Best Picture Award - Gigi

This movie was the 1958 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A musical - I don’t like musicals and this movie was no exception.  The setting was France, a young girl maturing, and a rich guy falling in love with her.

A couple of interesting observations (at least to me).  First, several people were described as gay.  Most younger folks would not recognize the use of this word to describe someone as happy and carefree.  Secondly, the age of the young girl was never revealed but she seemed to be in her teens.  Today an older guy (late 20’s or 30’s) would be considered a pedophile for pursuing her.

Title for the movie is easy to determine its origin.  The young girl’s name is Gigi.

40 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 40 left to see.  I’ve reached the half way point.

Best Picture Award - A Man for all Seasons

This movie was the 1966 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A movie that depicts the struggle between Henry the Eighth in England and one of his close friends.  In the end the friend is imprisoned and beheaded for his failure to sign an oath to the king.  I had trouble understand some of the dialogue due to the accents and the plot was hard to follow, although in the end I figured it out.  I’m not sure this movie is worth watching.

A Man for All Seasons – Not sure where the title came from.  In one scene when the “friend” was in jail the story showed a tree changing through all of the different seasons.  I guess the title could also reference the fact that the “friend” was steady in his belief system-even though he lost everything by holding on to it. 

39 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 41 left to see.

Best Picture Award - The Greatest Show on Earth

This movie was the 1952 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  In case you didn’t know the Greatest Show on Earth is a reference to the circus which is what this movie is about.  A couple of love stories and the love of the circus are all unrolled with the back drop of the circus.  The stories are predictable and enjoyable all at the same time.  I don’t feel as though I wasted time watching.

As I’ve already indicated the title of the movie is a reference to the circus.

38 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 42 left to see.

Shrimp Cocktail Sauce Recipe

We took cold shrimp to my daughter’s house for Christmas dinner and I decided that it was time to get a shrimp cocktail recipe that I liked.  I’ve always just purchased the stuff from the store but never liked the taste – regardless of brand.  I went on the web and found several recipes and combined what I liked about each of them.  Below is the recipe – which I loved – but my wife still prefers the store brand.  I guess you’ll have to make your own decision about whether this is good or not.

3 TBS ketchup

1 TBS horseradish sauce

1 TBS lemon juice

1 tsp minced garlic

½ tsp dry mustard

Celery salt to taste (I think I used about a ¼ tsp)

Tabasco sauce to taste (I used 5-6 generous shakes)

Mix all the ingredients and let set for an hour or so for the flavors to mingle.

Best Picture Award - Casablanca

This movie was the 1943 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A very famous movie that is shown on TV all the time but I have never watched the entire movie.  I did that today and came away not sure why there is so much hype around the movie.  The setting is during the Second World War and involves a love story.  I kept waiting for them to escape on the African Queen when my wife advised me that I was mixing up my Humphrey Bogart movies!

The movie is set in Casablanca Morocco from which the title is derived.

37 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 43 left to see.

Best Picture Award - The Best Years of Our Lives

This movie was the 1946 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A movie about three soldiers returning from World War Two and the struggles they have adjusting to civilian life.  Employment was hard to come by (kind of like today) which created issues.  There are three different love stories and all are successful.  Different than today’s movies – almost every scene involved someone smoking a cigarette, men wearing suits and hats all the time, and women in skirts or dresses.  I enjoyed the movie.

The title “Best Years of Our Lives is a combination of the soldiers wondering if the war years were the “best” or if the years ahead would be the “best”.  In the end it became evident that the future years were going to be best.

36 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 44 left to see.

Best Picture Award - Terms of Endearment

This movie was the 1983 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  Somewhat of a chick flick, this was a funny and sad story all weaved together.  I enjoyed watching it and was left wanting more when the film ended.  I think that is a good thing.  Three different relationships are revealed in the story – the relationship between a mother and daughter, the mother and a neighbor man, and the daughter and her husband.

Terms of Endearment – hard for me to gather where the title comes from.  Maybe it is supposed to refer to the different “terms” that each of the persons in the relationships endeared themselves to the other?

35 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 45 left to see.

Beer Bread

Here's another recipe using our homebrew beer.

I got this recipe from zestycook.com.  It was very easy to make and ended up being a bit dry but good none the less.

1 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup brown sugar
12 oz beer (I used stout beer)
olive oil
parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix all dry ingredients together.  Add beer and stir until moist throughout.  Place the mixture in a lightly greased loaf pan.  Drizzle the top with parmesan cheese and olive oil (the original recipe called for pouring 1/4 cup of melted butter over the top).  Bake for 60 minutes till golden brown.

Best Picture Award - Grand Hotel

This movie was the 1932 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  The movie starred five of the biggest names of the era: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Berry, and Lionel Barrymore.  It started slow but was interesting from the middle until the end.  The setting is a fancy hotel in Berlin where lots of rich people and want to be rich people hang out.  There is a weak love story and the bad guy getting his due involved in the story.

The movie is named after the hotel setting, Grand Hotel.

34 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 48 left to see.

Best Picture Award - The Departed

This movie was the 2006 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  I did not enjoy watching this movie.  In fact, I had already seen it once and couldn’t remember the movie until about a quarter of the way through the movie.  The movie was not memorable, in my opinion, so had forgotten that I had seen it.  I watched it a second time and it is no better.  Lots of blood, use of the “f” word, and killing.  I could not pull a message from the movie other than “Being a bad guy doesn’t pay, being a good guy doesn’t pay”.  Not much of a message.

So where does the movie title come from?  Early on in the movie Matt Damon, when talking about a deceased person, puts emphasis on calling the person “departed” OR it could have come from the fact that so many people we killed in the movie.

33 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 47 left to see.

