nudle

Stranger than Fiction.

Tonight I watched the movie Stranger than Fiction, the Will Ferrell movie which also stars the fabuloso Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenahaal, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah! (I think one has to write her name with an exclamation point because Her Very Queenly Self demands it.)

Ewan flew in from Toronto last night and then had to get up at 4:30 to catch a 6:00 flight to Dallas this morning. He was back home at 3:45, and he went to pick up a movie on his way home from the airport, and it was Stranger than Fiction.

It was obvious to me that Ewan chose a movie he knew I would like. When Stranger than Fiction first came out, from the previews, I expected it to be a corny, slapstick Will Ferrell vehicle. Then I heard Terri Gross interview Will Ferrell on Fresh Air one afternoon and I totally thought he was a great guy; I mean, I wanted to go for beers with him, so I have been taking a second look at the movies he's in. This one was sweet and complicated and silly and inconsistent and fun and I enjoyed it immensely. Hooray to Kevin Tod Haug for the intriguing, floating interface visuals.

The movie had the extra added benefit of reinforcing an idea I have for a project (and I am desperate for a project) and I really want to write the idea for my project here but I won't, because I find that the more I talk about something the less I want to do it, actually see it through.

Ewan fell asleep once in Iona's bed at 8:30 tonight while reading with her, and again on the sofa at 9:30, but I stayed up and watched the movie he chose for me. He's a nice guy. He got this one for me.

I expected this weekend to be dismal and so far it's been terrific.

Purple and Brown.

Simple cuteness from Aardman, via Lileks; click here.

The Dildo Diaries.

Oh my God! We're leaving for Michigan City at 3:00 and I have to finish the laundry and pack! And clean the cooler! And go grocery shopping! So what am I doing? Watching this! Make sure your kids aren't beside you when you link over! Unless you want them to get educated early, which is okay! And do not watch this with the volume way up while at the office.

Molly Ivins, you rest in peace. I love you posthumously.

(For a better article on Ivins, go here.)

Just say yes to quality viewing.

I just finished watching Saved! and Jena Malone has so much heart. Can we forget all the rest of the celebrity brats and make her Queen of Everything? Yes. Say yes with me. Rent the movie. While you're at it, rent these heart-filled or otherwise interesting movies:

- Alpine Fire (Hohenfeuer) (Fedi M Murer, 1985)
- Amateur (Hal Hartley, 1994)
- American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, with Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, 2003)
- Bagdad Cafe (Out of Rosenheim) (Percy Adlon and Eleonore Adlon, 1987)
- The Ballad of Jack and Rose (Rebecca Miller, 2005)
- Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry, 2000)
- Celia: Child of Terror (Ann Turner, 1988) (very badly tag-lined; not a horror movie)
- Crumb (Tery Zwigoff, 1994)
- Delicatessen (Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991)
- Gas Food Lodging (Allison Anders, adapted from Richard Peck, 1992)
- Hard Boiled (Laat sau sen taan) (John Woo, 1992)
- Henry Fool (Hal Hartley, 1997)
- The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1997)
- Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)
- London Kills Me (Stephen Frears, writing by Hanif Kureishi, 1991)
- The Moderns (Alan Rudolph, 1988)
- My Life As A Dog (Mitt Liv Som Hund) (Lasse Hallstrom and Reidar Jonsson, 1985)
- My New Partner (Les Ripoux) (Claude Zidi, 1984)
- Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
- Party Girl (Daisy von Scherler Mayer, 1995)
- Pitch Black (David Twohy, 2000)
- Roger Dodger (Dylan Kidd, 2002)
- A Room with a View (James Ivory, adapted from EM Forster, 1985)
- Screamers (Christian Duguay adapted from Philip K Dick, 1995)
- 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, writing by Alex Garland, 2002)
- Twist and Shout (Tro, håb og kærlighed) (Bille August, 1984)
- Three Men and a Cradle (Coline Serrau, 1985)
- Working Girls (Lizzie Borden, 1986)

Saturday night randomness.

It's very late and I'm watching Walking and Talking, a movie by Nicole Holofcener. I'm eating cheese and oat cakes (oat cakes are a Scottish thing). Catherine Keener is getting rejected by a total loser (of course, he'll turn out to not be a loser or at least will have something redeeming about him so she is humbled even more than she is already as the underdog in this movie) but that would never happen, Catherine Keener being rejected by a video store attendant with big glasses, because she has great hair and coloring and a flat stomach even though she is wearing really horrible denim shorts and now you know how judgmental I am about horrible denim.

Drunk people are standing right outside our open window and saying nothing good but here it is:

It's not that lucrative.
I have like a grand I've saved up.
(Mobile phone bleeps).
This is my best friend! DOUG! BLAINE! Sarah, this is Sarah.
I'm sorry. Why did I just call you Doug?
I've got this job and I can't take time off. I live with my parents and it's full time and I can't take time off.
How'd you meet ol' Danny here?
Through my friend Nick.
Nick I met because I met him on the train. Nick lives on the fucking south side now. I have their number. Him and Mo live in St. Charles now...I'm in Elgin right now, and I'm telling my school I live in the city. It's a lot cheaper for me to lie about it.
How you doin' Man? Yeah I'm good.
I'm thinkin' maybe I'll go get my law degree.
Yeah, you could come to work for me if you wanna be my secretary.
It's a pretty big firm, it's got a USSL, Kid Rock is doing something something and something for us.
Well my birthday was late so I was held back.
I did sound for George Clinton.
Yeah, I get $500. But I only work once a week. This is for filming music videos.
It's really hard to fold the clothes. Yeah.
Trailers? When they're doing car scenes. And Lenny Kravitz, and some girl who toured with Britney Spears.
Do you know Mister Blotto?
Dude, no. Who are they?
They've been a pretty big band in Chicago.
R Kelly bought two of Chicago's old studios.
I'm going to be project manager, however, there is no artistic freedom. I would love to be somewhere else and I'd work my way up.
You should come over to my house, I have a studio.
Fuckin' heroin junkie. He like robbed some ol lady. He's in jail last I heard.
Allison Rodez? You ever know her?
Yeah, Lacie? She was a piece of shit too.

This is the kind of thing we hear outside our open window every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in the summer. Most times it's a solo conversation between a party and their significant other on the phone, a fight. Or someone saying, "What is this? This place? It's kind of cool, with the ceiling tiles?" "Um hmm." (We have a tin ceiling.) Some blessed someone has them smoking around the corner, far away from us, and not under our open window. That's unbelievably good.

Walking and Talking is a pretty terrific movie. Put it on your Netflix.

Ewan is flat out on the floor and he is snoring, something I usually do. Not the flat-out part but the snoring.

Catherine Keener totally got her teeth fixed since this was filmed (doesn't that sound like someone outside the door said it?), or they just made them look normal for for this movie, which was made in 1996. Guess what! Allison Janey is in this movie as a fellow cat-lover to Catherine Keener! And you know what? Anne Heche? She isn't very good! Or maybe she is good at being a really awful character, one who is not very likable. But Liev Schreiber is so believable and reminds me of my ex-fiance.

It is hot, sweaty weather, maybe 80 degrees and it's trickling down the sides of my face. The music in the movie right now is joyful and rambunctious and fun. I think it's the Waterboys but I'm not sure. If it is, I get to jump up and down and yell, "I win! I win!" But only the drunks standing outside my window will hear.

Damn. It's not the Waterboys. It's Billy Bragg.

Also: the music coming out of the bar is rambunctious. And it's time to get Ewan off the sofa (where he moved from the floor ten minutes ago) and upstairs to bed.