my grandmother broke her hip. :( she is still in the hospital but she is doing better. i talked to her today and she was pretty drugged up. the conversation went like this:
me: so did they replace your entire hip???
my gma: no, they just put a piece of metal in it
*after slurring jibberish for about 15 seconds*
my gma: they replaced it with almond with brown trim...
me: what?!!
my gma: the kitchen cabinets
then she asked what we were talking about and told me not to believe anything she was saying because she is drugged up. my poor grandmother!! hopefully she'll laugh at this post when she's back to normal and back online. please keep her in your thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. :)
i've been watching a lot of mediocre movies that i haven't tore into yet... so here are some harsh mini-reviews:
Friends with Money: people who like B movies will think they're watching a clever "indie" flick but will soon be disappointed when the movie just ENDS without much resolution of conflict, character or... anything. once again Jennifer Aniston plays the role of the misunderstood, less fortunate chick and Frances McDormand plays a neurotic.
The Machinist: hmmm... insomniac hallucinates and creates an alter-ego scapegoat in his head. in the end, we learn the scapegoat doesn't exist and it was the insomniac who was self-inducing havoc upon himself the whole time. sound familiar?? hey The Machinist, Fight Club called and pointed and laughed at you. looks like Christian Bale wasted his time starving himself.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills: so bad it's not good. Richard Dreyfuss plays the fussy, short-tempered husband. Bette Midler plays his over-the-top wife. and Nick Nolte is the stranger (or in this case, the bum) who enters a dysfunctional family, solves every one's problems and in doing so, pisses off the man who took him under his wing. typical and predictable. you should be watching What about Bob? instead.
Knocked Up: if you thought Anchor Man, Wedding Crashers and Grandma's Boy were funny... then we would not get along ;) but you'd also like this gem of a B comedy that will leave you saying "hey, isn't that that fat kid from Super Bad???" (the answer is "yes").
The Lost Weekend: rented it because i like Billy Wilder's work (ok, just Sunset Blvd.) but after watching this, i felt like i was the one who lost their weekend. despite what some fanatics say, The Lost Weekend is laughable dated. had i seen it when it debuted in 1945, maybe i would have thought it was edgy (the movie is about an alcoholic) but now it's as cheesy and exaggerated as Wiona Rider in the remake of Mr. Deeds.
Psycho: a classic. no complaints. Alfred Hitchcock is the man. :) i even watched all of the special features/making of Psycho. did you know the infamous shower scene took ONE WEEK to film and a body double was used??? to keep the public (and potential viewers) on their toes, Hitchcock even announced he was casting the role of mother and thousands of resumes were sent in. oh, that twist ending. ;)
friday: i have a job interview and aldo is spending the night.
saturday: rick and i are looking at a potential place to rent since our lease is up in december but i am thinking about moving back to jersey, so this all could be a waste of time. who knows...
funny stuff...
me: let's pretend it's friday and have some fun!!
rick: what, because we can only have fun on fridays?!
me: yesssss.
HAVE A GOOD FRIDAY EVERYONE. :)
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
"Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" ~Auntie Mame
i like to watch old movies. recently (this week and last), i watched:
Inherit the Wind: good movie, great acting but i prefer the book... but i'm biased because it's one of my favorite books. i haven't read the book since 2003-2004 and i'm sure it states this fact, but i never pictured Henry Drummond to be that old. (Drummond is the attorney for Cates, the man on trial for teaching evolution in school). very few minor differences seperate the movie from the published screenplay.
Auntie Mame: long, but worth the watch. a tale of an eccentric woman/aunt and her nephew as told in classic 1950s style. (lots of upbeat instrumental jazz music between and during scenes; subtle innuendos; and awesome "modern" decor). the story was actually a play, once starring Lucille Ball.
most memorable quote:
"Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" ~Auntie Mame
Rebel Without a Cause: first time i've ever seen a james dean movie and honestly, i was expecting more. his acting was great, but i imagined him having a deeper, manlier voice and being more handsome. (but i guess he had that sensitive guy thing going for him). after watching one of the first scenes, i turned to rick and said, "i think james franco makes a better james dean."
cool part:
a majority of the movie was filmed at the griffith observatory.
My Man Godfrey: a classic "screwball" comedy. the plot: rich folks get their kicks playing scavenger hunts. one of the itmes on the list: "a forgotten man." (aka: a bum). girl falls in love with bum she finds at the city dump, makes him her family's new butler. comedy ensues. evil sister hates him because he wouldn't be her forgotten man, but there's more to him than meets the eye. rick and i both enjoyed it up until the very ending. we didn't want him to end up with her... but the movie ends before anything is official... so maybe he didn't end up with her. (don't worry, i didn't ruin the movie, you can still watch it).
funny quote from the movie:
Angelica Bullock: You mustn't come between Irene and Godfrey. He's the first thing she's shown any affection for since her pomeranian died last summer.
Inherit the Wind: good movie, great acting but i prefer the book... but i'm biased because it's one of my favorite books. i haven't read the book since 2003-2004 and i'm sure it states this fact, but i never pictured Henry Drummond to be that old. (Drummond is the attorney for Cates, the man on trial for teaching evolution in school). very few minor differences seperate the movie from the published screenplay.
Auntie Mame: long, but worth the watch. a tale of an eccentric woman/aunt and her nephew as told in classic 1950s style. (lots of upbeat instrumental jazz music between and during scenes; subtle innuendos; and awesome "modern" decor). the story was actually a play, once starring Lucille Ball.
most memorable quote:
"Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" ~Auntie Mame
Rebel Without a Cause: first time i've ever seen a james dean movie and honestly, i was expecting more. his acting was great, but i imagined him having a deeper, manlier voice and being more handsome. (but i guess he had that sensitive guy thing going for him). after watching one of the first scenes, i turned to rick and said, "i think james franco makes a better james dean."
cool part:
a majority of the movie was filmed at the griffith observatory.
My Man Godfrey: a classic "screwball" comedy. the plot: rich folks get their kicks playing scavenger hunts. one of the itmes on the list: "a forgotten man." (aka: a bum). girl falls in love with bum she finds at the city dump, makes him her family's new butler. comedy ensues. evil sister hates him because he wouldn't be her forgotten man, but there's more to him than meets the eye. rick and i both enjoyed it up until the very ending. we didn't want him to end up with her... but the movie ends before anything is official... so maybe he didn't end up with her. (don't worry, i didn't ruin the movie, you can still watch it).
funny quote from the movie:
Angelica Bullock: You mustn't come between Irene and Godfrey. He's the first thing she's shown any affection for since her pomeranian died last summer.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
the tuesday that felt like a monday.
my goal was to clean. i didn't get very far, but i managed to put away all of my clothes, make some room in my closet, sort through a bunch of my papers that were covering rick's desk and almost finish my little photo project i started on the fridge. i also found a 1950's blonde wood desk on craigslist that will soon become my craft space. so now... desk :: craft space as kitchen table :: food space. (finally). i also cleaned the cat box (one of my not-so-favorite activities) and watched the hills online.
funny story: this weekend when rick and i went to my favorite spanish food store, we were in the checkout line when i remembered i wanted a head of iceberg lettuce, so rick ran back to get one... fast forward to tonight's dinner: i made the veges and rick was in charge of making the salad. he shredded the lettuce; cut up the cucumbers and the tomatoes; got out the olives, croutons and the walnuts. (we make a goood salad!!) so i walk over to grab some lettuce and notice that it's CABBAGE. he had accidentally grabbed a head of cabbage instead iceberg lettuce... which isn't a uncommon mistake for guys to make in a grocery store, i'm sure. ;) so now we're stuck with a fresh head of cabbage that neither of us will eat. so i walk over to our neighbors' to see if she could use it. she says "oh sure. i can't remember the last time i had cabbage!! and i hate to see food go to waste," so she takes it. then she says, "hey, wait. do you want some lettuce?!" then hands me a HUMUGOUS head of really nice romaine lettuce she bought at a organic farmer's market. then she asks, "do you need some tomatoes too???" just thought that was one of the nicest things ever. she also told me she'll food-swap whenever i wanted, hehe. moral of the story: one small act of kindness brings back double.
during dinner, rick and i watched A Simple Plan which i HIGHLY recommend. i can't recall a time when i wanted to describe a movie as "gripping," until now. the plot is very suspenseful and will have you guessing until the very end. the plot is very comparable to something Andre Dubus would create. and since most well-written scripts were adapted from a novel, novella or short story, i was not surprised to learn the movie is the screenplay version of the novel A Simple Plan by Scott B. Smith. according to imdb.com, brad pitt was asked to play the main character, which would have ruined the film. you could roll brad pitt around in mud, but he'll still look too "pretty" and not rugged enough to portray a farm-raised working man. the casting in this film is right on and the acting is highly believable.
around 9:30 pm, rick and went swimming. :) it was a warm night and the pool was even warmer. i haven't been swimming at night since last summer.
tomorrow: work for michael. early.
friday: pick up my "new" desk. :)
saturday: promo.
