With a Heart Full of Mess and Lore

I Love You Like Crazy, Like Crazy: Film Review

2011-10-26T20:00:30Z

It has been roughly eight months since I hit up the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, getting to see Margin Call and Like Crazy before almost anyone else and absolutely loving the whole experience. But for some reason, while I was able to hit out a Margin Call review in short order―well, short for me anyway―I never got my Like Crazy review polished and posted.

Which might lead you to believe that I loved Margin Call, and was so blah about Like Crazy that I couldn't be bothered to even pen a review, when the exact opposite has turned out to be true. Margin Call was a good film, with some very magnificent and even Oscar worthy performances. But as the months have passed I've found myself to be kind of one-and-done with it. I'm glad I saw it, no regets on that score, but I don't feel any pressing need to revisit that world and those characters again, unless significant edits were made to the film after it premiered at the festival. (Yes, I know, BLASPHEMY that I could never see it again and be fine, but it is what it is. YMMV.)

Conversely, Like Crazy has only grown in my esteem over the passing months. Something about that film, a little sleeper indie hit that could, has stuck with me all this time; like the two main characters' emotions, there is something there that will not let me go. (Trust me, there is a reason it won top prizes at Sundance, and deservedly so.) So I am very excited that this weekend, after months of waiting, I finally get the chance to revisit a film that, like an old love, has haunted me for the better part of a year.

The rest of my review will be breaking down the film into pieces and analyzing those, so there will be MANY SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The Story

As someone who loves romantic films, yet is utterly tired of the cliched, hamfisted, poorly written dreck that passes for romcoms or romantic indies these day, Like Crazy is a wonderful surprise.

Unlike most modern romcoms, with their overly contrived "meet cutes" and sassy caricatured BFFs and snappy one liners combined with embarrassing pratfalls, Like Crazy aims to tell a much more realistic story about falling in love, and the trials that come as a result of that love. And unlike some of the big indie hits from the last few years that also deal with complicated emotions between two people (Blue Valentine or 500 Days of Summer come immediately to mind), Like Crazy Strikes the perfect tone. It is neither too dark or too twee, too cloistered or too cloying. Instead it's an emotionally balanced portrayal of two characters in love, acting and reacting against one another as they try to make sense of their world, and is wonderfully, satisfyingly spot on.

The story of Like Crazy is that of, technically, a love story between Anna and Jacob, two people born in different countries who meet in college, fall in love for the first time, and want to be together but must instead deal with the drama of long distances, and Visas and legal battles, and the strain of being apart. For those who have, like them, experienced the pain of a relationship conducted long distance I am sure it will strike a definite chord. In spite of the heightened drama of the story created by this premise, the lives and personalities wound up in this story are presented as true to life as the subject matter allows.

One of the beautiful juxtapositions I took away from the film (which I might be reading too much into, but I hope not) was the nature of Anna and Jacob and how they expressed themselves, either through the use of words or objects. For Anna it is via words. She is a gifted writer; we see this in her opening scene, where she is reading aloud for her English class, and Jacob is intrigued. Throughout the film words play an intrinsic part of her story. She is the one who first initiated their relationship, a scribbled note to show her interest left on the windshield of a delighted Jacob's car. Her chosen vocation involves words, doing grunt work for a magazine in London and working her way slowly but steadily up to becoming its editor. Once she and Jacob are together, she keeps a handwritten journal to record their relationship, full of pictures and keepsakes, which later on they try to use as documentation in their attempt to be legally married. And whenever they are on the outs relationship-wise, the texts she sends him or the vulnerable conversations she has with him over the phone, in key moments, prevent him from fully commiting to his new life without her.

If the outlet Anna uses to express herself to Jacob is in words, to connect herself to to his world and give vibrancy to her life, then then for Jacob, his mode of expresson is in things. He like Anna also creates, but he uses intrinsic objects to do this, opening a furniture shop in LA after graduation and building each piece they sell from scratch. He builds a beautiful chair made just for Anna with his bare hands, which she proudly keeps in her apartment in London, and which becomes a physical point of conflict between her and her boyfriend after she and Jacob temporarily separate. Later on he gives her a bracelet, which breaks and falls off in a key scene near the end, also with her boyfriend.

This yin and yang of their natures, extensions of their souls portrayed as tangible parts of their personality, was subtly done, but added a nice dynamic to the nature of their relationship.

:: MAJOR SPOILER ABOUT THE ENDING ::

The wonderful thing about Like Crazy is that, while it is technically a love story at its core, the way that story is presented could also be construed as a not-love story, in the same vein as 500 Days of Summer and Blue Valentine. It is about two lovers who continue pursuing each other long after they probably should. Long after the rhyme or reason of being together has faded, and only their mission to be together, and the simple fact of being each other's first love, sustains them. Of two people who because of their attraction and longing for each other―and the might-have-beens and what ifs of their relationships that were never realized, bad decisions and missed chances―never are able to completely break it off with each other, even when the best thing for both of them might be to cut their losses and walk away. Their love for each other, for better or worse, sustains them through the rough times and keeps them coming back.

For this reason I absolutely loved the ending, even though I am sure many people will find themselves having serious issues with it, and even though my interpretation of what Drake is trying to say might differ wildy from someone else's. In the last scene of the film, we see Anna and Jacob showering together (one of the first published stills from the film, actually, the two of them wet and surrounded by blue), their goal accomplished, their mission won: they are married, they are together. But outwardly there is little triumph or love in their expressons or body language; the only thing clearly visible is the weariness of the emotional wounds that their battle to be together has left them with. Can they overcome that, can their love survive the almost phyrric victory it took to get them married at last, desite all odds? Will the next scene we see of them be one where they are together, content and happy at last, or will it show them once more separated, perhaps this time for good? We never know; the film ends before a coda to their relationship can be shown. For some viewers this will no doubt be frustrating, but to be honest I loved the open endedness, lady-or-the-tiger-ishness of it all. Again, it feels very real and raw. Their love story has no set, rote ending; the final scene is completely up to them to fill in, on their own, and for the audience to always speculate about.

I might be reading way too much into it―in fact, I probably am―but in that end scene, one of the key scenes of the whole film, Anna and Jacob are verbally silent and physcially naked; stripped of both the words and objects they usually use to navigate the world. In the end all they have is each other, and hopefully, if they are lucky, that will be enough. I am positive that the ending as it is, leaving the audience with unresolved yet delicious questions, is in fact one of the reasons I love the film so much, and why it has stayed with me all this time.

:: END OF MAJOR SPOILER ABOUT THE ENDING ::

The Script

For those people unfamiliar with Drake Doremus' previous works (like I was before I saw the film and did some research), his style of directing is a sort of organic collaboration between actor and script. There is no set screenplay; instead he sets vague points where he wants the scene to go, but lets the actors get their characters to that point with great fluidity, with whatever dialogue or movement they wish to use. They are allowed to ad-lib their lines at will, letting the scenes unfold and snowball in the way they feel would be appropriate for their character. Thus the script is a perfect manifestation of the sense of unfaked, realistic storytelling the film is attempting to portay.

Because of this, each scene is imbued with awkward pauses in conversation, or quiet moments that stretch on, or stilted, halting dialogue; the sort of things that a lot of modern mainstream films try to edit out or smooth away. With our modern culture and its glut of “reality” programming, life semi scripted, we are rarely see this onscreen, even in moments of supposed reality. Instead of being frustrated by it, I instead found myself relishing the chance to experience scenes or situations unfold in a much more languid manner than I was accustomed to; I found the rhythm of natural sounding conversations soothing, not stilting. Our blink-and-you-miss-it culture relies on things to be fast and snappy and spontaneous; to have our senses assaulted at every moment and everything overly explained. This film is the antithesis of that, for better or worse. I think a lot about how the film is received will be due to whether or not the audience can handle Drake's form of naturalistic storytelling, but I for one, found it to be a refreshing change.

A side effect of this improvisational screenplay is that it makes the dramatic scenes in the film that much more intense, the emotions of the characters heightened. Whether full of joy, or fighting, or crying, or trying to use conversation or objects to make sense of their shifting worlds, the realness of the characters in those scenes―the actors imbuing the moment with the sort of stark rhythm of conversation that can't be faked―made the agony or esctasy of those moments come to life, much more so than if they had been scripted to death.

The story moves forward in fits and starts in time. Each new scene, like waking from a dream, requires a moment of adjustment, as your brain procceses the images on the screen, waiting to see whose life the viewer gets to examine now, Anna's or Jacob's, and what stage of their relationship, on again or off again, they are currently in. From one scene to the next, they are together, then they are not, and we find they have not been for months, only to be smashed back together once more. Because these jumps are kept very linear and each scene quickly establishes everything we need to know, the jumps forward are accomplished with minimal jarring to the audience's sense of time, even if our emotions or those of the characters are not spared the same consideration.

The Cinematography

The camera lens also matches the feeling of realness the director is attempting to portray. The lighting is natural. At times the film uses a documentary style shaky cam, peering in on the characters; at times the scenes are instead polished and still. No matter how they are presented, every angle is consciously chosen to give the viewer a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into private moments or conversations in Anna or Jacob's lives, the sort of moments no outsider is ever meant to hear. This sometimes made watching certain scenes extremely uncomfortable; like at any moment I, the viewer, would be caught in the act of spying on them in their rawest points, and get chased away. But the story and characters were engaging enough to keep me entranced, unwilling to turn away even when I felt like I should, for decency's sake.

There are several montages placed thoughout the movie, sandwiched between the bigger scenes, that give the audience a sense of the action taking place between those shots, and also help convey a passing of time, albeit in a more artistic way. (You see quick shots of some of them in the trailer.) They contain no dialogue, just a beautiful piano soundtrack that I depserately want for myself, and show us several scenes of Anna and Jacob that needed to be compressed for the sake of time yet are no less essential to telling their story. The scenes include: candid moments from their initial courtship; the time spent together while Anna violated her Visa and stayed with Jacob, represented in a series of chronological shots looking down on them in bed; the escalator in the airport where Anna waits, time sped up, for Jacob to come and visit her overseas since she cannot go see him. Each one is beautifully shot and thoughtfully composed, a complete film in their own right. They are mini films-within a film, the sort of short form video projects that I could see a film student proudly making. But tied together in this film, they enhance everything else going on and add an artistic dimension to the film that visually borders on the poetic. You see mere snippets of these montages in the trailer, but trust me, seeing them full length has an even greater emotional impact. Those simple montages are some of the images from the film that have stayed with me the longest and remained the most vivid, all these months later.

(To go along with the piano comment: the major images and scenes of the film are, for the most part, starkly free of a running soundtrack of pop hits or swelling orchestras that serve as a backdrop to what we are seeing and hearing. Except for the montages, Drake lets the scenes speak for themselves, with no attempts to guide the audience via music to what he thinks they should be feeling, thus heightening the realism of each scene. It was jarring at first but, like with the organic script, I quickly adjusted and even found myself enjoying it.)

The Actors

As stated before in the story section, Drake Doremus gives his actors a rough outline of where a scene needs to go and then lets them improv the rest, relying on their instincts and insights into their characters to fill in the blanks and paint in the dialogue of the story. Giving your actors that much freedom and trusting them to make it all work somehow is something I could see going horribly irrevocably wrong; it requires a tight cast of brilliant actors to pull it off, otherwise the director is sunk. Luckily Drake could not have chosen better in selecting his cast.

The two leads for this film, Anna and Jacob, require finding skilled actors who can, from the first moment we see their characters onscreen, make them likeable, relatable, and have the sort of believable chemistry to keep their unconventional relationship together despite all odds. I cannot say enough good things about the two leads that were picked. Felicity Jones, as Anna, and Anton Yelchin, as Jacob, did a stunning job. They really come into their own in this film, their performances both together and apart compelling, lively, and sympathetic.

I sincerely hope this film is a breakout one for Anton. I am sure people might point to Star Trek as accomplishing that for him, but in reality his part in that film is extremely small and gave him only a few scenes to develop his character. In Like Crazy he has to help carry the whole film and does himself credit, showing a depth of feeling and range and soft spoken romantic appeal that I had hoped, but had not known for sure, that he possessed. He really shined. If this becomes known as the film for which he becomes a household name as a leading man, he certainly could not have asked for a better film to help him accomplish that feat.

Felicity was just darling. She imbued Anna with equal parts spirit and naivete; enough spirit to be willing to break the legal rules of her Visa to stay with Jacob; enough naivete to not realize how much that fateful decision will cost her in the years to come. And yet even when she made major mistakes I was rooting for her character to suceed. As frustrating as her decisions might seem, you completely understand her appeal and why Jacob has difficulty letting her go.

If Felicity and Anton were superb as the leads, then Jennifer Lawrence, in the tiny but essential role as Anton's new girlfriend in LA, named Sam, is a revelation. If Anna is meant to be the protagonist in this story, surely Sam, on the surface, must by default be the antagonist, correct? In a conventional romance, maybe. Yet there is in this story, as in real life, so much more to it than that, and Jennifer uses all of her skills as an actress to make sure this comes across.

Because of the established likability of Anna, and the investment I had made as a viewer in her and Jacob making their relationship work, by the time Sam comes into the picture, in all of her sunny California blondneness and sweet disposition, I instantly chalked her up as a threat to Anna, someone I should possibly be disinclined to like. But instead, when Jacob is unable to make up his mind whether to be with Sam, wholly present in his new life, or to return to Anna, it was Sam I ended up having the most sympathy for. Sam ended up not the antagonist at all; if anything Anna and Jocob are the main protagonists and antagonists of their own story, and the people like Sam that they encounter along the way are the collateral damage for their emotional rollercoasters. It was heartbreaking to watch Sam realize that, through no fault of her own, some other woman will always hold the larger half of Jacob's heart, a man she truly does love and wants to be with, even when I think she is well aware of how doomed she and Jacob are as a couple, in the shadow of Anna.

I had first heard good buzz about Jennifer from her part in Winter's Bone, which everyone semed to rave about. And if that did not do the trick of making her one of the current young “it” actresses, then her part in this summer's X-Men movie, compounded with the leading role in the highly anticipated Hunger Games, certainly will. But I suspect a part of me will always be proud that it was in this small film, in a potentially tiny one-note part that she imbued with vibrancy and sympathy, that I first got to see a hint of how deep the well of her talent truly is. It cemented in my mind that she is not only a bona fide film star but a skilled actress, and one I look forward to seeing onscreen for many years to come.

The actors playing Anna's parents were the other standouts in the cast. They have such limited screen time, but they did a wonderful job projecting warmth, familiarity, and practicality as they interact with Anna and Jacob and warn them in advance of the folly of letting Anna overstay her Visa. Alex Kingston I recognized from ER or Doctor Who, and it was nice to see her onscreen again, playing a role quite different from the others I had seen.

There are other characters in the movie of course, but with the advent of time I don't really remember them. The guy playing Anna's boyfriend did a decent, if standard, job. Handsome and doting but boring, and I never really found anything about his character that stuck out at me. (Maybe that is the point?) Let's just say that it if it wasn't a conscious acting choice to be that nondescript, he was no Jennifer Lawrence and leave it at that.

Summary

I love films about love, the sort of happy ending type of picture in which the characters walk into the sunset hand in hand. But even more satisfying than that are, for me, the films dealing with the conflicts involved with love, the realistic, everyday trials and dissappintments that fill the day to day and that don't provide an easy resolution when the credits begin to roll.

Like Crazy accomplishes the latter in an honest, heartfelt way, a beautiful tribute to relationships and first loves and the craftsmanship of filmmaking in one glorious little package. I honestly long to go back and experience this film once more, to see the characters fall in love all over again and see the trials they go through as a result of that love, and am so thrilled that I will get the chance this weekend. Like Anna and Jacob's relatonship, it has been a long, difficult wait for the film to be officially released, but one that will be so infinitely worth it.

I hope that maybe someone out there reading this who had not heard of or was not planning to go see this film, might change their mind and give it a chance. (Let's just say that I am usually a one-and-done person with films, and with the hit-or miss nature of modern cinema, you are lucky if I even see it in the theater at all. But this film? I paid $15 to see it back in January. I'm going to shell out more cash to see it this weekend, and maybe drag a friend to a matinee of it later on. And then when it hits the cheap theaters for its final leg, I am so there too, my $3 in hand and a smile on my face. Hopefuly that convinces you that this film is worthwhile, if nothing else.)

And for those that are planning on seeing it, chime in once you do and let me know what you thought! The only problem with seeing a film at a fancy film fest, months before everyone else gets the chance, is that it is impossible to talk about it with other people. Which for me, since I am one of those that love to dissect movies or plays out loud after I see them, is absolute torture. I've had this wonderful experience sitting on my chest all these months, and no one to talk about it with. Well, the wait is finally over! Please share with me in the joy, the pain, things you liked or disliked about the film, and what you think of Drake's directing choices or the actors' acting choices. Nothing would make me happier!

Ready for Those Flashing Lights: My Time at the Monster Ball, Part 1

2011-04-22T08:02:34Z

The older I get, the more important true theatricality is to me when I see a stage production. If I am going to invest my hard earned money on a show, it had better be worth the ticket price. I'm too old now to be instantly smitten with bubbly adolescent glee over pop singers, thank heavens (except for everything Trek cast related, but Trek is special snowflake always.) And I'm too young to be so set in my music tastes that I reject anything new offhand. So I veer between fangirl squeeing over new artists and crankily telling them to get off my lawn.

I have been dragged to live shows where the performances and bad singing barely held my attention (Avril, I am looking at you), and have also seen sets that blew my mind and were a transformative experience for me (Alison Sudol, sigh. A true goddess; I still get girlcrushy shivers when I think of how amazing her concert was. And Depeche Mode rocked out harder than kids half their age, proving age is truly but a number.) Age of the singer has nothing to do with it; genre of music has nothing to do with it. It is all about presentation and enthusiasm and talent, and that spark all true performers have that cannot be faked. That is what I am searching for when I choose to attend a live concert.

Lady Gaga is an interesting phenomenon for me. The first time I heard "Just Dance" I hated it, absolutely despised the thing. Partly because my tastes at the time had veered to indie acoustical chicks and far away from pop; partly because I completely misinterpreted the lyrics (I thought it was encouraging the awful situation of girls getting so plastered at clubs that they lose all sense of reason and put themselves in harm's way.) But the more I heard it the more it grew on me, and Nyu explained to me that is actually about letting go and enjoying life despite the obstacles thrown in your path, which I can appreciate. Then I liked "Pokerface", the next single I heard. And I slowly fell in love with Gaga's wacky fashion sense and her always interesting music videos and the surprising amount of poise she has in interviews. I don't know, somewhere along the way I came to respect her as a legitimate artist and not just a flash in the pan shock poptartlet.

So well over a year ago, on the day the tickets for the Monster Ball in SLC were available for purchase, a friend and I made sure we scored seats. We knew Gaga could sing; we had heard YouTube vids of her performing sans studio magic. We knew she loved over the top extravaganzas; any music video of hers will tell you that. In short, we hoped it would be a good show, and worth our time and money and patience to attend.

Cut to almost a year later, March 19, and there we were, surrounded by little monsters young and old! Dressed to the nines in their adorbs monster costumes, half naked despite the weather being freezing cold. Along with many of them were befuddled parents that I could not help but look at in adoration; when your teenybopper son is wearing a dress and glittery tights and eyeliner in a very conservative state, and you are still willing to be seen out in public with him, you earn 1000 bonus parent points. There were also a lot of people our age dressed like us (by which I mean not dressed up at all), and even people the same age as the parent chaperones but obviously there for their own sakes. It was nice mix of people.

We all got in our seats, enjoyed the warm up act of the Scissor Sisters (who I ALSO LOVE, OMG, could not believe she got them to be the opening act), and waited for the crazy to commence.

And were not disappointed in the slightest.

The setup for the Scissor Sisters. During their set Ana told us that when little monsters grow up they turn into Scissor Sisters, lol. I loved seeing her live, I girlcrushed and totally wanted her outfit and her confidence. And Jake stripped down to pretty much nothing by the end, lol.

During the intermission after Scissor Sisters performed, you could text to the a number and get messages posted to the screens in almost real time. The kids in front of us did it and listed their names; when their message went up they freaked out, lol. Very cute.

Granted, the show starts off kind of slow. Gaga's Monster Ball is not merely a hodgepodge of bizarro sets and costumes; no, that would be too easy. There is a storyline too: their car broke down on the way to the Monster Ball, and they have to get on the subway, then travel through a tripped out central park, then are attacked by the fame monster, then magically make it safely to the ball. So the sets and things reflected this storyline.

I had my camera in my purse, because I ALWAYS have it in my purse, just in case, and during one of her sets Gaga told us that she knew the arena people would not like it, but that she gave us permission to take "As many F****** PICTURES AS YOU WANT." The crowd roared in approval. I think she realized people already were, she might as well go along with it. All the kiddies around me were, the people on the floor were. I had taken some covert shots before her announcement (YES, BAD THEATRE ETIQUETTE, PART OF ME IS STILL ASHAMED), but after her giving the green light I snapped away like a mad person, lol.

I am dividing my photos up into themes of sorts: The intermission screen video montages; set 1, set 2, set 3, and blurred closeups. Considering how my camera HATES low lighting, I am impressed any turned out at all. I could not get super close or it blurred everything, but here are the best of the bunch. We were in the lowest balcony, close to the middle.

(If you take these images and post them elsewhere, some credit would be nice, kthankx!)

VIDEO MONTAGES

To open the show and in between sets, a screen covered the stage and brief video montages were shown. After the Fame Monster puppet and hearing her sing acoustic (which I'll get to in good time), these were my FAVE THING about the whole concert. They were like pieces of mini art. Of course, they WERE shot like a German Expressionist film, much like the Alejandro music vid was, and I am addicted to that style so I am horribly biased, but still, it was lovely. I really hope they show the vids in the HBO special that is airing next month so you can see the full effect. Because of my shutter speed some of the video bits bled into each other like a double exposure, and I actually really like the effect. Yay serendipity!

Ugh, I hate smoking. But it was a big part of the expressionist style to include it, and I liked the way they transitioned from the smoking Gaga to the fake Metropolis-like set, so I sighed and gave it a pass.

SET 1

The opening set did not quite live up to all my hopes; I thought it looked like what a local theatre production of Rent might look like; a bit bare bones, and, dare I say it, a little tacky. Tacky? Gaga? Hmmm. But the car opened up to reveal a piano, which Gaga got up on and played, and the dancing was brilliant from the beginning, so I tried to ignore the set and look at what was beautiful on stage.

Now we journey from the broken down car to the Subway. Costume change to Nun outfit and creepy masks!

Gaga disappeared for a bit, then came out of floor rockin' the keyboards. Then her backup dancers helped her disrobe and more intense choreography ensued.

Okay, that was the end of the first set, and that's where I'm ending this post as well. In my next post I'll move on to set two: Central Park and forest of doom!

My LJ is dead, long live my LJ

2011-04-21T23:01:36Z

"why arent you continuing your blog i like your blog a lot please continue updating"

I want to thank this wonderful anon, whomever they are! I honestly assumed no one reads my LJ, hah, so I haven't been updating it like I should. Plus I got a bit sucked into Tumblr; a lot of posts I would have (or probably should have) been making over here, I've been doing there instead. If you want to check out my interests and obsessions on a daily basis, I would suggest heading over there:

http://reezoo.tumblr.com/

But trust me, my LJ is still alive and well! I'm not comfortable with posting uber personal info over there; the few times I have I kind of got squicked out. And for travelogues and reviews and things I really think that LJ is the way to go for me. I still have AiA recaps and Sundance summaries to write up, plus other goings ons to report. And I have all the photos from the Monster Ball concert sorted into useful albums, which I will be posting in parts later here tonight. (Anon spurred me into posting those ASAP, so thanks!)

I promise to neglect my LJ less in the future! Poke me with sticks if I do not get my act together and get my posts up!

Margin Call Review + Sundance Picspam

2011-02-10T22:57:01Z

So adoorhasopened posted a lovely summary of our epically epic Sundance weekend! I can't top hers but here is my contribution, a definitely longer tl;dr review of Margin Call to add to the discussion, hah.

I’ve kind of divided the review into three parts: A summary of the plot for those dying to know, my critique, and then the JC Chandor/Neal Dobson Q&A that took place afterwords. Lots of stuff but hopefully enough red meat in there for everyone. And at the end of all the text there is Sundance picspam, which I hope you enjoy!

_{(By the way, I am so sorry all my reviews/notes from Sundance are taking so long to get out, for anyone who cares. I started reading a new book last week, which is always a mistake because it sucked up my non-braindead free time, and then real life work was a thorn in my side. I am blaming failure of life, basically, for my laziness, hah.)}

(SPOILER ALERT: I didn't know how much of the plot people would want to know, so I wrote down what I could remember and what I had written in my notes. If you really do not want to be spoiled, avoid the whole review pretty much, hah, but especially the plot summary. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Also, in the summary section I’m referencing scenes you can watch on the preview vid that was released. The vid on ontd_pinto was taken down, but here is another one I scrounged up: http://www.alltrailers.net/margin-call.html#

PLOT SUMMARY

“The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn't have a thing to do with reality...”
— The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

::

Morning at the firm. Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) is in his office, looking haggard. We learn his dog is dying and will be put to sleep. We also learn that 80% of the floor is being let go today, and focus on three characters in particular. Two new grunts Peter Sullivan (Zach) and Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley), who are anxious, and Will Emerson (Paul Bettany), a veteran of the floor, who just tells them to keep their eyes down and ignore the chaos around them as people get sacked. This becomes increasingly difficult to do when it becomes apparent that Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is also getting the boot; he's Peter's boss, in charge of risk analysis for the firm. We follow Eric into a private conference room and witness his actual firing. The lady doing the honors hands him a packet entitled “Looking Ahead” with generic motivational imagery on it (heh, everyone in the theater laughed), and we learn that as soon as he leaves the conference room, because of the secretive nature of his work, his e-mail, phone, and access to the building will be cut off. He needs to pack up his things and has a short window of time to accept their severance package. He grabs two boxes of his belongings and heads to the elevators, followed by a security guy. (Scene from the preview vid.) Peter and Seth come over to say goodbye, and Peter stays behind to tell him how grateful he was to work for him. Before the elevator doors close Eric hands him a thumb drive and tells him to take a look at what's on there, and to be careful. The elevator doors close, and we see Eric leave the building. He takes his phone out to try to make a call but it no longer works; he throws it on the ground and it breaks. He makes a passing scathing comment to Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) as he leaves, essentially blaming her for his getting fired.

Sam gives a pep talk to the people on the floor that survived the bloodbath; Peter, Seth, and Will all made it through (duh). Will is taking the rest of the floor out drinking to celebrate, and Seth tries to convince Peter to join them, to no avail (they are great together, have a lot of chemistry. Seth is the more carefree and cocky of the two, Peter more analytical and cautious.) Peter begs off, insisting he has some work to wrap up, and the floor quiets down as the employees escape into the night. (It's implied later that the “pep talk” from Sam probably shook him up, so Peter is working late to prove he deserves to be there and to stay one step ahead of his peers.) He puts headphones on and we hear his music start up, as he prepares to settle in for a long night. He notices the thumb drive Eric gave him and boots it up. We see a series of shots as he is analyzing the data on the drive, getting more and more concerned, until we finally see a look of realization and horror come over him. He calls Eric's number but no response, then calls Seth at the club, having fun, and tells him to grab Will and come back to the firm, now.

They do, and he explains what was on the drive Eric gave him in a lot of financial jargon I didn't quite get. (Scene from the preview vid.) In short: it's bad, and it is going to get the firm into a giant crapstorm of trouble. Will asks about getting ahold of Eric, Peter says he tried but no one knows where he is and the firm shut off his phone. Will thinks he knows where Eric might be, and sends Peter and Seth on a hunt for Eric around the city while he calls in Sam and gives him the news. Meanwhile, we have witnessed Sam as he puts his beloved dog to sleep (gaaaah), so he is in a crappy mood when Will calls him. But he calls up the big guns upon hearing the news.

Peter and Seth are at a strip club that Will sent them to (hah, it is hysterical, the looks on their faces) when Will calls them and tells them to get back to the firm. Seth has a bottle of booze in a paper bag and is drinking it, while Peter is far more alert and concerned about what is going to happen. While in the car, Peter looks out the window and says people are just walking around, with no idea of what's about to happen to them; Seth counters by flippantly saying that he tries to not let his work get to him like that. Seth is obsessed a bit with money, and he asks Peter how much he thinks Will made last year. You can tell Peter thinks the topic is a bit gauche but he speculates with Seth. They meet up with Will.

