I am screaming and punching myself

The soundtrack to the movie of my life

I totally hijacked this meme from my darling Gabriel at Modern Fabulousity because I was enchanted by the idea. Here's how it works:

1. You're given a list of scenes, from opening credits to end credits, each of which must have a song.
2. Open iTunes and set it to shuffle.
3. Hit play and see what pops up for each scene.
4. Make up a title and pick a cast.

So, here's my cast:

• Angelina Jolie as me (oh, like you didn't see that one coming)
• Ewan Macgregor as Jason
• Helen Mirren as my mom
• Greg Dulli as himself

I hope the "Children" aren't Kate's future

I tried to summarize the plot of Little Children in an attempt to get my best friend Felicia to go with me: "It's about adultery in suburbia... and... a pedophile comes to town?" I had only the barest grasp of the plot, but it was pretty much correct. As it turned out, though, I found the pedophile part of the story far more interesting, moving and rewarding than the adulterers. Awards season makes you type some damn weird sentences.

For instance, here's a sentence I thought I'd never type: I was totally disappointed in Kate Winslet's performance and even felt a little embarrassed for her in parts.

Won't someone think of the "Children"?

Although I find children unnerving, I'm the first to admit they're pretty necessary. After all, somebody's got to keep the world going and buy me booze and cheese fries after I'm too decrepit to do it myself. While the prospect of a world without children does sound almost enchanting at times (say, during cross-country flights or while grocery shopping), contemplating a future where the human race would simply die out like a snuffed candle is an exercise in despair.

 

So I knew going into it that Children of Men would be pretty bleak. What I didn't know is how utterly amazing it would be.

Princess Diana in THE QUEEN

[My entry in the Supporting Actress Blog-a-Thon hosted by the divine StinkyLulu.]

No, I'm almost serious here. When I looked back over the best performances by actresses in supporting roles in the past year, I found myself drawing a blank. There are two main reasons for this:

1. I live in southeastern Virginia. We can't have nice things here, and that often includes films that don't involve explosions or Adam Sandler. Almost half of the films with critical buzz haven't even opened here yet, or they played at the one artsy theater in the region for a few days. I sometimes wonder if this area is so jacked up because Pat Robertson is headquartered here, or if he decided to base his operation here because it's such a jacked-up area. We may never know.

2. I am an asshole. I have ridiculously high criteria, considering that I haven't seen (or, in many cases, had the chance to see) quite a few of the films that have generated so much supporting-actress buzz. So even though there were quite a few good and great actresses in supporting roles this year, I can't quite bring myself to bestow the "best" accolade on them. Let's look at a few.

I had a dream; I had an awesome dream

I'm not a big fan of musicals, especially movie musicals. I've never seen an episode of American Idol besides the awful-audition shows and I don't really dig that oversinging-the-standards school of vocal music. Lately, I have begun to suspect that Beyonce is a dead-eyed homicidal cyborg.

And I freaking LOVED Dreamgirls!

How to almost ruin "A Christmas Story"

Jason and I managed to catch most of A Christmas Story on AMC yesterday and had a lovely time re-watching it. It had been a few years since either of us had seen it; we'd both gotten a little burned out by the marathon showings of previous years. But the writing holds up, as do the performances, so it was quite enjoyable to see it again. There was just one little thing bothering me.

(Photos from the Christmas Story fan site Flick's Tongue... more about that later.)

Her? (Golden Globes edition)

The Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning, and some of the nominees (and non-nominees) are real head-scratchers for me. I was a little surprised to read that Eastwood was nominated for best director twice, that Apocalypto was nominated for "foreign language picture" (does it count as a foreign language if nobody speaks it anymore -- and why are we rewarding Mel Gibson again?), and that Evangeline Lilly, Renee Zellweger and Beyonce were nominated for anything.

How else can 2 months' salary and a severed hand last forever?

Of all the irritations of the holiday season, the one that picks my nit the most (besides traffic, of course) is the prevalence of diamond ads and all the ickiness they either imply or proclaim outright. "You can buy love!" the ads all but state, with a nasty undercurrent of "Women can be bought... and you know what that makes them!"

"Mildred! I finally saved up the five large for some bling! Now can I hit it?"

Meme me up, Nathaniel

My horrible, wonderful friend Nathaniel at The Film Experience is doing a charming kind of round-robin survey where he challenges some of us bloggers to answer a baker's dozen questions about movies and the act of watching them. I'm so grateful to him for including me in this; blog inspiration is hard to come by in these post-Flavor of Love, post-Project Runway, NaNoWriMo times.

I'm passing this baton to MaryAnn, Rich, Gabriel and Vern, all of whom I expect will have very different things to say (including "Dammit, woman, I have no time for this!").

Giant Sucking Sound: Ensemble acting in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"

Get yer garlic out, it's Vampire Blog-a-Thon time! Nathaniel at The Film Experience will spend the day compiling blog entries on vampire films. Check TFE for updates and more posts as the day progresses. Here, I give you my thoughts on the wretched ensemble acting that is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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My dad and I had a theory about how to tell whether bad behavior was due to an individual or an organization. We figured one jerk was a jerk, two jerks was a coincidence and three jerks was a policy. A similar parallel can be drawn for bad film performances. One bad performance is bad acting; two is bad casting; three or more is bad directing. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, just about every performance is bad to one degree or another, meaning it's a case of bad acting, casting and directing. Trifecta!

Oh, put it away, Gary.