funny story: this weekend when rick and i went to my favorite spanish food store, we were in the checkout line when i remembered i wanted a head of iceberg lettuce, so rick ran back to get one... fast forward to tonight's dinner: i made the veges and rick was in charge of making the salad. he shredded the lettuce; cut up the cucumbers and the tomatoes; got out the olives, croutons and the walnuts. (we make a goood salad!!) so i walk over to grab some lettuce and notice that it's CABBAGE. he had accidentally grabbed a head of cabbage instead iceberg lettuce... which isn't a uncommon mistake for guys to make in a grocery store, i'm sure. ;) so now we're stuck with a fresh head of cabbage that neither of us will eat. so i walk over to our neighbors' to see if she could use it. she says "oh sure. i can't remember the last time i had cabbage!! and i hate to see food go to waste," so she takes it. then she says, "hey, wait. do you want some lettuce?!" then hands me a HUMUGOUS head of really nice romaine lettuce she bought at a organic farmer's market. then she asks, "do you need some tomatoes too???" just thought that was one of the nicest things ever. she also told me she'll food-swap whenever i wanted, hehe. moral of the story: one small act of kindness brings back double.
during dinner, rick and i watched A Simple Plan which i HIGHLY recommend. i can't recall a time when i wanted to describe a movie as "gripping," until now. the plot is very suspenseful and will have you guessing until the very end. the plot is very comparable to something Andre Dubus would create. and since most well-written scripts were adapted from a novel, novella or short story, i was not surprised to learn the movie is the screenplay version of the novel A Simple Plan by Scott B. Smith. according to imdb.com, brad pitt was asked to play the main character, which would have ruined the film. you could roll brad pitt around in mud, but he'll still look too "pretty" and not rugged enough to portray a farm-raised working man. the casting in this film is right on and the acting is highly believable.
around 9:30 pm, rick and went swimming. :) it was a warm night and the pool was even warmer. i haven't been swimming at night since last summer.
tomorrow: work for michael. early.
friday: pick up my "new" desk. :)
saturday: promo.
Monday, September 3, 2007
labor day weekend.
saturday afternoon: rick and i went swimming!! we wound up playing frisbee in the pool for a looong time. surprisingly, there were only three other people at the pool for the majority of the day. rick and i watched The Manchurian Candidate while we were eating an early dinner. it was a decent movie, but predictable with every stereotypical character for its genre - the obscure older man/scientist who gives the protagonist the necessary meds; the female stranger who (has an interest in the protagonist) and switches sides to help him; and the whacko (who dies mid-movie) who is really telling the truth but no one believes him. it was definitely watchable, but i don't think it lives up to the 6.7 it received on imdb.com. the original Manchurian Candidate (with frank sinatra) received an 8.3 - VERY high for on imdb.com and sounds like the wiser option to watch, so rick and i are going to try to find and rent it.
saturday evening: i got my first taste of a rolling blackout when we lost power for 35 minutes. i really wish the government (the californian government especially) would subsidize solar power instead of SUVs. (a point my boyfriend brought up when we were discussing the matter). just shows you what the government deems more "important." gas. oil. owning energy. depleting our natural resources. i firmly believe the government killed the electric car and that if people just let the government continue to be as corrupt as it is, we are all screwed. so now i'm feeling inspired to write to my congressman. :) or i think you have an option to call them.
saturday night: rick and i watched Butterflies are Free while playing scrabble. the movie (starring Edward Albert and Goldie Hawn) is about a blind man who moves out and gets his first apartment, neighboring Hawn who becomes his friend. Hawn is 27 in the movie, but looks and sounds MUCH younger. definitely rent the movie if you are a fan of hers just to hear how high-pitched her voice is!!
sunday morning: went over rick's parent's house. we were going to go to church with his sister, but she's sick :( so we hung out with his parents and ate breakfast instead. then we stopped over tim's house and went to the dollar store (to buy a beach ball) and then went to my favorite spanish super market (to buy produce). after we got back, rick and i watched The Holiday with his mom. had to have been my sixth time watching it, but it's a really well-made romantic comedy. definitely the last relatively recent movie (besides The Simpsons that i actually enjoyed.
sunday afternoon: we picked up rick's neices...
and took them back to rick's parents' house. after eating some BBQ, we colored and painted these cute little ceramic animals rick picked up on our way there. after we returned the girls to their house, we were EXHAUSTED. they didn't want us to leave. isabel (the oldest) was hanging on my leg and Daniella kept wanting to be picked up and called me "her" jena.
sunday night: after finishing some laundry and checking out rick's mom's photos from hawaii, we headed back to the apartment. (oh, p.s. rick also showed me the blood stains that are still in the parking lot of the store he was in when he cut his hand. eww!!)
monday morning: we bummed around in the heat. i wrote a short story (see my blog from yesterday). rick and i walked to the store so i could buy pretzels (of course).
monday afternoon: we went swimming. the pool was SO warm that it was not-at-all refreshing, but it was still fun. there were A LOT of people there. i was being quite the "pool pest" to ricardo which entails hanging on someone when they're trying to swim and trying to dunk them under the water constantly. it's fun, try it. ;) note: it's important to know your boundaries because your friends might never want to go swimming with you again. my tip: in between pestering, leave them alone for sparatic intervals of 5 minutes. that way, you won't seem as relentless. after we got back, we lost power for 30 minutes which sucked because i was just in the middle of creating something really kewl (and unsaved) in photoshop and i lost it. :( so now i'm saving projects after every significant addition or edit. during the blackout, we started cleaning the kitchen since we couldn't go online. hehe.
monday night: we ate a late dinner and started watching People I Know (with Al Pacino and Tea Leoni). about 15-20 minutes into the movie, we finally had to read the back of the box because we still didn't know what was happening or what the movie was supposed to be about... it was that awful.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
dear nicolas cage, loosen up.
tonight rick, aldo and i watched Matchstick Men. here's the plot outline from imdb.com:
"A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly."
it was realllly good!! nicolas cage always comes off as a bad actor (in my opinion), but somehow he gets by in every role. he seems limited by his own body, like his face and his body are too stiff. maybe it's just how he carries himself. he needs to loosen up!! anyway, the only problem i had with the plot was the ending. the movie should have ended where it seems to end instead of after the TMI provided in the "one year later..." segment. the info we learn is unnecessary and was best left to the imagination as to what happened next. usually the best endings are no endings at all.
here is the funniest part of the entire movie... nicolas cage's character storms into a drugstore demanding pills (he's a bit OCD and thinks he has mental problems) but he has to wait his turn...
the funniest part: after i made rick rewind so we could watch that scene again, i said: "we should record that and post it on youtube!!" and rick said, "it probably already is on youtube." and surely enough, it is.
"A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly."
it was realllly good!! nicolas cage always comes off as a bad actor (in my opinion), but somehow he gets by in every role. he seems limited by his own body, like his face and his body are too stiff. maybe it's just how he carries himself. he needs to loosen up!! anyway, the only problem i had with the plot was the ending. the movie should have ended where it seems to end instead of after the TMI provided in the "one year later..." segment. the info we learn is unnecessary and was best left to the imagination as to what happened next. usually the best endings are no endings at all.
here is the funniest part of the entire movie... nicolas cage's character storms into a drugstore demanding pills (he's a bit OCD and thinks he has mental problems) but he has to wait his turn...
the funniest part: after i made rick rewind so we could watch that scene again, i said: "we should record that and post it on youtube!!" and rick said, "it probably already is on youtube." and surely enough, it is.
Monday, July 23, 2007
one day i will write a post that doesn't include a movie review...
but today is not that day. ;) hahaha.
friday: worked for michael/finished up some wedding albums. rick and i watched Children of Men, a post-apocalyptic movie set in england in 2027. it was a really griping film. definitely held our attention but then, the movie just ends. abruptly. which made me really disappointed (unless they make a sequel). however, after rationizing with myself, i finally concluded that it was acceptable for the movie to just end like that because the movie is based on a book and a book would end like that. but apparently (i've heard) the book is pretty lousy and the movie is waaaaaaaay better (and much different) from the book.
saturday: worked a promo event. rick met me for lunch and brought me cantaloupe. since the promo was in a store, people usually ask me where certain products are and usually i don't know the answer. so one guy approached me and said (with an english accent) "allo, love!! how are you today???" i inhaled, preparing myself to give the whole "i don't really work here" spiel... but to my surprise he simply said, "you have very nice eyes and eyelashes. but don't tell nobody." hahaha. another funny quotation occurred as an old lady was approaching me. she had a sample of some sort of drink. after taking a sip, she stopped in front of me, with a disgusted look on her face and said, "this tastes like that old milk of magnesia my mother used to give me when i wouldn't go to the bathroom." i laughed as she proceeded to finish drinking the rest.
after work, rick and i went food shopping and then watched Pan's Labyrinth while eating dinner. it's a spanish movie about a little girl's fantasy world as she deals with living in facist spain (1944) as the "step-daughter of a sadistic army officer." i was worried that i wouldn't like it because i'm not a fan of science fiction, but rick and i had heard good things and imdb.com gave it an 8.5. however, after watching it, we both felt the movie didn't deserve that high of a rating. it's captivating and all, but it didn't live up to all of its hype.
cd i finally listened to and wasn't all that impressed with: G-Love's "Lemonade." (but it is kewl the cd looks like a lemon).
cd i can't stop listening to because all of the songs are so good on it and it reminds me of summer: Foo Fighters "There is Nothing Left to Lose." Mmmm.
