Sunday, April 12, 2009

Ma'am, I Am Tonight

  • Random Pop Culture:
    • Adventureland is the new early-twenties angst movie about a sensitive guy trying to find himself while working at an amusement park back at his home town after graduating from college. It has a cast that screams comedy with Bill Hader, Ryan Reynolds, and Martin Starr. In reality, it's more of a drama. Hader is funny, but Ryan Reynolds plays a pretty serious role, if dryly funny at times. It's weird because it's the kind of movie that Michael Cera should be starring in and star Jesse Eisenberg is totally an almost-but-not-quite Michael Cera. You know how there are those movies that speak to you at the exact right time of your life? For me, Garden State is a perfect example. Well, Adventureland is probably that movie for someone, just not me.
    • On the other end of the spectrum, you have Rachel Getting Married. It's a movie about a wedding, naturally, and more specifically the bride's dysfunctional sister, who has gotten a break from rehab. We follow the family through the wedding weekend at their house in Connecticut. They dress weird, play avant-garde jazz music, have some sort of weird talent competition where they do stand-up and play various musical instruments, they have a house guest who walks around playing violin everywhere he goes, they even have a contest to see who can best load a dishwasher (seriously). This traveling troupe of Bohemian troubadours is exactly the type of rich family that has problems, too! I saw it on ABC on some afternoons during middle school! It's the kind of wedding that, if you were attending, would make you want to really think about new and interesting ways to put yourself out of your misery. It's the kind of family that makes the selfish recovering-addict Kym (Anne Hathaway) seem like the sane one. And Hathaway -- she's... transcendent? perfect? mesmerising? It's a slow and weird movie, but it's certainly worth seeing just to watch Hathaway steal it and the next three movies you watch.
    • Went to the Holocaust Museum today. There's a fantastic exhibition on propaganda there right now. Definitely worth seeing. Really nice job of using colors to make everything pop and the exhibits themselves are fascinating. Very interactive, great video, etc.
  • Random Hatred and/or Love:
    • Lot of tourists in DC this time of year. Lot of school groups. Lot of pushy people.
  • Random Music Video:
    • By request, one of the greats:

1 comment:

Steve said...

I couldn't agree more about Adventureland. I wanted to like the movie. Everything from the actors to the storyline to the setting in the late 80's should have been exactly for me. However, I couldn't wait for it to end. Not only should Michael Cera have been cast but Kristin Stewart is a Danica McKellar lookalike.