madonna and those latin boys

My sister got me the DVD Celebration for Xmas (it's basically every video Madonna ever made, including my favorite "Take a Bow") and homegirl has always had the eyes for those Latino boys. She must have influenced me more than I imagined! Love it!

Top 10 Movies in 2010

10. The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski

9.5. Daddy Longlegs, Safdie Brothers

9. Youth in Revolt, Miguel Arteta

8. Making Plans for Lena, Christophe Honore

7. Inception, Christopher Nolan

6. Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold

5. Tiny Furniture, Lena Dunham

4. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg

3. Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese

2. Broken Embraces, Pedro Almodovar (technically I think this was 09, but I saw it in 10.)

1. Black Swan, Darren Aronofksy

...and the top 10 not necessarily from 2010 that I viewed for the 1st time:

10. Sin Nombre, Cary Joji Fukunaga

9. The Proposal, Anne Fletcher

8. Gigante, Adrian Biniez

7. Mala Noche, Gus Van Sant

6. Diary of a Chambermaid, Luis Bunuel

5. A Christmas Tale, Arnaud Desplechin

4. The Maid, Sebastian Silva

3. Blue Beard, Catherine Breillat

2. Elegy, Isabel Coixet

1. The Last Mistress, Catherine Breillat

Today I just watched The King of Marvin Gardens (Rafelson) and Drive, He Said (Nicholson) and A Safe Place (Jaglom). So the list above isn't entirely accurate. But I watched a ton of films this year, and I'm glad I did. Those French examinations of our psychology and sex still win with me every time, but nothing, and I really mean nothing, beats the American 1970's, beginning with 69's Easy Rider. Here's to the cinephiles out there, may 2011 be a year of fascinating films!

And, of course, I dedicate this post to the great Dennis Hopper because it is through his watchful and poetic eyes that I understood what it means to love a film: the day after I saw Easy Rider, I crashed my car, and my life has never been the same because I take the time to really see. Thank you, Mr. Hopper. We're all in your debt, and we'll miss you forever.

Tom Petty Fest total recap

http://www.tompetty.com/news/title/petty-fest-recap

imboycrazy: from a concerned dad

This is so important for everyone to read, and so true. If you want to read the best part, here ya go:

The point of this awfully long monologue is this (Oh thank GOD! He is getting to his point!): in all the history of men and women, maybe THREE girls have ever “fixed” a boy. Unless God lights the shrubs on fire in the front yard, the only other person who can “fix” a broken boy, is that boy himself… and he needs to WANT to be “fixed” in the first place. I have seen too many girls, and now my daughter is one of them, who are attracted to a “bad boy”, but by the time they figure out that the only thing “bad” about them is that they are bad at life in general, they have wasted too many weeks-month-even-years on them. Only houses can be “fixer-uppers”, if a girl likes a boy and plan on changing him, she is in for a long, sad, frustrating, and many times, painful future. If your boyfriend would rather watch football than go to the park and have a picnic with you, and then you marry him, guess what he will still rather be doing in 20 years? If your boyfriend is a pot-head, the love of a woman is not going to clean him up, etc, etc. Girls need to be smarter, and start with a boy with similar interests and values and build from there, and let the bad boys hook up with girls who haven’t got a clue how life is supposed to work, either.

Thanks for posting this Alexi, so many girls have to learn the hard way!!!

brittish 12/7/10: finals procrastination nation

I will do anything to not write my paper today. Here's my fake microphone music.

1. If We Fall In Love Tonight- Rod Stewart (everyone has a little 106.7 fm inside them.)

2. Let It Bleed- The Rolling Stones

3. Long Long While- The Rolling Stones

4. Substance- Girls

5. A Face In The Crowd- Tom Petty

6. Slow Night, So Long- Kings of Leon

7. Summerboy- Lady Gaga

8. Santa Baby- Madonna

9. Christmas All Over Again- Dream Diary

10. Fortune Teller- Forest Fire

11. You Blacken My Stay: Adam Green

12. Kokomo: Adam Green and Ben Kweller

How to Hate The Beatles

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/12/how_to_hate_the_beatles.html?imw=Y&f=most-viewed-24h5

People who know me know I love this article. Go Stones!

Ann Beattie

Tonight work was slow because Hanakkuh started at sundown. I found the NYTimes Book Review, and was pleased to read a review of the new collection The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie.

If anyone knows me then they probably already know of my long obsession and revisitation of the best short story ever written (by Beattie, of course) "The Burning House." Over the summer I read Beattie's novella Walks With Men, and I almost choked on the similarities between that breathless one-day read and "The Burning House." I like to think of the latter as the rough draft, though ever-so-polished, for the former.

Long story and bad attempt at lit crit cut short, I hope that someone will gift me The New Yorker Stories this Christmas, and I'd like to post an apt quote here, which sums up why I love Beattie's writing and why I feel such a strong affinity to her.

"What you learn when you read the works of the young Ann Beattie is that she loved men. She was an appreciator, a connoisseur, of men, in all their indefensible glory. Her male characters are often awful and usually irresponsible and almost always funny and touching."

If there was ever a girl that loved men in spite of everything else, well then I guess that makes 2 of us.