entertainment

7 money lessons from “A Quiet Place.

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Linda B. and I went to see “A Quiet Place” recently and it was as frightening as I’d expected it would be – even though I already knew a couple of major plot points, due to having read a couple of spoiler-filled articles. (Will I ever learn?)

Even when I knew what was going to happen, “A Quiet Place” genuinely scared me. That’s because these weren’t jump-scare moments or, worse, the torture porn that passes for suspense/horror these days. The underlying emotion was fear.

Fear that we can’t protect our children, or teach them enough to survive in the world. Fear that we won’t have enough to eat. Fear that we’ll lose the ones we love.

Those are some grade-A terrors, all right – and given all the recent bluster about nuclear weapons, they’re not exactly unfounded.

I, of course, also found personal finance lessons in the movie. That’s how I roll.

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Six good things.

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Jana from the Jana Says blog recently wrote about half a dozen good things happening in her life. The post was an antidote to a previous article in which she screamed rather primally about a whole lot of bad, frustrating stuff.

I hear her on both counts. Now I’m going to steal her format, and share half a dozen decent occurrences of my own.

(Got six good things – or even one – of your own? Do share, in the comments.)

We’ll start with something sweet:

 

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Books: Why aren’t we reading them?

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At the end of the year I saw a lot of New Year’s resolutions mentioned on blogs and social media. Chief among them: “I will read more books/read a book a week.”

As a nation we aren’t doing that. According to a Pew Research study, 26 percent) of U.S. adults say they haven’t read a book – or even part of a book – in the past year.

We can’t blame Kindle Unlimited or Audible for this trend since the study encompassed e-book, audio and print formats. However, the Pew Research Center notes that adults with a high school education (or less) are three times as likely as college grads to cop to ignoring books. People who earn $30,000 a year or less are twice as likely to be non-readers.

 

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5 personal finance lessons from ‘Alien: Covenant.’

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I saw “Alien: Covenant” and it succeeded in what I think were its twin purposes: to creep me out and to make me think.

And, maybe, to get me out of my own head. Nothing like a chest-burster to make you feel better about your reasonably good health.

But seriously, the film is restrained (albeit super-gory at times) and full not just of dread, but of a surprising undercurrent of mournfulness.

What’s the meaning of life? What makes us human? Why do the people we love leave us? Can a synthetic human ever become a real boy?

And, of course: How can I make the viewing of this film into a work expense?

 

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A hot (and short-lived) incentive to try Hulu.

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If you’ve been on the fence about Hulu, this might be the time to do it: This weekend, Swagbucks is offering a $28 incentive to try the $7.99-per-month television service.

Specifically: When you sign up for Hulu you’ll get 2,800 SB points, which translates to $28 worth of gift cards (or PayPal, if you prefer the cash). You could think of this as making $20, or that Swagbucks is paying for your first three-plus months of the cable TV alternative.

But wait, there’s more: If you sign up this weekend you’ll get another 300 SB in your account in May. The total, then, is $31 worth of gift card (or PayPal) power.

So how do you get a piece of the action? Two easy steps (with occasional gusts to three):

 

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A quiet weekend, except for the radio show.

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thHow’d you spend your weekend? I got to be on local radio, where I talked about “Your Playbook For Tough Times” and acted in an on-air skit.

“The Big Alaska Show” is an every-Saturday event on KFQD-AM. It’s a mix of interviews and (alleged) comedy bits, some of which hit and some of which miss. The hosts, Steve Stripling and Mike Ford, cheerfully describe it as “the longest-running error-riddled radio program in Alaska.

And I did my part to help that along. Wouldn’t you?

 

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6 money lessons from ‘Florence Foster Jenkins.’

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thFor years I’ve been promoting the idea that personal finance tips can be found in all kinds of places:

Opera (“8 personal finance lessons from ‘Gotterdammerung’”)

Monster romps (“6 financial lessons from ‘Godzilla’”)

Westerns (“10 financial lessons from ‘True Grit’”)

Superhero flicks (“10 money lessons from ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’”)

And even sled-dog races (“10 personal finance lessons from the Iditarod”).

See? You just have to know where to look.

My latest example is the Meryl Streep/Hugh Grant film “Florence Foster Jenkins.” The chameleonic Streep is by turns jaw-droppingly self-absorbed and touchingly vulnerable, and Hugh Grant is her complex, conflicted companion.

The real-life Jenkins, a New York socialite, was a patron of the arts. Also sometimes their torturer: She had the idea that she could sing. But she couldn’t. She really, really couldn’t.

 

 

Not to give away too much of the plot, Jenkins suffered from a physical malady that may have affected her ability truly to hear her own voice. Or maybe she was just gloriously deluded. Either way, she played to sold-out houses.

 

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Giveaway: ‘Moose, the Movie.’

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POSTERRegular readers know how I feel about the “Tundra” comic strip, created by Alaska cartoonist Chad Carpenter. Not content with being syndicated all over the world, Carpenter recently branched out into filmmaking with “Moose: The Movie.”

At one of the screenings Carpenter handed out autographed calendars. I promptly re-gifted mine for the May 3 giveaway (whose write-up included my impressions of the film).

Now that “Moose: The Movie” is available for home viewing, I’m reinstating the weekly giveaways with a copy of the DVD.

Is it great cinema? Of course not. But it’s good, goofy fun and very Carpenterian; witness the wildlife protection poster glimpsed in the Gangrene Gulch ranger station. Anyone who’s visited (or wants to visit) the Last Frontier will fall in love with the cinematography.

Don’t just take my word for it, though. A review from The Alaska Dispatch News calls it “bright, fast-paced, well-produced, utterly entertaining and very amusing,” among other things.

 

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