What's Your Favorite Independence Day Movie?

"I came to America in 1914 by way of Philadelphia..."

 "What's your favorite Independence Day movie?" I thought it was a fair conversation-starter. I thought of it ahead of time but when I was around people, I forgot to ask it. There aren't many movies that revolve around July 4th. There are so few that one might add war movies to the mix. That's a discussion in itself - somehow "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't feel like an Independence Day movies but "Glory" does. And, is it me, or are there way too few movies about the Revolutionary War? You'd think there'd be a billion of them. But, narrowing the field as best I could, and having the advantage of advance notice, I determined my answer was "Avalon" (1990).

"Avalon" is my favorite type of movie: it's largely plotless, only revolving around the relationships between people and the passage of time. In this case it shows a grandfather immigrating to the United States, follows the second generation as they go into business for themselves and much of the action is seen through the eyes of the third generation played by child actor Elijah Wood. It's the kind of movie that hits me harder than any other but I can't share with anyone because it's "boring."

Roger Ebert postulates that "Avalon" is about the deterioration of familial ties and it's the contention of the film that the fault lies with the rise of television. What a harrowing tale when you consider that it's not just television anymore, it's internet, youtube, apps, video games and social media. Watching it now, it's clear that he's partly right: the television's effects on the family is a running motif, but it's also undeniable that the main fault of family break down is simple human fallibility - petty bickering, rivalry, stubbornness, and so on.

I think of "Avalon" as a meditation on the generational continuum we are all on. The grandfather tells his story to the grandchildren who listen with rapt attention. When he tells stories to his children, they've heard them all a million times and are tired of them. Consider the experience of the storyteller himself: "If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember better." He also sums up the entire film: "Jules, if you stop remembering, you forget."

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Tha Crossroads

 Well it's Friday so let's take a little trip back with Father Tiresias to 1996.

I was in awe of this song and still am. It's so odd to see "hardness" and "thug life" expressed in melody and harmony. It's rare to hear lyrics sung this fast. It's utterly unique in the way that the melody is free to change every couple bars as if it's not 1 song but 20-in-1.

I still miss my uncle Charles, y'all.

Popcorn in Bed - Sabrina (1995)

 I usually only post reactions to movies that I really love but I'm making an exception for "Sabrina," a movie to which I'm quite indifferent.

I want to say I don't get this movie, and actually I don't get the cast. The competition between Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear is no competition at all. I get Greg Kinnear as the comedic relief or the supporting cast but I don't get him as a heartthrob. Do women disagree?

There is certainly a certain amount of heartthrob star power that is socially constructed, especially with men. In "Lars and the Real Girl," a movie about a delusional man who falls in love with a doll, they needed a real loser type, a real creep so they cast Ryan Gosling. And then that's 2007 and then a few years later he's the most attractive leading man in Hollywood. Between the two, he didn't receive a brand new face, it's the same guy. 

On the flip side of that you can look at Nick Nolte (People's Sexiest Man Alive 1992) and sex symbol Burt Reynolds (I'm not going to research his bonafides because my search history is getting weird, but, trust me, he was the sex symbol of his day) who each went from attractive to untouchable in a few years even with no objective change to their appearance.

So maybe I'm biased toward Harrison Ford because I've seen "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones." I wonder if you polled women who had never seen his movies, would they think he was an average middle-aged guy? But the funny thing is, Cassie from the above video, is one such data point for that question. When she started her channel, she hadn't seen Harrison Ford and now he's a favorite romantic lead.

Late Night - When a Skit Bombs

 

I liked the piece. Perhaps the audience is wrong.

Month #7 - Thailand Snacks

 Are you like me, did you think I already did Thailand months ago? Well, it turns out that was Taiwan. I was sure it was Thailand - must be one of those Mandela Effect things. There are more snacks this month than usual so I'll shorten the reviews. First a few random facts...

Thailand used to be known as Siam.

Thailand has a James Bond Island, so named because some scenes of "The Man with the Golden Gun" were filmed there.

