Check it: Picasso!



I just finished watching the film Juno for the first time, and it didn't hit me until the second trimester the happy coincidence of watching this particular movie on Mothers' Day. It suits, really.

Now, I know I'm waaaaaay behind on the bandwagon as usual. This is a two-years-ago hit and Oscar-nominated film. So everybody else in the world (possibly the universe) knows how great it is, but I'm still going to share my feelings about it, because it's going down on my running list of "Movies I MUST Have."

There are moments in this film that blew the top of my head off, mainly to do with the interactions between Juno and her parents. J.K. Simmons as her father was irreplaceable by any other actor. His talk with her in the kitchen about happily-ever-after and the little smile on his face as he leaves the conversation still believing that he is and will always be the number one guy in her life. And the moment in the hospital when he strokes her hair and tells her that one day, she will be back in this place in this position, but on her terms. SERIOUSLY. As a daddy's girl, and a woman, that scene is permanently burned on my retinas as one of the best in cinematic history.

Then, my goodness. Young Michael Cera. That sweet thing had me at hello with his skinny legs, gold track wristbands and Hot Pocket fresh out of the micro. I loved him from the start. He did not have as much screen time as the rest, but I think that worked well for his character, as someone being pushed aside as less consequential to the events, but who shows his stuff as the events begin to unroll. Do not mistake his gentleness or uncertainty of his role in the proceedings for weakness. Watch him as he realizes Juno missed his big track meet for a reason, and watch him run away toward her regardless of his meet, his mother, or what anyone thinks. Then watch him hold her as she cries because the mother of their child is taking him away while they lay together. And props to Diablo Cody for making Paulie Bleeker one of the first male characters to say "What should we do?" in the face of the unexpected news.

Ellen Page and the screenplay and everyone in the film is so good it goes without saying. I was pleased with the adoption resolution. I think that it was the best answer from the very start. Allison Janney, as usual, fries up gold everytime she speaks. I loved the scene where she tells off the judgmental radiology tech. Jason Bateman, for someone so vibrant, did an awesome job playing someone downtrodden who long ago pushed aside any ability to sac up and tell his wife that his opinions matter too. And Jennifer Garner, though I was irritated by her character's control freakiness, was heart-breaking as someone who just wants to have a baby. I thought it was cool that they didn't try to tie up the marital issues in a prettier way. This woman was way better off just her and her baby. She would have alienated even a happier marriage by giving all her focus to that purpose.

One of the things about Juno that I thought was so beautiful is that she doesn't want to be a mother and gives her to someone else who is ready, but she is a mother the minute she starts making those kinds of decisions for her child.

It all reminded me that I loved being pregnant and I love being a mother, and that nothing worth having is ever easy and that being a parent is rarely, if ever, glamorous. I have a picture of myself toward the very last month of my "confinement," and I was sooo hot and soooo fat and sooo happy. I don't have much to say that's sentimental today because to me, it's all about making decisions every single day. And the decisions that are, pre-natal, all about you, never can be again because everything you do affects and includes your child. But, at the end of the day and regardless of how brain-wracking those decision can get, I love looking at that picture, and talking to the little voice in my head about how it has felt from the moment I knew that I was going to be able to have my baby.

Last night I dreamed I was taking care of a female mini-Schnauzer named Garbo who kept dashing away from me, and out of desperation I kept looking around for bacon to tempt her back to me.



A few dreams before that I dreamed that Russell Crowe was my boyfriend and he was going to turn into a werewolf in a matter of minutes, so he and I were rushing around my parents' home gathering our things into our knapsacks so we could drive out into the wild to keep everyone else safe.



Hm.

I'm trying to stay still to let my feet heal, and it's just not going well.

My passion for Simon Pegg was almost diminished a bit when I heard him say (about "Spaced"), "Writing it was such an organic experience." I hate that phrase. It's such a gay Hollywood cliche. And not gay in the good way.

But then he saved himself. I went back to the outtakes, and there's this thing that happens with him and Nick Frost, this kind of telepathy where Nick will do a take that makes Simon laugh, but Simon tries to power through by holding his breath or going completely silent, but Nick senses the pause and starts laughing and reprimanding Simon for breaking.

Additionally, Simon is just so vulnerable to laughter - it's awesome.

So, I'm thinking about getting a taser. I had a run-in at my house with some very persistent carpet cleaners who would not leave after I asked them several times politely and then told them to leave several times in my schoolteacher-about-to-crack-some-skulls voice and the whole experience freaked me out. I don't freak out easily.

A guy at work who comes into my office every once in a while to make sure I'm not sitting in the dark (it's a long story having to do with some feisty dimmer switches and a verrrry damselish phone call to the engineering department) also has a side business selling guns and such. After I told him that story, he said I should have something in the house for defense, and if I don't trust the little voice in my head around guns, that I should consider a taser. So I'm thinking about it. A taser's a nice alternative, because it doesn't kill anyone but knocks out the rascally intruder long enough for me to call 911 and then kick him in the Balzac repeatedly until the police arrive.

Plus the guy at work's another hot one. I wouldn't mind shopping his weaponry (although he's had a vasectomy and two ex-wives, so I'm not sure I'd ever buy into his big guns). Actually, he scares me just a little and he's way shorter than me. I think I'd offend his masculine pride. And I don't date people from the workplace.

I realized today just how much workplace romances turn me off. This guy in my department is dating someone from finance, and I walked into his office to bring him a file or something, and he was eating lunch with his girlfriend's legs between his legs. Blech. So inappropriate. Plus, what happens when she gets a spine and breaks up with him because he's a cheating, sexist prick? Or he breaks up with her because he's tired of a spineless, weeping girl-slave? Messy, whether you cook it up with Crisco or canola.

