I Love Children (but only if they're related to me)

I babysat my crew of little ones of Sunday night so that my sis and bro-in-law could go see Juno. Apparently, because of the three kids, the last movie they actually got to see in the theatre was Little Miss Sunshine. I can't even remember when that movie was in theatres. Over a year ago maybe? Anyway, I love spending time with my nieces and nephew so I gladly offered up my Sunday.

As it turns out, Oliver is a major mama's boy and carried on in hysterics most of the time I was there. I suppose I can understand - he's barely 13 months old and rarely spends time away from my sis. But as a result, he's not in any of my newest batch of photos; the crying got to be a bit much so I stuffed him in a closet for a taste of the solitary life that he'll have to come to terms with at some point. I think he got the picture. He's a little more prepared now.

Celeste, Elise, and I watched Cinderella, which I was able to drag away from my precious collection of Disney movies for a night. I think it's fair to say that Cinderella was my favorite Disney movie when I was little. That is, before The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Lion King were released (yes, I was nearly 11 years old when the Lion King came out, and I ain't scared to admit it! I will never grow out of my Disney movies). Oh, but I just remembered Peter Pan...

Anyway. Check out how concerned my nieces look with the movie they are watching. Whodduh thunk that Cinderella was so intense and anxiety ridden? They even created a fort with the couch pillows, to hide behind whenever things got sticky for Cinderella...



You can see my entire photo shoot with them here (although they're all pretty similar). I was having fun playing with the settings on my camera... apparently too much fun. When Celeste finally had enough she pried her eyes away from the TV for long enough look me in the eyes and say, "Steph, I don't want you to take anymore pictures." Well okay then, that was that. Yes ma'am!

By the way... I just linked you readers to my Flickr account. I've never done that before - it seems a little too personal. But most of my pics are on private now, so I went ahead with it. Does anyone else use Flickr? I'm new to it...

Bah Humbug

I'm completely sick and on deadline. I can't concentrate for the life of me right now, but I have 3 hours to figure out how. Actually, my deadline is in 3 hours, so I better figure out how to concentrate in about 10 minutes.

I saw I Am Legend on Christmas Eve. What was I thinking? What am I ever thinking when I watch zombie-type movies? I couldn't sleep all night. It was horrible; I was terrified, alone in my apartment. And now I'm sick. I'm convinced that my lack of sleep that night caused my immune system to turn on me. I woke up yesterday with a mildly sore throat, took Zicam all day and felt fine.

Then it hit me like a freight train when I was sitting in a movie theatre watching Sweeney Todd last night. I had to get up and leave. It took an hour to go from feeling fine to a completely achy neck, the chills, tingly legs and a horribly scratchy throat. By the time I left the movie theatre I had a full blown flu. Luckily I wasn't missing much of the movie. Sweeney Todd was surprisingly boring, and I usually love Tim Burton; he's one of my favorites. The movie was over two hours long and after an hour and a half I felt like I still hadn't seen anything that I didn't already watch in the preview.

The worst part about being sick right now is that I have a Reverend Horton Heat concert to go to tonight. I've been looking forward to this for months but as luck would have it, I'm under the weather (what does that expression even mean?).

And now, back to my deadline. Wish me luck.

The Big Cheese

We had another big event last night for the DVD release of Ratatouille, held at Social Hollywood. It was actually a really cute, fun, and majorly expansive setup, far larger than I had anticipated. I was wishing last night that I had brought my camera to take pictures of the extravaganza, but it seems that I never have my camera with me at the opportune times. My coworker took a couple photos on her phone, so below is one of the inside bar area. In addition to that room (and all the delicious gourmet buffet food) there was a huge entry room that housed a "Cars" Blu-ray setup.

But by far, my favorite part was the French inspired patio where an all night tasting of high end cheeses and wines ensued. My god, was that fantastic. I definitely gorged myself last night... if you know me, you know how passionate I am about cheese. The top notch cheese that was being served was a triple creme sheep's milk that goes for over $100/lb!! The best part: the cheese server noticed how enthralled I was with their offerings so he packed up at least a quarter lb. of that triple cream, as well as some fantastic aged Gouda for me to take home. I have about $60 worth of delectable cheese in my fridge at home, all compacted onto one tiny plastic to-go plate. I got the cheese shop's card, and it turns out they are local (as opposed to the wine experts, whom I believe were not). However, I don't see myself heading to the valley to spend $25 on a slice of cheese any time soon... unfortunately.