Sriracha was invented in Thailand.

The Thai alphabet has 72 letters.

Leaving the house without underwear, driving without a shirt, stepping on Thai currency and insulting the king are all illegal there.

In Thailand you wear your lucky color for good luck and your lucky color is determined by the day of the week in which you were born.

1) Big Roll - Grilled Seaweed Roll (Mala Flavour)

Review:

It seems every Asian country is offering a seaweed snack and here we are with Thailand. All the ones before have been the most wretched, inedible things I've tried in these sessions. What are the chances that this goes any different?

Well, here's what it looks like:

Is you mouth watering yet? Oh boy...

And, yeah, it's terrible. One small bite and I want to be sick. It tastes like seaweed. They all taste like seaweed!

2) Party - Fried Wheat Snack Sweet and Spicy Flavor

Review:

Only 2 snacks in and we've already seen two completely different spellings of "flavor"! I wonder how many we can get before the end.

Interesting snacks, these. The base is Double Chex - do they still make those? - No. Okay, the base is like Chex but with an added coating of shiny, dry sweet stuff. Then, with the sweetness, there is a hint of spice. Could the spice be labeled as Sriracha? I can't make that call but it's something like that.

On first glance, I don't like the way these taste. But then the sweet+spicy keeps you going back for more. Pretty good, pretty interesting.

3) Glendee - Coconut Chips (Chocolate Flavor)

Review:

We've already seen this spelling of "flavor". Bo-ring!

Look at that package and tell me that you don't expect to get delicious chocolates. Well the "chips" is the thing to pay attention to, apparently because this is what you get:

These are dried coconut shavings that have a thin coating of chocolate. I like coconut and I like chocolate so I like these. However, they are a bit dry and the chocolate isn't strong. They remind me a bit of Cocoa Krispies.

4) Jack 'n Jill Cookies and Cream Sandwich Cookies

Review:

One of the things I usually like to do, in order to communicate what the foreign snacks are like, is find the American equivalent. But I'm struggling with this one. These cookies, what do they remind you of?

I've been sitting alone in a darkened room using all of my smarts for the last 7 hours trying to think of some American snack that is like these and I've come up empty. It's an impossible task.

But, having said that, they taste a lot like Oreos.

5) Sweet and Spicy Sausage Flavored Potato Rings

Review:

I generally like these. They don't really make them look like a sausage, they look like this:

You know, I don't know what yellow rings have to do with sausage, but the back of the package says "Roller Coaster" so there's multiple layers of naming. 

They're corn snacks with a spicy, bbq-ey twang. They're not awfully different from Fritos Flavor Twists and, speaking of those, Frito offers Bar-B-Q Hoops which seem to be almost exactly what I'm trying here. Crazy world. So, yeah, not bad.

6) YoFriend - Thai Tea

Review:

These are sugar wafers and we all know what sugar wafers taste like so that's 90% of it. There's also another flavor, the package obviously says Thai Tea but I don't know that it tastes like tea - maybe if it's tea with lots of milk and sugar. It's somewhere between an oat and honey flavor. It kind of reminds me of Mr. T cereal but that's not a helpful reference.

Though I wouldn't recommend going to Thailand for your sugar wafers but these taste great, for what it's worth.

7) Jack 'n Jill Cream-O - Choco Plus

Review:

Eating these at New Year's is a Thai tradition.

They're basically just vanilla-ish cookies with some chocolate flavoring and some caramel. They're very subtle and they're small and there's only two of them in a pack. They taste great. There's nothing crazy different from what you'd expect.

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So that's it. The Thailand collection almost rivals Israel in its consistent goodness - there were more snacks than usual and almost all of them were very good. However, like Israel, there also wasn't any one thing that you HAVE to try. 

And that's all for this month.

Popcorn in Bed - Creed II

 

This feels slightly obligatory - gotta complete the series, I suppose. It is very good though. I've heard that they're making a Creed III so this isn't even the end.