Fosse!

Along with all of my other recent obsessions, I've been enjoying all things Bob Fosse. Fosse was an entertainment renaissance man who acted, danced, directed, won eight Tony awards for choreography, and one Academy Award for directing Cabaret. I am not a lover of musicals, but, my goodness, Bob Fosse musicals are an entirely different animal.

Fosse could take the most simple, focused motion and just make it the most sensual twitch ever seen. The emotion and passion he had for movement is visible in every single number he ever directed or choreographed.

If you want a Fosse fix, I can recommend two movies for you. Cabaret is the Liza Minelli and Joel Grey masterpiece, taken from the Broadway show which was adapted from the Christopher Isherwood stories. It captures the pre-World War II decadence of Berlin, Germany, and is still so fresh that it looks like it could have been released this year. Liza is just amazing in the movie. I so wanted to go out and buy bushels of false eyelashes after rewatching it a couple of weeks ago. My favorite number in the show is "Mein Herr," and it is all Fosse.

The second movie I would recommend is the autobiographical All That Jazz, with Roy Schieder in the Fosse role, and a gigantic cast with all sorts of stars. It's an amazing, exhausting film. Honestly, I would have cut about half an hour out of it, because the ending seems to go on and on and on. It's worth it for the musical opening to George Benson's "On Broadway," the choreography for "Take Off with Us" and the joy of "Everything Old Is New Again." Plus, Schieder is genius.

And, if you're just in the mood for flat out silliness, check out this Youtube video. Do not have liquids in your mouth when doing this!

Jazz hands!

snap snap snap

Movies! Over the Edge

Over the Edge is my favorite "kids gone bad" movie of all time. Released in 1979, it was based on a newspaper story, and follows a group of teenagers growing up in a planned community where there is nothing for them to do. Being kids, they turn to all the kid-evils: Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, vandalism, violence, and some fashion crimes that could be pardoned due to the era.

One of the teens is killed by a police officer. Then, things go from bad to worse, as the teen horde traps all of the parents and authorities in the school while they destroy and burn stuff.

Matt Dillon co-stars in his very first acting role, and he is so young that it's almost painful to look at him. Other than Matt, most of the other actors didn't go on to do much, and many of the extras are actually real local teens that the production crew found. There's an authenticity to the movie, and a deep and realistic nihilism and subversion, that I just love.

Also, this movie was the inspiration for Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

I need to go set a dumpster on fire.

Movies! Black Swan

As usual, being a Netflix movie viewer, I'm a year late on this movie. Honestly, when I see a year's worth of hype before I can actually watch a movie, the movie itself then ends up being a disappointment. Black Swan had a ton of hype, and, you know what? It absolutely deserved it. One of the best movies I have seen in a long time.

Natalie Portman is Nina, a dedicated ballerina who wins the lead role in a new version of the classic ballet, Swan Lake. Nina will play the dual roles of the virginal white swan and the lusty black swan. While the white swan role is a cake walk for the innocent Nina, the black swan proves to be a bit more challenging. Barbara Hershey is Nina's over protective ex-dancer mother, who treats her as if she is still five years old, and contributes to Nina's prolonged naivete. But does her mother have reason to hover? Does Nina have issues that require this kind of attention?

Winona Ryder is the crazed, aged ballerina who Nina is replacing. Is this Nina's fate? Mila Kunis is delicious as the wild and free competing rival ballerina who embodies the black swan role. Is she trying to steal Nina's place? And Vincent Cassel is perfection as the ballet company leader who pushes and pushes Nina to find the dark side of herself. Is he forcing her beyond a psychological point of no return?

Beautifully shot, incredibly acted, fantastic costumes. Portman deserved every single award she picked up during award season. This film does what Inception wanted to do--makes you wonder what is real, and what is hallucination or nightmare. Black Swan left me shaken. That's a good thing.

Underrated actors: Frank Whaley

Frank Whaley is one of those actors who has been in a lot of movies, some of them not great movies, and you always recognize his face, but often don't know his name. He's become a bit of a character actor, and shows up as one of the alternate Oswalds in JFK, as Robby Krieger in The Doors, and as Brett with the Big Kahuna burger in Pulp Fiction. He was in Field of Dreams and Born on the 4th of July and a fab little movie called Swimming with Sharks.

