After watching Le Quattro Volte it was early evening. I walked outside and pulled some small splits from our wood stack in preparation to build the evening fire. I brought them into the kitchen, laid them near the stove, and gathered some dry kindling like I always do.

I opened the stove door, and delicately shoveled the top layer of fine ash and dust and carefully deposited it into the ash pail beside the stove like I always do. The…

Part of Lise's Hal's Birthday Rewatch list

Mood, well, excited. In these dark days small pleasures mean a lot. We had a charcuterie with wine before descending to the theatre, so a bit of a buzz but not much. These days I usually puff before the show, as I just love the visuals to wash over me, but I delayed until the end of Dawn of Man. The reason being is that a friend is staying with us during COVID,…

$225,000,000

Two Hundred And Twenty Five Million Dollars.

The budget for this turd was Two Hundred And Twenty Five MILLION dollars.

What else would this sum buy you? I checked; a random search for 2014 / 2013 favourites lists here on LB. I looked at 30 or so, and picked out what I saw as peoples favourites.

Under the Skin $16M
Boyhood $2.4M
Only Lovers Left Alive $7M
Grand Budapest Hotel $31M
Her $23M
12 Years a Slave $20M
Dallas…

Before my parents married, my father was studying to be a concert pianist at the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto; the upper echelon of musical academies up here in the Great White North. Before that, while still at home in New Brunswick, he would spend his weekends playing in a swing dance band; This is where he met my mum. He spent his weekday evenings practicing at home.

My grandfather, a colonel in the Canadian army, advocated his…