A working holiday

I had to work Bank Holiday Monday.

"Boo!", I hear you cry. "No fair. Poor Celia, trapped in the office hiding from the sunshine."*

I don't really deserve any sympathy, though. Because:

1. I'm squirrelling away lieu days for future adventures (seriously, it's trip-planning a-go-go round here)

2. I did manage to see my beloved S, who was over from Amsterdam, for brunch before I went into work. Veggie brunch no less, with smoothies and bubble and squeak and general good things.

She loves me taking pictures at brunch. Really she does. 

3. Working in a super quiet office is strangely therapeutic, and I actually got. shit. done. 

4. I just postponed the fun and games to Tuesday. 

I got lucky and blagged tickets to a screening of The Way, Way Back for my friend B and I. 

To be honest, it has Allison Janney in, so I probably would have been sold right from the beginning. (CJ! Who doesn't love CJ?) But still - it reminded me once again why being a teenager is a fucking bitch. And why being grown-up isn't always a huge amount easier.

It also reminded me why I love Sam Rockwell. There are many reasons why I love Sam Rockwell.

And then we got to go for German sausage and saukraut and Breton cider in Soho - without any queues, because the rest of the world was knackered/impoverished post-bank holiday. 

So yeah. As bank holidays go, no record breaking adventures, but not too shabby!

* Or alternatively, feel free to remind me that I usually work four-day weeks and that I'm not exactly a miner/ice fisherman/UN weapons inspector. That's fine too. 

Top of the Lake

I had big plans for my Friday off work. Then I made the fateful decision to watch the first episode of Top of the Lake on iplayer. 

Goodbye plans. Au revoir productivity. 4-mile run? Totally didn't go. 

I mean, it's not like I hadn't suspected I might enjoy it. There were some things tipping the balance in its favour before I'd even watched a second:

:: Elisabeth Moss. Aka The Best Thing Mad Men Has To Offer Except Don Draper. Aka the President's youngest daughter in the West Wing.

:: Jane Campion. Because she's weird and awesome and The Piano is a very unsettling film.

:: New Zealand. Because, hello. Have you seen Lord of the Rings?

The thing is though - and I'm almost scared to admit this in Britain, c.2013 - I'm not really much of a crime drama kind of girl. Even skandi-crime. Yep, it all looks great, very nicely shot, I totally appreciate all the cool knitwear and the chance to learn some Danish, but it always just kinda reminds me of a really, really jazzed up version of Silent Witness. Or Inspector Morse. Or Taggart. 

Kid/adult disappears, is found dead. Policewoman/man with deep-rooted psychological problems investigates, gets too close to the case. Gets thrown off case/causes a rumpus. Steps in, saves the day. All potential suspects are investigated, weird facts uncovered, eventually we find out it was the creepy neighbour/jealous wife/greedy heir/local gangster.

And this - this is the same but also so totally different. Are you asking why? Good. Here's why:

:: Holly Hunter with waist-length grey hair, playing a creepy/charismatic kinda cult leader followed by sad lonely women.

:: The sad lonely women - one of them has had a very traumatic experience with an chimp called Brad. With whom she used to share a bed.

:: It's all just weird. Slightly off-kilter, slightly bizarre. There's the guy high on methadone who'll only let people speak in the present tense. There's Peter Mullan, flagellating himself at his mothers' grave. There are references to the Bible, and Paradise, and serpents. It's all veering towards Twin Peaks, in the best possible way.

:: The guy above? Standing next to Elisabeth Moss in a terrible hoodie and drop-crotch jeans? Shouldn't be hot. But so is. 

:: Episode 5? Gut-wrenchingly good final ten minutes, culminating in the perfect use of Bjork. Who, in weirdness terms, is clearly some kind of long-list soul-mate of Jane Campion.

One episode left to wrap up about a million loose threads - eek!

Flashback

You might remember that back in the spring I went to a bunch of awesome places? Like northern California, and Maui, and Coachella? No?

