Movies -- A Recap -- Part XXXVI -- Something Sweet

28 Days has an impressive cast, including Sandra Bullock, Viggo Mortenson, Steve Buscemi, Dominic West, and Elizabeth Perkins.  Bullock plays an alcoholic who is forced to choose between jail or a rehab program after she drunkenly wrecks her sister's wedding. The movie takes a reasonably serious look at addiction before getting to a sweet ending.

A movie about a conservative high school summer camp, at which Alice questions her beliefs and has a few exciting moments, may not sound like something worth watching.  But Yes, God, Yes is better than it sounds.  Natalia Dyer, who plays Alice, has a wonderfully expressive face which is so fun to watch, and as someone who is just a little older than the kids in this movie were in the year 2000, it's a fun throwback to what those days were like.  It is a bit horrifying to think that children actually grow up like this, but a very cute movie nevertheless.

The Tomorrow Man is a sweet little story about two sweet but weird people who are the perfect weird for each other.  The leads are played by John Lithgow and Blythe Danner.  It's not a great movie, but those two are so sweet and odd in an adorable way, and the whole thing ends up being pretty endearing.

Steve Carell is a wonderful balance of serious and funny in Dan in Real Life.  He plays the single father of three daughters who meets a lovely woman at a bookshop while attending a family reunion, only to discover she's just started dating his brother.  Some predictable hijinks ensue, but so do a fair number of very sweet and touching conversations between the lead, his daughters, and the aforementioned woman, played by the ever-lovely Juliette Binoche.

Another Round is a weird little Scandinavian story about four teachers who all decide that they're going to try out the theory of some guy who's name I can't spell, which posits that at a blood alcohol content of 0.05%, people are more free and creative.  The project goes very differently for each of them - not always well - and there are some sad bits.  But in the way that many European movies seem to pull off, the sadness is not overwhelming and serves more as a reminder that life is short but good.  And, there's a bit about a dog.

I was destined to like The Age of Adaline because I really like Blake Lively.  As far as acting goes, she was especially good in this one, in my opinion.  She plays the titular character who, after a freak accident, stops aging.  She has to spend her life moving from place to place so people don't get too suspicious.  Eventually, as one might expect, she gets caught up in a really lovely way.

You remember My Girl, right?  Macaulay Culkin shortly after Home Alone, plus Anna Chlumsky in her first big role.  They are both adorable as kids, and the story is every bit as beautiful and sad as it was thirty-plus (!) years ago.  Part of the reason it holds up so well is probably that, since it's set in the 1970s, even when it came out it was in the past; those movies usually age better.

The Big White is a goofy Robin Williams comedy in which his short-on-funds character gets crosswise with some professional hitmen when he takes the dead body they left in a dumpster for later for himself, claiming it's his long-time-missing, now-deceased brother to get the insurance money.  Things get a bit mixed up when his brother returns to town.

Aside from the last 15 seconds, Let Them All Talk was a cute story mostly about an aunt and nephew, but also about the aunt and two of her long-time friends.  The three ladies are Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen.  Meryl Streep's character, Alice, is a writer, and Candice Bergen's character is bitter after years of believing that Alice's Pulitzer Prize-winning book exposed her secrets and ruined her life.  Simultaneously, Alice's agent is pressing for her next manuscript, which Alice has hinted will be a sequel to one of hear earlier books.  Alice's relationship with her nephew is the beating heart of the film.

What I Read -- The Pig War

I've gotten a bit away from writing about my travels on this blog.  Perhaps I will get back to it.  It was a good way to chronicle my adventures, and fun to look back at later.

Meanwhile, I have continued - at least mostly - my habit of reading a book about a place when I am traveling there.  And sometimes even writing about those books. 

Recently, S and I took a boat trip in and around the San Juan Islands, a small group of islands off the coast of Washington state at the Canadian border.  In his preparation for the trip, S had learned about an event called the Pig War.  A bit of light googling revealed a book of the same name: The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History, by E.C. Coleman.

It's not so much a war over a pig, but that the shooting by an American of a British pig (or at least a pig owned by a British person) brought attention to the dispute over the boundary between the US and then-British-owned Canada.

Some years prior, an agreement had been reached placing the land boundary at the 49th parallel.  When the land ran out, the boundary ran, "to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly, through the middle of said channel, and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean...."  The trouble was that the agreement didn't say which channel it meant.  The Americans took the position that it meant the Straits of Haro, which would place San Juan Island itself on the American side of the line.  The Brits took the position that it meant the Rosario Strait, which would place San Juan Island on the British side of the line.  So when the San Juan pig wouldn't quit rooting around in the American's garden and was shot, a decades-long detente ensued.

It was 1854.  Both sides were busy with either internal or other external concerns.  In a bilateral show of restraint, diplomacy, and common sense which seems rarely demonstrated in global politics of late, both sides sent small military detachments to San Juan Island under instructions to protect their own country's interest without provoking the other until a final determination of ownership was made.

Despite a road bump here and there, it worked remarkably well.  [SPOILER ALERT!]  The "war" came to an end in 1872, when the Emperor of Germany found in favor of the Americans' claim.  The British force, upon receiving the news, peaceably withdrew, turning over the keys to their fort with kind words: "I now beg to express to you personally my warmest thanks for your ready co-operation with me at all times, and permit me to subscribe myself with feelings of the highest order."

The author does a nice job of placing this litter territorial squabble in the context of bigger national and global events.  Without that, this story might have been an interesting long article, but a book might have been a bit much.  He also has a decent sense of humor.  It's not often that a book of history makes me laugh out loud or read passages to my companions, but this one did.  The author has a clear belief, which becomes more evident as the book goes on, that the final decision was an incorrect one; frankly, the final chapter - which speeds through everything from the Boer War to the War on Terror - should be skipped entirely.

But until that point, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Happy 4th of July!