Weekend Update

Oh Internet. You’re so QUIET all weekend, I think it’s why I feel compelled to fill you up!

I’ve been absolute shit at keeping up with my 2011 films list so I’ll do some bullets.

• Jane Eyre – I really enjoyed the latest adaptation though I WAS surprised at some of the deleted scenes.
• Red State – We watched it last night and it kind of blew my mind. It’s like it started as one movie and then became this other thing without losing any of the awesome. Also, at a key part, I was able to shout “I think it’s the Cloverfield monster!” and crack my husband up.
• The Adjustment Bureau was underwhelming. On the other hand, when you make a movie about shadowy figures who control society you’re going to draw inevitable comparisons to either the Matrix or Dark City. This was Dark City Lite and I don’t mean it in a good way.

Rants and Raves – Country Strong

First let me say that I CANNOT BELIEVE I am going to write a post about this movie. I had zero interest in seeing this film. It might have even been LESS than zero interest. The only thing worse than a cornball country music movie is a cornball country music movie starring someone who doesn’t even have a southern accent (I’ll admit there is a soft spot in my heart for Pure Country, despite its epically shitty nature). It was on cable last week and since there was nothing else on, all my DVR viewing was caught up and all the summer shows have reached finale-time, I decided to watch.

1. This is not a great movie. Probably it is not a good movie. It is an OKAY movie.

2. Garrett Hedlund makes the entire film worth watching, if only because he has the best songs in the whole damn thing.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow is fucking amazing. They gave her a bunch of shit songs and bad costumes but she does this AMAZING performance of a woman hanging on by the thinnest thread possible. She’s got about zero chemistry with Hedlund but she is so incredible in this role that it’s kind of a shame that she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love since this performance is so much more worthy. (Not that this film should be nominated in any way other than her performance.) Whether you love her or hate her, this is a phenomenal performance.

4. The filmmakers made the brilliant choice of releasing a secondary soundtrack including all the tracks sung by the actual actors. I actually purchased all of Hedlund’s songs individually and it was completely worth it.

5. Leighton Meester was sort of wooden and not especially memorable, except that she was the only one with wardrobe worse than Gwyneth’s.

6. What the fuck is with that shit-ass title? FUCKING AWFUL.

Worth watching if you’re not paying more than $2 for it, for Hedlund’s songs and Paltrow’s performance.

Success, tentatively

I’ve been feeling a weird generalized anxiety lately. I’m not sure what it’s about, but I can tell you that watching the Sunday morning newshows doesn’t help. Lindsay Graham has the singular ability to jack my blood pressure into the roof.

Checking the LJ and rss feeds shows that my journal import has NOT in fact crippled the flist/feed. I’m really glad because it means all my yoga posts have returned. Now if only I could figure out what I was using to crosspost to wordpress.com, it would be amazing to have the same backup but I guess I can widgetize an alternative.

My only weird consequence is categories. I suddenly have a bajillion more categories than I’ve been using since the blog reboot and I haven’t sufficiently researched a way to condense them. Instead I’ve treed them under the reboot categories and just disabled the drop-downs so as not to clutter the page. Yay for tag clouds!

I’m reading God’s War by Kameron Hurley, which I first heard about in a Scalzi Big Idea post. As soon as I read that entry, I thought ‘That sounds awesome.’ Alas, when I went to add it to my Kindle wishlist, it wasn’t available in format. Insert frownyface. So imagine my delight when Books on the Knob announced that Nightshade was giving free ebook copies for a book club! I haven’t used calibre in a while, so I re-downloaded/installed and when the e copy arrived I converted it. So far I’m enjoying it as much as I hoped I would.

Speaking of enjoyment and Scalzi (I kind of was, right?) he gave up Coke Zero for Lent and I’m pretty sure it was the picture in that post which convinced me to try Coke Zero. No lie, it’s delicious. So I guess I’m going to take up Scalzi’s Coke Zero consumption for Lent and make sure Coca-Cola doesn’t lose any market share.

In Netflix movie news, I watched Chloe last week and I really enjoyed it. Not your typical psychological thriller but pretty fantastic nonetheless, with stunning performances all around. 4.5 of 5 stars

Last night we watched The Social Network (which means we might be the last people, ever) and I enjoyed it more than I expected. In fact, I found the Zuckerberg character to be kind of hilarious and Eduardo – I’m pretty sure he was intended to be sympathetic – to be a bit smarmy. After all, it cannot POSSIBLY be in dispute that had Zuckerberg NOT gone to Cali and hooked up with Sean Parker there is no chance Facebook would be what it is today. Also, Winklevi  = fail. Especially given that you settled for $65 mil and then sued AGAIN because $30+ mil A PIECE wasn’t ENOUGH? REALLY. All the win goes to Zuckerberg and I hope to Christmas his depositions were in fact that awesome because those scenes SLAYED me.

