I watched Mystic River last night. I figured since I was already in a jacked up mood, might as well make the most of it instead of bringing myself down when I'd gotten back up. I have much to say about this movie (and the novel from which it was adapted) and the first is that it actually PERKED ME UP. It's sick, but true. I guess it just put everything right back into perspective - none of my nearest and dearest are dead in a ditch somewhere, so everything is peaches.

Anyway, it is an EXCELLENT read. I was already a fan of Dennis Lehane, but I put off reading this one because I had a tinkling of what the subject matter was, and kidnapping with a side order of sexual abuse is never my cup. Neither is brutal and needless murder of the innocent. Being a religious freak about reading the book first, I also couldn't let myself see the movie (released 2003). Plus, Sean Penn puts me off a little. Not a big fan. I will get back to that.

Let me start in on the movie by saying how I want to meet Clint Eastwood and shake his hand for how he handled this story. He did an awesome job, and the script was nearly word-for-word the novel. The one complaint I have is that they cut some really important characterization of the Laura Linney character, which builds up and gives a lot more weight to the final scene between her and Penn. I really would have liked to Linney sink her teeth into what Lehane gave the character, because she's got a good grasp on coldness that you still kind of like.

Secondly, Tim Robbins. Wow. I know every critic states that Sean Penn is the emotional center, and I will get back to that. But I think that Tim Robbins had a harder job in this film. First, his physical size was something that he had to work around, or overcome, in order to make his portrayal even get off the ground. In the book, he is a small child/man, which is why people feel free to abuse or ignore him. From Tim Robbins's posture in the film, I read it almost as though after becoming invisible to everyone after the abuse because they don't want to deal with what happened to him, he begins to WANT to be invisible, and he rounds his shoulders and hangs his head in such a way that he's not so much hiding as disappearing into himself. And the way he talks - watch how his lips hardly move to attract as little attention to the fact that he's speaking. AWESOME. The other difficult job was the fine line he had to tread between being the victim and the possible victimizer. He has to constantly tread between making us feel sorry for him and making us feel afraid of him.

Now, on to Sean Penn. Let me repeat that I've never been a fan, really. He strikes me as kind of a punk. I say that Tim Robbins has the harder job because an angry, violent Sean Penn is not so hard for me to buy into. HOWEVER. He did things here that should force the Academy to start a new category of Best Portrayal of Parental Love or something along that line. There are three or four stand-out scenes which you will know when you see it. But the trickier thing is all the stuff he holds back. He's wound so tight around his pain: moderating it for the sake of his surviving daughters, for the sake of getting all the details right for his murdered daughter, and for the sake of keeping it together so he can fuck the murderer's shit up and walk away without prison time. Watch the scene where his asshole father-in-law gives him some ill-advised instruction on how to handle his grief. If you closed your eyes, you could hear how badly Sean wants to punch him in the throat. I tell you, in every scene Penn beat me down again and again until I started screaming mentally, "OKAY SEAN I GET IT YOU'RE AN AWESOME FUCKING ACTOR NOW STOP PUNCHING ME IN THE LOVE SAC OR I'M GONNA VOMIT!"

I'm sure he'll sleep better at night now that he's won my respect.

I bought a whole bunch of makeup today that should have cost $40 but only cost $20. So that's good, then. I'm pragmatic enough (I would say mildly-moderately, but it'a all relative) and rarely spend money on stuff like that. But I do also have a very sensitive side that lives parallel to the pragmatist, and when my feelings hurt or I feel anxious about the future, it's the only time I ever shop willingly and impulsively. I'm having serious resume doubts so I bought a whole bunch of $5 movies too, but I'll probably take those back tomorrow. Shopper's remorse. Just the movies though, not the makeup. Makeup is a necessity in its own way, I've just found ways around spending actual money on it over the years. I tend to splurge more on food.

I believe that every reader has "apocalyptic" books in their library. Meaning books that have changed their lives or reading habits in some profound way. I think there will be an apocalyptic book series on my blog for the next few weeks.

