11'09"01

11 directors.
From 11 countries.
Make 11 short movies.
Each 11 minutes.
All different perspectives of September 11th.

Anger, sadness, apathy, humor, confusion, understanding, courage - its all here. None of these shorts is stellar on its own, but together they are a very thought-provoking piece using one event in American history to tie otherwise disjoint people and cultures together.




I loved it. My favorite short was the entry from the US, directed by Sean Penn. There is only one actor on screen, the now 90 year old Ernest Borgnine, he was great!

The short from Israel, directed by one of my favorites, Amos Gitai, was also good. It puts 9/11 in the perspective of a people that live with smaller but similar events on a daily basis.

The short from Mexico, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) was very well-done, creative but brutal to watch.

10/10

Mistress Bad Ass

HEU Tara graduated with her MBA, hence she is now known as Mistress Bad Ass. I was privileged enough to be invited to the bad-ass celebration. It was a little too much fun. HEU Tara's mixologist friend from Miami had made some Pom Martinis with vodka that had been soaking in mangoes and strawberries. I had 3 just to make sure they weren't tainted (really sure).




Announcing HEU Tara, MBA

Of course no celebration is complete without a pink flamingo. Bad-ass puppy supervises as bad-ass mom finds the perfect outdoor chair to display the decor.



Yay flamingos!

What I thought would be an early evening turned into a late one. This is a recurring theme with Tara parties, she has fun friends and despite being a work-hard girl, she has no problem flipping over to the wild side.

I should post the picture of her sleeping with the pink flamingo, but I won't :)

Abilene

Boss Man and I are taking his plane out to Abilene today to do some business. Is it wrong for me to be more excited about the plane ride than the work? :)

Dear Oxford, Sexually Yours

When I was an undergrad I befriended one of my physics TA's. She was from London. She went to Oxford. She used to tell me all the crazy things she had to do to get into Oxford. I almost felt guilty that I got into Berkeley just by being bored in high school and applying to CAL's accelerated program. I think I filled out one form and took some placement tests, that was about a day's effort.

Watching this film reminded me of her so I sent her an email. She is still in academia, teaching physics in England. She had just seen this one last month but unlike me she found it silly since she actually did much, much more "serious preparation".



History Boys

Physics girl might have done more preparation but I doubt she tried to seduce her professsor merely to see if she could, or out of some sort of gratitude, or display of power. That is what interested me the most about this film, aside from the very quick-talking, witty, biting demeanors of these so-called high school students trying to gain entry into England's most elite universities. It was the ease which which they all seemed to embrace their own sexuality, since the gay student and the very aggressive bisexual student who pursues his professors are simply portrayed as two-a-penny variety, grown and shipped daily.

A good coming of age story with some great performances by some promising young Brits.

8.5/10

Sold!

My townhome officially sold on Friday.

This is wonderful considering I got more than I wanted. This is a good year to get rid of property, since interest rates will likely rise next year. I was also becoming concerned about the horrendous glut of townhomes on the market and the rising foreclosure rates.

THe Highly Elusive Urban Tara had her graduation partay last night, it was a little too much fun. It was nice to meet all of her out of town crew, as well as the people that work for her. Her 100-lb puppy was very excited to have so many people around to pet him and feed him queso and chocolate macaroons. I wouldnt want to be around this morning to see how he reacted to all that.

I randomly stopped off at the Round Up afterwards, which probably wasnt such a good idea considering the 4 Alleve I just took, lol. Oh well, no time to worry about that, I have a Hotel Godess lunch party to go to. I hope she has her special Bloody Marys prepared.

Pinot Memories

I only have two moods, happy and mad-as-hell. Last night I was mad-as-hell. So I did what any sensible person would do, I drank a whole bottle of Pinot Noir. I tried to watch Off The Black but I fell asleep. On the floor. With my big headphones on. That was all fine but I looked funny with them on when I was jolted out of my deep sleep to answer the door at 8am. It was the guy from Home Depot in with my new fridge. I need to write things down, lol.

Atlanta called again today to try to spin doc me into taking their ridiculous offer. I cracked.

"Look, you can put a big ol' fluffy bonnet on crazy but its still going to be crazy".

I don't think they will call again.