More recently, he was in the not so great Vacancy and World Trade Center and a truly awful little horror movie, Crazy Eights, that I watched the other night. Even though the horror movie was nearly unwatchable, I was glad to see Frank Whaley. Why? Because he's a heck of an actor. He can take a tiny role, or a bigger role in a bad movie, and make something wonderful out of it. He's one of those actors who is so talented that he should have had a bigger, more celebrated career.

Checking out his IMDB profile, I see that he directed three films: New York City Serenade, The Jimmy Show and Joe the King. I'm adding those to my Netflix queue now, because I'm sure the man can direct!

Frank Whaley, I salute you!

Oh, M. Night Shyamalan

First of all, your name isn't really M. Night Shyamalan. It's M. Nelliyattu Shyamalan. Secondly, your movies make me yell. I have to tell you that I knew half an hour into The Sixth Sense that Bruce Willis was dead. I have to tell you that The Happening caused me to actually curse when I found out that plants, yes, plants, were causing the devastation. I have to tell you that your movies are so beautiful to look at, but your plot twists and outright cheating when it comes to basic story building cause me to become irrational and furious.

I have to tell you that I watched Devil last night, and, while you didn't actually direct this movie, it was definitely a product of your creative process. When the twist came down, I said words that I could never type in this blog. I enjoyed the movie up to the point where you blatantly broke the rules, and then I went psycho all over the living room.

My fury only increased when I tried to access the extras on the DVD, and was met with a notice that these extras are not included on DVDs sold for rental. What? You expect me to buy Devil on Blu-Ray? Are you trying to drive me mad?

M. Night Shyamalan, I realize that you don't know me, but I will be forgoing your movies from now on. While I believe that any piece of art--be it book, movie, painting or what the heck ever--that causes an extreme reaction has some sort of redeeming quality, I have to dismiss that belief when my reaction is one of unrelenting anger at being gypped.

Seriously. I haven't been this pissy since I threw Hannibal by Thomas Harris in the dumpster after finishing it.

I hate Facebook

Let me start out by saying that I don't even have a Facebook account, not a personal one, not a business one, not one for the kittens. No Facebook for me. Why? I don't know. I'm kind of a hermit in real life. I'm a social introvert. There are many people I love and communicate with and even socialize with. I don't need to network socially. Something about Facebook just gives me a bad case of the nopes. Plus, the last thing I need is one more place to sign in every day and check to see what I'm missing. I can't keep up with everything now!

Then, I saw the movie The Social Network. It was a great movie. Beautifully written, sharply directed with great acting and fantastic music. But what a miserable bunch of people! Geez! To think that people with such terrible social skills created this social network that now connects millions of people. The only likeable character who seemed to be having fun was Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), and he was a paranoid charlatan, more or less.

I know, I'm the only person in America between the ages of eight and eighty-eight who doesn't have a Facebook page. And that's going to have to be okay. I don't answer my cell phone when I'm driving either.

Random things that are just a little too precious

Hello Kitty high end cosmetics for adults by MAC --

I can appreciate the dollar Hello Kitty chapstick from Target, but this is a bit much. Littlest Pet Shop creatures -- Their oversized heads and large eyes haunt me. Darren Criss on Glee -- I'm glad Kurt finally got a love interest, but Darren Criss may be part of the Littlest Pet Shop brigade. Elmo -- His voice makes my Gus cat leap at the television in a homicidal fit. I can relate. The Olsen twins -- Still too precious, even if they dress like they're 85 year old spinsters. The bunny from the Hop movie -- So, he's a drum-playing, pervy, Easter bunny to be? Ew. Justin Bieber -- The picture does the talking for me. Gummy vitamins for adults -- If you're old enough to buy your own vitamins, you're old enough to swallow a proper pill. And, last but not least, Rachel Ray --

She makes me wonder if I can build a molotov cocktail with extra virgin olive oil.

Movies: Suddenly, Last Summer

There are movies that you see when you're very young that stay with you throughout your life. Because I was kind of a strange child, none of mine were from Disney. My favorite childhood movies played on television on Sunday afternoons, and it just goes to show that some of your tastes develop early and stay with you throughout your life. I loved movies like Bonnie and Clyde. A strange little Rod Steiger serial killer movie. And Suddenly, Last Summer.

I saw Suddenly, Last Summer when I was about eight years old, and had no idea what the heck was going on. I didn't have to understand it to know that it was intense, interesting and mysterious. And to pick up on the personalities of three amazing actors at the tops of their games.

