Relief is oh so sweet

Last 4 June I wrote that Sweetheart Vivienne’s and my daughters are movie aficionados [1]. So maybe they can name the film in which a girl’s excited about an elaborately prepared birthday party only to become mortified when no-one attends? Though I can’t recall if it predated me seeing that movie, that scenario’s a long-term dread of mine.

That film and that dread were on my mind yesterday because Petrarch’s Book Shop in Launceston had arranged with Sweetheart Vivienne to sign copies of Alzheimer's: A Love Story at 2 p.m. yesterday in their shop. Email invitations went out 10 days earlier (no RSVPs) [2]. Sweetheart Vivienne, having baked cookies [3] and bought sweets, was excited. But I knew, probably courtesy of my congenital pessimism, that no-one would attend. So as excited as she was, I was nervous. Sick to the stomach.
As it turned out, I was wrong. Lots of people came, several copies of Alzheimer’s and some other books were bought, Sweetheart Vivienne signed the sold copies of her book plus some yet unsold others whose future owners will be thrilled by her signature, cookies and sweets were eaten, interesting conversations were had, lots of sweets and cookies were enjoyed, and the event delighted both the guest of honour and the book shop’s owner.
Me? I’m oh so relieved my darling wife didn’t become the girl in the film. And oh so happy some cookies and sweets were left over.

List: 'Panned! The 10 worst-reviewed movies'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Aficionadoism. I don’t know if it’s a real word. But if not, it should be. On a continuum of movie aficionadoism, Sweetheart Vivienne’s and my daughters rank up there with the aficionados. Me? I’m somewhere between the middle and the other end. I’m a movie watcher – my subscription to BigPond Movies [1] gets me 48 DVDs annually – and I’m interested in movies as a communications, entertainment and educational medium. But I’m hardly obsessed.

As Farmdoc’s Blog readers see, I rank the movies I watch on a scale of one to five stars. I don’t score them using a set of specific criteria. I do it subjectively. But come to think about it, all movie rating criteria I can think of are subjective anyway. Despite this, some movies generally rate well, and others don’t. For example winners of the ‘Best Motion Picture’ Academy Award [2] are in the former group. By and large, anyway. Yet another example of the wisdom of crowds [3]. This week’s list is ‘Panned! The 10 worst-reviewed movies’. Courtesy of salon.com – and I think motivated by Sex and the City 2 – there’s an intro [4] and a slideshow [5]. Make your own list, then check it against salon’s. I scored zero out of ten. That’s fine by me. Because I’m not a movie aficionado.

P.S. The photograph’s from one of the ‘10 worst’. I’m so hopeless I didn’t even know which one.