I will start chronologically. The first book is Charlotte's Web, and I believe the first time I read it I was between 6 and 7 years old. I already had a strange empathy, or compassion, for animals, and this book cemented in my mind the eternal belief that animals communicate with each other and with people. They have souls and make friends and laugh out loud. They are equally valuable as people. Even now, in films or books or poetry or stories, when an animal speaks out loud to another animal or to a person, I do not question it at all. I don't attribute it the listener's state of mind - I don't automatically assume they or crazy, or on drugs, or dreaming. I always assume that the animal just decided to talk.

Today I realized that I feel expendable.

TIME TO DEFLECT! Enjoy this while I go make good things happen for myself.

Today, I found this fabulous article on imdb.com or something like that:

MacPherson Defies Credit Crunch

Supermodel-turned-entrepreneur Elle MacPherson has downgraded her luxurious lifestyle because of the global economic crisis but refuses to give up her most expensive habit - collecting art. The Australian beauty earns a living from her successful lingerie business as well as her various modelling campaigns, but admits she has still had to give up some of her extravagances since the global recession hit. But while Macpherson will cut back on her cars, she won't let her art collection suffer. She says, "I've been consumer conscious for a while. I traded in my Range Rover for a Lexus and I either bike or take my Fiat Bambino on the school run. My only extravagance is art. It always has a place in my budget. All the artists I love, Lucian Freud, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince, I've invested in."

May I have a moment to respond to this? Uhthank you.

First, a three-way rapidfire email exchange:

Me, to Auntie Sister: *what kind of world must she live in if a LEXUS is not really an extravagance? In my world, razors are an extravagance!*

Auntie Sister, back to Me: WORD.

My Brownskin Twin, after I had to forward it all to her for opinion: LOL! this was funny…. Geez, not Range Rover for Lexus. She is really doing her job and cutting back on her expenses….Thank you Elle for sharing your economic recession with us - it makes us feel much better to know that rich people are also suffering through these tuff times and trading their fancy ride for another fancy ride!!! Really????

Me, back to My Brownskin Twin: Oh, and don’t even get me started on her multiple vehicles, and how she won’t give up art. I’m trying to figure out how not to give up food or a place to live! Oh, but to suffer without art? No way, man.

Now, back to my response. Elle, hun, I used to kind of like you. What with the swimsuit issues, and all the string bikinis. You're a terrible actress but I still thought you were smokin' hot in that Sirens flick. But now? I got nuthin'. I want you to come back to reality, or go back to the hot-girl-rock-you-emerged-from-somewhere-in-the-australian-wilds and never return. Seriously. People who owned a home 6 months ago are scrambling to rent before the foreclosure hits their credit. Children are starving. Pets are abandoned. People who had jobs yesterday are killing themselves today. LITERALLY KILLING THEMSELVES. Please. Wake. The fuck. Up.

And now for a commercial break to break the tension:

Today I was eating one of my meals on a placemat that lists all 44 presidents of the United States. It's titled "THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" (as you can imagine) and subtitled "LOS PRESIDENTES DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA" which I thought was fabulous because I celebrate diversity however and whenever I can. Then I was scanning through the 44 los presidentes, and I realized they only put their names in English, so I started translating their names to the Spanish counterparts. Because it was cool. I mean, how badass does Juanito Quincy Adams sound? Or Geraldo S. Truman? Come on, you have to feel me on this one:

Jorge Washington
Jaime Madison
Stefano Grover Cleveland
Guillermo Jefferson Clinton
Reynaldo Reagan
Andres Jackson
Francisco Delano Roosevelt
Ricardo Milhous Nixon

I'm missing some accents here (such as the "e" in Andres) because I don't know how to do it yet on my laptop. But you get the drift. These names are pimpin', yo.

