Saturday, July 13, 2019

Sweet Summer Harvest

Kicked off the morning with breakfast and more Goof Troop. Goofy insists on wallpapering his house and Pete's, but he needs money for supplies. He inadvertently becomes "Counterfeit Goof" when he runs into a mobster who looks like him and ends up with his phony bills. Max tries to save his father from the mobster's big-time boss, but gets into even more trouble.

It was still sunny, hot, hazy, and killer humid when I headed out this morning. First stop was a yard sale on Ridgeway Avenue a few blocks from Kendall. Considered a CD rack and big band CD, but ultimately decided I didn't have the room and moved on.

Made my way across Collingswood to the Farm Market next. It was 10:30 by that point, and they were bustling with people and their pets and children looking for produce for their pool parties and barbecues. The summer harvest continues to roll out. Cherries, broccoli, and lettuce are gone, but I saw plums, blackberries, eggplant, white peaches, potatoes, melons, and peppers for the first time this season. I ended up with blackberries, white peaches, two small eggplants in lavender and white, a tomato, a green pepper, a small cantaloupe, and blueberries.

Since I wasn't far from there, I rode down Cuthbert to Target to see if they had any shampoo and conditioner that would be good for my scalp and less expensive than what the Acme sells. Ended up with L'Oreal's curl formula. They're expensive, but not as much as some of the brands at the Acme. I've tried them before with good results, and the label claims it won't dry out your scalp.

An estate sale was a couple of minutes' ride from Target in Audubon. It took me long enough just to find them. They were about a block from a dead end road in a small house with smaller signs on the lawn. What appeared to be a 60's-70's era house was filled with all kinds of silverware, dishes, and furniture. I just opted for a Frank Sinatra record and another spring-themed entry from Columbia Records.

I was so hot, and my my throat was so dry, stopping at WaWa for a drink was mandatory. I wasn't the only one who thought so. There was a line to use the Coke Freestyle machine and get that $1 sale on the 32 ounce cup. The Coke Lime ran out half-way through my filling the cup, so I turned it into Lime Vanilla Coke. (Which wasn't bad, by the way.)

Went home to put everything away and make a Blackberry-Blueberry-Melon Smoothie for lunch. Continued with Goof Troop while I worked. "O, R-V, I E-V U" is a strange title for the story of PJ feeling upset when Max discovers a knack for selling cars and starts spending more time with his dad than with him.

Goofy has never won any awards, and Max wants him to look cool at his high school reunion. He tries to get him to skateboard down Pete's extra-high new ramp when the pro he hired quits, but "Meanwhile, Back at the Ramp," the boys discover Goof can't skateboard and go in his place.

It's "Close Encounters of the Mime Kind" when Max and PJ dress as aliens to make a film for a science project, but Max's complicated set-up ends up broadcasting their video to the entire town. Now local officials think there's a real invasion, Pete's digging a moat around his house to ward off aliens, and scientists have mistaken Goofy's new pantomime act for the movements of a real extraterrestrial.

Grabbed my laundry as soon as the cartoons were finished and went back out. I had a fair-sized load, including towels, and they really needed to be done. The laundromat was really busy when I arrived, with several families getting things done. One adorable little girl was fascinated by my writing and story notebook. She kept wandering over with her bag of Goldfish crackers to watch me write, and once even tried to flip the page to see if there was more writing on it. Her mother distracted her with a picture book from the pile the laundromat keeps around for kids.

Put everything away when I got in, then did some writing. Harris managed to hide from the Empire in a cave. He thinks he's home free...but what he doesn't know is he's being watched by one of Bob Fettman's boys, who radios his boss right away to tell him that the Falcon is on its way to Takodana.

Broke for an early dinner at 5:30. Had leftover ground turkey casserole and steamed snap peas while watching Anything Goes. I go further into this shipboard TV comedy at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Anything Goes (1954)

Moved onto Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga after dinner. Picked up more than half the pieces and the red brick on "Bounty Hunter Pursuit," the red brick on "Falcon Flight," the last pieces in "Hoth Battle" and "Speeder Showdown," and two more pieces on "Jedi Destiny." I have such a hard time getting the last piece in that room where you're supposed to walk around the light-up circles! It never wants to work. Finally got fed up and went to buy the x6 extra, now that I could afford it. Did the short bonus New Hope round from Vader's point of view to get enough studs for the just-found x4 extra.

Finished the night with Batman Forever. Batman (Val Kilmer) is having enough trouble dealing with Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), a former lawyer whose face was half-damaged in an accident, and dodging the advances of beautiful psychologist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman). The last thing he needs is nerdy Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) pestering him about his new contraption that can send TV signals directly into the brain. Angry when he's brushed off, Nygma goes ahead with his research anyway, and discovers that the machine can directly transfer brain waves from one person's mind to another. He dresses in green as The Riddler and contacts Two-Face with a scheme that'll reveal Batman to Gotham and the world! Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne takes in young circus performer Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell) who lost his family to a bomb planted by Two-Face. He's determined to seek revenge, but Bruce knows all to well that revenge isn't always the answer.

This is the only Batman movie I ever really liked. It's dark enough without being too dark, walking a fine line between the heavy violence of the Nolan films, the grotesque vibes of the Burton films, and the over-the-top camp of the TV show and Batman & Robin.  Kilmer makes a surprisingly good Batman, and Carrey puts in one of his best performances as the Riddler. If you wan't to check out one of the Caped Crusader's movies, this might actually not be a bad place to start; you can go backwards or forwards from here, depending on how dark or goofy you like your Batman.

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