Madison, WI

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We only have a brief stopover in Madison, Wisconsin, with Mary's brother and sister-in-law. Which is too bad because the last time we were here I thought it was a pretty cool city. Tomorrow we've got a 7-hour drive north to Lake Superior (oy). It's only 300 miles or so, but we won't see a freeway–it's backroads the whole way up. The few flakes we saw in St. Louis that constituted a white Christmas have been shown up by the snow up here in Wisconsin. The temperatures have dropped (in the teens throughout Illinois) and the snow banks are much Read more…

Sherlock Holmes as Robert Langdon

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There's a certain element of Dan Brown in the new Sherlock Holmes movie–secret societies, symbols drawn over cities, the usual stuff. I can't say it helped the movie, but with the exception of that, I thought it was a lot of fun. A good bit of escapist entertainment. Robert Downey Jr. is great and his chemistry with Jude Law and Rachel McAdams are also very good. The next movie, as there will almost certainly be, could very well start the exact moment this one left off (a la Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) and it wouldn't be a bad Read more…

Up in the Air, Redux

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We took a family outing to see Up in the Air again, which wore well on a second viewing. Not only was it fun to see again, but seeing it in St. Louis–where most of it was filmed–was kind of a treat. There was some random hooting when someone recognized a friend, or a location passed off as Wisconsin or Omaha. We also saw it at one of the coolest theaters in town–the Moolah, a converted Shriners Temple with condos, a movie theater, a bar, and a bowling alley. In between screenings, I also read the novel by Walter Kirn that Read more…

“Merry Christmas, Movie House!”

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I must confess to feeling a little proud this Christmas morning. About 5 years ago, I approached the board of the Grand Cinema with a proposal. "The tenant in 608 Fawcett is leaving," I said (I'm summarizing here, but this is the gist of it). "I don't know whether we'll stay at the Merlino Art Center or whether we'll look for a new home, but if we want to stay and expand here, we need to have control of the storefront at 608 Fawcett. It's the only space we could easily convert into another movie theater without major structural changes Read more…

A Grand Tour of the Midwest

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Well, I won't see Tacoma again until the next decade. Mary and I are skipping town and spending the holidays with her family in the Midwest. First stop: St. Louis, for 5 or 6 nights. Followed by a night in Madison, WI (after a long day in the car). Then a few nights on Madeline Island, a small island in Lake Superior and the site of my marriage proposal two years ago! From there we'll wind things up with a night or two in Minneapolis and catch a flight back home early in the new year. It's a long trip Read more…