Category — fillim

I’m getting ready to go to a movie screening downtown so I’m preparing myself mentally for the onslaught of film critics doing their Portland best to ignore the hell out of me. I’m going to wear orange and maybe bring a book to read aloud from in the lobby. Something really pretentious, too, like Roland Barthes or Diderot.

Anywho, first I wanted to thank EVERYONE who commented yesterday. You made me feel so much better. I’m a big baby. I KNOW IT. Your stories were fantastic and remind me to tell you about the one time at every job I’ve ever had where I got sick of it and started coming into work drunk and stealing things. This was usually the first day.

I’m going to write a longer post this afternoon when I get back from “working” (my job is hard). I plan on eating a whole pretzel and drinking a gigantic diet coke and then blowing up like a balloon from all the sodium.

In the meantime, why don’t you read my friend Megan’s blog Nestmaker? Really pretty things to look at AND the smart funny.

Melissa and I dropped by The Mercury Offices yesterday to pick up a dvd of a movie I will be sleeping through reviewing after I watch it with an entire bottle of wine in front of me open mind. And miracle of miracles! Brad the Office Manager was pleasant to us! Friendly, even. We did not get to say hello to anyone because they had all been given advance warning of our coming and presumeably, hid behind their Ikea Cat Palm or under their desks, as I would do if the situation were reversed because I am TERRIFIED of meeting new people. Especially sober. (Perversely, I spent the last 15 years in customer service - mainly riding that line between doing a good job and not showing up because I had a wicked cocaine hangover.) So that was FINE, really, except I’m a little confused about one thing and, I think, so was Melissa - the balloons and flowers and chocolate cake we assumed would be waiting for us when we got there…were nowhere to be found. NOT EVEN ONE CUPCAKE. On the serious.

Was there some sort of confusion as to whether we were vegan or not? Or maybe we have seasonal allergies and a fear of floating things? Did we…omg…did we smell? Like Republicans? Because there was just that one time in college and I was only experimenting and also I needed a place to crash for a few nights and homeless people were just, oh, I HATE GAYS.*

Sorry. Occasionally I lose time.

I’m confident this will all get sorted out eventually and next time we show up, Alison Hallett will be waiting for us with a bottle of vodka and some gelato. I am excited for this to happen.

(IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, RIGHT? OMG.)

*God, internet, no I do not hate the gays. I love them. I do, however, hate things I don’t understand.

Have I ever told you about the other film reviewers I see at Press Screenings? They are…gah…they WON’T TALK TO ME. We’re all a little socially awkward and I’m shy but still, I can’t understand why they won’t even make eye contact with me. Is it because I have no soul? CAN THEY SEE THAT?

Yesterday, I got to the screening pretty early and decided I wanted a pretzel from the concession stand because I like to pay a lot of money for stupid things. Then I accidentally walked into the movie that was showing before the one I was seeing and was politely escorted over to the concession area again. I really don’t know why Dane allows me to go out in public without first pinning a note to my chest that says, “My name is Kiala and I have difficulty with logic and reason. Please don’t let me touch anyone with my sticky, salty hands.”

So I was sort of awkwardly shuffling around the lobby with my giant pretzel and a whole group of reviewers was gathering around another reviewer sitting at a table. He had a ponytail. I can only guess this is what distinguished him as the pack leader although I also spotted a squatty woman with orange hair and a guy with a beard who were both radiating moderate middle aged power. I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t the ponytail at all. Maybe it was just the sang-froid manner with which he ate his nachos.

I stood in the lobby and watched them for a minute or two and they watched me watching them and I don’t even know why I cared if these people noticed me or not. I didn’t know what to say to them anyway. I probably would have panicked and offered the bearded guy some of my pretzel or I might’ve stammered something completely inappropriate like, “I hear Cristina Ricci gets sodomized in this. I’m really looking forward to that. More pretzel?”

Ok, so I can see where you’re all going with the O.G. Mr. Darcy, ladies…

But behold the power of Macky in Children of Dune.

BEHOLD IT.

WITH YOUR EYES.

And yes, that is his sister. Naughty.

I’ve got two screenings to go to today. They both look GOD AWFUL but maybe, hopefully in a fun way? One has James McAvoy in it which is just….

OMG AWESOME.

You know what would be nice for me? If there could be a movie starring Daniel Craig, James Mcavoy, Clive Owen, Colin Firth, and the guy who plays Holland “Dutch” Wagenbach on The Shield (I know that seems weird, but trust me, it will work for you) and the plot would just be them wearing swimming trunks and getting in and out of the ocean for two hours.

When do I get to see that movie?

Like that…only with more sand.

I think I’ve got my finger in too many pies. Or at least, my fictional finger in too many very real, very important to me to not let down people, pies. I haven’t written anything for Pampelmoose in two weeks, just one post for Engamer, and still NOTHING besides the About Us section of Geektoob. I went to a screening for the Mercury on Friday at Cinema 21 and then another screening on Monday at the Whitsell (for the Merc too) Auditorium inside the Art Museum.

I don’t know if any of you have ever been to a Silver Screen Club screening before, but let me tell you it’s like watching a movie with the entire cast of Cocoon sitting next to you and gumming their popcorn. Except you’re not allowed to bring any food into the new renovated fancy pants theater so I suppose they’re just gumming some prunes or Centrum Silver they somehow snuck into a tote bag or a fanny pack.

