Oh God, I could do better than that!

My life continues to spiral upwards and now I have a part-time job at a coffee shop. I had always hoped I'd get to revisit my barista years ...wham! another dream comes true. It's not all bad, actually; it shares ownership with the artsy-independant movie theater next door, so I get to see movies for free (something I didn't know when I filled out an application and it's a mixed blessing because now I'll NEVER quit).

I'm usually a pretty negative person, but I'm trying to not let things (like the Academy Awards) get to me*, so I wrote most of this yesterday morning beforehand. I figured I could pick my own winners instead of being annoyed at what actually won. (...but of course I'm not posting it 'til now, so once again everything's going exactly as planned.)

Anyway, I'm limiting myself to the movies I saw at the theater, which are (in the order I saw them):
The Rum Diary
J. Edgar
The Way
The Skin I Live In
My Week With Marilyn
Young Adult
The Girl With The Dragon Tatto
The Adventures of Tintin
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Carnage
Shame
A Dangerous Method
Hugo
The Descendants
The Artist

Best Picture: (I think nominating ten films is lame. People with taste agree with me.) (Also, I missed some movies I really wanted to see and probably would have changed my lists: Melancholia; Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene; and The Tree of Life.) The Skin I Live In; Young Adult; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Shame; and Hugo. A tough call, but even though I'm giving Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy all kinds of other awards, Young Adult wins and I'll give Best Foreign to The Skin I Live In.



Best Actor: Gary Oldman (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)



Best Actress: Charlize Theron (Young Adult) (No contest.)



Best Supporting Actor: Benedict Cumberbatch (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)



Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) (I'm breaking my own rule since this isn't on the list of ones I saw at the theater)



Best Director: Tomas Alfredson (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)



Best Original Screenplay: Young Adult



Best Adapted Screenplay: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy



Music: Shame (For that "New York, New York" scene mostly, but I really liked the music throughout.)





*Okay a quick negative Oscar observation: The Descendants won best adapted screenplay. Maybe the first half of the book is largely joyless and the two story lines (comatose wife and Hawaiian royalty land sale) never really meet? And when you finish it, you feel kind of dirty? Then the movie is a spot-on adaptation. And maybe Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is an awful novel and in making it into a good movie they did the novel a disservice?




Also, if I were giving out the Razzies, I would be torn--The Descendants or J. Edgar? I'd want to give it to The Descendants, but I'd have to be fair--J. Edgar was worse.

Mood:

WHY!??!?

Michael K. has never let me down like this before!




I had not given a single fuck about that Avengers movie until, while reading up on ScarJo for obvious reasons, I came across this bit about CHRIS PINE! But it's a typo that shouldn't have stayed. It's that boring lame-ass Chris Evans.

I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.

Obviously my trying to go through all the fashion shows on style.com is a losing game, so now I'm going to go through and look through the designers I usually like. And I'm going through Fall 2011, even though it's now old, because that's what we're living now. First up, Band of Outsiders:

Obviously I wish I had more style, but what I wear most of the time is this: jeans or khakis, and a plainish t-shirt/sweatshirt or boring polo/button-down shirt. In my defense the khakis I mostly wear are these relatively skinny ones. But the point is, I wear and am usually drawn to boring clothes. Whenever I'm visiting my younger sister or she's visiting me, we end up drinking and looking through fashion magazines. I'll point out an outfit I like, and she's like, "? isn't that what you already wear?"

Anyway, here I like the sunglasses (it would have to be a pretty lame pair of sunglasses for me to not like them). Also, I like the shirt. I've been noticing this color blocking (I think that's what it's called) in several shows. And I'm warming to turtlenecks. Also the color of the pants and the sneakers.



The overall look:



The fit of the suit. I'm not sure I could pull off the fur scarf/I know I couldn't/I'd probably try.



The coat! I'm still liking big coats and skinny pants. And I like green.



I have a lot of trouble convincing people who don't slavishly look through fashion magazines or fashion model tumblrs that tailored sweatpants exist, but they do and I want a pair. And that awesome jacket/coat. And an all-grey/white outfit.

Mostly movie stills. ("Build a fucking bridge!")

1. I'm still running, but since I'm not training for a specific race, I'm not following that plan anymore. It was fun while it lasted. I am trying to do a speed workout (usually a tempo run or a fartlek) and a long run every week.

2. Two weeks ago I decided to start eating a vegetarian diet. No real reason other than needing a change. I'm not calling myself a vegetarian because a. I'm still eating fish sometimes and b. a lot of vegetarians are really annoying, so I'm trying not to identify as one. I'm trying not to talk or complain about it in "real life," so maybe I will on here. (Or maybe I'll take another two month break after saying, "I'm back!".)

3. Books. I'm currently reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I'm liking it so far. Before that I read two chick lit books by Danielle Ganek, Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him and The Summer We Read Gatsby. Lulu was okay and Summer was pretty bad and pointless but fun in its way. Before that Jack Kerouac's On the Road, which I'd somehow never read, Lisa Birnbach's True Prep (pointless), Write It Down Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want and Getting It (a self-help book. there's something self-defeatingly sad in requesting a self-help book from the library), Ira Levin's The Boys from Brazil (good, but no Rosemary's Baby or The Stepford Wives), and Martin Amis's The Rachel Papers, which I loved and which, I think catches me up to when I last wrote on here.

I've decided to link to to Goodreads when I mention books, because I'm recommending people read them, not necessarily buy them. It sometimes annoys me when blogs are constantly linking to sites to buy whatever. I guess it makes sense for the blogs where they're being given something by the company (true story: I wish this were me) but pointless otherwise.

4. Movies.





































































4. That'll do for now (I'll need something to post in a couple months).