Atlanta Off

Altanta will not happen. Their offer was so low I was in shock. I thanked them all for their hard work but that their offer was not on my radar. Anyway, back to the drawing board. I feel disappointed since I spent 6 months turning down other really good offers waiting for this one. Lesson learned.

Chiwetel

Who is Chiwetel Ejiofor and why has he been in 3 movies I've rented over the past few weeks?


Kinky Boots
Hetero shoe maker gets some business advice from a drag queen named Lola (Ejiofor) on how to turn his failing business around. Lola comes on board as the designer and together they start making shoes for a niche market - drag queens. Its cute with obligatory straight/gay acceptance themes.

7.0/10





Serenity

River is a slightly disturbed but clairvoyant girl living in a future world ruled by a totalitarian government. She knows a secret about what the future holds, but will she survive The Operative (Ejiofor) who is sent to kill her. Great, medium-bodied sci-fi.

8.5/10


Children Of Men

Brilliant. The story of a society that cannot reproduce and the resulting despair and chaos of such is one of the year's best. The staging and acting are phenomenal. The direction is tight. The mood is frightening, if only because it is totally believable. Luke (Ejiofor) leads a group of activists who take it upon themselves to secure the only pregnant woman on Earth, hence the future of mankind. But, as with all humans, there are politics and agendas obscuring altruistic motives.

10.0/10

AIDS Melons

Yes, thats right kids, melons can give you AIDS! ;)


This Ynet Article just made me laugh out loud. Some of the tallbacks at the end had me rolling on the floor.

Enjoy!

Minor Update

I had a wonderful 5-day trip to ATL. I have a deposit down on a new place to live. Its a 2-story loft smack in the middle of midtown. About everything I need is within a 4-block walk including the subway, grocery, dry cleaner, all of the museums, playhouses and theatres in midtown. This will be my version of living in Manhattan, only less expensive. I might have time to write about the High Museum and the many incredible tastes and sights ... but it will be a race against my memory, lol.

There was another snag in the house contract, a problem with one of the piers and and one of the beams. We're pretty sure this is not a problem but we need to get the home owners association to generate a letter acknowledging the problem and that they will fix it. The letter has to be generated before the option period expires, which is Monday.

The job thing is rolling along except that HR girl who *was* working my process left for a new job and the ball had been dropped for a week. This probably delays everything by 2-3 weeks but we'll see how that plays out.

Onward to *serious* packing.

More Yay

House contract is back on!

Boo, yay

Contract on the house fell through. But. That is OK since I found out today from the work place that we are still 4-6 weeks out on the official HR paper offer (yes, it takes this long, lol).

My dryer and fridge conspired against me yesterday and both broke; dryer can be saved, fridge cannot.

I developed a sinus infection yesterday. Its always good to have a Dr. in the family. I interrupted his jog through downtown Cincinatti and he fixed me up with a Z-pak! Yay.

Off to buy a new fridge then pack up for the ATL trip!

Bugger, Bollocks and Blimey

I didn't meet my great-grandmother until she was almost 80. That's when we brought her from England to the States. I remember she wore the same blue dress with white flowers, it matched her tea set which was white with blue flowers. She had stylishly coiffed cotton for hair and she always smelled faintly of Earl Grey. Her back was always straight, her upper lip pursed and poised to aid in the delivery of clever sarcasm at a moment's notice. Not that I would have understood the sarcasm since I could barely understand a word she said through her thick accent. In fact, the only words I would come to recognize from her were 'Bugger', 'Bollocks' and 'Blimey'. She usually released a urgent combination of those when I would sneak up from behind and scare her. It was cute the way she used to swat at me, pretending not to like that.

There was always something mysterious about great-gran, as if she had just casually committed some felony before sitting down to a proper afternoon tea. I suppose that is why this film reminded me of her.



Keeping Mum

This is a wonderful, light-hearted but dark comedy. Not dark really, just murky. I like this form of British comedy, the causal delivery of the punch beneath the breath, turning the hideous into something near-banal, something that will put a smile on your face, or maybe make you laugh out loud.

I was hoping that Rowan Atkinson wouldn't spin this into Mr. Bean. He didn't. And he was surprisingly good! Maggie Smith, what can we say, she's always fantastic. No surprise to see her anchor the film as the slightly disturbed but well-meaning nanny. Leaving the plot details alone since discovering those was part of the film's appeal.

8.0/10
Keeping Mum