Katherine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. Seriously. In a Tennessee Williams play full of sexual tension. Here's the plot, without ruining anything. Monty plays a psychiatrist brought in by Hepburn to lobotomize her troubled niece, Liz. Why is Liz so troubled? Because suddenly, last summer, when she was on a vacation with Hepburn's son in Spain, Liz witnessed his tragic death. Only when I rewatched the movie years later did I finally understand what happened and why. It's still on my top twenty favorite movies of all time.

Liz Taylor passed away today. She was more than a style icon to me. She was the epitome of dark and glamorous beauty. Three of the movies that she made are some of my favorites of all time: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Suddenly, Last Summer. She took roles that were difficult and dangerous and made them her own. She lived her life the way she wanted to, even when it got messy. She gave time, energy and support to the charities that mattered to her. And she had violet eyes to die for.

"Truth is the one thing I've never resisted."

Thanks, Liz. You were an inspirational lady and a great broad.

Random babbling and scary movies that aren't at all scary

So, I've spent the last few days sorting through the boxes of vintage stuff. Lots of fun, and I find sorting stuff very calming because I am, after all, a Virgo. All kinds of groovy old jewelry in there, and I've just started listing it in my GUSsupply shop on Etsy. However, betwen this and work being super busy, I haven't had much time to do anything else. That includes making jewelry myself and attending to this poor, neglected blog. Unfortunately, it seems like when I get busy, this is the first thing to fall behind.

While playing in the giant pile of jewelry, I've been watching horror movies on DVD. I got Paranormal Activity 2 and The Last Exorcism. Both of these movies are supposed to be super scary. The Last Exorcism tried, but it made me laugh. I'm sorry. This genre really should have died after the original Exorcist. And I didn't like the first Paranormal Activity. The sequel didn't make me any happier. Both were entertaining enough background noise while I was putting jewelry into little plastic bags, though. Thank goodness I didn't pay to see them in a theater.

I promise to come back strong here soon. Until then, be happy!

Movies! Cape Fear

It just keeps snowing here in Ohio, so I've been watching a lot of movies and sulking. It seems like the adult way to handle bad weather. Also, I'm not getting a lot done because I've been smashing ice with a snow shovel for hours, and I'd like to apologize for neglecting my blog for days at a time. Someday the sun will come out, and we will all be happy, well-adjusted people again, full of life and laughter and love. Until then. . .

Let's talk about Cape Fear. The original was released in 1962, and starred Gregory Peck as the upstanding lawyer who is terrorized by obsessed and clever recent parolee Robert Mitchum. There's something undeniably steamy about Mitchum, isn't there? I think it's the eyes, the drawl and the attitude. Even here, where he basically plays the scum of the earth, he's still hot. Mitchum as Max Cady attempts to completely destroy Peck's life by going after his career, his wife, his daughter and even his dog. I can't imagine how shocking this movie must have been fifty years ago. The censors were all over this movie at the time, because of the implications that Cady was going to attack Peck's young teenaged daughter. The closing scenes where Peck and Mitchum battle for Peck's family are suspenseful and harrowing. In the 1962 version, the lines between good and evil, upstanding and sleazy are clearly defined. Mitchum is bad. Peck is good. Peck's wife and daughter are innocent players in this game of wits and strength. As one of Cady's victims says, "You're just an animal--coarse, lustful, barbaric. Max Cady, what I like about you is you're rock bottom."

Now, if you want to talk about the modern version of "coarse, lustful and barbaric," let's talk about the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, directed by one of my favorites, Martin Scorsese. Here we have Nick Nolte as the not so upstanding lawyer who buried important information about his client, Robert Deniro as Max Cady, fourteen years before. Nolte is at least partly responsible for Cady spending that time in prison. Jessica Lange plays Nolte's disillusioned, gorgeous and high-strung wife with flighty hands and suspicions about her husband's fidelity. And the amazing Juliette Lewis plays the fifteen year old daugther, a much different character than the 1962 version. Lewis almost steals the film from all of these seriously hard hitting actors. She's the perfect combination of innocence, curiosity, world-weariness and naked emotion. Cady partially infiltrates the family by connecting with the troubled Lewis, something that never would have happened in the 1962 version. There is a scene when Lewis first meets Deniro on a high school drama stage that is one of the most uncomfortably effective scenes I have ever seen. Scorsese does some strange visual things in this movie that border on surreality sometimes, nearly making it a fable. It's brutal and gorgeous and epic, right up to the cataclysmic finale that crushes every character back to complete destruction and hopefully rebirth after the credits role. Well, almost everyone has a chance at rebirth, with Lewis' haunting closing lines, "Because if you hang onto the past, you die a little every day. As for myself, I know I'd rather live."