FACT: "There is Nothing Left to Lose" won a grammy in 2000 for "Best Rock Album."
FACT: early editions of the album came with an "FF" temporary tattoo... which i still have and am always tempted to wear whenever i see it. :)
FACT: David Eric Grohl is the Peter Pan of Rock n' Roll.
friday: worked for michael/finished up some wedding albums. rick and i watched Children of Men, a post-apocalyptic movie set in england in 2027. it was a really griping film. definitely held our attention but then, the movie just ends. abruptly. which made me really disappointed (unless they make a sequel). however, after rationizing with myself, i finally concluded that it was acceptable for the movie to just end like that because the movie is based on a book and a book would end like that. but apparently (i've heard) the book is pretty lousy and the movie is waaaaaaaay better (and much different) from the book.
saturday: worked a promo event. rick met me for lunch and brought me cantaloupe. since the promo was in a store, people usually ask me where certain products are and usually i don't know the answer. so one guy approached me and said (with an english accent) "allo, love!! how are you today???" i inhaled, preparing myself to give the whole "i don't really work here" spiel... but to my surprise he simply said, "you have very nice eyes and eyelashes. but don't tell nobody." hahaha. another funny quotation occurred as an old lady was approaching me. she had a sample of some sort of drink. after taking a sip, she stopped in front of me, with a disgusted look on her face and said, "this tastes like that old milk of magnesia my mother used to give me when i wouldn't go to the bathroom." i laughed as she proceeded to finish drinking the rest.
after work, rick and i went food shopping and then watched Pan's Labyrinth while eating dinner. it's a spanish movie about a little girl's fantasy world as she deals with living in facist spain (1944) as the "step-daughter of a sadistic army officer." i was worried that i wouldn't like it because i'm not a fan of science fiction, but rick and i had heard good things and imdb.com gave it an 8.5. however, after watching it, we both felt the movie didn't deserve that high of a rating. it's captivating and all, but it didn't live up to all of its hype.
cd i finally listened to and wasn't all that impressed with: G-Love's "Lemonade." (but it is kewl the cd looks like a lemon).
cd i can't stop listening to because all of the songs are so good on it and it reminds me of summer: Foo Fighters "There is Nothing Left to Lose." Mmmm.
FACT: "There is Nothing Left to Lose" won a grammy in 2000 for "Best Rock Album."
FACT: early editions of the album came with an "FF" temporary tattoo... which i still have and am always tempted to wear whenever i see it. :)
FACT: David Eric Grohl is the Peter Pan of Rock n' Roll.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
wedding albums, saggy boobs and Cary Grant.
wednesday: worked, designing wedding albums. i also retouched two photos of a lady who was unhappy with her appearance at her daughter's wedding and blamed michael for not telling her that she had saggy breasts. so i had to retouch her boobs, haha. rick and i wound up watching Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), the original, spanish version of Vanilla Sky. naturally i like the original, spanish version more (because foreign films are almost always better), but unfortunately both movies are equally as confusing. still, i don't understand why Cameron Crowe felt this movie needed to be remade.
wednesday night: i wrote a poem, but it needs to go through another stage of editing. i've been trying to write again, but i usually end up with nothing. i start with a few really great lines, but my problem is i don't know whether or not the lines should form a poem or be incorporated into a short story. there's no doubt the writing minor i earned in college has improved my writing skills, but since then, the technicalities of the syntax usurps my creativity. :(
thursday: worked, creating wedding albums. rick and i watched Born into Brothels because rick had never seen it. it's an amazing doctumentary about a photographer who visits Calcutta, teaches children of prostitutes how to use cameras and then tries to help the children get an education. the film illustrates how one person CAN make a difference (and in this instance impact the lives of children who deserve a better life). i highly recommend it.
after rick went to bed, i watched His Girl Friday, an old Cary Grant flick. pretty typical for its time... but it received an 8.0 on imdb.com!! Grant was such a handsome devil.
wednesday night: i wrote a poem, but it needs to go through another stage of editing. i've been trying to write again, but i usually end up with nothing. i start with a few really great lines, but my problem is i don't know whether or not the lines should form a poem or be incorporated into a short story. there's no doubt the writing minor i earned in college has improved my writing skills, but since then, the technicalities of the syntax usurps my creativity. :(
thursday: worked, creating wedding albums. rick and i watched Born into Brothels because rick had never seen it. it's an amazing doctumentary about a photographer who visits Calcutta, teaches children of prostitutes how to use cameras and then tries to help the children get an education. the film illustrates how one person CAN make a difference (and in this instance impact the lives of children who deserve a better life). i highly recommend it.
after rick went to bed, i watched His Girl Friday, an old Cary Grant flick. pretty typical for its time... but it received an 8.0 on imdb.com!! Grant was such a handsome devil.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
ghost world vs. art school confidential.
monday: scanned and edited photos. went to the bank, the post office and the food store. made rick some orange jello loaded with fresh peaches. rick and i went swimming. tim and aldrin stopped by. nothing too exciting to report.
tuesday: finished my masterpiece made of wires. went to the library and costco with rick. during dinner, we watched Art School Confidential - a movie based on a comic book by Daniel Clowes. i was eager to see this movie because Daniel Clowes wrote one of my favorite movies and graphic novels, Ghost World. he also wrote Ice Haven, which is really good. however, i was disappointed with Art School Confidential the movie. I was REALLY surprised Terry Zwigoff directed it because throughout the entire movie, i sat there thinking, "Damn, i wish Terry Zwigoff (the same guy who directed Ghost World) directed this instead of whoever is responsible for this..." but what can you expect from the same guy who directed Bad Santa?! OUCH. maybe i just had overly high expectations. rick actually enjoyed Art School more than Ghost World because "this movie didn't have slow, boring parts where nothing happens."
Art School Confidential wasn't dark enough for me. it hinted and brushed over dark plot, but never embraced the dark humor to make it its own. bottom line: Ghost World is better; watch that instead. i remember how thrilled i was the first time i watched Ghost World. a I-can't-believe-I-didn't-see-this-in-theaters, where-have-you-been-all-my-life?! kind of feeling swept over me. i made EVERYBODY watch it. and of course my best friends andrea and margot loved it and started quoting it as much as i was. then during my freshman year of college, i introduced Ghost World to a room full of people who wanted to watch a good movie... and they hated it. i actually FELT them hate it. the WHOLE room. they made me take the tape out before it even reached the 1/4 point because it was "too weird" and "depressing." they obviously didn't have the same sense of humor i have. so we all watched 10 Things I Hate About You instead... which i couldn't complain about, but i sat there thinking about how close-minded they all were.
their loss.
plans for this week include:
wednesday (and possibly thursday and/or friday) - work
saturday - promo gig
sunday - MINI POLA NERD FIELD TRIP!!!! :D
i also want to listen to all of the CDs i checked out of the library and PAINT.
tuesday: finished my masterpiece made of wires. went to the library and costco with rick. during dinner, we watched Art School Confidential - a movie based on a comic book by Daniel Clowes. i was eager to see this movie because Daniel Clowes wrote one of my favorite movies and graphic novels, Ghost World. he also wrote Ice Haven, which is really good. however, i was disappointed with Art School Confidential the movie. I was REALLY surprised Terry Zwigoff directed it because throughout the entire movie, i sat there thinking, "Damn, i wish Terry Zwigoff (the same guy who directed Ghost World) directed this instead of whoever is responsible for this..." but what can you expect from the same guy who directed Bad Santa?! OUCH. maybe i just had overly high expectations. rick actually enjoyed Art School more than Ghost World because "this movie didn't have slow, boring parts where nothing happens."
Art School Confidential wasn't dark enough for me. it hinted and brushed over dark plot, but never embraced the dark humor to make it its own. bottom line: Ghost World is better; watch that instead. i remember how thrilled i was the first time i watched Ghost World. a I-can't-believe-I-didn't-see-this-in-theaters, where-have-you-been-all-my-life?! kind of feeling swept over me. i made EVERYBODY watch it. and of course my best friends andrea and margot loved it and started quoting it as much as i was. then during my freshman year of college, i introduced Ghost World to a room full of people who wanted to watch a good movie... and they hated it. i actually FELT them hate it. the WHOLE room. they made me take the tape out before it even reached the 1/4 point because it was "too weird" and "depressing." they obviously didn't have the same sense of humor i have. so we all watched 10 Things I Hate About You instead... which i couldn't complain about, but i sat there thinking about how close-minded they all were.
their loss.
plans for this week include:
wednesday (and possibly thursday and/or friday) - work
saturday - promo gig
sunday - MINI POLA NERD FIELD TRIP!!!! :D
i also want to listen to all of the CDs i checked out of the library and PAINT.
