| 2005 movie update |
[14 Feb 2006|06:08pm] |
Junebug, and Match Point make my formerly Top 4 a Top 6. Or maybe I'd bump ShopGirl to make it a legitimate Top 5.
Seen through Netflix:
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Ice Storm
Ready to Wear
Do The Right Thing
Arrested Development: Season 2, Disc 2: Favorite line: "Army had a half day."
50 First Dates
Funny Ha-Ha
Arrested Development: Season 2, Disc 3 "Hey Campers."
There is nothing funnier than Arrested Development. David Cross as Mrs. Featherbottom, Buster, Lucille. Too much for me. In some ways it is only fitting that FOX is cancelling this show, because it's too good to be TV.
Patrick turns 27 this weekend, the night we go see Sigur Ros in concert. Should be excellent.
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| they've shown this on both screens |
[12 Jan 2006|12:59pm] |
I felt like it wasn't a year of bad movies, but it wasn't a year of good movies, either. Movie after movie left me feeling lackluster. No movie that I saw this year made me feel the way any of last year's Top 5 did.
Hide and Seek^
Millions
Robots
Sin City+
Fever Pitch
The Interpreter
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Crash
Mad Hot Ballroom
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Mr. and Mrs. Smith+
Batman Begins
Me and You and Everyone We Know
War of the Worlds
Murderball*
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Wedding Crashers
Sky High*
2046*
Broken Flowers
Four Brothers+
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The Constant Gardener
A History of Violence
Flightplan
Capote
The Squid and the Whale
Elizabethtown
ShopGirl
Good Night & Good Luck
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
Walk The Line
King Kong
The Family Stone
Shakespeare Behind Bars
Abel Raises Cain
I have yet to, but intend to, see: Duma, Junebug, March of the Penguins, Pride & Prejudice, Bee Season, Thumbsucker, Keane, Saraband, Match Point, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
^ walked out approx. 40 min. in
* seen on DVD
+ If the Catholics are right, I'll (deservedly) spend some time in purgatory for seeing these. Oh wait, I already have.
Italics indicate films that would be in my Top 4, as I could find no solid 5 between the others that I liked quite a bit: The Constant Gardener, Good Night & Good Luck, The Family Stone, Batman Begins, Murderball.
A sentence each about the Top 4:
Crash is a deeply flawed, film, but I liked it because it was honorable: it strives to paint an honest portrait of race relations and people relations in America, even if it doesn't quite achieve it.
The first time I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know I dismissed it as another indie-fad movie, but the second time I saw it, it sunk in and its photography and resonant themes have been with me ever since.
Call me lame, but I thought ShopGirl told a meaningful story and the emotions in the scene where *spoiler* Steve Martin says to Claire Danes, who he has failed, "I did love you," were up there with the truest moments of cinema this year.
I have seen many movies about prison, set in prison, or with prison scenes in them, but Shakespeare Behind Bars offers a vastly different perspective on life in prison than any I’ve ever seen. The documentary chronicles prison inmates, most incarcerated for murder, who stage "The Tempest" and the portrayal of these men and their struggle to live with the knowledge and reality of what they've done is more humble and humanizing than any Shawshank Redemption or Dead Man Walking you’ll ever see. (Ok, 2 sentences for that one.)
Disclaimer: I still like Shawshank & DMW. Just wanted to make a point.
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| Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town |
[09 Jan 2006|11:41am] |
My web presence has increased exponentially in the last couple of weeks. First: it’s humiliating to admit, but I now have pages at both Facebook and MySpace. I know, I know, a little late to be jumping on the bandwagon. But I got sucked into Facebook by my high school friends when we hung out over break. Turns out there are legions of kids from high school on that thing, and it’s completely bizarre/totally fascinating to do a superficial “where are they now” scan of the majority of the WHS 2000 graduating class. I’m hooked. MySpace came about because Loretta Gorevin, former roommate extraordinaire and #1 internet-phobe has a MySpace page, and the absurdity of Loretta being on the internet in a place I wasn’t (she doesn’t even read our house blog; that’s how not internet-interested she is, for goodness sake) was too much.
Also, in the move (a downsize: imagine 2 girls living in a house where there were 4, where the other 2 moved out hastily, impending deadlines of a plane ticket, and a marriage, respectively, making their departures with all possessions, bedroom furniture, etc. what we shall call less than thorough.) from our lovely-but-icy-cold old house to our lovely-and-pleasingly-warm new flat, I discovered Freecycle. This place is amazing. Think no one would be interested in your old junk? Think again. There is a taker for every offer. Sometimes 30-40 takers. What fun! A list of all the things I freecycled between Dec. 20 & Jan. 4: 2 beds, 2 dressers, 1 giant love sac, 1 wooden chest, 2 pairs of ice skates, 1 dining room table, 1 box of half-used candles, a 4 person collection of movie & music & art posters, 1 giant painting of Venice, 1 ugly mirror with wicker frame, 3 area rugs, 1 large bag of half-used makeup and beauty products, 1 wine rack, 1 broken printer. In addition to the hassle-free unloading of stuff you don’t want, freecycle also serves to make you feel really popular, as though the things you have are very valuable and naturally people should be e-vying for the honor of owning something you are casting aside. I would highly recommend this service to anyone who wants to get rid of something he or she doesn’t want, as well as anyone who has self-esteem issues.
