then today, i was on my way to see "away we go" with K and J and H and that guy. i walked up to the theatre with K and was contemplating what i was going to eat - mcdonald's being an option, because today was my colleague's retirement party (29 years! holy cats!) and that meant that i had prepared for the bounty of potlucked goodies by designating it an "eat whatever i want" day. i had a mcdonald's gift card and ended up only spending $2 on my big mac combo! score! then i went to the theatre and pulled out a mouldering cineplex odeon card of equivalent unknown origins as my chapters/indigo one, again thinking that i had maybe a few bucks on it. nuh-uh. i had $25.00! enough to pay for my movie AND another one in the near future! score! so i only spent $2 tonight (notwithstanding the unforeseen tragedy whereupon i forgot my subway tokens at home and had to buy a set of five, because i find it ridiculous to pay full fare for the ttc when there are always [nominal] savings to be had by buying in groups of 5 or 10). at any rate, it was pretty good for my newfound thrifty self.
"away we go" was nice. i wasn't expecting to like it. i had kind of gotten the impression (hammered into me by the constant touting of its' literary pedigree and hushed, reverential "from the hands of david eggers and vendela vida" association that it was probably going to be smugly intellectual. it doesn't help that sam mendes' fingers were in this pie. have i mentioned that i loathe "american beauty"? well, i do. i probably haven't mentioned it because it's a dated thing to hate. but i remember and will trot out this old chestnut if needs be. anyway, reading a.o. scott's review didn't help. but it wasn't as horrid as i thought it was going to be. it was decent. not great, but decent.maya rudolph gives an even, measured, against-type performance while john krasinski's burt is a little harder to swallow and i'm not one of the few women (or men) immune to his rumpled, crooked-smile charms. i just have less patience for the man-child, ambling, educated slacker thing. and by "less patience" i mean, "no patience" - you're talking to the girl who hates lloyd dobbler and "reality bites" (and by extension, ethan hawke's entire raison d'être). it's basically about a couple travelling around trying to find a model of family that they can subscribe to. i found some of the models with which they're presented really overplayed, especially the alison janney one and the maggie gyllenhaal one. i got the point, i just think the same point could have been made with a measure of subtlety and been all the more effective for it.
there were some things i questioned, but it would be spoiler alerting for me to expound on them, so i'll refrain. they weren't big enough to risk ruining it for you and you'll probably come to the same "huh?" moments as i did anyway. we did see the previews for both "paper hearts" AND "(500) days of summer" both of which seem very twee, indie, and painfully winsome - all things i teeter on the brink of loving/loathing depending on the proportion of heart, humour, and sincerity present. i'm excited to see both of them - i kind of find joseph gordon levitt cute and we all know how i feel about zooey, even as i fear her zooey-schtick is getting as well worn and uncomfortable for its familiarity as michael cera's (his cera-schtick, i don't think he does a zooey one).
this is monday night's dotytron-prepared dinner. pretty tasty looking, eh?last night i came home after returning some stuff to lee valley that i didn't end up needing and made myself red cabbage coleslaw with a fried pork on a bun sammy that had lettuce, tomato, and plenty of mayo as dressing. it was TASTY.
in other news, does anyone else find it stupidly cliché that all the actors and big stars in l.a. support the lakers and not the clippers? it's so annoying. wow. way to be the biggest jerks and not support the non-rich, non-winning team. so i think i want to rep the clippers. even though i know nothing of basketball. but still! they need love, too!okay, i'm off to slang stuff on craigslist. i'm also going to try a new thing tomorrow of getting up at 6am and going for an early morning run. we'll see how that goes. the idea is it won't be as hot and i'll be motivated to run longer (possibly) and then i can have my lunches back to do what i want, instead of slogging through the worst of the sticky, still, oppressive heat of the day.
roll call of awesome:
cb2
this is my new favorite online store in the whole. wide. world. i want to buy the store - if you're ever complaining that i'm hard to shop for, get me a g/c here, please. i want all these things:
roll call of bunk:
also from cb2 (hey, not everything can be amazing) - do you really want to hang up your toothbrush and have the bristles in some guy's crotch? no thank you!fin.
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