esprit de l'escalier

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I went to see Beasts of the Southern Wild tonight with my mother and my friend Tony. (I love that I have changed into my pajamas, but I can still smell my mother's perfume - Shalimar - on me from our hug goodnight.) The movie was beyond excellent. I do not know how to describe it. It was one of the most unique films I have ever seen. The little girl who plays the narrator and hero of the story is tremendous. I cried three times. Go see it.

Traps of nostalgia

This week I have been feeling sad. I find myself like this on holidays, and yet it always takes me a bit of time to work through what is going on and see what is happening in my head/heart. You'd think I'd have caught on to the pattern by now, but sometimes I'm a bit slow.

Yesterday we had a barbeque/picnic with work. I was sitting with some co-workers I do not often socialize with and I was talking about how much I love the Fourth of July. The town I grew up in loves the Fourth. They have the best parade, tons of block parties, fireworks, big parties in parks. Even people who drive around town at 7 am with bullhorns shouting, "Wake up! Wake up! It's the Fourth of July!" To me the Fourth is about civic togetherness, kindness to strangers, beastly heat, friends, charred meat, dripping popsicles, strangers waving at one another. And now it's about nostalgia.

As I finished talking about why I love this holiday, a usually quiet co-worker asked me what my plans were. "Nothing," I sheepishly replied. He laughed. So did I. But I began to feel that yawning hole inside of me and I began to get sad. My plans to watch my hometown parade soon fell through and I was having a hard time finding people to watch the fireworks with, that didn't involve getting mired in traffic. My friend Julie saved me from myself and sad movies and we caught up with some other friends on the Whittier Peninsula to watch the big fireworks show last night.

Today I had planned to go watch the Doo Dah parade in the Short North, but my friend Tony called me and asked if I wanted to head to his aunt's lakehouse and go on a pontoon boat. I quickly decided to cancel my plans and join him. I'm glad I did, to switch up my day. I needed an out on my nostalgia trap.

Later in the day, after melting and reconstituting ourselves, we decided to go see Safety Not Guaranteed. It perfectly fit my feelings this week. It is all about the seductive nature of nostalgia, and how destructive it can be to yourself by causing you to disconnect from the present. But it's also about finding partners you believe in - people you can trust with your insecurities, who can help you through the hard parts of life, and with whom you can leap into the new and unknown. It was incredibly optimistic. And exactly what I needed to see.

My lesson from all of this is that I need to allow holidays to take whatever form they take in my adult life. I was talking to a friend last night about feeling unmoored. This is a general feeling I have, like I'm in between phases of my life, which seems to be amplified at holidays when I'm adrift from the structured traditions of my youth. I need to remember to enjoy the present. Mooning over the past is not the way to spend today.

Also, go see that movie. Aubrey Plaza is a treat in it.

Thinking about Nora Ephron

I was sort of shocked at how saddened I was by Nora Ephron's death. I never read any of her essays, but two of her films imprinted themselves on my psyche. I have long joked that I was indelibly changed by my watching Sleepless in Seattle ad nauseum as a pre-teen. (Mostly that I am an incurable romantic, which might be why I am perennially single. My head is in the clouds and not open to the possibilities around me.) I currently joke that my state of my love life is more akin to Carrie Fisher's character in When Harry Met Sally BEFORE she meets Bruno Kirby's character (the man she marries in the film). I have found myself saying to friends, "He's never going to leave her," not because I'm dating a married man, but because I have been hopeless over someone who is not ever going to give me what I want. I usually follow that statement with, "I have to remember I am not Meg Ryan in this situation. I will NEVER be Meg Ryan."

All of this is to say that I loved Nora Ephron. She gave me shorthand for life and love. Those two films will always mean much to me. I now plan on devouring some of her collections of her early essays, if I can get my hands on them.

Lena Dunham, a new pop culture hero of mine, has an excellent remembrance of Nora Ephron in the New Yorker. Ephron's advice on Dunham's love life is wonderful. "You can't meet someone until you've become what you're becoming."

Six years in!

I thought I was going to squeak in a post for my blog's birthday, but here I am, checking my facts to find that I'm a day late already. My first entry was posted on June 13, 2005. It was actually a post I had written up three days previously, but hadn't had the courage yet to create a blog. It was about a movie I saw, one I still think of from time to time, about a rag tag group of ticket collectors in the Budapest subway. It was odd and engaging.

Instead of listing out the wonderful people who I've met in the past six years of having an online life, which I seem to do every year, I think I'll return to my roots to talk about a movie I saw tonight, and one I saw this weekend. (Hey, it's summer and I've suddenly got a bunch of movies I want to see. When it rains, it pours.)

Tonight my friend Tina and I went to see the documentary Bill Cunningham New York. Oh man was it fabulous. It made my heart brim over and want to hug Mr. Cunningham the entire time. "Oh you kids!," I'm sure he'd say to that. While I'm not particularly a stylish person, I love the documentation he has done over the years of high fashion and street fashion. If you have any interest in fashion, in people, in New York, go see it. Seriously. Now. (A bit more here.)