Okay, from here on out I might mess up the order of scenes or forget some, sorry about that! But Will, Peter, and Seth have a scene on the rooftop. Seth still has his bottle. Somehow the question of income comes up, again because of Seth’s invasive curiosity, and Will breaks down for him where his ridiculously large salary went; $100,000 alone was spent on a car. They also talk about how much the head of the company supposedly made last year.

(Either at this convo or a later one, Will mentions that he got ahold of Eric's wife over the phone, and she says he hasn't come home. Will says he can't blame him, the man has kids and it would be hard to look your family in the face after getting sacked. Will suspects he might be getting plastered somewhere; later on the idea of “or worse” begins forming in the back of people's minds as well, that he might have done himself some harm.)

They are interrupted from their rooftop musings by a helicopter coming and landing on the building; the big guns have arrived. Peter and Seth are ushered to a conference room, but before they go in they are warned to be honest about everything, not mince words, and it is quite apparent they are descending into the lion's den. Around this point we are introduced to Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), another person high up on the totem pole of the firm and kind of an SOB. Seth covertly stashes his bottle, still in its paper bag, so he won't carry it into the conference room, hiding it by a cubicle.

Once in the room we see all the big players, most importantly the actual head of the firm, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons. Aasif Mandvi is also in this scene too, hah). Sarah is also included in this meeting. Peter is singled out, asked to explain his credentials and what he found out. He rattles off a mini resume and mentions he went to MIT, is an engineer and studied rocket propulsion; the obligatory joke of how he is a rocket scientist comes up. He then explains that the formulas they used to calculate risk to the firm, based on previous patterns of volatility, failed; that in actuality the risks they took were too much and the company is now in over its head, not in a hypothetical future but as of last week. A discussion breaks out on what this all means for the firm. Again, the question is raised of where Eric is, and John demands he be found and quickly. It gets a bit crazy, people trying to make sense of what they are seeing in the printed up report and deflecting blame and all the sort of things that happen in really crappy meetings.

John brings it back into focus, being the boss. He asks them what they think his job is, as head of the company. He explains that what he does is to read the pulse of things, to predict what the market will do a week, month, year from now. What do they think he hears? The answer is nothing, silence. Basically that the company will be dead. He asks them since we know the music is going to stop, what are they going to do about it?

He then goes on to say that there are three ways to be successful: be first, be smart, or cheat, if I recall. He doesn't cheat, so they are going to do the first one, basically be the first to get out of dodge. He brings up the plan of liquidating the company (I don't know if they ever actually call it margin call, to be honest); the dialogue at this point in the film got complicated again but basically selling off all their shares into the hands of willing but unsuspecting buyers. They will make a ton of money, which will save the company, but in return they are screwing over people in the business who trust them; their name and reputation will become worthless. This does not matter to John; all that matters is that the company survives the impending doom.

After the meeting is over there are a lot of little scenes (which I will proceed to tell completely out of order, hah. It is my way.) John and Sam have a private talk, which starts out with John looking out the window and ruminating about how he has always loved this city since the first day he arrived, everything about it, after which Sam tries to talk John out of doing what he is thinking of doing, to no avail (scene from the preview clips). Sam asks if they are panicking, John says it isn't panicking if you are the first one out the door.

Sarah and Jared have a private conversation about how things will play out; (Sam started out in the room with them but leaves, saying the reason he has stuck around as long as he has is because he is never in the room when conversations like the one they are going to have take place.) Sarah tells Jared in no uncertain terms that if she goes down for this he's going right along with her, that she had warned them all along this would not work. (She had stated reminders in the big conference of her repeated reservations at using the financial formula that has gotten them into this mess.) But despite her warnings she has a meeting with John later, where he explains that they have to have a fall guy, someone's head on a platter for the media after all of this goes down, and he has decided it will be her. The firm will take care of her, but that she will in no uncertain terms be let go. There are a bunch of shots later where she is staring out the window at the city, thinking, processing everything. She is a very closed off and cautious person, compared to Jared, weighs things out before plunging ahead, and you can tell she is taking the news hard.

Will gets word from Eric's wife that he is okay, and Will grumblingly prepares to drive out to Brooklyn to see him and takes Seth along. They drive to Brooklyn in Will's ridiculously pretty $100,000+ car. They get to a pretty house on a pretty street, which Seth makes note of, and Will says Eric bought it recently, hopes he paid for it in cash. Eric is on the street and sees them; Will explains that they looked at the thumb drive, and Eric nods, understanding. He and Will have a conversation. Eric eventually talks about how he used to be an engineer by trade, how one of his achievements was building this particular bridge, I can't remember where. He starts rambling off numbers related to it, really large figures; you can tell that he has been wandering around all night, all of these thoughts and figures consuming him. I may have written the number down wrong, but if my notes are right he calculated that the bridge he designed saved that community 11,531 years of their lives not spent stuck in traffic. The idea of the scene is basically that with his firing he is looking for meaning in his life, and while he definitely made a lot less money as an engineer, that bridge is something he can look back on and be proud of, something tangible. Will says Eric is a better man than him; Eric says it's always been true and Will agrees, it always has been. Will heads back to his car, tells Eric not to worry, that some people like driving the long way home, who knows why. The two of them have a moment.

At some point the writing is on the wall for Seth; he realizes that he is going to be fired and has a panic attack in a bathroom stall, totally out and out sobbing, face all snotty and wet. Jared comes in and calmly starts shaving, as if nothing at all is wrong and it is just the beginning of another ordinary day; Seth comes out of the stall, eyes red but no longer crying, and tries to act like his world is not falling apart in front of a higher up.

(Somewhere in the film Sam is listening to classical music through headphones in his office, trying to relax; it is not working however and he rips them off his head, cutting off the music. It was, like with Peter’s headphones, a nice attempt at organically inserting a soundtrack into the film.)

It is a new day at the office. The rest of the floor arrives back, and Sam gives them all a long pep talk, explaining what they are to do, how their job is to sell as much as they can, no trades or buying accepted, sales only. That they each have a quota they are aiming for, if they meet that they get a bonus, and if everyone on the floor does they get a bonus beyond that, I think. He basically says this will make them hated, that if they succeed today they will have succeeded in destroying their own jobs, but they will be taken care of, and that their talents will be used for the greater good. They all get to work. We see a shot of the floor, everyone at their stations selling, but only hear Will on the line as he is working to make his quota. We don’t see a closeup of him, just a voiceover as we watch the floor at work. As the day progresses the calls get more and more hostile, as other groups are cottoning on to what is actually going on, and they start to grill Will about it as he tries to persuade them to buy. One caller asks a ridiculously low price, and Will gets clearance from Sam to sell it that low. Stock in the company is now pretty much worthless. At last the day is done, they met their quotas, and in so doing have razed their firm to the ground. It is all over.

As the dust settles and evening falls, Sam approaches John as he is calmly eating, looking out over a lovely view of the city, and they have a final conversation together. John is acting like nothing has happened, which Sam obviously finds unsettling. I think John tells Sam he is still good. John ends up giving a very chilling speech about business, how it is just money, completely justifying everything sordid that happened today. They talk about holes and shoveling in holes. Sam asks if John is going to keep the kid, meaning Peter; John says, keep him? I'm going to promote him; minds like that are exactly what this firm will need in the days ahead. Sam says he can't do this anymore, he quits. John says he cannot do that, that he needs him at least for another half year to a year, I cannot remember the exact time he specifies, and that he will be handsomely compensated for his sacrifice in staying. Sam gives in and agrees to the timeline.

The last scene is of Sam on a beautiful green lawn at night, digging a hole in the soil. A woman comes out of the house a few yards away and says she's called the police, but there is no real panic in her voice and you get she is bluffing. It becomes clear from their conversation that she is his ex-wife, Mary (Mary McDonnell), and they used to live in this house together. Sam says that he came back here to bury the dog, he didn't know where else to go. That she belongs here. Mary is sympathetic; she also heard the news about his company, and they talk for a bit. Mary goes back inside to sleep and lets him continue with his work. The scene fades out to black, but not the sounds, and we hear the sound of a shovel scraping, Sam still digging, as the credits begin to roll.

MY REVIEW

Cliff’s Notes version: I liked the film as a whole. Certain things about it were off for me, but it is a solid breakout film for JC, with solid performances from all the actors. The rest of my review is divided up into sections that cover more of the specifics of what I liked and didn’t like, ending with some observations.

SCRIPT

I will go into more detail on this in the Q&A section, but basically Margin Call is a love letter from JC Chandor (the director and writer) to the world of finance, something he grew up with and knows. This intimate knowledge of his is simultaneously helpful and hurtful to the film that he ended up creating.

His knowledge of this world helps because he is able, through writing what he knows, to present a very different portrait of it than what someone with only a surface knowledge would be inclined to write. In the Q&A he said that he wanted to tell this story his way; another director probably would have wanted a scene where Demi was ravaged on top of a desk, or where the bad guys end up in handcuffs at the end of the day. More cut and dry as far as the business morals go, and more scandalous as far as the social morals go, hah. That was not his intent, he wanted his film to speak to truth, and I greatly admire that he stuck to his guns even though he admits that changing it would have gotten it made much faster and given him a lot more backers. His focus is instead on the people who inhabit this world, on the scarily brilliant foot soldiers who set up the numbers games that our financial system depends on, hedging their economic bets, and then what happens when they wind up getting it irrevocably wrong. It also points out, which he emphasizes in his Q&A, the craziness of herding our best and brightest into the world of finance—a world of great riches and thrillseeking and power—instead of fields that would probably be of greater benefit to society. There are not necessarily villains in this world JC paints for us, just people who screw up and have to make tough choices and decide where their loyalties lie when the writing is on the wall. I am grateful that as one of the first (of what I am sure will be many) films to tell the story of the financial crisis, we got JC's take on how things came about; a vision painting things not in finite divisions of black and white, good and evil, but blurring those lines into a smoky and much more realistic grey. I think it will make his film stand out amid that crowd as more films in this same vein begin to emerge.

It is also a surprisingly funny film, which I totally credit to JC (and the interpretation of the actors, of course.) He injects a lot of humor into the script, some from genuinely humorous lines, some from irony, and some from plain old fashioned schadenfreude. It went a long way towards helping us swallow the bitter pill of what we are seeing unfold and brightens up a potentially dull film topic. And despite Sam's dying dog performing as an obvious parallel to what is going on with the firm—Sam putting to sleep and burying two essential parts of his life on the same day—I actually really liked the layers it added to the story. I didn't feel like it was too anvilicious; though consciously written in it was presented with subtlety. Expertly done, JC (and Kevin Spacey, of course, hah.)

These good points aside, I do also think his insider's knowledge does at times hurt the film, I'm sad to say. A writer at all times has to be aware of their audience, and I am never sure that JC knows exactly who his intended audience is. It is in its current scripted form a film for finance geeks and inside baseballers, yet it is packaged as a slick, ready made Hollywood blockbuster: a thriller for a generic audience, with an all star cast that people will eagerly line up to see. And either from his relative youth as a filmmaker or his inability to step back and look at the project from an outsider's set of eyes JC is not able to make the dual nature of this challenge work to his greatest advantage. I don't know how successful a film it will actually be, as the image the film presents does not live up to the actual story being told (which in some ways, considering what the story is about, is almost poetic.) There is a disconnect there, and if the buzz from Sundance is any indication, the audience and critics might not be willing to disregard their initial impressions once they see the final product. JC and Lionsgate might have a tough sell ahead of them.

I think the biggest hurdle for the script is that the film gets muddled in financial jargon; language JC is intimately familiar with but most of the audience will not be, and were not at our screening. The annoyance I felt at an inability to understand what exactly was going on was further exacerbated by clear attempts in the script to do exactly that; several times in conversations Peter is asked to explain what Eric discovered to his higher ups—in one instance John, the head of the company, asks Peter to explain it to him as he would to a small child—and yet these supposedly simplified explanations are never, ever spoken plain enough to really be useful at all, child or no. I know the rules and vocabulary of finance are complicated, and tackling them for a general audience is hard, but other movies are able to accomplish this just fine, and I feel like Margin Call should have been no different.

I almost feel embarrassed to use this as an example, as they are in completely different categories, but a recent film that was able to successfully do all of this was Secretariat. (Basically any good film in the sports genre fits this category, to be honest: The Blind Side, Seabiscuit, etc. The anime/manga Hikaru no Go is another wonderful example; I know nothing about playing Go but was kept in suspense through every game in the series. John Grisham thrillers are also good at doing this with complicated legal procedures. Basically, fill in the blank with a fitting example as you so choose, hah.) It has to take an audience with next to no understanding of the racing world—the intricacies of horses and horse racing, the stakes at risk for the heroine if she did not succeed, the risks and gambles she took to make it happen—and distill it into language that is easy to understand. Not dumbing down per se, more like clarifying in order to put the conflicts into perspective and heighten the drama. It is only when the viewer understands what the stakes truly are that they understand the full triumph if the characters succeed or the horror if they fail. And in Margin Call, they utterly, spectacularly fail; the script tells us plenty of times that they do, and that this is an atrocity. But it does not spell out exactly why or what the full ramifications are, not just for the firm but the financial market as a whole. We get that bad things are happening, but no clear specifics of exactly what they are. I had to end up just ignoring the technical stuff in order to keep up with the film, and I hate doing that; I really do like when I see a film to fully understand what it is I am seeing unfold. And I felt cheated of that, I guess is the simplest way of putting it; felt like I was denied a full realization of just how hopelessly they were all screwed. And it made me dissatisfied, when I really and truly went in hoping to love everything about the film.

(I'm also not saying that Secretariat is a better film or a more important film; it is merely a film that was more successful in saying what it needed to say. I don't know if that is coming across or not.)

A lesser problem I have with the script is how JC wrote the characters. Secretariat paid tribute to real people but made them interesting, engaging, fully actualized individuals, the horse included. I'm not really sure how exactly to state what I'm trying to say, but a part of me felt like the characters in Margin Call were in some ways sketches of people not fully fleshed out or thought through in the script. Something about them is flat. Part of this was probably due to the fact that, as Neal states in the Q&A, as the cast grew larger in both size and caliber JC was forced to add more scenes, give each of his amazing actors important things to do and say, their own moments in the spotlight. You can tell from the framework of the film that Spacey's character was probably in an earlier draft supposed to provide the main narrative, as his story bookends the movie, and yet his part gets diluted down in the middle of the script by so many other conversations and situations taking place around him.

The actors all do a brilliant job but there is something that makes them not quite realized characters, and for the life of me I cannot pinpoint it properly. A good example of this takes place in the very beginning of the movie. In Spacey's first scene he is lying down in his office, looking not pleased about something but we have no indication as to what. A lady comes in and asks if he is all right. He tells her his dog is dying. The audience in our screening laughed at that remark, actually laughed out loud. Some of that was uncomfortable laughter I'm sure, but some of it was also simple misinterpretation. Because at that moment we don't know if he is telling the truth; nothing indicates to the audience other than his words what he might have to be distressed about or even if he really has a dog; I think a lot of the audience assumed he was flippantly making that up. It is not until later that we see his dog at all. Some type of establishment of the dog in the first scene—him lying on the couch and looking at a picture of his dog, for example—would have gone a long way to establishing certain things about his character and let us see the dog, so when we hear the dog is dying we do understand what he has to be distressed about and sympathize, not snicker. (It also would reveal certain things about his character if we establish that he is more upset over his dog dying than letting eighty percent of his employees go that day.)

These are not fatal script flaws, the inability to break down complicated topics into deceptively simple terms and concepts or to create fully realized characters. They are merely weaknesses, ones that perhaps could have been fixed with another draft or two. But there is good news to be had amid all my dreary talk: In spite of my criticisms I did actually like the film. The movie has several strong points that counterbalance these script problems and ends up decently telling a very interesting and important story. I think the more stories he tells the stronger JC will get as a storyteller, and this film is a very good start to getting his foot in the door as a serious director and screenwriter. So yay JC. :)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The look of the movie is stunning and very professional. Night or dark scenes can be a pain to shoot, but the lighting in pretty much every scene was superb. And fangirl confession: a few times in the film I was pulled out of a scene at the realization I was just studying the way the lights were playing off the planes of Zach's face, practically caressing them, hah. And office scenes, because of the poor flourescent lighting, can be awful, but even those scenes managed to look good.

But the most stunning shots of all, the visual images that have stayed with me the most from the film, were the establishment shots of New York. They elevated the film beyond anything it deserved to be, honestly; I am not kidding when I say that The New York shots alone deserve an Oscar.

If the script is a love letter to the world of finance, then the cinematography is a love letter to New York itself. It is easy to forget sometimes, in a modern era when directors choose to shoot outside the city for financial reasons, just how impactful actual scenes shot in the heart of Manhattan can be. Luckily someone in the filming process realized this, I’m betting JC himself, and decided to keep a film all about Wall Street in its hometown. The beauty and seductiveness of the city permeates every frame that it can, the cinematography showing it off at its best, and it truly adds more character and atmosphere to the film than any super expensive set could have. Well done, Margin Call film crew, well done.

EDITING

The way the film was edited surprised me. In a Sundance panel I had attended the day before, the panelists were asked a question about editing and pacing. How it seemed like young audiences today require faster editing to keep them interested—he actually used the term MTV generation—and how a modern director can overcome that laziness in the audience. In short, if there was still a place for the type of pacing and rhythm the old masters had perfected. The answer from the panelists was unequivocably yes, of course there is; it is up to the director, however, to confidently set the style and tone for the story they want to tell. They have to sell to their audience in the first twenty minutes that the tone they have picked is the right one. In the same way there are good songs with both fast and slow tempos, there will always be room for a good slower paced movie amid the hectic ones. (Loving classic films as I do, I of course thought their answers were brilliant, hah.)

If they need a cinematic example to prove their point, Margin Call is a perfect one to name drop. It is definitely a slower paced film, deliberately so, and this made it feel right out of the gate like an old school thriller. The camera lingered in so many places, refusing to cut away; some good shots where this was particularly conspicuous was during scenes where characters are walking down corridors or across large swaths of office space. The camera doesn't quickly cut in on their faces or change angles; it just follows them while they walk. Instead of it annoying or boring me, I found it quite refreshing; but then again I am growing incredibly weary of films that rely on shaky cams and quick cuts to add suspense to a scene. The editor relied on solid visual storytelling—the great cinematography and the strength of the actors' performances—to enhance the film, and I appreciated the trust they had in those elements, I think it paid off handsomely in the final product.

Despite liking the long edits, there are places where I would have, had I been editing, broken things up a bit more. There are a lot of monologues in the story, and these could have been easily chopped up a bit with visuals other than the person doing all the talking. (For example, during Spacey's big monologue near the end, on the big day, the camera pretty much focuses on him the whole time. They could have easily slid in a shot or two of the other main characters as they try to sort out the pieces of their fractured futures—those fired, those remaining, the higher ups, etc.—with his voice running on top of those images. I think in doing that it might have made an already fantastic speech, delivered by an amazing Spacey, even more powerful than it already was. But again that's just my own personal preference; take it for what it's worth.)

I've heard that delaying the movie's release from spring to fall is possibly because they might rework things in the film, perhaps at the behest of Lionsgate, the film's buyer. I'm wondering if the editing is something they are going to re-tweak. Like I said, there are places where my own personal preference would have allowed for a few more quick edits, but I hope they don't mess with it too much; overediting it would cut down on the austerity and gravitas the original editing brings to the film and be a grave mistake. I guess we'll see.

ACTING

I mentioned this in the Script section, and hopefully it makes some kind of sense a second time around: if I have any criticism of the stellar cast assembled for this film, it is that I would have liked to get more of a glimpse of the inner selves of the characters they played, let their true personalities really shine through. Whether that is a defect in the script or in the choices of the actors is pretty subjective.

I do get that accomplishing such a thing can be hard, especially when the principle action takes place in a scarily professional business setting like a corporate firm. The characters have their business personas and their real life personas, and for many of them, as a matter of principle and job security, ne'er the two shall meet. Despite this complication there were many dramatic scenes that did give them a chance to shine: Sam’s distress over his dog’s death and his final monologue on the floor; Peter's realization of the firm's doom as he studies the figures; Seth's breakdown in the bathroom after he realizes he is going to lose his job; Eric’s wistful recollection of a simpler yet more satisfying career path that could have been his; John's chilling speech at the end. All of these moments were positively sublime. I just would have liked more of them; I am greedy like that, hah.

Zach has always been a master of subtlety in his acting, and this film is no different. Plus his character tends to hold everything close to the vest and was pretty guarded, so an understated touch was necessary. The scene at the beginning of the film where he tied all the information on Eric's thumb drive together—where a flash of inspiration on his face quickly melted into horror at the realization of how very much they are screwed—was brilliant. And there are a bunch of scenes in the film, in particular the one where he is giving the cliff notes version of his education background, which was just fantastic. He rattles off his resume points in that way that all recent college grads seem to do to perfection, almost without thinking: how he was an engineering major and studied rocket propulsion, went to MIT, also graduated form Penn, etc. All this other stuff I had no time to write down, and the speed and dexterity in the way he says that mouthful of syllables is like word porn. (I totally credit his playing Spock for helping him gain the ability to say a lot of gibberish very quickly and sexily, hah. And the idea of Zach being a rocket scientist will never get old; I expect a lot of memes about that one, babes, A LOT.) While I do wish a bit more of his character's personality and backstory could have been inserted into the script, he does a fine job with what he is given.

Kevin Spacey did an excellent job with the meaty role he was given. His part is one of the few in the film that really allows for a full range of emotions, and he takes advantage of that gift as only an academy award winning actor can. He is at different times in the film a moral compass, an instigator of the crisis, and ultimately a victim of it, and it is interesting to see these changes in him as the film progresses. He has some standout monologues and interacts well with all the actors; his final scene with Mary McDonnell is so short yet so poignant. Well done Kevin (and Mary; words cannot express how much I love Mary or her lovely contribution to this film.)

Jeremy Irons was simply sublime, and if there is a betting pool for Oscar contenders that might emerge from this film he will be in the running. He gives his character such presence; he walks in to the room and instantly commands attention. And his final scene with Spacey was magnificent, where he is calmly eating and callously discussing the financial carnage that has just taken place under his watch like nothing out of the ordinary has happened. It is a scene of slow building horror, and I seriously got chills hearing him speak. A standout performance.

Stanley Tucci, what can I say? One of the most sympathetic roles in the film. Also one of the shortest, yet he didn’t let that stop him from turning in a fully realized performance as a man whose path in life is suddenly turned upside down. His monologue near the end of the film, where he goes off on a tangent about bridge building, ended up being of one of the standouts of the entire film. Not many actors could achieve that, bring a warmth and poignancy to a potentially momentum deflating scene, but Tucci of course brings it; yet another example of just how skilled he really is.

Simon Baker slipped almost effortlessly into his role, as a man who is comfortably ensconced in the corporate game and has profited handsomely from it. His character is at times an egotist and a jerk and seems almost proud of it. He brought a blaze of energy to his scenes, even ones where he is doing something as simple as shaving, which was fun to see.

I have a major soft spot for Paul Bettany (Chaucer!), but despite that bias I though he brought interesting aspects of his character to the forefront. He is a man with the same kind of confidence and ego as Simon’s character, who plays the corporate game with more of a cool intellect. Yet in his scenes as Peter and Seth’s boss he is at times surprisingly protective and nurturing of them, while maintaining a professional distance. It was a nice, subtle performance from Bettany.

Penn Badgley was a new face to me but I really liked his performance. He did a good job playing the role of a young, cocky whiz kid who proudly wears his brashness on his sleeve. And most importantly, he and Zach had amazing chemistry, which was good since most of their scenes were together. He and Zach’s characters were good foils for each other and did a good job of representing the type of young kids who get sucked into this world with the promise of wealth and power. But his scene at the end where he is sobbing alone in the bathroom, all those promises down the drain, was really incredible. He had been overconfident the whole movie of his place in the world, and he gets a bit of a comeuppance for it, yet he is so devastated that you cannot help but be sorry for him. His performance doesn’t make me have a burning desire to watch Gossip Girl now, hah, but it does make me excited to see what film projects he signs on to next. (And yes, not one of the four of us will be surprised if Quintley emerges from this film, hah. Boys were great together.)

I think the biggest surprise for me was Demi Moore, if only because my expectations for her were abysmally low to being with, heh, if I’m allowed to admit that. After seeing the preview clips I was dreading having to sit through an incredibly flat performance from her, but I actually ended up greatly sympathizing with her character. Her Sarah is a competent woman who plays by the rules of the corporate game and ends up getting burned by them. Demi’s typical roles are where she plays a woman who is emotionally cold but has an inner strength to her; this role doesn’t venture out of that wheelhouse at all, but it is a role she manages to perform well. And she is the ice to Simon Baker’s fire, a perfect foil for him, and I thought they brought a lot of good and necessary chemistry to the scenes they had together. (If this had ended up being the kind of film that JC was pressured to make, Simon would have been the one straddling her on top of a conference table, hah.) So congrats Mrs. Kutcher, you managed not to annoy me after all; success.

Basically this was a dream cast for the film; everyone pulled their weight, had great chemistry, and brought great performances to the table. I do still think that in trying to keep the story moving forward extra character depth was sacrificed, but what the actors did manage to accomplish was brilliant.

MYSTERY LOGO

Riddle me this beans: there are three major production companies connected to the film (Benaroya, Before the Door, Myriad), yet four logos on the marquee posters:

What is the logo with a tree inside a square? It was all over in the film, cropping up in random places—on the glass doors in the firm, on the packets they used in their big meeting, etc.—and was also in the end credits.

If it was a logo they actually made up for the film, an homage to other financial brands already in existence, I think it would have been effective to have it blown it up larger on the actual movie posters and used it in addition to the giant downward spiraling graph; maybe have it placed upside down, a symbol of a company gone belly up, and therefore ominous (similar to the way six feet under used their tree symbolism to set a tone.) If it's fictitious product placement turned insider joke, much like JJ's Slusho or Tarantino's Red Apple Cigarettes, that is fantastic but I want to be in on that secret. If anyone can put me some knowledge here as to what this logo really is all about, I'm all ears. (There was also a logo on their firm's building with giant number 1's on the building, but I'm less concerned about that one.)

DRINKING GAME

Adoorhasopened made light of a Margin Call drinking game, but I am totally serious when I say that if you are someone who likes to sneak in a little rum to add to your overpriced moviehouse coke, or has a nice glass of wine calling your name when the DVD comes out, that you should take a sip whenever the characters use a variation of the phrases “Fuck me” or “Fuck you.” Because after the fourth time that was said I started making a tally of them all, furreals, and my unofficial count was twenty-six. TWENTY SIX. In a supposedly “boring” movie about finances.

The poetic side of me wants to take that mountain of expletives and chalk it up as a subtle attempt at symbolism; that all the characters in the film are, indeed, screwed, and that the gratuitous outpouring of f-bombs is a subliminal attempt to drive this home. Or it could just be that JC likes to make his characters cuss, hah, I honestly have no idea. But that is roughly one F word every four minutes, and in certain sections they come on so rapidly, one after the other, that you will go momentarily blind if you are drinking the hard stuff. BLIND I tell you. So be careful babes.

And I don't know how embarrassing this is to admit, but the four of us talked afterwards and we realized that the first time Zach says “Fuck Me” (and says it incredibly sexy and in a deep voice, hah), all of us pretty much thought simultaneously “YES, PLEASE.” (As you do when confronted with a beautiful and alluring Zachary Quinto onscreen, hah. DO NOT JUDGE US. NO JUDGEY.)

JC CHANDOR, NEIL DODSON, AND THE Q&A

The screening began with JC Chandor, the director, coming out and saying a few words. He talked about the film process, how is starts off very isolating, like a walk uphill (He also wrote the script, so yeah, isolating indeed.) Then it turns into a collaborative process, as you start filming and you get all these creatives together, actors, crew, etc. It is a feeling and energy that can't be explained. Then they all disappear, and you are back to two to four people at the end of the process.

He said to see this many people walking into this auditorium was very special, and he was so glad he showed up. (Ogden has the second largest screening capacity of all the Sundance theaters, over 800 seats, and it was a full house, 40+ people in the wait list, very impressive. But most directors skip Ogden entirely, because of how far it is from Park City and the fact that Ogden is kind of a ghetto town at the moment, so the fact that he showed up was very special indeed.)

