• Home
  • Escapes and Pleasures
  • Family and Friends
  • Go Sox
  • The Outer Loop
  • Articles of Interest

MillersTime

MillersTime

Monthly Archives: December 2017

The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2017

29 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Best Book List, Books, Favorite Reads by MillersTime Readers in 2017, MillersTime Readers Favorite Books, Most Enjoyable Reads 2017


“A Best Friend Is Someone Who Gives Me a Book I’ve Never Read.” – A. Lincoln

Once again the MillersTime “best books roundup” is my favorite post of the year. It’s a labor of love and is only possible because so many of you take the time to send in what books you have enjoyed over the last 12 months. I’m indeed indebted to each of you and offer my heartfelt thanks to all of you.

The 2017 list is comprised of the favorite reads of 82 adults and 10 children. Fiction leads the nonfiction 56% to 44%, similar to last year. Our youngest participant is almost five month’s old; the oldest is 96. The rest of you are mostly between the ages of 35- 75. Fifty-eight percent of you are women, 42% are men.

While I don’t expect everyone of you will read all the way through this list (anyone who does can claim it as a favorite book for next year), know there is a tremendous amount of information here. I’ve organized it in several ways, hopefully to make it more user friendly:

I. The most frequently cited titles (three or more times) are listed first.

II. Next the contributors are listed alphabetically — to make it easy if you are looking for the favorites of someone you know — with the titles and authors next and then any comments made about those books.

III. Finally, there are also two spread sheet links included as easy, searchable references for you to see the titles, authors, and MillersTime contributors in summary form:

List # 1 – Organized by book titles 

List #2 –  Organized by reader/contributor’s name.

I. Titles that appear on the Favorites’ List three times or more:

Fiction (F):

  •      A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
  •      America’s First Daughter, Stephanie Dray
  •      Days Without End, Sebastian Barry
  •      House of Names, Colm Toibin
  •      Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan
  •      Salvage the Bones, Jesymn Ward
  •      Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesymn Ward
  •      Small Great Things, Jody Picoult
  •      The North Water, Ian McQuire

Nonfiction (NF):

  •      Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson
  •      Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
  •      Evicted, Mathew Desmond
  •      Grant, Ron Chernow
  •      Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance
  •      Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann

For me, as is true every year, the strengths and value of this year’s list have more to do with what contributors say about a book than the number of times a book may be listed. Often, a book listed only once is one I most want to read in the coming year.

A reminder: this list is not meant to be the best books published in 2017, but rather what the title of this posting states — The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2017.

Please forgive my endless prompting for your submissions, though the results, I hope, may have been worth the reminders. (Late additions — please feel free to send them — will be posted as they arrive, without any snarky comments from the editor.)

And, of course, I take responsibility for any inaccuracies or mistakes in the posting of your names, the titles, the authors, and your comments. Please do let me know about errors so I can correct them quickly and easily.

Feel free to share this post with others — family, friends, book clubs, etc.

Enjoy.

II. The 2017 List of Favorites:  

(alphabetical by reader’s first name):

Continue reading »

Share

Why We Love Movies and the Movies We Loved This Year

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Films, Movies. Favorite Movies from 2017

From Ellen & Richard:

People often say the reason they love the movies is because they offer an escape. But that’s not why we enjoy them. We love movies because they tell stories, show us worlds and places we will never know first hand, teach us lessons about life, breathe life into historical or political moments, and/or make us question what we think we already understand.

Come to think of it, we love movies for the very same reasons we love books and love to travel.

For us, a “great movie” has to have a good story; strong, believable, and well acted characters; great directing; with cinematography, music, and production that adds to the whole. We’re not fans of comedy, satire, or overly intellectual films, where nothing much happens for two hours. And while we can appreciate a “critic’s film” (i.e., a film that critics love but audiences don’t), only sometimes do they rise to the top of both our lists.

We’ve averaged about a movie a week this year (actually a bit more since we rarely review the movies we don’t really like, ones that are already super popular, or the “big theater” shows). That’s not a bad record considering the time we travel, how much we read, how much time one of us spends watching baseball in the summer, and missing this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival which we so enjoy.

Also, we love going out to the movies. Seeing a film in a theater somehow seems more special than watching one at home, which we rarely do. (We did recently watch one at home, our first Netflix movie – Mudbound – thanks to the technical assistance of daughter Annie, as some aspects of the modern TV are still a mystery to us.)

Below is a listing — recap list — of the films this year which have received a top rating from at least one of us. We are not going to pull out our top ten for you, even if we could decide on a ten best. Just browse the list and link to our earlier reviews to see if certain ones might appeal. You can also save this list by printing out this post.

