It was a few years ago that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” hit the premium pay level of streaming new-release movies, and stayed there an inordinate amount of time. So long that when I checked months later, when the rental price should have dropped from $20 to $6, it was still at $20. Even after the Best Picture Oscar, they still expected me to pay the theater price for Alan and I to watch it from the couch.
So I forgot about it for…three years.
Then it appeared, as if summoned by the God of Stuff You Forgot About, on one of the streamers this weekend, free with the price of your subscription. Saturday night at home? Sure, let’s check out this best-in-all-the-land movie.
We turned it off at the two-thirds mark. I was yawning more or less continuously, had utterly lost the thread of the plot — such as it was — and could see the resolution coming like a marching band in a parade. Spoiler: Love is the answer. In between, it was just irritating. This has been Old Woman Considers the Oscars, with your host, me.
Should have watched “Nuremberg” instead. Something cheerier, you know.
Nevertheless! Sunday was a true spring-like day, temps over 50, so we put the bikes on the car rack and took them to Belle Isle for a lap. It was…windy. Sustained at 16 mph, gusting to maybe twice that. All I know is, the flag at the entrance was standing at full extension and it was hard pedaling on the back half of the loop, with the wind in our faces, but we made it. Just a shakedown for the first bike ride of 2026, but I’d call it a win. Still ice on the river in the slow parts:
But look at that sky.
Finally, ai-yi-yi, this war. I just don’t have the bandwidth to write about it on a day to day basis, although my jaw is perpetually in my lap every time I open a news site. I’ve started thinking about false-flag attacks, which would indicate I have not quite gone off the deep end, but I’m standing on the edge of the pool looking into it. I will sign up to work the elections this year, though; that might keep my head from exploding until November.
Breaking: Iran has replaced Ayatollah Khamenei with…Ayatollah Khamenei.
Let’s have a good week, all.
Brandon said on March 8, 2026 at 6:30 pm
Khomenei’s grandson was among the five finalists.
This article held he was the most likely to be the new leader of Iran.
https://newlinesinstitute.org/24/real-time-analysis-ali-grandson-of-khomeini-has-clearest-path-to-succession/
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Deborah said on March 8, 2026 at 6:55 pm
I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once 3 times, the first time on a plane on the way to France at about 2am then at home with my husband and then once more by myself. I loved the visuals the most, it was crazy.
The report from LB who went to the protest outside of the theater in the plaza area where Amy Coney Barrett spoke in Santa Fe, was that it got quite hairy. A flag was burned, there were well over 200 people in a tight space outside of the theater and a scuffle occurred. She sent me a photo of the burning flag on the ground and she will send me more, she called on her walk home. One of the chants was “Amy lied and women died”. Some people were dressed all in black with signs that said “Fuck Trump” etc. She said there were lots of young people and men too. It was sponsored by St. John’s and UNM. She said there were lots of police etc.
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Dorothy said on March 8, 2026 at 7:47 pm
Boy now I feel better. I thought that movie was pretty dumb. And I was afraid to say it out loud. I finished it but its appeal just escaped me. I don’t recall if we paid for it last year, or if it was included in one of our streaming channels.
We saw The Full Monty on stage last night at the community theater in our town, a place where I’ve done two shows myself since we moved here. It was hilarious but the show was rough in places. I got an email advising that they had to push back the opening by one week. When I got inside the theater, to my great delight, the guy who directed me in my first show there was ushering; his husband was doing concessions. I knew they’d know the gossip so I asked if they’d knew why the show was delayed. “They weren’t ready!” is what Donnie told us. With the intermission that production was THREE HOURS LONG. I think they were still not completely ready to go in front of an audience, but they soldiered on. The kid playing Nathan, the lead actor’s son, was awful. But considering the racy nature of the show and the blue dialogue, I’m guessing they could not just cast ‘anyone’ in that part. All of that aside, we laughed a lot in several places and just grinned and bore the parts that were a little sideways.
I’m glad I have grandkids and quilting and my dog and reading and knitting to keep my mind occupied in happy and relaxing ways. Otherwise the Iran situation, the Epstein files, the ICE shit show – all of it would have me considering a permanent solution to the cacophony this administration has created. I already did sign up to work the May election here in Ohio. And I will do so in November, too. It’s a tolerable way to make me feel like I’m helping somehow.
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Mark P said on March 8, 2026 at 8:13 pm
One problem with trying to follow what’s happening with Trump’s War to Protect the Pedophiles is that there are so very few reliable sources. Who are you going to believe? Iran? Israel? The U.S.? No, no, and hell no. And trust nothing you see in social media. AI is too prevalent.
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Little Bird said on March 8, 2026 at 11:06 pm
If you’re interested in seeing some of the protest I attended today, The Santa Fe New Mexican has some photos and video. In one video you can even see the back of me (from a distance and for approximately 1/4 of a second). But the article states that there were only 75 of us there. That is not true. There were so many more. This is something I have noticed that this particular publication does often, stating that there have been far fewer protesters at any given event.
