Category: All (-ish)

Requiem: Bread & Circus Sweatshirt

I worked for Bread and Circus Whole Foods Market for a few years at the turn of the century.  Every once in awhile, the managers would roll around a cart full of t-shirt or sweatshirts and every employee would get one.  It was a nice perk.  I’ve been wearing this one for a good ten years now, much longer than I ever worked for the company.  I’ve held on to it because it’s easy to throw on over anything, and, it’s a reminder of my time at the Fresh Pond Bread and Circus.  The color has faded a bit, but it was always a weird shade of blue.  I suspect they may have gotten a discount on a bad dye lot.  There are bleach stains and oil stains and paint from projects and at least one hole.  The neck is frayed and the sweatshirt just keeps on trucking.
 
Today is its last day, though.
 
I’ll save the logos, and say goodbye to the rest.
 

What exactly does “exclusive” mean?

My definition: something available to only a select few people or for a limited time or in a limited place. In my view, the movie theater world would use the word “exclusive” when the film was only playing at one location in the city.  So I found it rather befuddling when I saw this tag line:

It’s playing exclusively at 15 theaters? How is that exclusive?
 

But then I looked around and I saw more use.  This is how I would use the term.  “Exclusive Engagement.”  Meaning y’all have to go to Cinema 21 if you live in Portland and want to see the movie this week.
 
Then there was this “limited engagement” crap. Seven movie theaters is not a limited engagement.

Here’s the dictionary.com definition:

ex·clu·sive

   [ik-skloo-siv, -ziv]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

not admitting of something else; incompatible: mutually exclusive plans of action.
2.

omitting from consideration or account (often followed by of): a profit of ten percent, exclusive of taxes.
3.

limited to the object or objects designated: exclusive attention to business.
4.

shutting out all others from a part or share: an exclusive right to film the novel.
5.

fashionable; stylish: to patronize only the most exclusive designers.

Based on this definition, I think that Cinema 21 has it right and the other people need better tag writers.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The acting was quite good by two of the three main characters and there were some quite delightful scenes in this movie.  However, when it all was finished and done, it just didn’t hold together very well, to my disappointment.  Also, I get annoyed at movies where people are supposedly “uncool” and then their high school existence is about 400 times cooler than mine leaving me to feel incredibly lame.*

Cost:  Would have been $8.50 but someone gave me passes to Regal so it was FREE
Where watched:  Fox Tower.

*I will say that this movie has me rolling ideas of what does it really mean to be “popular” and “cool” and my annoyance may get spit out as an essay in the future.

Essay: Argh. Facebook.

It’s 10/11/12!  So exciting!

Here’s what drives me crazy about Facebook.  For a site that is supposed to keep you closer to your friends, it fails.  I have never, ever logged off Facebook without feeling lonelier than when I logged on.
What Facebook is quite good at is keeping me in touch with my friends who are on the periphery of my life.  I have a friend from elementary school and we are friends on Facebook.  I know more about her life now than I have since we parted in high school and I’m quite happy about that.
But here’s the deal. Aside from my other friend who is a prolific poster, quite funny and delightful, I don’t get enough about anyone from Facebook.  My friends who are my real face-to-face (or email-to-email if they are far away) can’t possibly post enough on Facebook to replicate what one get-together will do.
When I read their posts between seeing them, I end up just feeling more
separated from them.
And while Facebook is handy for the “I wonder what’s going on with [insert anyone from my past]” type questions, the result is ultimately unsatisfying.  For instance:  last week I wondered what had become of a friend from high school with a unique enough name that it was easy to search for him.  There he was, with a page and everything.  I investigated his page and I can tell you that I know pretty much nothing about him except the city he lives in, the fact that he apparently plays the banjo (or at least holds one for the camera as if he plays it) and he may have a dog and a cat.  So what’s the point?  I don’t really want to contact him and become “friends” on Facebook, I just want three paragraphs about how his life is.  If he had more posts, I could pull together a summary, but it’s not like the rank-and-file have publicists.  In fact, right now I know more about Channing Tatum than all of my ex-boyfriends and that just seems wrong.
So I go on random “wonder what” hunts and come up with fragments of lives, thanks to Facebook.  The site is all about the lure of the connection with little actual connection.

Mail!

So Kristen, she of the Good Wishes to Kristen Party, knows how much I love my birthday.  I think she also must know how much I love unexpected mail.  Because you will never guess what arrived today in the mail for me.

It’s a birthday scavenger hunt!  I get to find these twelve places around Portland, take a picture of myself with them and when I have sent her seven pictures I get gift #1.  When I send her ten pictures I get gift #2.  If I find all  twelve places I get unlimited bragging rights.  I know where six are right now.  You know I’m going for unlimited bragging rights, right?