Today at work, a laborer whom we all admire in our own special ways swung by today to grace us with his flattery and flirtation. He's about my height, and with the looks, tattoos and build of an X-Men character - if only I could tell which side he was on. He always tells me how pretty I look and that I don't need make-up because I'm a natural beauty. Sighhhh. Today he told me I looked cute like a schoolteacher (I had my glasses on because the wind's still wreaking havoc on my contact lenses). I enjoy the attention a little bit, but I know that men of his build (he's a bodyguard on the weekends, so he works out 6 days a week) are notorious for having small penises and premature ejaculations. Plus he's been married 6 BILLION times and I would constantly feel like the future ex-Mrs. X-Man. So really, I just don't think he's for me.

I read a book this weekend during several moments when I was trying to rest my frankentoes -

Doh! Time for a song: Frankentoes, Frankentoes, does whatever a frankentoe does....

Okay, back to the book.

Little Children by Tom Perotta. I give him props for being such a good writer, because usually I can't get through this type of story. The moment I closed the covers I thought, "hunh. reminds me of john cheever or raymond carver." But I don't like Cheever or Carver. They were forced upon me by my favorite professor. John Cheever and Raymond Carver specialize in the dark lower-to-middle-class suburban marriage stories. The American Dream, descaled. Unpleasant. And I always hope that these stories are not a true reflection of our society. Especially since Perotta's writing several decades after Cheever and Carver. I don't want to believe that in all these years, it's all still the same - marrying because it's expected, because it's politically strategic in one vein or another, because you just really don't know what else to do. And the gender relations issues as well - I mean, have we really just been running in circles? Yes, women can work now - WOOHOO! Now women are expected to carry the same houseload we always maintained with the addition of a full-time job! Congratulations, ladies, this is what we've fought for. But good luck climbing the ladder, because guess who's gonna stay home with the sick children that you're expected to have because you're married and that's what married people do? Yup, you guessed it - because it's highly probable that the male counterpart will always make more money than you do, making your time at work more expendable. And children get sick ALL THE TIME. These stories, they're so - I don't know what the word is. Not just dark. Deflated. As though there really is no such thing as love or romance. And I just don't believe that. See? I'm not TOTALLY Carrie Bradshaw. I believe that marriage is a contract, but one that should be entered due to a state of mutual love and commitment to each other.

Christ. I need to stop reading.

My question after all of this is, why is unhappiness so much more interesting for writers to delve than happiness?

I was up until almost 2 a.m. watching "Spaced." I haven't been up that late in ages. I found so many more reasons to love it since my initial avowal.

1.) Tim Bisley, Simon Pegg's character, is an avid "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan. He's got an SMG poster in his room and during one episode, wakes up suddenly from sleep crying out, "BUFFY?"

2.) The team who created this show (Edgar Wright directed, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson wrote every episode) are fanatical film geeks, and in the last episode pull off a fabulously choreographed reference to Say Anything.... I still believe that it could happen to me.

3.) Tim Bisley grows so attached to the adopted mini Schnauzer that he is seen (at least twice) carrying it on his back in a little doggie backpack.

4.) Simon Pegg and Nick Frost always give good outtake.

5.) This is an unrelated point, but Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are real-life SSLPs! Read this!

6.) Shaun of the Dead was conceptualized during an episode when Tim gets all jacked up on cheap speed and plays Resident Evil for 24 hours, then hallucinates at a bar that all the other patrons are zombies attacking him and his friends.

7.) Simon Pegg in his navy blue and white tee-shirt that says "tenderloin" SLAYS ME. Why, why couldn't he have married me? Why didn't he love me? He could have been my little pork chop, and I would be his lemon pie. Ahh, to all the things that might have been.

I must have this for my own. It is a MORAL IMPERATIVE. And if you get that reference, you will get a prize. Something like my eternal film geek respect.

I just had a very delicious and heavily-poured Kahlua and milk, and it was fantastic I tell you. I would do it again but I'm almost out of Kahlua. Got to savor it.

So I finally got off my sweet little yet womanly bum and got "Spaced" from the library, and I tell you - I adore it. Like a new friend that I talk about constantly and want to take with me everywhere to see it in every possible light. It's fantastic. And not just because Simon Pegg is one of my standby tasty treats.

But he is funny and adorable. Combined with his flair for facial expressions, I fall for him every time. It always feels brand new.

This series is magical. And because of it, I've added a miniature Schnauzer to my future collection of things I will get when I have my own house. And he will have a beard, and his name will be Heinrich. Or maybe Heimlich.

Ok, so I just watched the film version of Gone Baby Gone - the fourth installment in the Kenzie-Gennaro series and the only film version of any of the novels. I would say it is a good movie, but for one thing.

I've read the fucking books. The first couple anyway. And what the fuck did Ben Affleck do to Angie Gennaro?

In the novels, she's a bombshell Italian granddaughter of a mafioso on her mother's side, who never uses the family name because she doesn't need to because she kicks ASSSSSS. She doesn't take shit from any man, is a dead shot with a gun, and is an equal, if not superior, partner to Patrick Kenzie.

In Ben's movie, she's a pretty girlfriend who barely opens her mouth to speak.

What the fuck, Ben? Didn't you marry the Alias chick? Now you got her all knocked up you can't let a woman be a badass anymore?

Fucked UP, dude. What fucking year is this, anyway? 1955?

Christ. And here I am with no apron. I need to find my place again before I fuck up and grow a fucking spine or something. Then I might talk out of turn, and you can't have that.

I do not endorse this movie.