The Center Seat

This one I picked up from my bud David Bishop over at Hoping For Something To Hope For. Here goes:

1. One movie that made you laugh: Juno

2. One movie that made you cry: Dances With Wolves

3. One movie you loved when you were a child: The Neverending Story

4. One movie that you have seen more than 10 times:  The Princess Bride

5. One movie you've seen multiple times in the theater: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (A bit of a backstory here: this one came out when Greg and I were newly married. When we would get into a fight, I would cool off by spending 3 hours in Middle Earth. I must have seen it in the theater 7 or 8 times.)

6. One movie you walked out on: I honestly can't remember one. I tend to stick it out, even through the dreck.

7. One movie that you can and do quote from: Star Wars

8. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Crossroads. The key word there is "were"... as many of you know, I have come to embrace the humiliation that comes with loving the Britney Spears movie. I can't help it. I want to be on a road trip with those girls.

9. One movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't gotten around to watching yet: The Deer Hunter. I've had it from Netflix for the past month or so.

10. One movie you hated: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. Pistola and I discussed this once.

11. One movie that scared you: Enemy Mine, when I was 5. I tend to avoid scary now.

12. One movie that made you happy: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I left the theater with an actual spring in my step.

13. One movie that made you miserable: Taxi to the Dark Side

14. One movie musical for which you know all the lyrics to all the songs: The Sound of Music

15. One movie that you have been known to sing along with: Moulin Rouge!

16. One movie you would recommend that everyone see: Casablanca. I admit I stole this one from David, but he's right on.

17. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with: Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

18. One actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie: Edward Norton.

19. One actor that would make you less likely to see a movie: Steven Seagal.

20. One of the last movies you saw: Once

21. One of the next movies you hope to see: Australia ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

So Captain Crash is off living with his mommy in Arizona. Greg is doing who knows what somewhere with a high school girl*. And Nathaniel and I broke up on Wednesday**. So it's back to just me and Zoe the putty tat. Ah, well. Maybe now I'll have time to catch a movie here and there.

*Don't really know, don't care to know.
**I hold him in the highest respect; we just couldn't agree on a deal-breaking issue.

And after all that, I didn't go. It rained. Whatevs. I'm going to do my bestest to go this weekend.

Greg is definitely moving to California next month. I think I'm ok... whether I stay that way or crumple into a million devastated pieces remains to be seen.

I'm catching an advance screening of The Visitor tonight. I'll let ya know.

P.S. Sorry I've been so lame this week. I'm doing some major catch-up at that job where they actually pay me. I'll try to slack off a little more.

Greg and I have this habit... we get together, fully intending to work together on his homework (it's a screenwriting class, and I'm a fairly fast typist), but we end up just hanging out. Watching a movie, going out to eat, whatever. You could say it's because we're lazy or procrastinators (and you probably wouldn't be too far off), but I think it may have more to do with the fact that we genuinely miss each other's company. You know, we were together for a reason... It's nice to remember the good stuff about being his friend, and not just the heartbreaking stuff.

So a few Saturdays back, we did just that... we got together to work, but just ended up going to Landmark's Edina Cinema to see The Band's Visit. (Side note: I could never get him to come see indie movies with me when we were married! What is the deal with that?)


Before seeing this movie, all I really knew about it was what I had seen on the "coming soon" posters around Landmark's theaters. I figured it would be a continuation of 2006's Oscar-winning short West Bank Story, which provided comic relief on the subject of Israeli-Palestinian tensions. I loved that movie, so I figured this one couldn't be all bad. And it wasn't... but I didn't think it was anything like West Bank Story; where that film was wildly hilarious, The Band's Visit was gently touching.

The story centers around an Egyptian (Arab) police band who visits Israel and mistakenly heads to the wrong town. You expect all kinds of crazy Arab/Israeli tension, and there's a little, but mostly the film is just about human beings passing through each other's lives for one day. Everyone in the movie seems a little lost... not just geographically, but personally.

Surprisingly, although the credits are in Hebrew and Arabic, most of the film is in English (which is why it wasn't eligible for the 2007 Academy Award category for Foreign Language Film). There are a few moments, when either the Arab or Israeli groups are alone, when Hebrew and Arabic are spoken, but English seems to be the lingua franca for the two cultures, so that's what we hear most of the time.

And, hey, some of the cinematography kicks ass (see the above still).