These two films are fascinating social commentary when watched back to back. How much did morals and the family unit change in the thirty years between the two versions? And how did entertainment change? I'm sure the 1962 censors would have had heart attacks over the more recent Cape Fear. To have such a morally ambiguous hero, not to mention a darker and much less innocent daughter character, would have outraged them. Both versions are beautifully written, beautifully acted, suspenseful, disturbing for their times, and great paranoid, claustrophobic thrillers. And both, in their own ways, are testaments to the bonds shared by family members, and how those bonds become stronger and more meaningful when tested by brilliant agents of vengeance and evil.

Scary movies! A Nightmare on Elm Street

In 2010, the 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street was re-imagined and remade. Why? To completely drain the life and interest out of a horror movie classic. I'm not even saying that the original was a great movie. But it was a great horror movie. It had a spooky premise--if you go to sleep and dream, you can die in your dreams. It had a great villan--Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger of the first couple of movies, before he turned into a campy version of himself. It had teenaged victims--including the unbelievably yummy Johnny Depp. It was also a fairly low budget, grainy little movie, which added to its overall spookiness. And the original handled that "Is the character dreaming or is this real?" surreality very well.

The remake is bad. Truly, truly bad. I'm not sure why big studios keep remaking these low budget horror classics with huge slick budgets, because it completely sucks the soul out of the films. This version of Freddie Krueger has no personality, no sense of humor, and no charm, as strange as a word as that might be to use for Freddie. The remade Krueger's makeup pretty much renders him non-emotional, and he ends up being just a wooden villan with no personality. The dream sequences, and the idea of dreams and reality mixing and melding, are handled so badly in this version that the low budget original looks like Citizen Kane in comparison. Every scare in the remake is predictable and not scary, the acting is bad, the effects aren't convincing. . . I could go on and on.

I hated the remake of Halloween as well, not to mention all of the other "re-visioning" of horror classics that were originally made for twelve bucks. Here's a novel idea: How about we create and write new and fresh horror movies, and leave the classics alone? Because these kinds of movies really only scare you the first time.

Scary movies! Triangle

Well, this was a nice little surprise. Triangle is a 2009 Australian movie set in the US that examines time travel, or wormholes, or repetion as hell, or something.

Melissa George is Jess, a single-mom waitress with an autistic son, who decides to take a sailing trip with Greg and a group of his friends. While on this trip, an odd storm blows up, causing the boat to capsize, a ship arrives to apparently rescue the castaways, and things pretty much go to hell from there. Jess keeps having serious feelings of deja vu. The rescue ship seems to be haunted. There are seagulls everywhere. . .

A smart, unpredicatable little horror movie. I don't want to give away too much here, but the ending will surprise you. So will the middle for that matter. You may want to watch it twice, or just over and over in a circular fashion.

Movies! Cashback

Okay, don't let the poster deceive you. This is one of the sweetest, dreamiest movies I have ever seen. I'm not good at sweet movies. I tend to like dark movies that usually feature at least one dead body. So, if I like a sweet movie, it must be a pretty dang good sweet movie, right? Cashback, directed by Brit Sean Ellis, began as a 2004 short movie that won a bunch of independent film awards. Ellis then reimagined it as a full-length feature released two years later. The plot goes a little like this.

Ben is an art school student who experiences terrible insomnia after breaking up with his girlfriend. To pass his evening hours, he takes a job at a twenty-four hour grocery store with a motley group of co-workers. To escape the monotony of his job, Ben begins stopping time. Everyone and everything freezes while he is able to move about, sketching women in the aisles in various states of undress. This movie does have a great deal of female nudity, so if that offends you, this is a definite pass.

However, it's so romantic and beautifully shot. I just smiled while I was watching it. Plus, it has that English humor that always cracks me up. So, if you want to put the zombies and serial killers on hold for a night, check this one out. I think you might just fall in love with it.

Movies! JFK

JFK is Oliver Stone's 1991 examination of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 in Dallas. It stars Kevin Costner as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, the only person ever to bring someone to trial for the murder. Stone described the film as a "counter-myth" presented in the face of the accepted "fictional myth" put forth by the Warren Commission--that is, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.

Just to be up front here, I really don't care for Kevin Costner, and his performance in JFK is not good. A New Orleans accent is a tricky thing, and Costner's slips in, out, and all over this movie like a. . . penguin on an ice slide.

