pricciar | Entries tagged with movies

I made a roasted chicken this weekend. It was just a small one. It turned out really well. But, really the price of an uncooked chicken is approximately the same as the price they charge for the fully cooked chicken. So, economically it doesn't make sense to go this route. Still, it was an interesting experience. Even though, it was a small chicken I made stuffing for it. DO people usually do that? I have never even eaten stuffing before, let alone cooked it. What is it supposed to do? I figured it would give some flavor to the chicken, and also leach some flavor out of it. Anyway. I cooked up some garlic celery, carrots and andoullie sausage and stuck it in some bread crumbs and olive oil mixed it up and then stuck it very sexually into the chicken's waiting cavity. It turned out really well, I think.

I watched The Ringer yesterday. That movie was really sweet, and funny. It starred Johnny Knoxville as a schlub who needed money to pay for the former janitor Stavi's hand surgery. (Stavi played by the guy from Electric Company. I think we can all admit that this is exciting.) So, he decided to pretend to be retarded so he could win the Special Olympics and his Uncle would collect on the winnings and share them with him. Sure, it sounds stupid. Wait. It is stupid. But, it is still a sweet story. And, really funny.

This week's interesting foods that I have never tried to cook before are Hush Puppies and homemade french bread. I have high hopes. Also, I am going out to eat this week, but I don't know where, yet.

My birthday is coming really soon. So, if you have been thinking about getting me a present but were lacking for an occasion, well here is a perfect one.

I missed bookclub this week. I wasn't feeling great Saturday night and didn't get to bed til 5am. I woke up around 11 with a call from another person from the book club asking where we were meeting. My mind was a blank slate. I could not for the life of me remember the woman's name. Groggily, I said "Uhh. The nice woman." And, he started listing off names, until finally he hit upon the right one and I could go back to sleep aware that I forgot a name, but also aware that I did a good deed. Good for me.

Current Music: Regina Spektor - 20 Years of Snow

Idiocracy was enjoyable. A little bit uneven at times, but on the whole it was a fun satire on our consumer culture. Luke Wilson was excellent. I am pretty sure he always is. I can't remember seeing him in a movie that didn't make me laugh a bunch of times. The best thing is he creates comedy out of commonplace unfunny dialog. if other people said it, I wouldn't laugh. But, he just has a delivery that makes me laugh. He was great in it, as was the woman who I had never seen before. It was an interesting cast, with lots of big names in small parts. And, a semi Bottle Rocket reunion with both Bob and Rocketman in small roles. It doesn't have the relevance that propelled Office Space to a cult classic. So, I think Idiocracy will just be a funny movie that Judge made, instead of a movie that everyone has quoted at least once in their lives. But, still fun. And, I am not sure why Fox did such a bad job distributing it. He doesn't seem to have good luck in getting movies into theaters. We'll see what he does next time.

I made chocolate chip cookies on Sunday and went the extra decadent step of crushing potato chips into little pieces and sticking them into the cookies. If you think that is a bad idea you have no idea what you are talking about, because they wound up being delicious. It's nice to bake when it's so cold out. Last night I made up a tuna casserole (I never made that before) and it turned out pretty tasty. It was just an effort to get rid of the extra minestrone veggies, but, it was a worthy effort.

I talked to my friends Pat and Jen this week and got some really exciting news. I am hoping that I can go out and see them at some point this summer. Actually, starting to think about my plans for the summer now. Fun speculation, hopefully, I can make most of it come true.

Here are a couple of pictures from a hike I took last week up to Inspiration Point.

Here's the view from the top at sunset. It was a bit cloudy so we couldn't see the comet, but it was still a nice hike.

And, here we are down near the bottom. I can't for the life of me, take a picture with my camera's night setting without shaking a little bit and making everything blurry. I don't know what that's about. So, this is the best I could do.

Current Music: XOXOXO - Fornicate

Thanks to

santabarbara I finally got off my ass and went swimming this weekend. It was a lot of fun, and if I have time at the end of the day today I am going to repeat the activity. I mostly just doggy paddled because I couldn't remember how to swim. Every time I started to do some sort of freestyle swimming I would get very clumsy and start sinking. I wish I could blame the waves, but it's been so long since I swam I can't remember how to do it right. How shameful. In any case underwater swimming (as long as I keep my mouth and eyes closed) and doggy paddle are fun enough. There was lots of seaweed. But, it all is close the beach once you get out in the water it isn't so bad. There was also two jellyfish. But, they didn't sting me.

Sideways was one of the Netflix movies I watched this weekend. The hype from people who have seen this movie, and Payne's previous films made me excited about Sideways. It was a great movie. I can see why everyone went on and on about it. It has stuck with me for several days. The funny scenes, the characters, and the undercurrent of depression. The characters, while difficult to like, stayed with me. The things they did, the way they talked, the things they said. All combined to make me want the movie to keep going, even if I despised their actions. I have to admit to a small amount of disappointment, simply in comparison to Election and About Schmidt. Perhaps the subject matter while depressing in both of those films, was a little bit easier to watch since it didn't hit close to home. Single guys in their 30s in Santa Barbara County? Hey! Like me. I am not so wine obsessed, though. Oh, plus there was one obvious weird geographic error. They put the rincon south of Oxnard! Crazy.

