Tag Archives: The Savages

amusing landscape

Our weekend Netflix viewing was The Savages, a 2007 film starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman who play a sister and brother who are called in to care for their ailing father. The siblings leave New York City and Buffalo in the fall to pick up their father in Sun City, Arizona.

I laughed at some of the establishing shots of the landscaping in Sun City. I had to share.

Long rows of these soccer ball trees are shown all over Sun City.

Houses with these ball shaped trees...
Big palm trees, but the planting budget didn't allow everyone to get one of their own...
This hedge really got me laughing. What emerges from behind the hedges two seconds after this shot is even funnier...

As far as the film, I liked it. As expected, the siblings have issues between them, including some sibling rivalry that’s simmered for four decades. But all in all they’re adults trying hard to do the right thing for their father: nothing too Hollywood and cloyingly uplifting, but nothing that’s a real downer, either.

Of course such mature behavior would never fly in many families I’m familiar with. Overall it left me with the feeling that’s best summed up by a bumpersticker John has that hasn’t made it onto a vehicle yet: My Family is More Dysfunctional than Yours.