Friday 17 December 2010

48 Year Old Divorcee Blogging About Plants

I struggle with those blogs where people just ramble about whatever comes to their minds, do you know the type I mean? They post pictures of their cats and they give out "Most Fluffy Blog" Awards to their friends who have names like Deirdre and Marlene. But, as a change of pace; I figured I'd just write a blog without knowing what I'm going to say, and see where it ends up. I won't be blogging about my cats, because I killed them.

I've never owned cats, don't worry. I never even saw the show. I watched 'THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3' last night, that's the remake, not the original. I know we're meant to claim that remakes are the devil; but I'd never seen the original and this film I enjoyed. I'm not an action film guy. A few cars blow up and buildings explode. Great. But why should I care? But '..Pelham' was good. It had characters I cared about. This is what I need from an action flick.

1. A deadline. 
i.e. Get me the money, otherwise your family dies.

2. Someone who wants to get it all over so they can see their kid again. 
i.e. I need this to be over, so that I can finally be a good Dad to Little Billy.

3. Plausibility.
i.e. Don't have two guys running around shooting each other for two hours and end it with one of them suddenly inventing a phone that doubles as a ham sandwich, which poisons the bad guy, who suddenly announces that his ham allergy is deadly. 

Now, PELHAM, as I'll call it now, did have a few plausibility issues, but I enjoyed it! It was in New York, it was gritty, it was fast. It had the dancing guy from the 70's shouting "Motherfucker!" a lot. Great stuff. 

"JULIE & JULIA" is a good movie. It captures a different New York. It's the Nora Ephron New York. It's funny; on the making of thing on the DVD one of the producers says "This is a different New York to what Nora's shot before, it's gritty." Gritty? really? Just because there was a Pizzeria in it? It's hardly "DO THE RIGHT THING." Now that's a good movie. In fact; now I think about it -- Spike Lee and Nora Ephron are both very similar in that they draw you into their worlds. They make you care. They can have a fuckawful story but they get away with it; because they've wrapped you up and welcomed you into their worlds. They've put the heating on, they've made you coffee, and you don't want to leave. 

Julie Powell; as a real person, and as a film character; is really a great role model for success. She had a target which would test her. She had passion for something. She had a role model. And she worked her ass off. Her character spoke a lot, of feeling like Julie Child was in the room, and of having conversations with her as she cooked. To many, that sounds insane; but to anybody who wants to do anything extraordinary, it's the most normal thing in the world. Napoleon Hill was preaching that back in the day in his success books. It works. Unfortunately, I thought I was visualizing Billy Wilder in my imagination, but it was actually Bill Wiseman, from Barnsley, UK; who is currently unemployed and suffering from gout. Make sure you visualize properly.

With all this talk of movies set in New York, I should mention Woody Allen. I watched "ANYTHING ELSE" the other day. I love it! I hated it for a while, but on watching it a few days back I remembered that I actually love it, I just convinced myself I hated it after everyone said it was terrible. But I dig it. Sure, it sucks in so many ways and is a rehash of many past works. Woody was also clearly struggling with big changes in crew; this was the time when he was having to come to the realization that even though he'd had people willing to fund his New York movies all through his career, that was no longer going to be the case. 

But I love this film because; Woody knows comedy. More than that, Woody Allen knows Woody Allen's style of comedy. And if you are a big Woody fan, you'll find lots to love in this movie. There's nothing better than a scene with Woody going over the top and panicking. There's nothing better than a straight line, followed by a cut to a scene which results in huge laughs. There's nothing better than Woody making a joke about being Jewish. There's nothing better than seeing Woody Allen convince another character to buy a survival kit (which includes not only a gun, but water purifying tablets.) Watching Woody Allen is just a pure joy, if you're into that kind of thing. If you're not, you'll suffer. But don't worry, pretty soon after this movie, we all started suffering, again and again.

I am rambling. This isn't good is it? I will now write a paragraph in the style of a 48 Year Old Divorcee.


MJ emailed me. He wanted sex again. I just realized MJ has the same initials as Michael Jackson and some people think he isn't dead. What if it's him? What if he gets me pregnant? Would it really be his or would it be Macaulay Culkin's? F called. GH-N-Q didn't call. I was sad. I bought a Dicksonia Antarctica for the garden. It's so beautiful. N got the garden in the divorce, so I don't know where I'll put it. I'm so lonely sometimes. It reminds me of the time FB told me he wanted some. I thought he wanted a threesome with me and I. That was my fantasy, me and FBI. But it wasn't the case. He did want some, but not sex. He was after my Sasa Palmata. I told him the soil in his garden wouldn't be right, plus it didn't have adequate shade.

Anyways. I watched "SLUMDOG MILLIONNAIRE," too. I like Freida Pinto. I like the movie. I liked it more this time on DVD than I did in the cinema. The hype was so big then because I could hardly see the film on the screen; it was like there was some big giant sign in front of it say "OMG, THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER!". That's why I didn't see "THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT" for ten years.

I'm going to stop typing now.

Care to share?

10 comments:

  1. I liked Anything Else too, though if I watch it back to back with Annie Hall, I feel like they are the same movie. Well, maybe not the exact same movie--more like fraternal twins, or Irish twins.

    I do a lot of pointless blogging. Sometimes it's just nice to have a place to put your stream of consciousness, you know? Then again, maybe that's why I only have 63 followers and you have 811! Oh...wait...810...809...d'oh! Shouldn't have alienated your audience like that! ;)

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  2. John Travolta as a threatening villain = instant implausibility. Denzel was good though. I don't have any friends named Deidre (that'd be worrying), but I do rather a lot of random blogging :(

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  3. Love this post...even though I feel especially guilty that the fake portion was what I loved the most. I'm totally with you on Woody, if you like Woody you're bound to find SOMETHING to hold onto in a Woody flick.

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  4. what do you mean by fake portion? not sure what you're referring too... regardless, good to see you andrew, haven't seen you in these parts for a while.

    sugary; you have a point; but i thought travolta did okay, but why was there no dancing?

    TB - do you know the song TB SHEETS by Van Morrison? It's really something.

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  5. I do not know it, but I will look it up now!

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  6. I am not sure if Andrew meant the paragraph in 48yo divorcee style by "fake portion", but this is also the part which I instantly enjoyed most...It was instantly appealing and I am sure it was not the different font color which made the difference. I was probably expecting that bit from the very beginning, given the title.

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  7. Personally on the clean water tabs I like to ruff it more like man vs wild where I evaporate the urine from my pee...but I could do the tabs as well

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  8. haha brilliant post, I was actually pondering those kinds of blogs you mention the other day...did I say pondering? I meant reflecting on with contempt ;]

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  9. boy i hear you about those divorcees. the lady next door has a couple of pit bulls that are driving my cats crazy. she brings them back from the dog fights and they are so amped up you can't hear yourself fracking think.

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