He told us that twelve days before doing principle photography for the film, his wife gave birth to a son. He had to leave them, three hours away, to go and shoot this film. He told us his son's name is Miles Goodyear Chandor; apparently JC has Ogden connections, a relative of his helped in founding the area, and there is a park nearby on Temple Street bearing that name. His son is eight months old now, and he hopes that his namesake just down the street would approve. It was very sweet and touching, hearing him say that about his family.

(Okay, I was curious and couldn’t help myself; I googlemapped and found this tidbit: just up the street a ways is the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, and adjacent to that is the Miles Goodyear cabin, which you can visit, the first permanent home built in Utah in 1845. How cool is that! So yeah, his Utah roots go way, waaaaay back, interesting. No wonder he showed up at the theater.)

After the screening there was a Q&A with JC and Neil Dodson from Before the Door. The first question was from a student, saying that we are told to write what we know, and asking what exactly his background was to the subject matter.

JC said that his dad wasn't a trader, but he worked for an investment bank for 38-40 years. So JC grew up around these kinds of people. He wanted to be a filmmaker but had a bunch of struggles; the year his first child was born (who is now 5 years old), six days before he was set to shoot a film the whole production fell apart. For monetary reasons he had to quickly find “full time” work (which he hated, he loves film), so he got a job working at a bank, seeing for himself what it was like on the ground for people in the financial world. He made a few lucky, well-timed financial calls during his time there, and got out of it as soon as he could. Two years later his wife told him to get a job, hah, and he sat down and wrote the first draft for Margin Call in a week, the words just came pouring out of him; not quite in the same version as the current Margin Call script, but close. He did do research as well. He knows what the people in this business are like, how hard they work, and he wanted the film to center around how people in their situation would react to a financial crisis.

I think the next question centered around the crisis and the evilness of what had occurred, and why he made the choices he did in the film of how he presented it. (I think, I didn't write down the question.)

There was a period where JC visited the actual floors where financial trading goes on and watched them, especially the younger ones. He walked the floor and thought about the tens of thousands of people doing this, playing the financial game and gambling against each other. These guys and girls in this field are educated at the best schools, get the international experience, the scholarships, are the tip of the sword, engineers and brainiacs who are able to look at these ridiculous financial formulas and numbers and break them down in their head. He finds it extremely crazy that you rope the smartest people in the world into this world, a place where, at the end of the day, nothing tangible gets made. The film is about those people and the moment it dawns on them that their time spent there was wasted. But that is a test of human nature. When they come to you at MIT and basically hand you a ton of money to come work for them, do you accept? It is a challenge for human nature.

JC does feel that banks need to be there, of course, that they need to exist, but that they don't need to be as big as they are. He said it's a film where no one behaves heroically at the end, certainly not from a financial standpoint.

JC also talked about how great it was that Neal, Corey, and Zach stood by him, and supported what the heart of the film was about through the whole process. He could have had it made a year earlier, and had a much larger budget, if he had written it so that any of the characters had been led away in handcuffs at the end, or if he had included a sex scene where Demi sweeps off a desktop to have sex on it, or if one of the younger guys had turned on the older ones. But he cared about the story, and knew that in the real world such things—the bad guy getting taken away and an ending where the audience can stand up and cheer—is not going to happen. The rules of finance are so lax that doing what these characters did on the film is not even against the law; like Jeremy Irons' character says in the movie, they don't even need to cheat.

Neal said JC wrote it and brought it to them at Before the Door, and they read it and knew right away this was a film they wanted to make. The film grew as the cast grew—when you get academy award winning actors to sign on you have to make sure they each get a speech. (The audience laughed.)

During the making of the film someone came to them and said, you know they are making Wall Street 2, right? So that was a concern too, a splashier film on the same subject coming out at the same time. But Newsweek said that if you were disappointed by Wall Street 2, Margin Call was a smarter version of that movie, so that was satisfying.

Neal announced at the screening that Lionsgate had bought the film, which received a big round of applause (I already knew this, but was nice to hear again.) He said that what it meant for Before the Door was that they were able to make money for their investors since it was bought up, give them a return on their investments, which means that Before the Door will get to make even more films. (They also received applause for this, hah, the whole audience happy for them.)

Neal related something Zach had said to them: That there was something poetic in making a fiscally responsible picture about finance.

JC ended by talking about the bridge monologue in the film, spoken by Tucci's character. He talked about how the very first scene they shot was that one of Paul and Stanley on the stoop. That Tucci's character would have made a lot less money had he stuck to being an engineer (though by the rest of the world's standards, he would still be doing all right.) He talked about the character walking around the streets of Brooklyn all night to come up with the figures that he did; that from a writing standpoint it was a blast to come up with a scene like that, where a character was just spouting numbers. And then to shoot it, to watch Tucci come in and rip up the words he had written...that was something special.

_{(Okay, that was the Q&A! My handwriting was atrocious, so I hope my notes are all accurate in getting across what JC and Neal said.)}

PICSPAM

Main Street of downtown Park City

We did some window shopping at year round and pop up boutiques along main street before running off to Ogden. OWLS BABY.

A card I liked.

Entrance to Peery's Egyptian theater in Ogden.

Auditorium of the theater. It's hard to tell from such a far away photo but the proscenium is detailed in an intricate variety of Egyptian elements. THIS is the true definition of a movie palace, built back when cinemas were constructed to compete with opera houses, theatres, vaudeville and the like; thus the stunning craftsmanship and architecture inside and out. The theater was built in 1923 and touted as the "showplace of the west." I can't think of a prettier theater to see Margin Call in.

Closeup of the top of the proscenium.

Cute little old man playing the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ! His name is Michael Welch and he is amazing. (He also played on the night I saw Like Crazy.) It was fun and refreshing to be serenaded by beautiful organ music before the movie began, instead of annoying commercials. It kind of turned into a game of name that tune. Songs I recognized: Mack the Knife, And the Band Played On, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Someday My Prince Will Come/When You Wish Upon a Star, You'll Never Walk Alone, California Here I Come, That's Amore, You're Nobody 'Till somebody Loves You, Climb Every Mountain, America the Beautiful, and God Bless America.

The theater has one of the two "atmospheric" ceilings still in operation in the US. With the flick of a switch they turn "day" into "night", and dim the lights. You can probably barely make them out, but the ceiling has a bunch of lights that act like stars, and they lit up and twinkled during the screening. The whole effect was rather impressive.

The main screen is painted and lifts up to reveal a red curtain, which then is also moved and reveals the actual movie screen. Before the movie began and JC did his intro a spokesman for the sponsor of that evening's performance, the Peery's Egyptian Theater Foundation Board, came out and said a few words. (This is the group that saved the theater from being razed to the ground and maintains its preservation. HALLELLOO, kudos to them. They also secured funding for the organ and for the digital projector. The spokesperson guy said they are working towards purchasing a waterfall curtain, to complement the regular curtain already in place.)

Sorry these are so blurry! The best of my JC and Neal pics.

Marquee!

So yeah, wow, thanks for getting all the way through this behemoth of a post. Business attire Zach is proud of you! <3

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made Of: Our NYC Adventure, Part 4

2011-01-13T06:31:51Z

10. Eating

Back in college two of my art profs would conduct spring break trips for students; after paying a ridiculously low fee for our plane tickets and hotel, plus taking a class about NY where we did reports about architecture or other art elements in the city (I did one on the majestic Woolworth Building, aka the Cathedral of Commerce, for example), we got to go. We could either spend that trip following our profs around to the various museums or artistic treasures that they chose to highlight, or we could wander off on our own. (Many of the students spent the time showing off their portfolios while in the city, looking for work, for example. Thus they had no time to sightsee with the profs.)

One of my professors that conducted these trips made a statement that I have found to be the truest of true: you never have to worry too much about WHERE you eat when you are in NY. You can plan out certain locales, sure, certain gastronomic sights you want to experience, but the brilliant thing about the city is that in any location there are tons of little restaurants and bistros that you can just pop into on a whim; little unknown, relatively affordable gems tucked away throughout the city. And you will enjoy yourself every time. Just enter any little restaurant that sparks your eye and you are pretty much guaranteed to not be disappointed; it will be those little obscure places that you end up remembering and loving the most.

On every trip to NY since, I have followed this advice and it has proven to be the best ever offered to me. I cannot think of one little hole in the wall we have ever eaten at where we did not find happiness in what we ordered. It is tough competition, opening a restaurant in the city; you have to be great or you go under, and therefore it is like it is physically impossible to find somewhere bad to eat. And this trip was, of course, no exception.

First night there after parking our car and checking into our hotel in Greenwich Village, we wandered the brownstone-lined streets there and over to the West Village in search of sustenance. We tried to get into the famous Spotted Pig and, finding the wait to be too long (an hour and a half just for a table? Please), instead we wandered some more and, not a block or so away, found another little pub, this one much more deserted and cozy and therefore exactly what we were looking for. It served amazing cuisine, including the best creme brulee I have ever tasted (It's the Bayard's Ale House at 533 Hudson, if you are curious.)

We had the loveliest crepes and aromatic herbal tea the next morning at the Artopolis Espresso, a small cafe not a block from Columbia (Nyu visited a friend going there; it was one of her fave haunts.)

We had Indian food in the theatre district that night with another of Nyu's friends now working in the city, at one of his fave places. My dish was excellent, if a little on the spicy side, and the naan was divine. For those reading this who want to try a new cocktail, I present one of the drinks from the place's menu: the Slumdog Millionaire Cosmo (saffron vodka, cointreau liqueur, fresh squeezed lime juice, mango juice.) I have no idea if it is any good, as I don't drink and no one in my party ordered it, but it sounds intriguing, hah.

The next day we had brunch at the Europa Cafe near the TKTS at the South Pier, a mushroom and spinach quiche with an asparagus bisque soup for me, oh so good. (Yes quiche and soup not exactly brunch fare, I know, DO NOT CARE IT WAS DELISH.)

Pizza in, once again, the theatre district that night before we saw Next to Normal, at a little pizza place we had discovered on a previous visit, and which Nyu and I believe might have the best pizza in the city.

At our second time waiting for AiA tickets we had unbelievably good takeout, fried rice and glass noodles, from Tai & Thai, a restaurant listed on the Signature Theatre Company's website, which one of us picked up during our waitlist wait and brought back so we could share in the bounty together (hey, we had hours to kill, so why not?) A quick dinner before AiA at a ubiquitous dog and smoothie stand ala Gray's Papaya, ha, which are a NY institution. (This one was a Papaya King, just down the street from the theatre; I am a Gray's girl but it was not bad.) After AiA, enjoying omelettes and peppermint tea at the amazing Elephant and Castle pub in the village while we reveled in the play we had just seen.

The next day, I bought mini cupcakes from a cupcake truck (like the ice cream trucks but they sell cupcakes instead. And before we took off and drove home we indulged in a little touristy kitsch by ordering some food (for me a fruity nonalcoholic drink so I could get one of their signature glasses, and a cheeseburger and fries) at the Jekyll and Hyde Club in midtown, near central park (is a monster-themed restaurant, kind of like Casa Bonita/The Mayan/Rainforest Cafe, and is the largest of three Jekyll and Hyde themed restaurants in the city; our table was on the library floor, which was fun.) I had fond a coupon online for a free gift if you ordered an entree; I gave our waitress the coupon and was presented with...a little skeleton keychain with joints that moved, hah. Not the most exciting thing but hey,it's cute and I'm glad to have it.

Extra Fun Time: Getting a Stranded in the Bronx

What would a trip to NY be without some random craziness out of the blue? And we got a doozy this time. Not fun enough to make the top ten but definitely something that needs to be noted.

So we are driving on the highway back to Connecticut after our lovely NY adventure, and we're barely out of the city proper and into the Bronx when BAM!, something flies out from the car in front of us and slams into us, and instantly our right tires begin making awful sounds, metal scraping cement. We pull to the shoulder and the car in front of us stops too; something flew in from of him and slammed into his fender, then hit us. Both our tires on the right side are flat as pancakes, and we have no idea if an axle might be bent. We call triple A, and they say that this stretch of the road is hired out to a private contractor so they cannot send their own people, but they'll call the ones who do have permission to work or bit of road and send a tow truck by to pick us up. (W.T.F. That's all I have to say about THAT.) So we wait. And wait. And call the towing company ourselves, and wait some more. A tow truck passes us and slows down, cars breaking and honking behind him, yet passes us; we assume this is our tow truck, it just stupidly messed up and didn't slow down in time to come to our rescue. We wait more and call the towing company again; they tell us our tow truck got a flat (yeah, right), so he'll be along soon. We begin plotting outlandish scenarios of how to survive this, one involving staying in the area overnight while our car gets fixed, renting a car, and having to drive back to pick up Nyu's car once it's done if it is left over the holiday (we of course planned to come back and try to see AiA if that scenario ended up happening, lol; making lemonade out of lemons and all that.) We wait more. Finally the tow guy comes, loads us up, and takes us to a 24 hour tire repair place in the Bronx (THANK YOUUU.) In no time at all we are buying two new tires at $75 each (our ruined ones got a light shone on them, completely cracked all the way through, gah. They also put Nyu's disassembled spare tire together at no extra cost.) And we were back on our way!

The ironic thing is that we had contemplated staying a bit longer that night to see a matinee of 39 Steps, but we decided to leave early to see family. Had we been selfish, ungrateful daughters/nieces/cousins, we would have avoided the whole accident and gotten back to our fam earlier than we actually did. But on the plus side, Nyu now has two new winter worthy tires and a working spare, and we didn't die, so much there to be thankful for on the day before Thanksgiving. (And we still got to see Harry Potter with our dad that night as planned, so huzzah.)

Extra Extra Fun Time Part 2: Random Photos

Because I can't help myself. ;) The photo taking, I cannot be stopped.

Spider-Man theatre; we passed by it and I could not help but take a pic. It will either be the biggest bomb or the biggest friggin' success that Broadway has ever seen, only time will tell.

We came back to our room one night to find the maid had made up our bed with Nyu's Hello Kitty fleece and pillow! Cutest thing in the world.

This is for Rainbowstrlght: photo snapped of Minneapolis sunset during my layover. <3 Pollution or no, it was pretteh.

And thus, my report of NY draws to end. Congrats I you made it this far; my hats off to you. I'm on my way to NY again now; so, perhaps, even more pics in the near future, hah. TREMBLE AND WEEP AT THE SHEER NUMBER OF PHOTOS I WILL TAKE. I GUARANTEE IT. :)

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made Of: Our NYC Adventure, Part 3

2011-01-13T06:28:58Z

7. Frick

Again, another art museum Nyu had never visited! The Frick is an old house converted into a museum and is amazingly beautiful in its own right. Then you add the paintings to the equation, including a very impressive set by the Dutch masters (I might be a Rembrandt whore, hah, therefore this fact is very important to me.) The museum usually has a bunch of Rembrandts on display, his self portrait in their collection is one of my faves. However they were preparing for a massive Rembrandt exhibit, to be unveiled soon, so therefore they were not on display, boo. But they DID have a nice exhibit of watercolors/washes done by Spanish masters, including a hefty amount by my boy Goya, so it was all good. (And I totes bought the artbook of the Spanish exhibit to take with me, hah. Yay me.) The Fragonard room is one of my faves; I've never been a huge Rococo fan, but having that many paintings in that style in one space, nestled in with the furniture and accents scattered throughout the room, creates an almost magical atmosphere. You can see a virtual tour of the Fragonard room here: http://www.frick.org/virtual/fragonard.htm

</big>8. Flatiron Building</big>

So I have been to NYC what, roughly a dozen times in my life? And I had yet to see the Flatiron building with my own eyes; sheer madness. I decided this blasphemy could no longer stand, and so during our last afternoon in the city, when Nyu was having lunch with a friend and I had some time to kill by my lonesome, I skipped off and went to end my architectural ignorance.

I got out of the subway and walked to the intersection nearby, where it should be, and saw no sign of it. How do you lost a skyscraper, of all things? Then I looked up and went ahhhhh, that is because I was NEXT to it, hah. (I am such a smart one, let me tell you.) So I walked out to the large open space in the middle of the nearby intersection, waiting until I could properly turn around to get the full effect, and looked. And I gasped, literally gasped. Because the Flatiron is a thing of beauty; a wedge of grace reaching up to the heavens that looks so elegant and light, as if a strong gust will blow it away, yet simultaneously solid and sure. So beautiful.

The details on the facade are stunning; this beauty was made back when things were done right.

Here is the back of it, if you are curious (I was, no one ever photographs the back, hah.)

9. City Shopping

The nice thing about being in the city around the holidays is that you get to see everything dolled up at its best. This goes double for stores, where they need to be extra attractive to draw you in. The midtown department store windows are the stuff of legend; and, as we found when we perused the windows of Bergdorf Goodman, this legend is all fact. And fabulous.

This griffin was completely made out of paper. BEAUTIFUL.

Also I went to the apple store, and I would not mention this except it was so cool. So I am in the store—getting a new wireless mouse so I can do work stuff while on vacay because I hate the track pad on my laptop—and as I am buying my shiny new mouse I hand the cashier guy my debit card. He looks at it and is like, oh, mountains, and I mention I'm from Utah. He is like oh, I performed in Utah! He had done a traveling Broadway show there, and mentioned my town and the name of the show he was in. And I am all hey, I SAW that producion! I totally remember you, you were fantastic! And he was; the part he played is meant to be one dimensional and comical, and he knocked it out of the park, he was hysterical. And he was so flattered I remembered him in the show, it was so cute. He said he was taking a break from acting for a bit and got a job at the Apple store for the holidays. So, people, you never know where you will find a starving actor; they might be the mld mannered man helping you buy an overpriced Apple product. Never forget this. It was a total genius moment.

A shot from the Apple store elevator (because I take pictures EVERYWHERE, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (Hah, like you don't know.)

ON TO PART 4 (the last one hooray!): http://reezoo.livejournal.com/14099.html

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made Of: Our NYC Adventure, Part 2

2011-01-13T06:19:16Z

3. La Cage

Earlier on in the year Nyu and I had watched the Tonys and were impressed by the La Cage musical number (and I was happy to see Kelsey Grammer! I adore Kelsey.) And then Douglas Hodge won a Tony for his performance, and the show as a whole won for best revival. I looked up the production in preparing for our trip and found out that both Grammer and Hodge were still in the show, albeit not for much longer, so the timing would be opportune to see them. We got our chance Saturday; we had waited earlier that afternoon to try to get into a matinee for AiA, with no luck, so once we knew we weren't getting in we walked over to the TKTS booth in Times Square and snatched up two tickets to see LA Cage instead. AND IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY.

There was a drag queen working the line to get in, making comments at patrons and posing for photos, and then she wandered around the main level of the theatre, winding up at the front of the stage, making wisecracks and warming up the crowd. I didn't envy her the job, because I'd be petrified at having to riff with customers like that, but she was glorious. She asked if there were any lesbians in the audience, and Nyu raised her hand (we were in front row of balcony, yay), and I cannot remember what she retorted to my sissy but it was great.

How to describe the show? A perfect little production, the quintessential example of the best that Broadway has to offer. From the scenery to the costumes to the acting, everything worked in tandem to bring about a beautiful evening of theatre. (The only costume Nyu truly hated was the bell bottom outfit for the son; everything else worked for her. And oh my, Douglas' drag costumes were GLORIOUS.)

As for the two leads? Kelsey was superb. And Douglas singing “I Am What I Am” at the end of Act 1 was so devastatingly heartbreaking. I got shivers listening to him, and wanted to weep for his poor character, who feels at that moment rejected by the two people he most loves in all the world. The man deserves every accolade that has been thrown at him, and I'm so glad he won a Tony fo this part. THAT, my friends, is how you do Broadway.

4. Angels in America

A short paragraph or two would not do this justice; I am going to draw up a longer, much more detailed synopsis of my experience of the play is very short order. But in the mean time, think of this as a placeholder, an acknowledgement of its magnificence which will be rightfully honored in short order.

5. Next to Normal

Like La Cage we had seen a number from this show during the Tonys. A joke about the Tonys is that the only real function left to them at this point is to perform as a super long ad for potential Broadway patrons; a long billboard letting visitors know what is worth spending their money on when they make their way out to the City. That may or may not be true, but the broadcast certainly piqued our interest for this show. We got our tickets for an evening performance at, once again, the TKTS booth; this time at the South Pier location in the morning, where we had a lovely brunch outside after buying our tickets (it was unseasonably warm in the City during our stay, hooray, so we made the most of it when we could.)

I think if I had to rank the three shows we saw on our trip, Next to Normal would be last, with Angels and La Cage duking it out to the bloody end for the top spot. That is not to say the musical is atrocious; far from it. It has some flaws of course, but nothing too fatal. Its design is loud and very modern, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't; Nyu noted that the lighting designer was the same one that did American Idiot; so basically, lots of bombarding the audience with strobe lights, hah. The songs help tell the story but are not extremely memorable, whereas I can still hum the La Cage songs at will (and often do.) The musical as a whole is not able, as LA Cage does, to have its comic highs mingle seamlessly with its tragic, melancholic lows. Nor is its story, like Angels, able to achieve a universality in its prose that is overarching and epic. (I relate to the musical's subject matter all too well—the trials and tribulations of coping with a loved one with a mental illness—but I never felt like the family's story was MY story, never felt that tug of immersion and nostalgia in what I was witnessing, which I think is essential to any musical.) Angels like Next to Normal has a harsh, gripping, open-ended story, yet I think Angels is much more masterfully told.

Yet, out of all three productions, Next to Normal is the only one that made me cry, actual honest to goodness tears that I had to wipe away.

Why? Well, this IS me, so you have to take into account the fact that if I see a musical with a girl who feels utterly alone, and she finally finds someone who does not care how freakish she (or in this case, her fam) might be, and still loves her, and they sing about it, I am going to cry. It is pretty much a guarantee. Was that way with Light in the Piazza, is that way with this musical.

In short, it is a good musical, worthy of its accolades, and if it did not have to compete with two amazing productions it would be higher up on the list. It is a powerful musical dealign with a powerful topic; it is also, like Angels, something that because of that power, the heaviness and intensity of its subject matter, I can probably only see once, maybe twice, in my life. But seeing it that once or twice is essential.

6. Cloisters

Some of the greatest museums and art collections in America (and perhaps the world) are the product of people who are massively wealthy, crazy/eccentric, and/or obsessive. The story of the Cloisters is that it is a hodgepodge of bits and pieces of old European monastic architecture and art that this rich guy collected and after his death the city mashed them together into one giant building. This Frankenstein-like structure sits in Harlem, right next to the Hudson, surrounded by park land and, as Austen would say, “a prettyish kind of a little wilderness”; in short, is the perfect setting for a museum dedicated to medieval art. Nyu had never been, and it had been a long while for me, so we decided to go; a wise choice indeed.

On our travels to the museum we got out of the subway stop and walked to the entrance—not of the building, but of the long park that precedes it. There are many paths in the park you can take to get to the Cloisters itself, all of them leading you along trails in which time itself seems to slow, leeching away the stress and the sounds of the city as you meander along. So once you finally see a break in the massive trees, and the building that is the Cloisters appears, you do almost feel as though you will hear Franciscan monks bursting into Gregorian chants at any moment.

The works inside are beautiful, carved or painted or woven long ago by amazing artisans, most of their names lost to the annals of time. There are many fantastic, fanciful depictions of beasts that are exquisite, not the least of which is the lovely unicorn tapestries. The grounds have low walls that, once you are outside, let you see your surroundings, including a lovely view of the Hudson, with the George Washington Bridge standing watch in the distance. The gardens are astounding, just drop dead gorgeous; if we'd had the time I would have studied every plant and taken a ton more pictures than I already did of the many gardens' designs and layouts.

Our time here was far too short, but well worth it, giving us a slice of peace in one of the most chaotic cities on Earth.

ON TO PART 3: http://reezoo.livejournal.com/13825.html

Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made Of: Our NYC Adventure, Part 1 of 4

2011-01-13T05:45:38Z

I have seen NYC at many different times in my life: a wide eyed kid seeing her first Broadway shows (Cats and The Secret Garden) and running around FAO Schwartz; a gangly teen driving across the George Washington Bridge on her way to Thanksgiving festivities; a broke, dream-filled college student eating up the art museums and Gray's Papaya hot dogs with equal amounts of relish. But I have to say that the times I've spent in the city now, in my late twenties, have far and away been the most exciting and gratifying yet. The child-like magic of the city had not yet dissipated for me—hopefully it never will—yet I'm now old enough to enjoy the more grown up delights, with enough money in my pocket to have a fun, though somewhat frugal, time.

So when I was planning my annual Thanksgiving trip to see family, and Nyu suggested I come out early and maybe we could have some fun in the city for a few days (apparently even students in the boonies of Connecticut call it The City, hah), how on Earth am I supposed to turn that down?

So, without further ado, in no real order because they are all wonderful, the top ten things we did in NYC this time around:

1. MoMA

You would think this museum would not be first up on my list of top things; I have been here so many times that surely by now its allure would have faded a bit, a patina of disinterest or inattention creeping over its glistening walls. You would be dead wrong. Since my college days, when I first stepped through its doors and beheld its wonders for myself, it has been my mecca in New York, the one place that on EVERY trip I have visited. Every. Single. Trip. It is the one place you can count on finding me when I visit New York. Why? Simply because there is no other museum quite like it. It pairs ome of the greatest works of Van Gogh and Picasso and Monet under the same roof, sometimes side by side, with cutting edge artists, the greatest and most daring in the fields of architecture, photography, painting, graphic design, you name it is is here. There is such variety in the exhibits, that no hodgepodge group of artists, no matter how varied their passions, could ever be bored here. Don't get me wrong; I love the Met, the Cooper-Hewitt, the Guggenheim. They are all treasures; it is amazing, truly, how many jewels of art one single city can hold. But like the swallows of Capistrano, to the MoMA and the MoMA alone I always return, and delight each time in the trek.

Van Gogh! <3 Nyu finally got to see Starry Night with her own eyes; rough streaks of dark paint crusting the canvas, the tiniest hints of bare canvas peeking through where they can, the glowing moon feeling like it will burst from the frame. My fave piece at the MoMA, and a must see every time. (It was out on loan for a Van Gogh exhibit last time we were here and I wanted to cry, I was so sad. Glad it is back in its rightful home.)

Yoko Ono had a few pieces on display in an exhibit, including a box filled with tags from her Wish Trees art installations. Apparently she put up these trees, and the audience could write their wishes on tags and tie the tags to the trees. The museum had a box full of some of the wishes, and this one was on top; I found it deliciously ironic.

There was an exhibit on kitchen design; I could not get over these posters, I adored them so much.

Yes, that IS a Dyson floor vac on the shelf in the bottom left corner, hah. I love the rows and rows of beautifully designed household items you can always find on display at the MoMA; it is like the coolest garage sale ever, except one where you can only browse, not buy.

DESIGN FLOOR. My fave floor of the museum bar none.

How cool is this? Inspired by ivy, the “leaves” of the GROW device are actually photovoltaic solar panels, and when they flutter in the breeze they capture kinetic energy. A pretty way to generate electricity? Sign me up!

TIBOR UMBRELLA, I SEE YOU. I bought my annual selection of pop-up holiday cards at the gift shop, as I have done the last few times I've been here. They are a bit addictive.

2. Rickshaw Ride in Central Park

I have never done the touristy carriage rides through central park; it seems like a lovely thing to do, sure, but who has the time? However on one of our days there the afternoon (and useful daylight) was quickly drawing to an end, just as we were planning on touring the park, something neither of us have ever really done (because who has the time?) We had just reached the corner of the park, trying to plot out what parts of it we could see in the little light left to us, when a guy approached us with one of those bicycle rickshaws that hold two. He offered to give us a tour of the entire bottom half of the park; realizing this was our best opportunity to see it in the remaining light, we agreed and hopped on.

Our guide was quite friendly, and very knowledgeable (at least, I assume that most of what he told us was true, hah; from what I had studied up on the park his info did sound accurate.) We got a thorough tour of the bottom half of the park, and despite our guide's insistence we stop for photos (stops cost extra), Nyu was a good little taskmaster and did not give in to the sales pitches. Me? I just stayed quiet and let her play bad, frugal cop, hah, while snapping as many pics as I could in the dying light. We saw many great highlights; some scheduled, like the Bethesda fountain, the statue of Balto, and Sheep's Meadow, and some, like the homeless man walking a cat on a leash, or the oblivious couple making out on a rock, were definitely not (but no less awesome. We did our one planned stop at Strawberry Fields as well.