It's not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

Have you ever been in a situation so shocking, so devastating, that it changes reality around you? Suddenly there's a buzzing in your ears... the colors seem oversaturated... everything looks like it's moving under a strobe light. I have experienced this only twice in my life: once, when my beloved friend Jacob died unexpectedly, and the second time, when Greg asked for the divorce. At that point, the world around you doesn't seem quite real; your senses, or your brain, or whatever, doesn't want to accept how reality has suddenly and irrevocably changed for you.

Hard Candy captures that circumstance in a spectacular fashion, in ways other movies have only flirted with. It's the story of a fourteen-year-old girl (played precociously by a younger Ellen Page) who begins to seduce a thirty-two-year-old pedophile, and then suddenly turns the tables on him. After she gets the upper hand, the ways in which she toys with him are simply horrifying, and we experience with him that surreal suspension of reality.

The movie begins blandly enough, with the two flirting in a chatroom, meeting at a diner, going to his place... but then he starts to feel kind of fuzzy. He passes out; when he wakes up, he's bound tightly to a chair, and the whole tone of the movie changes. We actually feel sorry for him... he doesn't seem so bad! We wonder why she tortures him as she does--is she a bit insane? Well, of course she is. But she's not wrong.

As the movie devolves, as the terror within the man starts to grow, as we see the inevitable conclusion looming, we start to see the world as he does. Scenes are interspersed with blinding, full-screen flashes of red. Images get blurry... the girl moves as if under a strobe. We swim in denial with the man (she can't be doing this!). We witness his heartbreak; we watch as he is completely broken.

For any of us who have spent a bit of time on this planet, the experience is completely familiar. Of course we're not all pedophiles, confronted with evidence of our sins... but most of us have experienced that distortion of our senses that happens when we must deal with something utterly terrible. I, for one, hope I've lived through that for the last time. ...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.

1. I'm officially done with the Oscars for the season. If someone else wants to discuss it, cool, but I will not be making any more Oscar posts.
   
2. I haven't quit making my daily McDonald's breakfast run. I figure, what the heck? Plus, they're giving the burritos away for free this Thursday and Friday.
   
3. Greg and I killed a bottle of Jacob's Creek Sparkling Rosé last night. It sucked. So we switched to Yellow Tail Pinot G. It didn't suck.
   
4. Today was "hat day" at work. I love hat day. I wore a Park City, UT trucker cap with pigtails. I want to go to Sundance someday. Anyone want to cart me along?
   
5. Captain Crash and I are going to finish watching In the Valley of Elah tonight. Also received from Netflix: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
   
6. I'm getting mixed thoughts from coworkers and friends... but I'll put this to you. I am contemplating dreadlocks. I feel like there's a lot of "edge" inside me that doesn't express itself in my personal style. Does that make any sense? I think I'm definitely going to do it.
   
7. I saw Spiderwick Chronicles last Wednesday and was underwhelmed. I intend to do a full post on it in the near future.
   

Well, there you go. I couldn't muster up a full-on, well-thought-out post, so I just thought I'd catch you up on some of the myriad thoughts bouncing around in my noodle.

I hate Valentine's Day.

OK, granted, it is my first Valentine's as a single person in several years... but that's not the only reason I'm humbugging today.

When we're single, Valentine's just feels like "I'm a Loser Day".

When we're not single, it isn't much better....

Let me put it this way. When we were married, if Greg had gone all out with the romantic dinner and/or jewelry and/or chocolate and/or flowers--on January 27--I would have been absolutely thrilled. He would have been God's gift to women, and I would have been the lucky wife of the most romantic man on the planet!

But if Greg had done the exact same thing eighteen days later, on Val's Day.... meh. Even worse, if he dared to not do that stuff on February 14, he would have been a failure, an absolute scuzz.

Now this makes me sound like I was a shallow, demanding wife... but I'm just commenting on modern cultural expectations in general. And for the record, I think they're crap. What kind of a weird monkey dance are we putting our loved ones through?

I hereby have no expectations for any future Valentine's Day for the rest of my life. If the day is really about love, I'm going to spend it reflecting on the people that are important to me (ALL the people, not just a romantic partner), and to be thankful for them. Memo to all future lovers: no candy hearts, no diamond earrings, no teddy bears necessary on February 14! Just a kiss and an "I love you." Here's the catch, though... I need that lovin' every single day. And for real cheesecake points (I'm not huge on brownies), do the romantic dinners, sweet gifts, and general cherishin'.... ALL YEAR LONG.

Meanwhile, (at the risk of being the crazy cat lady) my Valentine this year is Zoe the putty tat.

...Click here for the rest of this tasty post.