That's because I went to those places, had an incredible time and then totally failed to write about them, or do anything with the 6,000 (approx.) photos that I took. 

Which kinda totally defeats the purpose of keeping a blog  - you know, generally keeping track of what you've been up to so you can remember it when you're grey and wrinkly. 

So here goes. Sadly, of those 6,000 photos exactly 19 were taken at Coachella. That's because expensive camera + festival + booze = recipe for disaster. So I relied on my phone. And my phone, frankly, is pretty shitty. But anyway, please enjoy the 12 finest of those pictures - I think the blur on stage in the middle left is Nick Cave, but I wouldn't swear my life on it or anything. It could equally be New Order, or even the Stone Roses, although I'm not sure why I would have felt moved to document that set....

This, on the other hand, is definitely (blurry, but still) Nick:

And this flattering picture is me being ridiculously overexcited about that fact:

I totes still these from my friend E. Thanks E!

I know, I know. Guys, form an orderly queue.

Honestly, I'm not sure anyone would benefit from a detailed description of the music we saw - Coachella always has an amazing line-up, and what I loved someone else might bore someone else senseless. But highlights for me included Grimes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, New Order and of course, Nick (I'd like to think we're on first name terms. We're not).

Basically, imagine an English festival. Then take away the mud, add 90 degree heat, toilets that don't induce a  gag reflex, chuck in  a few million palm trees and a ferris wheel, and boom. Best. Festival. Evah.

Recent reads

I picked up Suite Francaise in my favourite second hand bookstore a few months ago without knowing anything about it. I tend to allow a couple of hours on a day off to browse, drink coffee and forage in the $1 section, and come away with anything between half a dozen and 15 books, varying from battered Agatha Christie to hard-back new-ish releases, the occasional classic and pretty much anything in between. 

And then, to be honest, I read the books I was most excited about, and kind of forgot about the others. Until I was prepping for an interview with Michelle Williams a couple of weeks ago and I found it she was kind of-sort of-maybe-possibly attached to a film adaptation of Suite Francaise. 

So I started to read. And lo and behold, it's beautiful. Written and set during 1940 and 1941, it's an often unsympathetic portrayal of a country still traumatised by the First World War, but forced to adapt to being occupied by Germans. It's about class and greed and family and religion, national identity and what survival instincts come to the fore when the things you care about are threatened.

Obsessed (again)

What can I say? I'm a little behind the times.

But I'm currently listening to this a minimum of twice a day.

Wino forever

I'm going to preface this by admitting that this is basically a post about pretty much nothing. Just some idle musings as I watch TV instead of doing the six million other chores I should be getting on with...

I love Girls (apart from Jessa. She annoys the hell out of me). Season two's kicked off here in Yankland - Bring on the awkward sex scenes, the naked cupcake eating and the insane Jessa costumes.

But lest we forget, Lena Dunham isn't the first person to hone in on the epic struggles of the middle-class college graduate.

Ethan and Winona got there first.

Or more accurately, Ben Stiller did - he made Reality Bites back in 1994 - a group of slightly pretentious, idealistic graduates working out what they want from their careers and love lives. And Wino's little pixie cut, Ethan's greasy indie locks and Janeane Garofolo's bizarre-length fringe will never fail to rock my world.

I might be biased. Ever since Mermaids I've been a tiny bit obsessed with Winona Ryder and those big doe eyes and air of fragility and general mastery of Jo March-ness in Little Women. Lena Dunham's great and all, but has she acted opposite Cher? I don't think so.

Although, to be fair, Reality Bites did lack a skirtless girl scampering around Brooklyn after accidentally smoking crack. So, you know, there's that.

Book love

If you know me, you might already know this, but when it comes to present-buying, I take things seriously.

I have been known to miss people's birthdays entirely because I haven't found a gift I like enough to buy. (Note: I do not recommend this.) My record for belated gift-giving is around 13 months. (Again, not recommended. Sorry Nat!)

