Movie Review - Charade

OK, I admit it, when it comes to movies, I can get stuck in the past.  I like a lot of the old movies, even some that aren't really that great, when you look at it objectively.  I like most of the Cary Grant movies, but a couple are really quite good.  Charade is one of the best - right up there with North by Northwest.

Theresa and I watched Charade on Netflix recently.  I remember seeing it years ago, when I was a kid, but I really didn't remember it at all.  I was not disappointed!  It has some interesting characters - a lot of humor, and just a little bit of suspense.  As a romantic mystery, it holds its own with many more modern movies.

I've never been much of an Audrey Hepburn fan, but she's perfect in this role - she has that fragile, aristocratic look that makes it work.  Her Regina Lambert is vulnerable and terrified, but just a little tougher than you might believe at first.

I really liked the heavies in this film, in particular George Kennedy.  He plays Scobie, missing a hand, brooding and menacing - at one point, Hepburn makes a point of mentioning his "ugly, scary face".  He's not the nastiest of the bad guys, or the toughest (that distinction almost certainly goes to James Coburn), but you've got to love a character that's so ugly he has to be evil.  His mother must be so proud!  The third bad guy - Ned Glass as Gideon - isn't big or tough, but somehow you just know he's nasty. 

Another bonus in this movie is the chance to see Walter Matthau, playing it straight as a CIA bureaucrat. 

With the three bad guys after poor Regina, she really needs a true-blue hero to watch out for her.  What she gets is Cary Grant as Peter Joshua (or whatever other name he cooks up - he has several aliases).  Joshua, or whoever he is, is charming, and he always seems to show up at just the right time and place.  The only question is, is he really there to help Regina, or is he just another crook ready to torture/kill/rob her?  You don't really THINK he's a bad guy, but you're never quite sure. 

If you're like me, you'll probably figure this out before the end of the movie, but you won't be sure about it until the very end - in this film, very little is what it seems to be. 

This is a film that could easily be made today.  Oh, there'd be some changes made - we'd have more of a physical romance between Regina and Peter, and there'd be some special effects and probably a bit more violence.  The dialog would be different.  None of that really changes anything, though.  The basic plot and characters would work as well today as they did in 1963.  It's a great movie, highly recommended.

Moving Time!

They say that every Realtor should move occasionally, to better empathize with our clients.  Since we've lived in our home for nearly 21 years, we were overdue for a move.  We're fixing that now - we've got a home under contract, and will soon put our home on the market.

Theresa has been wanting to downsize - move into a town home, with fewer responsibilities and chores.  Our home doesn't require a lot of maintenance, but it has a large, complicated yard, and there's always something that needs to be done.

I've resisted moving, mainly because I didn't think it was worth it to go to all the work and expense of selling, buying, and hauling things back and forth.  Finally, I decided it was time.

We started out looking at VERY small town homes - roughly 900 square feet, with no basement.  We made an offer on one - the seller was totally unwilling to meet us anywhere near half way on price - then settled for a less expensive alternative.  Although neither of us was crazy about the street appeal, it was OK inside, and, with a little work, had a floor plan that would work for us.  Since it was so much smaller than we were used to, we decided we'd need to enclose a sun room, and made the offer contingent on being able to do that. We were financing with a renovation loan, so we'd borrow money to do some repairs, along with the purchase.

Our first hurdle was to get permission from the homeowners association to add the room. This was a little harder than you might think - no one seemed to have a problem with it, but they didn't really think they could speak for the association.  Finally, we were able to get a consensus from the board members that they would be OK with it.

The next problem was finding out if we could get a building permit - a task made much more difficult by the small lot - there was no way we could build and meet the standard set-back requirements of our city.  After a bunch of calls, we were still not sure if we could do it or not.

The other issue that soon became apparent was that all the improvements we wanted to make would soon increase the cost of our "cheap" town home to something very nearly as expensive to live in as our home.  Even though we wanted to simplify life, this didn't seem like a smart move.  By over-improving the small property, we'd set ourselves up to be upside down in the new place for years to come.

Finally, due to all the above concerns, we decided we couldn't go through with this purchase.  We cancelled the contract, and started looking again.

The first thing we did was go back to the original town home we had liked.  It already had a sun room, and was in a great neighborhood, so it was a real possibility.  Unfortunately, the monthly association dues were very high, so this property would be expensive.  Although we were prepared to spend the money, we decided to spend a day looking at some other options.

First, we looked in some different neighborhoods.  We've lived in South Lincoln for over 20 years, but there are some nice areas on the North side of town.  We looked at a few places, but weren't bowled over by any of them - a couple were OK, but didn't really blow away our original choice.  We also went up in price a bit, even looking at some that would have no cost advantage over living in our home.  We still didn't find the perfect home.  A bit discouraged, we headed home and decided to make one more computer search - this time including town homes without an association to handle snow removal and lawn care.  One home stood out in this batch.  Even though we were both tired of looking, we decided to make one more trip.

The home we found was in a great neighborhood.  It was larger than most of the others we'd looked at - a little over 1200 square feet on the main floor.  It had a full basement - unfinished, but with some possibilities for finish in the future - and a double garage.  Not everything was exactly like we wanted, but it was close enough that we felt we could live with it until we got around to fixing it up to our tastes.  I always tell people that "perfect doesn't exist", but this was just what we were looking for.  There was no association, but the lawn is small enough that upkeep won't be a burden (and I may yet decide to have it done by a service).  As a bonus, we also found out we could install a fence in the back yard - an unexpected bonus, since most town homes don't allow it.

We quickly decided to write an offer, and, after a counter or two, reached agreement with the sellers. 

We've got inspections set up, and we're scheduled to close in a bit over a month.  We'll be getting our home on the market in the next few days, and I'm sure we'll be swamped until after we're settled.  In the next few weeks, I'll post about the process of getting our old house listed, what we did to get it ready, and what we're doing to the new home.  For now, we're excited about this new chapter in our lives, and looking forward to the day when we can start to enjoy our new-found freedom.