Monday, July 16, 2007
away for the weekend
rick and i stayed at his parents' house this weekend while they were away. i worked two promo gigs and rick and i watched a few movies and a lot of tv. (we were having cable withdrawals).
friday: we made dinner and watched Napoleon Dynamite because rick had never seen it. we both agree it doesn't live up to the hype. and the most hilarious part was after we finished watching it, we turned to the dvd player off and guess what was playing on MTV... NAPOLEON DYNAMITE!! hahaha.
saturday: rick and i went to jamba juice with aldrin. then we went into Nordstrom Rack and i bought a really kewl pair of plaid hurley board shorts, a pair of BRIGHT neon green roxy capris and a cute SOFT gray tee shirt. rick and aldrin actually left me there and came back for me because i take a realllllly long time to shop. then rick and i took his dog magoo to the beach. he loved it.
saturday night: we watched North By Northwest a really good Hitchcock film with Cary Grant. so good i even watched the extras/the making of the film and that was pretty good too!! Hitchcock takes the cake for suspense thrillers.
by sunday i was itching to hug miss gray and eat lots of pretzels and upload more photos onto flickr. and rick was itching to play resident evil. hehehe.
sunday: on our way home i bought a half crate of fresh strawberries, Mmmmm!! miss gray was REALLY happy to see us. she was meowing up a storm and even rubbing against rick's legs!! (she's still wary around rick). during dinner we watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High because i have never seen it. it make me feel like watching 10 Things I Hate About You (i really like that movie) but i actually liked Fast Times more than i liked American Graffiti. still, 10 Things and Clueless are tied for my favorite teen/high school comedy but maybe that's because i was a teenager in the 90s.
music i can't stop listening to: Charlotte Gainsbourg's "5:55" album and Susanne Vega's "Nine Objects of Desire" album. good stuff.
friday: we made dinner and watched Napoleon Dynamite because rick had never seen it. we both agree it doesn't live up to the hype. and the most hilarious part was after we finished watching it, we turned to the dvd player off and guess what was playing on MTV... NAPOLEON DYNAMITE!! hahaha.
saturday: rick and i went to jamba juice with aldrin. then we went into Nordstrom Rack and i bought a really kewl pair of plaid hurley board shorts, a pair of BRIGHT neon green roxy capris and a cute SOFT gray tee shirt. rick and aldrin actually left me there and came back for me because i take a realllllly long time to shop. then rick and i took his dog magoo to the beach. he loved it.
saturday night: we watched North By Northwest a really good Hitchcock film with Cary Grant. so good i even watched the extras/the making of the film and that was pretty good too!! Hitchcock takes the cake for suspense thrillers.
by sunday i was itching to hug miss gray and eat lots of pretzels and upload more photos onto flickr. and rick was itching to play resident evil. hehehe.
sunday: on our way home i bought a half crate of fresh strawberries, Mmmmm!! miss gray was REALLY happy to see us. she was meowing up a storm and even rubbing against rick's legs!! (she's still wary around rick). during dinner we watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High because i have never seen it. it make me feel like watching 10 Things I Hate About You (i really like that movie) but i actually liked Fast Times more than i liked American Graffiti. still, 10 Things and Clueless are tied for my favorite teen/high school comedy but maybe that's because i was a teenager in the 90s.
music i can't stop listening to: Charlotte Gainsbourg's "5:55" album and Susanne Vega's "Nine Objects of Desire" album. good stuff.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
up to my ears in polaroid film.
thursday: bought A LOT of polaroid film from a really nice guy in santa monica. i should not need to buy film for a long, long time. i also visited hal and looked at all of the photos from his cross-country drive/nyc trip. then hal, his gf leah, their friend and i walked to this little coffee/tea shop and then we went to the beach. it was really nice day outside. and of course hal and i took a bunch of photos.
i received a care package from my mother full of giant marshmellow candies shaped like a hamburger, a hot dog and french fries, hehe. she also sent me sun tan ltion spray and these awesome colorful bendy wires that i've already started making amazingly kewl things with. photos to come. (thanks ma!! xoxo). aldrin stopped by and during dinner we watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, a creative spoof of films from the 1940s starring Steve Martin. The kewl part is that Steve Martin is sometimes acting alongside clips from famous old movies. this makes for some comedic scenes since the dialogue of the clips are obviously being taken out of context.
rick and i watched Scoop the night before. it's a Woody Allen mystery/comedy. it wasn't bad once i accepted the fact that Scarlett Johansson hasn't been a believable actress since Lost in Translation. (my favorite movie of hers is still Ghost World though). and of course Woody Allen is very irritating at times, but once you become immune to them, the plot becomes more interesting and you actually want to know what happens at the end.
i received a care package from my mother full of giant marshmellow candies shaped like a hamburger, a hot dog and french fries, hehe. she also sent me sun tan ltion spray and these awesome colorful bendy wires that i've already started making amazingly kewl things with. photos to come. (thanks ma!! xoxo). aldrin stopped by and during dinner we watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, a creative spoof of films from the 1940s starring Steve Martin. The kewl part is that Steve Martin is sometimes acting alongside clips from famous old movies. this makes for some comedic scenes since the dialogue of the clips are obviously being taken out of context.
rick and i watched Scoop the night before. it's a Woody Allen mystery/comedy. it wasn't bad once i accepted the fact that Scarlett Johansson hasn't been a believable actress since Lost in Translation. (my favorite movie of hers is still Ghost World though). and of course Woody Allen is very irritating at times, but once you become immune to them, the plot becomes more interesting and you actually want to know what happens at the end.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
then and now.
i just finished watching Please Don't Eat the Daisies, first a best-seller book then a hokey Doris Day comedy in which she plays a frazzled housewife with four children - all boys. the youngest boy (who is kept in a cage) only knows two words "cokie cola" and "daddy" which are hilariously dubbed into the film. Day plays Kate, a mother who treats her sons like unwanted monsters - which they are. her husband, who wants nothing to do with his children, has just become a successful (and controversial) film critic. they live in new york city then move to the country - but hubby didn't really want to move so Kate is forced to fix up the house by herself in hope to win over hubby's approval. it's a very chauvinistic-driven movie. the most amusing aspect of the film was the way societal roles were portrayed and how vastly different society is now. for example, here's a dialogue from a scene where Kate's mother gives her son-in-law some friendly advice...
kate's mother: don't go near that girl until she calls you and apologizes.
kate's husband: but i don't want her to be unhappy, i love her.
mother: oh loving her is one thing. letting her think she's intelligent is another. and look where it's got you. into a house you don't want and a lot of ridiculous interference in your career. well she's good and scared now. and that's where you keep her... right under your thumb.
husband: (sarcastically) you think i should make her say "Hail Larry!" every morning.
mother: wouldn't do a bit of harm.
imagine your own mother telling your spouse something to that effect!! ironically, after watching this movie, i noticed one the top headlines on yahoo: "Study: Wives yield more power in marriage." the article, which was just released today, finds that "wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions." (well DUH!! ;) hehe). it goes on to say research suggests 'men accepting influence from their wives' is a marker of a healthy marriage. so wife power could signal a harmonious couple. if only Doris Day knew...
trivia: in 1961, Please Don't Eat the Daisies was nominated for "Best Written American Comedy."
kate's mother: don't go near that girl until she calls you and apologizes.
kate's husband: but i don't want her to be unhappy, i love her.
mother: oh loving her is one thing. letting her think she's intelligent is another. and look where it's got you. into a house you don't want and a lot of ridiculous interference in your career. well she's good and scared now. and that's where you keep her... right under your thumb.
husband: (sarcastically) you think i should make her say "Hail Larry!" every morning.
mother: wouldn't do a bit of harm.
imagine your own mother telling your spouse something to that effect!! ironically, after watching this movie, i noticed one the top headlines on yahoo: "Study: Wives yield more power in marriage." the article, which was just released today, finds that "wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions." (well DUH!! ;) hehe). it goes on to say research suggests 'men accepting influence from their wives' is a marker of a healthy marriage. so wife power could signal a harmonious couple. if only Doris Day knew...
trivia: in 1961, Please Don't Eat the Daisies was nominated for "Best Written American Comedy."
Saturday, July 7, 2007
it's saturday AGAIN???
because the 4th was a wednesday... i have been totally unaware as to what day of the week it is. in fact, today felt more like a wednesday than july 4th did. the 4th flet like a saturday and now today is saturday. ahhhh!!!! the confusion. anyway... so here's the scoop.
thursday: MAJORLY productive day. i called a lot of ad agencies for dave. both lindsay AND andrea called me (my two best friends). i did the dishes, made the bed and cleaned every inch of the guest bathroom. then when rick got home we went to the bank; i ran into a foodstore to buy snyders pretzels; we went to costco; i dropped off film; we went to the library; we went back to costco and shopped; i picked up my film; we went to albertsons; then came home and made dinner and watched The Break-Up which certainly doesn't deserve the 5.9 rating it received on IMDB.com.
friday: worked for michael doing layouts and making templates. went to post office. aldrin came over. rick and i cut his hair. (his hair was getting LONG!! it grows so fast. the last time we cut it was in may!!) then we all went swimming. aldrin stayed for dinner and we watched Lucky Number Slevin which was actually really good. i didn't know ANYTHING about the movie before i watched it... and that's the best way to watch that particular movie. it's pretty violent, but not excessively gruesomely violent. but four or five characters die within the first 30 seconds of the movie, even before the opening credits are finished.
saturday: meeting up with kerry (guy who works for michael/dm photography) at *drumroll* 6:50 AM to drive to santa clarita to shoot a wedding. ohhhh my. and i am NOT a morning person. the good news is the wedding ends at 5 PM.
