The Center Seat

This January has brought two momentous occasions... well, they're momentous to me, anyway.

1. On January 4, I turned thirty.
2. And today, January 15, this blog o' mine turns one year old.

So 2008 was a pretty amazing year for me. I'm hearing a lot of people talk about how 2008 was one of the worst years ever (usually they're talking about the economy, the war, politics, what have you), but I think it was one of the best of my life. And I owe much of it to this blog, and to all of you.

It all started with a conversation in Diamonds Coffee Shoppe in Northeast Minneapolis. Dad (there he is on the left...handsome, huh?) and I were having one of those Meaningful Talks... this one was about where exactly my life was headed. I'd been divorced for about a year, and everyone knows how life-changing a divorce is. But for me, it was more than that: it was self-changing. After I had gone through the anger, and the depression, and the self-pity (believe me, there was plenty of that), I stepped back and looked at myself. I realized I was not the person I wanted to be, and only I had the power to change that. So how exactly does a person go about a full overhaul--a head-to-toe reinvention?

The thing that Dad said to me that was so powerful was that he had become successful when he had found something he was passionate about and then just pursued a career in that field. I honestly had a bit of a Juno moment (remember Mac McGuff? "Heating and cooling.") Dad's passion is life insurance, retirement plans... financial shizz. *Snore* Oh, sorry. And mine--as we all know--is the world of film. I have no idea why I never thought about writing on this subject... but I can say that ever since I started, it's changed my life. I dived headlong into this passion, and guess what? I'm happy! Will this ever lead to a full-blown career? I don't know. But I hope so. I've gone to college for journalism, psychology, special education... none of that has really lit my fire. But for the first time in my life, I have a vocational dream, and I feel like this blog has started me on that path.

Of course there were other things that changed. I had to take a frank look at a lot of things, including politics. (Can y'all believe I used to be a staunch Republican?) There were crises of faith--how can I love my gay friends, advocate for them, and still hold true to what the Bible says?* I grew close to a new group of friends, and moved away from others. And for some reason I decided to get crazy-ass hair (the dreads are totally sick now, by the way... check me out on the right). All these crazy changes have added up to this: if I look at the "me" from twelve months ago, she's barely recognizable. And that's ok. Because I'm So. Freaking. Happy.**

So what's up for 2009? Well...

I'm going to keep it up.
I'm going to stay true to myself.
I'm going to try to blog more frequently.
I'm going to try to do my job (my real job, the one I get paid for) better.
I'm going to be a better person.
And I'm finally going to show you my face.



*The answer is really quite easy. But that's a whole other blog post, on a whole other blog. Buy me a beer sometime, and we'll chat.
**I hear Kevin Kline from French Kiss in my head "When people tell me they are happy, my ass begins to twitch." But I don't care. That's how freaking happy I am. :-D ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

This one is tearing it up on the awards circuit this year. It just won Best Motion Picture - Drama at the Golden Globes last Sunday, but it also snagged what I think is a much greater honor: the best-reviewed movie of 2008 by the members of the LAMB (my kickass movie association), with an average rating of 5 LAMBs!

I also really enjoyed it. It was the first movie I went to see with Nuevo Man; afterwards he said what has come to be his standard post-indie movie observation: "I liked it a lot more than I thought I would." There's hope for him yet, folks.

Below are some stellar reviews of this stellar movie by some stellar movie bloggers. Please do click through and support my friends.

The Dark of the Matinee (****)
Getafilm (A+)
Doodad Kind of Town ("I could literally feel my spirits soaring")
Blog Cabins ("It's in the hole!" [aka Excellent]) ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

It's not great news, folks.

This film's gotta go in that category, along with Little Children and Black Hawk Down, of movies I'm glad I saw, but never want to see again. You can watch a movie like this and know in your head that it's great: great direction, great acting, great cinematography... but it hurts your heart. I know Doubt is good... but it's freaking disturbing.

It should go without saying that anytime you get Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams in the same movie, you're going to get some Acting. And I really can't gush enough on that cinematography: crazy off-kilter shots to add to the uneasiness of some of the scenes, overhead God-view shots...

But ick.

For those of you who've seen this one, I want to know: Did he or didn't he? Leave a comment, be opinionated. Like you all will have trouble with that. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

I know I've been complaining about my inability to get into the theaters lately, ad nauseum, but it really is my current greatest frustration. Seriously, I see a movie preview on TV and I almost cry. Well, the new guy in my life* must also be getting pretty sick of my whining, because he made sure we got to two** movies this weekend!

I've been waiting to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for about a year. That's when Entertainment Weekly started talking it up, probably just because of the crazy-ass concept. (It also didn't hurt that it costars my favorite actress, the sublime Cate Blanchett.) For those of you who don't know, here's the film's premise: for no apparent reason, the title character is born as an old man, who then ages in reverse for the rest of his life. So he's wrinkly and feeble for a few decades; then he's Brad Pitt-a-licious for a little while; then, inevitably, he turns into a kid and dies.

So the concept is crazy. And, I admit, that's what sucked me in. But what kept me sitting in that seat was the amazing love story between Benjamin and Daisy (Blanchett). I generally have a HUGE problem with most movies' portrayal of love. A lot of films, especially mainstream ones, completely get it wrong. Movie love tends to be trite, unrealistic, and, frankly, insulting to my intelligence. Not Benjamin Button; this film gets it right. The love between Benjamin and Daisy is real: it's rarely glamorous, and it's certainly imperfect, but it's solid, sweet, simple, and enduring.

I have to take issue with some reviews that have knocked Benjamin Button for its format. The story is a flashback, à la Bridges of Madison County, in which a dying mother relates the romance to her incredulous daughter. To add a bit more drama, the mother and daughter are in a New Orleans hospital in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina comes ashore. To be honest, I can't really see anything wrong with that. The bulk of the story takes place (or has its roots) in New Orleans, and Katrina was arguably among the most profound events in that city's history (along with the Civil War, I guess). Actually, the Katrina situation reinforces one of the main themes of the movie: nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we might want it to. And if you know anything about Brad Pitt, the boy's been neck-deep in Katrina charities for years, even moving his whole huge-ass family to live down in New Orleans. So what's the problem? I don't get it.

I do really recommend this movie. It was lovely. And it had me in tears towards the end. I think that actually surprised Nuevo Man a bit, but seriously--he's going to have to get used to that.

*Pistola calls him Nuevo Man, and I think that's as good a handle as any, though it does make him sound a bit like an archaeological find. "Nuevo Man walked upright but had weird dorsal fins." Kidding. Haven't found any dorsal fins... yet.

**We also saw Doubt, which I will do my best to review sometime this week. Really, I will. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.