2012 Oscars

Hugo

Extremely loud and Incredibly Close

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Artist

The Descandants

The Help

The Tree of Life

(via apartment therapy)

          My favorite awards show of the year is on tonight! Yesss, that's right...I'm talking about the Oscars!!!! I need to make something clear straight off the bat, I DO NOT watch the red carpet. Okay, okay... yes, alright I watch the red carpet sometimes (what girl can't pass up living vicariously thought all those beautiful actresses in flowy long gowns!), but if you're looking' to talk fashion you better look somewhere else because we're talking set design, scores, and screenplays over here. 

       Okay, obviously one of my favorite categories is Art Direction. The above images are snapshots of the interiors from the nominees for Best Film (most of which were also nominated for Art Direction also). Some of my favorites are Hugo (obviously), and The Descandants (but, honestly, how hard is it really to make a Hawaii home beautiful). I did like The Help but I couldn't stop thinking about how much better Mad Men does the 60's. I haven't seen Midnight in Paris (gasp), but from the looks of things it probably would have been one of my favorites. 

       This year I won't be on the edge of my seat (ok, couch) hoping for any particular film to win Best Picture (unlike last year, in which I probably would have died if The Kings Speech didn't win), but I am rooting for Hugo! I also loved the Descendants, but Hugo totally had that quirky magical charm that I'm always such a sucker for. Side note: Speaking of The Kings Speech, last year it was one nomination (leading actress) away from winning the Big 5. My sister told me today that the Big 5 is when a Film wins the five major categories (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay-either original or adapted). This year, it will be impossible for anybody to win the Big 5 because no one film is nominated in every category. 

         

Goodbye, First Love

           I'm dying to find a theatre in LA where I can watch this! Goodbye, First Love played at the New York Film Festival at the end of last year, but I haven't heard about any showings in LA ( -____- sometimes I feel like NY gets all the good stuff). It's a french film about a young girl going through the agony and ecstasy of her first love. How appropriate would it be (obviously if you were single) to watch this cuddled up with your cat and a pint of double-chip rocky road ice-cream on Valentines day evening. All joking aside, that sounds like a pretty rad night.

        When I was a kid, sometimes I would take my fingernails and press them into the part of the gums that  were right below my bottom teeth. I did this because as much as it hurt, it also felt good. I guess even as a kid I recognized that there is a certain kind of pain that also causes pleasure. Some people say there is a sort of addicting exhiliriating pain that comes with getting tattoos, I like brushing my teeth really hard. Anyways, the point I'm trying to get to here is that remembering a great love is like pressing your fingernails into your gums. So go ahead and on Valentines day remember that first love (yup that one that never really leaves you). Remember that time you were young and unjaded- that irrational, passionate, all or nothing, can't live without you, heart swelling, heart wrenching, absolutely debilitating first love. And then, eat a tub of ice cream. 

Thanks for a fantastic year!

(via dinner a love story)

         

          Okay. Before I say anything about the holidays I have to mention that it has been a year and four days since the birth  ofmy blog! Big thanks to all my readers (the far and few!). Lately, I've been sort of falling of the wagon with things, and it's nice to be able to look back at my first post about the meaning of wabi-sabi, and my intent to use this blog to help me live by its mantra. It's time to get back on track, folks! ...and on that note, on to my thoughts about this Thanksgiving (p.s. here is last years thanksgiving post- that whole last year bit felt weird!!!)

          Lately I've been on a total Wes Anderson kick, but I'm particularly obsessed with Fantastic Mr. Fox... again. I watched it for about a week straight when it came out on dvd, obnoxiously quoted scenes, and started to say What a clustercuss!!! Now that the holidays are rolling around, it's been on my mind a lot (and, yes, the same symptoms ensue). At first, I thought it was peculiar that that movie would remind me of the holiday because there are obviously no apparent alludes to Christmas or Thanksgiving. But then, yesterday as I was sitting at a tiny undecorated table with my mom and sister it hit me. As I quietly ate our Thanksgiving meal that tried so terribly hard to be American (made of turkey aand ham, white rice, corn, Hawaiian crab salad, an assortment of Japanese pickles and kimchi, rice balls, and stuffing), I realized that Fantastic Mr. Fox and most other Wes Anderson films (especially The Royal Tenanbaums!) reminded me of the holidays because they are all about families, and dysfunctional ones at that.