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Sherri said on March 8, 2026 at 11:32 pm
Given how the Trump Org is busy trying to trademark everything (like “Donald J Trump International Airport” and “Trump 250”), I’m surprised they aren’t selling a signed authenticated cap from his meeting the dead bodies at Dover.
I guess he wears his little ball caps because he’s afraid the wind will disrupt his hair, and reveal how little remains. Maybe Hegseth can have a special warrior Commander-in-Chief hat for him that looks more military.
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Linda said on March 9, 2026 at 2:47 am
Dorothy, you and I both. Everywhere etc. is one of those movies that seem profound to a lot of people for a few months around Oscar time, and then faded and everyone wonders what the fuss was about years later. The shelf life of movies that create a huge buzz and are forgotten is worth a while column somewhere.They “said” something that touched our society for that moment as opposed to ones that people still care about decades later.
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alex said on March 9, 2026 at 8:38 am
Thanks for the warning. That’s one of those titles I’d have chosen for the extremely rare occasion that I can be bothered to sit through a movie.
I’m so excited that it’s going to be 71 degrees and sunny today. Other than having to schlep someone to the airport at mid-day, I’ll be here waiting for a delivery of stone chips for my driveway, and I can get out there with buckets and a rake and start spreading 10.5 tons’ worth all around. I’ll also be rejuvenating my garden pathways with half a ton of the load.
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Jeff Gill said on March 9, 2026 at 8:42 am
Trump could, for once in his benighted, chaotic life, do his fellow citizens a huge favor if he simply came out as only he could to make a florid statement: “Due to my having lived a full life including a great deal of time out of doors, I have some skin cancer issues. Treatment involves stuff that makes you extra sensitive to sunlight, but it works; if you’re taking that treatment, or just if you’re in your 50s or 60s or 70s like me, you should wear a hat outside & reduce your direct sun exposure. Americans, take care of yourselves: thank you for your attention to this matter!”
But will he? No, he will not.
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ROGirl said on March 9, 2026 at 9:39 am
I watched the whole thing when it came out and didn’t hate it. It took you on a wild ride, but it brought you back down to earth.
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Icarus said on March 9, 2026 at 10:14 am
There are a ton of movies I’ve never seen because I was too broke/cheap to afford cable. A short list:
The Godfather series
Goodfellas
A Passage to India
Out of Africa
The Shawshank Redemption
I could go on. As an undiagnosed neurodivergent, I will re-watch a movie I’ve already seen before instead of hitting the list of movies I haven’t, even though I can literally stream all of them for free by now.
I’m not sure why that is, it just is.
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Jeff Gill said on March 9, 2026 at 11:13 am
Oh, for pity’s sake. It’s enough to make me embarrassed to be a man in his 60s. Or a male in general. Can we all just STOP IT? Get a hobby. Read a book. Take your spouse out to dinner, listen a bit.
Meanwhile, the University Medical Center is quietly de-Wexing itself, both buildings & roadways, all sadly viewable on the domain wexnermedical.osu.edu . . . which may change soon, too, once the board is done sorting out the frickin’ president’s behavior.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2026/03/09/ohio-states-ted-carter-steps-down-over-inappropriate-relationship/89062940007/
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Nancy Friedman said on March 9, 2026 at 11:46 am
Re “Everything Everywhere”: I felt the same way about this year’s frontrunner, “One Battle After Another.” (Come to think, the titles are interchangeable and could just as easily have been “One Stimulus After Another.”) Kinetic, chaotic, unrelenting, and in the end, what exactly was the point? Ditto “Marty Supreme.” I saw all three on big screens.
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Julie Robinson said on March 9, 2026 at 11:46 am
When we watched the Everything blah blah movie I thought I wasn’t hip enough to get the references. Maybe it just wasn’t a good movie.
Libraries are a good source for old movies, unless their DVDs wore out, but some are available on Hoopla. We’ve watched a fair number as our resident elder wants to revisit them. The pacing feels slow to modern eyes. Out of Africa is worth a watch just for the heartbreakingly beautiful scenery and music.
As for the spot on T’s neck, D has one that matches in the same place. Good thing we see the dermatologist this week. And for all who might have wondered, the hearing aid transition has been almost seamless. Now the rest of us have to adjust our speaking volume down…we are a family of hearty voices, smiley face emoji.
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Scout said on March 9, 2026 at 1:00 pm
Donnie Demented’s Big Beautiful Like Nothing Anyone Has Ever Seen Operation Epstein Fury, ladies and gents:
In today’s Fortune:
Stock markets in free fall as oil goes over $100.
“Doomsday” now looking increasingly plausible, analysts say, as fresh attacks further threaten oil supplies.
