apparently actors furloughed by the writers' strike also need to mail stuff

Waiting in the insufferably long line at the Los Feliz post office just now I noticed Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy fame two spots ahead of me in the queue. Wow, he's hot in person, wearing prescription glasses and stubble.

Even though this is my post office, I never actually go in since the wait for window service is always long, but the more convenient branch had already closed for the holiday. Don't you just love coincidences like that?

it should come as no surprise

That I've been spending most of the week at the movies. Let's recap:

On Monday, I saw 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, which is the Romanian movie that won the Palme D'Or at Cannes this year as well as some other accolades. The stuff that wins such prestigious awards. Bor-ring. Do we really have to watch every detail of these people's day? It reminded me of the lauded, but equally boring, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, also Romanian.

On Tuesday, Christmas Day, I was determined to keep up my tradition of going to the movies. I couldn't last year since I was in London and everything shuts down on Christmas there. Seriously, public transit does not run and nothing is open save a few Indian and kebob restaurants. Anyway, I made sure to finish Atonement (the novel) so I could go see the movie again. I rarely see movies twice in the theater, so that should tell you how highly I regard this movie. Definitely the best of the nine movies I've seen in eleven days. Probably the best I've seen this year. I also think the movie is better than the book, but I could imagine that if you read the book before the movie, it would have a very powerful impact.

On Wednesday, I went again to Arclight to see There Will Be Blood, only playing in NYC and LA, and here, only at Arclight on three screens! I saw it in their largest auditorium, which was a treat, because I do think it's something to see on the big screen. There are some great shots of landscape and the immense scale of drilling for oil in rural outposts. I was glad to see that the battle wasn't really the simplistic good vs. evil, but instead capitalism vs. evangelicalism. Of course there are other things going on, but I think the trailer is pretty accurate in showing you who the main rivals are. Daniel Day-Lewis was incredible, as to be expected, but don't discount young Paul Dano. It was also surprisingly funny in parts.

Yesterday I ventured all the way to Encino to see Persepolis, which is the autobiographical graphic novel turned animated French film of an Iranian girl growing up in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. I enjoyed it. The most interesting part was perhaps her time in Vienna before returning to Iran (where she left again for Paris), because of the trying time she had there.

I've pretty much run out of things to see that I have much interest in. I think I might finally drag my butt to see Lars and the Real Girl for $3 today. It's near Canter's and I want a rye bread, anyway. I have no idea what I'm going to do this weekend. Maybe I'll finally go see Enchanted, but it's been out so long I feel silly going now. I tend to go right when things open, if you hadn't noticed.

i still hate myspace

But I did finally get the Superdrag page to load the music player. I'm happy now. Man, I hope this means they're going to record a new album. It's just two 4-tracks, but man, it's good ol' Superdrag, especially "I Only Want a Place I Can Stay."

It's been so long since I've bothered with MySpace that I noticed the change in the music player. I like that you can pop it out into its own window.

I think I'm going to go make a mix CD that I can tape for the car. Yeah, I'm all low tech. It's because the damn car adapter for my iPod shuffle never works. It did for like five days two years ago.

charlie wilson's war is funnier than walk hard

Yeah, that title isn't a joke. Of course, is it any surprise that I would find more humor and satisfaction in a historical, political film rather than one that relies too much on the sound of the guy's last name for laughs?

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story just isn't that funny. It's all in the trailer. The main problem with the film is that in its effort to make fun of the silly, trite, boring biopics of musicians, it becomes one with a wink and a nod. John C. Reilly turns in an excellent performance, but that's not enough to redeem the film overall. It's not bad, it just isn't as funny as the trailer would lead you to believe.

