Rose Byrne in Castles & Canada

Mary Winstead was Oscar-snubbed today. Probably loads of way worse crimes against humanity also happened, but that's the one I noticed.

The following are some movies with Rose Byrne that I could watch many times over. Rose Byrne is like a wittier, prettier, brunette version of Reese Witherspoon. 

For example, you could hang out with her in a castle! "I Capture the Castle" is a delightful movie--white people problems at their finest!! (Oh noooo! We are too poor to keep on living in our English castle! Let's borderline-prostitute our daughter, but only to classy people who wear tuxedos to dinner and then we can all romp around tragically in the green, perfect countryside!) Fun times.

Also Romola Garai is great in that movie, just like she is in Vanity Fair, which is a weirdly Bollywood version of one of my favourite 'keeping-it-real' books, with a pregnant Reese Witherspoon also romping around the British countryside. Basically, follow the career of Romola for lots of romping around with moody rich British people (see also Atonement).

But it's Rose Byrne I'm pretending is my imaginary friend today. If she were hanging out with me on the couch this afternoon, I probably wouldn't have eaten so much hummus, for example. She would have been like "let's go to a play, darling!", and I would have said "oh but I'm trying to write a term paper" and she would have said "you know damn well you'll fucking write it tomorrow, let's get day-drunk in Beverly Hills, we're in Los ANGELES! Let's goooo!"

See how fun she is? No one parties into the sunrise enough. No one enjoys youth enough.

And also she is the creepy best in this weird little Canadian movie I enjoy immensely called "Just Buried", with Jay Baruchel. It's one of those "dark comedies" that gets the meaning of the phrase. Sure, you'd think all those episodes of Six Feet Under had killed the 'funeral home drama'. Never!! I think there should be more profession-oriented fiction. Have we had enough movies about veterinarians? I doubt it.

I Forgot Me Without You

In my list from the previous post I forgot to include "Me Without You", a 2001 film about poison friends in Britain! Have you ever seen Anna Friel? I wish I saw her more. She can smoke cigarettes with her toes. Also, Michelle Williams can speak British. This is one of those movies I want to watch again, right now, but I have this stupid depressing paper to finish.

Why do things get harder? I'm just sick of school. Also I saw a rat last night scurry out in front of my headlights and couldn't get out of the car for very long minutes. How do I feel about rats? 1984 level terror. I could never be a spy because RATS. Rats. You guys.

Rats.

Also, am I the only one who read 1984 and thought it was extremely romantic? "I LOVE YOU" note. That's great. I guess it's political but I think it's also a romance book. They had fun for a while! Obviously I'm great at book reports.

Ode to Friendship

So Jermaine Fowler followed me on twitter yesterday and it made my year. I could get hit by a car tomorrow and spend the next 11 months in intensive care, and I'd still be pretty happy with 2013. So thank you, universe.

Also, thank you friends. I have such wonderful, diverse pals. Never a dull moment. I've always believed that hell is boring people. Or bed bugs. I believe these things because I've never known hardship, so please take me less seriously at all times.

Here are some of my favourite works of art, commemorating friendship:

"Go". Sarah Polley doesn't age, does she? Ever have a night that takes a turn, and then you end up kidnapped by Timothy Olyphant? Me either. So watch this and pretend.

"Thirteen". I love Evan Rachel Wood. This reminds me of my childhood friendships. Replace pre-teen blow-jobs and shoplifting with falling through 4 feet holes in snow-banks and having every friend threaten suicide biweekly and that was my youth.

"Ginger Snaps". Everyone hates menstruation as much as they love slutty goths. I could watch this movie a thousand times. Ginger-types are my favourite kind of person: dangerous, seductive, loyal and untrustworthy.

"Heathers". Winona Ryder's life, including this movie, is the original ode to 'white girl problems'.

"Girl, Interrupted". See the description above. This was for a long, long time my favourite movie. Given my recent brush with actual friend suicide, it'll be a long time until I can watch it again. But if you want to see the original flavour Angelina Jolie, check it out. I think this movie personifies the kind of friendships I have, and that's not even facetious. This scene, this scene:

I'm deliberately omitting "Mean Girls" because fuck Tina Fey and her second-wave feminist, sister-hating bullshit. Overrated judgmental bitch.

I also have to include "Cat's Eye". One of the best books I've ever read. It perfectly describes girls and women, how we're friends, how we can slice it all up so strangely, sadly. One of the best moments last summer was when I saw Margaret Atwood walking down a street in Toronto and tweeted at her about Cat's Eye saving my life. She tweeted back and I felt wildly validated. I live for small things.

So hey friend-girls. You make my life worthwhile and wonderful, shout out and butterfly kisses to you all.

Sweet Idiotic Choices

I am addicted to irresponsibility and wilful denial of some basic truths. Things like currency, time, relations with men. But also I'm mostly very happy and I think my life is an adventurous delight right now, so what fucking ever. For example, I'm in California for a month and so far it's terrific. There's something super half-decent: travel. I never regret trips. I maybe should find a way to do them more cheaply, but I never regret them. I also never regret donating to charity.