thursday: MAJORLY productive day. i called a lot of ad agencies for dave. both lindsay AND andrea called me (my two best friends). i did the dishes, made the bed and cleaned every inch of the guest bathroom. then when rick got home we went to the bank; i ran into a foodstore to buy snyders pretzels; we went to costco; i dropped off film; we went to the library; we went back to costco and shopped; i picked up my film; we went to albertsons; then came home and made dinner and watched The Break-Up which certainly doesn't deserve the 5.9 rating it received on IMDB.com.
friday: worked for michael doing layouts and making templates. went to post office. aldrin came over. rick and i cut his hair. (his hair was getting LONG!! it grows so fast. the last time we cut it was in may!!) then we all went swimming. aldrin stayed for dinner and we watched Lucky Number Slevin which was actually really good. i didn't know ANYTHING about the movie before i watched it... and that's the best way to watch that particular movie. it's pretty violent, but not excessively gruesomely violent. but four or five characters die within the first 30 seconds of the movie, even before the opening credits are finished.
saturday: meeting up with kerry (guy who works for michael/dm photography) at *drumroll* 6:50 AM to drive to santa clarita to shoot a wedding. ohhhh my. and i am NOT a morning person. the good news is the wedding ends at 5 PM.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
american graffiti :: 200 cigarettes
monday went well. the golf tournament was an easy event to cover. i mostly shot portraits of guests at the reception and auction. rick and i watched American Graffiti. i was a little disappointed. it was good, but i don't think it deserves the 7.6/10 rating from imdb.com. it was kewl to see california depicted in 1962. the fact that guys and gals really met up by cruising the strip and hopping in each other's cars is still a bit surreal to me. what a different time we're living in now. but anyway, the movie really reminded me of 200 Cigarettes. Much like American Graffiti, 200 Cigerettes tells the story (in vignettes) of a group of friends or acquintances who are intertwined by a common event. both films revolve around hook-ups and missed (or found) opportunities for love. and both films take place in the event of 24 hours. even the character "types" parallel each other. the advantage of 200 Cigarettes is the fact that it is new years eve in nyc in 1981. you have to go watch both movies to appreciate my discovery, but here are the character parallels i found: (i'm using the actors' names because i don't remember character names).
american graffiti :: 200 cigarettes
Richard Dreyfuss :: Martha Plimpton
(characters searching for a mystery man/woman)
Ron Howard :: Angela Featherstone
&
Cindy Williams :: Brian McCardie
(couple that breaks up and makes up)
Harrison Ford :: Casey Affleck (shady out-of-towner)
Paul Le Mat :: Jay Mohr (looking for a hook up)
&
Mackenzie Phillips :: Kate Hudson (juvinile girl guy gets stuck with)
Charles Martin Smith :: Paul Rudd (nerdy/intellectual type)
&
Candy Clark :: Courtney Love (ditz/floozy who hooks up with him)
Wolfman Jack :: Dave Chappelle
(ominiscent voice that reaches all the characters)
if only the questions on the SATs looked like that!! haha.
american graffiti :: 200 cigarettes
Richard Dreyfuss :: Martha Plimpton
(characters searching for a mystery man/woman)
Ron Howard :: Angela Featherstone
&
Cindy Williams :: Brian McCardie
(couple that breaks up and makes up)
Harrison Ford :: Casey Affleck (shady out-of-towner)
Paul Le Mat :: Jay Mohr (looking for a hook up)
&
Mackenzie Phillips :: Kate Hudson (juvinile girl guy gets stuck with)
Charles Martin Smith :: Paul Rudd (nerdy/intellectual type)
&
Candy Clark :: Courtney Love (ditz/floozy who hooks up with him)
Wolfman Jack :: Dave Chappelle
(ominiscent voice that reaches all the characters)
if only the questions on the SATs looked like that!! haha.
Friday, June 1, 2007
robbed by pirates :(
(contains spoilers... but trust me, that won't matter).
rick and i saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3 friday afternoon... and we hated it. after seeing how bad the second one was, we couldn't believe we fell for seeing the third. it's safe to say that johnny depp single-handily made the 'pirate' series a success. if not for depp telling interviewers keith richards inspired his captain jack-isms, keith richards would certainly not have appeared in the 3rd movie. in between the excessive amount of canon balls/sword fights scenes, i couldn't wait to get home and tear this movie to shreds.
it's such an easy formula: three parts jack sparrow, eleven parts talking about jack sparrow, two parts love stories, six parts pirate ships emerging from water, five parts capturing, five parts rescuing and ten parts action/violence/sword fights. mix haphazardly against elaborate sets and computer graphics. let set for three hours until the audience rises.
the movie could be broken down into FOUR major flaws:
POOR WRITING.
it seemed the writers were very aware that audiences were only going to see 'pirates' for jack sparrow, so they thought... "hmmm, if people love jack so much... they'll love THREE jacks, or FOUR jacks, or even MORE jacks!!" so they made scenes reminiscent of alice in wonderland where jack hallucinates and sees many of himself. the mood and overall appearance of these scenes drastically contrast with the mood and overall appearance of the film. for a minute i thought i was watching an oompa loompa scene from charlie and the chocolate factory.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS: accompanying poor writing was the addition of too many characters. in a nutshell: jack's crew (which was two crews combined), the british crew, the squid's crew, and a new asian crew all have different agendas that (of course) require the other crews to be killed. elizabeth (knightly) becomes captain of the asian crew, stupid orlando bloom becomes captain of the squid crew and jack bounces between every crew as he is traded and captured for deal-making. orlando bloom's character wants to free his father, jack wants to be immortal, kiera knightly's character wants to be with orlando bloom again, the squid wants the sea goddess, elizabeth wants to kill the british captain for killing her father, the british crew wants jack dead and the asian crew wants to be a part of whichever crew is getting the treasure. but is there even treasure?!! the object they're all after is a beating heart. and yes, it's as confusing as it sounds.
OLD JOKES. just like the second, all of the "comedic" moments in the third movie relied on recycled material from the first movie. the humor in 'pirates' can be attributed to six subjects:
1) the wooden eye: kudos to whoever thought to give that guy a wooden eye because you added 30 pages of plot to each film!!
2) jack, the monkey: the only character whose acting improved by the third film. he's also in a lot more of the scenes in the third movie. rick thought he was the best part. and he was right.
3) rum jokes: the first movie relied heavily on rum jokes. since the third movie didn't know what the hell it was doing, it hit up the booze too.
4) the sexual tension between jack and elizabeth. the cliché "trust me, it would have never worked between us..." lines return again.
5) jack getting slapped: yes, women love to slap jack sparrow. we got that one already, thanks.
6) sheer stupidity/slapstick humor: the other nanoseconds of anticipated (but unreceived) humor relied on the dumb antics of the fat guy and the skinny guy with the wooden eye.
CONFUSING PLOT. it felt as though the writers made this movie up as they were filming it and when they were running low on plot someone said, "i know, let's make one of the crew members turn out to be a sea goddess!!" and since there are only two female main characters (one being kiera knightly), the jamaican-sounding chick landed the role of sea goddess. this made the plot entertaining for about 20 seconds when the jamaican chick turned into the 50 ft. woman and started talking like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and then exploded into millions of crabs and i leaned over to rick at which point i leaned over to rick and said, "haha, she had crabs!!"
needless to say, i don't plan on seeing the 4th or 5th or 6th Pirates movie. but i will be curious to see if depp stays aboard.
bottom line: if you were planning on seeing pirates, go see waitress instead.
rick and i saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3 friday afternoon... and we hated it. after seeing how bad the second one was, we couldn't believe we fell for seeing the third. it's safe to say that johnny depp single-handily made the 'pirate' series a success. if not for depp telling interviewers keith richards inspired his captain jack-isms, keith richards would certainly not have appeared in the 3rd movie. in between the excessive amount of canon balls/sword fights scenes, i couldn't wait to get home and tear this movie to shreds.
it's such an easy formula: three parts jack sparrow, eleven parts talking about jack sparrow, two parts love stories, six parts pirate ships emerging from water, five parts capturing, five parts rescuing and ten parts action/violence/sword fights. mix haphazardly against elaborate sets and computer graphics. let set for three hours until the audience rises.
the movie could be broken down into FOUR major flaws:
POOR WRITING.
it seemed the writers were very aware that audiences were only going to see 'pirates' for jack sparrow, so they thought... "hmmm, if people love jack so much... they'll love THREE jacks, or FOUR jacks, or even MORE jacks!!" so they made scenes reminiscent of alice in wonderland where jack hallucinates and sees many of himself. the mood and overall appearance of these scenes drastically contrast with the mood and overall appearance of the film. for a minute i thought i was watching an oompa loompa scene from charlie and the chocolate factory.
TOO MANY CHARACTERS: accompanying poor writing was the addition of too many characters. in a nutshell: jack's crew (which was two crews combined), the british crew, the squid's crew, and a new asian crew all have different agendas that (of course) require the other crews to be killed. elizabeth (knightly) becomes captain of the asian crew, stupid orlando bloom becomes captain of the squid crew and jack bounces between every crew as he is traded and captured for deal-making. orlando bloom's character wants to free his father, jack wants to be immortal, kiera knightly's character wants to be with orlando bloom again, the squid wants the sea goddess, elizabeth wants to kill the british captain for killing her father, the british crew wants jack dead and the asian crew wants to be a part of whichever crew is getting the treasure. but is there even treasure?!! the object they're all after is a beating heart. and yes, it's as confusing as it sounds.
OLD JOKES. just like the second, all of the "comedic" moments in the third movie relied on recycled material from the first movie. the humor in 'pirates' can be attributed to six subjects:
1) the wooden eye: kudos to whoever thought to give that guy a wooden eye because you added 30 pages of plot to each film!!
2) jack, the monkey: the only character whose acting improved by the third film. he's also in a lot more of the scenes in the third movie. rick thought he was the best part. and he was right.
3) rum jokes: the first movie relied heavily on rum jokes. since the third movie didn't know what the hell it was doing, it hit up the booze too.
4) the sexual tension between jack and elizabeth. the cliché "trust me, it would have never worked between us..." lines return again.
5) jack getting slapped: yes, women love to slap jack sparrow. we got that one already, thanks.
6) sheer stupidity/slapstick humor: the other nanoseconds of anticipated (but unreceived) humor relied on the dumb antics of the fat guy and the skinny guy with the wooden eye.
CONFUSING PLOT. it felt as though the writers made this movie up as they were filming it and when they were running low on plot someone said, "i know, let's make one of the crew members turn out to be a sea goddess!!" and since there are only two female main characters (one being kiera knightly), the jamaican-sounding chick landed the role of sea goddess. this made the plot entertaining for about 20 seconds when the jamaican chick turned into the 50 ft. woman and started talking like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and then exploded into millions of crabs and i leaned over to rick at which point i leaned over to rick and said, "haha, she had crabs!!"
needless to say, i don't plan on seeing the 4th or 5th or 6th Pirates movie. but i will be curious to see if depp stays aboard.
bottom line: if you were planning on seeing pirates, go see waitress instead.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
whereabouts and happenings
wednesday: finally planted the strawberry plants my grandmother had shipped to me :) they already had roots but were in a dormant state and just needed some dirt, water and sunshine. rick and i went to the mall and i returned a pair of nine west shoes to macy's because when i peeled off the price tag, it tore up the suede sole and left a huge sticky square. doesn't sound like a big deal but they were black strapless sandals and every time i walked it sounded like... "whoooooit. whoooooit" because my foot was sticking to the shoe. plus they were $41 plus tax (on clearance) and they were pretty ugly so i only would have only ever worn them with pants anyway. why are only the ugly shoes comfortable?!! i wound up buying a really cute top and a pair of shorts with the money i got back from the shoes and had $10 to spare. woo woo!!
during dinner, rick and i watched Saw III. i was a bit disappointed. here's the eloquent review i posted aldrin:
"Saw III def didn't live up to the first two :( it would have been waaaaay better if marky mark rescued donny and kicked the shit outta that dumb jigsaw-wannabe beyotch."
couldn't have said it better myself... oh, wait. ;) haha.
but check this out... doesn't the chick from Saw look a bit like demi moore??? i thought so.
according to IMDB.com, "The final shooting draft of the script was written in under a week in Toronto by Leigh Whannell based on an idea by creator and Saw director James Wan." and it shows. the casting was pretty poorly done as well. the actors who played the lawyer and the male lead victim were awful.
thursday: (today) i cleaned out the closet in the spare bedroom/computer room and put away all of my clothes, which was quite an accomplishment considering how much more i brought back with me from jersey.
funny thing that happened: i got a phone call (accidentally) from someone who didn't know their phone was on. apparently they couldn't hear me saying hello repeatedly. i didn't recognize the number, so i stayed on the line for four minutes just to try to figure where they were or who it was. sounded like they were setting up/cleaning up for a trade show. unfortunately nothing interesting occured while i was listening but my favorite line was: "yeah, we're looking for a f*cking trailor too to pull our Bobcat around on."
after rick got home, we walked to the park and played tennis. this is only the second time we played tennis together. the first time we were rusty, but this time we did really well. it was so nice too... two little boys came up to our court and were watching us play and would retrieve any balls we hit into the net. it was like having our own personal ball boys!! hehe. after tennis, we went swimming and finally used the hot tub. (we've been living in this apt. complex for five months and never used the hot tub). we starting watching what ever happened to baby jane? (my pick, hehe). bette davis is definitely one of my favorites. tim and his girlfriend morgan stopped by for an hour and then rick and i hit up the hot tub again. then i tortured rick by plucking his eyebrows. all and all, an eventful day.
plans for this weekend include: a BBQ at ben's house on saturday and work on sunday.
during dinner, rick and i watched Saw III. i was a bit disappointed. here's the eloquent review i posted aldrin:
"Saw III def didn't live up to the first two :( it would have been waaaaay better if marky mark rescued donny and kicked the shit outta that dumb jigsaw-wannabe beyotch."
couldn't have said it better myself... oh, wait. ;) haha.
but check this out... doesn't the chick from Saw look a bit like demi moore??? i thought so.
according to IMDB.com, "The final shooting draft of the script was written in under a week in Toronto by Leigh Whannell based on an idea by creator and Saw director James Wan." and it shows. the casting was pretty poorly done as well. the actors who played the lawyer and the male lead victim were awful.
thursday: (today) i cleaned out the closet in the spare bedroom/computer room and put away all of my clothes, which was quite an accomplishment considering how much more i brought back with me from jersey.
funny thing that happened: i got a phone call (accidentally) from someone who didn't know their phone was on. apparently they couldn't hear me saying hello repeatedly. i didn't recognize the number, so i stayed on the line for four minutes just to try to figure where they were or who it was. sounded like they were setting up/cleaning up for a trade show. unfortunately nothing interesting occured while i was listening but my favorite line was: "yeah, we're looking for a f*cking trailor too to pull our Bobcat around on."
after rick got home, we walked to the park and played tennis. this is only the second time we played tennis together. the first time we were rusty, but this time we did really well. it was so nice too... two little boys came up to our court and were watching us play and would retrieve any balls we hit into the net. it was like having our own personal ball boys!! hehe. after tennis, we went swimming and finally used the hot tub. (we've been living in this apt. complex for five months and never used the hot tub). we starting watching what ever happened to baby jane? (my pick, hehe). bette davis is definitely one of my favorites. tim and his girlfriend morgan stopped by for an hour and then rick and i hit up the hot tub again. then i tortured rick by plucking his eyebrows. all and all, an eventful day.
plans for this weekend include: a BBQ at ben's house on saturday and work on sunday.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
busy is good.
busy weekend!!
friday i worked 10-5 and saturday i worked 10-6 doing promo jobs. :) sunday i was second shooter at a jewish wedding at the intercontinental in century city. i was left in charge of photographing the bride, her mother and sisters while they were getting ready in their suite that had the most gorgeous view of LA i've ever seen. :O i never experienced a jewish wedding before but i am a fan. the Hora tradition was a trip. it really loosens people up and gets everybody on the dance floor as opposed to non-jewish weddings were most people are hesitant to start dancing. throughout the night i shot candids of family and guests during the ceremony and the reception. i took lots of silly dance floor shots. i didn't get home until 12:30 am, but the night was pretty fun. photographer michael brannigan was a joy to work for. he has a great sense of humor and a lot of energy. he also credits women for the transition wedding photography has taken from being posed and formulated to its current artistic/more aestetic style. there's much to be said about a man who named his daughter after amelia earhart and says mary ellen mark is the most underrated photographer ever. since michael has assistants booked for the majority of his upcoming weddings, i may be doing layouts for his albums. :)
monday i vegetated and ate a lot of watermelon. rick drove his brother to the airport and then we finished watching terms of endearment. not what i expected. at all. it's a pretty long movie with a depressing ending. jack nicholson plays a dirt bag astronaut and he looks as old as he did in 1983 as he does now... which isn't really a compliment, but at least he's consistent. rick and i played uno and he kept winning. aldrin stopped by to let us borrow saw 3 and wound up staying til midnight. we have him hooked on uno now too which could be credited to the fact that he loves to screw people over with the draw two/draw four cards.
most idiotic thing i've done in a while: i singed my eyelashes by trying to smell a candle while it was lit. yeah, that was dumb but my face wasn't even that close to the flame!! i was trying to smell if the candle was giving off a scent but the heat from the flame singed my eyelashes in the corner of my left eye. you can't notice it but i can and it will be a constant reminder (at least til the lashes recuperate) that i sometimes am an idiot. : P
goals for this week include illustrating a story my grandmother wrote, cleaning up the apartment, watching saw 3 (finally) and... i don't know else.
current song stuck in my head:
cold war kids - "hang me out to dry."