I usually start researching waaay in advance but then procrastinate about potential options for ages. Quite often I'll have the perfect present in my head and then get increasingly frustrated when I can't find an exact physical representation of the image in my mind. And when I do buy something and feel like I've hit the wrong note, I remember it for years. Actually years.

Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that at least with birthday and Christmas gifts, you get another chance every year. But christening presents? There's only one opportunity to get it right. And it's not like you've known the person you're shopping for very long - in fact, you have very little idea what kind of person they're going to grow up to be, what they'll love, or care about, or cherish.

Forgive me for saying this, but I really doubt it's going to be a silver egg cup.

So I tend to go with books. Beautiful, ornamental books that serve as both bookshelf eye-candy and future escape to other worlds. Fairy tales, adventure stories, some of my favourite classics, in hardback, and preferably with gorgeous illustrations.

They're surprisingly hard to find. But I think I might have hit the jackpot, courtesy of Barnes and Noble. These three are about to form a christening gift for a certain little boy:

Because, in the words of J.M Barrie, all children, except one, grow up. And if they grow up imagining pirates  and treasure, Toad of Toad Hall, crocodiles and fairies and messing about on the river - well, so much the better.

Things

I'm not really feeling much need to document my life this week. It's been fine but dull, I've been ill, everything feels like a chore, blah blah blah.

So.

Instead I thought I'd entertain you with the few things that haven't felt like a chore this week.

Like trawling this little (occasionally somewhat rude) piece of internet awesomeness, discovered here.

Image from http://whenindoubt.dk/

Or listening to this song on repeat. While mourning the sad fact that while Nick Cave is playing in LA next month, tickets are $140. Which is INSANE and cannot be justified under my 2013 austerity measures.

Which are in place so I can do muchos, muchos travelling of one form or another this year. Like maybe go here:

Maui, baby! From here via Pinterest.

So yeah. In the words of Arnie (who I almost kinda met this week but then didn't really), I'll be back. When I have anything faintly interesting to say.

Oh Saul.

I know I'm not unique in this. But man, I love Homeland. To the extent that I've been known to refuse Sunday evening invitations to stay home in my pjs and Homeland it up.

More specifically, I love Saul Berenson.

Photo: Kent Smith for Showtime

No spoilers here, I promise. I know the season hasn't finished yet in England. But I will say that while I didn't feel season two was quite as consistently great as season one, my devotion to Saul has just grown and grown.

Plus, if you've seen the Princess Bride, you probably love Mandy Patinkin for a few other reasons too.

In my game of Celebrity Happy Families (you don't play that? You totally should. Michael Caine is my pretend celebrity grandad, and Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton are my imaginary aunt and uncle. Imagine Christmas day!) he's totally taking the dad spot.

So yeah. Watch the finale. Watch his face. It's amazing. AMAZING I tell you.

Oh - and, if you want any possibility of taking Carrie/Brody/Dana  seriously ruined for you entirely, watch this. I'm now strangely fascinated by Damian Lewis' tiny mouth.

Songs for Christmas

Less than two weeks to go until Christmas, and one week exactly until I fly back to England - I've purchased my Christmas(ish) jumper, I've eaten my first mince pie and drunk my first (ok, and second and third) glass of mulled wine. I'm feeling festive.

So I thought I'd make up a little Christmas mix of the songs that have been accompanying me as I've baked cookies, botched home-made wreaths and attempted to DIY Christmas cards this year.

And yes, it has Fairytale of New York on it. Because however many times I hear it piped through tinny shopping centre speakers , it never induces murderous feelings. Wham! on the other hand...