(Note: We ran out of time to review the last four films we’ve seen (Darkest Hour, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Mudbound, and The Post), but we’ve included them on this list because we give all of them a top rating. So for sure, check them out in your theaters.)

And let us know what you’re planning to see over the holidays or what you’ve seen this year that we should try to see too.

Films Either One or Both of Us Rated Four or Five Stars

(Click on a film to see our review)

1945
A City of Ghosts
A Quiet Passion
AfterImage
Call Me By Your Name
Cloudy Sunday
Columbus
Darkest Hour (not reviewed)
Death in Sarajevo
Detroit
Dina
Dunkirk
Faces Places
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (not reviwed)
Frantz
Goldstone
I, Tonya
Jane
Lady Bird
Lady Macbeth
Loving Vincent
Lucky
Marshall
Maudi
Menashe
Mudbound (not reviewed)
Murder in Polna
Norman: The Moderate Rise…
Past Life
Sami Blood
Searchers (Maliglutit)
Solitaire
Step
The African Doctor
The Bar
The Bloom of Yesterday
The Exception
The Florida Project
The History of Love
The Lost City of Z
The Post (not reviewed)
The Women’s Balcony
Their Finest
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing
Voices Beyond the Wall
Walk With Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith
Wind River
Wonder
Share

Nominee for Father of the Year?

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by Richard in Family and Friends

≈ 6 Comments

He’s got my vote.

Share

Six More Movies to Consider

09 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

"I, "Marshall", "Murder on the Orient Express", "Roman J Israel, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, "Wonder", Esq.", Missouri", Tonya"

Six mini-reviews: three by Ellen and three by Richard

Ellen:

Good movies transport you…. back into history, to stories of unimaginable horrors, or into the every day lives of famous people. This ‘suspend-my-real-life-and take-me-on-a-trip’ quality is why I so enjoy them. Each of these three movies Richard and I have seen in the last couple of weeks all contain the elements most important for my enjoyment — strong narratives, first-class acting (and great characters), and strong screenplays.

Marshall – Ellen **** Richard ****

Marshall is the simple, straightforward retelling of a 1940’s criminal trial in Connecticut early in the career of Thurgood Marshall (Chadwich Boseman). Marshall is representing the NAACP in defending a Black man charged with rape and attempted murder of a white society woman. No local counsel would take the case, so the NAACP stepped in to help, but the Judge outrageously barred Marshall from actually handling the case. So Marshall bullied, cajoled and “stage managed” a local insurance lawyer to be the lead counsel. The hostile environment and characters – and the eventual friendship between the key lawyers, play out along expected lines yet this is a deeply satisfying story of good vs. evil. (No spoiler alert. You’ve got to see it to see who wins the case.)

The story is the strength of this film and the portrayal of Marshall and the local lawyer, the tension of the trial itself make for a compelling drama. (It is based on an actual case in the 1940’s in Bridgeport, Connecticut.) The lawyers’ instinct in understanding how cultural attitudes shape jury selection and their sympathies to their client, and the racial, religious and gender discrimination undertones of the times — add immensely to story of the legal maneuverings.

Note that this is not bio epic of Thurgood Marshall but offers a glimpse into the beginnings of his historic career. This movie isn’t a 5 star, but it’s more than worth seeing!

 

I, Tonya – Ellen *****  Richard ****1/2

This film headlined the Philadelphia Film Festival (which we missed), and now I understand why. It’s horrifying and satisfying, breathtaking and sad. The acting, filming, and direction are superb and there’s not a moment of boredom in it. It should be opening soon near you. Go see it.

The film explores the full story of Tonya Harding (figure skating star in the 1990’s) — her highs and her lows — along with accusations of her attacking and disabling a rival skater.

Production and direction is key to this film’s success. In the preparation of the screenplay, the directors (Steven Rogers and Craig Gillespie) interviewed all the major players: Harding herself (Margot Robbie) ; Tonya’s mother (played exquisitely by Allison Janney); Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) and his sidekick Shawn Eckhart (Paul Walter Hauser). The actors act out portions of those interviews throughout the film, and the film cuts back and forth between them and the exposition of Harding’s life, her skating achievements and disappointments, her lifelong abuse from her mother and her husband and her inability to step away from any of it, and her dreams. It also delves deeply into the classism of the figure skating world.

This is a difficult movie to watch at times, but it is a must-see.

 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Ellen ***** Richard*****

Another must-see film. I think it’s one of the best-acted, directed and written films we have seen all year. Ahem. Think best actress for the star (Frances McDormand) and best screen play for the writer/director Martin McDonagh.

The script is both clever, tough, and yes, even funny.