Yet, this remains one of my favorite movies of all time for two reasons: the supporting actors and the way it's shot and edited. With a cast including the amazing shapeshifter Gary Oldman as the possibly misunderstood Oswald, the over the top Joe Pesci as conspirator David Ferrie with glue on caterpillar eyebrows, and the always soigne Tommy Lee Jones as defendant Clay Shaw. In even tinier roles that matter are John Candy as a fast talking slimeball attorney in Ray Bans and the delicious Kevin Bacon as a fascist convict with a story to tell. Heck, even Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Ed Asner are in there. No wonder Kevin Costner looks less than effective.

As for the way this movie is filmed and put together--it won its only two Oscars for cinematography and editing. JFK is a crazy quilt of old footage, new film, little visual secrets and Easter eggs, and plain, old fashioned beautiful photography. I can't imagine how many miles of film were shot to put this together in such a gorgeous way. The way Stone plays with light, shadow, smoke and staging fascinates me. Every time I watch JFK, I see something new.

Is it historically accurate? Who cares! The movie is not filed under documentary. It's a fiction, a myth, a celebration of the paranoia of conspiracy theories, and a beautiful showcase for some damn fine character actors.

Scary movies! Them

Them is a French thriller/psychological horror movie released in 2006. A schoolteacher and her writer husband live in a country house in Romania. One evening, they receive a strange phone call, their car is stolen, and then they are menaced by intruders. Yes, we've seen this formula a million times. Someone breaks into your house and makes your life hell. But this movie was amazingly creepy.

It's shot pretty much in real time, once the action gets cooking, and has a realistic almost documentary feel to it. That docudrama thing can work for or against a movie, but here it really works. I think the fact that it was in French made it all the more eerie for some reason. The acting is quite good, and both the opening and closing sequences are surprising and chilling.

The movie I would compare it to sytlistically is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It doesn't have the same sweaty unpleasantness as Chainsaw, but it shares that shock and subversion.

Now I need to go lock my front door. . .

Movies! Fight Club

Fight Club. One of the most subversive, anarchistic, rebellious films made in recent history. With Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter and Meatloaf. Yes, Meatloaf. Norton is a car manufacturer employee who travels to accident sites to evaluate whether or not recalls are monetarily practical; he is Everyman with incurable insomnia and a fridge full of condiments; he is Jack with absolutely no hope. Pitt is Tyler Durden, a soapmaking barbarian idealist with great wit and great abs. Carter is Marla Singer, clothes thief, support group junkie and love interest with a Pebbles Flinstone goth ponytail. Meatloaf is Bob. And Bob is important.

Fight Club is one of those movies that makes you want to storm the Bastille, take over the world, punch strangers and blow up buildings. It's funny, smart and has a great soundtrack. Beautifully directed by the genius David Fincher, who sums it up like this: "We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore." Fight Club wants you to take apart society one bruise at a time. Fight Club says that all of your possessions, relationships and capitalist aspirations are garbage. And Fight Club makes you laugh while it's burning down your house.

Quotes:

"The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club."

"Only after disaster can we be resurrected."

"I am Jack's smirking revenge."

"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place."

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

"I felt like destroying something beautiful."

"The things you own end up owning you."

"We just had a near-life experience."

"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."

"Losing all hope was freedom."

"If I did have a tumor, I'd name it Marla."

Spooky movies! Halloween

The original Halloween, directed by John Carpenter, is a great spooky little movie. Made in 1978, it tells the lovely holiday story of Michael Myers, a fellow who slaughtered his sister on Halloween when he was six years old. After the murder, he was committed to an asylum, until he escapes on Halloween fifteen years later, returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, and goes about slaughtering babysitters willy-nilly.

Halloween was made for $300,000.00 in twenty-one days in California, and went on to make. . . $47,000,000.00. Forty-seven million dollars. They blew leaves through the set to make it look like fall in the Midwest. The mask worn by Michael Myer's is a William Shatner Halloween mask that they bought at a drugstore for $1.98. A two buck mask that launched one of the most successful franchises in history. Jamie Lee Curtis is fantastic as the survivor-type with a secret past, and Donald Pleasance just delightfully chews scenery. The second one is pretty good, but from there the movies pretty much go bad. I don't care for the remake done in 2007, but I'm not a big fan of Rob Zombie's movies, even if I do love his music.

