I Go To Premieres and Shit

Here is a still from Bubblerama, MY (first) MOVIE:



The premiere at the MCA last night was super glam and my friend Liz told me I looked so Hollywood which made me very happy since it was exactly what I was going for. I figure, you know, when in Rome... no one needed to know my Hollywood outfit was a top from Forever 21 and a very last minute belt that was actually a necklace and a pin, which looked very cute until I attempted, um, moving, at which time it kept falling off.

But enough about my outfit.

The movie is awesome. It's based on this crazy story I wrote, called Stealer. There are some amazing (and surreal) images in the film but I don't want to give too much away since I think it will be more widely available for your viewing pleasure soon (stay tuned). There were twizzlers in the theater and the party was fancy and fun and they served yummy small food like tiny burgers, tiny milk and cookies, and tiny soup with tiny grilled cheese. And there were gift bags! With bubbles and cookies and champagne - we donated ours to a very, very excited homeless lady on the street. (This could be a whole separate post...) Check out the website again, on the link above - there's some cool stuff there, including an interview with the adorable and sweet actors (watch closely for a clip from the film in there featuring ME) who were so so so great and perfect, and you can also send an email message to a friend from 'the doll' (although the voice is computer-generated and not the helium-goodness in the film).

Yep, this is how we roll. I'm just glad this is only how we roll sometimes, because if we rolled like this every day I would roll through life dazed and spaced out from all the excitement, which keeps me awake at night. I would be willing to roll like this slightly more often though, if it keeps paying the rent.

The Lost Baldwin

This morning we met a French bulldog at the park.

He tried to bite Percy's ears.

His name is Daniel Baldwin.

What, you want more?

Kid Nation

Okay, I care about kids. I don't have any but I am pro-taking care of them.

And I think Kid Nation is my new favorite show. I almost cried like six times.

The clip here on Gawker, might or might not prove my point. But in fact, these two kids were really great, even though the shaggy haired little boy decided to go home, and I love that moment where the older girl comes to take care of Jimmy.

And that little girl ended up being really glad she stayed - she toughed it out and felt really proud of herself. There was also another girl, a fifteen year old named Sophia, who rocked it - totally stepped up.

Is the show contrived, is it sort of Survivor for little kids except no one gets booted off and they have food and roofs over their heads? Yes. Are these kids really great? I think they are. Check it.

Ben Moments

The other night Ben walked out of the bedroom in a very odd, squiggly fashion - I thought maybe he had tripped. I said, What was that?

He said, That was my straightening out the rug dance, and then he performed it again.

This morning, Ben said, This book is awesome! I thought he was still reading The Devil in White City. He said, No, The Theory of Mouldings!

Love Lift Us Up To A Higher Place

Not sure if I've mentioned our singing habits around here, but they include making up words to existing songs, making up entire songs around things like frozen foods ("Mini Beef Tacos"* is a classic) and other less romantic things. Also, Ben tends to sing falsetto pretty much always.

Yesterday he was singing the theme to Officer and a Gentelman in the aforementioned falsetto, thusly:

"Love lift us up where we belong
to a higher place
to the Asian race."

There were more lyrics after this that also rhymed with ace, and some of them were pretty funny, I'm pretty sure outer space was in there too, but I forgot the rest because I was still back on Asian race. Because - it seems like it almost means something... but it really doesn't.

*Mini beef tac-ohhhs
mini beef ta-cohs.
Repeat

Year of the Dog is Not a Comedy

I have never been able to hack it when bad things happen to animals in the movies.



When I was ten and saw Gone With the Wind for the first time, the only time I cried during the movie is when a horse drops dead from exhaustion.

So, in spite of knowing the basic storyline of Year of the Dog in advance of seeing the movie, I completely lost it when the bad thing happens near the beginning. I don't mean I got verklempt. I mean that kind of sloppy wheezy sobbing.

We have a dog now, as you know.

And he was curled up at our feet as we were watching this sad, not a comedy movie, and I just, okay he's a puppy still he's not a year and a half old really, but this dog in the movie was a puppy and bad things happen but I would seriously just die if any bad thing happened to our dog so I don't really even know why we're talking about it.

It's a good movie, by the way. And there are one or two funny things in it. But it's just not a comedy.

If I Could Get My Cash Back, I Would, But I'd Settle Instead For My Time

Ben and I watched this movie Cashback last night, which initially had a little promise, slowly became weird, and then became downright disturbing.

And let me say this about that: I am not easily disturbed. Not by movies, anyway. What disturbed me about this film was not what it was but what it pretended to be.

Briefly, this movie is supposed to be an arty/quirky indie film, a romantic - comedy? - of sorts that focuses on the an art student who had a bad breakup with his girlfriend. Early on it seems sort of gloomy, and as they're developing the breakup story there is some insanely heavy-handed orchestra music that seems like it got lost on it's way to the climax of an Oscar-nominated biopic. At this point, Ben and I are just in the "What the hell?" stage of watching. There was another sequence - I don't know what the film-techie word for it is, but it's that thing where one object (in this case, the art-kid) is moving in slow-motion and everything else is moving fast - and it's just - I'm sorry, but it was cool the first time I saw it but I just kept thinking - I LOVE movies that are creative and artful (I'm in the LOVED IT camp on The Science of Sleep) but I've seen this more than once before and at this point - you know - a great story doesn't require a lot of special effects, and all this so-called artiness was doing was just calling attention to the unoriginality of all of it.

It begins to take a turn for the more comedic when the sensitive art-student guy (who of course has a horny best friend) goes to work on the night shift at a supermarket, where we're introduced to a quirky cast of characters such as you might see on The Office - no, wait, such as you have already seen on The Office. And then the art student guy suddenly becomes taken with one of his co-workers, as indicated in the locker-room scene where he tries to help her get a bit of food off her face, which has only been done in about sixty other romantic comedies and/or sitcoms. Oh and there was one more bit that was dowright creepy - art kid finally wins supermarket girl with his debut gallery show - that's all portraits of her. Okay, in real-life, we call that stalking. My husband - my husband - has maybe drawn four or five pictures of me in as many years. This movie takes place over the course of a few weeks.

But mostly (can you believe I'm not even up to the mostly yet?), this movie got under my skin because of this: art guy talks a lot about how beauty has always meant a lot to him - beauty here being indicated by lots of lingering, slow-motion shots of perfect breasts and asses, and when I say lots, I mean - so many that it becomes offensive on multiple levels. One being that the point could have been made with, say, one or two pairs of breasts, but another being that the 'beauty' being discussed is pretty much a porn-magazine conception of beauty - round, pert boobies, flat bellies, round high, asses. I have the sense that the slow-motion was intended to make this 'artistic', but I'm not having it.

Tying this back to Showgirls, as much as I've heard that film was trying to be arty, it fails so spectacularly on that front, that the humor value is well worth it, and, more importantly, I am completely fine with a movie titled 'Showgirls' having a whole bunch of bare breasts in it. Cashback, not so much. Arty filmmaker, whoever you are, I'm sorry to harsh your mellow, I often save my negative reviews for my private life, but you lost me at beauty. Give me Russ Meyer any day.