Before I could enjoy the open bar and wine/cheese tasting, however, I had to help manage the red carpet. Notable names included Brian Dennehy, John Ratzenberger, Patton Oswalt, the Oscar winning creators of movies like Toy Story, The Incredibles, Cars, and Ratatouille, and probably my favorite of all, Cheech Marin. No, I didn't shake any hands, but I did rub some shoulders, literally... it gets crowded on the carpet. Oh, and I also shared an intimate moment with THIS guy, who had the audacity to grab the glass of Cafe Boheme from my hands and take a taste for himself. Sure, I could have said 'no' but I have too many fond movie memories of him from childhood as 'that guy who's in everything'. I hold him near and dear.

Darjeeling Limited movie review

No real spoilers here, however if you want to be completely surprised by the movie, I'd wait to read this. Sometimes I don't like to hear people's reviews until after I've seen the movie myself...

I saw Darjeeling Limited on Saturday. I adore Wes Anderson movies and this one was no exception; I obviously loved it. I am always amazed at the care he takes in seemingly every single shot. The composition - the objects, placement, angles - is intricately deliberate. He must not only be extremely meticulous, but also have a very specific vision of each piece of visual stimuli that his viewers experience. I can't imagine that he wings anything when filming, however I'm sure it's the case that he's an artistic genius and every now and then he does improvise. The colors were amazingly vibrant and the whole thing was a visual masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.

As for the characters...

I absolutely love that Anderson uses a varying line-up of recurring actors in his movies, specifically because the actors he has chosen are so fantastic. As you can gather from the trailer, the three main characters are brothers. Before seeing the movie I thought it was kind of funny in an odd way that he chose three people who couldn't be any more clearly NOT brothers... Owen Wilson with the blond hair, Adrienne Brody with his tall and slender physique, Jason Schwartzman being short and stouter in comparison, and none have similar facial features. But I quickly got over that and realized that they were perfectly cast for the characters they are portraying. Beyond the main characters you get some fun surprise familiarity with other characters, but I won't spoil it by saying who.

As for the story line...

I don't really hate to say it, but the plot was a little light-weight. I don't hate to say it because I still loved the movie anyway. But truth be told, it lacked the involvement that Anderson's movies usually have (sort of the way Bottle Rocket lacked activity, for lack of a better word). After I left the movie and was thinking about it, there was only a couple of those stirring turns in direction that his movies usually express, and even those were subtle. The one truly pivotal & defining scene in the movie was quite reminiscent of the Kingsley/helicopter scene in Life Aquatic and the Richie/suicide attempt in Royal Tenenbaums, so I guess you could just say that the one action packed scene felt very familiar.

But that one criticism aside, when asked what I think of the movie, I intend to respond, "beautifully fantastic." The dialogue and visuals really made it a pleasure to watch.

Idiocracy

Upon logging out of my hotmail account this morning, I came across an article entitled Your 5 Minute Guide to Raising Kids. At first I thought it was very sad that an article like this exists, then I thought it was funny, then I got a little sad again. It sort of begs the question of what contributes to poor parenting mentalities - which breed aloof parents who think reading an article like this is making a god-honest effort to be a better and more responsible parent. It's a big circle.

On a similar strand, Josh and I watched the movie Idiocracy last night. Our Netflix choices were Superman Returns, The Inconvenient Truth, and Idiocracy. Because I was attempting to unpack my new apartment, while lounging in my room watching a movie (first time I've had such a luxury!), I wanted something that didn't require all my attention. Idiocracy stars Luke Wilson (say no more) and Maya Rudolph and, well, sounds like just the type of movie I was looking for. Oddly enough though, my eyes were glued to the TV, as I unwittingly dropped a few IQ points by watching this movie.

The premise of Idiocracy is actually pretty humorous in it's satirical nature, which is also to say that, unfortunately, in some respect it is on par with reality. More specifically, the movie is commentary on the reality of the US and the exponential multiplication of uneducated white trash families vs. the dying out of intelligent and responsible people who focus their time on bettering their careers and being cautious, instead of making babies. Come 2505, the world has been taken over by idiots who can barely communicate (due to a vocabulary that is about 50% groaning noises and 35% the word "shit") and an ineffectively run government of people so moronic and controlled by consumerism that their most prominent disaster is dusts storms caused by lack of plant life... because they think they are supposed to water their crops with Gatorade as opposed to water... cuz it's got them electrolyte thingies. I'll stop there.

And, just like last night, I've already devoted more time and attention to this movie than I really should have. I guess the director was savvier than I initially thought.

On a less ridiculous note: the apartment is coming along great! Most of my stuff is moved in, and though it still appears to be in shambles, it's starting to feel like home. It's light and airy and is definitely located in the most optimal place in the complex, where we only share 1 wall with an adjoining neighbor (not that we're really loud, I just don't want to worry that someone will get upset whenever we play music after dusk). Plus, I think I fall in love with the neighborhood a little more each time I arrive home after work. Who would have thought that my first apartment in LA would be only a half mile from the house I grew up in. I couldn't be more thrilled!