The third and probably best feature of my web presence is that Patrick and I now have a shared Netflix account (what’s next, a dog? Nah. A plant, maybe.) and we are in the thick of it. So far:
Nausicaa, Valley of the Wind 4/5, the environmental/ethical/moral issues and the strong apocalyptic themes in Japanimation movies mean you think about them long after they are over.
Lilya 4-Ever 2/5, well done, but what a downer. I cried after seeing this, and what was the point? If it was to say, “this happens,” no thanks. For those jones, I can just read Human Rights Watch.
2046, 2/5, after the gorgeous visual and narrative pleasure of In The Mood for Love, just visual pleasure does not suffice.
Lost Highway, 2/5, Patrick will disagree, but I found it too murky and disjointed and creepy-for-the-sake-of-creepy to be satisfying or even compelling. I still haven’t seen Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive, so my Lynchian education will only get better, so I hear.
On tap: The Deep End, and Season 2, Disc 1: Arrested Development.
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| next thing you know you are asleep in someone's lap |
[27 Jul 2005|11:53am] |
Do I identify with this justification of my own chosen field of study?
"I and many of my friends majored in English and other liberal arts disciplines.
I'll be honest: we did this not so much out of an abiding love for literature, but because we could throw together a decent paper overnight, because we were lazy, and because reading was the one thing we were inclined to do amidst our relationship dramas and other, assorted woes. Reading, that is, and writing crappy fiction."
- Maud Newton: Blog
Why yes, I do.
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| i, i love it when you sing to me and you, you can sing me anything |
[22 Jun 2005|04:19pm] |
I can't remember the month of April. And the month of May is mostly a blur, though my mom and my sister stopped by for a good visit somewhere around the middle. June has been lovely, with long days and warm nights. My weekends have been and promise to continue to be busy and full, with trips and weddings all over the place.
I, who once ridiculed those who complained of headaches--believing them to be phantoms, a psychological weakness, have been suffering from fairly intense (How can you tell? Degree of pain is relative only to what you yourself have experienced.) headaches for the past 6 weeks or so.
Me and You and Everyone We Know was very good.
So is the book I am and have been reading, Kavalier and Clay.
Yesterday I bought several basil plants which now sit on my back porch, soaking up the sun. I feel a hopefulness for their survival and growth like a sharp and happy pain in my chest.
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| i travel in fear that in this darkness i will disappear |
[25 Feb 2005|10:23am] |
Snow, snow, snow. Every day of this week. I am so tired of the gray and white days. Why don't we humans hibernate? I could use a good long uninterrupted sleep of oh, say, four months.
Yesterday the first issue of my birthday subscription to the New Yorker came. The article on the bird flu was fascinating but made me feel like the apocalypse is right around the corner. It preyed on all of those deep-seated childhood fears that come from reading books like Z for Zachariah, and The White Mountains.
I now have a tear-off day-by-day calendar. Apart from the suspicion that owning one means I've already tossed in the towel, given myself over to spending the majority of my life in a cubicle in which the day-to-day tear-off calendar is a weak and meaningless exertion of one's individuality, personal preference and taste in the failure-guaranteed effort to self-distinguish in what is otherwise a completely, damningly, homogenizing job, "The World According to Mister Rogers" is really amazing. That man knew what was up. I've read it before, but today's entry excerpted from his acceptance speech at the TV Hall of Fame, which is just so good. Below you'll find it in full:
Fame is a four-letter word; and like tape or zoom or face or pain or life or love, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.
I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants. It doesn't matter what our particular job, we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen-day and night!
The conductor of the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl grew up in a family that had little interest in music, but he often tells people he found his early inspiration from the fine musicians on television.
Last month a thirteen-year-old boy abducted an eight-year-old girl; and when people asked him why, he said he learned about it on TV. “Something different to try,” he said. “Life's cheap; what does it matter?”
Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.
But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own-by treating our “neighbor” at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.
Who in your life has been such a servant to you... who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life-those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight-just ten seconds of silence.
No matter where they are-either here or in heaven-imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now.
We all have only one life to live on earth. And through television, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways.
On behalf of all of us at Family Communications and the Public Broadcasting Service, I thank you for all the good that you do in this unique enterprise... and for wanting our Neighborhood to be part of this celebration tonight. Thank you very much.
Fred Rogers
Acceptance Speech
Television Hall of Fame
February, 1999
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| between the bars |
[08 Feb 2005|03:05pm] |
Two hours until 5:00p.m. I am not going to survive.
Although there is much to be said for familiarity, I find myself missing what familiarity replaced. The gaze. The eagerness. The hesitancy. The earnest articulations and elucidations. It wasn't ever exciting, but it's less so now. What of now will I miss in another four months?