Unrelated, we watched Zach Galifinakis host SNL and it was funnier than I’ve seen it in a while. The musical act was a bit odd, so I googled/youtubed and was pleasantly surprised to find Jessie J has a great voice. I’m a bit sad that I’ve missed out this long probably because I don’t listen to popular radio but her album drops next month and I’ll definitely be picking it up.

NOLA is quickly approaching and I am EXCITED. Not just because I’ll get to wear shorts and blind the local population with my reflective fishbelly white skin but because FOOD. Food, y’all. It might as well be the sole reason I travel.

Great things about the internet

1. Netflix

2. wikipedia, for when a movie is so boring that you aren’t convinced you want to watch the whole thing you can look up the entire plot and make an informed decision

3. Tiramisu pancakes – The only thing better than a breakfast food is one that doubles as a dessert

4. Finding good fanfiction that you first read YEARS AGO and discovering that it’s still good. ahem.

Related:

2011 films

The Fighter – Dude. So good. Christian Bale is creepy fucking talented and if he doesn’t get the Oscar he’s being ripped off – not just for this role but because his entire body of work (except maybe Batman) is just incredible. He INHABITS these people. 5 of 5 stars

Centurion – I liked this far more than I’d expected. Bonus appearance of McNulty as Roman general (how much do I still miss The Wire?). Fairly typical, minus the stirring Gladiator-wannabe speech with a nice surprise of female badass badguys. Just a generally entertaining and solid watch. 4 out of 5

The End of the Affair – Dude. Great plot. SUCH A LONG AND DRAWN OUT PRODUCTION. They could have chopped a half an hour out of this flick and it wouldn’t have suffered a minute. This is the movie I referred to in my wikipedia shout out. Yes, I watched the whole thing. 3 of 5

Conversations with Other Women – I honestly can’t tell you why I watched the entire film. Soft spot for Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter, maybe? Interesting (if familiar) Before Sunrise type plot with a few unexpected twists. Enjoyable but not great. 3 of 5

Dear John – So much less god than the usual Nicholas Sparks film and not his ‘typical’ plot. In other words, I actually liked it. 3 of 5

Unrelated:

Sexy Valentine’s moment #12 – My left big toe, which I ran over with heavy equipment a while ago, shed its toenail. Less gross than anticipated but it turns out I’m probably lucky that I didn’t break the damn toe (having seen the damage).

Further unrelated:

After having a break from Yoga Journal for a while, I subscribed during their crazy $1.99 for 1 year deal and got my first issue today. It is surprisingly… light. Perhaps they’re shifting more content online? Guess I’ll have to check out their website.

In reading notes, I’m currently in the middle of Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest.

More movies from Netflix instant

Creation – I really loved this. Biopic of Charles Darwin starring real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connoly, which rather beautifully covers his internal (and external) difficulties publishing Origin of the Species. This will be familiar ground for anyone who’s wrestled with faith, religion and science but handled deftly, with compassion and honesty. Lovely. (5 stars)

Love N’ Dancing – Oh my god. I wanted to like this, I really did. The dance instructor was one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen. Billy Zane was the absolute highlight. (2 stars)

Women in Trouble – I’ll solidly say I liked this. The name implies it’s a slightly different film – a better title would perhaps have been Women in Turmoil. It’s an interesting vignette picture with women whose lives intersect at contentious points. V. enjoyable.  (3 stars)

Marigold – Ali Larter goes to India. I’m not sure there’s a better descriptor. I was expecting it to be either more Bollywood or less and the middle ground was oddly unsatisfying but I kept watching anyhow. (2.5 stars)

New in Town – Eventually Hollywood will maybe get over the sad and pathetic tropes that 1) anyone outside of a major city is a moron/brain damaged 2) women in business have to be utter cunts to succeed 3) everyone in Minnesota sounds like Sarah Palin. Despite these three super annoying plot devices I actually enjoyed this movie. Maybe it had something to do with Harry Connick, Jr and the phenomenal supporting cast. (4 stars)

Movies

RED – This is one of those movies I knew would be awesome and then it proceeded to exceed my expectations. John Malkovich was fucking HILARIOUS. We loved it. LOVE.