My biggest beef with Charlie Wilson's War is the needless use of that stupid framing technique (we start at the end and then immediately go back to the beginning for a linear narrative). Oh please. Can we just get on with it? Luckily, it doesn't dwell there, so it's not that big a deal. I just can't understand why filmmakers continue to use such a dopey technique. Anyway, it's very funny. But it helps if you know stuff about American government, politics, and history. I was, of course, the youngest person in the audience by perhaps a generation. And I think the film does a really good job of relating the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s to the current situation, without being preachy or moralistic (it's pretty straightforward in its depiction of American imperial interests). I think it's rather fortunate that this film was released on the heels of The Kite Runner, though it's hard to say how much the films' audiences overlap (beyond myself). They actually, quite well, illustrate two perspectives of the same series of events. Events too many people probably don't think about, even though the strains of these conflicts are still ongoing.

So the final verdict: see Charlie Wilson's War and save Walk Hard for DVD.

By the way, I didn't make it to The Savages or Lars and the Real Girl this week. I may try for the former tomorrow.

i hate myspace

There are many reasons why I hate MySpace, most of which I don't really feel like getting into.

My big beef with the damn thing right now is that Superdrag has allegedly posted NEW songs on their MySpace page (rather than their official website!), and for days now, I have not been able to load the fucking page in order to get the player to actually load. I can't even see what the songs are let alone play them. What the hell gives? I have tried different browsers, different times of day, signed in, signed out. Can you get the damn thing to load?

what stephanie does with too much free time

"Are you a fan of Neil LaBute?" The ginger-bearded man asked.
"No, actually, I hate him. I just thought I'd see what his fiction was like. It was $5, and I was bored." I responded as I cocked my head toward Skylight Books--hinting that's where I'd been--before walking into the cinema lobby.
"Yeah, I don't know many women who like him." He replied.

Ah, yes, I bought another book of fiction (short stories, in fact) even though I've only read two chapters in Atonement. I'm finding it harder than I thought it would be to get back into reading fiction. But like I said, it was only $5, and the copy is signed. I figure I might be able to sell it on half.com or something when I'm done and at least break even. I want to see if his short stories are as mean and nasty as his films and stage plays. LaBute is an interesting character. I think he hates women, but yet I heard Terry Gross interview him on Fresh Air and he presents his answers in a way that make you think he's not evening thinking women are the most manipulative, nasty bitches imaginable. But I don't buy it. Yet, I do love his film Possession, which has a hint of manipulation in it, but it's not the focus of the story and the secret revealed actually results in some sort of joy after a century and a half of subversion (of course, he adapted it from a novel...it's his original material that is so objectionable). Anyway, I read one short story while waiting for Margot at the Wedding, and the man was an asshole, not the woman. So, we'll see what happens.

This week is film going week after months of intense stress. On Sunday I saw The Kite Runner, which was very formulaic, but highly enjoyable. Every time I saw the trailer it made me cry. Let me tell you something the trailer doesn't: the movie is almost entirely in Farsi. Now, that doesn't bother me because I watch foreign films all the time and I love the sound of Farsi, but it's very misleading since it was made by Paramount!

Yesterday I saw Juno, which I've been dying to see since it came out. It's very quirky, but it did take me awhile to get used to the way the teens talk. Juno is sharp and irreverent, which I like. Just like in Knocked Up, in the real world, I think these women would have had abortions, but what the hell kind of movie would that make? And Allie can call me a cradle robber all she wants, but Michael Cera is adorable (and welcome at my apartment anytime).

Margot at the Wedding certainly had its comedic moments, but I'm still chewing on it. Margot is such a bitch, but you really can't empathize with any of the characters. It's not unlike The Squid and the Whale but I enjoyed that one more. I think Jack Black stole the movie with his understated performance. I like him when he's not a total over-the-top clown. Be Kind Rewind looks good, too. By the way, I saw a trailer for Juno and Atonement before the movie this afternoon. The Atonement trailer gave me chills, even after I've seen the movie. It's so damn powerful. I want to see it again, but I've cried too much in the last week or so (it's not depression, it's reacting to others' heartache).