1. The Midnight Clear, Sufjan Stevens

2. Carol Of The Bells, the bird and the bee

3. Baby, It's Cold Outside, Rufus Wainwright and Sharon Van Etten

4. Christmas Night in Harlem, Louis Armstrong and his All Stars

5. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), Slow Club

6. Home For The Holidays, Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler

7. Horchata, Vampire Weekend

8. Just Like Christmas, Low

9. Christmas Wrapping, Summer Camp

10. Wonderful Christmastime, The Shins

11. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, She & Him

12. The Christmas Party, The Walkmen (featuring Nicole Sheahan)

13. Merry Christmas, I Love You, James Brown

14. I Wish It Was Christmas Today, Julian Casablancas

15. Santa Baby, Eartha Kitt

16. Fairytale of New York, The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl

16. Xmas Riff, Marc Bolan

You can, as always, listen to the full playlist on Spotify.

And, just in case all mention of Christmas is making you want to hide in a corner and listen to something that doesn't involve sleigh bells, may I recommend the ultimate anti-Christmas tune?

Merry Christmas!

For your listening pleasure: My favourite cover songs

David Byrne, © Marcia Resnick

For no reason other than that I was listening to music in my car and realised some of my absolute favourite songs are covers - some classics in their own right, others a little bit more unexpected - I decided to compile a little playlist for you.

20 cover tunes, beloved by me, that either offer something distinct from the original recordings, or (in some cases) are just plain better. You can get the whole playlist from Spotify here should you feel so inclined.

1. Diamond Dogs, Beck (originally by David Bowie)

2. I'm on Fire, Bat for Lashes (originally by Bruce Springsteen)

3. Handle With Care, Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins (originally by the Traveling Wilburys)

4.When Doves Cry, Patti Smith (originally by Prince)

5. Diamonds are Forever, The Arctic Monkeys (originally by Shirley Bassey)

6. Blitzkrieg Bop, Yo La Tengo (originally by the Ramones)

7. Eleanor Rigby, Ray Charles (originally by The Beatles)

8. Sea of Love, Tom Waits (originally by Phil Phillips)

9. She's Not There, Neko Case and Nick Cave (originally by The Zombies)

10. Immigrant Song, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Karen O (originally by Led Zeppelin)

11. Hounds of Love, The Futureheads (originally by Kate Bush)

12. Rocket Man, My Morning Jacket (originally by Elton John)

13. Hurt, Johnny Cash (originally by Nine Inch Nails)

14. The Killing Moon, Pavement (originally by Echo and the Bunnymen)

15. Boys are Back in Town, Belle and Sebastian (originally by Thin Lizzy)

16. Waterloo Sunset, David Bowie (originally by The Kinks)

17. No Surprises, Regina Spektor (originally by Radiohead)

18. If You Leave, Nada Surf (originally by Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark)

19. What a Wonderful World, Nick Cave and Shane McGowan (originally by Louis Armstrong)

20. I Wanna Dance With Somebody, David Byrne (originally by Whitney Houston)

Three things to note: Firstly, I could very easily have compiled an entire playlist made up of David Bowie covers. Maybe that should be tomorrow's task...

Secondly, Nick Cave has covered basically every good song ever written (as proven here), from Dylan to the Beatles to Pulp. Just one more reason why he is my hero.

Thirdly, I discovered a few absolutely amazing songs that are sadly not available on Spotify, or anywhere, really, except via terrible quality YouTube clips. Still worth taking a gander at, I feel.

The Flaming Lips' take on Under Pressure:

And Sufjan Stevens singing a bit of R.E.M:

Enjoy!

Weekending

In an ideal world, I would have been back in England this weekend, watching my friend B get hitched (in a tipi!) to her lovely man M.

But, sadly, another trip back just wasn't logistically or financially do-able. So instead, I've been eating, drinking, generally hanging out with LA peeps - and re-discovering my baking mojo.

I used to bake a lot. Pretty much every week, I'd head into the office with cupcakes, or biscuits, or cookies. I could whip up a mean Victoria sponge. And an excellent cointreau chocolate cake.

And then my beautiful stand mixer went into storage, I moved to a new city, in a new country, worked from home and realised that I didn't have enough people to actually consume all the stuff I was baking. And while I'm willing to go to heroic lengths, I can't actually eat an entire cake on my own...