friday i worked 10-5 and saturday i worked 10-6 doing promo jobs. :) sunday i was second shooter at a jewish wedding at the intercontinental in century city. i was left in charge of photographing the bride, her mother and sisters while they were getting ready in their suite that had the most gorgeous view of LA i've ever seen. :O i never experienced a jewish wedding before but i am a fan. the Hora tradition was a trip. it really loosens people up and gets everybody on the dance floor as opposed to non-jewish weddings were most people are hesitant to start dancing. throughout the night i shot candids of family and guests during the ceremony and the reception. i took lots of silly dance floor shots. i didn't get home until 12:30 am, but the night was pretty fun. photographer michael brannigan was a joy to work for. he has a great sense of humor and a lot of energy. he also credits women for the transition wedding photography has taken from being posed and formulated to its current artistic/more aestetic style. there's much to be said about a man who named his daughter after amelia earhart and says mary ellen mark is the most underrated photographer ever. since michael has assistants booked for the majority of his upcoming weddings, i may be doing layouts for his albums. :)
monday i vegetated and ate a lot of watermelon. rick drove his brother to the airport and then we finished watching terms of endearment. not what i expected. at all. it's a pretty long movie with a depressing ending. jack nicholson plays a dirt bag astronaut and he looks as old as he did in 1983 as he does now... which isn't really a compliment, but at least he's consistent. rick and i played uno and he kept winning. aldrin stopped by to let us borrow saw 3 and wound up staying til midnight. we have him hooked on uno now too which could be credited to the fact that he loves to screw people over with the draw two/draw four cards.
most idiotic thing i've done in a while: i singed my eyelashes by trying to smell a candle while it was lit. yeah, that was dumb but my face wasn't even that close to the flame!! i was trying to smell if the candle was giving off a scent but the heat from the flame singed my eyelashes in the corner of my left eye. you can't notice it but i can and it will be a constant reminder (at least til the lashes recuperate) that i sometimes am an idiot. : P
goals for this week include illustrating a story my grandmother wrote, cleaning up the apartment, watching saw 3 (finally) and... i don't know else.
current song stuck in my head:
cold war kids - "hang me out to dry."
Sunday, April 29, 2007
brazillian girls (the band), photo play days and HOT weather.
wednesday: went to the library and checked out some dvds and requested a bunch of photography books. the other day i checked out this cd soley because its album cover was THIS ridiculous:
Brazillian Girls turned out to be a really good cd. quite a variety of styles. some songs are sang in english, some french, some portuguese. lots of mindlessly good beats. i dig it.
rick met up with some guys in a band who he might join. i tagged along/dropped him off so i could go take some polaroids of interesting things i saw in the area the week before. :) fortunately for me, EVERYTHING (even cars!!) were in the exact same spots i saw them in the week before. it was such a successful polaroid outing!! i found EVERYTHING i wanted to take a photo of, even without directions and i've only been in the area once before. so i took a bunch of good polaroid shots that i will post on flickr soon.
thursday: i can't remember what i did but tim and aldrin stopped by (as they do every thursday night before their car meet) and we had them finish off the delicious cupcakes lindsay sent me. aldrin wants me to cut his hair again... and this time he has a style in mind.
friday: it was beautifully hot outside. i went over dave's house for a strobe lesson. his digital retoucher diana was there as well. i "modeled," diana and i learned a lot and we messed around with macros. diana brought over some kewl-looking mini tomatoes to shoot and dave shot the prosthetic eyes rick gave him, hehe. it was a fun day!! it was really nice of dave to let us experiment and to show us how to everything works. he gave us lemons (from his tree) that are seriously the sizes of LARGE oranges and i swung on his scary swing that hangs over the steep canyon hill in his backyard. dave has a big stock shoot coming up and i'm hoping i will be back in time to assist. i'm going home next month to visit family and friends for 18 days!! i'm pretty excited about that.
saturday: it really hot outside again. rick had to work :( so we missed his neice's 5th birthday party at chuckie cheese. i walked to the post office, did dishes, took polaroids and played scrabble online with my mom (she won, this time). i also created some funky self-portraits. i really love this one. rick's friend cheryl invited us over for dinner (her fiance is italian and loves to cook) but we declined because rick was pretty exhausted. so we stayed in and watched Babel. pretty good movie, we were engrossed in all the different stories taking place, but like someone said on imdb.com, it doesn't add up to much. there's four plots, but only two ever really "resolve" (and i use the term VERY loosely). you never learn what happened to the other people or what gael garcia bernal's character's motive was when fleeing the border patrol. (was he driving drunk or did he have drugs in the car?!) bernal has become the default mexican actor. he is seriously in EVERY movie!! but he's good, i enjoy his movies (except for The Crime of Father Whatever).
throughout the movie, i was left wondering if brad pitt and cate blanchett's characters were really just traveling in Morocco for leisure. pitt's character seemed shady about it, so at first i assumed they were there on some sort of "business." guess not. all of guillermo arriaga's films are told backward or in a circle, not chronologically, which is interesting. and while Babel was WAY better than 21 Grams, i still think arriaga's best film has been Amores Perros, which is such a well-shot film with a well-written script. in most scenes, the shot length is less than 15 seconds long... that's rapid fire!! you'll get sucked into the multiple stories all happening at once. go rent/netflix/borrow it tomorrow (if not sooner, hehe)!!!!
sunday: perhaps a photo play day with hal. and wednesday i'm assisting a shoot hal is photographing :)
RANDOM BITS OF INFORMATION:
what i'm reading: Shopgirl, the novella by steve martin. i love reading all the parts that were left out or modified for the movie.
what i'm eating: if we had milk, i'd be eating cereal but instead i'm eating stale apple cinnamon ricecakes because they're the ONLY (semi)crunchy things in the apartment!! we're going food shopping tomorrow morning :)
what i'm listening to: The Slip - "Even Rats."
Brazillian Girls turned out to be a really good cd. quite a variety of styles. some songs are sang in english, some french, some portuguese. lots of mindlessly good beats. i dig it.
rick met up with some guys in a band who he might join. i tagged along/dropped him off so i could go take some polaroids of interesting things i saw in the area the week before. :) fortunately for me, EVERYTHING (even cars!!) were in the exact same spots i saw them in the week before. it was such a successful polaroid outing!! i found EVERYTHING i wanted to take a photo of, even without directions and i've only been in the area once before. so i took a bunch of good polaroid shots that i will post on flickr soon.
thursday: i can't remember what i did but tim and aldrin stopped by (as they do every thursday night before their car meet) and we had them finish off the delicious cupcakes lindsay sent me. aldrin wants me to cut his hair again... and this time he has a style in mind.
friday: it was beautifully hot outside. i went over dave's house for a strobe lesson. his digital retoucher diana was there as well. i "modeled," diana and i learned a lot and we messed around with macros. diana brought over some kewl-looking mini tomatoes to shoot and dave shot the prosthetic eyes rick gave him, hehe. it was a fun day!! it was really nice of dave to let us experiment and to show us how to everything works. he gave us lemons (from his tree) that are seriously the sizes of LARGE oranges and i swung on his scary swing that hangs over the steep canyon hill in his backyard. dave has a big stock shoot coming up and i'm hoping i will be back in time to assist. i'm going home next month to visit family and friends for 18 days!! i'm pretty excited about that.
saturday: it really hot outside again. rick had to work :( so we missed his neice's 5th birthday party at chuckie cheese. i walked to the post office, did dishes, took polaroids and played scrabble online with my mom (she won, this time). i also created some funky self-portraits. i really love this one. rick's friend cheryl invited us over for dinner (her fiance is italian and loves to cook) but we declined because rick was pretty exhausted. so we stayed in and watched Babel. pretty good movie, we were engrossed in all the different stories taking place, but like someone said on imdb.com, it doesn't add up to much. there's four plots, but only two ever really "resolve" (and i use the term VERY loosely). you never learn what happened to the other people or what gael garcia bernal's character's motive was when fleeing the border patrol. (was he driving drunk or did he have drugs in the car?!) bernal has become the default mexican actor. he is seriously in EVERY movie!! but he's good, i enjoy his movies (except for The Crime of Father Whatever).
throughout the movie, i was left wondering if brad pitt and cate blanchett's characters were really just traveling in Morocco for leisure. pitt's character seemed shady about it, so at first i assumed they were there on some sort of "business." guess not. all of guillermo arriaga's films are told backward or in a circle, not chronologically, which is interesting. and while Babel was WAY better than 21 Grams, i still think arriaga's best film has been Amores Perros, which is such a well-shot film with a well-written script. in most scenes, the shot length is less than 15 seconds long... that's rapid fire!! you'll get sucked into the multiple stories all happening at once. go rent/netflix/borrow it tomorrow (if not sooner, hehe)!!!!
sunday: perhaps a photo play day with hal. and wednesday i'm assisting a shoot hal is photographing :)
RANDOM BITS OF INFORMATION:
what i'm reading: Shopgirl, the novella by steve martin. i love reading all the parts that were left out or modified for the movie.
what i'm eating: if we had milk, i'd be eating cereal but instead i'm eating stale apple cinnamon ricecakes because they're the ONLY (semi)crunchy things in the apartment!! we're going food shopping tomorrow morning :)
what i'm listening to: The Slip - "Even Rats."
Sunday, April 1, 2007
i want to start using the word "holiday" as a verb.
"...one of the most enjoyable holidays i ever had! a really great place to holiday." ~something someone from england would say.
rick went to a friend's house to watch a movie and then stayed over his parent's house so he could get up early to go to church with his sister and niece. i stayed at the apartment and had myself a little chick flick night. i watched The Holiday and ate a lot of chocolate pudding. i thought The Holiday was really cute... i'd say it runs along the same lines as Love Actually. it's an intertwined story that splits into two separate stories and then rejoins... so it's actually TWO chick flicks in ONE!!
