This Christmas found me sick with a chest cold. As a result, Sam and I spent most of the three day weekend skipping other obligations and watching movies. In short:
Conan: bad (unless you like blood gushing from smashed heads like stewed tomatoes )
Midnight in Paris: bad (if only for the hard-to-take-seriously Owen Wilson)
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Good, but disturbing (to be expected from a Fincher film). Also – not having read the millennium trilogy, I’m confused as to what happened to the REAL Anita (did I miss something?)…
Mission Impossible: impossibly silly; mildly entertaining; you’ve seen every frame of the Burj stunts in the trailers; Cruise is aging too much for the role and you expect him to peel off his face in the middle of every close-up to reveal a less hang-dog version of himself..but, despite Simon Pegg’s verbal want for it, this never happens.
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: impossibly silly on purpose.
On Christmas day Sam spent hours in the kitchen making a lamb stew. I think she was trying to compete with Shamshiri’s version, but it was really no contest. Shamshiri’s lamb dish, while good, is just lamb and oil. Sam’s was packed with tomatoes, spices, etc.
The final presentation with cherry rice:
The Sunday after Christmas Sam made this concoction of berries, ice cream and graham crackers for breakfast.