But this weekend a few friends and I decided to go to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and watch Scarface. With a picnic.

I volunteered to make dessert.

I thought I'd ease myself back into this baking malarkey slowly (plus I still don't have most cake pans, a whisk, a sieve, or pretty much anything else needed for more complicated recipes) with chocolate brownies.

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and whipped up a batch with only minimal flour-spilling, kitchen destroying antics.

And they really are pretty good - a touch gooey, rich without being cloying, and just a little bit salty.

The picnic was a success. The film, less so.

The cemetery is always a super-cool place to see films. We had blankets and cushions, we had insane amounts of food. But, in retrospect, trying to watch a three-hour movie featuring a host of incomprehensible accents, whilst one's view is partially obscured by bushes, gravestones, and latecomers - not the greatest idea. By about half an hour in, we were all giggling like maniacs trying to work out what the hell anyone was saying to anyone else, who anyone was and why they were taking chainsaws to one another.

We made it to the two-hour mark, admitted defeat and headed home. The strange thing is, I think we had more fun than if we'd actually paid attention to exactly what Pacino was getting up to...

Moonrise Kingdom

Go see it. Just go. Put down your glass of wine/cup of tea/work/iphone game, and go. Go now.

You won't regret it (unless you're one of that small population who find Wes Anderson films so deeply irritating and self-consciously quirky they make you want to claw your eyes out wih a pencil. You should probably steer clear, because I'm guessing you quite enjoy having eyes).

Personally, I like Wes (we met once, which makes us practically BFFs). I even quite liked the Darjeeling Limited, which I know didn't have the greateest reception. But Moonrise Kingdom is, I think,  my favourite of his movies since the Royal Tenenbaums.

Ed Norton is awesome. Bruce Willis was surprisingly great too. And - actually, I just typed a whole bunch of stuff about the world that Anderson creates, how distinctive it is, blah blah blah. But you can see that for yourself (or read an actual film review by an actual film critic).

So. Yeah. Just go.

Summertime songs

It's Memorial Day weekend (aka the borderline-official kick-off to summer) here in the US of A. And I hear tell from England that the unseasonable gloom has lifted, and there's a mini May heatwave going on.

It's made me think about music festivals, and picnics with Pimms, and long weekday evenings in pub gardens, and look forward to driving along Ventura Blvd in the sun, or hanging out on Zuma beach, or lazy lunches outdoors under striped awnings.

So I thought it was about time to compile a playlist of some of the songs that remind me of summertime, both in London town and California.

Here's the extended spotify playlist - and there's a condensed version of the list below.

Enjoy!

1. Blur, Parklife

2. The Wave Pictures, Just Like a Drummer

3. Tom Petty, Free Fallin'

4. The xx, Crystallised

5. Neil Young, Harvest Moon

6. The Beach Boys, Wouldn't It Be Nice

7. The Kinks, Sunny Afternoon

8. Love, The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything

9. M83, Midnight City

10. The Magnetic Fields, California Girls

11. The Ramones, Rockaway Beach

12. Jack White, Blunderbuss 

Obsessed

I didn't go to Coachella - instead, I went back to Suffolk and to Cornwall, and spent all my excess cash on pasties, cream teas and multiple potential wedding-guest dresses that remain, unworn, at the back of my wardrobe.

I harbour few regrets. Certainly none about prioritising friends and family over hanging out with scantily-clad hipsters in the desert.

But I do wish I'd seen St. Vincent in action.

It's entirely possible that I've listened to this song more times than I can count on both hands in the last few days.

Oops.

Bookworm

Have you been wondering what it is that's been keeping me busy while I've been failing to blog recently?

Probably not.

But if you have been, the answer is that I've been refinding my reading groove. (And working too much. And watching a lot of Oscar-worthy films.)

Let it not be said that I am a discriminate reader. I'll try pretty much anything - I don't read to Improve My Mind, or Learn About The Human Condition. I read because it makes me happy, and it relaxes me. It also keeps me occupied while I'm waiting around at work.

