Exploring Food and Movies

 I was out of town and only watched two new movies this week. Saturday: Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)            Jeronicus Jangle is a toy inventor. He has a great imagination and is always coming up with new ideas. He runs a toy store with his wife and daughter. One day he gets the finishing piece for his greatest invention. The toy is a matador that can talk and move on it's own. It is called Don Juan Diego. Don Juan is full of himself and craves fame. He doesn't like idea of Jeronicus making more of him. He wants to be one of a kind. Jeronicus ignores him and goes off to celebrate. Gustafson, his apprentice, is also tired of being ignored. Don Juan convinces Gustafson to take him and steal all of Jeronicus's ideas. He does. Jeronicus is heart broken, he doesn't know what to do. Nothing goes right for him after that. His wife dies and he drives his daughter away. His store turns into a pawn shop. Meanwhile Gustafson has become a famous to...

 Monday: My Darling Clementine (1946)                  Set in the old west Wyatt Earp and his brothers are moving cattle through Arizona on their way to California. They stop for the night near the town of Tombstone. A local rancher offers to buy the cattle. Wyatt refuses and thinks nothing of it. That night the older brothers go into town. Leaving the youngest to watch the cattle. Tombstone is a wild town. Even the current marshall can't control it. Upon arriving back at their camp they find their brother dead and their cattle gone. Wyatt decides to take over as marshall and have his brothers be his deputies. They will find out who killed their brother and took their cattle. Wyatt finds some resistance from Doc Holiday, the owner of the saloon and gambling hall. They end up working together to take down the ranchers. It all ends at the OK corral.  I thought this movie was alright. Not sure why I recorded it so long ago. Seeing how ...

 Monday: Postmark for Danger (1955)            Tim is a painter living in London. One day he hears news of the death of his brother and an actress named Alison Ford. Scotland Yard comes to ask if he knew anything about what his brother was up to. Later he is hired to paint Alison's portrait. He uses her old dress as reference. After a night out he comes home to find the painting ruined and a model friend of his dead on his bed in the dress. No matter what he says he looks more and more guilty. Alison shows up at his door and tries to explain what happened. There is a mysterious postcard sent from his brother to an unknown person. Somehow it is connected to a Chianti bottle and a gang. Everything is complicated and twisted. I'm not really sure how else to summarize it. I liked this movie despite is being complicated. Wednesday: The Alphabet Murders (1965)         Hercule Poirot is in London for a holiday. He ends up involved in a mur...

 Monday: Night and the City (1950)       Harry is a London man always going from one scheme to another. He has little success. His wife, Mary, wants him to settle down and find a good job. Mary wants to leave the club they both work at. She doesn't know how to get through to her husband. One night Harry wanders into a wrestling match. He over hears a man talking to the gangster Kristo. His son was meant to have a different kind of fight. He is unhappy and doesn't want his son to be Kristo's fighter anymore. Then Harry learns that this man is Gregorius, a great fighter in his own right. Kristo is his son also. Harry has an idea to take over the London wrestling scene. He wants Gregorius's son to be his prize fighter. But he needs money. He makes a deal with his boss. If he can come up with half his boss will pay the rest. His boss's wife gives him the money because she wants her own club and Harry promises to help. There is some success before Kristo finds out that H...

 Monday: The Swimmer (1968)            Ned visits his friends on a nice day at the end of the summer. He swims in their pool and catches up with them. Then he figures out a route where he can swim across different people's pools and get all the way to his house. Essentially swimming home. As he travels he becomes less and less welcome at each pool. We learn about him. That he has been gone awhile and really messed things up before he left. Although he grows tired he is determined to finish. I remember reading this short story in school. I thought it would be interesting to see it's film adaptation, especially when it stars Burt Lancaster. It was ok. Not any better than the short story was. Still an interesting concept to swim across peoples pools to get home. Tuesday: San Francisco (1936)         Set in 1906 this movie is about a saloon owner named Blackie. He is known for being a shady but successful business man. One day a woman n...