Starting with a digression. Milo is snoring like that cartoon character of childhood, blowing a feather up off his lips, again and again, more like a machine decompressing than a true snore. I think he learned it from the hubster, lying prostrate on his chest, paws curled in the sweetest heart shape, cataloging his every move. Though the pair is quite capable of sawing gigantic logs, as well. Last night, as a matter of fact, the the G-Man was roaring something fierce, and I tickled him on that soft spot near the hollow of his hip bone, and his body leapt, utterly and completely shaking the bed. I laughed and told him everything was alright before the pair of us drifted off, though who knows where. I have only echoes of those dreams.

I realized that it had been a while since I told you about movies, so here we are, despite the fairly steady stream I watch. I wonder if Netflix has a little widget like the Goodreads one? It would be nice to always have them there, quiet and patiently waiting for a click. Do you look at them, the books I read? That last one was a goodie, Autobiography of Red, still wrapping my brain around it.

Anyhoo, to fil-ums, these are coming-of-age stories, magnifying those painful bits we all go through in one way or another.

Submarine takes place in Wales during the eighties and follows Oliver Tate, as he navigates the waters of his first love with Jordana, a girl with a lot of extra-curricular problems and a wicked sense of humor.  Although his life isn’t without complications. He is awkward and nerdy, with few friends, and suffering at home, too, through his parents faltering marriage. His father is inept and clueless, while his mother contemplates an affair with an old lover, a pseudo-ninja, self-help guru with a bad mullet. It is comical and sad and hopeful, too, punctuated by a great soundtrack and unusually great narration. Proof that first love matters, always.

Oh dear, this is a toughie, to tell it straight. I did a whole LOTTA tonglen during this one, dear readers, the hubster looking over at me, tears streaming, but breath a-flowing. From the novel of the same name, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints follows Dito as a youth and an adult through some pretty rough experiences. This is a memoir made of composites of people the author/director knew growing up. His parents, deeply in love with their son, but rife with their own problems. His own first love and the coarse ways between them, yet tender, too. His best friends, on the cusp of insanity, hopelessly tethered to violent homes and surroundings, drinking and drug use, the infinite love and jealousy that can never be spoken, and the one who sees it all with enough clarity to know that they will be the end of him if he doesn’t make his own way, apart from them. A heartbreaker.

Chris Waitt has an interesting way with women. They dump him. One by one, again and again. He sees this as a problem and decides to make a documentary in which he seeks out his ex-girlfriends to ask them what happened. After a bit, it becomes obvious to everyone but Chris, though, bless his heart, he plods on, ever determined to get to the root cause. And he does, in his own way, with a little bit of everything, including help from his dear Mum, S & M, getting arrested, and being verbally abused by more than one ex. Hilarious one minute and tear-filled the next, watch how a grown boy becomes a man, for all the world to see.

I took the day off Tuesday, writing not a single word of useful prose. Instead, I enjoyed an extended yoga practice, a perfectly pruning and exceedingly hot bath, and two very good streaming fil-ums (Why I like to hear and type this, I do not know, but it’s staying, for now).

The first was I Am Love with Tilda Swinton, object of one of my lady-crushes. The woman is a goddess, brilliant and beautiful, a style all her own, that certain je ne sais quoi that keeps me rapt. Which also reminds me of my latest man-crush on Michael Fassbender. I saw him last year in Jane Eyre and thought, well, isn’t he interesting? And those eyes! Then I heard him on Fresh Air and saw him on Charlie Rose and said, “Oh, yes please.” There’s nothing like an attractive man speaking eloquently of the work he loves. Indeedy.

Lest you get your knickers in a bunch lamenting my poor hubster and his wife gone off the rails speaking openly of her admiration of others, he’s got his own crush (and thinks Tilda’s pretty, too), and I wholeheartedly approve, on Emily Blunt, even putting her movies in the queue for him. She’s cute, smart, and a good actress. I would have liked to steal her Golden Globes dress, I might add. As well, I know for a fact he’d be over the moon at the chance to spend a day, week, or a month discussing everything tech with the Woz. So there. We’ve got our own good thing going, with crushes and silliness and all that jazz.

Anyhoo, enough of my digression, I Am Love is sensual and expressive, a very cerebral examination of a family that on the surface looks and acts the same as always but is roiling and changing and coming apart at the seams. Tilda plays Emma, a Russian plucked and inserted into a very bourgeois life (servants who dress her and wear gloves – can you imagine?) in Italy, speaking Italian and Russian (I told you; she’s brilliant). She is the mother of grown children, a good wife and cook, and a very stylish dresser. She is a master organizer, very much in control, planning parties and dinners with aplomb and ease. The slow unraveling starts and ends with a party, both of which look the same on the surface but are wholly different. Filled with exquisite food, immaculate homes, romance and infidelity and upheaval and picturesque landscapes, so very much at once. The score is fantastic and the cinematography some of the best I’ve seen. Molto bene!

Now to the Eames, Charles and Ray, who, like me, maybe you thought were brothers, instead of husband and wife, despite being fairly well educated on Modern Design. After the shame of my ignorance wore off, I really got into it, loving that the pair were so much more than really cool chairs. They made truly awesome animated fil-ums: puppets, stop motion, and drawn; collected ephemera, designed buildings, and worked, worked, worked, their minds like Vesuvius in a constant state of eruption. I loved their quirkiness, their manner of dress (so sweet and dapper), and how they truly loved everything they did, adding so much flair and panache to the world. Inspirational!