Iran appointed a new supreme leader: He’s the son of the recently killed supreme leader.
Trump called this his ‘worst case’ scenario.
Rising prices could hurt Republicans in the midterms.
Coffee is up 18% since last year.
The head of Citi’s ‘internal hit squad’ has left
Are we great yet?
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Sherri said on March 9, 2026 at 2:22 pm
The thing that is fascinating about the cast of idiots in this administration is not just how dumb they are, but how they don’t seem to have a model for anyone else acting. It’s like they think everyone else are NPCs, non-playing characters, in their big video game life. So, it never seems to occur to them that if they do something to someone, someone will do something back. Like, normal people might consider that if you attack Iran, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would be impacted. Or consider what might happen after you kill the leader. Or have a plan for what happens after you bomb the place; what’s next?
This gang seems to have thought, bomb Iran, kill the leader, and yay, America wins!
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JodiP said on March 9, 2026 at 3:34 pm
I loved Everything Everywhere because of the themes of family tension and all the absurdity. Fresh Air did a great interview with Michelle Yeoh.
Meanwhile, it was close to 60 here in Minneapolis and I had a great walk. I am back near my old neighborhood so I am have new to me walking routes that are filled with cute 1920s semi tudors and 50’s homes like mine.
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Brandon said on March 9, 2026 at 4:55 pm
Re: the Everything movie: I never saw it and don’t plan to.
As far as the Oscars go, things started to decline when the Academy abandoned the five-movie limit for the Best Picture Oscar in 2009.
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Dexter Friend said on March 9, 2026 at 5:55 pm
Several friends warned me; I plunged…lasted 20 minutes of the stupid fucking movie.
NYC cops dominating cable…ISIS wannabees and IEDs. Read all about it.
I kept getting messages about great Spectrum plans for seniors. I called. 45 minutes to a nice guy in Hawaii trying to help me. He said I was all set…a $115 reduction in my monthly…oh, sorry…still gotta pay for my two receivers. First, a $30 activation fee I must agree to, then in the end I get a 1 year promo reduction of $20 a month, plus a big jolt to my internet service, must faster. Anyway…I took pleasant drive over to my roots, one house gone 45 years now, the old school just one wall standing behind thick brush, my grandparents’ house now a grassy yard, my uncle’s house on a hill abandoned and invisible for overgrowth.
Gasoline way the hell up in price of course. The American voters did this, gave us this demented evil madman grifting motherfucker. SHAME !
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Sherri said on March 9, 2026 at 9:19 pm
I was frustrated with my daughter for not adulting adequately by my standards, but got a reminder to be grateful anyway. The mother of a friend of hers from high school knocked on my door, actually looking for the house of a mutual acquaintance who lives in my neighborhood. I pointed the mom in the right direction, and asked about my daughter’s friend. “Oh, she’s not speaking to me these days.”
Oops. Sorry. At least my daughter still likes me.
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Julie Robinson said on March 9, 2026 at 9:52 pm
Sherri, when I complained about the slow trajectory of our son’s maturation, a friend asked if we’d ever had to bail him out of jail. “No? Then you’re doing just fine.”
He and his wife did the sweetest thing for D’s birthday, they made him rhubarb pie. Rhubarb doesn’t grow here in everyone’s back yard the way it does in the Midwest. They found some frozen at Sprouts, and it brought him bliss.
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David C said on March 10, 2026 at 6:05 am
I stumbled out of the gate after high school. There were so many things I didn’t really know about myself that if I had known I might have been able to compensate for. The two biggest were extreme introversion and undiagnosed dyslexia. I’m doing fine now. I found my niche in engineering and once everything was done on computers, my work didn’t look so sloppy.
Mad King Donald has a shoe thing.
https://balloon-juice.com/2026/03/09/cruel-shoes-ii/
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Jakash said on March 10, 2026 at 10:43 am
I’m on the thumbs-down side of the “E E All At Once” voting. At some point, years ago, it showed up free for us somewhere and of course we were curious to see it, though I didn’t imagine it would be our kind of thing. Uh, it wasn’t. We watched the whole thing and tried to appreciate what they were doing, but were mainly mystified by all the accolades it had received. I agree with Linda @7: “one of those movies that seem profound to a lot of people for a few months around Oscar time, and then faded and everyone wonders what the fuss was about years later.”
We just discovered that we have access on our Roku to Hoopla, mentioned by Julie @14. Thanks to our Chicago Public Library accounts. We didn’t go looking for it, we used the Roku search function to look for “The Country Girl,” from 1954. Hoopla was the only place mentioned where it was currently free, so we signed up.