John Lennon memorial at Strawberry Fields

After our guide drove us back to our starting point, he expressed a willingness to drop us off at any nearby destination we wanted (for an small extra fee, of course, hah.) We had been wanting to see Rockefeller Center, so away we went! It was definitely a surreal moment, let me tell you, heading towards the theatre district in a rickshaw while dodging taxicabs and cars, a blanket wrapped around our legs as we took in the city lights at a slow yet good speed.

At Rockefeller we paid and tipped him, then explored the plaza a bit. The big tree was not quite up yet but the skaters were out in full force, and were fun to watch. Some of them were quite good!

So all in all, we found the park to be a pretty incredible experience, one, in fact, well worth the time after all.

ON TO PART 2: http://reezoo.livejournal.com/13625.html

Here Comes the Sundance!

2011-01-13T00:19:48Z

I HAVE GOLDEN TICKETS SWEETIES. Well, silver, they are silver this year, but I have lovely lovely silver foiled tickets for Sundance!

So here's the story. I signed up for an Sundance individuals ticket lottery and a Utah locals ticket lottery, even though I had been warned by fellow Sundance ticket goers last year that they were a waste of time. Despite this word of caution, guess who got spots on both lists! Yes, that would be me. Since the locals one came first, last Sunday, versus the individuals which was yesterday and would have happened right when I would be flying out to CT, I took the Sunday one, requiring me to show up in the box office in person to score my ticket selections.

My time slot to get my tickets was at 9. It turns out that I indirectly knew someone working the box office this year, and was able to ask them questions about the ticket process. She said that I didn't need to show up ridiculously early for my time slot, a half hour before was just fine. And that I had a good shot at getting the tickets I wanted since I was going to the theatre in Ogden. (Ogden is so far away and has a HUGE theatre, over 800 seats. It is the second largest theatre being used in the festival, and the farthest away from the Park City action, so I figured we'd have a better chance of getting tickets there.)

Nyu drove down with me at around 7 am Sunday morning. There had been icy snow the night before, which had been problematic to drive in and caused me to worry, but by the time we left the roads were lovely. Not so lovely? The dense fog that was everywhere—even when it lifted you could see ribbons of it floating above your head, taunting you with the threat of dropping upon you to yet again obstruct your vision—and the slushy, icy highway roads in Salt Lake. But we made it to Trolley Square (site of the SLC Sundance Box Office) in one piece, phew. Nyu waited in the car (and slept, hah) while I headed into the mall, to see what I could see (and what tickets I could score.)

The Sundance people were all set, very organized and professional and wonderful; this is only my second year attending but I've been impressed both times now. After I got in my time slot line, all roped off and waiting, they handed me a program booklet and a ticket sheet, and checked my name off a list (the gal checking me off was my contact person, hah! Good to see her.) There were about ten or so people in line ahead of me, and by the time nine o'clock rolled around there were at least twenty or so behind me. The girl lined up right behind me had two coffees, waiting for her friend to show up; I guess he was on call all night and had barely gotten off work, and the coffee was so he could wake up, hah. (I took it they were both med students at the U.) He did finally show up, hooray, and the two of them began intensely discussing film choices.

I filled out the ticket sheet with the info about the films I wanted to see (Margin Call and Like Crazy in Ogden) and perused the program booklet. It doesn't just list the films being shown, though that is of course important, but it also lists the music lineups, panel discussions, art exhibits and installations, you name it, being performed while the fest is in session. And what did my eyes behold but an intriguing panel I could attend! Two words: Julie Taymor. Talking with other brilliant creators about the process of creating stories and collaborating with other artists to get a vision across. And this panel is occurring on the same day I will be down there for Like Crazy! Yes please; I added the panel to my list.

Then nine o'clock finally arrived, and we were ushered into the box office . I got a nice, friendly girl as my cashier, who when she saw I was aiming at tickets for Ogden was like, nice, good choice. And that choice did indeed turn out to be a good one, because there were tickets available for all the screenings I wanted! :D

Happy, I paid in cash and headed beck to the car at 9:15, off to other SLC adventures.

Here is the full list of Sundance films I have tickets for. My only concern is getting from the panel in Park City to the Ogden theatre in two hours, but unless there is an intense snowstorm I do not see this being a problem, huzzah. But it will be worth it; to see these creators in person, these films on the screen, you can't ask for much more excitement than that (well, unless Zach or Anton decides to nonchalantly stroll into our movie palace for the screening...) And yes, full reviews (with plot spoilers galore) and a typing up of my notes will be in full order. Like I would do anything else, hah.

Power of Story: The Big Idea
http://sundance.slated.com/2011/films/powerofstorythebigidea_sundance2011

^{When we talk about the magic of movies, what are the mechanics of that magic? There are few things as mystifying as the creative process. Ideas are the building blocks of any creative endeavor, but where do they come from? How do we shape them using process and craft? And how do many creative minds come together to form a singular vision? In gathering a writer, editor, director, and composer together, we hope to peer behind the curtain of creativity and see the way to get from good idea to great film.

Jill Bilcock is a frequent collaborator with directors Baz Luhrmann, Sam Mendes, and Fred Schepisi. She has edited more than 25 feature films, including Moulin Rouge!, Elizabeth, Road to Perdition, and Muriel’s Wedding.
Thomas Newman is an award-winning composer and conductor who has scored more than 50 films, including American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption, and Finding Nemo.
Sam Shepard is one of the most celebrated playwrights, screenwriters, and actors of our time. His work includes the screenplay for Paris, Texas, and his plays True West, A Lie of the Mind, and Buried Child, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame.
Julie Taymor [I do not have her bio from the site but it was in the program; I'll add it later. Hopefully she is still coming, despite Spider-Man delays? That had not occurred to me when I bought the tickets. We'll see; it will be amazing no matter what, that is for sure.]}

Like Crazy
http://sundance.slated.com/2011/films/likecrazy_sundance2011

^{Like Crazy is a film from and about the heart. Jacob, an American, and Anna, who is British, meet at college in Los Angeles and fall madly in love. It’s the purest kind of romance—they’re each other’s first significant attachment. When Anna returns to London, the couple is forced into a long-distance relationship. Their perfect love is tested, and youth, trust, and geography become their biggest enemies.

Taking a complete tonal departure from his last film, Douchebag, which screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, cowriter/director Drake Doremus poetically reveals the intimate details and daily struggles of Jacob and Anna’s love affair as it stretches between time and distance and changes course. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are enthralling in their sweetness and honesty as the young couple. An original, contemplative look at first love, Like Crazy strikes a universal chord as it explores the bittersweet beauty and impermanence of relationships.}

Margin Call
http://sundance.slated.com/2011/films/margincall_sundance2011

^{Set in the high-stakes world of the financial industry, Margin Call is a thriller entangling the key players at an investment firm during one perilous 24-hour period in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. When entry-level analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) unlocks information that could prove to be the downfall of the firm, a roller-coaster ride ensues as decisions both financial and moral catapult the lives of all involved to the brink of disaster. Expanding the parameters of genre, Margin Call is a riveting examination of the human components of a subject too often relegated to partisan issues of black and white.

Propelled by a stellar cast that includes Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, and Demi Moore, writer/director J. C. Chandor’s enthralling first feature is a stark and bravely authentic portrayal of the financial industry and its denizens as they confront the decisions that shape our global future.}

"Hunter Shoots a Bear" = Dog Bites Man, right? Not When It's A Sweet Ad It Doesn't!

2010-09-10T19:51:08Z

_{(My other title idea for this post was "In Soviet Russia Bear Shoots Hunter", but that's kind of crap for some reason. Like, it should work but doesn't? Guh, titles, I hates them.)}

Has everyone seen this? I am a little obsessed with creative, interactive online advertising, and this is some of the best I've seen since the Old Spice guy invaded Twitter. Enjoy if you haven't! NSFW because of language, btw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M

When prompted, you get to type in your own scenarios. "Is" is a pretty sweet one, as is "eats," just putting those out there to get the ball rolling. (TEDDY BEAR!) "Kisses" was, um, interesting. :D

Softpedia also suggests these: shoots, dances, kisses, likes, feeds, sleeps with (it's not what you'd expect), tickles, rides, meets, is, plays football with (this one scores high), pee (probably the funniest), kicks, smokes weed with, talks to, plays with, tipp ex, breakdances with, cuddles, goes fishing with, farts with, moonwalks with, plays with, mows the lawn with, buys, eats, washes, does nothing to, moons, watches TV with, jumps, paints, chases, hugs, sings, cooks.

_{(OMG and evil ads strike again! The banners around LJ tell me Hetalia DVD is on sale soon. D:D Am sorely tempted to buy. And for the last time the anime IS a satire on WW2, you crazy ignorant fangirls! That is what makes it so awesome! 'Kay, that's all I've got at the moment.)}

Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast: The Top Ten Things We Did in LA (Part 3 of 3)

2010-08-23T19:46:19Z

Last Part of my LA Post! Because I fail at being concise, LOL. Inishmoooooore ado about something!

_{Back to part 1: http://reezoo.livejournal.com/11531.html
Back to part 2: http://reezoo.livejournal.com/11928.html}

10. Lieutenant of Inishmore: Play Plus Bonus Q&A. (tl;dr) DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE PLAY

There is Reezoo, fangirl, and Reezoo, rabid theatre goer. Never the twain shall meet, right? Wrong, so wrong; they did on the night of August 3rd when Chris Pine starred in Inishmore, huzzah! We came, we saw, we loved. And then, because somehow somewhere we did a good deed and made the karma gods happy, there was a Q&A session right after the performance that we could attend!

THE PLAY ITSELF

Before flying out to LA I had seen another of Martin McDonagh's works, The Pillowman, performed live (around Halloween, natch, so appropriate.) It was a dark, it was frightening, but it was brilliantly written and poignant and I loved it. So yes, I had some high expectations for his play The Lieutenant of Inishmore, despite the subject matter and the anticipated gore—senseless, depraved, and ultimately pointless gore. (The senselessness of the chaos and carnage onstage, for those not aware, is meant to symbolize the senselessness of the IRA and their idea that through terrorism they could best achieve the freedom of the Irish people; there IS a purpose to the madness.) I knew it would be bloody and brutal to watch, and as I am a weakling when it comes to gore I also knew I would no doubt be squirming in my seat throughout the entire production.

There was some of that, of course. But what I did not expect was that I would also be laughing so hard throughout the show that I could barely catch my breath. The play is staggeringly, hysterically funny. And no, it's not just nervous humor from discomfort—from the bodies being chopped up or from a cat's brains falling out of its head and onto a kitchen table, for example—a lesser playwright would have relied on that to get him laughs and make his play a famous footnote in the history of theatre.

No, the play is beautifully written, as skilfully crafted as anything I've ever seen onstage. Through conversations about crap—which seem to be pointless and about nothing at all, the characters seemingly yammering on—we learn more about their personalities and motivations than we could have in any other way. Small insignificant things revealed in this manner in the beginning pay off in a big way by the end; by the climax of the show the Chekhov's guns are firing one after the other, so fast, that you feel like you will go deaf from the sound and the fury of them; luckily you are gasping so hard with laughter that it muffles their noise. It was utterly unexpected, the amount of payoff the audience gets in this play, and a sheer delight; I have seen and read far too many things where facts or characters set up early on in the story go nowhere or get forgotten. It was fantastic to instead watch something where you are in good hands, where the playwright can be relied on to tell a brilliant story and not let you down. It made for an incredibly satisfying piece of drama, and because of it I want to make it my mission to see all of McDonagh's works performed now.

For example, it is brought up in several different ways by several characters that Mairead, the lone woman in the play, is a skilled marksman who longs to join the terrorists. She once shot out a bunch of cows' eyes, and she looks like a boy, both of which she is defensive about. Her brother Brendan and even Padriac, the crazy lieutenant of an IRA offshoot that she is crushing on, brings this up at random points in the story. At one of the high points in the action of the play, when the three terrorists are about to kill Padriac and end up taking him outside to shoot him, they suddenly stumble back into the house, their eyes shot out, and babblingly argue about whether it was a boy or a girl that did it. BOOM, Chekhov's gun fired—her seemingly strange skill just saved the "hero" and became a major plot point, and the three terrorists arguing about her gender becomes a source of comedy. And then it is that amazing marksmanship of hers and the fact that she used it to save Padriac that makes him completely fall for her, and they are suddenly making out onstage and shooting the terrorists and being so crazy together. And you are howling with laughter, and your soul is delighted to see all these small facts come full circle.

Another big one was the bits about Padriac and Mairead discussing cats, and you see she is as madly devoted to cats as he is, LOL. He talks about his beloved Wee Thomas, the Macguffin whose "death" set all these events into motion, and then she talks about her own beloved cat, and the realization hit me like a bullet to the brain. I grabbed Nyu's arm and was like no, nooooooo, and she just smiled knowingly, evilly, as she is apt to do. And yes, as the pit of my stomach kept sinking further and further down, and I waited in agony, the Chekhov's gun slowly cocking and taking aim, we see her go into the bathroom and come out later cradling a cat (the poor replacement cat for Wee Thomas, that was found and covered in black shoe polish in a well-meaning attempt by Donny, Padriac's uncle, and Brendan, Mairead's brother, to hide the truth of Wee Thomas' death from Padriac. The attempt fails spectacularly—Padriac may be crazy but he's not stupid—and in anger he shoots the poor replacement cat and flings it into the bathroom, to be utterly forgotten until this very scene.) And then, as I watched in horror, the Chekhov's gun goes off, literally, when in revenge for her dead, shoe polish bedraggled cat, Mairead shoots Padriac, the man she loves and the killer of her cat, in the head at point blank range. It was the best bit of dramatic irony I have seen performed in a long, long time.

(Nyu said her only regret about the whole performance was that since she had already read the play, and therefore knew the twists and turns of the story, she sadly missed out on the experience of being completely surprised by the plot. Luckily I had no such problems; for me it was a wild, startling, dramatic ride from start to explosive finish.)

And at the end, when Wee Thomas, the first real live cat of the night (all the rest were props, obviously) comes out and begins eating his food? OMG, I died, and so did everyone else in the audience. The senselessness of the violence we had just seen, it hits home when you see the furry impetus for all that violence is actually alive and well and just wants a bit of food. Sound and fury signifying nothing indeed.

(The only unanswered question in the whole play—and considering how complex things get, having only one is impressive—is this: did Padriac know Mairead would save him, when the terrorists took him outside? He is struggling mightily to free himself, yet from the look on his face you can see that he has some sort of plan up his sleeve. Did that plan include her amazing marksmanship, or is he just crazy enough to assume that there will be a way out for him yet? Nyu and I cannot decide.)

In short (too late), I can see now why Nyu had been waiting for five long years for the chance to see this play live, regardless of what actor or starship captain might be at the helm. It is a positively brilliant play, and I am so, so glad that she had the gumption to strong arm us into making this trip, so that the three of us could witness this brilliance for ourselves. Gluten free cookies for her, plates and plates of them!

THE ACTORS

While Chris might have been the big draw for many to come see it, this play is first and foremost an ensemble piece—hence the appropriateness of listing the cast in alphabetical order. There are no small parts or wasted actors; everyone has to do heavy lifting to make it a success (and a success it was.) And luckily they found amazing, brilliant actors to bring it to life.

The nice thing, and this was emphasized by Andrew Connolly (who played Christie, the head of the three terrorists) in the Q&A, is that the play just builds and builds in intensity all the way through. The actors are skilled enough that by the end, the momentum of the action becomes relentless; there is no room for the audience to breath, no way for the the rhythm of the story to break. And that is only accomplished by all the actors working in tandem, feeding off of each other and working together.

And as Nyu said, while she knew going in that there was a lot of black humor in the play, it is not nearly as funny on the page as it is when actually performed. And that is also a complete credit to the actors; to their study of their characters and their comedic choices and timing and camaraderie as they play off one another. Lines that should not on the surface get laughs did. Two men staring at a dead cat on the table for several minutes, saying nothing, becomes snickeringly funny. A man kissing a girl while holding a bloody dead cat and smearing it all over her yellow dress becomes hysterical. That is a tough feat to accomplish; luckily we were in the hands of skillful, consummate professionals—all the way down to Kevin Kearns (Brendan), who had just barely graduated from high school and despite his baby face was brilliant—who were more than up to the challenge of bringing this ambitious play to life.

CHRIS AS PADRIAC

But Chris, as Padriac, was definitely the highlight of the night.

In order for the play to be successful, you have to sympathize with Padriac; despite his insanity, and homicidal tendencies, and personal quirks, you have to root for him. And Chris manages that in spades. His Padriac is passionate, driven, and even charming. He could have just reprised his Darwin Tremor if he had so desired—another poor, crazy killer role—and the fact that he does not resort to that, but pulls out of his acting hat a completely different sort of character, speaks volumes about his abilities and talents.

The other brilliant thing about Chris is that he is, as Nyu wonderfully puts it, a character actor stuck in a sexy leading man's body. So he willingly throws himself into the pratfalls, and the crazy humor, and the broad physical comedy, that is necessary for a smaller part, and yet he has the good looks and charisma needed to be the lead of the show. (Watch the Reboot and count how many goofy faces and amazingly physical bits he does; I'm betting you'll find it's a lot.) Inishmore is no different; after learning from his uncle that his cat Wee Thomas is sick, Padriac wails and falls to the ground and crawls off the stage; Chris fully embraced the turmoil the character is facing at that moment and backed it up with physical actions. And it was a showstopper—the actors had to pause in the scene for a moment because we in the audience were clapping and laughing so hard. And then later on, when the three terrorists are going to kill him and are dragging him outside to do it, he is struggling mightily and just jumping all around, going for it full throttle, it was awesome.

The way that Andrew described Chris in the Q&A, and it is so apt, is that his brilliance is in completely taking the reigns of the show and driving it forward like a freight train, dragging the rest of the actors along for the ride. (He is Unstoppable? Ah bad pun bad, I'm sorry!) The other actors must be willing to jump on that train and keep it going, to be certain, but he is the one that has to set the train in motion; it is his momentum that drives the play and keeps it so engrossing. Right after his death the energy on the stage completely vanishes; part of that is due to the denouement, of course, but some of it is also simply that the life force, the spark, of his character has been snuffed out, taking the spark in the rest of the characters, especially Mairead, with it.

And I loved his voice in the performance. The voice he used for Padriac was, like, a whole octave lower than his normal speaking voice; much deeper, much richer. Like Nyu said, we kinda all did double takes at first to make sure it was actually him speaking and not someone else, LOL. And his accent was just fine, the perfect stage accent. It sounded natural enough, definitely practiced until perfected and not all garbled and mangled (ie Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors), yet not overly pronounced to be all LOOK AT ME I CANZ SPEAK ALL IRISH now, so that despite sounding very good it is actually bad (Meryl Streep, as much as I love her, can at times be horribly guilty of this, and she's like the grand dame of Hollywood actresses.) Many actors, even skilled ones, are guilty of doing either of those on occasion; Chris managed to skirt around those pitfalls in his performance somehow. You notice the accent at first only because, hello, it's Chris speaking, in not his usual voice; but soon you get immersed back into the goings-ons of the play, and it completely blends in and becomes as invisible as the costumes and the set—exactly what a stage accent should be.

(Nyu pointed this out later, but we saw three sides to Chris that night: Chris Pine as Padriac, mad cat loving terrorist; the transition that took place during the curtain call for the actors where the fictitious character called Padriac disappeared and the real person that is Chris Pine began to reemerge; and Chris Pine, tired actor and real person, at the Q&A. It was definitely interesting to witness that kind of transformation for ourselves.)

THE DESIGN

Oh, and a word about the design, because I cannot help it.

The stage is an amazing feat. The main room of the uncle's house, so normal looking, is surrounded by roughly textured blocks that symbolize not only rocks or blocks of peat or whatever, but from the odd angle they are set at they signify the chaos surrounding the events unfolding in front of us. The stage brings a sense of familiarity yet also puts us on edge; we know to expect something different, that something wicked this way comes, just from one glance at the set. Very nicely done.

The props were great as well. The bodies were amazing. They were obvious stage bodies, so I could watch the scenes using them without needing to cover my hands over my eyes, yet they were realistic enough that they did not become a joke in and of themselves; every crack or snap of “bone” was cringe-inducing. Even Nyu was admittedly creeped out by the sound, LOL, and theatre magic is old hat to her.

(After Padriac and Mairead kill the three terrorists, the stage goes completely black for several seconds; when the lights come back up, the “dead” actors are gone, the bodies now in their place, and copious amounts of glossy, bright-red blood is EVERYWHERE. Padriac and Mairead are forcing their uncle and brother to chop the bodies up and properly dispose of them (ie remove their heads, hands, teeth, etc so as not to be identifiable.) The comedy comes in how nonchalantly the two hapless relatives are performing this rather gruesome task, and how they complain and bicker about it as if it is nothing more irksome than chopping wood or some other backbreaking chore. Padriac and Mairead check up on their work and give them pointers and get all critical of how sloppy a job they are doing, LOL, as if they should know better how to dispose of corpses. Why so funny scene? Because it really, really was.)

The “blood” was very visually arresting, an angry red smear on the stage, a mar on an otherwise tranquil house. The only problem I had with it was its shininess—doesn't blood coagulate and get darker and more matte looking over time? This blood did not. But it did stand out, as it needed to, so ah well, no biggie. The problem with it from an acting standpoint was that it was very, very slick; even wearing grippy boots the actors were slipping and sliding around on it as they moved. Chris almost fell on his butt one time, LOL, but he caught himself before he did. (Nyu marveled that their actor's union would ever let them do a show where they could have the potential for great physical injury; the blood did create a bit of a danger for them. But the details of that must have gotten worked out somehow in their contracts pre-production.)

(A quick word on the violence in the show. Going into the play the violence of it was all I had heard about, and so I was expected nonstop gruesomeness and horror throughout the entire thing. This was not so, and such a presumption was utterly, utterly stupid of me, in retrospect. After all, where is the drama in that? How can you expect to create a buildup to a really spectacular climax, if you generously and gratuitously splatter violence all over your play early on? McDonagh is a better playwright than that. He introduced hints of the gore and violence at the very beginning—the uncle and brother staring at the dead “Wee Thomas” and holding his little body up, his brains falling out onto the kitchen table with a rather horrible smack—and then lets things slowly build so that the carnage at the end means something, that we are not already desensitized to it. Very, very nicely crafted. When audience members left, upset over the violence, LOL, most of them left during the chopping up of the bodies scene. The producer guy in the Q&A said he actually carries it as a badge of honor, that people are so upset over the violence they leave; that means he and the rest of the people involved in the show did their job. To those audience members I say, I sympathize, but if *I* can make it through, than anyone should be able to. Suck it up people!)

And Nyu had no complaints about the costumes whatsoever; she said all of them fit the personalities of their characters very well. If you know her like I do, you know just how high a compliment that is; she finds things about costumes to nitpick and criticize like it is her job (because it actually is, LOL.) Chris looked, um, very nice with his gunholsters and wonderfully fitting clothes, and that's all I'm going to say on that subject before I embarrass myself, hah.

And I liked the graphic design of the production materials (posters, program, web banners, etc.) The blocks of red on the pieces mimic the shape of the blocks on the stage, which I though was brilliant, and the lettering and the style of everything emphasizes the insanity and craziness that is in store. And putting both Padriac and Mairead in all of the main photos for the design was a nice touch. As someone who did not know the story of the play beforehand, showcasing them in the designs seemed like such a benign, even cliche choice; ah, how nice, the lead and his romantic interest together holding guns, blahblahblah. But in actuality, in the play, after Padriac's death MAIREAD takes on the title of the Lieutenant of Inishmore; the title of the play refers not just to Padriac but to Mairead as well. Because of this the idea of them both being the centerpiece of the designs not only makes sense, but it is almost imperative. Very nicely done.

THE Q & A

One of the producers, I believe, conducted the Q&A. As people left and those remaining for the Q&A settled in the front half of the seats, we decided it would be best for the three of us to sit in the front of the back half of the seats, in the second row, and so we moved there. Imagine our delight when he comes out and tells everyone that because of the immense cleanup needed for the show, those in the front half need to move to the back half! So we had prime seats. :D As the producer began taking questions, the actors began sporadically filing in; we applauded each actor as they emerged. They all wandered into the seats in the front half of the theatre, leaning against the backs of the chairs to face us for the Q&A. The three young actors all congregated over on the stage right side of the theatre, and the three others, coincidentally the Irish ones, all congregated by us on the stage left side.

Sean G Griffin (Donny, the uncle), had a scratch on his nose that he was trying to get to stop bleeding. At the end of the play, after the live cat walks out and begins eating his food, Sean is supposed to pick up the cat from its perch and hold it in his arms. Well, that night the cat had NOT wanted to come down from its perch, it just wanted to eat, so he had to fight with it for a bit to get it down, LOL. And apparently it scratched him on the nose while he was doing that. (There was some joking about how that was the only real blood onstage, ironic considering how much stage blood there was OMG.)

While we were doing the Q&A, the backstage hands had the stunt cat come out and practice eating the food. (All the cats used in the show are shelter cats, and will be adopted after the run of the show is over.) They also cleaned up the set; they set up tall boards around the main living room larea, forming a giant square pen around the main stage, wore hazmat suits, and just power hosed all the blood down. ;) Apparently they renovated the theatre a few years ago and installed a central drain under the stage; this is the first production to take use of that. It was fun to watch all of that go down in front of us.

Nyu got a question in, asking about the corpses used in the show, because she was utterly fascinated at how they were constructed. (She has been a props artisan all summer.) He said that they were done by Matthew Mungle, who once worked at the Taper forum as a prop man and now does the bodies for CSI. Inishmore presented a unique challenge for him, because he is used to doing props you dispose of after an hour, whereas these bodies had to be durable enough for 100+ shows. The bodies were made to specs, the faces of the actors cast, with bendable joints. The pieces of the bodies that separate during the show, such as the heads, spines, etc are connected to the body via wooden dowels, which the actors then saw through. They tested a number of dowels, from pine to locust wood, and finally settled on red oak as it is a good wood to saw through—not too soft, not too hard—and provides a satisfying, creepy crack that sounds like bones snapping. (And oh, does it ever, yikes.)

The blood used is soap based, so it is easy to wash and nontoxic (I cannot remember what Kevin said it tasted like; at this point Chris had come out, I think, and I was a bit distracted, LOL).

None of the actors used mikes; except for the musicals they never mike any of the shows there.

Someone asked an interesting question about how the play had been received in its motherland; Andrew Connolly took the question. (Andrew had been in the original Broadway production of Inishmore, and it seemed like he was the ringleader of the actors. He fielded the most questions during the Q&A, and the others seemed happy enough to let him.) He said that he did Cripple of Inishmaan to sold out houses, so there is a definite interest over there, but that it is hard to get mainstream approval in the country for Irish playwrights. That in general, the Irish wait for everyone else around them to give their approval before they acknowledge it themselves. Both O'Casey and Synge had the same problem as Martin, in getting approval; in O'Casey's case, they refused to do his show at the Abbey. He was so upset that he left Ireland and never came back.

Kevin Kearns was still in HS when the play started, he had tutors and all that. Someone was interested in how he balanced his schoolwork with being in the show. Again I was not paying close attention and taking careful notes because Chris had just come out, gaaaah I fail.

You will, of course, want to know about Chris perhaps? :D He came out well after all the others, freshly showered (all that blood, yikes) with his hair slicked back, and wearing a black/beige plaid shirt with hints of green, and these gorgeous dark jeans that looked like he had been poured into them; I kept staring at his gorgeous thighs throughout the Q&A, gah, horrible person that I am. He entered on the Irish actors' side, stage left, RIGHT BY US, and stayed there the whole time, pretty much directly in front of us, only a few feet away. :D He was drinking a large bottle of Smart Water the whole time (of course, as he is married to the stuff.) The first thing he did when he got settled was that lip licking thing of his, ahaha my night made right there, like it wasn't already from the play alone.