This weekend my mother and I went to see Woody Allen's new film, Midnight in Paris. What a charming film. Wilson was born to play one of Allen's nervous alter egos. He gets the chattering neuroses down perfectly, but softens it and is completely charming. I know I used that word already, but Wilson and the film were just that. Oh and Paris. What's not to love about a film where you get to visit the Paris of today and the 1920s? Go see it now too. 

Before I go, I just want to thank everyone who stops by to read my thoughts or look at my photos. I know some of you and wish we could all get together for a big dinner and chat away in person. Thanks.

Alternate plans for the day

Today I was going to do my taxes, then read the book I just started. Instead, I knit my first hat (!!!), dropped my car off to get checked up, had an impromptu visit with some friends, went on a hike with some other friends (all the while showing off my new hat and taking a roll of film). Later my mother and I watched a movie, I knit *another* hat, and finished a matching scarf. I check nothing off my to-do list (really, really need to get those taxes done), but it was a good day.

Here's a rundown of some recently watched and enjoyed movies in these parts:

• Pirate Radio: We watched this tonight; loved the breezy feel, the laughs, and most of all the music.
• Never Let Me Go: I had been wanting to see this for ages; it was sad and beautiful, like the source material; I loved it. I adore Carey Mulligan.
• Hannah and Her Sisters: Both my mother and I had never seen this Woody Allen before and we loved it.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: I thought it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it more thoroughly than I thought I would.
• Easy A: I also enjoyd it. It was a great modern take on 80s high school movies.

I never see movies anymore and need some help with new additions to my Netflix queue. What should I put up next?

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Also, my brother was recently featured on a Chicago street fashion blog (see slide 7) and this post about some work he's doing.

More Nick Hornby

Yesterday I went to the library to pick up some books I had on reserve. I found it fitting to find the newest John Irving tucked in with a couple of Nick Hornby's. When I was in my late teens, end of high school/early college, I went on a John Irving tear. I've done this many times, getting into an author or a film director and gobble up anything I can. I have a feeling I'm starting one with Hornby.

In fact, I saw An Education on Sunday, for which Hornby wrote the screenplay. It's getting buzz due to the marvelous performance by the star Carey Mulligan. I've been keeping my eye on her since she was in Bleak House a couple of years back. She was also Kitty in Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice and the wonderfully named Sally Sparrow in one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes.

I enjoyed An Education. It's one of those movies I feel was made for me. It's full of actors I love and it's an English period piece. I'm such a sucker for those. Mulligan plays a 16 year old in 1962 London who gets swept up by an older man. I giggled uncomfortably through some of it, because I can see how and why she gets caught up, but I kept waiting for the shoe to drop. Mulligan is wonderful. And I want the soundtrack. All in all, I give it a thumbs up.

The Resurgence of the Undead

The undead are everywhere these days - vampires are all over television, movie screens, and book covers. Zombies are having a moment in the sun, as it were, too. Jane Austen got ravaged by a zombie hoard, as did America in Zombieland. As someone who read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles at a probably too young age and who was an early fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I get the appeal of vampires. It's sex, right? I mean, yes, good vs. evil, etc. But when it boils down to it, vampires are about sex. But I never really got zombies.

Now, having recently finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and recently seen Zombieland, I think I get it. Zombies seem to be about gore. I might be missing something, as I am not well versed in zombie fiction. In fact, I think the first real zombie movie I've ever seen was Shaun of the Dead, but it remains my favorite. All three of these examples also deal with the silliness of the undead. Sure they are trying to eat your brains, but zombies are pretty silly with their shuffled walking and moaning. And maybe zombies are just a way of giving humans an opportunity to kick some ass.

I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, although it was pretty silly in and of itself. In this alternate reality, the Bennett girls have been trained in the deadly arts by their father and even went to China to train. (Although this shows their social status, as the true elite go to Japan to study - something Elizabeth is derided for throughout the book.) I especially liked the slow demise of poor Charlotte, and the understandable way that throughout the story people would politely vomit into handkerchiefs and napkins. It was never explained, but I assumed that with the undead about, good society will ignore the occasional queasiness.

I also thought Zombieland was good fun. Gory, yes, but funny and entertaining. The characters are known by their hometowns, and everyone in the theater shouted with glee when Jesse Eisenberg's character said he was from Columbus, Ohio (where we were all watching it). Of course, the feeling was slightly different when we heard our hometown's fate. I really like Eisenberg as an actor, but I felt like some of the early scenes were written for Michael Cera. Last month, Gawker joked about who the next "hoodie heartthrob" would be after Cera, and from some of this movie I can see why. I think I am not alone in getting tired of seeing stereotypical Michael Cera characters. 

All in all, though, Zombieland is a fun ride, even if there isn't much of a plot. I liked Columbus's rules for surviving zombies and they were a nice line that connected everything. Woody Harrelson is great and the cameo by Bill Murray is hilarious. It seems he has yet to outstay his welcome.

Upcoming movies

That I can't wait to see (besides Harry Potter).

(500) Days of Summer

An Education

Whip It

Julie & Julia

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

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.