KING OF THE BATHTUB

KNOW BETTER LEARN FASTER

Okay so I know that there are things that need to be done, phone calls that need to be made, loans that need to be figured out, insurance that needs to be taken care of--

But on Friday I wore shorts and we started early so that on Saturday we could wake up early and play Angry Birds until it was time for breakfast (outside in the sunshine) then watch Attack of the Clones (awful, so so awful) and sort of do work until it was time for BBQ and beer, outside with my favorite people in this city, until we pass out exhausted and wake up to watch Revenge of the Sith (better, so much better!) and do lackadaisical work once again.

38 days until spring break, 67 days till finals. Not bad, not bad.

HE'S THE BEST

So why do you encourage these people? Because now she's had this success, she's had this work, she has this life, she has this family, she has this thing going, and now is when people like you have chosen well to say, 'Let's give this person another boost, let's give this person another boost to say keep going, because now life will come to you hard, like it's come to everyone that's lived long enough. It comes hard and it gets in the way of your career; it stops your career, it stunts your life — not necessarily your life, but it definitely will make your career go left. You show me an actor doing a shit movie, I'll show you a guy with a bad divorce. [Audience laughs.] Right? Right? [Looking around the room.] You know who I'm talking about.

I want the best for her because she's a lady. She acts like a lady, the women in her movies are ladies, they have strength and power and they're strong. Even the pole dancers in this latest movie have enough of themselves to call the lead actor a moron. As all you women should call your men this evening, I think, pole or not. So we'll give her a boost to say, go on, you've made it this far, push her out into the deep water, push her out into bigger and deeper films, more and more films. She has a beautiful eye. She has great taste in the people she chooses to work with. She's a kind and thoughtful director and editor and producer. She's all the things that we hoped we could be when we were like this.

--Bill Murray

So maybe this doesn't exactly fit my mood right now and maybe I've already blogged about this movie but when a clip like this shows up on your GoogleReader it's hard to ignore.

Yeah, still great.

YEP YOU GOT IT

Sunil knew nothing of the movie [Slumdog Millionaire] that ends with an airport-slum boy finding money, love, and fame. However, he might have recognized one of that movie's conceits: that deprivation may give a child a certain intelligence. The other conceit--that a child's specific miserable experiences might be the things to spring him from his deprivation--was the lie. It was the movie version of the electrified fence. The women who had been manicured and exfoliated and blown out would linger at the premiere past 1 A.M., then head to the after party at the JW Marriott. They could relax, not just because the film about the slum boy had a happy ending but because the boy's suffering had been part of the solution.

--Katherine Boo, Opening Night

WEREN'T YOU JUST A TINY BIT EXCITED?

I think Louis Garrel looks a lot like one of my favorite professors, so watching The Dreamers was an even stranger and sexier experience than expected.

OO-DE-LALLY OO-DE-LALLY

NOT YET DEAD

I don’t like to look at Penélope directly. It is too overwhelming.

--Woody Allen

HOW DO YOU CREATE ILLUMINATION AND AN ECSTACY OF TRUTH?

8. Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.

9. Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.

10. Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list: if possible, read Virgil's "Georgics", read "Hemingway's "The short happy life of Francis Macomber", The Poetic Edda, translated by Lee M. Hollander (in particular the Prophecy of the Seeress), Bernal Diaz del Castillo "True History of the Conquest of New Spain".

11. Follow your vision. Form secretive Rogue Cells everywhere. At the same time, be not afraid of solitude.

--About Werner's Herzog's Rogue Film School via Chris

EVERYONE ELSE IS REALLY BORING

See, I've always had this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call 'em kamikazes because, you know, they crash their plane, they're self-destructive, but they crash it into you, and you die along with them. And as soon as there's a challenge, as soon as there's very little chance of it working out, or no chance, or there's going to be hurdles or obstacles, something clicks into my mind. Maybe that's because I'm a writer, but some dramatic or aesthetic component becomes right and I go after that person--there's a certain dramatic ambiance, it's almost as if I fall in love with the person and fall in love with the situation in some way, and of course it has not worked out well for me, it has not been great, and um...

--Husbands and Wives

"There is only one sure means in life," Deasey said, "of ensuring that you are not ground into paste by disappointment, futility, and disillusion. And that is always to ensure, to the utmost of your ability, that you are doing it solely for the money."

--Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay



I am really loving this book. Conversely, I really wasn't a fan of 500 Days of Summer.

ALL OF A SUDDEN I MISS EVERYONE

A conversation with my parents reminded me of the afternoon that my family went to see Honey I Blew Up the Kids, and how I was so scared that my dad had to take me out of the movie theater. I felt unbelievably guilty that day for being childish and making my dad leave, and as we waited for my mom and sister to finish the movie, he bought me a pack of Fruit Stripe gum which I saved as a tiny token of his love for me.

While falling asleep I was thinking about the first night that I opened the front door to find Starbucks Boy on my porch, how thrilling it felt, and how I've been trying for over a year now to decouple that memory from Explosions in the Sky (a difficult task, as the mind is a funny thing).

Reading this, in which he writes "Looking back at it now I wonder how 22 year olds could have made each other so miserable," had me thinking of a late night-into-early morning argument in the summer of 2006, when I was so saddened and sickened and in love that I had to break from fighting to throw up. I haven't come anywhere close to feeling that way since, and morbidly miss being so engulfed in another person that it becomes physically painful.

Being home ignites strange emotions. Also, Reading Rainbow goes off air today. How sad is that?

TODAY I GOT MY THOROUGHEST GIRL WITH ME

Highly recommended:

01. Chambray (see 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5)
02. Figs from the tree in my aunt and uncle's backyard
03. Missy Elliott
04. Jay-Z
05. '03 Bonnie and Clyde (middle school memories)
06. Re-watching Bottle Rocket
07. A whistling puppy
08. OPI's "cab fare"
09. Anything yellow, really
10. The Salvation Army on 22nd and Market
11. Profi's Creperie
12. Stefanie Posavec's first chapters
13. Getting a ton of sleep

We are meant for each other and not meant for each other, it's a contradiction. I mean, in order to understand it you need a poet like my father, because I don't.

--Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Alternately.

I think, and anyone who has been in a relationship with me would probably agree, that I am Mia Farrow's character in Husbands and Wives, but with less of that being-good-at-getting-what-she-wants thing.

No matter how many books you read, there are some things in this world that you never ever ever ever ever fucking understand.

--Naked