What was he like during the Q&A? He was pretty much the same as every other report of him I have heard. He was gorgeous, but looked so, so tired and very, very lean. (The role of Padriac does not require the actor to bulk up, so it is okay to be a bit wiry looking.) He yawned periodically throughout the Q&A, didn't really look at anyone in the audience, definitely looked like he would rather be anywhere else than with us. In contrast to this all of his costars seemed more energetic, and looked at and engaged themselves more with the audience. At one point he literally turned his back to us to sit in the chairs the correct way; no other way to read that kind of body language except as a not-so-subtle I WANT TO LEAVE NOW, WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING. It wasn't personal, obviously, but it was kind of disappointing.

During an early portion of the Q&A, after he had first come out, Zoe Perry (Mairead), looked over towards him with, I could have sworn, concern in her eyes. She could have been staring at Andrew, I suppose, as he was in the middle of answering a question, but it definitely looked like she was staring at Chris. It was hard to tell though. Right after that one of her fellow actors motioned for her to come sit by them, and she did, and they put their arm around her—like they were consoling her, circling the wagons? I am probably reading too much into this.

He was very friendly with Andrew, when he felt up to having some energy and engaging somebody. They were right next to each other, and would joke and talk quietly, looking like very comfortable friends. Andrew, from what I could see, seems like the perfect, consummate grizzled theatre veteran; here's hoping some of that rubs off onto Chris. The masterclass on how to schmooze with your audience did not take, obviously, but I'm sure Chris learned a lot of other great things from him.

I kinda wanted to, at some points during the Q&A, just shake Chris and be all, look, your fellow actors are no doubt tired too, but if they can get their acts together and talk to an audience that just paid to see them for a few minutes so can you! Especially because the stage vets are behaving marvelously and do not find this beneath them, so you should follow their example. Suck it up and be a man, man! But In his defense I will say this; he is the driving force of the show, and it is his energy that everyone else feeds off of. That has to be draining, and daunting, to have that pressure on you, especially when as an actor you are still relatively young; he is not quite thirty yet, after all. I would have folded like a house of cards at the mere idea of trying to achieve what he did in his performance. So yeah, I do understand the being tired thing and the so not wanting to be there thing. But please bb, you had better learn to handle this kind of thing, as it is part and parcel of being an actor, or life, no matter how talented you indeed are, it WILL be tough for you. (I still love him though, don't get me wrong. It is just ironic that, as someone whose profession is acting, he seems to wear his IRL emotions on his sleeve and is unable to BS his way through the simplest of things. So, so strange.)

The only question asked directly to Chris was if he had seen the play when it was on Broadway; his answer was, and I quote, "No, Thank God." Everyone laughed; the sincerity of his answer was so blatant. Andrew went on to say (and since he was in the original Broadway cast he can be considered an expert, yes yes?) that the original Broadway performance was much heavier, and in contrast this one has much more energy to it. There is a definite difference to both productions in his mind. (I cannot imagine this show being done heavily, OMG; I think that would be awful to witness. The levity and momentum in the version we saw made the ruthlessness of the play easier to swallow. So thank you, LA cast, for making it energetic and awesome!)

They discussed the luxury of the play, that it allows all the characters, even the supposedly secondary ones, to develop and grow during the performance, which the actors all loved.

Someone asked if Irishman really are mad for cats. :D The Irish actors answered and said no, PIGS, LOL, but that having a pig come out would be very awkward. :)

For the show they had three weeks of rehearsals, rather short, and then a week of previews, working around eight hours a day. (Though I am guessing the hours worked by the behind the scenes crew was much longer, LOL, it always is.)

THE DRIVE BY TOOLBAG DEBACLE

So, a great night of theatre, lots of energy on stage and in the audience, a great Q&A session, and no crazy questions by crazy fangirls directed at Chris so he was pretty much left alone, which he obviously wanted. A great ending to a perfect evening, right?

Oh look at you, so naive. The real world is never, ever that kind.

Because there was one question left to be asked, which, for me, ended up being far more horrific than anything that had been performed onstage.

So there was this nice looking little old lady in the row directly in front of us that had been patiently raising her hand for a good portion of the Q&A session. When they finally smiled at her and indicated that she could ask her question, she prefaced it by saying, "I saw Inishmore twice in New York..."

That right there should have been our first clue that this was not going to end well. (Nyu said HER first clue was that the lady sounded exactly like one of her old theatre professors that was absolutely crazy, LOL.) Casually dropping in that you have seen a show? Never leads to anything good. (Even the producer and Andrew knew it; especially from Andrew's face you could tell that he was thinking, OH REALLY, and wondering where she was going with this.)

Anyway, it goes downhill from there.

"I saw Inishmore twice In New York...and the actors in this performance don't have as good of accents as the ones in New York did. Can you tell me if this was a directorial choice, and if not why they didn't hire Irish actors to play the parts?"

D:

WHUT, SHE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT. SHE. DID. NOT. No way. But she had, OMG OMG OMG she had.

Again, just like with the awful question at the Eddie Izzard Q&A, everyone in the audience was stunned. Just completely flabbergasted. Nyu, L_T and I were completely hating life right then; in less than 48 hours we had witnessed not one, but two horrific drive-by toolbaggings, the sort of which no one should ever have to experience. Is there something in the water on the West Coast? Had all the smog from the fires north of LA somehow coagulated people's brains and made them say really stupid things? How is such a thing even possible?

Someone, probably the producer, in an attempt to somehow rationally answer her ridiculous question, said that the American union in LA does not allow the theatre to hire foreign actors unless they have a green card; thems the rules. So it limits how many Irish actors they can potentially hire. (He was being very, very kind, I thought, in trying to give her an objective answer. He earned his paycheck right there, no lie.)

The three Irish actors, bless their hearts, were all, um, well, WE'RE IRISH, and we think their accents are great. (Loud, loud applause from the audience at that, to show that we completely agreed with them.) And she, in a voice of sweetness and light, was all Oh I could tell YOU were, it was obvious", just digging in the knife a little bit more.

I could not believe this woman. At all. For someone who has obviously seen good theatre before at amazing venues and acts like she is all sophisticated, how could she not see just how uncouth, how completely unforgivable her question was? It baffled me, it still does even three weeks later. Had she not seen the same performance I just had? Had something about its brilliance escaped her? Or was she just one of those kind of crazy people who feel a need to tear others down to make herself feel superior, at the expense of the feelings and hard work of the gifted young actors who had just put on a rather amazing performance, one that was totally lost on the likes of her?

(For the record, I think that the latter is the most true.)

Do not get me wrong; she is completely entitled to her opinion that the accents were atrocious, just as I am entitled to my opinion that Meryl Streep, at times, overdoes her accents. I don't believe in shaming people for having ideas that differ from mine, I don't believe in unleashing the thought police on people or anything like that. Having the opinion that she did does not make her a bad person. What DOES make her a bad person is that she used her opinion to hurt others and be utterly disrespectful. Despite my opinion about Meryl, I respect her as a great actress, and would never, in a million years, if given the opportunity, snidely tell her my opinion about her accents in such a public, intimate venue. Is the golden rule really that dead, to be abused by an elderly woman who should know better in such a manner? It was disheartening to see.

(That is the end of Reezoo soapbox time; thank you for your attention.)

Through all of this insanity you could see Chris just completely shutting down; you could practically hear him retreating within himself, and it was so heartbreaking to watch. Because it really did feel like she was singling HIM out over everyone else, that her comments were directed right at him like a well aimed gun at point blank range. Which, considering how brilliant his performance was and how much I had been impressed by his accent, was so, so unfair.

It was insulting, it was rude. It also showed a lack of wordliness on her part, as a lot of what people consider to be correct Irish accents are just gross caricatures of the real thing. Just like anywhere else, the Irish have dialects, and not all Irish sound the same. How does she not know that and infer that maybe her hear, not that of the actors, is off? How does she not, ironically, realize that her comment makes her sound rather ignorant?

It was also an insult to the rest of the people involved in the production, not the least of which is Carla Meyer, the dialect coach, whose resume is long and quite impressive.

Someone in the audience, in an attempt to be supportive of the actors, just made things worse by being snide and telling the rude lady to be quiet and causing even more of a ruckus; he became just as bit a tool as she was. It devolved quickly from that point, and Andrew, I believe, took over and wrapped the Q&A up, thanked us for staying, we clapped for the actors, and made our way to the exits.

As we were getting up to leave, the awful lady with the awful question looked up at us and commented to no one in particular, "Well, I'd better get out of here before I get stoned," and had the gall to LAUGH about it. In my mind I am going, YES, YES YOU SHOULD.

The only saving grace for all of that rudeness was that, luckily, there was a group of older people in the audience that knew Chris; he had sort of pointed to them and acknowledged them in the audience during the curtain call. (Relatives? Family friends? Old teachers? All three?) He went over to them after the Q&A, and they hugged him and talked with him. At seeing them he seemed to light up a bit again; genuine smiles came to his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and he seemed much, much happier. It was nice to see that people he genuinely cared for were there for him, especially after that disastrous comment—like a human palate cleanser. As I was shuffling out of the theatre, past their group, very careful not to make eye contact or do anything stupid, I didn't mean to but I heard a smidge of their conversation. A lovely older lady that he knew (nothing like the horrible lady) told him he had been just marvelous, THANK GOODNESS. I could have hugged her. LISTEN TO HER CHRIS BECAUSE YOU WERE. They asked what he was going to do once the show was over and he said that right after the show he was going on vacation. (Good on him, boy has earned it.) And that was when I left the theatre, so I didn't hear any more. I was on my best fangirl behavior; his night was bad enough, no need to make it any worse. Luckily everyone else seemed to also be trying to give him privacy; no one went up to him bugging him for autographs or anything, at least not that I saw. Look at us, such a good audience! (With a few obvious exceptions of course.)

Apparently Nyu and L_T were near the awful lady outside the theatre, waiting for me as I had gotten separated from them in the shuffle, when another patron came up to her and said, "Just so you know, what you said was really rude." She kind of laughed it off, gah, but the patron was not having any of it and said, "NO, IT WAS REALLY RUDE", driving the point home.

(Thank you wonderful patron lady, thank you, I think I love you. Approrpiate, non-toolbaggy public shaming FTW.)

We did not stay after to see if Chris or the other cast members would come out and sign autographs or do any of that craziness; we were all tired, and crazy lady had drained us. We just got into our cute little rental car and made the trek back to our hotel. To cleanse OUR palettes we stopped by House of Pies first, yum yum. A sweet ending to a sweet, with the tiniest hint of sour, evening.

So yeah, one of the best trips EVER. Congrats LA, you didn't suck after all. ;) (Though I still hate the Katy Perry song singing your praises with the passion of a thousand tiny paper cuts.)

_{Bonus travel tip: In booking plane tickets to LA, if you can, FLY INTO LONG BEACH (LJB), avoid LAX like the plague that it is. It is the cutest little airport and no hassle at all; with its picturesque front and tiny shuttle planes, it felt like we were being whisked back to that magical time when people dressed up in heels and pearls to get on a plane, and they still served hot meals with real silverware, forreals. Plus our Enterprise lady was the nicest lady I have EVER dealt with in all my years of renting cars, OMG I loved her; the perfect beginning to an amazing trip. (We got to pick our car and chose a hot little red number, yay! So sporty, so cute. But I was the driver and am tall so, oh, my knees hated me by the end.)

I planned a ridiculous amount of time for us to travel to the airport for our return flight, because of my horrific memories of LAX, but it was all so unnecessary. Returning our rental car could not have been easier—you just hand it off to the agents and walk the super short distance back to the airport—and checking in and getting through security was a breeze. YES, YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. Maybe it was travel karma—I have been that passenger waiting in the LAX security line for what feels like forever, about to miss my flight and cursing the world, so maybe I was due an easy check-in for once—or maybe it is just that the Long Beach airport is fab. Whatever it was, huzzah!

The only prob we faced was that because of lightning storms in space in SLC, our flight was delayed, but still it's only a two hour flight, and we made it through just fine. Seeing the storm through the windows of the plane, with the dying sunset streaking everything red, was seriously one of the coolest things I have ever see. (Nyu: "It is like we are descending into Mordor! Me: "I know, right?" Gah we are dorks.)

The one truly large bummer of the trip: we want to go see Angels in America with ZQ over Thanksgiving weekend, and the first day they went on sale was during our trip. No prob, I picked out a hotel with free wifi, we're golden, right? WRONG. First, neither of our Macs could connect with it, boo, so internet ticket buying was out. (I hate you hotel.) So I woke a little before 7 (box office opened at 10 in NY) and called the ticket office on my cell like mad, for over an hour. No luck. I got L_T into calling as well, no luck. I finally gave up and got ready for the day, and tried again; this time I got someone! Only to have them tell me the dates we wanted (Sunday before Thanksgiving, matinee and evening performances) are all gone, unless we want to pay like $150 a ticket for prime tickets? D: WHAT IS THIS RIDICULOUSNESS. I'm sorry, I love ZQ and want to see the play live, but I am NOT shelling out that much PER TICKET to make that happen, no way. So it looks like during our trip to NY this fall we will be doing the waitlist thing to see the play, gah. It is karma for seeing Eddie AND Chris I think; too much of a good thing means no ZQ in my life. WE SHALL WAIT AND SEE. And if anyone else is in NY over that week, hollah at me so we can arrange to maybe meet, LOL!}

THANK YOU FOR READING! Gold stars for you for making it through this, gah.

Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast: The Top Ten Things We Did in LA (Part 2 of 3)

2010-08-23T19:43:51Z

Part 2 of our epic LA Trip of epicness here! On to the Izzard portion of our evening.

_{Back to Part 1: http://reezoo.livejournal.com/11531.html}

9. EDDIE IZZARD! Screening of Believe and Q&A (tl;dr!)

Eddie Izzard has spoiled me for all other comedians. Not only is he ridiculously funny as all get out and very good at physical comedy, but his brand of humor is at times unapologetically cerebral. Who else would dare to do a whole bit on the history of the world using big five dollar words? And manage to keep the audience enthralled the entire time? No one else, that's who.

In short, I adore him.

The first night we were in LA, L_T (who introduced Nyu and me to him in the first place and is an epic fan), and follows Eddie on Twitter, got this message on her fancy phone:
http://twitter.com/eddieizzard/status/20099778921

We're like, that's tomorrow night. We're IN LA. We can physically go, OMG. :D We debated whether it would be worth it to even try—they could only guarantee seats for the first 20 fans, and after that who knows—but we decided to go anyway and hope we could get it.

And we did! :D

We got seats off to the side, several rows back. I am pretty sure I will never, if I manage to see him in concert one day, get seats that close to him ever again; it was fabulous. The theater was filled nicely, but definitely not full by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm glad we were all optimistic and made the attempt. Eddie was out in the front of the theatre with an entourage of people and a video camera when I got there (I had dropped Nyu and L_T off and then parked the car in the theatre's parking terrace.) I tried to dodge the camera lens and not be a crazy fan and just walk in nonchalantly, but I did get a glimpse of him, looking dazzling and dapper as always in a well cut suit and his amazing facial hair. (He is a lot shorter than I pictured, LOL. Now I see why the heels are so essential.)

So what were we there for, exactly? It was a screening of the doc about him called "Believe: the Eddie Izzard Story" (Emmy nominated, hooray), followed by a Q&A with him and the filmmaker, his friend (and ex, hah) Sarah Townsend. We got free Believe posters afterwords, and I even snagged a signed one! Amazing, amazing night.

You can see the doc online for free, Eddie commands you:
http://twitter.com/eddieizzard/statuses/20160078956
http://www.epixhd.com/believe-the-eddie-izzard-story/
http://twitter.com/eddieizzard/status/21531325765

It took seven years for her to make the doc, apparently, collecting footage during that time, and it was her first doc ever, but it was so, so amazing. Very, very impressive for a first timer. In it she let Eddie be funny and be himself, and skillfully handled the tragedies and disappointments of his life when they arose. The doc would go from something hysterical to heartbreaking to poignant in mere moments, and yet it never felt disjointed. That is tricky to do, but she pulled it off beautifully.

I think the greatest thing about it was that, despite being about Eddie, its overarching concept, the thread running through all of it, tied all of its parts together so well: the idea that, no matter what, you must believe in yourself and not give up, that if you keep trying you can make the things you want for your life to happen. Eddie's story, by doing that, becomes OUR story, a symbolic story of perseverance that we all need to be reminded of, when we are close to giving up and taking the easier path in life. He reminds us that we need to believe. Simple yet profound.

(I really, REALLY need that message at this moment—I have been struggling with my path in life—mid-quarter life crisis?—and working up enough courage in the last year or so to finally follow my dreams, and it was a very timely reminder to stick to that path. I need to buy this doc and put it on whenever I am feeling low, I think; the humor will snap me out of my funk, and the message will inspire me to stay on the course and have faith in myself. And I have Eddie and Sarah to thank for the inspiration; I owe them both a giant debt of gratitude.)

Oh, and it has marvelous little animated segues using photos of Eddie and places in his life that they made in Flash! They used them as chapter headings to separate one section of the doc from the other. I absolutely adored them, they were so beautifully done. Apparently they were an homage to Monty Python; you can tell that, yet they were their own unique thing as well. Eddie is a huge Terry Gilliam fan. Sarah said that they are wildly different from their original concept, yet she feels they are truer to his story than what she had initially planed to do.

The only crazy WTF moment of the night came when they opened up the Q&A to the audience members in attendance (Why is this always a Russian roulette move? Why are fans so weird and always make this such a horrible, horrible idea?) The very first girl to raise her hand stood up in the front row and asked, and I am not even joking with you but this IS what she asked: "So, first question: cut or uncut? My husband really wants to know. Second question: if you could be any James Bond villain, which one would you be?"

D:

OMGGGGGGG, WHAT WAS SHE THINKING. Questions, you're doin' it wrong, idiot!!! I'm pretty sure I gasped out loud, and everyone else in the audience was completely stunned. She realized her error quickly, you could tell, but by then it was too late. Eddie, for his part, totally didn't understand the first question, thank goodness—apparently circumcision is NOT part of his cultural vocabulary, LOL—and he apparently was never a big James Bond fan so he skipped answering the second one as well. He actually said something along the lines of why don't we stick to questions about the movie? D: Total drive-by toolbagging, I could not believe it. Luckily everyone else after that asked appropriate questions, many actually related to the screened film, whut. I know, crazy, to ask questions about the film we just saw. So the night was salvaged, but only just. OMG still cringing from the memory of that.

There was a reception afterwords, with fancy finger foods and Eddie milling about, but we didn't stay, just grabbed out posters and went. What would I have said, other than brilliant film, you have no idea how you've inspired me, and then somehow end up making a fool of myself? Better to walk off, a woman of mystery.

And because rainbowstright sorta demanded it, below I've typed up all the notes I took during the thing (because yes I take notes at everything, shup don't laugh at meeeeee)

REEZOO's NOTES: SPOILERS GALORE FOR THE DOC BTW

• My fave lines/quotes of the doc:
– It's psychological, you've just got to believe
– You've got to believe you are an actor before you can act, you've got to believe you are an artist before you become one, that you ARE a stand up before you do stand up (I am horribly misquoting, boo, I was scribbling my chickenscratch with pencil in the dark)
– People will cut you down and try to tell you you are mad for believing you can do it; when you succeed you prove to them, oh by the way, I wasn't mad after all; you just need to hold on to that belief you are not mad
– The purpose of life is to live it; get it, grab it, if fear gets in the way push the fear back
– Someone asked him when he went into movies, why go and be a so-so actor when you are a brilliant comedian? His answer was because once I was a so-so comedian :D
– It scares the crap out of me...that's why I've gotta do it
– He is afraid of stopping. Slow down? No, it is time to speed up; has people on board now to help him do this
– Everything he does is to try to get his mom back (she died when he was a boy); it's like maybe if he does enough things, she'll come back ;__;
– Question: are you running towards something or away from something? His answer: I think they meet in the middle
– Stake out an identity that is memorable

• Sarah, the director of the film, he really trusts her opinion. Early on in his career when he was dating her, because of her lit background (He compared them by calling it the world of lit vs. the world of talking crap), he decided that if SHE of all people found it funny than it MUST be funny (so she influenced his sense of humor, in a way, huzzah!) It is nice to see that not all relationships, when they end, have to end; and maybe, just maybe, if you are lucky that ex you are friends with still will make a lovely doc of you, hah.

• He explained where one of his best comedic bits, the conversations between two people, came about. (ie the "cake or death" type of back and forth dialogue; not that joke in particular, but the whole orchestration of it.) In his younger days he did street performing at festivals, and began doing comedic bits with a partner; he didn't trust himself to be funny enough to grab an audience on his own or something. But their duo ran into problems, and Eddie decided screw this, I'll go off on my own. But he kept the idea of the comedic dialogue, just performing both parts himself, and still uses that in his stand up. :D (And I love him for doing it.)

• Eddie learned how to be a flame thrower and a unicyclist in the course of his street performing, yay.

• He willingly signed up to be the MC at comedy clubs, a job everyone usually avoids like the plague; his skills at engaging the audience and wrangling their attention that he had learned as a street performer helped him be good at it. He became remembered by people that way, and it led to him getting chances to do his own stand up gigs.

• After his mom died his dad sent him to boarding school; in that environment he sort of retreated inward. There he would make up these little stories with stuffed animals and things and act them out and film them; they had some footage of it in the doc, OMG so cute! Reminded me of me and Nyu as kids. Apparently even the headmaster got to see these plays; years later when he got into contact with him again, the headmaster had completely forgotten who Eddie was but remembered his skits. :D There were teddy bears. The civil engineer in him was as obsessed about putting up curtains too and making them work as he was about doing the actual show. He was also more excited about doing the show than coming up with actual material to perform in the show, hah; material for it was like an afterthought. He sold tickets to see it. <3

• In the most heartbreaking scene of the doc, EDDIE CRIES. D: HE is talking/thinking about his mum, and the tears come, and I just wanted to curl him up in my arms and hug all his pain away. A very raw scene.

• The big event that we keep coming back to in the doc, is the new show that Eddie is writing brand new standup for and practicing it on test audiences and then performing it. This occurred after the Watchdog program came out and accused him of recycling material. I guess it bothered him so much—he said that he is very sensitive to negative comments, one neg in a sea of positives and he zooms in on that—so that accusation was the impetus for him to halt doing standup for a while. D: So, so stupid; there were literal gasps in the crowd and utter silence when the doc touched on this. So the bits we saw were part of his attempted return into standup after that hiatus.

• In the Q&A, Sarah said that the dilemma was telling the story of someone you know so well, as she does with Eddie; when you know someone like that, the story you want to tell is not necessarily that people outside of that relationship want to watch. You have to be objective about it; she had to figure out what parts of Eddie to take and share publicly. She decided to focus on the wanting so much that he had, his struggle to get people to listen to him; to her his brilliance is in the getting up again, his continuing to struggle when others would give in and decide it's not meant to be. She decided to show that side of him to us.

• Creepy mod for the Q&A was creepy; at the beginning he was totally hitting on Sarah. He basically said, so I didn't realize until just now that you and Eddie aren't together, I though you were...you are absolutely stunning in person...what are you doing after the show? D: And I don't think he was joking. It was kinda awkward to watch. She handled it beautifully though, I should have taken notes on her responses; like a masterclass in skillfully turning a guy down in public.

• I now get the whole thing on his twitter bio where he's all "I think like an American", because he went into great depth on that mindset in the Q&A. He said that when you grow up in this country (Britain) you don't even think that doing something like filmmaking is a viable option for a career. The European mindset is, according to him, 'who are you to think you'll succeed?' They find it embarrassing if they have to work at achieving their goals. (His words, not mine.) That Americans, in contrast, don't believe it's in the stars that they are going to fail, and they are not embarrassed by failure or having to struggle to achieve what they want, they just dust themselves off and keep trying again and encourage others to do likewise. That anyone can tap into the American dream; the immigrants who originally came here to find that kind of freedom and opportunity weren't born Americans, after all—the American dream is the HUMAN dream. If Americans achieve the human dream, well, duh, they're SUPPOSED TO, they're already Americans for crying out loud. :) He wants to get that dream out to the Europeans, to help them create their own sort of dream. He calls the American dream the European dream now, because he wants them actually to HAVE one, that they can strive to achieve. You have big plans, now get out there and build them; that is the American dream.

• And an interesting discussion of BP came up during the Q&A. The gist was that Eddie's father worked for a company that was not well known until now, ie BP. The mod totally went on the warpath against BP and both Eddie and Sarah were kind of taken aback. Eddie's dad worked for BP for years and years (it was why he was born in Yemen I believe, part of his dad's job took him there?), and so he doesn't view BP as this evil company; neither did Sarah. When asked by the mod how she could defend them, Sarah was all, I'm not defending them, I'm attacking all the others equally (all the groups making that disaster the massive fail that is was, in addition to BP.) Eddie had a funny bit to lighten the mood, which will not be funny typed up, but he was like, what's the force pushing the oil out? OH IT'S THE EARTH. To imply not all the factors involved in that disaster came from BP alone. (Yeah, so not funny typed up. All the humor during the Q&A will be that way, I'm afraid, but I'm so gonna try!)

• Eddie was a determined child; it's a DNA thing, his father was the same way. He obviously loves and admires his dad immensely; he said that because his dad did not take any big weird chances, he set up a stable environment for Eddie to be raised in, so that HE could be the one to go out and take the ridiculous chances. That his dad did this sneaky thing at BP where he set up all the files so that he became an essential part of the system that could not be easily fired, hah; Eddie said he has that same kind of sneakiness himself.

• He did this big funny thing about cows; something about his dad getting into cows or something? That he was a cow man pretending to be a shepherd. He made fun of the dogies term—they are not dogies they are cowsies, that is not a dog—and that they didn't have great distances to let the cows run like you do in America so they pushed them? (Gah my notes, what is the point of taking them if I don't understand them and ruin all the jokes? I'm so, so sorry guys.)

• Sarah felt that Eddie's story was the story of a creative life; that she's watched and loved his work, which is beautifully crafted yet so loose and adaptable. Also, that the amount of calculation in his career is astounding, I can't remember what she meant by that.

• Talked a bit about military stuff; SAS, a delta force equivalent? Something. That spilled over into a conversation about Nazis, and that for him the funnest things to kill in video games are Nazis, especially with big guns. That killing zombie Nazis is especially satisfying; he loves Call of Duty, if anyone is interested. ;) I'm not a big gamer but I thought that was a fun fact.

• He doesn't want to let rock and roll have all the fun; he wants to play arenas, hangers, etc. When he started out standups just did not do big venues; however he likes the boldness, the theatricality of it.

• His first gig in NY was playing Washington Square Park. <3 (I love that square!)

• People told him that his biggest challenge, after becoming relatively famous in Britain, would be to take his comedy to America. He dismissed this notion; to him humor is humor, it is not a national thing; he just takes out the overly British bits in America and it's all good. For him, it's not British vs America or British vs French or whatever, it is actually mainstream vs alternative. In all developed countries, his main audience is the alternative audience, and he recognizes that. Monty Python, for example, a big influence on him, was made for a British audience, yet it worked over here too. The trick is NOT to change anything.

• Apparently the reason he decided to perform in France, speaking French, is not because he was fluent in the language but because it just seemed like a crazy thing to try. ;) They showed bits of him in the doc practicing in small French venues; he kept ruining the punchlines because he forgot his vocabulary and would have to stop to ask the audience what the word was! :D He got better, obviously. He likes performing in the real language now, of he countries he visits.

• Someone asked him in the Q&A how he thinks his life would have been different if his mom had never died. D: A potential minefield, but he ran with the question and I found his answers interesting. He said that logically there is a desperation in his performing, a need to perform, that would not have been there had she been around while he was growing up, a constant reassuring presence. His mother did amateur dramatics in her spare time; he mused that had she remained alive, he probably would have been a very good accountant doing amateur dramatics on the side. Would he swap it all, his career and everything, to get her back? Yes, he would, and he was very, very sincere on that. When he finally came out to his dad that he was a transvestite, his dad told him, I'm okay with it, and I think your mom would be too if she were alive. That was very important for him to hear.

• The first time he came out publicly as a~~n executive~~ transvestite was actually on TV, at the end run of something. The first time he wore woman's clothes doing standup onstage was, he believed but sounded hesitant about it, at the Comedy Store in London. (In '92 he had done 1 or 2 shows in costume? My notes are fuzzy about that.) He said it was a calculated risk; if they didn't laugh at his jokes, at least he could blow them out the window somehow. A lot of people in America think it is a desperate gimmick of sorts, his dressing in women's clothing, to help him become famous over here; not true he said. He was famous already over in Britain, for his standup, and came out later; his period of coming out just coincided with his attempt to do comedy in America too. He felt like he HAD to tell people; comedy is about honesty, and he wanted to be honest with his audience. He decided he needed some sex, some sheen to his personae, so that's when he switched from blah suits and skirts and the like to the glamor stuff he does now, the leather pants and stilletos and sharp suits and all that. (There is a bit in the doc showing the progression of his fashion, LOL.)