Tomorrow I'm likely to see The Savages. I'm taking my car in to have the timing belt replaced so I think I'll take the bus to Arclight while I wait. Thursday I might see Lars and the Real Girl at the $3 cinema at Beverly and Fairfax, since I missed its initial release. But I could wait for DVD too. Friday I have to see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Oh man, that looks like a hoot!

rudy's barbershop

So I got my hair cut this evening. I just couldn't take it, it was too poofy, it was out of control, and it just had to go. So I went to Rudy's Barbershop as I have been doing since I moved here. Apparently my usual person moved to Italy so I went with someone new. I was totally satisfied with what she was doing, but I had this feeling that the extreme disparity between the front of my hair and the back would dry to look like Hasidic curls gone crazy. I mentioned it, but she said it looked cute, and it was still wet, so...

Well, it definitely looks like I thought it would. I just need to go back and get a bit clipped off the front. But I dread it. I hate going to Rudy's, but I don't know where else to go. Every time I go in there everyone else is too hip to function, and I'm frump girl in hipsterland.

atonement

About every two years I get the urge to read fiction. Last time it was Little Children (before there was buzz about a movie). This time, I bought myself a copy of Atonement because I loved the film so much that I thought I might as well see how good the book is now that I've got some free time. I'll let you know.

But please go see the movie. It was unbelievable. So breathtaking to watch. I saw it last Saturday at trusty old Arclight that had a special Q&A with the director, Joe Wright, and James McAvoy (who wasn't billed to be there). James is hilarious as ever. (Oh yeah, we go way back. Not only have I seen just about all his movies, knew of him before he made a name here, but after the Last King of Scotland screening last year I followed him outside--pure coincidence, I'm not a stalker!). He better win that Golden Globe. Joe, too.

By the way, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an equally superb film.

i'm done

Well, just under an hour ago I submitted my last of two final papers for the semester. It was pretty bad. I ran out of time so there's no conclusion. It's a literature review, but you're still supposed to have an overall argument (oops!). I feel pretty badly about it, especially since the professor is brilliant. Not that all of my professors aren't brilliant--some are just more brilliant than others. I'm embarrassed, really.

But I'm so totally burnt out. This is my fifth year of graduate work--yeah, that's 4.5 years on top of the three it took to get my B.A. I'm just sick of taking courses. And next semester I'm just reading in order to prepare for my exams. That means that potentially I will never take another course again. That's right, this may have been the last time I will be on the other side of the student/teacher divide.

That's scary.

my fear of 3-D

I bet you expect me to say something about a snake popping out of the screen, but you'd be wrong, because I couldn't even see it!

I get all tense every time I read about how 3-D will be the future of film in the Bible's news. Then I just read through EW.com's list of the 50 smartest people in Hollywood, where 3-D was mentioned too many times to count. The reason this concerns me is that I physically can't see 3-D. What? Yeah, I know, it seems weird, but I have very, very limited ability to see this stuff. The picture just looks very blurry (so beside missing stuff pop out, nothing looks right). I noticed this from an early age, but I figured it was just something about how the 3-D glasses don't work well over prescription eyeglasses. Then during my most recent eye exam earlier this year, for the first time, I was given something to look at and told to identify the ones that pop out and I couldn't. I asked the doctor if it's abnormal, but apparently it isn't for someone with my vision and vision correction. Though, of course, those of us with such poor vision aren't really enough to stop the tide of 3-D for fear it won't make the gazillions of dollars they're now banking on.

Of course it's unlikely to really affect the movies I tend to see most, the story-driven small films. But we could get to a point where 3-D is the technology standard and no matter how 3-D doesn't enhance the film, it might be used.

On the other hand, EW considers Judd Appatow the smartest man in Hollywood, and he ain't monkeying with 3-D. Oh man, can you imagine the crowning scene in 3-D? Ugh... Though, I guess, if you've watched a woman give birth in person, you don't really need to.