Since moving to America, my literary habit has been much reduced - mainly because I couldn't find a decent second-hand bookstore anywhere near me, and because new books are so expensive here it's ridiculous. And I don't do libraries, because I inevitably forget to return books, or lose them, and it ends up being more expensive than forking out the full asking price for the books in the first place.

But the combination of Christmas, my birthday, and the discovery a decent second-hand bookstore when I was in Palm Springs have got me back on track. The little stack above is 2012's finished pile thus far. For some reason, it seems to be largely made up of Agatha Christie. (OK, I completely love Agatha Christie, I admit it.*) Bossypants arrived on Friday afternoon and I finished it within 24 hours - enough said. And I think my favourite of the stash so far has to be the Jeffrey Eugenides at the bottom of that pile, the Marriage Plot. Any book that combines discussion of Foucault, Lacan, unrequited love, early 80's pop culture and Jane Austen in a relatively  unpretentious fashion makes my geeky heart sing. Which is interesting (to me at least), because I almost exclusively prefer books by female writers.

Next up is another birthday present read, from my very thoughtful friend S, who has sent me a copy of her most favourite book - I can't wait to start it!

*So much so that my friend A - A stands for awesome in this case - bought and posted one of those collectible magazine/book combos of the Murder of Roger Ackroyd for me. The magazine was very educational. I am a history graduate and I was previously unaware that the 1890s, the decade of Christie's birth, were dubbed 'the mauve decade' because of a newly discovered colour of dye. And you thought my blog was light reading. Pah.

Movie nerd

I mentioned not long ago that every year I try and watch all the big Oscar contenders ahead of the ceremony.

This year there are 9 Best Picture nominees, and, as of yesterday, I just have one left to watch:

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

Warhorse

I have to admit that of the eight I've seen so far, I'm very much rooting for the Artist. I also have a soft spot for the Help - partly because it's jolly nice to see a completely female-dominated film do so well, and partly because Allison Janney rocks (C.J? Hello!)

I couldn't help noticing, though, that if animals were eligible in the acting categories, Meryl, George and co. might have some competition on their hands. Uggie, the Jack Russell in the Artist? Steals the show, fo sho. Sasha Baron Cohen's Doberman in Hugo? The horse in Warhorse? I mean, come on, the film is actually named after him! Charlize Theron's fluffy lapdog in Young Adult? And as for the Jack Russell in Beginners, don't even get me started on the cuteness...

According to my mother, source of all useless knowledge, the Academy had to make dogs ineligable back in the day to stop Rin Tin Tin sweeping the board at the expense of the pesky humans. I say reverse the dog rule - I want to see Uggie's acceptance speech!

My name is Celia, and I'm a filmaholic

Source: archive-cinema

Seriously. I'm not kidding.

Partly, this is because of my job - it's not unheard of for me to see screenings of four or five films in the space of a single working week.

But mainly it's because I'm a big movie geek, and there are few things I'd rather do with an empty evening, or a rainy Tuesday morning, than go to the cinema. I'm that irritating person who will NEVER forgive you for talking through the trailers. (In fact, my abiding love for trailers is possibly more extreme than for the movies themselves, but that's a whole other post). I have no objections to going to see films alone. It's hard to watch DVDs with me, because I've seen three quarters of what's on offer when it was first released.

That doesn't, sadly, mean I'm always as up-to-date as I'd like to be - so far this January, I estimate I've seen six or seven films at the cinema, plus various others on my flight back from England, and on pay-per-view. But the sheer number of interesting films released during Oscar season always, always defeats me - I still haven't managed to see The Artist, My Week With Marilyn, The Iron Lady, or Hugo. Fail. I'm working on shrinking that list...

Anyway - last week I got chatting with some people I know about favourite movies. I was telling them about my friend A, who used to work in a cinema. All the staff had to wear a name-badge with their favourite film written on it. One guy said he'd pick Jurassic Park, a girl said she'd have chosen Clueless (an impeccable choice, IMHO).