The Hubby let the SSLP out to play last night and we did our traditional date night: margaritas and tableside guacamole at a fabu Mexican restaurant and then giggling on to a movie. We saw a little film called Sunshine Cleaning with Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

Nice film. And by nice, I mean nicely done. It's not fantastic, not horrible. I loved the two actresses. The gloriously beautiful Emily Blunt (formerly Ruthie "Pig-face Draper" from Dan in Real Life and I guess a really good part in The Devil wears Prada) looks fantastic all tore up and tattooed. She's a dynamo cryer. In the post-film bathroom break, I realized my face was all pinked up from weeping with her. And Amy Adams, I like her. I want to pick her up and carry her around in my pocket. A.) Because she's a petite little thing and B.) because she has this gorgeous, wide-eyed vulnerability and a gut-wrenching smile. I was cringing for her through most of the film because of the bad, baaaad choices she was making for herself. Roger Ebert called her character a good mother in his review, but I don't know that I would agree. Loving and understanding your child is not enough. I think making better choices, for yourself and not just your child, is also a required element to being a good parent. Not to say that good parents never make mistakes - but the things she was doing were pretty much no-brainers in the good parenting manual.

The best part about the whole thing was the fateful kittycat who was so fluffy and cute (reminiscent of my little man Elvis that I had when I was in high school, said the SSLP). The film itself tied up a little too neatly, and it was kind of uneven. Though I knew it would be hard to make a movie about crime scene clean-up funny, I did expect a wee bit more dark humor than I got. It was daringly inconsistent in tone, with the only humor in the first third, and then the rest heavy heavy heavy. Then it lightened up again in the end with its convenient ending (which also somehow left us with questions - work that out!). However, I enjoyed the actors and the sexual chemistry between Amy Adams's character and the one-armed man so much that it was still an enjoyable watch. Rent it on Netflix some Thursday night.

One more comment: Steve Zahn is one of my top ten fave comedic actors, and I had suuuuch a hard time watching him be such a skeev-ball in this movie. It was an interesting casting choice because Zahn himself - his face, voice, and timing - is so perennially likeable. Skeevy.

I'm done Siskeling. Here is yet more proof that animals have souls.


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I've seen High School Musical 3 a couple times in the past few weeks, and now Zefron is invading my dreams. I tell you, dream-Vanessa Hudgens is a wildcat herself when it comes to standing by her man.

In literary news, I'm peeing my pants over the next and (allegedly) final installment to the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. The proposed title is An Echo in the Bone, and the proposed release date is September 2009. Ohhhh, I will be pulling hair and kicking shins to get my copy - the Amazon in me is coming out to play.

In movie news, it looks like my SSLP went to the movie show without me and saw I Love You, Man. Without me. (not her fault - her psycho moocher niece was in town and she had to entertain the beast) She said it was really good and she was shocked at how hot and chill Jason Segel could portray after his madcap sad sack portrayal in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (the song over the closing credits makes me howl with laughter - I laughed as much during that as I did through the whole movie. And I laughed a lot then, too).

In news news, I read on Yahoo! that Mrs. Obama charmed the Queen of England so much that Her Majesty hugged Mrs. O, and then I saw it again on MSN with the angle that Michelle Obama OVERSTEPPED cultural and political boundaries by putting hands on Her Majesty. Hmmm. Could that MSN be owned by a right-wing Republican media mogul? Mebbe. I actually don't know - is it??? But really, people - let's be sure about who touched whom first, because I think if the Queen hugged Michelle first, it's free game, yo. Let the Queen be a human being for once. Sheesh.

In music news, Auntie Sister has made me three kick-ass CDs in mix-tape style. I can't stop listening to them. Also, I was browsing through Barnes & Noble the other day and I heard some fabulous tracks off Bare Bones, the latest from Madeleine Peyroux. It's beautiful and fabulous, so get it. If not for yourself, get it for me. Really. I'll be watching the mail.

In animal news, here's a shocker: I'm a big fan of animals. And now I've found, in one video, two of my favorite species living together in blissful harmony. I will look at this once a day forever, because how could I ever be unhappy knowing that love like this exists in the world?

Bulldog Kisses Orangutan @ Yahoo! Video