Slackergirl came to visit this weekend on her way home from a pornstar wedding. It was fun. She told stories of Tiger Wood's locker room and trying to thieve his golf clubs. And, I ate her Dargan's fish and chips. Which were very good. But, not as good as Shepard's Pie.

Tonight is a book club meeting. We are talking about a Larry McMurtry book called Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. It is sort of his biography amongst a lot of his thoughts about books, writing, and reading. It was ok. His writing style was easy to read, and pretty interesting. But, I thought some of his theories were silly. Like the west never produced a great novelist because the camera was introduced and people didn't need to describe Yosemite in great detail since pictures were being taken. And, he goes over a list of famous novelists who stayed in San Francisco. A glaring lack of mention of John Steinbeck. Anyway. It was an enjoyable book, I just don't know how good it will be for discussion purposes.

Speaking of fun books I got Assassination ~~Nation~~ Vacation from the library. I look forward to reading it. I might save it for September's plane trip, though. It seems like a good plane book.

Current Music: Belle & Sebastian - Seymour Stein

I went to see The Animation Show tonight. Fun people and fun movies. It was a big crowd, too. Especially considering that they had two shows of it. I am glad I got a chance to see the actual show. I have been lurking at the Animation Show forums off and on for about a year now. I don't know much about animation, but it is fun to read what true aficionados have to say, as well as the animators. Their forums, as well as Animation Nation have the real people involved in the day to day making of shorts, and feature films. Really cool to read things from their perspective. I think it is an under appreciated art form. Especially, the animated short. There isn't enough of an opportunity for people to see animated shorts. And, when they do see them people either expect them to be really funny (which they can be. Hilarious.) if not just for kids. I think deeper messages can be put across with animation, as well as any other form of expression. The show was great. I will try to write a quick write up of each short as much as I remember of each. Actually, to save myself some typing time - I would say this about all of the films. I am absolutely amazed that these things get made. The amount of work and skill behind them all is unbelievable. Not even thinking of the drawing skill, which is considerable. The camera work and the score featured in these small productions works together as well, if not better than some full length films.

This is just in the order that I click on the link at the website. And, by the time I get to the end I will probably be pretty tired so it will be something like. "It was good. Um. And stuff."

Hello

A story about a shy boombox who is trying to work up the courage to talk to his MP3 player neighbor. The character design is what really made this one stand out for me. He was able to pull out full moods using the facial expression and body language of each character. In less than 10 minutes and with no actual dialog (aside from musical interludes that ranged from touching to hysterical.) he put together an engaging story that had a satisfying ending.

Guard Dog

OH man. This one was probably the funniest of the night. A guy takes his dog out for a walk and we get to see into the dog's imagination and find out why everything he barks at poses such a threat to his owner. This was made by Bill Plympton who apparently is a legend to younger animators. I remember his stuff being popular on MTV a few years ago. Some of it I found a bit dry, but this was really good. The same sort of drawing style, just a bit more laugh out loud funny.

The F.E.D.S

The F.E.D.S animation swam. Facial features never stayed in the same place, and perspective seemed to move from frame to frame. It reminded me of bits of Waking Life. I know my roommate found it offputting- but I liked it. The F.E.D.S were Food Education Demo Specialists. Talking about their work and the customers they dealt with. Going by the end credits it looks like these were real people talking about their jobs - which makes it a bit more fun.

Fallen Art

This one has it's politics out on it's sleeve. It was good. The story was interesting and the animation was well done and cool to look at. But, I didn't care much for the design of the characters.

Rock Fish

They were able to convey a real personality with the main character of Rock Fish. A well done computer animated human. They were able to convey comic book heroism and tough guyness without using a voice just with a well designed character and some action movie cliches. Aside from what I thought was a really well done human this one left me a little bit dry. Now, they were able to use the cliches to draw a full character out of the main character. They relied on them too much, so on a whole the short felt more like a reel made to sell the company's skills (which I am sure it is.) than an actual short story.

Pan With Us

I think this is the one that I most need to see again. There are plenty that I want to see again, but this one I need to see again because there is so much going on. Dozens of animations rolling across the screen as someone reads a poem by Robert Frost. Being illiterate, I of course have never read the poem. So, I was really enjoying it. But, I became distracted (in a good way) by the images on the screen so I was unable to pay attention to both. I chose the images. This time.

The Meaning of Life

Reading about how this was made makes it sound even more amazing, and I was already impressed by some of the visuals in this short. There is a section of the film where we pan back from the earth and then the solar system and the screen is filled with stars. The stars put off so much light that you can see beams of light stretching across the theater from each star. It's an amazing affect that meshes well with the amorphous stick figures Hertzfeldt (I met him. So, I can call him Don.) uses to convey evolution, life, and possibilities of life. I am sure I missed a bunch. I liked this one a lot. But, as it was the last one, and Campbell Hall doesn't have the most comfortable chairs my butt was starting to hurt, so I was not giving my utmost attention. I might have missed bits. Really surprised to learn that it was all hand drawn, though. That's incredible.

