Esprit de L'Escalier

I do not feel a scream coming on

Today started foggy - I was exhausted.  I was pretty focused in the afternoon and somehow got a lot of research done for a paper I'm writing on shrinking cities.  My studious behavior made me late to a reception my department was having, and (much to my surprise) I found out I won an honorable mention in a poster competition!  I really thought the person who told me confused me with someone else or was kidding.  I'm fairly tickled about it.

This weekend I went to a reunion for a place that was really important to me, and I will post about it tomorrow.  I planned on posting on it tonight, but I got a little distracted.  The Self-Styled Siren inspired me to watch The Shop on the Corner.  My mother hates Jimmy Stewart, but there are things that I love him in.  Particularly this scene (from a different movie, but so good).

Did anyone else catch the lame-o finale to Gossip Girl?  I'm assuming the floppiness of the last couple of episodes can be blamed on the strike, right?  How else to explain what was building to be a juicy arch fall flat, right?  In my head I had written a much more salacious ending.

I also watched the Reaper finale and was pleasantly surprised.  That show has been a pleasant surprise its entire season.  It's not going to change your world,and it's weekly storyline can be a little repetitive, but it's consistently entertaining, and actually liked the twist at the end this season (unlike GG).  I also think Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black have been perfect as demons plotting against the Devil.

Not ready for the Oscars

I am woefully unprepared for the Oscars this year, having seen next to none of the films/performances that are up for awards. Yesterday I headed over to the local mega mall to see Atonement. When I got back, my Dad asked me what I had seen, and when he heard my reply he asked (in a fairly disgusted voice) if I had liked it. Yes I did. But there was a reason he and my mother weren’t invited along. I think I’m the only member of my nuclear family who likes slow, unfolding British period pieces.

I did like it, but liked the book better and don’t know how people who didn’t read it really get the underpinnings to people’s actions. It’s not a happy story and has left me with a bit of a dull ache on the inside today. Director Joe Wright did an excellent job of translating an intimate, interior book for the screen. It’s beautiful – he does a good job of getting the look and feel of his stories right. The house where the first half of the film is located is gorgeous. Glimpses of its grotto alone are worth the price of the ticket, if you like to daydream about other people's property.

Like his previous film, it is more or less well cast. While I didn’t think she made the perfect Elizabeth Bennett, I think that Keira Knightley was perfect for Cecelia, one of the doomed lovers. Her beauty turns to hardness by the film’s end. She and James McAvoy have excellent chemistry (he’s also superb and complex). The three women playing Briony, the accuser, all look enough alike to seem like the same woman at different stages. Though, while I like Romola Garai, she’s very stiff as the 18 year old version, too stiff. Saoirse Ronan, 13-year-old Briony is wonderful. She has the hardest part, because we can't hear her thoughts, she has to show us through her eyes her misunderstanding of the events that unfold before her.

I’m getting ready to go watch the Oscars at my friend Mary’s. Earlier I made some chocolate chip cookies to bring, while listening to the soundtrack to from The Darjeeling Limited. (Another movie I didn’t see this year. Sigh.) I love the soundtrack – that Wes Anderson. He also knows his medium.

I’m rooting for Juno, Ratatouille and the song from Once. Besides that, I’m a bit lost. Let’s hope the dresses and jokes are good.

Wizards and baseballs

I'm wimped out on my Friday plans, the thought of staying home and vegging was just too tempting. Saturday held wizards and baseballs for me. I picked up the last Harry Potter at my local bookstore when it opened at 10am. I finished the last 30 pages this morning. I enjoyed it, but will say no more about it...

Later I went to my first game at Wrigley Field with my friend Cindy. The Cubs lost, and it was a long, drawn out game, but I had a great time. Cindy's a lifelong Cubs fan and gave me a full historical overview of the stadium. Plus I had a hot dog and ran into a friend from school.