Best Picture Award - in the Heat of the Night

This movie was the 1967 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  I really enjoyed this movie and recommend it to all.  The movie exposes the prejudices of the South (Sparta MS) and how one black Philadelphia police detective (Sidney Poitier) changes the opinion of the white Sparta police chief as he helps him solve a murder.

Much of the movie takes place at night, in the South, during the summer which is where the name comes from.

32 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 48 left to see.

Investment Club - Dec 2009

The December 2009 meeting of Investment Club YenoM was a quick one (just over an hour).  There were only 5 members in attendance which makes for less discussion and quicker decision making.  No one came with a new stock to present which also sped things up and not necessarily in a good way.  The club really needed to add a mid or small cap stock in an industry that was not technology.  We were not able to do that tonight.

We discussed selling Linear Technology (LLTC) because it had the lowest percentage annual return (PAR) in the portfolio and no one in the club really understands how Linear makes money – what is the product it sells. However if we sold LLTC we didn’t have another stock to replace it with so we decided to continue to hold until we have something better to add to the portfolio.

So with the almost $2000 we had in cash – some left over from last month and some from our monthly contributions we decided to add to current stocks we own - $1000 to Apollo (APOL) and $750 to Fiserv (FISV).

Fiserv is a mid cap stock (a good thing), with a PAR higher than the portfolio PAR (a good thing).  Our additional purchase will make Fiserv almost 12% of the portfolio (getting close to being too much).  All of the news on Fiserv is positive.

Apollo is large cap (not a good thing), with PAR greater than the portfolio (a good thing), and our contribution brings it up to an almost perfect percent of the portfolio (a good thing).  There has recently been some positive news on Apollo and there still is the cloud of a government lawsuit hanging over the industry.  We still feel confident of the investment.

Best Picture Award - Kramer vs. Kramer

This movie was the 1979 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A very well done movie about the breakup of the marriage and the fallout for a son and his father.  I thoroughly enjoyed the entire movie and would have liked for the movie to continue when it ended (something that doesn’t happen often for me.

The origin of the title is easy to discern as the movie  is about the divorce of the Kramer family.

31Best Picture movies seen.  Only 29 left to see.

Best Picture Award - Gandhi

This movie was the 1982 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  A long movie that is well worth the time.  It is about the life and times of Gandhi and about the fight for independence for the India.  The country of Pakistan was also created at the same time as India.  The non-violent methods advocated by Gandhi are very powerful.

The movie is titled after the subject, Gandhi!

30 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 50 left to see.

Best Picture Award - Ordinary People

This movie was the 1980 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  I did not like this movie.  It was about a dysfunctional family and ended nowhere.

The origin of the title, I guess, is supposed to indicate that the dysfunctional family in normal and ordinary.  I don’t agree but maybe my non-weird family is not ordinary?

29 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 51 left to see.

Muddy Puddle

I’m going to start posting recipes using beer once I have tried them.

Here is a drink recipe that I got out of Men’s Health Magazine.  My initial take on this one – the first sip – was “Boy this one is going to be hard to finish!”.  However, about ½ way through the first small glass it grew on me.  Ended up drinking four of ‘em before the day was done.  Only thing that stopped us from having more was the fact that we ran out of espresso!

1 oz simple syrup

3 oz iced espresso (went to Starbucks, bought espresso, came home and put it in freezer to cool it off)

1.5 oz bourbon or whiskey (I used Seagram’s)

4 oz stout beer

Make simple syrup by bringing one cup of water to a boil.  Turn off the heat and add 1.5 cups of sugar.  Stir until dissolved and then chill.

Shake together the simple syrup, iced espresso, and bourbon or whiskey with a bit of ice.  Add beer and stir or shake lightly.  Pour into glass with a few ice cubes.  Enjoy.

Best Picture Award - Gladiator

This movie was the 2000 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  I really enjoyed this movie.  It held my attention from beginning to finish.  Kind of a love story but more of a story about honor and revenge.  It does have several graphic and gory fight scenes.

The origin of the title is easy to discern as the movie centers around the leading mans (Russell Crowe) journey from being a general in the Roman army to being a slave and gladiator, where he wins the hearts of the citizens of Rome.

29 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 51 left to see.

Finished JA

Today I completed the fifth of five Junior Achievement lessons at Janseen Elementary School in Kimberly WI where my daughter teaches third grade.  I was in her class teaching the program entitled “Our City”.  It is always an awesome experience and this year was no exception.

Junior Achievement provides all of the materials that are laid out nicely with easy to follow instructions.  The kids love all of the exercises and respond enthusiastically when I asked questions.

All in all a great experience that everyone should consider doing at least once.

Best Picture Award - Rebecca

This movie was the 1940 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  Somewhat of a love story with an interesting twist at the end of the movie.  The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Lawrence Olivier and Loan Fontaine.  Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the film and if this was the best of 1940 – I don’t want to see the other ones!

The origin of the title is easy to discern as the movie centers around the leading man (Lawrence Olivier) and his wife that drowned.  Her name was Rebecca.

28 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 52 left to see.

Best Picture Award - Driving Miss Daisy

This movie was the 1989 Best Picture Academy Award winning movie.  My daughter, Megan, and wife, Lori, watched the movie with me.  The movie centers around a wealthy Jewish lady in her seventies that should no longer drive and the 20 plus year relationship that she develops with her African American driver.  In the end the relationship with her driver is stronger and better than that with her son (Dan Aykroyd).

I enjoyed watching the film but my wife and I had the same exclamation when the movie ended.  “That’s it!”

The origin of the title is easy to discern as the movie centers around the relationship of the driver (Morgan Freeman) and Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy).

27 Best Picture movies seen.  Only 53 left to see.