• There were running Dune jokes throughout the Q&A about worms? I've never read it, I was so lost during those. Something about like Dune, you take the water, then ride the worms? That it was so useful to ride on a worm. (I give up trying to make sense of all that, sorry.)

• He likes standup and acting both, but it sounded like he won't be jumping to do any more plays any time soon. He said the problem with plays as opposed to other mediums is that it it less organic; in plays you have to follow the playwright's words as written, you can't just do tangents on the fly, whereas his strength lies in spontaneous comedy. It is a different skill set. You can't be talking about killing people onstage and then be all—have you ever ridden a worm? (Yet another Dune joke, OMG.) It just doesn't work.

• Someone asked what famous actors/actresses he liked and respected. He said Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he seemed rather overwhelmed at answering the question. He said it is interesting how many comedians are fascinated with doing drama.

• Eddie is rather obsessed with Orson Welles; he finds the man fascinating, constantly played his BBC productions. In the doc Sarah got a picture of a still of Welles in Citizen Kane, surrounded by all the newspapers; it transitions to a pic of Eddie in a similar manner, surrounded by boxes; the similarity was quite stunning. Apparently it was one of those lovely serendipitous things that just spontaneously came about while making the doc. While talking about it in the Q&A, Sarah turned to him and was like, OMG that's what you are! (The idea that he is trying to be like Orson Welles.) Eddie said he researched him, and what was he like? An A-hole. ;) But it's kind of a catch-22 thing; because he had an ego he was able to believe in himself and accomplish great things. He did this bit pretending to be Orson Welles: DO IT LIKE THIS. Good, now let's go get potato chips. (Poking fun at Welles' weight probs later in life.)

• They talked openly about the whole Watchdog debacle. Apparently it is this show designed to expose dodgy criminals; people who steal pensioners' money and all that. A good service against consumer fraud in the UK. Well, apparently it just so happened that at that moment Eddie was transitioning from one level of his comedy to another—from a small, intimate set of fans to a broader set of them. And the new fans did not understand how his standup works, that he was doing it the way he knew best but it had been advertised differently. So they felt they were getting ripped off at the shows, and reported him to the program. (Idiots.) His standup at the beginning of a run is very different than the same gig at the end; he morphs the jokes, and they didn't know that. He was like, you don't go to a concert of the Rolling Stones and then complain they are playing the same old songs, do you? His show is the same type of thing. So he was completely thrown by the accusation when it happened.

• There was a joke about being hoisted by his petard—related to the Watchdog stuff—and Eddie spun it off into a joke about being hoisted by his leotard? (Why the crap did I write this down? What is the context? Writing a summary of an event three weeks after it occurs is apparently bad, who knew. Oh well I'm doing my best.)

• Someone asked what's next for him in the future. He said mostly feature acting and standup, maybe TV gigs in LA. He blatantly asked someone to give him a show, LOL. (Something in there about Treasure Island and Long John Silver? And Paris? I don't know.) He would love to sell out big stadiums and perform standup in them, like a rock concert. I swear he said he was going to do a certain eastern European country in their native language, but I'm a bit fuzzy on that.

• Sarah said in making a documentary it forces you to be disciplined; you cannot take responsibility for doing everything, and she learned to delegate. From top to bottom of making the doc there was no financing, so a lot of starts and stops in the process of getting it done, hence the seven years it took to complete it.

• Eddie touched on politics briefly. He is a social progressive, joined the party in '95. He would love to go into politics, but his comedic career would need to be in deep hibernation to do so, then if things blew up for him he could always get back into it, like a paddling pool. (His view of politics is different than mine, LOL; he described himself as being a social democrat because he believes in safety nets and individuals making things—which is rather simplistic and in direct contrast to his desire for individual achievement and celebration of failure and capitalism, I think? Ah well, I loves him anyway.)

• Sarah said that there was a great need for moments of revelation in the doc; a threading of the serious and the comedy together. The scene about his mom, where he cries, was an out of body experience for him; he honestly did not know what he was saying when he said it. It was a big breakthrough for him, to crack that and be that emotionally vulnerable. It wasn't an uncomfortable moment, but it did throw him. Sarah said she was thinking at the time she was filming that, OMG I've finally got something! :)

• He repeated once more in the Q&A, that yes, he would swap it all and be an accountant if she could come back.

• He said that Believe is not the story of him, it is the story of anyone who is fighting. Good luck to those who are still fighting.

*dies from writing notespam*

_{On to the last part! http://reezoo.livejournal.com/12227.html}

Nothing comes close to the Golden Coast: The Top Ten Things We Did in LA (Part 1 of 3)

2010-08-13T21:39:58Z

Ugh, let's pretend that I did NOT just use a Katy Perry lyric for the title of my post (it fits, so sue me,) and leave it at that, 'kay?

So the trip that I, Nyu, and Love_Travels took to LA (Aug 1–4) was wild, and whirlwind, and pretty much one of the best trips I've ever been on. Ten of the highlights, in no real order but definitely saving the best two for last:

1. Toured the Getty Museums

Nyu and I, you might as well know now, are a bit freakish, shall we say. We both love museums, art and history museums in particular. (I blame growing up in DC, where you can walk into almost any museum for free; it definitely spoils you somewhat.) So going to both of the Getty Museums in LA was a real treat for us.

_{Outside of the main entrance to the Getty Center}

Our already up-in-the-air plans got changed around somewhat, and in the process we headed to Getty Center Monday morning despite the fact that it is not open on that day. But the nice lady at the gate gave us passes to go to the Getty Villa instead, and then we made room for the Getty Center the next morning. In short, both are some of the grandest museums I have ever been in, and that's not even including the amazing artwork and gardens that accompany them. There is no charge to get in, none at all; you just pay $15 per car for parking, hah! (Yeah, not a scam AT ALL; ah well it was worth it.) The Villa is a recreation of a Roman Villa, absolutely stunning. And if Star Trek the series were filmed today, a giant, modern city WOULD have been shot at the Getty Center, because its structure is incredible, like a whole city on a hill.

_{A view of the Getty Center while traipsing through the gardens}

And lest you think the museums were full of dull facts only (you crazies; when it comes to Greco-Roman history and art there ARE no dull facts), there was this little gem written up by a statue of Aphrodite in the Villa: "In about 350 B.C. the Greek sculptor Praxiteles carved a statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, depicted nude and ready for her bath...there is a story that a man was once overcome with love for the statue of Aphrodite of Knidos, hid inside the temple at night and embraced it, leaving a stain to mark his lust."

D: WHUT IS THIS MADNESS. Ancient fanboys, you're doin' it wrong, OMG. But hysterical that they would actually say that on a plaque, with the kiddies around to read it.

_{THERE BE VULCANS AT THE MUESUM, LOL. Side by side comparison courtesy of L_T'!}

You are not allowed to touch any of the statues because the oils on your hands damage them; there was one recreation of a statue, however, that you could. And Nyu and Love_Travels MIGHT just have taken incriminating photos of themselves with it, perhaps. (Nyu: It says we're allowed to touch her!" Me: "Touch, not molest, there's a difference!" Nyu: "I see no difference!" >.< Thank goodness no one was watching us at the time, they probably would have thrown us out. OMG WHY IS THIS MY LIFE.)

_{No touchie! L_T's hand}

2. Cruising LA

To get to the Getty Villa we traveled along the Pacific Coast Highway, so pretty. And the first left heading back is Sunset Boulevard, so we though, what the heck, let's cruise Sunset! So we did. :D So fun driving past the monolithic homes and famous sites like the Chateau Marmot. And I MIGHT have sung the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song during our drive, or I might not have. I am not incriminating myself either way. ;)

3. Ennis House

Years ago when my BFF still lived in LA and I paid her a visit, her sis took me on an architectural drive of the city that became one of the highlights of that trip: famous iconic art deco/craftsman/Neutra houses, the Capital Records building shaped like a stack of records, theatres, famous hotels, etc. (Some people get off on celebrity house tours; not me thank goodness. But apparently I DO get off on architectural tours? Have I mentioned that I am not completely normal? I love it though, so whatevs.) And the highlight of that tour for me was a drive past the Ennis House built by Frank Lloyd Wright. So I was so glad that I could wrangle Nyu and L_T into indulging me and headed back there again.

Its importance in the landscape of LA is without question: one of the earliest block style homes Wright built, its shape blending in with the mountains behind it, it looms over the Los Feliz area of LA like an ancient Mayan fortress. Its importance in the cinematic landscape is no less profound; Blade Runner and other films, TV shows and music videos all owe it a debt of gratitude for giving them a striking, noir-ish tone. So you'd think that Angelenos would appreciate it for the crown jewel that it is, no? Maybe they do, but certainly not with their pocket books; this once magnificent structure is crumbling away, cement block by cement block, despite the excessive lifestyles surrounding it on all sides. Ironic much? (Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink, as the saying goes. If they can save the Hollywood sign they SHOULD help save the Ennis House, is what I am trying to imply. Paging Hugh Hefner!) In its current state, it is like an eerie spectre, a Mayan ruin of a house worthy of a Norma Desmond-type starlet to be wasting away inside of it.

_{Crumbling concrete, so sad}

It is currently on the market; for a cool $7.5 mill (It used to be $15 mill, such a bargain you can get now people, act fast!), someone can own it and put some elbow grease into restoring it back to its former glory. You have no idea, NO IDEA, how bad Nyu and I wish we could be those someones. One day bbs, one day!

_{A closeup of the beautiful front gate}

_{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10yzKwUZGGk
http://www.ennishouse.org/htmls/photo_page.htm
http://blog.ounodesign.com/2009/07/08/architecture-in-the-movies-part-5-frank-lloyd-wrights-ennis-house/
http://laplaces.blogspot.com/2009/03/los-feliz-frank-lloyd-wright-houses.html
http://takesunset.com/2010/02/frank-lloyd-wright-ennis-house-2607-glendower/
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ennis%20house&w=all
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2009/07/05/flws-ennis-house/
http://ronslog.typepad.com/ronslog/2009/06/frank-lloyd-wright-house-on-the-market.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/5599730/Blade-Runner-movie-house-goes-on-sale.html}

4. Visiting with Nyu's BFF

The official reason for our visit—besides deciding if Nyu could see herself moving to LA after she gets her masters—was to visit her BFF, who moved to LA a year ago to intern. It was good to see for ourselves that he is enjoying his new home (he was going to a fashion school in Vegas and hated that city a lot.) He is interning for two different fashion designers, good on him. My BFF interned for a music company in LA so I am aware of how badly they can use/abuse their interns out there, but it sounds like both of the designers he works for like and appreciate him. One pays him when he does commissions and lets him do small but important jobs like picking out fabrics. (He also speaks fluent Cantonese, having been born and raised in Hong Kong, and since the company does a lot of business there and uses him as a translator I'm sure that also makes him indispensable, hah.) The other designer is paying his gas and food expenses that are work related. He works a "real" job at a yogurt shop on the side to pay his bills and is scrimping and saving; he is currently living on an air mattress at his sister's apartment. D: It's a hard life, but hopefully one that will pay off for him while he builds contacts, improves his skills, and learns the business side of the fashion industry.

We only got to play with him for one day because of his crazy schedule, but it was fantastic. We drove to his house in the boonies of LA, then had lunch with him at a fantastic Chinese bun/dumpling restaurant (om nom nom), then followed it up with Boba tea, silly arcade games (the claw, I fails at it mightily), and shopping at an Asian imports store and the Chino Hills mall, LOL. I got some amazing new jeans though so I am not complaining about the shopping part, as cliche an activity for LA as it may sound.

5. Revisiting Los Feliz

This was the section of LA my friend lived in when she was an Angeleno, right on Vermont in the heart of the area. It has such a great vibe and I love that area so we spent some time there during our trip. We ate at Fred 62 (open 24 hours, the cutest retro decor and amazing, FAST food) before we saw Eddie, had Pie at House of Pies (yummy) after Inishmore, and Nyu and L_T humored me as I pointed out stores such as Skylight Books (SHINY BOOKS) and Squaresville (cute thrift store threads.) I think Nyu fell a little bit in love with the area; she wants to convince her BFF to move to that area and maybe share an apartment together if she moves out there. Which I think is an excellent idea. :D

http://takesunset.com/neighborhoods/los-feliz-los-angeles-ca/

6. Venice Beach

Yeesh, I forgot how cold the water in CA can be; it doesn't help that LA has been really cool this summer, and was during our trip. But it was fun nonetheless to stroll along the shoreline, watch the dozens of people fishing along the pier, and observe surfers catch (or fail to catch, LOL) a wave or two. And, of course, for the short hour we were there, I got burnt, whut. Stupid pasty skin of mine, I am still peeling, LOL.

7. Sushi/FroYo Restaurant FTW

Ahaha, I am the biggest dork ever for finding this to be a highlight. But right by the Mark Taper Forum and Disney concert Hall, tucked away in a little nondescript plaza, is an amazing (and amazingly cheap) froyo place that also happens to make sushi. (I think it is really a frozen yogurt store, but the owners happen to sell sushi as well? Not sure.) BEST COMBO EVER. Our rolls were delicious and came with large salads and miso, and for dessert we shared a frozen yogurt cup containing chocolate, strawberry, and cheesecake, with a hint of breadfruit, I think it was called. (You fill the cups up with whatever flavors and topping you want, then pay per weight of the cup. It's brilliant.) Our podunk Utah town already has two amazing sushi places but I want this chain in my life, OMG.

8. And Now for the Most Embarrassing Highlight of the Trip: The Chris Pine Tour

Despite being an admittedly silly little fangirl, our trip turned, at times, into something that can only be called the Chris Pine Tour of LA; this was SO not intentional, I swear! On my life I swear it. Despite all my attempts to remain a rational, sophisticated person while in the city he happens to call home, it just kind of morphed into that.

(And NO, the Chris Pine non-tour does NOT count as one of the LA celeb tours that I loathe, not even, nuh uh, no way. You will never convince me of this; I am shamed enough as it is, please do not twist the knife in any further! Besides, it cannot be considered a real celebrity tour as there are no maps for sale of it, no crazy guides with their little crackly loudspeakers; at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

We passed the Chateau Marmot on our Sunset cruise and I remembered the pics taken of him there with ZQ, walking by the white walls.

We drove around Silver Lake to go squee over Neutras (there is a slew of them around the aptly named Neutra Place, off of Earl Street on Silver Lake Boulevard, if you are interested), and I recalled the pics taken of him there running with ZQ.

http://takesunset.com/2009/12/neutra-office-building-in-silver-lake/

(I knew Silver Lake a bit because my BFF and her sis had taken me there a few times during my previous visit; it is right next to Los Feliz, where they both lived. While visiting her we got mani/pedis at a boutique nearby, yay, and grocery shopped at the Trader Joe's there, and her sis took me around the reservoir on our architecture driving tour, for example. And there is an awesome music venue there too—Spaceland, just up the street from Lamill—which we didn't get a chance to go to but maybe next time? So yeah, I had been to the Silver Lake portion of LA before.)

http://www.clubspaceland.com/

We stopped at Lamill because it's just down the street from the Neutras, also on Silver Lake Boulevard, and Nyu was, literally, passing out from missing her morning coffee fix. (Apparently it is the best iced vanilla coffee she has EVER had, she wanted to like wrap it around her like a blanket, I swear that was her exact phrasing. The other day Lamill came up in a conversation and she as all, I DREAM ABOUT THAT COFFEE IT IS SO DELISH, loool.) Not being a coffee drinker I had lavender lemonade instead, so delish. The hipster barista told me she loved my tee; day made right there. I am hip, at last, LOL.

http://takesunset.com/2010/04/lamill-coffee-boutique/

We also discreetly looked at his blue apartment building, whut, recognizing it from, yet again, papz pics of him. D: (It's just THERE, in plain sight; I did not mean to be creepy but it's not my fault he has such prime digs, right?!) Don't worry, we didn't linger or go up to his house or approach stalker mode at any point of our trip, I promise! Nyu never would have let me.

(On our trip Nyu was my stalker sherpa of sorts, I suppose; my trusted companion who, in the advent that I steered towards the crevasses of unseemly behavior—such as staring too long at his house, or contemplating taking a pic of the Lamill benches—steered me back onto the correct path of acting like a normal person. And all was then well again.)

I DO now understand, though, the walking posts where he is dashing across traffic and not using a crosswalk like a normal person. 'Cuz, yeah, I'd totes do that too if I lived exactly where he does. Oh, and there was a realty sign advertising space in his building; he's not moving out, is he? Someone please reassure me of this. Maybe the fangirls, ones even more horrific than myself who have no boundaries whatsoever, scared him away? (Gah, I need to not care about the lives of people I don't even know IRL, furreals.)

And lastly, our ~~tour~~ trip culminated in the amazingness that was the Inishmore play, with the Pine in his natural habitat, and then the Q&A afterwords where I got to bask in his presence not a few feet away. :D

I don't know if it was because we were headed out there to see him in Inishmore in addition to Nyu's BFF, and therefore my excitement at seeing the play and him was subconsciously on my mind, but we just ended up at all these places somehow. It is STILL a mystery to me how. D: I felt like an awful person, truly awful, for recognizing them, yet the inner fangirl in me, she squee'd with delight. Fandom, it is a strange, conflicting, mortifying thing. For realsies, babe.

On to part 2!!!
http://reezoo.livejournal.com/11928.html

Look at this Effing Hipster Wedding

2010-08-01T03:28:42Z

So two of my cute hipster friends got married. And because they are hipster and can't have a reception like a normal person, on their invite they requested, in lieu of signing a guest book, to bring "artistic representations" of them. Who does that?!

(I mock, but I secretly am jealous at the cool idea.)

So what to do for my version? I decided, despite not having drawn in ages, to draw them up as Jack and Sally because groom is obsessed with NBC. Was going to draw them on a tandem bike as they are biking fiends but I procrastinated so instead I found reference materials on Google/DA and went to town the afternoon of the reception, because last minute is how I roll, LOL.

Behold my creation via camera photo at the reception (forgot to scan it, FAIL):

_{(click to embiggen)}

Done with India ink and nibbed pen and chalk pastel on crappy computer paper. It is hanging in their apt, I feel so loved. :D I had the moon lower originally in my sketch, accidentally thought I'd move it up, MISTAKE. But I still think it turned out decent for 3-4 hours work. I photoshopped out my sig, otherwise the artwork is untouched.

Jane Austen Fight Club: No corsets, no hatpins, and no crying.

2010-07-29T16:07:48Z

"The first rule of fight club is one never mentions fight club."

AHAHAHAHA, YES PLZ. All the Austen heroines being BAMF FTW. Thanks love_travels for making my morning!

"Do not question James Franco. Just enjoy the show."

2010-07-20T19:25:18Z

Is it okay to admit that I kinda do not get James Franco? Like at all?

It's not necessarily a bad thing, per se; I like that I can't just pigeonhole him into the "prettyboy actor" category and be done with it. "coughorlandobloomcough* The problem is he is starting to fit into the "hipster tool actor" category, and that is just, no, don't do it James, don't be that guy, please.

Because he can't just go on General Hospital and do a cameo like a normal person; he has to say it's "performance art." He can't just open a nice gallery exhibit and have awesome modern art (apparently he loves painting?); he has to shove a cracktastic K/S piece that breaks my brain. (I'm not posting the link out of respect to the OP, but GQMFs will know how to find it.)

_{Look At This Effing Hipster Actor}

Now apparently he is going back to Yale to get his Ph.D (good) AND teaching a "very special" class at at the selfsame school (confuzzlingly not so good.) Really, Yale? Is this also performance art and no one is telling me so as not to ruin the surprise? http://www.observer.com/2010/daily-transom/james-franco-teach-very-special-class-yale Look, my sis teaches, and she only has her bachelor's. *I* have taught, as an undergraduate. I'm not knocking the teaching part, I'm knocking the "very special episode of Dead Poets Society wherein I, James Franco, school you," because his statement? Pretty much sounds like that to me.

(Why does he make it so hard for me to like him sometimes? He *is* actually a good actor; truly. I liked him in Howl. A lot. He won me over when I was determined not to be won. I just think that perhaps he went a little too method with the Ginsberg role and is now has decided that it is up to him to usher in a new era of nouveau hipster beat; a more attractive reincarnation of Ginsberg with better hair—yay—and less of a tendency to be naked—boo.)

But I would actually totes sneak into an "Acting for English Majors" class, hah, on one condition: he co-panel it with John Cho and Chris Pine. Because hello, who doesn't want to see that? Other English majors he could appeal to (the live ones only, of course, no zombies) to fill out such a panel: http://ualr.edu/english/index.php/home/resources/job-info/famous/

Now THAT would be one class that I would not sleep through. Ever.

But until that day happens, James Franco and his Very Special Episode of acting like a professor get a big WTF from me.

OMG OMG OMG HOW IS THIS MY LIFE

2010-07-19T16:28:30Z

So who has the bestest sister in the history of sisters, with the bestest of ideas and the moxie to make them happen? That would be me.

Because of Nyu's conviction and planning and prodding WE ARE GOING TO LA AND SEE CHRIS PINE PERFORM LIVE.

In reality we are going because Nyu misses her BFF in LA like mad and hasn't seen him since he moved out there. This trip, which we are taking instead of the Cedar City road trip to go to the Shakespearian Festival, is really to go see him and spend time with him and let her see LA for herself, to decide if she wants to move there after she is done with school.

_{(The cities in the running are LA, NYC, and DC. What, you thought I'd say SLC and Utah? Silly person; unless you have a little nepotizz on your side there are no theatre jobs here.)}

Also Nyu's prof has schooled her on not seeing enough theatre while in grad school—when has she had the time?—so seeing this is technically a homework assignment, yes yes?

BUT FOR ME IT IS ALL ABOUT SEEING CHRIS PINE PERFORM IN THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE ON AUGUST 3rd. And witness his possibly atrocious Irish accent and copious amount of gore and be in the presence of his BAMFness for a few hours.

And then of course we still have our already scheduled plans to see Zach perform in Angels in America this Thanksgiving, for a second dose of the Pinto BAMFness.

A happier girl you will not find anywhere.

(On the negative side I just threw down over $1000 in less than an hour for plane and theatre tickets. D: Insanity. But the good kind?)

A pic of Chris to tide me over until August:

Lend Me A Tony!

2010-06-14T04:26:42Z

I could have twittered the Tonys like I did last year, I suppose, but this is easier, and annoys less of my friends so they won't have like 2000 texts form me on their phones. :) Some takaway thoughts:

• Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes? The awesomest of chemistry. I could have watched then play off each other all night. And that kiss? Fantastic. Take that guy who thinks teh gheys can't act straight! I want to see them in Promises Promises so bad.

• Sean Hayes! Awesome host. Wore anything from a spider-man to an Annie costume, YES. Hosts should never take themselves too seriously IMO. But he was also classy and funny and gracious; well played Sean.

• American Idiot getting like four of its songs in the show? When Promises Promises only got like one and a half?! I guess if you get Green Day at your awards show you might as well take advantage of them. And I think the performance of the titular song gave me a seizure, LOL.

• Danielle Radcliffe, so cute! So poised! So short! :D He didn't look all that short when we saw him in Equus, but if you make Katie Holmes look tall, you are definitely vertically challenged. (I still heart you Dan!)

• Scarlett Johansson's speech? Kind of long and blah but obviously heartfelt. She must be good in the play because not many newbies just come in and waltz away with the prize. But it's Arthur Miller; can't go wrong with Arthur Miller.

• Conversely, with her acceptance speech (promises promises) I think Katie Finneran has stolen my heart and won't give it back! Funny, heartfelt, touching, and inspiring, especially the bit about if you have a dream you should follow it and never give up (I need to keep being reminded of that.) Fellow nominees, take note; this is how you give a speech!!! Best of the night.

• La Cage's number was outstanding! They should have drag queens at every show, LOL. Douglas Hodge vamped it up in the aisle with Matthew Morrison...then went back and did it again, because, hello, it's Matthew Morrison, who can blame him? :) He got a tip from him too, hah! And yay Kelsey Grammar, best summary of a show ever, please always be on my TV.

• Angela Lansbury: so proud for her, and loved her plea to young students. Best ambassador for theatre ever. And she came to NY during the war, did not know that (fail.)

• David Hyde Pierce and Kelsey Grammar: fabulous together.

• Thought it was nice of them to give props to the police that patrol the theatre district, especially in light of the attempted bombing in Times Square. Nicely done.

• Helen Mirren: didn't catch who said the quote, but said that an actor needs to be an observer, a thief, and be true to what the playwright intended. And thanked those in the "seats of the Gods", ie the nosebleed seats. And looked so fantastic doing it!!! She is always stunning and amazing, I adore her.

• Denzel Washington: his momma always said "Man gives the award, God gives the reward." Nice.

• WTF Paula Abdul on my TV?! And she didn't sound drugged out of her mind either, whut.

• Is it just me or are the winners being allowed to talk forever?

• Cate Blanchett, your shiny futuristic suit is like a grown-up Gaga outfit. I love it and am terrified by it at the same time.

• Oh Matthew Morrison, so fleet of foot yet slightly breathy in your number, I love you. And giant slit in shirt revealing his chest, HAHAHA.

• All night we kept trying to convince my mom that yes, the drag queens were really men. Lea Michele comes out any my mom's all, is she a girl? :D AHAHAHAHA. She was fab though. You thought her performance of Rain on My Parade was stellar in Glee? Holy cow, watch this, THIS is how you do it if you are trying to be a showstopper at the Tonys. Such a star. And yay with hamming it up with Jonathan Groff in the aisle! So many Glee ppl in the show; if they are totally exploiting that for the ratings boost I don't care, I love it.

• Catherine Zeta-Jones: best reaction at winning and second best speech of the night. "I'm losing my voice but I'm going to be there on Tuesday, don't you worry." To her parents: "Thank you for making me the person I am today, and I forgive you." Thanking her husband: "And that man there who's a movie star and I get to sleep with him every night!" :D Thanks for the TMI Catherine.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2010/06/14/2010-06-14_tony_award_winner_catherine_zetajones_regrets_crass_acceptance_speech_about_mich.html

• Douglas Hodge in his acceptance speech: Kelsey best wife and husband..."if you want to see a Republican kissing a Democrat come see our show!" So cute.

• Broadway shows I am dying to see: Red, Promises Promises, Memphis, La Cage Aux Folles, Next Fall, Time Stands Still.

• Commercials: all the Toy Story 3 ads, while kinda odd (Postal Service? Geico? WFT?) are getting me excited anyway for next Friday. (I need to go boy tickets like NOW.) And Shat My Dad Says for like, a second or two. Early ads but will always take some Shat on my TV when I can get it!

We had yummy food for our impromptu party: hummus, kettle chips, veggies, shrimp cocktail. And Nyu and I both tried out some new recipes, because if you are watching an hours long awards show you might as well kill some time by baking, right? :D She tried a gluten-free, sugar free, fiber-rich, low-fat pound cake recipe (that takes about forever to bake, hah, and is actually good, whut), me a gluten-free no-bake peanut butter pie with a peanut/chocolate chip crust, yum, and lower in sugar because I used Stevia in the raw. I am a horrible baker, so a no-bake pie I can do. I'll post the recipe later if it turns out it's actually good; it's chilling in the fridge as I speak.

Am probably going to go to NYC again this fall for a day or two; I have a new wish-list of shows to see! Hope some of them are still there when I go!

_{ETA all the lovely clips I could find!}

Make a Gleeful Noise!

2010-04-28T03:53:22Z

Glee is on bbs! Now with more Chenowith, be still my little musical-loving heart. And Kurt AND Mercedes solos? Yessssssss.

Anyone else out there want Jesse and Kurt to hook up? The more I think about it the more that is becoming my own personal headcanon like burning. You have no idea how much I want Jesse to be secretly gay, there to play Rachel and the choir like a used piano, but ends up falling for Kurt instead. It would be an awesome twist and add so much to the plot; the idea of Jesse really falling for Rachel, she discovering his deceit—the player getting played—so cliche. This show is better than that. Falling for ANOTHER ND member who is gay? Better twist on the cliche. Besides, what dreamboat lead guy member of a choir with girls drooling after him WASN'T really a closeted gay? Every baby diva has to fall in love with a gay guy at least once. Mercedes beat you to the punch Rach, but now it's your turn!