Anyway, I spent most of Monday writing about the movie for Friday and all of yesterday writing the one for Monday. I just wonder if I maybe don’t have a knack for journalism. Sometimes I can spit out a review or a post in 15 minutes and sometimes it takes me an hour or two, but it always breaks my brain. If I write more than one post in a day, I feel like I’ve just run a smartypants marathon and need to carbo load again by reading the internet for a few hours (Seriously, will that walrus ever get his bucket back?!!!?) and then sleeping until next month o’clock.

I’m actually reading a real book right now - the kind I can take into the bathtub without getting electrocuted. It’s The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollingurst (you can see it over there…a little to your right) and it’s about a GAY. I didn’t know this when I picked it up or surely I would have set it on fire immediately lest the gay get on me. This book is so good. It’s like a panacea for all wayward english lit majors searching for a lost Henry James novel. It makes me happy. Correction: It makes me GAY.

Wait, where was I? Oh! My inability to focus (see what I did there?), yes.

Dane will tell you all about my problem with multi-tasking. Seriously, just ask him, he could go on for HOURS. Basically, if I have to do more than one thing in a day besides the normal cleaning the house things, the overwhelmingness of it bullies me into a panic which then becomes a kind of lethargic neurotic coma. I’m like a dog who’s been kept inside too much and starts to scratch itself really, really hard in one place (I can’t believe I just compared myself to a dog. With fleas.) Too many things to do short circuits my action taking ability. I know this would be helped with some medication (I love you klonopin), but I am so resistant to putting my liver and kidneys through any more trauma than I already have (Vodka + Advil = oh my god DIALYSIS), I’d just rather learn to manage it on my own. Like our ancestors did when they had to hunt and gather in JESUS CHRIST KIALA THE SAME GODDAMN DAY AND NO ONE BLOGGED ABOUT IT.

So now I make to do lists and I breathe deeply and one day when I’m old I hope to be able to go to a Silver Screen Club movie and remember to sneak in my prunes and my Centrum Silver and then go to my bridge club without freaking the fuck out.

My review of First Sunday came out today! Yay for me!

Erik edited the hell out of it (in a good way) and it makes much more sense now. I have a tendency to overparenthesize and also maybe make words up.

Oh! ANNNNND…I thought Chi McBride was Charles Durning right up until about 8 o’clock last night. If I worked at The Daily Planet, Mr. White would SO have fired my ass.

But I don’t so he didn’t.

I just came back from Whole Foods and Powells. I bought that French Women Aren’t Fat Like You Are Fatty McAmerican book. Maybe I bought it for my mom, YOU DON”T KNOW. Don’t judge me.

I also bought the new Vanity Fair with Harrison Ford and Shia LaBoeuf on the cover to hide the fact that I was buying the lamest Oprah Book Club Today Show Segment thing ever and I was reeeeallly hoping a lady would ring me up. Instead, some Art School jerk was my cashier. He probably doesn’t even work at Powell’s. I think he just had a break between digital filmmaking and screenprint design so he jumped behind the counter to ruin my day. I haven’t been so embarrassed since I had to return panties to Urban Outfitters. Because they were too SMALL.

Meh.

But I made an excellent tuna salad with about 50 million vegetables in it. I’m going to call it The Dane Salad. Right?

I’ve read a little of the French lady book and I have one problem. I can’t take the stairs up to our apartment (frenchy exercise) in our building unless I first take the elevator up to the second floor. It’s some kind of post 9/11 rule to keep dumb people from running back upstairs to get their iphones if we’re attacked by terrorists. Well, you know what America? The terrorists won’t need to attack us because we’ll be so fat from not taking the stairs that we’ll die of a collective massive coronary in the middle of watching American Gladiators. With one hand in a bucket of nacho cheese sauce and the other on the remote. Screw you Burlington Tower! Or should I say, Fattington Tower?

6 am is a ridiculous time for anyone to do anything. How do birds and bus drivers and old people do it? The only coherent thing I could say this morning was, “gah” and that doesn’t really mean anything. Except maybe to old people. They have their own language, you know. For instance, “Would you like to see a movie this weekend?” is roughly translated as “Gah, dentures” (sucky dentures noise) “Lawrence Welk” (smiling towards a wall) “gah talkies?”

I’ve traveled quite extensively, so I know what I’m talking about.

This morning I had to get up with Dane - IT WAS STILL DARK OUT - and start writing my review for First Sunday. I don’t want to give anything away but Stupid Piece of Trash Not Worth The Time It Would Take To Pee All Over It just about sums it up.

Don’t ask me how I would pee all over a movie. I will do whatever it takes to get my point across. I am a lady. Motherfuckers.

Anyway, I think? the review came out fine. I’m not sure yet. We’ll have to see what Erik says. This one was 300 words which is many more words than the 50 I was doing before. At least, let’s see - add the five, carry the zero - at least FIVE MILLION more words.

I’ve traveled extensively, so I know what I’m talking about.

The screening was interesting. It was put on by Jammin 95.5 (gawd) and Dane and I sat next to the very serious Willamette Week guy. I had something in my eye for the first half of the film which was a bitch. Also, every single resident of Gresham was sitting in the audience. Luckily, security confiscated their cell phones. But not mine. I guess they figured I’d need it to light my notebook. Which I forgot. Instead, I just stabbed myself repeatedly in the hand with my pen to keep awake. Very effective.

I’ve traveled extensively, so I know what I’m talk- ok, I’ll stop.