Tuesday, April 13, 2010

does a bear shit in the woods?

ahhh we have our bimonthly meeting at ten so writing this is A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK !!!!

christina came home yesterday !!!!! it was pretty hilarious cause she was so wiped out from traveling and was acting so ridiculous. at some point she decided to start doing a donald trump impression and kept firing pizza. in 2010. pretty sure she's never actually seen that show?

you're fiyad


i made vegetarian meatballs with noodles and gravy (sort of like lazy swedish meatballs) for dinner, but like.. it was totally gross? like, the gravy was good because i make good gravy

simpsons
thank you, it's just brown and water


but the meatballs tasted weird and smoky- they're nate's meatless meatballs- and i overcooked the noodles cause i was horsing off with christina so it was kind of like a big bowl of mush with gross meatballs and delicious gravy.

after i ate, i finally finished the explosionist. this book came highly recommended to me and like... it was kind of a stinker?

the explosionist


it's an alternate history book about what the world would have been like in 1930s scotland if napoleon had won at waterloo. i will cop to the fact that maybe i don't really know enough about european history to be riveted or amazed by some of the stuff in the book, i guess, but i also assume that most 11-17 year old girls know even less than i do, so that can't be the problem.

- first and foremost, the book is set up to have a sequel, or else it's glaringly incomplete with about 200 loose ends. i don't appreciate a book in a series that can't stand alone, and this definitely can't. they wrapped up maybe two of like 40 plot lines and plot twists introduced
- the author includes tons and tons of extraneous details that are written in a way that make you assume they'll come back later or be a part of the story, and they don't?
- i guess this is expected in alternate history but all of the stuff like, "aleksandr tolstoy bell" inventing the telephone and "famed irish obstetrician oscar wilde" inventing the incubator zzzzzz
- the book relies entirely on coincidence to move the plot forward. want to take pictures of dead peoples' memories? well, the guy at the camera shop happens to be a guy who BUILT A CAMERA THAT CAN DO THAT and he desperately wants to help you for free. bad guy is going to kill everyone? a random person comes in and like, stops him.
- main character is clearly special in some way (and the author keeps telling you that !) even though nothing she thinks, says, or does is particularly compelling or interesting.
- good guys are identified as good and bad guys as bad immediately so it's like a matter of time before things get worked out.

overall i really wanted to like it, but it couldn't even keep me interested. it wasn't as big a chore as tender morsels, and a few of the plot points were genuinely interesting, but every time i was excited to see where something went, it just didn't go anywhere. poorly written, poorly paced, poorly edited, but i will not stop you from trying to read it if you want to !

after that, i took a shower because my hair smelled like meatballs and shaved my legs and painted my nails and toenails. i've been like obsessed with painting my nails since middle school and it's probably the only like, stereotypically feminine thing i do besides... shaving my legs (but my legs get dry and get gross pus-y ingrowns if i don't !). i don't care about painting my toenails but i have toenail fungus and it covers it up ! haha. the treatment for it takes a year or more and destroys your liver so i'd rather just paint my toenails a beautiful color. full disclosure !

speaking of not toenail fungus anymore, christina and i watched up in the air, finally. i've had it from netflix for like one month, but was worried that it was like a stupid grownuppy midlife crisis movie like sideways. not that i've SEEN sideways, but i have an aversion to lowell from wings because i think he played a law & order rapist or something. ANYWAY

up in the air


i didn't know much about the plot of the movie before seeing it- it's about a lone wolf type dude whose job is to fly around the country and fire people and offer them a severance package that includes career counseling through his company. i was reticent at first because like, i don't really care about lone wolf dudes being afraid of commitment and blah blah blah, but i totally loved it.

good
- george clooney. i don't even understand. i think he's a great actor, but like... how is one dude so handsome and charming and funny and hot and handsome and endearing and hot and ugalsddjlkg? every time he'd smile and his eyes would crease christina and i would start cursing at the television.
- vera farmiga was excellent as well and like, her butt. i mean, her acting, but also, her butt. she made the role seem effortless, like she was this real amazing woman who accidentally wandered onto the set. aside from the fact that she is stunningly beautiful, she was just such a huge presence and almost upstaged clooney even though i want to do stuff to him that he has never heard of cause he probably hasn't seen urban dictionary cause he's old.
- every single interaction in the movie was believable
- the heartbreaking reveal was so perfect and jolting (i hadn't read anything about the movie beforehand) that it made my heart hurt a little.
- i loved his interactions with his sisters and his attempts to prove to the people around him that he isn't a ghost or a stranger while sort of still acting like one.
- random sam elliott !

bad
- i'm not really sold on anna kendrick, who plays a recent college grad whose strategy to cut costs at clooney's company fucks up his life. her acting was very high school play.
- i found clooney's interactions with her a little paternalistic and it was hard to take, though i get the point.
- everyone in the movie was "on" all the time and witty and quick and it was a little hard to take, but uh... the director also directed juno, so maybe he's still working some of that bile out of his system.

overall i highly recommend it, even if you are a creepy adult child who hates hearing about adult problems and a dour feminist who doesn't care about men's midlife crises.

sigh
it really takes talent to look so unreal in that totally whack shirt


i have a meeting now, so i have to go. i'm going to be kind of busy at work today and tomorrow cause we have an event tomorrow ! tonight i'm supposed to go to jeanne's after work and i'm psyched ! diana is going to be there and we'll get to hang out and i think i'll get a cool haircut.

p.s. the only thing more annoying than knitting a sock with tiny needles is unknitting a sock with tiny needles

13 comments:

  1. florida swamp foot! both emma & i used FUNGINAIL & it worked, after just painting it on & under the nails for a coupla weeks. it kinda lasts forever, too. both she & i only just had some yellowing/caught it early.

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  2. i read LEVIATHAN by scott westerfeld for the teen lit class i am taking, and it is also alternate history, and the whole thing made me want to die. he gave the characters these weird accents -- the idea of the book is so good but the weird STEAMPUNK things were awful

    my feelings about up in the air were like 99% exactly the same. i wanted to see it primarily because it was filmed in st louis (my hometown) but i also was expecting to hate it because everyone i know who saw it hated it but it was so, so beautiful to me. also i forgot about the heartbreaking reveal!! ahhh!! i cried a little bit. another one of my favorite things was how accurately bleak those dying quasi-industrial midwestern cities were depicted


    sorry i comment on everything you say on the internet!!

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  3. francesca, i'll check that out ! it sounds easy. mine honestly isn't HORRIBLE, but it's gotten worse over the past few years.

    lindsay, it's cool, your comments are relevant to my interests ! christina and i were just waiting for some kind of heartbreaking moment but like, how quickly and concisely his fantasy/dreams were shattered in a few seconds was like getting punched in the stomach !

    people keep recommending scott westerfield books to me but like... they all look really stupid? he's also married to the woman who wrote that horrible 'liar' book i read a few months ago !!!

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  4. i have never even heard of this movie before but now i want to watch it i think! also, sideways SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS but for some reason the commentary track is like, the most fucking hilarious thing i have ever listened to in my life. but i sort of love lowell.

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  5. maybe i'll watch 'sideways' with the commentary? like if i had to make a list of stuff i don't care about it would be like

    1) men's midlife crises
    2) wine
    3) twitter
    4) lowell from 'wings'
    5) tiger woods (see 1)

    but #412 on the list of things i DO care about is paul giamatti !

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  6. lowell (i don't know his real name) and paul giamatti do the commentary and they basically make fun of themselves and each other the whole time, as I recall! but yeah sidewayzzzzzzzzzzzzz dumbest and most boring.

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  7. Maybe I watched it wrong or something, but I didn't enjoy Up in the Air at all.

    a) Dude who goes out of his way to distance himself from anyone falls for woman he thinks is his female counterpart but finds out she isn't = ZZZZZZZ/"awwwww, poor men"

    b) Totally with you about Vera Farmiga's butt, and her character was cool until the heartbreaking reveal (HR) — but really disappointed that the best they could come up with for the HR, without spoiling it here, boiled down to her character being a tired stereotype rather than the, like, smart, cool, lively, independent woman she made herself out to be

    c) I get that Anna Kendrick's character was supposed to represent the entitled Generation Y-er, but that didn't make her any easier to watch, and I am so tired of the "can women have it all????" discussion and women in movies who grapple with this always choosing some always-sucky guy over an actually good-sounding career opportunity, though maybe that's just me

    d) Mostly I am just bummed out because this movie got so much critical acclaim, including prestigious nominations for the main actresses' performances, but ultimately those roles were just two more examples of people seeming not to know how to come up with something different for actresses to do, if that makes sense (but I guess LOL @ me for expecting to see, like, meaty roles for women in the awards season race or whatever)

    e) what was the point of Clooney's character's efficiency? like, great, you can pack a light suitcase, get through a line fast, take advantage of perks so you don't have to spend money, etc. — it wasn't like he was in a hurry to do anything/see anyone/have more stuff (not that I was interested in him, like, suddenly wanting those things, but I'm saying), though I did appreciate the irony that he didn't understand that Kendrick's character similarly streamlined the company (or I guess he understood it but he didn't want to accept it because he didn't want his job to change)

    Blahhh I suck at talking about movies. I watched Hot Tub Time Machine right before and Frozen River right after and thought they were better than Up in the Air for what they were.

    I should comment to your blog more often, but not like this !!

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  8. i would say i almost totally agree with all of your points, yet i still liked it ! i think i appreciate any situation in a movie where the woman is the one who has the power in a relationship and doesn't want more and gets to be the fun asshole and gets to turn the male fun asshole's shit on its ear?

    i didn't think about that thing about anna kendrick's character, either, and now that i do, it's definitely something i don't like- i couldn't really put my finger on what was bothering me, i guess the fact that george clooney was so patronizing to her and had to show her how to do her job because she was just too emotional and young and womanly to be able to handle it like a pro.

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  9. oil of oregano will clear up yr swamp foot!

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  10. - main character is clearly special in some way (and the author keeps telling you that !) even though nothing she thinks, says, or does is particularly compelling or interesting."

    this is an upsetting trend (and by trend I mean this book and twilight)
    I mean I don't need every character to be Buffalo Brenda but come on.

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  11. uh the "capcha" word I had to type in to post that was "stinki"

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  12. twilight is the MAIN OFFENDER of this trend !

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