Weekending it

This weekend Dan and I took a mini road trip to New Jersey. His boss let us borrow his car and we headed to our next door state to run some errands and explore the area. In the afternoon we saw La La Land at the theater.

You guys, I really really wanted to love this movie. But, we just didn't. We rarely go to the movies here because it is so expensive but since we were in New Jersey and it was a matinee showing, the tickets were pretty cheap. That combined with an ancient gift card we had from a wedding present we saw the show and got popcorn for a total of $10 out-of-pocket. Steal! Everyone was raving about La La Land and insisted it needed to be seen on the big screen and since I'm a huge fan of musicals, I really wanted to see it. Unfortunately, for us, it just did not even come close to the hype.

First of all, high expectations are always ripe for disappointment. It didn't help that the kid who took our tickets at the theater told us he had seen it 10 times! I mean, it's gotta be great if someone saw it 10 times, right? At one point during the never-ending movie I leaned over to Dan and said "someone saw this 10 times??!!" We just were not wowed.

The music was fine and the singing was fine and the acting was fine. But it was all just fine. And it's fine, for a movie to be fine. But this movie has been so hyped that I expected to be crying or laughing the whole time, and then purchasing the soundtrack immediately after, and then thinking about it hours after it ended, and then plotting when I could see it next. None of that happened for me. I kind of already forgot most of it.

But please, if you are a mega fan of this movie I would appreciate if you could explain why. Perhaps we missed something.

Sunday was a down day for me but it perked-up by the end. I made the Pioneer Woman beef enchiladas for dinner. It was good but a pretty involved process that fell apart immediately when plated (tortillas soaked in sauce never survive delivery). I also nearly burned the rice. It's my special skill. I follow the directions exactly but I always manage to catch it about 1 minute before becoming inedible (even when there is like 5 minutes left on the timer).

Also this weekend, we watched the entire first season of Z: The Beginning of Everything on Amazon Prime about Zelda Fitzgerald. We enjoyed it.