Let's face it, you KNOW those two as a power couple would rock all kinds of awesomenes, even more than St. Berry Does. Kurt has from the beginning been one of my fave characters; he deserves someone with the same kind of charm and magnetism as he, someone just as fierce as he is. But I think Jesse wil also push him to be better than himself. He in turn can match Jesse's fierceness and bring some of the selflessness to him that he possesses in spades and which Jesse might be without at this point. We already know Kurt's getting a boytoy next season and they make a play for homecoming king and king; why not have it be the new guy?

And besides, let's be honest, Jesse comes across as a leeeetle bit gay, right? RIGHT? It's not just me? From what I hear the actor is amazing and played straight very well in Spring Awakening. No way does someone with that caliber of talent who happens to be gay not be able to act straight. Contrary to popular belief, gay men can, gasp, do that. Like NPH. (Who, OT, is gonna be on the shoooooow, yesssss!)

I swear, right after Kurt's solo last week in "Like a Prayer", Jesse is glancing over at him. No Rachel on that side to be seen; it's all Kurt bb who holds his tender gaze.

I COULD be reading a lot into it. . . or I could be brilliant and have a crystal ball. We shall see. And trust me, if this turns out NOT to be the case, I WILL be writing fanfic about it. Because my OTP has to come true in some way, even if only on the interwebs and on my LJ.

Movie Reviews Winter 2009-10, or Sit Back and Watch Me Get My Ebert On

2010-02-05T23:44:48Z

So I've been wanting to comment about movies I've see this winter forever, but the idea of doing separate posts for each one bored me, and I wanted to post it until I saw all of the biggies. So I finally saw Avatar and thought, hey, I can post now! And then never posted. *headdesk*

So before we get much closer to the summer movies, here are my movie thoughts, pretty much in the order I saw the films in theaters, for your reading pleasure. Let me know if you agree or disagree!

SPOILERY SPOILERS, If that fact is not clearly obvious to one and all. :D

Fantastic Mister Fox

I was kind of meh about seeing this, because it's one of my fave books by one of my fave authors, and there is nothing worse than sitting in a darkened theater for two hours seeing something you grew up loving be utterly desecrated (I'm looking at you, recent Dr Seuss live action movies.) But hey, it's Roald Dahl, and the Wes Anderson movies that I've seen I've liked, so I gave it shot. Survey says: not as good as, say, Up or Coraline, but a pretty charming movie overall, and a worthy film for the stop-motion pantheon.

Good Points:

• The luscious stop-motion world of Foxy and Co. The medium of a film should not matter as much as the story you are trying to tell, in whatever medium you choose to tell it. That being said I am admittedly a hugely tactile person to the point of it being vaguely disturbing, so I am slightly biased when it comes to the beautifully textured environments of stop-motion animation. So I went into this with more favor than I would have for, say, a 3D version of it. But it's still not just the medium, it's what you do with it, and Wes has used the medium perfectly. All the lovely details and intricacies of the world, of the beautifully made characters, helped make the world feel alive. I hope he and his art director make more films in this way, as the animation in the movie was very, very impressive.

• The overall story. The story the original book told ends about halfway through the movie, and then Wes takes it and just runs willy-nilly with it. At first I felt nervous about that, like a kid with my training wheels newly off, but Wes has always been, in my mind, a satisfying storyteller. Little things introduced early on pay off in a big way later (the wolf thing, while a randomly inserted element, was one of my fave things about the whole movie), each major plot point has moments of interest and humor within it and felt necessary, and the characters are winning enough to make you root for their survival. So congrats, Wes, for not completely screwing up the book and making it feel completely brand new again.

• The character of Kristofferson. At first I was like Original Character, Wes, really? But he ended up being my fave character in the whole movie; absolutely adorable, and does a lot to bring out the personalities of the characters around him, especially that of his cousin as a foil and eventual friend. Sometimes, just like the character Wybie in Coraline, you need OCs, and Kristofferson is one of the best I've seen. And the part where he was maybe dead? I was actually really concerned, and completely invested in them getting him back safe and sound.

• Boggis, Bunce, and Bean rhyme set to music! Even if I had hated everything else about this film (which I didn't), I would have loved it for this alone. That they repeated it in the climax to spectacular effect was also a nice touch.

• The movie grows on you. Wes' humor is different than Dahls in some ways, and sometimes I didn't know how to feel about that and how things were changed from the beloved classic. So at first some of the lines and events in the movie made me go "ooooooookay" or just smile. But Nyu and I saw a trailer for it afterwords at another movie, and were busting up with full out laughter at lines we were hearing for a second time. I think the more I see this film, the more I will find I will grow to really love it.

Bad Points:

• The hipsterness that on occasion crossed over the line into pretentiousness. I sometimes feel you are not allowed to criticize the quirky hipsterness of a Wes Anderson film, because everyone knows going into that is just what he does, so why whine about it? And I see their point. But before this he was telling his own stories, not adapting one of my fave children's books, so some weird part of me feels that since the book owns piece of my soul I in turn I own a piece of it, therefore I am allowed to wine about the bizarreness if I want to. It was sometimes too cool for its own good, the design or the dialogue or the situations, and sometimes I was able to overlook that and sometimes I wasn't. But as I liked the film as a whole much more than I disliked it, I will just sigh and let it slide.

• The reworking of the story in a way that felt inconclusive. I get why he embellished the story and added an extra act or two to where we leave off the animals in the book; you have to pump it up for a movie treatment, or whatever. And the way he planned out and shot the new climax was great. But I felt like that meant the resolution to the movie would also be even more satisfying than the book, and that ended up not being the case at all. It just kind of ended. I felt like things were still so up in the air at the end and like their celebratory dancing was premature. The Wes films I've seen often end on a similar semi-discorded note, so it not unexpected, but I still missed having the type of satisfying conclusion you managed to somehow get from the original book.

• The George Clooney factor. I have never been a huge Clooney fan, for a myriad of reasons I will not bog this post down with. (Okay, just one: he is Cary Grant-lite, gah. NOW I'm done.) And he has a very distinctive voice, so it was difficult to get fully caught up in the story and have his voice just disappear in the role like it should. But he did a good job despite my hangups for him and I was, if not in full out love with his version of Foxie like I was in the book, at least tolerated it enough to be on his character's side.

Where the Wild Things Are

I was so excited to see this at first (Sendak factor, lovely looking trailer.) Then the reviews came out, and they were brutal, and I freaked out and chickened out on seeing it. I didn't want my idea of what the movie should be like to be destroyed by actually seeing it, if that makes any sense, and the reviews implied that such a thing would indeed happen. But my cousin convinced me at Thanksgiving to give it a chance, that it was actually good, so when Nyu came back from grad school we took my mom and went to see it.

And survey says? One of my faves of the year. No kidding.

Good points:

• The delicate moments between Max and his mom. I teared up twice in this film, honest; the first time was the scene early on where Max's mom takes a moment in her hectic day to wrap herself up totally in the love she has for her rambunctious son and types up Max's story while he is telling it to her. Crap, just thinking about it is making me get emotional. D: It's just, that was totally me as a kid; all excepting the raging temper, I was just as wild and creative and fiercely present in the moment as Max is. (I lost that somewhere along the way, that outwardly spirited girl I once was, drummed down by life, and this movie reminded me of just how much I miss her sometimes.) But my mom, she was just like Max's mom, always encouraging my creativity and spirit and active imagination and never saw it as a negative; in short, she was my champion. Their family dynamic is completely different than mine, but that bond is the same, and omigosh just thinking about it this deeply is making me want to cry and go see my mom and hug her and thank her so much. *breathes*

Okay, I'm better now.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that she is a good mom despite getting upset at Max and he loves her; their relationship is such a crux to the story. And Catherine Keener nails it so wonderfully, that it is a joy to watch her and Max interact together, at both the beginning and end of Max's journey. (Her watching him eating at the end? So precious.)

• The interactions between Max and the beasts. Each beast was a fully realized character, which if you think about it is quite impressive. Each one had good and bad points, each one has moments where you like them and moments where you don't know where you stand concerning them; each one is too ambiguous and, dare I say human, to properly stick in a ridiculously simplistic category like 'good' or 'bad', just like with people in real life. I loved that Max gets at least one scene alone with each of them to explore this. And no matter how mopey or angsty or childlike they might get, you never ever forget that they are in reality highly unpredictable, highly dangerous beasts. Lovely lovely dialogue. Lovely lovely characters.

• The beasts themselves. Omigosh, the beasts were brought to life so beautifully. I hadn't researched how they were made before the movie, but I did afterwords, and like I thought, they were giant costumes (brought to life by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company, no less) with CGI delicately added in for the faces. It is some of the best CGI/real life hybridization I've seen this year, and it is a shame that the magic of pulling that off got lost amid the bombastic, sci-fi driven contenders like Avatar.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2009/10/where-the-wild-things-are-built-jim-hensons-creature-workshop.html

• Carol's model of what he wished the island were like. How beautiful was that? (Then again, this is an admitted texture whore talking.) It was one of the most stunning creations in the movie, and the little model of Carol and KW in the boat together, floating in the tiny canals, was quite poignant. I got the sense that something might happen to the model of Carol's vision of a perfect place—the movie is all about the shattering of illusions—but I was still devastated when Max went back and found that Carol had in a fit of rage destroyed it.

• The imagery in the film as a whole. The world of the beasts is so stunningly realized: the giant ball, the endless sands, the floating at sea, the beasts, the model. Even the real world was beautiful and had some good imagery: the heart frame Max made for his sister, which he then destroys once he feels she has betrayed him, for example, a symbol which comes up later in the world of the beasts. The boat on the blue sheets, the snow cave Max makes which then is destroyed. There were such rich details put into the film; I wish it had gotten more props for all of that.

• Carol and Max's goodbye. This was the second place I teared up, seriously. Carol seeing Max's heart to him in the remains of the ruined model, mirroring what Carol had made for Max before, realization hitting, and running as fast as he could to say goodbye before Max sailed away. Standing in the water, just looking at Max as he drifts farther away, almost losing his chance to say goodbye, then howling his feelings. Gah. I am such a sap, but I was seriously touched.

• This is not a children's movie. It's quite amazing how they captured the tumultuous emotions of childhood without ever making the movie feel childlike. This is hands down the realest children's story I've ever seen committed to film. It is all about, as Sendak says, how by taming the beasts Max ends up taming himself; it is about growing up. And it is so beautifully done; the real world where Max is a rebellious wild thing; the make-believe world where Max finds himself playing parent to a host of rebellious wild things. As Nyu put it so brilliantly, the movie version is the REAL story of Max; the children's book is the condensed and tamed version that he one day tells to his own children.

Bad points:

• This is not a children's movie. Yes, I am repeating myself, but for good reason; as far as children's movies go, it is far too grown up for its own good. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but I am sure that families taking kids to see this did not. I think if "Where the Wild Things Are" had never been made into a kid's book, and this movie was the only version of the story we had, it would have been hailed by people much, much differently. But it is not, it is based on one of the most beloved kid's books of all time, and in spite of trying to make it all grown up and gen-x nostalgic, you have to remember to stay true to that. We get the beasts are dangerous; was there really a need to blatantly emphasize this by ripping one of their arms off near the end? Learning cause and effect is an important part of growing up, but surely Carol could have learn the importance of controlling his temper in another way? I think the movie never got who its audience was really supposed to be; and as designers know, you can have the prettiest, most astounding designs ever made, but if it doesn't reach your intended audience it is still a failure.

But I hope that I'm getting across that his film was and is not a failure to me; instead it is one I look forward to buying and watching and crying with all over again. (I guess that makes it my new Edward Scisorhands, hah.)

The Blind Side

I did NOT want to see this film when I first heard about it. It looked and sounded like a Lifetime movie that somehow accidentally got put on the cinema track instead. But my mom was gung-ho about seeing it; even my grandmother wanted to see it, and who refuses their grandma a movie when she NEVER goes to see movies anymore?

And guess what? It was actually pretty fantastic.

Good Points:

• It manages to get across the horror of Michael's life without ever graphically hitting you over the head with it. You get in the situations Michael is in at the beginning and in the flashbacks just how hard his life has been. You get the implications of what being with his real mother was like, the day-to-day tribulations of the housing area he lived in, and just how awful being passed around and then out on his own by well-meaning people must have been like. But the film doesn't wallow in that; it mentions it and moves on, focusing instead on plot and the intricacies of how Michael and the Touhy's change and are changed by each other. It stays true to the film's focus without getting bogged down in side details. And I think that is only for the good of the film that it does this.

• Sandra Bullock. I like most people have grown up watching her play characters that, while well-meaning, are bumbling or sweet or are way in over their heads. While You Were Sleeping is one of my fave romantic comedies ever; I so related to the shy, retiring Lucy. So it is a treat to see her play a powderkeg of a Southern belle; all of her real-life charm, power, and comedic chops are on brilliant display in this film. (Plus they say the most skillfully acted accents are the ones you never notice; Sandra's southern accent is amazing in its non-showiness, it just disappears in the background, as well-fitting on the character as a pair of her stunning heels.) Well played, Sandra, well played. I had heard that she had to turn down the lead in Million Dollar Baby—the part that won Hilary Swank an Oscar—because she had been contractually obligated to be in Miss Congeniality 2. I hope she finally gets her Oscar this year; it may not be as dramatic a part but it is no less of a challenge; she MAKES the film with her performance, and I hope the academy is able to recognize that.

• The spirit of Michael comes across, in spite of the force of the Leigh Anne Tuohy character. This film could easily become the Sandra Bullock show, but the guy who plays Michael is wonderful and turns in a brilliantly subtle performance that commands just as much attention as Sandra. Yes, what the Tuohy's have done for him by taking him in and helping him is amazing and incredibly generous, but it is his spirit and drive that ultimately determines what path he takes in life. Nowhere is this more emphasized at the end, when he is interacting with the gang members; I was struck at how easy it would have been for him, a living in that world, to be resigned to that life early on and eagerly sign up to be the muscle for some street gang, doomed to a short and heartbreaking future. That he had never succumbed to that before this, that he had the intelligence to look above the murkiness of that life and hold out for something better; the Tuohy's did not give him that inner courage, that was something ingrained in him from the beginning. So seeing him succeed at the end is all the more richer; his journey, while no less important then the Tuohy's, is ten times more satisfying.

• The humor and warmth in the film. I think the problem with a lot of the sappy, soapy cable movies is there is not enough genuine humor or honest moments in them. There are tiny moments in this film that are in turn genuinely funny and touching, that reveal the personalities of the characters or build connections between them and us, so by the end we fully believe that the Tuohy's loves Michael, he loves them, and that they are truly a family. Considering how horrible this film had the potential to be, the writers deserve props for elevating it above the realm of everyday schlock and making the movie as special as the story being told.

• It is a satisfying family film. The breadth of the age ranges of the audience in the theaters was telling; old and young mixed with semi-jaded twenty-somethings like me and Nyu, all of us enjoying it as far as I could tell. It feels sometimes like they just don't make films anymore you can take the whole family to, that things get too nichey or over the top gratuitous or just plain dumb, that it is hard to enjoy it in mixed company. Don't get me wrong, I like niche films, but sometimes seeing a generically pleasing film like this is just as satisfying. I hope that the success of the film makes people think more about making films that appeal to a wide range of people, in the best sense of that word; there is money to be made there people. Go make it.

• The real life aspect of the story. That this actually happened is incredible and inspiring; it gives me hope of the good still out there in the world and that I can also accomplish my own dreams someday. It is in the spirit of the other types of movies in this genre, the real-life drama, and is a worthy addition to it.

Bad Points:

• Dumbing down the Michael character for the sake of the plot. Yes, I get it is more dramatic if you make your protagonist have to take an extremely difficult journey, and sometimes writers will overembellish that journey for the sake of telling a good story. And I get that making Michael not understand the rules of football is a device the writers are using to help dummies in the audience like me; as the coach and Leigh Anne and SJ are explaining football to Michael, they are also subtly explaining it to me, so I can get the subtler rules of the game and the importance of what he needs to do and what he ends up accomplishing on the field as much as I do the things he is accomplishing off of it. And thank goodness they do, because that is where most sports film lose me is this nitty gritty stuff. But we watched a 20/20 special about the movie, and real-life Michael openly admitted that yes, he knew football, and it was a little annoying to see himself depicted otherwise; they dumbed down his character a bit for dramatic purposes. And I get why, I do, but it still makes me cringe a little thinking about it.

• Every now and then the film spills over into the unbelievability category. The real-life story is so amazingly once-in-a-lifetime that sometimes events in the story that probably did happen in real life just seem too good to be true. I'm happy for Michael Oher that his life turned out this way, but like most true stories, it's that old adage of if I didn't know it had really happened I never would have believed it. I guess that's less the movie's fault than my own, however, but I thought I should include the criticism anyway just to be fair.

So yeah, do not be ashamed to see this film, and feel free take your momma along with you while you are at it. :)

sherlock holmes

Sherlock Holmes owns my soul, I'm just going to come out and say it. How many times have I read Hound of the Baskervilles? How much do I love Holmes and Watson? Enough to watch them in all their forms; the movies, the plays and satire plays, even deliciously trippy fare like The great Mouse Detective and Young Sherlock Holmes. I've even read a Study in Scarlet, whose Mormon subplot is so laughably over the top and the caricatures so ridiculous I can hardly stand it. So to answer the question: far too much. In spite of that love, I was uber excited by Ritchie's modern take; Holmes has always been dynamic to me, I never got the stuffy vibe from him, unlike say Poirot. So to have that dynamism modernized and presented by Robert Downey Jr? YES PLEASE. And it was a solid, solid reboot of a beloved franchise in my eyes.

Good points:

• Holmes and Watson. Could I love their characterizations more? No, I could not. Both as unstuffy as it is possible to be, both with their own flaws and trials unrelated to the cases at hand, both depicted as the geniuses they are. Jude Law is a fine actor, but I have gotten so tired of his personal life over the years I was kind of done with him. But I loved him in this, I was able to forget all about the crazy Sienna junk. He is equal to Holmes in all the ways that matter, a true and best friend. And Downey? A pitch perfect Sherlock, unlike the other Sherlocks depicted over the years in many ways and his own unique creation, yet still contains the essential things that makes Holmes Holmes. (He's a bit messier in his personal habits than I imagined, but that was easily forgiven.) Their own underlying personal plotline—Watson engaged and Holmes adjusting to the changes it will inevitably bring to his life—is more subdued than the main case Holmes is investigating, yet no less important. Their rapport? Absolutely perfect. If you don't feel that Holmes and Watson bond then the whole movie is sunk, and oh, do you ever feel it. (And fangirls, I know, are having waaaaaay too much fun with it, hah.)

• The costumes. I feel bad that not everyone gets to see this with a designer at their side. Nyu's commentary about costumes is always a joy, most especially in period films, and Holmes was no exception. From 'see the velvet collar on Lestrade's coat? That is SO period' to 'I love the ditto suit Watson is wearing' to 'I can't remember if courderoy was invented by this time, but I WANT HOLMES' COAT IN MY LIFE' and especially 'I think Mary's first costume was designed to be horrible so like Holmes I hate her, and with each scene her costumes get better so by the end I love both her and what she is wearing.' :D (I might be paraphrasing on a few of those quotes, but not really.) Trust me, it makes life SO much richer; I pity you all, really I do. ;)

• The depiction of London. It is gritty and industrial and raw, which is true to the era, but not depressingly so as it was in say Sweeney Todd. It was also equal parts beautiful and charming. Yay for the artisans, I hope you were paid well for your troubles!

• That Holmes is analytical in all he does, highlighted in moments like the boxing scene. I think people were worried, when they saw the violence in the trailer, that he would turn into some crazy action hero, more brawn than brains. The scenes where he analyzes how to take someone down with his fists are brilliantly shot and reveal more insight into his brilliance than practically anything else. Bravo, Ritchie, bravo.

• Irene Adler!!!!! :D When I saw Rachel McAdams in the trailer and learned she was to be Holmes' love interest or something, my D face knew no bounds. D: But she ends up being Irene, so all is well in the world of Holmes! How can you not love Irene, one of the greatest females in English literature?! Mcadams seems a bit young and doesn't have the same presence as Downey, but her performance is fine nonetheless. I hope she is a reoccurring character, I really do. And I loved her dresses.

• That they did not make Mary a horrible horrible person. It makes sense that any woman who truly loved and admired Watson would need to admire all the parts of him, including those connected to the crazy Holmes. That she accepts Holmes barging into her husband's life and is, in fact, something of a fangirl? Marry her NOW, Watson, before she gets away. :)

• That the plot stayed true to the spirit of the books (and any good Scooby Doo mystery): the supernatural sounding elements are stripped away to reveal their roots in the real world. Blackwood is revealed to be a user of parlour tricks, not a true master of the dark arts. As it should be. (I am looking at you, Indy Jones 4, with your weird aliens instead of religious mysticism being the order of the day. Bah.)

• Blackwood. He was a perfect Holmes villain, as brilliant as he is dangerous, with his own motives and issues that become clearer the more the movie progresses. A perfect foil for Holmes. And I loved the bits of Moriarty too; they are building him into a worthy foe for Holmes, and I love it.

• The end credits. I am a shallow shallow designer, but even if I had not loved the film (which I did) I would have at least walked out with good feelings from the end credits alone. An absolutely beautiful mix of the old with the modern. And the calligraphy!!!!! :D I have a love affair with beautiful penmanship, leave me alone to my weirdness.

Bad Points:

• The convoluted plot. This is more a defect in me than the movie itself, mind you; I am saying it was bad for ME, not the excellent movie. As with all murder mysteries I was honestly trying to follow the plot, could not after a bit, and so just held on tight and enjoyed the ride. The first time hearing a new mystery is always the hardest, because I always am confused about exactly what is going on. It is this way every time I watch mysteries; that is why I love them. I am sure on multiple viewings that I will fully understand what is going on, and like I'm not planing on buying this movie and putting in my multiple viewings, hah. So the plot will not always be so convoluted for me, I promise. Again, MY fault, not the movie's fault.

(To be honest, one of the biggest failings of mine as an aspiring storyteller is that I worry I will never be able to write a satisfying murder mystery. I love Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle and all the modern versions like Gosford Park and Rosemary and Thyme (yes I am secretly an old woman), even Castle (though I can usually figure out Castle before the end, hah.) But usually I can never ever ever solve the mystery until it is explained at the end, and it drives me nuts and makes me feel incompetant. Grrrr.)

• This is, again, a failing on my part, but I walked out of the theater extremely pleased with the film but not squeeing with joy. I loved it but not LOOOOOVED it. D: I know, right, what is wrong with me? Maybe that feeling will go away on repeat viewings too? Someone help me explain how I do not have the same fangirling over this movie as I do over, say, Star Trek. My mind, it is baffled.

(So yeah, to reiterate, pretty much the bad points I have with the film stem from my own personal failings, not the movie's. Hah.)

New Moon

Yes, I know, I can't believe I saw it either. But it is quickly becoming a Holiday tradition that began last year; we wait till Nyu gets back from Grad school, pick a day and time when we will hopefully bother other audience goers the least (or try to, we have had people move away from us last year and tell us to shut up this year, but we really ARE trying to be considerate of other patrons, honest. Well at least i am), sneak in some rum so Nyu does not have to watch it completely sober (I alas get no such help, being a teetotaller), and watch and laugh our way through the travesty. Not quite so-bad-it's-good, but plenty of loltastic moments to make it tolerable with friends in tow.

Good Points:

• Taylor Lautner: I KNOW, I'M AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE. D: I feel so ashamed to admit this. But guess what? He was to my great astonishment a good little actor. I realize it is a schlocky film, but in spite of that he was able to bring a surprising about of charisma and range to his role as Jacob, best friend to a tease and a nutcase and going through the wolf stuff as well. (In other words, he made me roll my eyes the least.) Plus he was one of the few actors, and the only principle actor, who looked like he was having any fun at all and was enjoying himself immensely. (And yes I get that New Moon is emo or whatever, so they all have to act sad; the actors can still enjoy themselves despite being all SO SERIOUS OMG, it still translates into the film.) I'd heard somewhere that he had to fight hard to keep the role, and you can tell he is working to prove he deserved to get it. Until Jacob transforms into a werewolf and the tool side of his character's personality takes over (same as in the book), he was actually one of the characters in the movie I was glad to see when they popped on to the screen.

• The secondary characters. I don't know what it is as they are not this way in the books, but seriously some of the second tier actors of these films are actually pretty enjoyable to watch. Bella's dad is one of my fave film dads EVER, for real, and brings a lot of humor to what is on paper and in the original novel a boring typical dad. And Anna Kendrick? Total delight in all her scene-stealing scenes. (I really am glad that Up In the Air is helping her break through to bigger and better things.) Actually, put all of Bella's school friends on that list; for being the token normal people they all are pretty engaging and interesting, props to their actors. I actually wouldn't mind a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern movie wherein we spend all of our time with THEM, leaving Bella and Emo Edward on the fringes of our consciousness. The less Robert Pattinson in my life and the more Anna Kendrick, the better.

• The Volturi. The Volturi are one of the few things about the books that are actually pretty interesting. I had high hopes since they got good actors to fill these parts that they would be one of the redeeming things about seeing the movie. And I was not wrong; HOLY SECONDARY CHARACTERS BATMAN; for the few sadly brief minutes they are on the screen, they were glorious. Can Michael Sheen do anything where he is not fantastic? He was pitch perfect as someone with an almost childlike fascination with his guests but who is also one of the most dangerous vampires you will ever meet. And Dakota Fanning was wonderful too; bb is growing up into a fine little actress. They're not in the third one at all, right? Too bad, I will miss them and wish they had actually killed Edward.

• The CGI wolves. I know, so weird. But thought the wolves looked really good; these are the wolves that the Harry Potter movies wanted made but got cheap knock-offs of instead. Sorry HP, New Moon schooled you in the CGI department; hang your head in shame. SHAME.

Bad Points:

• Robert Pattinson. Dude, I get you are full of self loathing for agreeing to do the part of Edward and hate these films and would rather move on to act in films that are SRZ BUSNESS or whatever. I do. I get you are secretly envious because like Daniel Radcliffe you will be forever typecast in the supernatural genre, but unlike Daniel Radcliffe you don't get to hang out with the greatest British actors of our time all the time and aren't doing plays where you get nekkid to rave reviews. But COME ON. You are making a boatload of money and are in a position most actors your age and with your middling acting skills would kill for. (ie you are the second coming of Orlando Bloom.) And you DID get to work opposite Michael Sheen in this film; nothing to sneeze at. STOP DIALING IT IN. Kristen can't do all the heavy lifting herself trying to pretend there is chemistry between the two of you, gah. It was like watching Winona Ryder do her best to buoy up her lack of chemistry with and the terrible acting skills of Keanu Reeves in Dracula; PAINFUL, and makes me want to reach through the celluloid and just slap both boys. Sigh. (Okay, I will stop ranting about the ridiculous man-child actor what is ridiculous now. You get the idea.)

• The skip-forward-in-time-while-Bella-is-depressed scene. I actually thought it was a somewhat clever thing to do in the book, albeit slightly cloyish, with the blank pages and whatever. But in the film, just panning around her as the seasons changed? The most boring thing ever. If you want to see a recent and splendid example of how to do this right, watch the scene where Kiera Knightley is on the swing in Pride and Prejudice; absolutely perfect. NEW MOON, UR DOIN IT WRONG. As usual.

• The soundtrack. In the first film the soundtrack actually made it better in places, and with the star-studed indie singers lining up for this one I had high hopes. The songs? Decent some, but others boring and ill-fitting where they were placed in the film. Boo.

• Pretty much all of the other important points about a film are bad: plot, characterization, much of the dialogue, overall message this send to girls about what to look for in romance. My usual overarching problems when it comes to this series. But a lot of that can't be helped as they are problems that stem from the original novel, so the filmmakers did what they could. I suppose.

Okay, no more New Moon junk, we have more important movies to discuss.

The Princess and the Frog

I'm not gonna lie; I had high hopes for this, and John Lasseter has never let me down. But I was scared to see it in case I found it middling and, as people were quick to jump the gun and assume, possibly racially insensitive. But guess what? I went, I saw, I LOVED. Is a sweet film in the best sense of the Disney tradition, and made me ridiculously happy. Well played Mr. Lasseter, well played.