AND I don't regret seeing Django Unchained because it was super watchable!! Leonardo DiCaprio seems like the world's most unpleasant person to lunch with, but his movies are always good! If you like Quentin Tarantino, you probably already saw Django and don't need me to tell you it's great. There are some pretty horses in it too, and Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz are always good in movies. There have been grumbles about slavery and exploitation. I'm too ignorant to defend the movie against nuanced criticism, but maybe as a small point, isn't any movie that reminds us, even tiny bit, of bad history a good thing? Remembering! Reminding! Things relatively very recent!

Les Mis wasn't my fav. I like Anne Hathaway's part. It'd be good for people who truly like musicals, which I guess I don't. Maybe just not the one's that are 27 hours long. Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen steal the show, and they are both in way better movies to watch than this. Have you seen the Johnny Depp version of Sweeney Todd? It's better than this one, I thought.

You want misery without music? Watch Revolutionary Road.

Also I'm enjoying American Netflix and The League. Funniest show I've ever seen since It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Watch the League! Do it!

How Do People Enjoy the Hobbit?

I saw the Hobbit last night with some great people and did not care for it at all. Further, I don't really get how people like that sort of thing. A very, very long movie, so long (as someone on twitter mentioned), there's enough time for the Hobbit to carefully read his employment contract. Surely that could have been cut? And magic birds? Magic mountain men? But the wizard doesn't seem to help much, except when everyone is about to die and he's all "oh wait, I'm a wizard, here you go".

Anyway. Cate Blanchett is still really pretty.

We only saw it because we couldn't get our collective shit together in time to see Django Unchained, which I will see soon.

I did nothing but watch movies over Christmas. That and eat and drink and smoke. It's a good thing I'm not super rich, or that would definitely be all I ever did. Also, I wrote 14 pages of a play. I think I'll make it a one act and perform it with willing friends at a party next spring. That's fun! Or "fUn!!!1!" I don't know you guys, death is coming for me. I'm still not dealing with this aging thing very well. This blog post has gone off the rails.

Oh, so I also watched "Safety Not Guaranteed" and "Take This Waltz". The first one is way better. The second one, Waltz, is worth watching for people who are moving to Toronto next year indefinitely and want to remember why that city is way more fun than Ottawa, like me. Also, Sarah Silverman in that movie will break your heart. She is so good. The whole thing is basically about Sarah Polley regretting leaving her first marriage. "Love the one you're with" is extremely depressing, as a theme, but it's not wrong. Not always. UGHHH, see that's what that movie does. See it though? Maybe?

Safety has the incredible Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass. Oh holy shit, you guys. It's so good. Funny, poignant, original, adorable characters...good life lessons!!! I'm not saying enough about how great it is. I'm bad at movie reviews. Let's call it a very strong recommendation.

Also, I met Plaza in LA last summer. She and Busy Phillips had to hang out with me for this charity thing. We drank beer and Plaza talked about getting high in Toronto (with other people, she didn't really like me being there, though Busy was super nice). And let me just say that Aubrey Plaza is the scariest human being in the world. Her eye contact would make you cry. BUT when she grinned in approval at a very inappropriate charades move I made (how do you act out Michael J Fox? Really, I didn't know, so I just started shaking my arms and legs. Everyone booed in the audience. Aubrey smiled and I felt MEGA VALIDATED). That's it, that's my story. Also, all famous people are 5'2".

Go see Safety Not Guaranteed!! It's guaranteed entertainment!!!! 

Oh My Queen

I'm getting drunk and recuperating from pneumonia chez my parents, who I told "I think I'm becoming an alcoholic" and they didn't laugh. Then my mom said she was looking at my cough syrup (the highly medicated barbituate prescribed 'good shit') and observed I seem to be taking 5x the recommended dosage, which is why I'm sleeping in until 4pm these last few days.

"Yeah, but I'm not coughing!" was my reply. Also, drug dreams are great. Last night I was on a magical horse farm and mystical dude with terrible timing was looking for me and we rode off into rainbow snow fields or something.

Anyway, here are some great things I've seen lately and other things I remembered loving in my fever dream:

"Angels in America", the Meryl Streep one. Good lord, I know all of Harper and Prior's lines down flat. I studied this play in theatre classes in undergrad. It's no surprise I identify with delusive valium addicts and paranoid drag queens. But you would like it too because it's fantastic, see?

I also saw this fantastic documentary called "The Queen of Versailles". It's about an extremely decadent, outrageously wealthy family, facing down-cuts after 2008. The personality that comes through is surprising. I am a shitty movie reviewer, since I can't think up the words that would convince you to watch this. There's a scene where awful children callously let a pet lizard die. Also, just watch it and take my word for it, ok?

Then I watched "Goon" again. It's very violent but the characters are lovable.

And finally, I rewatched the "Slums of Beverly Hills". This was my favourite movie when I was fifteen. I got very sad a few years ago when Natasha Lyonne got so sick and down on her luck. I'm happy she's better. I could watch this movie a million times. It's about a quirky family slumming it in...you know. Natasha and Marisa Tomei just play the most earnest, hilarious, vulnerable girls ever. It's a riot of a movie. I love it.

Y'all Don't Care

...but blog is on hiatus until I'm done exams. I will post a lot of my drunk/ high movie reviews around the holiday time though, since that is the only way I can get through family parties.

In the meantime, this is a fair representation of my ability to study for securities class, given my 0% understanding of economics: