the script for Lady Bird manages to be insouciant, incisive, wryly funny, and deeply affecting. Saoirse Ronan is jaw-dropping in just about every film I've ever seen her in, but her chemistry with Laurie fucking Metcalf is next fucking level here. They bring a painful, deep humanity to their characters and watching them spar, heal, and spar again is intense and beautiful. I loved this movie, and now I plan on watching Gerwig's other directorial endeavors. I doubt I'll love any of them as much as I love Barbie, tho. Just sayin'. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)
While Ally and I were tromping around Amarillo, we went to the Big Texan, which was just as stereotypically Texan as I had hoped for. It is both everything that is wonderful and wrong with the United States, and its most fabulous trait is the gift shop. Every bit of what-the-fuckery (including an honest to god rattlesnake) is in this place. Because Dave loves spicy food and because we indulge our popcorn fetishes (almost) every Friday, I thought getting him some mouth-melting microwave popcorn would be funny. So tonight he popped the milder of the two, and holy shit I can't even fathom what the other popcorn is going to taste like. My best guess is that my GI tract will pay dearly for tonight's indulgences, but it was hot as fucking hell and delicious. We ate the entire bowl and drank about three gallons of water while doing so. (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Popcorn recipe from: Southwest Specialty Foods, Inc.
Lady Bird on IMDB.
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