Just Let Me Have This One Thing

Alex will probably think this show is for girls. Whatever! It's been a weird few weeks and tonight I caught myself very earnestly singing along to Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" in the car (it was on the radio, not on my iPod or anything. Also, I've started listening to the radio. I know much more about Lady Gaga than I did two weeks ago!) Color my hair, do what I dare, you guys know the drill. What I'm saying is we should all just take pleasure where we can find it, even if that means getting excited about television shows that won't even be on for months. Zooey Deschanel! That guy from Paper Heart who I love so much!

This trailer is made for girls who will think, "I am that spazzy, too! Zooey and I are JUST ALIKE!" except that these girls I made up are more than likely not as attractive as Zooey Deschanel and so their quirks will not be so easily forgiven. I'm still going to watch this show. As we all know, the best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun (...fun, fun).

Summer Tunes

You guys, I can't wait for summer. All I can think about is sewing sundresses and then wearing those sundresses. These are songs I listened to a lot last summer, and they're getting me excited for warm weather. The Jenny and Johnny video for Big Wave is really excellent, and really creepy (in a Lost Highway sort of way)!

Snow Day Tunes Part 1

I don't know about you guys, but I really enjoyed a snow day today. It was Sunday, so it wasn't like I would've had to work anyway, but I pretended I was taking the day off. I ate leftover meatloaf, made myself some chamomile tea, did a little cleaning, did some sewing, read a book, and listened to Christmas music. Christmas music has to be the best part about Christmas, right? My favorite Christmas song, as you probably already know, is Last Christmas, but as far as traditional songs go, it's pretty hard to beat Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. And when it's performed by She & Him (& Conan)? Impossible to resist!

Here you go.

For me, this blog might as well be a Twitter account, because all I've been doing lately is posting links to other stuff. Well, sorry. The new She And Him album is on NPR this week! Listen to it while you cut up a sweet potato for your lunch tomorrow, or whatever it is you do on Monday nights.

More 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer has one of those trailers.

By that I mean that it involves some fast-paced dancing, a song that sounds vaguely like "Where the Streets Have No Name," and a lot of running. Running in a trailer will always sell me on a movie, but even without that I would have still wanted to see this. Ever since this teaser trailer came out in January, I've thought about movie nearly every single day. It seemed like July was never going to come.
So I guess it's inevitable that I was going to be a little disappointed. But overall I loved it. 500 Days of Summer reminded me of why movies are sometimes just better than books. On paper, this would have been one boring story. But it worked on film, mostly because of all the things that Lexie already mentioned. He spent very little space talking about the clothing, though! The clothing was marvelous! I am currently on the hunt for a sweater vest for H.
Two things: Roger Ebert's review was right on the mark, as per usual.
He liked it. Also, he was a total sassy bitch about the punctuation in the title. I love it!
Secondly, this person is an asshole. Seriously. I don't want to be one of those people who claims that anybody who doesn't like what they like just doesn't "get it." But this person really obviously didn't "get" the dance sequence, and there isn't even all that much to get. Also, they dared to insult the parade sequence in Ferris Bueller? Barf.

(500) Days of Summer: A Review

Winfreys get excited about things. Generally it's dinner, but sometimes it's a movie that we want to see. (500) Days of Summer was a movie that I can safely say excited almost everyone in the Winfrey family. People have been lovin' on this movie since it premiered, and my hopes were high going in. It was pretty good, but it was not as good as I thought that it could be. I should just post this review by Dr. Evil and be done with it.

But I will continue. There were parts of this movie that were great. I liked that it was totally subjective. That was nice. Also, it wasn't subtle at all, but it wasn't trying to be. There were goofy sound cues and and bright contrasting colors everywhere. Scott Neustadter, the co-writer of the film, said that he wanted to make the film version of a pop song, which is very much how the film felt. That's why the soundtrack in this film worked so much better than that god-damned grating soundtrack for Juno. (500) Days of Summer openly acknowledged what it was (beginning with the title) and used that to its advantage. It was a relationship story as told by one 20-something year old who was clearly influenced by pop culture.

There were really great parts to this movie, which is where my main complaint stems from. After watching this film it was very obvious that the director had worked in music videos. Sure it was bright, and it looked nice, but it also felt very uneven. The fun stylistic parts were great. The dance sequence was great. The split screen part was awesome. The part in the karaoke bar, not so much. Any serious, conversational part felt a little weak. It was like they used up all of their energy on the fun, energetic sequences before and after, and what was left were these bland in-between pieces.

There were things I didn't like about the ending, and his dramatic speech, but I did enjoy this film. Sure, there were annoying characters (his little sister?), but the film had so many strong parts. I would give this film a solid B if I were into giving letter grades to films.

You're Welcome

http://zooeydeschanel.tumblr.com/
Welcome to Bonertown, Population: Alex

Whaaaat?

I was cruising imdb (doing Mean Girls research for a bet between my roommate and I) and I ended up on Lizzy Caplan's profile.  I found this post of a person insisting that Katy Perry, Lizzy Caplan, Zooey Deschanel, and Emily Blunt could all be related.  To prove their point (kind of?) they morphed all of their faces together here.  They also have individuals here.  This sounds like it would be cooler than it is.  It seems like all this website does is put two pictures on top of each other an lower the opacity.  

This is just to say.

Can I just present another side of the 500 Days of Summer debate? Or I guess should I just introduce a new debate? The real question is, will H. like this movie? And the answer is "Der, yes." We're talking about a guy who loved Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.
But I think Alex's list of reasons to see this movie was missing something. Namely, that the movie has THIS GUY!

This guy rules. As an aside: Have you ever been to his Imdb.com page? He is in a lot of movies/shows about college.
You should know that in the Winfrey house, we have an unwavering belief that the two most beautiful women in the world are Beyonce and Zooey. Maybe this movie would be better with Beyonce, but at least it has 1/2 of the most beautiful women in the world. I don't have any of Alex's cynicism. But I also like the Smiths.

(500) Days of Summer

Uh oh, guys.  I'm conflicted.  First of all, watch the trailer here.  

Okay, sorry I couldn't embed the video or whatever.  Just seriously... shut up Kerry.  Get over it.  

Now, will I see this?  Yes.  There's no question about it, and here's why:

1. You Make My Dreams is in the trailer.  As a rule, I have to see every film that does this.  

2. It has a scene with a bus full of Zooey Deschanels.  

Will these things be enough to forgive that fist scene from the trailer?  I just don't know.  I'ma come out and say it.  I don't like The Smiths.  Also, I don't like the way that scene made me think, "That's kind of like Garden State."  I'm going to make a prediction that Owen Gleiberman will not take kindly to this film.  We'll see what happens.