Ward 13

Ward 13 made me extremely excited about the upcoming Wallace and Gromit movie. Ok. Sure Ward 13 is a little bit creepier. .. ALOT creepier. But, similar styles. So, it had me thinking about Wallace and Gromit - thats a good start for anything. This was a creepy action movie short with plenty of twists and turns and broad comedy. I think this might have been my favorite of the night. Top 2 or 3 for sure.

When the Day Breaks

Oh yeah. When the Day Breaks was fun. I think it did the best job of having a dramatic story, and being funny at the same time. It reminded me a bit of a Carver short story. It asked as many questions as it answered and it told a story by showing and hinting at emotions and not going outright and banging us over the head. In this one little story there was a ton of other little stories that branched out like a city's electrical grid. The design on this also made me realize how much more interesting house fixtures from the past are. All of the kitchen and bathroom fixtures looked like they are from the 50s or earlier and just looked interesting. While, thinking about the sort of thing that goes standard into a house nowadays. It doesn't seem like it would make for a visually interesting anything.

In all the show really turned a bad day into a good day. Hopefully, tomorrow can be a good day without the aid of animation. And then friday? Beercicles.

Current Music: Three O'Clock - The Girl with the Guitar (Says Oh Yeah)

We went to the zoo on Saturday and I got to give the digital camera a good test run. I haven't found a place online to put the images, yet. I am thinking of getting a paid account at Flickr so I can have unlimited uploads. Has anyone done that? Is it worth it? The camera is terrific! I was able to get some really fun pictures. The zoo, as always, was fun.

mays_rays went, and she tried to take the capybara home. It was sort of embarrassing, I mean I am a MEMBER not just some hoi poiloi who visits the zoo! The zookeeper allowed us to stay just told us not to try to bring any more animals home. We stayed and saw more fun animals, and had our picture taken in the little booth.

Yesterday I went down to LA and saw March of the Penguins with Morphy. It was well worth seeing. Incredibly beautiful stark shots of the penguins surrounded by ice snow and other penguins. Morgan Freeman's narration never got in the way of the images and did a good job describing what was going on. The entire movie I was watching enjoying it and asking myself "How the hell did they film this?" Luckily, at the end they showed some clips of the filming. Surprisingly, it wasn't robots. It was real live humans in heavy jackets. Amazing.

We went to dinner at a really crowded and fun Mexican place. I, personally, ate like an animal. Maybe, not as interesting. Atleast the giraffe has a neat looking tongue. The food was so good, though. And, to make the food taste even better we were surrounded by beautiful women. I tried to stop myself from staring, but sometimes that's impossible.

I had a great weekend. Lots of fun sightseeing, and driving around and movie watching.

Current Music: Of Montreal - Forecast Fascist Future

I watched a few movies this weekend. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Bruce Almighty, and The Fog of War.

Harry Potter was better than I remembered it. Lots of fun little jokes and great special effects. The quidditch match was especially well done. A great movie to eat pizza and watch.

Bruce Almighty is perhaps the worst movie that has ever starred Morgan Freeman. The music was terrible, the acting was terrible, the writing was terrible, Jim Carrey was terrible. I tried to watch the whole thing. I really did. But, 45 minutes of wanting my eyeballs to stop working to save myself from the pain was enough and I yanked it out of the DVD player and tried to force a bobcat to eat the DVD. This was a popular multimillion dollar movie. There is no excuse for music that didn't change from scene to scene (Until old pop songs started to get used in the most cliched ways possible.) There were scenes in the movie that started off mildly funny and went on so long that noone could have possibly still been laughing. At one point Jennifer Aniston is watching It's a Wonderful Life. "YES! A movie that effectively shows someone who has lost faith and heaven's dealing with. A movie that is full of sap, but still well made. A movie that doesn't force me to get violent! Thanks for reminding me, and for showing how awful this crap is." It was soon after that I took it out.

Fog of War was excellent. Errol Morris makes fantastic documentaries. This was no exception. My sole complaint about his film is that he had only one person to interview. This was Robert McNamara speaking for a couple of hours. Morris kept it engaging, and McNamara was an interesting person. I prefer Morris' previous documentaries that flit from person to person creating a full story from little pieces of story. If you are looking for a documentary Fog of War is worth watching. But, The Thin Blue Line and Fast Cheap and Out of Control are far far more enjoyable.

Aside from the movies I had a pretty fun weekend. Found an authentic french crepe place in Santa Barbara on Saturday. It was tres delicious. (See! French!) We also went to the Farmer's Market and I have peaches now. Got my bike totally fixed and I took a 20 mile bike ride. And I found out for sure that my camera is shipping. I cannot wait! It should get here on Tuesday.