TV & Movies

I was thinking of rounding up a list of cultural endeavours I loved in the last few months. You might know I love old movies so there are a few of that. I'll stick with recommendations.

TV Series

1) Chuck: Of all the new series from last season, this is my favourite. I lost my other love, Pushing Daisies. I cannot say enough good things about it. It's got comedy, spy action, and romance. I love the characters. It's perfect TV fluff. I really hope NBC doesn't cancel it!

2) Breaking Bad: Such a dark series about a chemistry teacher who learns he has 18 months to live after being diagnosed with cancer. To leave money for his family, he joins forces with a younger guy to make crystal meth. So it's a totally crazy premise, but the characters are flawed and interesting, and you just want to know what will happen next. It's a series by Vince Gilligan, who was my favourite writer on The X-Files.

3) Being Erica: I've talked about it before, but I was totally sucked into this dramedy about a 30-something girl who lives in Toronto. The season finale really makes me die to see how it continues.

I also really enjoyed two BBC miniseries I watched: Cranford and State of Play.

Movies

1) Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? What a fantastic movie! It's a creepy thriller, and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are both great. That movie had me on the edge of my seat.

2) Vertigo:. I had a Jimmy Stewart double bill a few weeks ago: The Philadelphia Story, which I love, and a movie I had never seen, Vertigo. I don't know that I was totally sucked into the movie, but I can definitely see why it's been so influential in terms of film making. It's definitely very interesting as far as how it is shot. And the plot has lots of twists and turns.

3) Sunshine Cleaning: I saw this movie last weekend. It's the story of two sisters who start their own crime scene cleaning business to try to rise up above in their situations. It's a quiet little film about the struggles of life. It just touched some cords in me. Made me cry like a little girl.

Other mentions: Loved Rachel Get Married. It was my favourite Oscar season movie along with Milk. I saw Monsters vs. Aliens in IMAX 3D. That was just a whole lot of fun. On the more serious side, Waltz with Bashir, a movie about the Shatila Massacre in the 1982 Lebanon War, is very poignant.

I have a few old school movies lined up in the next few days: 1) Hitchcock's Rope, which I have seen before but is just a great movie, 2) To Have or Have Not, a Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movie, and 3) Fellini's 8 1/2.

I'll be back tomorrow with my favourite books that I've read lately.

Goodreads

A friend of mine found a fun new website called Goodreads. It allows you to keep track of what you have read, write reviews of books, and share them with your friends. You can also keep track of what you want in the future. If you want to become my friend on there, let me know and I'll hook you up. ;)

How Many Days Until July 25th?

After seeing these pictures and reading this, I am now officially excited about The X-Files movie. (Although a new agent named Dakota Whitney? That is one silly name!) I have seen maybe one episode in the last 3 or 4 years, but I am now looking forward to a new adventure. I'm only hoping it is good. I can't wait to see the trailer!

Oh, and new episode of Saturday Night Live tonight with Tina Fey hosting. It should be good.

I've been reading The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo tonight, which I just received in my Amazon package today. Very interesting read so far. :) I'll have to write more about it once I'm done reading it.

Move Aside Motion Sickness, I've Got Audiobooks

I am always in search of something to entertain me on my daily bus ride. I would love to read or do Sudoku puzzles but inevitably, I get motion sickness. I figured an audiobook would be a good solution, and so I went to the library and I borrowed Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim written (or in this case, read) by David Sedaris. I have not finished yet, but this is just beyond hilarious. I had to try to stiffle my laughter on the bus. The way he describes his parents' sleeping patterns as living with two housecats, his comparison of Santa Claus vs. the Dutch St. Nicholas, and his retelling of his brother's Paul wedding are endlessly entertaining. I suspect the audiobook may be even more entertaining than the written book since he imitates the voices of his family members and it is just hilarious. Not that he is new on the scene in any way, but I just enjoy when I discover a new author I have an affinity with.

Sad Thoughts

Every time I hear the music from St. Elmo's Fire (like my iTunes just made it pop up), it reminds me of my grandfather and makes me tear up. One of my uncles, who was a TV producer and actually died a few years ago of cancer, made a wonderful video of my grandfather's 80th birthday celebration. It has all these interviews with my uncles and aunts talking about their childhood, and my grandmother, who has also passed away now, talking about how she met my pépé and fell in love with him. There was a montage of the family in it to the music of St. Elmo's Fire. This took place almost 20 years ago, and it still makes me tear up every time I hear that song. My grandfather passed away in 1989, and I still remember coming home and seeing my dad cry. It was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry. I remember he was watching that tape either before or after the funeral, and I remember thinking in my kid's head he was torturing himself. But now, I think I understand why he had the need to rewatch it even if it made him sad. I think I need to get this tape from my dad and convert it to digital so I can make sure to preserve it.

All this sad stuff makes me think of even sadder things. I happened to see her interview with the author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel on Wednesday. He spent teenage years at Auschwitz, and they showed a trip he and Oprah made there. He was explaining what happened at the camp. The scale of that place was just horrifying. They said it was half the size of Manhattan. A place where you use slave workers and kill millions of people was that huge. It gave me chills. I had a big ball in my stomach watching the whole thing.

On Thursday, she had these high-school kids who wrote in essays pertaining to "Night", Elie Wiesel's book about the Holocaust. The stories some of these kids told were so moving. In particular, there were these two girls who went through the Rwandian genocide. Their stories were so touching. Then, Oprah actually reunited one of the girls with her parents she had not seen since 1994. My eyes were full of tears. It was very powerful. I rarely ever watch Oprah, but I'm glad I caught that.

James Frey Acknowledges Fabrications

James Frey Acknowledges Fabrications. In other news, the sun is hot, and cats are furrier than frogs. *rolls eyes*

By the way, Stephen Colbert had the best line pertaining to Frey this week. He was interviewing Bill Bastone of The Smoking Gun, which broke the James Frey story a few months ago. They were talking about Frey's appearance on Oprah:

Colbert: She [Oprah] tore him a new one.
Bastone: Technically, she tore him two new ones.
Colbert: Well, he could use a few new ones, because the first one was all beaten up from tearing the book out of it.

Hee.