April in Review

MOVIES
Favorite: Songs My Brother Taught Me
Least Favorite: Requiem for the American Dream
Funniest: Hello, My Name is Doris
Important Stuff: The Maltese Falcon
Missed Connections: Silence of the Lambs, Eraserhead, Racing Extinction, Kramer vs. Kramer, Footloose Sing-Along, He Named Me Malala, Galaxy Quest.

STATS
April Movies: Only 4 outside the IWFF
Would-a-Cost: $156 with the  IWFF All Screenings Pass
Total Movies YTD: 28 [not counting the million wildlife films]
Would-a-Cost YTD: $596
Cosmic Dual Membership: $450 - We did it ya'll! We broke even on the membership we didn't even pay for. It was hard work and I'm proud of our commitment. It's funny to get here in April which was not our best performing month due to the house selling/buying project. Now the pressure's off and with summer coming on strong and a house we love being at, we'll see how our movie pace holds up.

OUTSIDE THE ROXY
Trapped at the WIlma on April 25th - Want to get mad? See this documentary about access to reproductive care.
Animal Reunions, Nature PBS
Broad City, Comedy Central on Hulu Start here if you haven't been yet.
The Path, Hulu - If episodes weren't doled out once a week we would already be finished with this show.
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy - Got it from the library only to have a holder rip it out of my hands before I was done. Don't you know I need to read a novel set in an upcoming travel destination?
New York Mag - free with expiring United miles

2nd Half of April

Before we review April, let me flush out the end of the month when posts weren't happening.

I saw Requiem for the American Dream on my own on April 12. It had been on my list to go to a movie alone and this one made sense because Jordan wasn't interested in it. Too bad it was terrible. The beginning of the movie opens with text explaining these interviews with Noam Chomsky occurred over a few years and they were his FINAL interviews. Okay, weird. I guess we've closed the door to him doing any promotion for the film. Also, there's not much that you haven't heard before here. Sometimes that can be good, a refresher on what you know but got lazy about thinking on, like most food docs. But we live capitalism run amuck and concentrated wealth everyday and Noam wasn't bringing out anything beyond the blow your college mind conversation. There were three directors on this films. I'm not sure there's anything in this world that benefits from three directors.

Then we went to a bunch of International Wildlife Film Festival docs with the All Access Pass our Roxy membership awarded us. Fun to live it up with our lanyards and visit interesting environments full of creatures. Here's our list from the fest: Giraffe - Up high and personal [fine and very into puns but strange animation "humor"] | Life Force 2: The Arib Namib [a look into desert creatures] | The Great Auk [animated story for kids with terrible moments of sound, on purpose I think] | The Daughters of the Forest [environmental science based high school for girls in Paraguay - not perfect but maybe my favorite of the fest] | and a bunch of others but I'm boring myself. Here's the schedule if you want to guess at other ones we saw. The main thing we realized during the festival is that it's hard to beat a Nature episode on PBS. These all seemed to be lacking a certain something [information] or having too much something else [human ego].

On April 15, we saw Songs My Brother Taught Me. This movie, set on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is so good. You should see it if you can. Beautiful storytelling and real characters.

Then I missed my first feature playing at the Roxy. Racing Extinction was a holdover from the IWFF and I wasn't feeling it enough to squeeze it into the stressful days of moving. Then April came to a close.