That evening Natasha and I had dinner and went to see the latest Harry Potter movie with our friend Elaine, which we all loved. The Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book and the longest. When I first read it I thought it was endless and overly angsty. I mean, I thought Rowling got the teen angst stuff right, just a little too right. The movie, while it did gloss over and skip some side stories, did a great job telling the story. Elaine felt that the director got the boarding school aspect the best so far. I agree with her and am pleased to see him directing The Half-Blood Prince. Though I know die hards are probably angry at the edits, there was no way to film the book in its entirety.

A couple other things I'm liking:
- Clark and Michael: it's an online mockumentary-style show, the episodes last about 7-10 minutes and star Clark Duke and Michael Cera (George Michael in Arrested Development). My friend Ginny turned me onto it, as she loves Michael Cera. It's full of awkward pauses and uncomfortable humor, and is pretty hilarious. At least check out the clip of Michael on Letterman.

- The novels of Kate Atkinson. I just finished Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which I absolutely adored. A girl tells her rollicking life story, starting at her conception, and weaves in and out of her family's history. It's got a magical realism feeling to it and a huge heart and humor. I read Case Histories a couple of weeks ago, which I also enjoyed. The two books both tell women's stories, over different points in time, but Case Histories is a detective novel (of sorts). They both have humor and sadness, and I was crying at the end of Scenes, but in a good way.

Summer hours

I'm around, but it's been too hot to blog, and I plan on keeping summer hours, so expect more sparse posts. My brain's pickling a little in the heat. Yesterday, to beat the mid-90 degree heat, my roommate and I did a double feature of Ratatouille and Knocked Up. Not exactly a family-friendly, obvious pairing, but the times worked out perfectly.

Ratatouille makes me believe in the power of Pixar again. In some ways it was reminiscent of the Muppets or Fraggle Rock. Remy, the main rat, could have easily stepped out of a Henson creation, with his pure heart and creative spirit. I really love Brad Bird, the writer/director, and this movie. Go see it.

Knocked Up was funny and honest, which is what I expect from Judd Apatow, but I couldn't believe people were there on dates. I told my mother what we saw, and to this she exclaimed, "I don't know why people your age would see that!" I laughed and told her that if I had been there on a date, I wouldn't allow the guy to touch me afterwards. This movie is very good birth control.

I *finally* have my review of the latest Wilco album up at newcritics. Check it out here.

I've been overbooked since 15

I haven’t been able to put much thought towards posts lately, as evidenced by the fact that my most recent posts involve polaroids and brief weekend recaps (this will probably be much of the same). (The polaroid above is from Memorial Day weekend; it's the B'hai Temple in Wilmette.)

I just tuned into the second half of a very old Adam Dalgliesh mystery. I haven’t seen the first half but just read the book it was based on and thought I’d watch. According to the brief recap the characters are the same, but the events are entirely different. It sounds a lot more convoluted and ridiculous. Why anyone would monkey around with P.D. James is beyond me.

My weekend was packed full and I’m still exhausted. The Genius was in town, and Friday night Natasha and I took him and his friend Marty to Carol’s, our favorite honky-tonk within walking distance to our apartment. Cheap beer, live country, good company, it was great.

Saturday involved a hung-over scramble to complete a graduation gift and then my brother and I headed to the suburbs for a family party. There we had our first sight and sound of the cicadas, which are as bizarre, gross and fascinating as I expected. (I didn’t have my camera, but my brother did. Don’t hold your breath on him sending the pics anytime soon, though.) There was more family than I originally expected and we had a great time. I also went, dead tired, to an engagement party of a friend’s in a crazy huge house in Bucktown. The food and company were good, but I was asleep by eleven.

Sunday comprised of about six hours of reading articles about how fair use of copyrighted material is being degraded and ignored under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s a subject that is currently making me angry and I hope my paper on it isn’t too boring. Damn the man, and all of that. (I’m really going to miss my class on new media and the public sphere.) Chuckles and I also went to see Once, which was very sweet. It stars Glen Hansard of The Frames, a band I love.

Tonight I skipped kickball, ostensibly to work on my paper. In reality my brain needed some rest. Wish me luck finishing it and my portfolio project. I’ll need some. I should be back to the regularly scheduled programming soon.