I do have some questions, though. If Michael Myers was institutionalized and mute from the age of six on, how did he learn to drive a car? How does he know how to cut phone lines? I know, I know, he's The Shape that cannot die. The driving thing has always bothered me, though. Now that I think about it, this could explain some of the driving behaviors we sometimes see on the road.

Happy Halloween!

Spooky movies! An open letter to Jason Vorhees

Oh, Jason Vorhees, and your mama, and Corey Feldman, and whoever else killed camp counselors and other various townies in the Friday the 13th franchise. How I hate to admit that I love you, but I do. Your movies are so very bad, even if the first one has Kevin Bacon. You're so predictable, so not scary, and your characters are so badly written. Still, I can't help myself, and I allow you to play on the AMC channel on my television, and I enjoy you! Yes! I am not ashamed to say it. I enjoy you.

Hockey mask wearing, unkillable fellow with a fetish for sharp instruments.

I have an idea.

Obviously, you have some secret to eternal, regenerating life. You really need to figure out what keeps you ticking, despite being beheaded, buried and beset by maggots. Set on fire. Stabbed and run over and generally mutilated. Isolate that indestructible gene or cell or whatever.

Then, Jason, you bottle it! Yes, in a lovely little bottle with a pink label.

Next step: Either infomercial or QVC. Get some aging starlet--someone from the original Beverly Hills 90210 perhaps--to be your spokesmodel. Spokesmodel will never be your calling, Jason. Sell the stuff for $29.99 a bottle.

Give up the killing. Go for the marketing.

Camp Crystal Lake Anti-aging Anti-mortality Elixir.
We're going to be billionaires.

Random holiday weekend wrap up

Believe it or not, sometimes technology and I do not get along. Yesterday, I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner. They have some kind of flowering shrub or bush blooming at the corner of their house. (Yeah, I don't get along with plants very well, either. Trust me, it's either a bush or a shrub. With flowers.) The blooms were covered with three or four species of butterflies and moths, as well as several kinds of bees. It was absolutely amazing. There must have been thirty different buggies buzzing on these flowers. So, I got out my cell phone and took pictures. Yay! I made the phone camera work. I intended to download (or upload or something) these pictures onto my computer today so I could show them to you. Only, I can't get the phone and computer to talk to each other. I could take a picture with my regular camera of the phone picture on the phone screen, but it wouldn't have the same effect. After fifteen minutes of trying to convice the computer to converse with the phone, or vice versa, I admitted defeat and unhooked them. So, close your eyes and imagine the beauty of these lovely insects communing with each other, enjoying the late summer nectar of the flowers, because you will never ever get to see the wonderful pictures I took.

Today, I watched the 2009 movie, Julie and Julia. It's not really my kind of movie--no gangsters, decapitations or hauntings, but it was very sweet and smart, and I laughed a few times. Streep was so fun as Julia Child. Is there nothing she can't do? Overall, I found it quite inspiring, to be honest. These two women found their own ways, through their talents, charms and smarts, to make themselves happy and successful. I came away from the movie wanting to do something wonderful, so I guess that's a pretty great testimony for a fun little film.

And finally I've been listing vintage jewelry like a psycho in my GUSsupply shop on Etsy. It's only right that Gus should help, right? Here, he has turned an attached box lid into a sort of kitty settee, perfect for lounging and fluffing and overseeing whatever the heck Mama is doing in the shop that is Gus's namesake. He's as inspirational as Julie and Julia!

I hope your weekend was full of happiness and relaxation.

Movies! When the Levees Broke

On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast, I want to take a second here to talk about When the Levees Broke from 2006. I wrote a few weeks back about a couple of Spike Lee's movies, but I have to say that this documentary is his masterpiece. It's not an easy watch, but it's so beautifully shot and edited, and captures the enormous tragedy of this event perfectly.

The film consists mainly of news footage, still photos and interviews with the residents of Louisana and Mississippi who were effected by the storm and resulting flood. Spike Lee shows you the reality of what this storm and the failures of both the levees themselves and the government afterward did to the people of this area. It's an incredibly emotional work of history and of art, and the characters you meet along the way will stick with you.

Five years later, and we have mostly forgotten this disaster, the lives lost, and the people still impacted by what happened. I visited New Orleans a few years before the storm, and it struck me as a place full of magic, music and history, one of my favorite cities I have ever wandered. It doesn't get much better than this documentary, but make sure you have some tissues. You'll need them from beginning to end.