The story unfolds nine months after the murder and rape of Mildred’s Hayes’ (McDormand) daughter. The police are not trying hard enough – the murder or a teenager has no priority for them she claims – and so she takes unusual actions to drive their attention to the case. This small town in rural Missouri is filled with as many interesting characters (the Sherriff is played by Woody Harrelson and one of his deputies is played by Sam Rockwell) as it is by its multiple prejudices. The acting is near perfection.

Three Billboards is not an easy movie to watch. The anger which drives the film is palpable long after the film is over. Don’t miss this one either.

**               **               **               **               **               **

And three more mini-reviews, ones I saw while Ellen was out of town.

Richard:

I’m a sucker for a good story, well told, and for me that usually takes precedence over all the other reasons for enjoying and loving a particular movie. Only one of the three below makes it to my top category.

Wonder – Richard*****

On the recommendation of three MillersTime readers, I read this novel several years ago, and it became one of my favorite reads that year. Authored by R.J. Palacio, pen name for Raquel Jaramillo, it’s the story of a young boy, severely facially dis-formed at birth, and his ensuing struggle to attend school, which he enters in the fifth grade. Although I generally will choose a nonfiction over a fiction treatment of these type of stories (Ghost Boy, for instance), there is something quite appealing about Wonder. It not only tells the story Auggie, the boy struggling with his physical deformity but also delves into what those around him, his parents, his sister, a number of other fifth graders, their parents, and the school authorities see, experience, and do.

It is rare, I believe, for a film to be equal to or better than a book. However, Wonder, as a film, captured me and despite its ‘tidiness’ (SPOILER: everything eventually works out well, too well?), the screenplay had me choked up at least a dozen times and brought tears a number of times also, not only because of the boy’s struggles but also because of how well it told not only his story but also his sister’s and his parents’ struggles too. The performances, particularly Jacob Tremblay as the boy Auggie, Izabel Vidovic as his sister Via, Julie Roberts as his mother, and Owen Wilson as his father, are just right.

Take your upper primary or middle school child, or, if you’re a grandparent, your grandchild to see it. We did. I saw it a second time with Ellen yesterday and our third and first grade grandchildren. Their ratings – Abby *****, Eli ****, Ellen *****

 

Roman J Israel, Esq. – Richard ***1/2

Despite mixed reviews and a good deal of critical reporting about an unfocused story, I went to see Roman J Israel, Esq., largely because the story still sounded promising, and Denzel Washington, a favorite of mine, played the lead character.

It’s not the Denzel you know from his other performances. In fact, he’s almost not recognizable (which is a positive if you sometimes get distracted watching a familiar actor/actress).

Somehow he inhabits the lead character, and you can’t help but cheer for that character who struggles to maintain his values and his outrage with a world that is often hostile and generally unforgiving to a person with values

If you can put up with a story that doesn’t quite work (though it doesn’t miss by a lot), then Denzel’s performance is worth your time and money.

 

Murder on the Orient Express. Richard ***

I must admit I had never read this wonderful Agatha Christie thriller, nor had I seen the highly praised 1974 Sidney Lumet film. But before seeing this new version by Director Kenneth Branagh, I listened to the audible reading of the mystery by Branagh — a murder on a train and detective Hercule Poirot’s investigation to determine the killer. I was enthralled.

However, in this instance, the film fails to match the book/audiobook. Despite some lovely scenery, both on and from the train, and a cast that includes Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, and Josh Gad, the story is not well told. It’s choppy, hard to follow, and too dominated by Branagh himself who in addition to directing the film, overplays the character of Poirot.

Save your time and money.  It’s just not very good.

In fact, take that time and money and either read the original story, listen to it on tape, or find the 1974 film version starring Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, etc.

Share

♣ Search



♣ Featured Posts

  • Thru Ellen’s Lens: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
  • “I Used to Be a Human Being” – Andrew Sullivan
  • MillersTime Contributors Favorite Reads from 2021
  • Thru Ellen’s Lens: Alaskan Landscapes & Skyscapes
  • 20 Movies in 8 Days: The Philadelphia Film Festival, October ’21
  • Thru Ellen’s Lens: The Brown Bears of Katmai, Alaska
  • When I Was 22…
  • The Country ‘Spoke’ Again
  • “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”
  • Thru Ellen’s Lens: The Slot Canyons of Arizona
  • The Country Has ‘Spoken’
  • Why (I) Write?
  • If You Expect to Die One Day, Or Know Someone Who Will…

♣ Recent Comments

  • Marsha Harbison on Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!
  • Richard on Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!
  • Chris Boutourline on Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!
  • Judy White on Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!
  • Amy Frost on Yes, It’s True…I Biked from Bruges to Amsterdam!

♣ Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011

♣ Sections

  • Articles & Books of Interest
  • Escapes and Pleasures
  • Family and Friends
  • Go Sox
  • The Outer Loop

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.