…and hit her head against it a few times as she attempted to open and build her fashion/design business.

Coco built her empire from the ground up. She had some help from men along the way but considering the era (and the fact that she was dirt poor), I don’t see how she could have done it without them. And I admire the fact that she honored her commitment to pay the one guy back (don’t remember his name) after he helped her open her first shop even though he didn’t expect to be repaid.

Coco didn’t have other female role models – men were the ones at this time that primarily created and had the vision for women’s clothing – but she knew what women wanted and she vision and expert talent.

Good movie although sometimes felt that there was a disconnect between the actresses who played the young and old Coco. They definitely left a lot of history out (like her relationship with the Nazi’s during WWII and what happened during the two decades when she was off the fashion scene) but overall, it was an interesting and entertaining movie. Made me wish I had a French accent!

The future hubster and I watched about 30 minutes of this. I think we thought this would be a narrated documentary about the development and raising of babies in different countries around the world. Don’t get me wrong, the babies were super cute but that wasn’t enough to keep me interested. I wanted to know about the history and cultural norms of each country, not just silently watch babies coo and giggle and lay there.

Rachel’s wedding was the most random movie wedding I ever saw. One moment there is a man with a fur hat blowing a whistle and then the next moment there are dancing show girls straight out of Rio . . . and what the heck was up with that band? They were terrible! And that violin player . . . oy!

And what the heck was up with the ceremony when everyone started chanting “Rachel, Rachel” when she walked in. Is that a cultural thing that I’ve never heard of? Odd.

The rest of the movie was just strange. . . the family dynamics were some what interesting (and yeah, a bit depressing) but I can’t help but wonder why the director would choose to focus in on scenes for so long -like the dish washing scene that took forever to get to the point of the dead son’s plate…BTW, do families really do such things as race to see who can be the master of the dishwasher?? Man, mine sure wouldn’t!

Angie isn’t an actress that I love in general. For me, she’s hit or miss in most of her movies. But . . . I really loved her in this movie. I thought she played Mrs. Christine Collins with such strength and moxie . . . and I loved her costumes so kudos to the costume designer. This movie definitely kept me interested and engaged through out.

The most redeeming thing about the book was that the chapters/articles were perfectly bite-sized – just right for reading in small incraments without losing story-line momentum. This would make a great book to have on hand in the bathroom.

Entertaining to a degree, Bryson strikes me as guy who does a lot of puttering around, making observations about every day inconveniences and searching for statistics that back up his opinion. He sort of reminds me of my dad, shaking his fist at those darn kids and their new-fangled garage door openers.

I’m a semi-Bryson fan. I enjoyed “A Walk in the Woods” and “Neither Here Nor There” but would pass on “The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid” if presented the opportunity to read it again. This is definitely not his best work and I would advise those new to Bryson to pick up another one of his books before moving forward with this one.

picked this one out on HBO . . .and at first I was less than thrilled but after a few minutes I kind of got into it. Not the funniest movie in the world but in general I do like Paul Rudd (he was great in “Knocked Up” and "The 40-Year-Old Virgine to name two).

I could have watched her and the Julia storyline for the entire movie. The Julie character was less engaging . . . it was a neat and ambitious idea to blog about cooking her way through the cookbook but I think she came off a bit whiney. The Juila Child side of the story was fascinating . . . I never knew much about her married life or how she came to be such a dynamic diva in the kitchen.

. . . except it’s a book. I am a knitter and love all things knit related (for the most part) but this book was pretty terrible. The dynamics of the inter-racial relationship between Georgia and her baby’s daddy was contrived and the character development of all the knitters in the group were stereotyped (nerdy academic named DARWIN?? check. out of work/under-employed film producer? check. Aspiring fashion designer? check.)

I really wanted to like this book but it just didn’t happen. But, knowing me, I’ll try watching the movie (when it comes out on DVD).

The first time I started watching this I turned it off after a few minutes – I jumped to conclusions and thought it was going to be another depressing movie. A few weeks later, I tried watching it again and am SO glad I stuck with it. I immediately got sucked into the storyline and found myself fascinated with the life of the young boys and their struggle to get by. Not to mention, this is a terrific love story!

…but was there something else that I should have expected? Yeah, not so much. Cute but wished the ending wasn’t quite AS predictable. Wonder if they opened the door to a sequel called “Baby Wars”? That would be a horrible idea.