Three sentence movie reviews: Ira & Abby

The previews before the movie began were so horrendous I got gun-shy and turned off the movie before it started.  However, I eventually recovered and can report that the movie itself was one of the more delightful films I’ve seen this year.  Beginning with two characters, the movie builds and builds on itself, spreading witticisms here and there, until it vaults into a giddily funny climax which once again had me thinking, “That Jennifer Westfeldt is so SMART.”

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

(and was quite difficult to locate)
(If by quite difficult you mean it took clicking on four google search results)

Essay: Petulance and Accomplishment.

Wandering around Facebook feeling nostalgic the other day I clicked on my high school graduating class Facebook page and discovered that one of my classmates had written and directed a movie that will be opening February 14, 2013.

Objectively this is pretty exciting for the following  reasons: I went to school with someone who made a movie!; the classmate in question is female and I’m always standing on the “more women in Hollywood” soapbox!; the movie in question is about a topic near and dear to my heart (young women’s emerging sexuality) that isn’t often seen on screen!; there are recognizable actors in it who I enjoy!; also, if the trailer is to be believed, the movie looks pretty damn good!
You can check it out for yourself.  The movie is called The To Do List and doing a Google search will get you to promo material for it, including the trailer.  Be warned though, YouTube makes you sign in to watch said trailer because it’s not appropriate for all audiences.  The plot focuses on a nerdy senior in high
school who wants more sexual experience before she goes to college and makes a
list of things she hasn’t done and works through them.  It’s also a comedy, not a drama, so you can guess how the list will go.
So awesome, right?  Win-win? If only that were true.
I’d like to say that I’m enlightened enough to have a “yay for her, good job” reaction, but the truth of the matter is that I fell into a funk for a few days.  Then there were a few days of processing and here are the various layers of my reaction.
“It’s not fair.”  This was probably the worst reaction and it was the first.  It’s not like I’ve been working toward writing and directing movies as Maggie Carey seems to have been doing for the past decade or so according to her IMDB profile.  So shouldn’t I be happy that she has toiled and accomplished a finished product?  I should, but I’m petty and I am not.
“I do good things too!” This was best expressed one day at work after completing one of my daily tasks.  “Attendance is entered for the day and they can make a movie about that, dammit!” I announced to the guffaw of my co-worker who had the pleasure of observing most of my overly dramatic angst.
The truth is, I’m guessing that my not-so-glamorous life isn’t that different that Maggie Carey’s life.  I’m thinking that she has laundry and dishes too.
And a lot of the work listed on her IMDB profile is not glamorous movie-making work. It’s the equivalent of entering attendance in my world.  (I bet it pays better, though.)  The fact of the matter is, I think we all want to be recognized for just getting up and getting to work each day, no matter how we feel about our jobs.
Directors of movies just happen to have a calling card that’s a lot bigger than Office Managers of charter schools.
“She shouldn’t be the one to write that story, dammit!”  This took a bit to uncover because I was mired in the above two feelings, but here’s the thing.  The story is about a nerdy high school senior.  However, the writer of the story was in no way, shape or form a nerdy high school senior.  She was part of the popular crowd.  I understand that people don’t have to write from their own experience and that there are many more comedy choices in the main character being a nerdy girl, but I very strongly feel that I and my fellow creative nerdy friends should be the ones to write the nerdy high school tales.  It seems unfair for someone in the top pinnacle of high school society to write a story from the perspective of the rest of us.

Here’s what I remember about Maggie Carey.  She was on student council.  She was a cheerleader in Jr. High School, but not High School.  She swam on the fancy private club swim team and had an amazingly fast backstroke.  We sometimes had Accelerated English together and I found her a bit spazzy and annoying.  I’m not sure we ever interacted, and the only clear memory I have of her was the skit the student council put on during our Senior Year which was very clever and involved all the characters from Scooby Doo and perhaps she played Velma.  I went to a big school.  Our social circles didn’t cross.  Her being popular didn’t affect me, I had no desire to be popular myself and she wasn’t a mean girl.  I have no reason to wish her anything but well.

The boyfriend told me to get over it, especially once he saw the preview and pronounced that we were going to see it.  I know he’s right.  And I will be seeing the movie and eventually will be wishing her well.  But I hope not to hear in press interviews that she wasn’t very popular in high school.  She may have had an awkward adolescence like everyone else, but she was one of the high school one percent and if the topic comes up, I would appreciate if she owned that.

Three sentence movie reviews: In Time

There was a good concept here, excellent production values, solid actors, all the makings of a good movie.  But it was not a good movie, alas.  There were many things that went wrong, but I think one of them was the weirdness of having everyone be 25 years old which meant there was no gravitas to any of them.

Cost: free from library
Where watched:  at home.