Seattle Celebrates the Holidays on Snowflake Lane
Just got back from Seattle doing an HGTV.com piece on one of the greatest, biggest holiday street shows in the country, Snowflake Lane at the Bellevue Collection in Washington state. For those of you not familiar with the area, Bellevue is to Seattle what Beverly Hills is to Los Angeles. They shut down an entire street every…
Exodus Gods and Kings Review
Just in time for the holidays, a spectacular movie of Biblical proportions. I’d forgotten how entertaining it is to hunker down and watch a cast of thousands on incredibly lavish sets. I don’t care if most of it is CGI, Ridley Scott has given us a historical epic on a grand scale that we haven’t seen…
The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert
One of the best, most entertaining, and clearest books I’ve ever seen on the enjoyment of wine is Master Sommelier Richard Betts’ New York Times bestseller, ‘The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert: Take a Whiff of That.’ Betts is one of fewer than two hundred master sommeliers in the world,…
Still Alice Review
Still Alice is one of those remarkable films that elegantly treats a tragic topic without leaving you feeling fearful and depressed. This is mostly thanks to Julianne Moore’s luminous performance of 50-year-old Alice Howland, an accomplished professor, wife and mother of three who is diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s. If you’re like me, you watch Still Alice very closely, realizing…
Wild Review
Wild is a Reese Witherspoon tour de force–an adroit film adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s popular 2012 memoir of the same name, about a young woman who has lost her husband, her mother and herself, as she hikes the Pacific Crest Trail alone in an attempt at self redemption. I hope you’ll forgive me, though, for…
The Imitation Game Review
I’m a sucker for a tragic genius period film with an Oscar-worthy lead, and it’s a good thing, because there seems to be a proliferation of them lately. But the abundance in the genre takes nothing away from The Imitation Game’s dramatization of the life of the brilliant Alan Turing, whose efforts and intellect played…
The Hunger Games Mocking Jay Review
Fans of the franchise, give a sigh of relief and a squeal of anticipation — you will not be disappointed! More than a space filler between Catching Fire and the big franchise finish, Mocking Jay Part 1 is a darkly intriguing film in its own right, even though there are no Hunger Games to speak of.…
Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon In Big Little Lies for TV
Proving once again that it’s no longer a fall from grace for an A-List movie star to appear on television, you’ll soon be able to see Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon in Big Little Lies, a limited episode TV series based on Liane Moriarty popular novel of the same name. And to…
Gramovox: For the Music Lover Who Has Everything
Here’s one unique gift that I can almost guarantee the music lover in your life does not already own: the Gramovox, a bluetooth gramophone that allows you to listen to any type of music with vintage sound inspired by 1920s horn speakers. Not only does it sound great, but it’s the best looking music playing device I’ve…
The Theory of Everything Review
It’s impossible for anyone not to love some aspect of The Theory of Everything, a beautiful and tender film about Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) in his formative years as one of the greatest intellectuals of our time, and his relationship with his first wife, Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones). It’s a biopic, it’s a love story, it’s…