Anyway, we’ve seen lots and lots of old movies and I’m surprised that that one had slipped our notice. We had watched “Rear Window” (a favorite) the week before and the guy on TCM noted that Grace Kelly won an Oscar for “The Country Girl,” so we figured we’d give it a shot. It was nominated for 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and won for Best Screenplay, as well as Kelly. She and Bing Crosby, nominated for Best Actor, were excellent. It’s only rated 7.2 on IMDB, but we thought it was very good.
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Dorothy said on March 10, 2026 at 10:58 am
When I don’t fall in line with other people who lavish praise on a movie, I usually think there’s something wrong with me – that I have missing parts of my brain or don’t have enough education to understand or appreciate what I’m seeing. Then again, I have to trust my gut and recognize what I like and what I don’t. It’s easier that way, but I still, every once in awhile, doubt myself.
Icarus @11 – I loved the first two Godfather movies, but the third one was a disappointment. I am not alone in this belief. In Goodfellas, if you get a chance to see it, there’s a single very long shot that carries Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco down stairs, through the back of a restaurant, through the kitchen and into the nightclub interior that was a Big Deal when it came out. There are no cutaways in that scene, it’s one continuous shot, and I am still dazzled by it. Yes it’s pretty violent, but the characters are great, and I love the appearance of Martin Scorcese’s mother in a scene after the guys get back from a night of murder and corpse disposal.
Shawshank is in a category all by itself. It’s worth watching many times because you probably miss some nuance on the first viewing. I can’t remember anything about the India or Africa movies because I’ve only seen them once. Julie’s right – Out of Africa has gorgeous scenery. I do remember that!
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Suzanne said on March 10, 2026 at 12:03 pm
Dorothy @24- I feel the same! I think my tastes are different than a whole lotta people, especially in literature. So many bestsellers just didn’t resonate with me at all (think Bridges of Madison County, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Book Thief). I loved the first 2 Godfather movies, although the 2nd one always confuses me as to who is double crossing who. I have watched both numerous times. The 3rd one was really awful. I watched it once and never again.
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Mark P said on March 10, 2026 at 12:32 pm
De gustibus non disputandum est.
When it comes to movies, books, food, you like what you like, and no one can say otherwise. I liked EEAAO, but it’s certainly not my favorite.
I suppose everyone knows by now that the White House released a video supporting the attack on Iran that included video game footage. What a bunch of incompetent dumbasses. At least you can’t fault them for lack of consistency; they’re all incompetent.
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Deborah said on March 10, 2026 at 12:58 pm
So many of the movies that win Oscars seem to be ones that use new, creative filming, things that haven’t been done before, or at least it seems that way to me. E E All at once (thanks Jackash for that typing saving) was very new in it’s presentation, storyline etc, I had never seen anything like it before. Same with Parasite, it was really different when it was made. After awhile more movies copy the techniques etc so they seem less novel over time and get devalued. This happens with architecture too, designers come up with very novel buildings and then after awhile you realize they don’t have lasting appeal. It happens all the time, a new building will be completed and it’s on all of the architecture magazine covers as if it is the best thing since sliced bread. Then a few years later you look at archived photos of the building and it seems ho-hum, and you wonder what they were thinking made it so great. They’re just flash in the pans.
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Sherri said on March 10, 2026 at 2:30 pm
Despite the best efforts of Trump, the GOP, and feckless Dems to drive me insane, I celebrate 24 years without taking a drink today.
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Julie Robinson said on March 10, 2026 at 3:54 pm
Well done, Sherri. I am addicted to sugar and have a pretty bad craving right now. D handed me the paper this morning and said don’t read it, it’s all awful.
I haven’t seen a lot of the movies mentioned because violence is too disturbing for me to watch. So I read The Godfather*, but have watched zero of the movies. Could never watch Shawshank again. Movies like Das Boot and Sophie’s Choice gave me nightmares for months, and I had read Sophie’s Choice.
*I was about 12 and puzzled by a lot of it, but my folks didn’t muzzle our reading.
One more entreaty for everyone to listen to the Out of Africa score, which tells you the entire story in its melancholy beauty.
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alex said on March 10, 2026 at 9:09 pm
OMG, Sophie’s Choice. I remember driving home from the theater and having to pull off of the road because I was crying so hard. I had my own abandonment issues with my parents and that movie cut right through my heart.
I don’t know why my parents thought having a gay child was so terrible when they had friends who lost children to heroin and schizophrenia and all sorts of other tragedies that were real and absolutely no reflection on their parenting. Still a raw subject for me.
It’s also why I’m a diehard proponent of psychoanalysis. I think everyone could benefit from it. There was a recent NYT piece about a British analyst who summed up its purpose this way: “I would say that happiness is the sweetness of desiring what you have, fully aware of its fragility, its brevity and its limits. It isn’t the absence of sadness, but the capacity to hold reality without needing it to be otherwise.”
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Deborah said on March 10, 2026 at 11:50 pm
Alex, that’s heart wrenching, glad you have found peace even knowing it can be fragile. Inspiring.
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