Three mini movie reviews

I have celebrated my return to the US with a glut of movies, though I still missed one I can't wait to see (The Lookout). I don't feel like pulling a Mannion and writing up long and thoughtful posts about each, but I have slightly longer than sound bites that I thought I'd share instead.

Thursday night my brother and I went to see The Host (Gwoemul). I knew when I first read press about this movie that I would have to see this with family. My mother taught her children at an early age to love monster movies, Godzilla most of all. My brother probably inherited most of this love for monsters more than my sister or me, so besides proximity, he was the perfect choice as movie partner.

The Host is a Korean monster movie surrounding a family of misfits: a grandfather, two sons, a daughter and a granddaughter. The granddaughter seems to be the only put together one of the lot. Her father is narcoleptic loser who works a food stand by the Hahn River with the grandfather. The other son is a college grad with no job and the daughter is a world class archer who only ever manages bronze. There is a monster that comes out of the river and kills a bunch of people and captures the granddaughter. The misfits fight against many odds to try and rescue her.

People, see this movie. I laughed, I cried, I got really scared. The monster itself was awesome. It's amphibian and had a prehensile tail, which means it could swing beneath bridges as well as run really fast. The acting is great. The family is hilarious and stop at nothing (truly) to get the daughter back. Running underneath this all is a commentary on American military arrogance that is spot on. What more could you ask for in a monster movie?

Sunday night was my true glut of movies. I went to see The Namesake with my friend Allison. The movie is directed by Mira Nair (who I think is hit or miss within her movies) and based on the book by Jhumpa Lahiri. I hadn't read the book, but have read The Interpreter of Maladies. Allison had read the book and was looking forward to the film.

The story is told in two voices, from the parents' perspectives and from their son's. I had read that the actors who played the parents (Irfan Khan and Tabu) were wonderful, but the other side lacked the same depth and emotion. I found that to be very true. The story of how the parents came to be married and learned to love each other was beautifully shown in small moments, in looks and slight touches of the hand. Kal Penn, who played the son, was a little heavy handed in his acting, especially when balanced by such soft touches by the actors playing his parents.

When I got home from The Namesake, Natasha and I ordered The Wind That Shakes the Barley onDemand on cable. We had planned on seeing it at the Music Box, but figured we'd be more comfortable in our pjs on our couch. Man. What a way to end Easter. It's a beautiful movie. The acting, directing and cinematography are all beautiful. Cillian Murphy kills me, as usual. But god, is it dark, with humanity at its worst in many ways. It tells a story of how the Irish revolution tore apart Ireland, especially one family. Good movie with a bleak story.

Partially cross-posted at New Critics.

Oscar Blogging This Weekend!

Updated below!

Has everyone been checking out the blogging happening over at New Critics? I've cross-posted there a couple of times, but there are a lot of great posts and discussions about music, film, books, tv, going on.

You see that blinking graphic to the right? This weekend we're doing a bunch of Oscar blogging. Our fearless leader, Tom Watson, will be kicking the coverage off Saturday morning at 10am, and we'll have posts every two hours during the day until showtime. Then Blue Girl will cap the whole shebang off with her live-blogging the creme de la creme of awards nights.

I went to see the live and animated international shorts last night, and I'll be reviewing them Saturday at noon. Lance Mannion will be reviewing all the films up for Best Picture, the Self-Styled Siren will be covering Best Director, Viscount LaCarte will be discussing Humphrey Bogart, M.A. Peel will be cover Peter O'Toole, and much more!

It's going to be a fun weekend! Make sure to check it out!

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Update: The Oscar blogging has commenced! See my post here, and everything else here.

Caught in the rain

As I left the house this evening I passed my umbrella and paused. Would I need it? Nah. It hadn't felt like rain earlier in the day. It's the second time this week I've ventured out without an umbrella and regretted it.

I went to meet my friend Allison to see Notes on a Scandal, which was what I wanted it to be. Vaguely voyeuristic, gossiping, entwining. Judi Dench malevolently spun her web to catch Cate Blanchett. It's not a movie about nice people, and Dench is especially not nice as the slightly deluded but dangerous spinster teacher. Blanchett is beautiful (as always) as the naive and inappropriate art teacher. It was fun to see Dench so hard-hearted. Allison had real estate envy for Blanchett's character's house and I wanted her wardrobe.