And while I still don't think I could narrow it down to a single film, and thus will never be the ideal employee at a Norwich multiplex circa 2002, here are my top five:

 - A Life Less Ordinary: Ewan McGregor when he was young and fresh-faced* and Cameron Diaz on fine form as a spoiled, neglected princess? Angels desperately trying to make them fall in love by throwing bat-shit crazy scenarios at them? Danny Boyle? Awesomeness.

 - The Philadelphia Story: (See Also: Bringing Up Baby). This is the perfect film. PERFECT. Extra points for use of the word 'yar.' Remaking it as a musical six years later, and trying to get Grace Kelly to follow the footsteps of Katharine Hepburn? Not perfect. At all.

 - Mary Poppins: I have a thing for Julie Andrews. It extends to the Princess Diaries films, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and to a lesser extent, The Sound of Music. I also have a thing for Dick van Dyke, particularly in Diagnosis Murder. So. All together now: 'round the chimney, step in time...'

 - Strictly Ballroom: Actually, this was a tough call, I could just as easily have picked Romeo + Juliet. This wins - just - for the scene with the Coca Cola sign, and the roof, and the washing, and Time After Time. To my 13-year-old self (and probably my 27-year-old self too, if I'm brutally honest) that was the height of romance.

 - Annie Hall: There's nothing I can say about this that hasn't been said a million times before, by people far more articulate and pithy than me. So I'll resort to incoherent, jumbled words. New York. Lobsters. Diane Keaton. Neuroses. Amazeballz.

Other contenders that didn't quite make the grade include Apocalypse Now, Witness, Casablanca, True Romance, Lost in Translation, North By Northwest, Some Like it Hot, The Empire Strikes Back - I could go on for a while.

 I also have some more recent faves - Zombieland, Easy A, The Social Network. (OK, I like Jesse Eisenberg and I want to be Emma Stone). But I'm waiting to see if they stand the test of time. My personal opinion is that any film where Bill Murray plays Bill Murray playing a zombie seems almost certain to still be garnering some serious acclaim in 50 years...

* To be fair, I met him a few weeks ago, he's still looking pretty damn fresh-faced and young.

Rainy Monday

I ran 6 miles in pouring rain today. Do I get some kind of prize, please?* I was properly soggy and cold when I got back, and everything. It's just how I remember cross-country running at school, but oddly not hellish.

In other news, I just got back from seeing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I was a little afeared that the plot would be too incomprehensible for my slightly rubbish attention span, but all was well. (I think. Unless I missed some key aspect of the plot and didn't notice. Not an impossibility.) Gary Oldman is AWESOME. I start my one-woman Oscar lobbying campaign for him here and now. All those Academy members who read my blog, vote Oldman, if you please. Thanks.

So. Um. Yeah. That was my Monday. That and some work. Anyone else have a more interesting day?

*That is not including the endless stream of junk food I've rewarded myself with already. Oops.

Road trippin' tunes

In preparation for my Palm Springs road trip (T minus 5 days!) I've been working on a little playlist for the journey.

It's a combination of songs I love, songs I'm hoping my BFF will love (I'm leaving space for her requests), songs that make me California-happy, and songs that remind me of the nearly 20 years we've known each other.

Here's a tiny sample:

 - California Dreamin', The Beach Boys

 - Just Like Honey, The Jesus and Mary Chain

 - Lovefool, The Cardigans

 - Sukie in the Graveyard, Belle & Sebastian

 - Beyond the Sea, Bobby Darin

 - Neighbourhood, Space

 - Sunny Afternoon, The Kinks

 - New York, New York, Ryan Adams

 - We're Going To Be Friends, The White Stripes

 - Burning Down The House, Talking Heads

 - Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), Beyonce

 - Downtown, Petula Clark

 - 24/7, 3T (Don't even ask...)

 This is going to be EPIC.