Kate Winslet's character is my favorite and her performance seems the most genuine. Cameron Diaz wasn't bad, but whatever movie i see of hers, i feel like i'm just watching the same character experience a different day. maybe it's because she adds her own goofy, alluring quality into EVERY character she plays. Jack Black's character was charming and of course Jack Black sings goofy songs and does his little "doodley-dee" sounds in this movie too. i haven't been a Jude Law fan lately, but he thoroughly surprised me in this film. he's extraordinarily believable in this role. so if you're not a fan of his, don't let that stop you from seeing this film.
the premise/story is cute and improbable (is it really THAT easy to house swap with someone living abroad in less than 24 hours?!) but the improbability will make you want to keep watching. i cringed when Diaz and Winslett were messaging each other online... why does nearly every writer have their characters read aloud while they are typing?!! we can SEE the text. you know the charactors' setbacks are going to be resolved and that the movie will end happily, but there are enough small plot twists to keep you on your toes and prevent the movie from being terribly predictable.
overall, i'd actually recommend this one.
rick went to a friend's house to watch a movie and then stayed over his parent's house so he could get up early to go to church with his sister and niece. i stayed at the apartment and had myself a little chick flick night. i watched The Holiday and ate a lot of chocolate pudding. i thought The Holiday was really cute... i'd say it runs along the same lines as Love Actually. it's an intertwined story that splits into two separate stories and then rejoins... so it's actually TWO chick flicks in ONE!!
Kate Winslet's character is my favorite and her performance seems the most genuine. Cameron Diaz wasn't bad, but whatever movie i see of hers, i feel like i'm just watching the same character experience a different day. maybe it's because she adds her own goofy, alluring quality into EVERY character she plays. Jack Black's character was charming and of course Jack Black sings goofy songs and does his little "doodley-dee" sounds in this movie too. i haven't been a Jude Law fan lately, but he thoroughly surprised me in this film. he's extraordinarily believable in this role. so if you're not a fan of his, don't let that stop you from seeing this film.
the premise/story is cute and improbable (is it really THAT easy to house swap with someone living abroad in less than 24 hours?!) but the improbability will make you want to keep watching. i cringed when Diaz and Winslett were messaging each other online... why does nearly every writer have their characters read aloud while they are typing?!! we can SEE the text. you know the charactors' setbacks are going to be resolved and that the movie will end happily, but there are enough small plot twists to keep you on your toes and prevent the movie from being terribly predictable.
overall, i'd actually recommend this one.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
work and movie review.
tuesday i worked as assistant for dave. the shoot was in pasadena in a bike shop for a magazine article. it was thee easiest job... one light. one person. one hundred shots. quick and painless. dave and i were talking about movies and i mentioned that rick and i saw Shooter and dave said, "you know mark wahlberg is my neighbor, right??" i accused him of lying because i thought he meant next door neighbor, but really dave meant mark lives RIGHT NEAR his house. so on our way back to his house, dave showed me mark wahlberg's compound and demi moore's house too. then i organized dave's photo equipment shelf in his garage and he showed me some photo programs (photoshop cs3, bridge and aperture). i'm not quite sure what new features photoshop cs3, but i bet the upgrades from cs2 are insignificant (at least, to me).
monday night: rick and i watched the movie Thirteen and it was HORRIBLE. yes, the point is that the main character is "growing up" too fast but the plot jumps ahead waaay too quickly. one day the main character is shunned by the popular, bad girls at school and then the next day they talk to her because she's wearing "cool" clothes. that wouldn't happen. i was expecting to learn that the main character was raped by her mom's boyfriend by the way she'd freak out and have mini flashbacks every time she saw him. the dialogue is lame and the story becomes unrealistic at times. whenever the bad-influence best friend wanted sympathy and didn't want to get kicked out of the main character's house, she'd just say her uncle burned her and pushed her into a fire. VERY UNCONVINCING both in the way the lines were delivered and the fact that the character only had one odd scar on her back. i'm not sure why this film won awards and nominations especially in 2003 and 2004 because seemed outdated. i think i'd be more understanding (and less critical) had the movie was made in the early 90s... it seemed cheesy enough.
bottom line: you can tell a thirteen-year-old co-wrote the screenplay.
monday night: rick and i watched the movie Thirteen and it was HORRIBLE. yes, the point is that the main character is "growing up" too fast but the plot jumps ahead waaay too quickly. one day the main character is shunned by the popular, bad girls at school and then the next day they talk to her because she's wearing "cool" clothes. that wouldn't happen. i was expecting to learn that the main character was raped by her mom's boyfriend by the way she'd freak out and have mini flashbacks every time she saw him. the dialogue is lame and the story becomes unrealistic at times. whenever the bad-influence best friend wanted sympathy and didn't want to get kicked out of the main character's house, she'd just say her uncle burned her and pushed her into a fire. VERY UNCONVINCING both in the way the lines were delivered and the fact that the character only had one odd scar on her back. i'm not sure why this film won awards and nominations especially in 2003 and 2004 because seemed outdated. i think i'd be more understanding (and less critical) had the movie was made in the early 90s... it seemed cheesy enough.
bottom line: you can tell a thirteen-year-old co-wrote the screenplay.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
is it my birthday or something?!
friday night was pretty awesome. rick spoiled me rotten. i got home and he had done the dishes and bought me fruit... lots of fruit. a cantaloupe, strawberries and grapes. Mmmm!! i was pretty exhausted so i took a little nap while rick cooked dinner for me. then we went to the movies to see Shooter and rick bought my ticket. and then rick said...
rick: damn, i am hooking you up to-night guuurl!!
jena: i know!! is it my birthday and i just don't know it?!!
rick: no, but when your birthday rolls around and i don't get you a daaamn thing... remember this night.
jena: hahahaha.
the funny part is right before rick and i went to bed i realized that it sort of was my birthday... it was my half-birthday (on saturday)!! so i am officially 22 1/2.
anyway, rick and i both thought the movie was really good. i was thoroughly entertained. the plot kept me intrigued from beginning to end. mark wahlberg is fantastic... he's like a modern day McGuyver, but better looking and more sarcastic. his character is cunning and smart. i'm not a huge fan of action movies, but this movie was so packed with plot that i just kept moving along with it. i bet most of the naysayers of the film are going to be people who believe every word their government tells them. yes, this film depicts government officials in a bad light, but what or who doesn't? i'm sure in reality it's much worse. don't let political beliefs interfere with seeing this film; it's a good time no matter what side you are on. it's intense but not overbearing. easy to follow but complex. and you'll be impressed with wahlberg's character. wahlberg excels in playing characters who are determined to make an impact. after seeing i heart huckabees, mark wahlberg has quickly become one of my favorite actors. he totally kept that movie alive. i added Fear to aldrin's netflix queue after rick explained what a psycho his character is that movie.
so after our little "date night" was so successful, rick and i decided we need to have more "date nights" and i proposed a "craft night" since i am having withdrawls because my best friend andrea and i always would always get crafty when we were together. that girl needs to accru more vacation time faaast so she can come visit meeee!!!! i miss her damnit!!!! i need to keep in touch with my friends from high school more because i had no idea my friend lindsay was going to mexico until she texted me about it the night before. i am so out of the loop!! i'd say 80% of my friends are people i met in middle school/high school. 15% are people i met in college. 5% are friends of rick's. i need to meet some kewl chicks around here to hang with and do girly stuff with like go shopping or sit by the pool reading magazines.
rick: damn, i am hooking you up to-night guuurl!!
jena: i know!! is it my birthday and i just don't know it?!!
rick: no, but when your birthday rolls around and i don't get you a daaamn thing... remember this night.
jena: hahahaha.
the funny part is right before rick and i went to bed i realized that it sort of was my birthday... it was my half-birthday (on saturday)!! so i am officially 22 1/2.
anyway, rick and i both thought the movie was really good. i was thoroughly entertained. the plot kept me intrigued from beginning to end. mark wahlberg is fantastic... he's like a modern day McGuyver, but better looking and more sarcastic. his character is cunning and smart. i'm not a huge fan of action movies, but this movie was so packed with plot that i just kept moving along with it. i bet most of the naysayers of the film are going to be people who believe every word their government tells them. yes, this film depicts government officials in a bad light, but what or who doesn't? i'm sure in reality it's much worse. don't let political beliefs interfere with seeing this film; it's a good time no matter what side you are on. it's intense but not overbearing. easy to follow but complex. and you'll be impressed with wahlberg's character. wahlberg excels in playing characters who are determined to make an impact. after seeing i heart huckabees, mark wahlberg has quickly become one of my favorite actors. he totally kept that movie alive. i added Fear to aldrin's netflix queue after rick explained what a psycho his character is that movie.
so after our little "date night" was so successful, rick and i decided we need to have more "date nights" and i proposed a "craft night" since i am having withdrawls because my best friend andrea and i always would always get crafty when we were together. that girl needs to accru more vacation time faaast so she can come visit meeee!!!! i miss her damnit!!!! i need to keep in touch with my friends from high school more because i had no idea my friend lindsay was going to mexico until she texted me about it the night before. i am so out of the loop!! i'd say 80% of my friends are people i met in middle school/high school. 15% are people i met in college. 5% are friends of rick's. i need to meet some kewl chicks around here to hang with and do girly stuff with like go shopping or sit by the pool reading magazines.
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