The great bathroom remodeling saga

[note: I originally meant to post this in October 2011, when the project was complete.  I'm finally posting it now on 6/14/2012, but backdating it to 10/28/2011]


From the design phase in December 2010 to the final sign-off, we spent most of a year on a remodel of the 3/4 master bath.  The room is about 5'x8', which is not much space to begin with, and the original bathroom wasted a lot of that space, so our primary goal was to reclaim as much space as possible, and make it open, light, and clean-lined.  The photo montage doesn't quite do it justice, but I think Sarah's new design is brilliant, and over 6 months later, I still love being in that bathroom.

La Cage Aux Folles (1978)

The Birdcage isn't so much a remake of La Cage Aux Folles as it is an extraordinary doppleganger.  There appear to be passionate arguments on the imdb boards over which version is better, but the reality is that there's not much difference.  Even minor plot and staging elements have been scrupulously translated from the French to the American, and the performances are direct homages.  

Gene Hackman is a significant upgrade over Michel Galabru, who seems to shout all of his lines -- Hackman strays the furthest from the original portrayal, to the benefit of all.  Dan Futterman comes off better than Remi Laurent, but this has more to do with minor script changes -- in both films, the character is self-absorbed to a fault, but he redeems himself in the remake by declaring Albert to be his mother, while he is simply absent from that scene in the original.  The script change is a vast improvement.   I preferred Michel Serrault to Nathan Lane, and Benny Luke was vastly superior to Hank Azaria.  Otherwise the actors are largely toss-ups between the two (though I lean slightly towards the ones in the remake, being more familiar with them).

Two superhero movies in need of some fewer characters, and one that got it right

I was going to just catch up on Thor (2011), which we saw weeks ago...


Around the time we were watching it, the Brads used Thor to make a point about Netflix, but what I want is to see the version of Thor where his three male drinking buddies die during the expedition to Jotunheim so that:

1. he starts off feeling more guilt, and maybe even believes he deserves to be banished, because right now, his "transformation" while on Earth doesn't really work and
2. we don't have to pretend they're real characters.  Maybe we could even develop Sif! or devote more time to Thor learning to act like someone worthy of Mjolnir

...but we also recently saw X-men: First Class, and amazingly enough, this movie had the same problem; they needed to get rid of all the mutants aside from Charles, Raven, Erik, Hank, Shaw, and Emma.  I didn't care one whit about the Banshee / fake stupid Angel with butterfly wings / whirlwind guy / can't remember who else was fighting.  I wouldn't bother with cerebro at this early stage (though the "recruiting missions" were very funny, highlighted by Hugh Jackman's cameo), and use the money saved on not hiring those extra actors and bothering with their sfx to get Hank a decent mask.  Seriously, the Beast mask sucked; it was as bad as the Green Goblin mask in the first Spiderman movie, which at the time I thought looked like they stole it from the Power Rangers set.  This is still a good movie that aspires to greatness on the strength of McAvoy and Fassbender -- especially Fassbender, who not only has great chemistry with McAvoy, but breezes like a native through his lines in several languages, generates some serious onscreen hate for his nemesis (Kevin Bacon himself was a revelation as Shaw) and, dare I say it, brought a *magnetic* physical presence to the role that was sadly lacking from McKellan -- with Jennifer Lawrence ably assisting both of them.  Get rid of the dead weight, and you can bring a sharper focus on the Moira-Charles-Raven-Erik-Hank love pentagon, with Shaw looming large in the background, and maybe the movie actually achieves greatness.

By contrast, Kick-Ass knew where to draw the line on the number of costumed heroes.  There are four (sort-of), plus one main bad guy.  Everyone else is window dressing, and as a result you get to know the characters a little better.  Though, to be honest, Chloë Grace Moretz is the only actor who really deserves extra screentime.  (we are not Nic Cage fans, though his imitation of Adam West's delivery as Batman is hilarious here)

Posts no longer needed, baseball awards edition

A month ago, with a few weeks left in the regular season, I started looking at the MVP and Cy Young races. The Cys were pretty much wrapped up by Verlander and Kershaw by the end of the season, and I'm thoroughly uninterested in the AL MVP race; some years, maybe they just shouldn't give out the award.  Even the NL MVP race, which looked interested on September 13, really comes down to whether you like Braun because his team went to the NLCS or Kemp because he had a higher WAR and the amusement factor of having the Cy and MVP winners coming from the same team that missed the playoffs is too great.

Pujols side note: as mentioned before, Pujols had some long-running streaks on the line, and sadly missed 30 2B by 1, 100 RBI by 1, and .300 by .001.  Continuing both his HR + RBI streaks would have been particularly historic; A-rod's own streaks ended this year, so if Pujols had managed to go for 30HR 100RBI for three more years, these all-time records would have been his.  He still has a shot at HRs.

Dunn side note: well, he managed to live the statistical nightmare that is .159 BA / 177 SO.  Here's wishing him a better 2012.

The uninvited guest

We had just finished watching Imagine Me & You and talking about how much we liked it when scamper, scamper, scamper in the direction of the kitchen.  It's amazing how loud a fat little mouse can sound on a hardwood floor in the middle of the night.  So out came the traps with Maranatha peanut butter on pieces of Carr's water cracker as bait.  Only the best for our pest!


Sure enough, Sunday morning we had caught our little friend and relocated him to the Intervale.  Slideshow and video below.  

Imagine Me & You (2005)

Boy & Girl who are best friends, but haven't really fallen in love, get married because this seems like the safe thing to do.  Girl immediately meets someone she *does* fall in love with, and we feel bad for the girl, because she's married and doesn't want to be in love with someone other than her husband, and we feel bad for the boy, because this is one of those movies where everyone is fairly likeable, but eventually everything works out and the girl gets to be with her love and the boy is understanding (since everyone is fairly reasonable as well as likeable) and goes off and travels like he always meant to and (presumably) finds a love of his own.  Yay!  Everyone is happy, especially us.


I'm pretty sure we've seen this before, though the exact title(s) eludes me.

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

It is incredible, in a way, that so finely crafted a series should have escaped our notice for so long; and yet, there is a certain rightness in discovering a young Jeremy Irons staking his claim to be considered among the great actors of his generation (I didn't like his turn opposite Meryl in The French Lieutenant's Woman) on the thirtieth anniversary of the year it originally aired.  It rightfully won heaps of TV BAFTAs, and sadly was nearly shut out at the Emmys, save for a token supporting actor award to Olivier (then the most recognizable actor in the series to American audiences, unless they recognized Gielgud, playing a very different character, as the butler from Arthur).  I hopefully shall be forgiven the sin of viewing the series before reading the novel, though perhaps my punishment is to now be hesitant to pick it up, fearful that Waugh's prose will not live up to the expectations set by the series.