The Descent II – I really liked the first one and this was kind of a great sequel, as sequels go.

Spread – I feel like Ashton Kutcher should pay ME for the 1.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back. Who was the costumer on this flick because despite the gigolo gig, he looks like he’s trying to pick up MEN. Who high cuffs their pants and wears sparkly belts with skinny suspenders ALL AT THE SAME TIME. And that’s not even mentioning the ridiculous scarves. I’m going to spoil you here and tell you halfway through the film, he and a female prossie fall in love. Up until then, there’s a lot of nekkid and Kutcher in bad clothes. After that, there’s less nekkid and more angst. I must have a masochistic streak for watching it all the way through.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Did a great job of living up to the novel. A fantastic end to the trio of films.

Elsewhere – AWESOME. Small-town mystery with Anna Kendrick and it was excellent.

The Runaways- Joan Jett was my hero from like forever. This movie is just a rehash/reinforcement of precisely how fucking awesome she is.

Movies

Outlander. It was on cable and I recently picked up the free Kindle version of the book, so it was morbid curiosity to watch. It’s like Aliens lands in the middle ages, except in the middle ages they use modern lingo and the spacedude is a Mary Sue. I’m not so sure how I feel about reading the books now.

Movies

Dinner for Schmucks – I found this to be generally… meh. Not sure that it matters I’m a fan of the original but this had some funny and funny/awkward moments but was not the hilarious film billed by all the trailers. Feh.

Mistress of Spices – If I had to describe this film in one word it would be “languid.” Slow paced but a very nice film, romantic without being too heavy-handed and a kind of modern day fairy tale. Aishwarya Rai is gorgeous, obviously, and had good chemistry with Dylan McDermott. Due to her prominence in Bollywood, it’s also very PG but still has some depth. My husband’s review: “The spices are dicks!”

Weekend films

She’s Out of My League- Predictably crass, goofy and hilarious and therefore right in my wheelhouse. Many, many laugh out loud scenes. Many.

Clash of the Titans – No lie, I was kind of thinking this might suck. It actually turned out quite well – missing the classic cheese of the original but with a significantly better story than Avatar. I think that’s perhaps damning with fair praise.

Sickbed films

Trucker – I tried watching this movie about six months ago and stalled. Today I watched the whole thing. Great acting and the story was good right up until it sucked ass. WTF. It had SUCH potential and then pussied out right at the end with some bullshit device.

Paranormal Activity – Surprisingly boring. I’m not sure what all the excitement was about. Elsenet, Caitlin Kittredge called it Cinematic Ambien. I can’t disagree.

Gamer- Another film I started watching and couldn’t get into. Thanks to my severe headcold (that was SO CLOSE to being “severed headcold”) and Netflix streaming, I can say I was surprisingly entertained.

As it’s too early for my spouse to get home, I may tackle another film. Or maybe a book. Related: I can see that keeping track of the films I watch this year is going to be a BAD IDEA.

More new films

Well, new to me.

Young Victoria – LOVELY.

Legion – chock full of suck

No, I really don’t have anything to elaborate.

Firsts of the Year

First novel finished:

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

(from my review at Goodreads) I’m not entirely sure why there was so much hype surrounding this particular book – maybe there are people who recognize characters in it. For me, it was a caricature of the American family – the kind of American family, in fact, that the Republicans would try to convince you we’re all becoming.

The problem with trying to make a sweeping commentary on our culture is that you’re invariably going to miss. In this case, it was an enjoyable read but nothing earth-shattering or shockingly profound. The moral of the story is that we’re all fucked up. We all make bad choices. We all live with the consequences. Plenty of writers have done better work with this in less pages.

Incidentally, I can see why the FranzenFreude started – Picoult and Weiner have both written more engaging and compelling works (If you haven’t read Good In Bed, you SHOULD) to much less acclaim.

*shrug*

First film:

Ondine

I’d read mixed reviews of this and while Spouse was wrapped up in Bowl games yesterday I watched it on Netflix streaming. 1. It’s odd to hear Colin Farrell with his native accent 2. This was a charming – but shouldn’t have been charming film.

It’s listed as sci-fi but it reminds me more of the work of Alice Hoffman – real but with fantastical elements that add to the story. No surprise, then, that I kind of loved it. A fisherman finds a woman in his net. She brings him luck by singing the fish into his boat and his sickly daughter concludes the woman is a Selkie and works to keep her.

It’s a lovely and delicate film with a satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended.