back to school...back to school...

I'm nervous as hell. Another semester, working with a crew, looking for jobs, directing actors...and dealing with the rumblings of my heart...it's going to be another busy four months. Fingers are crossed and teeth are pretty much gritted non-stop these days. Yikes!

Winter break as a whole was kind of uneventful. I didn't see half the people I was hoping too. My alchohol intake consisted of one glass of wine (it was a QUALITY glass, though). The screenplay I wrote for a contest got finished, but now I'm having trouble submitting it, and I think my time would have been better spent working on my own personal project instead. I didn't QUITE get the job hook-ups I had hoped for (which is not to say my searches weren't fruitless). I didn't talk to college buds online or via phone enough. I didn't see enough worthwhile movies on my movie list. I didn't swim or work out enough. I didn't practice much piano. I didn't travel anywhere. I didn't DO much of anything.

Although I did hang out with family and enjoy the SB scenery, and I guess that's what the break is for anyway. I also made some bucks working the front desk of the museum (and I got paid more than I was expecting for that friggin' "Treasures" video), and I made a few more dollars as a swim coach. Even more importantly, I got to be a bit of a role model for some of those kids. So all is not lost.

Yesterday while working at the museum, I had the exciting pleasure of glue-sticking envelopes closed (the party never stops!). I randomly looked down at one envelope, and saw that it was (gasp) addressed to John Cleese! Needless to say, I didn't glue-stick that one closed, but licked it personally myself. Yup. I licked John Cleese's envelope. How often do you get to say that?

I've actually met Mr. Cleese on several occassions (there was talk of him actually hosting the video I made for the museum, but--surprise!--it fell through). He's a pretty nice guy. And very British. His Britishness in fact might even make him seem nicer than he actually is.

Today I also had another encounter with a rare creature (first the ghost coon, now this!). On my way down to do my last coaching job, sitting in the middle of the road, was a tiny little 2-foot tall OWL. I've seen many barn owls and great-horned owls perched on the telephone wires at dusk when I take Old San Marcos Road down into SB, but never have I seen this little of a guy STANDING in the middle of the road.

I swerved to miss the ball of fluff with spindly legs, and pulled the car over. I got out and walked right up to the tiny dude. He stared right back at me, without a care in the world. Finally he hopped/flew off, only to land on a dirt mound a few yards away. I followed him again. Finally he flew off for good.

It turns out this little guy was a burrowing owl (95% sure). I had seen pics and vids of burrowing owls, because these charismatic guys are not only irresistibly cute, but they are the only owl that doesn't fly around a heck of a lot. Instead they live in the ground in prairie dog holes and hop around on their longish legs. I had always assumed they didn't live around here, but I guess I was wrong. We don't have any prairie dogs in Southern California, but we DO have tons of ground squirrels, which have the nasty habit of burrowing into every inch of soil and making a mess of things. I'm glad that a cute little owl at least can share its home with those loathsome varmits.

Speaking of loathsome varmits, I also saw "Over the Hedge" and thought it was formulaic, but cute and fun. The voice cast especially livens things up, the stand-out being William Shatner as an overacting possum. Since Shatner is jokingly known to be such a bad actor, casting him as a creature that "plays" dead was very funny indeed. And I'm a sucker for movies with cute talking animals and inventive animation. It wasn't Pixar or golden-age Disney fare, but it was certainly worth watching when my brain was too tired to handle anything heavy-handed.

The Year in Movies

I admittedly feel REALLY stupid and shallow writing this right now. I tried SO hard to come up with something uplifting and meaningful to say about 2006. About what I learned this past year, who I met, important meaningful things I had done, but none of it really seemed to come together. I can't REMEMBER all the way back to last January. I can say at least that for myself, 2006 has been a great year (encompassing 290, 310, and gaining some great friends and learning more than a few important life lessons), but in terms of the world as a whole, MAN did 2006 suck.

But I don't want to talk about that right now. Instead, here is how all the movies I saw this year fared in my eyes. My top ten, and my bottom five (yes Will, I'm a bit of a copycat at times). These are movies I not only saw this year, but were also released this year (so movies from 2005 don't count in my book).