Good points:

• The strong, likable female protagonist. How can you not love Tiana? She takes the best adjectives about past Disney female leads—plucky, loyal, hardworking, bright, focused, courageous—and rolls them into a character that modern young girls can adore AND aspire to be like or have as a friend. Manipulative? Maybe. But considering the other models for girls that are out there, the Britneys and Mileys and such (BLAST you Disney), I will take Tiana in a heartbeat. But in spite of her good points, she does have her flaws as well, flaws that her friends both new and old and her love interest Naveen help her to overcome.

• The animation. Gah, I have such a love affair with 2-D animation. It is such a beautiful medium, that with the advent of the 3D craze I was afraid that it would die out at the behest of a misguided notion of storytelling "progress" and that for some reason 3D is better than 2D. But I think in our overly digitized world, the need for the magic of 2D (whether the process is digitized or not, it is still technically 2D to me), is stronger than ever. Here's to hoping for the bronze age of Disney 2D animation to be its best era yet.

• The subtlety. Too many modern films, kids' films especially, see the need to bash the audience's senses, both internally and externally, with the anvils of obviousness until you feel a bit scarred by it all. Not this film, thank goodness. Things happen gradually not languidly; point A connects to point B plot and character and romance-wise at the proper time, enjoying the journey. And the subtle comment of Tiana's "background", implying they wish to refuse to help her achieve her dream because of her race/and or class without hitting you over the head with it, was subtly and brilliantly done.

• The whole Evangeline thing. One of the sweetest parts of the film for me was a firefly pining over the North Star. WHUT? I KNOW. But seriously, it was precious. And then conversely, the part that made me actually gasp out loud is where Tiana, frustrated with her own problems, breaks the truth to him. D: Sooooo sad. But then, the ending! I don't care how unrealistic it is that he becomes a star, this is DISNEY; we have just seen a trumpet playing alligator named Louis (brilliant, btw) and people turned into frogs; we are well beyond the realistic stage at this point, no? (And as a friend pointed out to me, it actually makes Timon correct in The Lion King when he says that stars are fireflies, hah.)

Bad Points:

• The slow beginning. I'm not talking about the Tiana backstory where we see her hearing the frog prince with Charlotte and then return home with her to see her dad. That was sweet. I mean the scenes after, where she is grown up and we are setting up all the main characters coming together. I'm not sure what I would have recommended they do differently, but it felt more like the beginning of a musical, where we assemble everyone for a rousing opening number, than the beginning of a movie. I don't know if that makes any sense, but in my mind it does. We could have staggered the introductions of Tiana, Naveen, and Facilier, and I think that would have been okay. But once Tiana gets turned into a frog, that was when the true magic of the story took over crackles at a perfect pace.

• Facilier. I do like that once we get into the story we see he is way in over his head as far as the voodoo is concerned; I like seeing that kind of vulnerability in a villain. But I kind of wish we understood his motivations a bot more for dabbling in the black arts; why is he doing this? Is it just greed or something more? He's an okay addition to the disney pantheon of villains, don't get me wrong, but he lacks none of the malevolence of Maleficant (my fave Disney villain, it must be admitted), or the cruel cunning of Scar, for example. Maybe they wanted to make him a bit weaker villain-wise on purpose? I need to see it again, probably, to figure him out better.

That's really all the bad points I can come up with, honestly. It is for the most part really sweet and charming, a worthy addition to the Disney dynasty.

Avatar

I was reviewing the movie for Nyu over the phone after I saw it and trying to explain why she needed to go see it in theaters. I said the animation was amazing, but.... I ended up listing so many 'but' points and critiques she was like 'and I need to see this why, again?' D: Um, because you do? Is that an answer? Everyone needs to see it once, I think; whether you want to torture yourself with a repeat viewing after that is up to you.

Good points:

Believe it or not, the premise. Note I am not saying the story, I am saying the premise. I know people have called it "Dances with Wolves in space" or "Pocahontas in space." Well, guess what? I absolutely love the story of Pocahontas (even if the main gist of the tale as Americans know it is historically inaccurate), and I liked Dances with Wolves. All modern stories usually have to give props to older legends, myths, or classic stories, after all; the retelling of a familiar story is not what is at issue for me, the actual story and plot are. More on that in the bad points section.

The animation. This, I strongly believe, is why people are coming back for more, why it has made a gazillion dollars at the box office (that and the hefty 3D ticket prices, but what can you do?) and not, sorry Mister Cameron, because it is the BEST MOVIE EVAR. I have to hand it to the WETA Digital people and the new motion capture techniques Cameron pioneered to make this movie; they are truly spectacular. The worlds they have painstakingly crafted are lush, alive, teeming with things—moving vegetation, tiny bugs that in 3D look like you can swat them, a variety of creatures great and small—much in the way a real tropical ecosystem would be. And the atmosphere thrown over all this splendor, the mist, the dust, the wind, makes that lush world come to life. (I did read somewhere that it looks like it was art directed by Thomas Kinkade, which made me laugh; it's true that if JJ never saw a lensflare he didn't like, then the same can be said for Cameron and his love of luminosity. It was a pretty effect, but seriously, sometimes less is more? Never mind, this is Cameron we're talking about; as you were.) And the Naavi? Cameron is cheating a little bit by making them humanoid enough to be familiar to us, yet different enough to not fall into the traps the Final Fantasy and Zemenkis did where they look creepy and fake. (Cameron's technology might be good, but a 3D human that looks EXACTLY like a flesh-and-blood human? Not there yet.) But despite that cheat, the Naavi are fantastic. The facial motion capture is a brilliant, brilliant thing. There were moments where it was so true to the real emotions of the actors that, honestly, it felt like the 3D avatar face had fallen away and the real person was there. That happened to me a lot with Neytiri; I would see ZOE, not the 3D character, scrunching up her face or hissing or looking determined or devestated. That is amazing. That is revolutionary. That is totally worthy of a technical Oscar (sorry Star Trek!) Also, they designed amazing eyes for the characters. Again, not human, but human enough, and really quite expressive. You could see a soul shining through the eyes, FINALLY. Creepy living doll eyes in animation? You are officially a thing of the past; now get out of my life.

• Zoe Saldana. Her performance as Neytiri is by far the best in the whole movie, the heart and soul of the whole thing. If the audience isn't able to sympathize with her, believe in her, and believe she just might actually be in love with this crazy human and see why he has fallen in love with her, then the whole movie is sunk. A whole lot of money and time and even Cameron's rep as a filmmaker was riding on her slim shoulders, but her natural talent and intense passion helped bring what on paper is a stereotypical native-type strong female warrior to brilliant life. Again, the plot is not great, but she rises above it. A lot of her dialogue if you really stop to listen to it is frankly kinda silly, but she says it with such meaning and conviction that you easily forgive it. And the motion capture got enough of her performance to truly convey what she was trying to accomplish in her acting. The scene where she finds Jake's real body, and loves it as tenderly as she did the avatar version of him? One of the most touching in the whole movie. And that is her bringing it to life, not the animators. Well done Ms. Saldana, you saved Cameron's bacon; I hope you are handsomely rewarded with an even fatter paycheck when you begin filming Avatar 2.

Bad points:

•The story. Really James Cameron, you were waiting on this story for a billion years so the animation could catch up, and this is the best you can do in that time period? Great American novels and screenplays were written in less of a span than the time you had to hammer out the details and create a truly engaging story. Heck, JAWS is a better told story. Avatar is not a bad story, per se, but it's popcorn fare, not epic cinema; it's well, Jaws, Not Seven Samurai. And there is NOTHING wrong with that! But trussing up a duck in peacock feathers like Cameron has done, however beautiful the feathers, does not a peacock make. Nyu asked me, 'so if it wasn't made using the greatest animation techniques to date, and was instead done in 2D or bad 3D or all live-action, would you be advising me to see it?' Uh, no. Absolutely not; the medium of the film should not trump the story, and unfortunately for Cameron does not in this case. And therein lies my biggest problem with Avatar.

• The cardboard cutout villains. They say your film is only as strong as your villains. Well, if that's true, then Avatar is one of the weakest films to come out in the last ten years, no lie. There was no depth to them, no soul or heart or brains. What are their motivations for doing what they do? Just why is Quaritch, the head of the military grunts, so antagonistic towards the natives? (YEs, he is racist or whatever, but WHY?) What in his personality or style of leadership is so dynamic that only two soldiers out of the whole lot rebel against the idea of destroying a whole race of people just to mine some alien stone? What in his relationship with Jake makes Jake's betrayal to the cause so shocking and cutting? Nothing, that's what. And what about Parker? What nuances are there to his character other than greed and callousness? Ugh, there are so many ways these characters could be stronger. If you are writing a villain you have to get into their head, see why they view themselves as the hero of their own story and bring that out. You get the sense that Cameron looking into their heads, saw nothing, and wrote accordingly. (Billy Zane's character was the same in Titanic.) Such a waste. Goldfinger and Barbossa are better villains than these two. Nero in Star Trek wasn't much better, but at least he had a purpose, had drive, had the charisma of Eric Bana behind him to pull it off. The two villains in Avatar have none of this; they are merely a plot point, an antagonistig stumbling block for our crippled protagonist, and that is boooooooring. And lazy. Yet another reason I think this film will be an important milestone in the advancement of animation, but will probably not stand the test of time as far as story and character go.

• Ignoring history for the sake of the plot. Look, I am the biggest champion for "those that do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it,' or however the quote really goes. I think it is one of humanity's greatest flaws, that we easily forget the lessons of history, and apparently Cameron does too. But Cameron is exploiting that flaw to the point of ridiculousness. It is like he seriously believes that Americans and corporations a mere 150 years from now will have forgotten just how bad it is to kill native people, that a company would be so dumb that they would hire psychopaths to head their operations and diplomatic relations on a brave new world costing billions for them to mine. That our grandchildren will not have passed the costly lesson of our global bloody history, from the destruction of the Native Americans to the Chinese cultural revolution, etc. What, the public schools are so bad in the future that the world's past uses of genocide has been erased from the history textbooks? Meh.

• Mary Sue Race. Seriously. Most primitive societies were not the way the Naavi are depicted. Many of them were savage in a way equal to the countries that came and tried to take them over. The people and/or leaders could be just as devious, and selfish, and self-serving, and warmongering, and chauvinistic as any white race ever was. And guess what? That is OKAY. (Well not okay, but It was what it was.) But to take the best bits of every native culture he could find and smush those together, to make them above all that realistic crap, to make them look good in comparison to the EEEVIL humans by ignoring the bad things that should be present in their culture? Is just sloppy storytelling. (It's kinda implied they might be racist too, but you can also chalk that up to just simple distrust of humans, which the humans kinda deserve. So it's hard to truly say.)

• Deus Ex Machina of the whole body switching thing. Why, how convenient we can transfer souls like that?! Why, Sully can stay on Pandora then?! You fail, Cameron, honestly. And why is no Naavi devious enough to take this frankly amazing power and abuse it? Oh, right, because they are peeeeerfect and guileless. I forgot. ) Or maybe that will be the plot of Avatar 2? But then the Naavi, not the humans, will be evil. Blasphemy in Cameron's world.)

• A few other nitpicky problems. I hate when people nitpick to death films, I really do. It makes me nervous to want to ever get my own stories out there, for fear of people shredding what I have honestly tried to make the very best I could. And a better and humbler film would have let me skim over these no problem. But since I have enough things in the film that bug me, and since Cameron has an ego the size of the Titanic when it comes to his films, these stand out all the more. First, Jake's throwaway line about the soldiers retreating back to their dying world. WTF??? Just why is Earth dying, and how does the rocks from Pandora stop the world from dying? Are they there to save the planet, or just for corporate greed? If they are there to save the planet, why are they not MORE focused on plant life and vegetation, which I assume a dying earth would need, or hold it in as much esteem as the rocks they need?

Second, the drilling thing. We don't have the technology in the future to slant drill or whatever, we HAVE to drill directly over this one particular place? Why?

Third, the tail thing. We see Jake plug himself into like everything, much like plugging an iPod into a car power outlet; horse things, dragon things, trees, etc. So why, when Jake and Neytiri are creating their bond, do we not see them hook themselves together much in the same way? It would have made for a powerful image. Is it overly sexual to do so? Because, seriously, it can't be, not when you used it not an hour or so to plug into a dragon. Perhaps someone will be brave and watch the alien pron scene on the DVD when it comes out and tell me if this point is covered at all there.

And one final nitpick; the names. Unobtanium, really? Pandora, really? (I told Nyu he named it Pandora, and she did the equivalent of rolling her eyes over the phone. Glad we are in agreement.)

So many questions, if someone has an answer I would really, REALLY appreciate it.

• And last but oh, not least: Papyrus font in the subtitles. NOOOOOOOOOOOO. D: D: D: D: D: I cannot tell you how much I hated this. Hated Hated Hated. I have a sneaky suspicion this was 100% a James Cameron call too, because we know he spent gobloads of money on good designers and researchers and marketers, and no designer or art director in their right mind uses a $2 overused font on TEH GREATEST MOVIE EVAR BY TEH GREATEST DIRECTOR EVAR unless such a ruling is made by the head man himself. He was so involved in everything else related to the movie, I refuse to believe he was not hands on with the graphic design as well; anything else is incomprehensible to me. JJ Abrams would never do this; the man wears a House industries shirt for crying out loud, he knows and gets good type design. Cameron, obviously, does not.

(I'll admit it, when I first got into design and was a type newbie I thought Papyrus was one of the prettiest tyefaces ever. But I am older and wiser now, somewhat, and have put away childish things. And that includes Papyrus. That Cameron could not see the folly in using this font and a modified version for it the title is unbelievable. It's like taking Kobe beef and eating it out of a SPAM can; you can do it, but why? You just bought freaking KOBE BEEF, why not show it off by eating it on on your best china? Major major fail.)

So what should the typography in Avatar have looked like? Great blog post on the subject here: http://www.girvin.com/blog/?p=3570

So yeah, to sum up, good movie, but not great. Not what it has been hyped out to be.

tl;dr, I know. Those that read the whole thing, you are amazing and I hope you agreed more than disagreed with me. If not, tell me where I've gone wrong in the comments, I LOVE talking about movies!!! :D

Brain, Broken by the LOLs (Hooray!)

2010-01-11T06:42:01Z

So I am doing typical laptop things while Nyu finishes packing to go back to grad school tomorrow (boo) and my mom is watching her random shows that I have no interest in but she loves, and what promo comes on? House! And what do I have to stop the Tivo for and rewind, dying of laughter?

THIS, at six seconds in:

"Everyone in our buiding thinks we're gay!!!

:D

First of all, thank you creators of Tivo that such a moment can be see again. Second, when did House get funny again?! Does this mean it is back to tons of fun House/Wilson interaction, my fave part of the whole show? I haven't watched it in ages, for many reasons, but does this mean I need to get caught up again?! Methinks so bb.

Eating Tribbles is Murder. Tasty, Tasty Murder.

2009-12-30T20:03:14Z

'Tis the season to make ridiculously high calorie baked goods and pretend they have no calories. So what delicious goodies did we decorate yesterday? Tribble cupcakes, that's what!

Icing colors used: tribble brown, command yellow, and Kirk formalwear green, excellent.

Oh noes, Kirk, too many tribbles! They is after you!

Money shots of the cupcakes:

Spooooooock!

Wide shot of the cupcakes.

Okay, once you start doing stupid things with the camera it is obviously time to put it down.

Tribble toast!

Thanks to lovetravels for baking the cupcakes for us and coming up with the idea to do it in the first place! Not gonna lie, some of the tribbles didn't make it through the night. ;D

What is this madness? I don't even know.

2009-12-28T20:46:53Z

So I wanted to be able to post creative fandom stuff like art and fic and vids, but not here at my LJ. (Partly to keep my personal stuff separate from the art stuff, and partly because LJ has a wordcount limit, boo.) So Nyu helped me set up a Dreamwidth account. ohyays!

http://reezoo.dreamwidth.org/

Chapter 1 of a Nutrek fic is over there, and hopefully I'll be posting other stuff soon!

Happy Birthday Chris Pine? (Or Epic Post of Self-Wank is Epic.)

2009-08-27T05:59:19Z

It’s not that I don’t wish the man a fantastic 29th birthday, full of fun and friends and family. I do, most ardently; boy totally deserves it. It’s just that I can’t believe I’m even doing this. My even saying that, my even knowing when his birthday is, my even caring enough to make this rambling, incoherent LJ post, is utterly baffling to my brain. Utterly and devastatingly. You have no idea.

Because I AM NOT THAT GIRL. You know the girls I mean, the crazy ones who obsesses over some prettyboy celebrity, someone who learns when their birthday is and scours the news for info on what they are up to and what projects they have in the works, someone who freaking reads Just Jared just for new paparazzi photos (because paparazzi, while filing a service that people undoubtedly want, are doing so at the expense of the well-being, peace of mind, and even sometimes the life of the people they are taking photos of, and choose to not care, therefore are the spawns of Satan.) Well, guess what, somewhere within the last few months I have somehow become THAT GIRL — I have somehow become an utterly devoted fan of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto — and while I can’t stop being this and don’t think I want to, it somewhat devastates me and who I thought I was.

Because while that’s fine for a fourteen year old girl, someone at my stage of life, in their later twenties and is seeing the wheels creaking inexorably towards the ominous age of 30 (which in Utah years just means shoot yourself in the head NOW, you will never find a man), who is college educated, has a real-person job and life and interests, should be more mature, right? Should be over crazy crushes on random people they don’t know? I mean, I’m the age my MOM was when she got married. I should have my adult face almost formed now. So how can I be squeeing over two celebs I know like someone half my age, like a ridiculous Twihard or Jonas Brothers groupie? (Full disclosure: I fully admit to all the not-quite-so-grown-up habits I have and will probably always retain on some level; I am fully aware that I am not quite as grown-up as I like to think I am. But still, there are boundaries of inane behavior, people, and I can’t tell when exactly I crossed it and if there is a way to get back to where I was and if I would even take it if presented with the chance.)

Let’s just say it’s been a crazy year for me. A lot of the things I’ve always used to define myself are slowly breaking dissolving and becoming something new, something better, but infinitely stranger. Some of that is my own making, my own desire, and some has snuck up on me without warning. Star Trek was definitely one of those sneaky things; I never expected that shortly after my birthday, I would see a movie that would capture my imagination so intensely, surprise and exhilarate me, and dramatically reshape and restructure the things I always believed about myself.

Because I am not a Trekkie. At least I wasn’t at the beginning of this year. Never have been, never wanted to be, and never assumed anything would ever force me onto the horrifying path of becoming one. I suspect this has to do with a bit with my geek/nerd complex; I am one, sure, everyone is on whatever subject they are truly passionate about, whether it be design or sports or art or movies or writing or electronics or indie music or hipster tees or wherever their interests lie. I don’t apologize for the things I love, but I am a little bit in the closet about a few of those things, depending on the audience; my desire to write and illustrate stories with Elicia “When We Grow Up,” history, design, anime, even my Mormonism in select circles. I hold the things I love close to me, even more so if I believe someone might trample over them with their grubby boots of ignorance or disdain. (It’s an admittedly crappy defense mechanism, but it’s mine; leave me be.) So I can become at times somewhat uncomfortable about the nerdy things I love. But Star Trek was this whole other level of geeky bizarreness that I couldn’t contemplate, could not even fathom in its mad epicness in the world of fangasm and fantasy. It was something I could always point to at my low points and say, hey I may be an uber nerd, but at least I’m not so far gone as to be a Trekkie! (I’m sorry how snobbish that sounds, but that was my thinking. It was to make me feel better, not as a real putdown to the nice, energetic, devoted fans of the franchise.) But then JJ took a baseball bat to the franchise, and rebuilt it with the screenwriters and designers and composer and the actors into something exciting and beautiful and moving and real. And surprisingly, I completely, utterly adored it. Loved loved loved. It took all the things I loved about storytelling and put them into one movie. And since them I have become this weird, alien creature who has seen the movie 5 times and hunts down the cast interviews and pics on YouTube and who is hunting in vain for the screenplay and the songs not on the soundtrack and who is watching TOS to get the subtle details and jokes that were lost on me. And I’m thinking that makes some strange new world of Trekkie, to have such people as myself in it, and having to redefine myself is both frightening and freeing. Life is so freaking odd.

And ultimately, Chris and Zack, Kirk and Spock, have been a huge part of that as well. They have become my new crack, or Chrach if you will. I loved them in the roles, and the more I uncovered about the people behind the roles the more I loved them too. I have always been deeply dismissive of those who hold people like athletes or celebrities or public figures on pedestals; it’s so fake and they always find a way to disappoint you in the end. So while I like to think I haven’t carved pedestals or them yet, I do deeply admire them, and hope they continue to amaze and delight me in the many things they will choose to do over the years. If I’m honest with myself, it’s kind of exhilarating and exciting to have those youthful endorphins come rushing back through my body again from squeeing over someone; it’s nice to know I can feel that deeply, that emotionally, that spontaneously again, even if it is over two celebs who don’t know me from Adam. The last celebrity I felt this way for was Heath Ledger; who I admired like crazy and whose death was a very, very shocking punch to the gut. I’ve missed caring for a celebrity with this intensity; most I’m apathetic about now, as they do bizarre things and become jerks or whatnot. The list of celebs I actually respect is a short one. But these two are at the top right now.

(Another disclosure: it’s also nice to see two handsome people, years older than me, obviously relaxed about things and seemingly in no rush to settle down. Are just enjoying lie and what they have. Helps calm down that voice in my head muttering about sell-by dates.)

So Chris, Christopher, Captain Fine, Chris Fine, Princess Whitelaw, any and every name you and your fans recognize you by, happy freakin’ birthday! Here’s is a top ten list of the things I love about Chris Pine, in honor of the day. (And don’t freak Zach fans, will do one for him eventually I’m sure.)

::

Ten Things I Love About Chris (as a fan who does not know him in real life)

1) Has a glorious head on his shoulders

No, BEHIND the glorious baby-blue eyes, people. Boy is obviously fiercely smart in real life. Is often shot by the paps with newspapers in tow (and hopefully not just doing it as research for Farragut North!) Was an English major at Berkeley, which can be code for slackerdom, but he has an amazing vocab in interviews so I’m thinking not. He has said he likes a girl who does crossword puzzles; saying smart is sexy? I hope so, because I feel the same way and admire people who do. Two words: Sacrosanct. Moribund. Boy who uses those in interviews and can hold his own with a fellow word geek has my attention.

http://www.truveo.com/star-trek-exclusive-chris-pine-and-zachary/id/1999318526

2) Is a complete thesp geek

I have a weakness for a man who can appreciate the beauty and magic of live theatre. And Chris has that in spades. His mom taught theatre and he got to help her; it sounds like she instilled in him this love for it. He has done several theatre jobs, and wrapped up one just a month or so ago at the Geffen, to rave reviews (and which I hope beyond hope he gets to reprise in the movie adaptation.) And doesn’t just perform in them, he goes to see a lot of theatre as well. Also, he wants to play both the beefy roles (Brando) but desires to be a character actor as well (Peter Lorre.) In short, my kind of man. =)

3) The Epic Bromance of Epicness that is him and Zachary Quinto

They have possibly grown apart in the time since the long press tour for Star Trek and settling into their lives and upcoming projects; they could no longer be friends or even be speaking. I have no special knowledge of where their friendship stands. But for a brief, shining moment, there was the Star Trek press tour, and the epic bromance of two intelligent, beautiful men who obviously enjoyed each other’s company. And the shoulder bumping and sideways glances and side hugs on the red carpets. And it was glorious.

Some good links to much interviewage: http://credulesque.livejournal.com/95428.html

4) Is completely realistic about the business

My biggest fear with any actor I like is that they will allow themselves to get chewed up and spit out by the industry. That it will change them, take the things I love about them and utterly corrupt them. But with Chris I am less worried than I normally would be. His parents were both actors and I have no doubt they raised him with no illusions about the pitfalls of Hollywood. From what I can gather from things like his GQ interview, he has seen people like Lindsay Lohan, tons of money but in this crazy celebrity thing, and wants as little of that in his life as possible. I also read something about his days working in a restaurant, and how that has made him appreciate his acting jobs, even when it can get tedious and inane. And he is even taking acting classes still, still honing his craft when he could totally start slacking off if he wanted and justify it in his mind. In short, as of now I like the way he is thinking.

http://www.backstage.com/bso/content_display/news-and-features/e3i4031fc1b18a4c6b4f09f261f7493dafe

5) The sense of humor

Boy is funny; that is clear in the interviews. And it also comes out in the Kirk role, magnificently. A quick wit, often times self-deprecating, which is fun to watch.

6) His big ol’ blue eyes (among other things)

Yeah, about those blue eyes. Oh my goodness. If nothing else, Chris has helped dispel somewhat my usual dislike of blue eyed, blond haired prettyboys. ( I usually like them tall, dark, and handsome.) But those eyes; how can you not stare into those eyes and think, wow, pretty. I dare you. =)

7) The crags on the left side of his face (among other things)

Okay, since I just rambled on about his physical perfections, let’s talk imperfections. I absolutely adore the scars on the let side of his face. (He has said he had bad acne when he was younger; a remnant of that? Or some cool Harrison Ford-like scar?) If I tried to vocalize why, I think it might be that he has such a unique combination of delicate features on such a masculine face; the scars give some humanity to his features, break him free of the plastic beauty his face could have (the kind his face gets when he is overphotoshopped, for example.) Plus he also has skinny little chicken legs, which I find hysterical and equally endearing.

8) Can go from grubby to gorgeous in 3.5 seconds

The geek glasses! The plaid! The basketball shorts! The clogs! Dude can rock the grub, but somehow make it work. Then he gets decked out for events and is absolutely stunning. The stripes! The vests! The hair! The matchy matchy with Zach! The wedding cake suit! The GQ summer spread! Well played, my boy, well played.

9) The loyalty

Likes staying with the people that has helped him in his career, which I admire. Stays in touch with people, like when he got together with his costar in Fat Pig to hang out; probably didn’t have to, but did. A good quality I hope he holds on to.

10) His paparazzi face

Oh, words cannot describe my adoration of the face he gets in paparazzi pics when he’s just realized they are there. It’s like you can see him saying in his mind: Wait, is that….are they….taking photos of me??? Crap, they totally are! Son of a $%&@! =) It cracks me up every time.

::

My fave places for Chris Pine (and also Star Trek) info:

http://justjared.buzznet.com/tags/chris-pine/
http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_startrek/
http://chris-pine.org/
http://pinto_fic.livejournal.com (No, NOT FOR RPF, which is just so creepy and wrong I can’t even talk about it. They have good updated info sometimes, and pics.)

Okay, that’s the end of my ridiculously long post. Liz Out!

Vivienne Westwood Watches Reborn!!! (Hah, I wish)

2009-02-23T19:52:25Z

Guess what look Vivienne Westwood (she who inspired Ai Yazawa's designs in NANA) is sporting for fall 2009?

The Hibari armband on a school uniform!!! No joke!!! Look closely at the model's right arm (click on pic to make larger):

I like to think that this girl is the member of a new, extremely fashionable mob family that threatens the Vongola's turf in Japan (and this would be their uniform), and becomes a love interest for Hibari, as she is also an anal-retentive psychotic disciplinarian. The whole episode culminates in a rumble West-Side-Story style, with guns and dancing and awesome powers and a Leonard Bernstein soundtrack and everything wonderful. And in the end new mob fam leaves, but with that "this is definitely not finished" feel to it. Man, that would be awesomely cracked up.

(I suppose it could also be a Haruhi armband, but I instantly though of Hibari, sorry. In short the point is that we all might, in a world where fashion is dictated by people like Westwood, soon be running around dressing like cosplay rejects in our everyday lives. And that is simultaneously fabulous and scary.)

Link found here at NY Mag's site, because they have the best fashion coverage and I am a fashion week whore for some reason) http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2009/02/new_shows_from_london_vivienne.html

Westwood's whole Red Label collection for Fall 2009: http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/2009/fall/main/europe/womenrunway/viviennewestwoodred/#

And here is a pic of Westwood with her models at the end:

They all look like fabulous disheveled vampires, hah! If you ever need to do disheveled vampire cosplay, you can't go wrong with Westwood. (We have actually created a story where I picture the vampires dress very similar to this, so is fun to see it in the flesh.)