This weekend is the first weekend of summer 2025!
For those that love the sun glaring down on you and making you sweat, enjoy it. And, more importantly, enjoy it for me and Pug Xanadu.
We’re counting down to fall already!
SCORE!
A few weeks ago, I was making dinner for my sister and I forgot to get shredded potatoes for a dish I was making, so I ran to the Save A Lot near my house.
The $4 potatoes ended up costing me an additional $57!
The store was having a huge liquor mark down which I was told that they do twice a year!
The winner alone was the bottle of Dewar’s White Label Scotch (that I don’t drink). I got it for five dollars and it usually runs around $25.
And, those boxes of Jack Daniel’s country cocktails are typically $16 a carton!
ALREADY FELT LIKE FOUR YEARS
Last month, at this time, I was thinking that the past four months already felt like four years.
Hoping for miracles! Or, more wine!
“ANOTHER SIMPLE FAVOR”
The sequel to 2018’s “A Simple Favor” is out now on Amazon Prime.
I loved the first one and gave it a “B+”, writing “It was much darker and funnier than I expected.” It ended up being my #18 movie of the year.
This one is so much better. I’m ready to watch it again.
I loved the story line and I figured out one of the major subplots early and was very pleased to see I was right.
Hello, Lorenzo de Moor, nice to meet you!
Anna Kendrick was very funny in this one and Blake Lively was humorous and so sexy in the movie, especially in the outfit she wore at the fountain! WOW!
A lot of money was definitely spent on wardrobe.
And, while I’ve given up on the “Crazy Rich Asians” movie sequel, it was great seeing Henry Golding again — seeing pretty much all of him!
GRADE: A
SPEAKING OF BLAKE LIVELY
I’m glad “Another Simple Favor” is out because Lively’s name lately has been in the news more for the lawsuit with her director/co-star of the hit “It Ends With Us”, which was my #5 movie last year.
I’m saddened by the lawsuit, especially if Justin Baldoni was that creepy and mean.
While the movie was about domestic violence, it was a great movie — from the storyline to the acting.
When that movie was released, there was talk of a sequel, “It Starts With Us”. While it may happen, I’m not optimistic.
So, I decided to read the two books the movie (series?) is based on by Colleen Hoover. Both were quick reads and enjoyable.
I’d love to see the sequel just to see more of Brandon Sklenar, who plays Atlas Corrigan.
“CHALLENGERS”
I’ve watched three of Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s movies.
The first was my favorite movie I saw in 2018, “Call Me By Your Name”. I watched it again this spring and I still love, love, love it.
The second, also starring Timothée Chalamet, “Bones And All”, I didn’t really dig.
The third, “Challengers”, starring Zendaya (“Euphoria”), Josh O’Connor (“God’s Own Country” and “The Crown”) and Mike Faist was my #3 movie of 2024.
I highly recommend it.
GRADE: A-
“THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT: 1964”
This is the third book I’ve read from journalist and author Theodore H. White. I read his books on the 1960 (Kennedy and Nixon) and 1968 (Nixon and Humphrey) presidential elections.
I chose those because both were so close and there was so much drama behind the scenes, especially in 1968.
Originally, I hadn’t planned on reading his books about the 1964 and 1972 presidential elections because both were landslide wins for Presidents Johnson and Nixon, respectively. However, I thought, “Why not? I might learn something”.
The 1964 book focused a lot on the Republican nominee U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and his primary fight for the nomination against New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. (After the election, Rockefeller went on to be vice president under President Gerald Ford and Goldwater became Kryptonite to the Republican party!)
One thing I learned is that President John F. Kennedy observed that if it had been Rockefeller running again him in 1960 instead of Nixon, Kennedy says he would have lost.
I was surprised at how abrasive White described metropolitan Black life in the early-1960s, “One can roam the streets of the Negro core ghettos and the eye can, of course, pick up the classic symbols of despair: the mid-morning wino on the corner staggering about with his bottle in a brown-paper sack; the cluster of half a dozen unemployed sitting on a curb watching the sun move across the sky, with nothing to do today and tomorrow or the next day; and the sluts.”
CHRISTMAS IS COMING EARLY THIS YEAR
Mariah Carey is the undisputed “Queen of Christmas” and in just a few months “All I Want For Christmas” will return and top the Billboard Hot 100 once again.
However, the “Christmas coming early” reference today means that Mariah is finally releasing a new studio album!
“Caution”, her last, dropped in 2018!
Her latest single, “Type Dangerous”, is her first hit at Top 40 radio since 2013 when “Beautiful” with Miguel reached the top 20 (excluding “All I Want For Christmas”, which charts each fall and winter).
“Type Dangerous” is a multi-format smash! It’s already a hit on the Top 40, Hot Adult Contemporary, Urban, Urban/R&B, and Rhythmic radio charts.
Mariah definitely has a way with words in the song: “Hit the little girls’ room to powder my nose/Then came in three hatin’ ass hoes/They don’t know the meaning of water nor soap”! 🙂
THAT’S IT
With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!
Anthony
What's Peeps Thinking About Now? It's Probably Random! 