THE TOP TEN:
1. "The Descent" The best horror movie I've seen in a LONG time, and probably the only movie of the year I'm going to go out and buy on DVD.
2. "United 93" Really good. See it. Though it's definitely not a popcorn flick.
3. "Cars" I don't care what anyone says. I just saw this with my parents for the third time and I still loved it. It's no "Toy Story" or "Nemo" but it was still Pixar gold as far as I'm concerned.
4. "An Inconvenient Truth" This hardly qualifies as a movie, but it was still informative and ought to be seen by everyone.
5. "The Departed" The movie that made me like Scorsese.
6. "Casino Royale" James Bond is back, and he's GOOD again, thanks to this movie. The best Bond flick since "Goldeneye" and one of the better Bond movies ever.
7. "Little Miss Sunshine" Proof that Sundance movies aren't always pretentious and boring. Great performances by the cast make this more than just another Indie yawner. Good screenplay too.
8. "Pan's Labyrinth" Not the dark quasi-fantasy masterpiece I was hoping for, but still one of the better movies this year.
9. "Inside Man" I am a bad film student for having never seen anything by Spike Lee other than this, but I thought this was good, so I want to see what else he's done (the guy IS a good public speaker, I can tell you that).
10. "Borat: Cultural Learning For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" Hilarious, hilarious, hilarious! Very nice!

THE BOTTOM FIVE
Actually, these were all enjoyable enough. I didn't really hate any of them. But they still could have been much more satisfying than they were.
5. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" I truthfully immensely enjoyed this film, but for all the wrong reasons. The first "Pirates" was a genuinely good movie on all accounts, but here the story was kind of...zilch. Hopefully "Pirates 3" will make up for this one's shortcoming.
4. "Snakes on a Plane" The jokes ABOUT the movie were far better than the movie itself. They should have just gone as utterly ridiculous as possible with this, but they kind of hit middle-ground between an OK action flick and a silly comedy. It didn't quite fly like is should have.
3. "Superman Returns" Sorry guys, but this movie did NOTHING to prove that Superman is a better superhero than Spider-Man or Batman. It was fun, but it was generic.
2. "The Prestige" A pretty OK movie actually, but I've come to expect far more from Christoper Nolan. The ending was disappointing here.
1. "Crank" Go ahead and give me hell for this guys...but this action movie just didn't do it for me. Sorry.

THE MIDDLE GROUND
These were actually all pretty good movies too. Here they are in no particular order...everything else (I think) that I saw this year:
"Ice Age 2," "Slither," "Night at the Museum," "The Pursuit of Happyness," "Stranger Than Fiction," "M:I:3," "V For Vendetta," "Night Watch."

Generally this year had a lot of "good" movies, but very few GREAT ones. Granted I also try to avoid the real crappy movies to begin with, so even my "bad" list contains movies that were still pretty entertaining.

I'm also reserving judgment on "The Queen," "Letters From Iwo-Jima," and "Children of Men" (which I can't WAIT to see). I've heard these are all very good, but I haven't seen them yet.

Also, I DO need to do my mandatory quick review of movies I saw recently. "Night at the Museum" I saw out of necessity, since I work at a museum. I got what I expected, which was a decent enough kid's movie with fun special fx hi-jinks (the dino skeleton coming to life was WAY cool). Since my expectations were low, I had a good time. Ben Stiller plays Ben Stiller once again, and Carla Gugino, whom I generally love, had a performance that was as stiff as a board (though she is not...ahem...as FLAT as a board). Dick Van Dyke, however, was immensely entertaining to watch onscreen again. He may be old, but he's just as much fun as he used to be. And of course, who can't enjoy a movie that sees one of my childhood fantasies come to life? Every little kid who spent time in a museum (and I have spent a LOT of time in museums) has probably imagined what would happen if the exhibits suddenly sprung to life. It was cool to see onscreen.

I also saw "Pursuit of Happyness" with my parents, last night, and it came VERY close to going on my top ten list for the year. The movie is certainly flawed, especially at the beginning (subtext people!..we know your characters are poor...they don't have to tell us twenty times!). Fortunately the film picks up once it starts to focus only on Will Smith and his son, and there are some truly heart-wrenching moments. Everything is also made more significant since we know most of the anecdotes are based on truth. Will Smith's performance deserves an Oscar nomination at least, and he is really what elevates the movie and makes it work. In fact, I would go far enough to say that "Pursuit of Happyness," while not the best movie of the year at all, at least contains the best MOMENT of any movie this year. (SPOILERS!). At the end, when Will FINALLY gets his job at the firm, the look in his tear-filled eyes made me shed more fluid from my eyes than even "Pan's Labyrinth" did (I am such a wuss when it comes to movies!). The look on Will's is by far the most emotional, uplifting expression I have seen on any actor's face this year. Who knew the Fresh Prince of Bel Air could move me so?
Oh yeah...AND this movie has Kurt Fuller in it (he played Russell the producer in "Wayne's World"). So that was a pleasant surprise too.

So...there you have it. Winter Break has been fun, but I'm getting kind of antsy...I want to go back to makin' movies again. And stuff.