We left the theatre to find it pouring, with a bit of freezing rain mixed in for fun, and we really enjoyed running to the bus stop. The bus, with its windows fogged up, was warm but lurched forward and back like we were in the hull of a ship. The rain had stopped by the time we reached our respective stops. I really don't get this weather. My roommate is pleased because she doesn't like the cold. It has me suspicious and concerned. I'd rather have snow.

A meme, a boss and the mafia

According to a silly internet test, I'm apparently "neutral" — not good nor evil, just a lovely pasty color, inoffensive and slow moving. Which has been fairly true around here. It's been all kittens and pies lately, which is all fine and good in moderation, but it's the holiday season people! The days are shorter and darker. Bah humbug and all. Actually, I don't want to get all humbug. Instead I'll talk about crime and power and start it all off with a meme.

I was tapped this morning by the lovely Maryam in Marrakesh. I had to do the following:
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.

The book: Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko
The passage:
His professional manner and dry wit made him a natural for the TV talk shows and interviews. Even before any changes were made in the police force, his presence implied great change. And five years after Daley first made it a campaign promise, the police chief finally moved his office out of City Hall and into police headquarters.

I don't feel like tagging anyone (I hope you don't mind Maryam!), but I'm glad for the segway to discuss my current reading list. Since school has been out I've returned to my usual glut of books. The current one (Boss) and the last one (The Washington Story by Adam Langer) have both been about Chicago.

I bought the Langer book a while ago and finally picked it up last weekend and just devoured it. It takes place mostly in Chicago, in West Rogers Park with the backdrop of Harold Washington becoming mayor. Langer is deft at creating a sense of place and fleshing out some interesting characters. It is growing up story from the perspectives of several of the characters and weaves in and out of different points of view. I really enjoyed getting a sense of what the city was like at that time. It seemed authentic to me, for someone who was a small child in the suburbs at the time.

It was an interesting book to read just before Boss; perhaps switching the order would have made more sense chronologically. I am so glad I'm reading Boss because it puts City Hall into a much better perspective for me. When I first moved to Chicago I thought the corruption was mildly amusing. The longer I've lived here the less I find this to be the case. The back of the book has a quote from Studs Terkel calling it, "Stunning, astonishing, myth-shattering!" It is all of that. The book has literally kept me on the edge of my seat on the CTA. I don't really know how to describe it, except that if you were ever curious to see how an American political machine worked, or how Chicago became to be what it is, you should pick up this book. Hell, I think it should be required reading for Chicagoans. I picked up the book originally wanting to attend a book group discussing it, but I think I have my first class of next quarter that night.

I was thinking about this book a lot as I watched The Departed on Friday night. The way the mafia rule is not too different than the way the Machine worked, although there was more obvious violence with the syndicate. I really loved this movie and felt extremely emotionally involved with the characters. Who knew I'd want to cry twice in a Scorsese flick? I have never hated Matt Damon more in my life nor felt so strongly about Leo. Jack Nicholson was frightening. I really want to see the Chinese film it was based on. (Tony Leung is in it, who I adore.) I was so caught up in it all and tightly wound by the end of the film that I really needed the longish walks to and from the L and a large cup of chamomile when I got home. Not to mention the frantic, manic discussion of what my friend and I just saw, trying to untangle the leftover knots in our heads. Which is exactly how you should exit a movie: discussing it with energy and enthusiasm.

It does not look like this today

But I am going to pretend that it does. I spent all of yesterday in the library working on a paper due next week. (Though I did sneak out to see Stranger Than Fiction, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Last week I saw Little Children, which was good, but made me extremely tense. It was populated with some very beautiful people, though.)

Since I'm busy busy and the weather is pretty November (read: grey, cold), I thought I'd post some photos from a couple of weeks ago, when it was sunny. (See the originals here and here.) My mood seems to be a reflection of the weather as well. I have an extreme want to hibernate.