Easter is approaching, bringing with it all of the finest the candy industry has to offer. I personally love pretty much every kind of candy in the Easter genre, but there is a special adoration reserved for the Cadbury egg. A recent Facebook status of mine relating to this fact revealed that a lot of people apparently hate them. So I’m taking this to the polls!
quick movie review: The International February 27, 2009
I don’t understand how big stars and a good director can make a movie that is so forgettable as this one. I could spoil the plot for you except that I don’t think I could rehash it … something about an evil bank controlling other country’s debt, which frankly makes no sense to me because since when have dictators ever cared about paying back their loans? Clive Owen and Naomi Watts are sufficiently pretty and one breathtaking gun battle staged in the Guggenheim reminded me how much I like Tom Tykwer’s previous work, but geez. I expect The International to vanish into the same ether that The Interpreter went — they are practically identical in cast, intrigue, and substance, but at least I remember liking Nicole Kidman’s coats in her film, even if I had to go to IMDB to remember that Sean Penn was in it too …
How to tell if you are in The Checkout Line of the Damned February 21, 2009
You’ve gotten everything you need at Target and now you carefully evaluate the checkout lines and pick one that seems shorter than the others. Stop! Ask yourself these two questions:
1) Is the strange-looking man two people in front of you buying nothing but the show “Dallas” on DVD?
_X_ Yes ___ No
2) Is the woman currently checking out wearing a white bucket hat and buying literally hundreds of blank VHS tapes?
_X_ Yes ___No
If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, you should immediately move to another line. Now is not the time to patiently wait. You are in the checkout line of the damned, and your time is about to get a-WASTED.
back to back posts: what is this, Mardi Gras? February 19, 2009
That I am giddy at the prospect of a new Neko Case album has no bearing on the fact that the cover of it is one of my favorites ever:
I like the digital revolution. I love having all of my music stored in that flat little rectangle. But it makes me sad that eventually, no one will put any effort into cover art. If all anyone ever sees is a little thumbnail, it won’t make a difference whether it’s good or bad. But I will be driving to a store and purchasing this CD with my own two hands, so take that, THE MAN.
possible intervention needed February 18, 2009
I can’t stop playing Tetris Battle on facebook. I don’t know what’s come over me lately but there’s something about beating down a total stranger that gives me a sense of accomplishment I appear to be missing in my life. What does this say about me? I don’t care to consider it. Let’s just say I’m sharpening my thoughtsicles by playing a strategic fast-paced game and leave it at that. I can quit anytime I want, you guys!
Dry heaving with nuance January 26, 2009
I’ve watched this like twice a day for ten days and it only gets funnier each time I watch it …
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=45504454
2009 is gonna be mine January 8, 2009
So I was thinking about my new year’s resolutions, and I think 2009 is going to be the Year of More. More writing. More exercise. More keeping in touch with long distance friends. More cooking. More branching out. More going to Italy. More getting a literary agent. More marrying Clive Owen. More befriending Gordon Ramsay. More taking calcium because my bones start leaking it in three years or somesuch science (per my mom).
But, seriously. I think every year I basically have this same resolution. Just … doing more. Inevitably I’ll fail at this, because I’m not getting more TIME to do any of this stuff. But I can’t keep myself from resolving it anyway. It’s like one of my favorite Over the Rhine lyrics says, “I wanna do better/I wanna try harder/I wanna believe/down to the letter…”
And I do. And I will.
Bottle Shock: The One Thing Wine Can’t Save October 8, 2008
So … I applied to write for a pop culture website and they asked me to be a feature writer, but then they gave me a crazay assignment that was WAY too time-consuming for non-paid work, so that’s not happening. I worked on my submission review for a while and hated for it to go to waste, so I’m letting it loose on the internets …
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I knew two things about this movie when I went to see it. It’s about wine, and Alan Rickman is in it. SOLD! Sadly, while those two things may be enough to get me through my daily life, they are not enough to make Bottle Shock a good movie.
The film is based on a true story, and an interesting one for say, a “Vanity Fair” article–the kind you might read on a long flight after flipping through to look at all the pictures. But a movie? They’ve stretched the story pretty thin to make it work. In a nutshell: prior to the mid-1970’s, nobody drank California wines (except, presumably, hobos and teenagers). French wine was considered the wine, and everything else was sub par. But that all changed in 1976, when a blind taste test pitting the French vintages against the Californian turned the wine world on its snobby little head. And that’s why trips to Napa are so expensive today, kids.
Rickman plays Steven Spurrier, a British ex-pat living in Paris who inadvertently changes wine forever by initiating a taste test the French were never supposed to lose. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) and his hippie son Bo (Chris Pine — aka ‘Captain Kirk’ in JJ Abram’s Star Trek) are trying to make a go of their struggling winery, Chateau Montelena. When Spurrier arrives, offering a chance for Napa wines to finally gain some international attention, he is properly shocked to discover they aren’t serving up swill. After a breathless scare involving chardonnay that turns temporarily brown and Eliza Dushku (in a pointless cameo as a local bartender), the Montelena wine soundly beats the Frenchies in a cork-pop-heard-round-the-world moment that brings them instant success. There’s a subplot involving the hippie son, his best friend (the charismatic Freddy Rodriguez), and a beautiful girl intern (Rachael Taylor) who lives in a too-picturesque shack somewhere in the vineyard, but it’s mostly just meant as a shiny distracting filler for a story that’s not quite enough to justify a feature-length film.
Alan Rickman could read a phone book for two hours and probably get nominated for an Oscar for it, and though he turns in his usual entertaining and capable performance, he cannot save this film from itself. Pullman’s character typifies the stereotypical too-angry dad; Chris Pine’s surfer-hair wig overshadows his performance; and the true main character–the wine–takes a backseat to the young love triangle that’s been shoehorned into the story. It’s scattered but predictable, and terribly cliché in a way a true story shouldn’t be.
Bottom line: if you enjoy drinking wine while watching Alan Rickman, wait till this one’s on DVD. It’s pretty to look at and entertaining/educational in parts, but it’s not good enough to watch without a nice glass of pinot to help you through the rest.
FYI June 29, 2006
Cheddar Jack-flavored Cheez-Its make for some super-nasty breath. So nasty that I contemplated using the word ‘grody’ just then, and I haven’t used that term since middle school. So nasty that I couldn’t stand myself and had to go brush my teeth. YET IT LINGERS. But, they are delicious indeed. They are so delicious that I’m almost glad I’m not dating anyone right now. Because I’m eating more while I write this! They’re so yummy, and then so disgusting … it’s confusing.
first irregular burn of the summer June 19, 2006
I went up to visit Miss E in Danish-land this weekend, and we attempted to go to the beach today. Packed up a bag with three different types of suncreen, bought some snacks and water, and drove down the mountains towards the ocean. And, lo. There was fog. It was exactly like that movie "The Fog," where creeping, insidious fog ruins all your plans for tanning (I think that's the plot). Anyway, we headed back inland to sneak in to the pool area of a nearby inn & spa. It was nice. But, I did something weird with the sunscreen — I somehow managed to cover my back just fine, but not my chest. It is magnificently blotchy right now, and looks like I poured some sunscreen into my hand and then maybe patted my sternum a couple of times and called it a day. It hasn't started hurting yet, so it's still funny. Tomorrow the laughs will probably turn to tears. But for now, ha ha ha! I'm an idiot.