          Holy turkey did I have an unusual Thanksgiving! My sister, mom, and I visited my Bachan who now lives in downtown LA (little tokyo, of course), but lived the first half of her life in the country side of Japan. She's not very American and doesn't understand our Thanksgiving holiday very well... needless to say, it hardly felt like Thanksgiving dinner at all. Thankfully, the tides turned after the meal, when we began to ask her about her childhood and where she grew up (very mysterious things to us since we can hardly make sense of most of the stories she tells). She told us about our family in Japan, where they live, and even showed us loaaads of old pictures.

          Somewhere over the weekend, I read this really simple but honest quote: “The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things … the trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.” This year's Thanksgiving was definitely not what I'm used to nor anything I'd prefer, but just like all of Wes Anderson's uncomfortable and unorthodox families, we always seem to come to terms with our family's uncouth quirks and even somehow learn to cherish them.

And, just like the movie goes, there's something kind of fantastic about that, isn't there...

Spectacular nose

    

     I must say, nerdboyfriend has had some great nerdy picks lately... I have a history for gushing about nerds- I even posted about Collin Firth, once. What can I say?? I have a certain admiration for slightly off kilter men. The nerdboyfriend blog features many fashionable men, but few embody what it really means to be a "nerd" in all the best ways.

     The first is Adrien Brody. I am crazy about Adrien Brody(especially in The Brothers Bloom- and don't even get me started on how smokin' Rachel Weisz is). A friend of mine is notorious for admiring eccentric noses. I have never really admired anybody's nose... until Adrien Brody. Not only does he have a spectacular nose, he seem effortlessly suave and charming but at the same time extremely quirky. It's almost an impossible combination.

     As embarrassing as is it to admit, and for reasons only God knows why, I have just recently watch for the first time The Graduate. (And, by the way, what they say IS true- it truly is a life changing movie.) And let me tell you, I was soo excited to see that Dustin Hoffman (circa The Graduate) had made it on nerdboyfriend! Yeah, his wardrobe was great (blah, blah), but he was an anxious, passionate, sweaty mess! What says nerd more than that?

Love Etc.

I've been getting really into documentaries lately- probably mostly because of my sister (HI DANA!)- and I've been seeing this trailer floating around a lot. Love Etc. is a doc about love, but not just the mushy stuff you see in every romance summer hit- it's  about all the kinds and stages of love...even the not-so-fluffy stuff.

LOVE ETC. is a witty, poignant and humorous exploration about the universal stages of love, depicted through five real stories over the course of one year in New York City. Young, old, gay, straight – everyone has experienced love – and the joy and frustration that come with it. From teen romance to a decades-long marriage; newlyweds to a recent divorcee, and even a bachelor so frustrated in his search that he chooses to have children without a partner, LOVE ETC. documents the intimate journeys of engaging characters aged 18-89 who reflect the city’s diversity, and takes an honest look at life's most challenging pursuit.

LOVE ETC. began with a concept from Executive Producer Jonathan Tisch, inspired by the day he spent waiting in line, with his fiancée Lizzie, for their marriage license at the City Hall Marriage Bureau. Surrounded by an incredible diversity of couples, they saw that everyone there was united by a common hope and belief in love. This room was a microcosm of the city, and New York City was a microcosm of the world.

It opens in LA on July 15th... you can get all the info here.

Also, speaking of documentaries, Joanna at Cup of Jo made a list of the ten best documentaries (I even read all 255 comments to see what documentaries other recommended! geeeeeek).

She also talks about how she gets together with her friend Scott once a month to watch new documentaries- they call it their documentary club. That's so AWESOME. I love how their club has only two people in it. Whenever I dream of starting all my silly clubs, I always imagine that they need to have at least seven people to count as a real club. I like the idea of only having two, it seems more genuine, doesn't it? Well, I'm off to plan my first documentary club gathering! Have a lovely thursday, cheers!