To Be Young Again

I am once again a 14 yr. old girl.

How did I end up in this state you may ask? The answer: I went and saw Penelope tonight. Now most of you are probably wondering why I would do such a thing. I, disliker of all things chick flick (with a few exceptions), willingly went to this movie. It was my suggestion. Here's why...



That's right. Once again, James McAvoy makes me do silly things. I'd prefer it if James would make me do naughty, naughty things, but his wife would probably have issues with that scenario. Penelope tells the story of a family curse that makes the next daughter born have a pig nose. Thanks to her already quirky beauty, Christina Ricci makes that nose look darn cute, but it's actually supposed to be a bit more disturbing. The only way to lift the curse is if one of her kind loves her for who she is till death do they part.

Armed with that sort of info, her mother hires a matchmaker to help the family find "one of her kind." Penelope is just a step above a teen age fairy tale. It actually would make a good mother/daughter film. There's no violence, virtually no bad language and just a bit of snogging at the very end. It has moments of funny and extra props go to the art department for the design of Penelope's world. Her room is great...part real, part fairy tale. As mentioned, Ricci's quirkiness helps her inhabit this weird sort of world with ease. McAvoy is solid as always, bringing a gentle sweetness to his part without becoming too much. Penelope is a nice, light film with enough laughs and good acting to pull through some of the weak and obvious spots in the script.

To continue on the subject of movies, I read today that HP/Deathly Hallows will be made into two movies. While it will be tough to wait between films, I know I couldn't figure out how they were going to condense the book. There just isn't anything that you can cut out. David Yates, who directed Order and is currently filming Half Blood Prince, will be doing the final two films. They will be shot at the same time, but their releases will be a few months apart. Right now, it's looking like Nov. 2010 and May 2011. In other David Yates news, his amazing BBC mini-series State Of Play has finally come out on DVD and I strongly recommend watching it.

And to wrap it up, I finally got around to watching 3:10 to Yuma. I'm not much of a Western movie fan so I wasn't rushing to see this one. It wasn't too bad. As I was viewing it, I instantly thought "this is a guy's chick flick." You know who all the characters are, you know how it's going to end, you know who is going to turn out to have a heart, you know the guy who usually is incompetent will do something heroic then promptly die...you get the picture. I did enjoy watching Bale and Crowe and the cinematography was really well done.

Well, next week is vacation and the NCAA tourney so I'll try and update here and there. I definitely won't be driving too many places during my break. Seriously, $3.45 for a gallon? Ouch.

Ghosts

Never one to shy away from an experiment, Trent Reznor seems to have entered his Brian Eno phase. Okay, maybe not quite Eno, but the latest release from Nine Inch Nails is all instrumental. Set into the world via the website (or Amazon when the site servers crashed from the strain of soooo many people trying to download--f*ck you Oprah and your online book club!!), Ghosts I-IV is much as Reznor himself described. It is a soundtrack to a daydream. A really flippin' long daydream, but a dream none the less.

I was unsure if I would enjoy it, not being into instrumentals myself. Not to mention my concern that I would miss Reznor's voice and all it conveys. I'm pleased to report, that this thing pretty much kicks ass. Or at least, the half that I have gotten through does. There is everything from recognizable piano and guitar to strange squidges, buzzes and other sounds that are both known and unknown. All together they create a hypnotic, but never dull mix. Trent has mentioned on his site that there may be more where this came from, and freed from his record label, I'm sure it will continue to be distributed in this fashion. Allegedly, NIN and Radiohead will be two of the headliners at this year's Lollapolooza in Chicago. I'm not sure how this record will transfer into a live performance, let alone one in such a setting. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

On a side note, I had planned to do a big thing about this weekend's upcoming Duke/Carolina game. But, after reading about the murder of the NC student body president (a really tragic event), discussing such a rivalry seems a bit trivial. It will be an emotional day for the guys from NC, and while I still want Duke to win, I'm hoping that fans from both teams will be able to bond through a shared appreciation of life and how fragile it is.

Seriously, enough already

I called off sick. Again. This time the culprit was a 24 hr. flu virus. Apparently the illness spread like the plague through my family following my nephew's birthday party on Sun. Nothing like waking up at 2:30am and throwing up about once an hour until around 1pm. I returned to work today with no energy and was mocked by our cleaning lady. That's the last time I help her toss garbage into the dumpster.

Quick question: why is it people who feel the need to share their desire for you to know God also feel the need to break the law while doing it? Today I got to read a paragraph telling me about how great God is while using the ladies (stall 3 if you are wondering). Bad enough that the little mantra ended with a smiley face (grrrrrr), but the person who wrote the diatribe is an idiot. Here is how she spelled reason: resone. Here's hoping there is no spelling quiz at the pearly gates.

Cool

I want one.

Congrats to Coach K for career win 800. With the way Duke was playing for most of the game, I didn't think it was going to happen yesterday. I will say this year's team doesn't seem to get spazzy in tough situations. They just couldn't hit a basket to save themselves, esp. during the first half. Coming soon--THE re-match. Can't wait till Sat.