On Saturday I ran five miles.
No, I'm not kidding.
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| she's hooked to the silver screen |
[02 Feb 2005|10:07am] |
Because I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do with myself:
2004 Films Seen
The Big Bounce
Goodbye Lenin!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Kill Bill Vol. 2#
Coffee and Cigarettes*
Badasssss!*#
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*#
Napoleon Dynamite
Fahrenheit 9/11
Before Sunset
The Bourne Supremacy#
Garden State#
The Village#
Collateral#
Hero
Wimbledon+#
First Daughter+#
I Heart Huckabees
Sideways
The Incredibles
Finding Neverland
House of Flying Daggers
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Aviator
Spanglish
Meet the Fockers
In Good Company
* : films I did not see in entirety, due to falling asleep at some point, but saw enough of to (in my opinion) warrant having opinions of
+ : airplane movies I wasn’t paying much attention to, and/or fell asleep during
# : not seen in the theater
were I to have a Top 5 list, those in italics would be on it
Still plan to see: Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, Ocean’s Twelve
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| smooth it out now |
[26 Jan 2005|10:30am] |
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After saying "Peace Out" to one of the student workers in my office, he turned to a fellow employee and said with an academic seriousness, "Joanna embraces the hip hop culture."
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| so on with the boots, back out in the snow |
[10 Dec 2004|10:46am] |
Unbelievable. Even though secret santa was “strictly voluntary,” the office manager decided that everyone who didn’t sign up would be assigned a secret santa regardless. so here I am, receiving gifts I don’t want. I didn’t sign up for a reason! Leave me alone! And the poor people who did sign up are being forced to give gifts to 3 or 4 people.
Voluntary my ass.
I am looking forward to Christmas. Nativity, as the Russian Orthodox tradition has it. Am looking forward to Seattle, and family, and friends who are pretty much family. Looking forward to being somewhere where I know who I am. We will see.
Our house put up our Christmas tree last Saturday. It’s lovely. Green and bare, for we have no ornaments, just one string of lights. I am the first one up in the morning, while it is still dark out, and the glow from the tree is nice to walk downstairs to.
Two years ago today Devon and I flew from Dublin to Rome, beginning our month of traveling. Or was that me? Seems like some other girl.
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| where would we be without wishful thinking? |
[29 Nov 2004|11:22am] |
What a memorable weekend.
No, there is too much.
Let me sum up:
Drove to Indiana during the worst of Blizzard 2004. A 3 ½ hour drive turned into a 6 hour haul.
Thanksgiving terrific, being with Jeff and Jane and their respective families (and of course those two magical children) was exactly what I needed.
Happy Birthday to me on Saturday. 23. Drove back up to Grand Rapids to spend birthday evening with Patrick, only to break down at the Michigan/Indiana border, only to be towed up to Grand Rapids (137 miles, $480), only to find out this morning that it was as simple as a bolt that had sheered off the alternator. What an ordeal. And I haven’t even mentioned my 2 ½ hour ride with Jeremiah, the tow-truck driver from hell. I hate to give-in to this stereotype, but I now have a new understanding of the crass term, ‘white-trash.’
Sunday--first Sunday of the Advent Season--morning to church, afternoon spent napping and evening a gorgeous (and gorge-worthy) meal at Bonefish Grille with my three wonderful roommates. Back to the house for drinks and cranberry apple birthday pie with other friends. Sensory overload.
I am lucky to be loved by all these people.
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| and someone is calling my name from the back of the restaurant |
[23 Nov 2004|12:23pm] |
Overheard in my office, from one executive director to another:
“Diversity awareness... I’m really, uh, for it.”
The office manager is trying to coerce everyone into joining the “strictly voluntary” Secret Santa exchange. From the all-divison email that went out:
“To be included in this holiday fun, simply reply to this e-mail and your name will be added to the drawing for names. Names will be drawn on Wednesday, Nov. 24 (because the next week will officially begin the fun).
If you cannot be here to uncover your secret santa, perhaps we can bring you into the meeting via speaker phones! We do not want miles to separate us from the fun!
So, please reply to this e-mail. It really is a fun time.”
Actually, I –do- want miles to separate me from “the fun.”
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| folded in this scrap of paper is a land i grew in |
[29 Sep 2004|02:39pm] |
"Afterward I met a number of readers who were so intelligent it almost scared me, and it made me want to be 23 again, hating and loving the world, and wanting to meet and meet and meet people, and be a part of life's bigness. Some came in from Reno and Stockton and Santa Rosa. I almost wanted to cry. I miss that part of being young so much."
[novelist Douglas Coupland]
This reminds me of my life. Meeting and meeting and meeting people, being part of life's bigness.
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| ain't it great, can't make the rent |
[10 Sep 2004|02:06pm] |
On our way back from lunch today a placard was posted in the building announcing the seminar, "Suicide and the Workplace."
"Is that a training session?" I wondered aloud.
We all burst out laughing.
This is what I'm being driven to.
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