Weekend Update

Where oh where did the weekend go?! It's almost gone and I feel like I haven't been very productive at all, but that's okay I guess because that's what weekends are for, right? Right.

I've seen two - TWO - movies in theaters this weekend. On Friday night I saw Harry Potter, which I thought was excellent. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen the 5th movie somewhere in the first 4 minutes of the 6th movie, but for the most part I wasn't too lost. GORGEOUS movie, visually. There are a couple of parts where Harry is supposed to be looking at someones memories and they start as swirling ink in a bowl of water and the swirls turn into the next scene and it is just so COOL. And of course all of the amazing shots of Hogwart's School and the wizards offices and classrooms are just so much fun to look at because they're filled with so much stuff. I was also relieved that the acting skills of the main kiddos have improved by about 300% since the last movie I saw.

Today I saw Public Enemies, which was just ok. It had all of the makings of a really excellent film- the cast was right for the most part, the sets and costumes were really incredible. But I think that the tone was all wrong for what the movie was trying to be. Johnny Depp was not great as Dillinger. He could have played it so much, I don't know, flirtier? Cockier? More tongue in cheek? They were trying for sexy but the tone of the movie really didn't go that way at all. They also could have cut about 30 minutes from the thing and it would have been fine. There's one gun fight that goes on for what feels like 30 minutes, and I was starting to get a little bored.

Lately all I see in movies are costumes, makeup, and sets, even more than usual (and for me, that's a lot). I thought that the costumes in Public Enemies were impeccable, maybe just a hair TOO good. The suits were perfect on everyone, but I have a feeling that an average soon-to-be FBI agent in 1933 wouldn't have had such well-fitting suit. I'm just saying.... Marion Cotillard was really well dressed, which doesn't make sense at all for a coat check girl in Chicago unless I missed a part where she's a call girl or something too. At one point she says that the people in a restaurant are staring at her because they're "not used to seeing a girl in a $3 dress," but I don't think that was it. It sure didn't look like a cheap dress since it fit her like a glove and the color was stunning. I just don't buy it Marion. In another scene she had a reverse french manicure (half moons left nude or white at the bottom, and red up the rest of the nail), and you saw it for all of 4 seconds but that sort of detail is so nice to see in movies. And the banks that were being robbed... wow. I don't know where they filmed, but I am hoping it was on location so I can go see these buildings. Amazing art deco styling all over the place, I really enjoyed it. So the movie wasn't a total wash since I had so much to look at through the not-so-wonderfully acted parts.

Yesterday morning I took my Little to the art museum for a Big Brothers Big Sisters activity. We wandered through some really great exhibits, one was Chuck Close who does prints, mostly portraits. Some were made of paper, some were on grids and some were made out of metal, all were fascinating. At a couple of points they showed the entire printing process, through all of the colors and templates used. I learned a lot there. Another exhibit was the art of Dean Byington, who does these enormous intricately detailed pieces which were amazing to look at. From far away most of them just looked like a wash of color on canvas, but once you got up close you saw that they were huge collages of things like ants and bees the size of your thumb and mushrooms and their houses, it was like a fairy tale. The kids really liked those, but hurried us right through because there were all sorts of fun activities upstairs in the Artquest Gallery where they could make all sorts of art. They had printmaking and painting and different interactive exhibits of how to think about art and what art means. I was super impressed with all of it. I was also pretty impressed with the cute guy working at the printmaking table... but that's another story for another day. Wink wink.

Soooo, those are the highlights of my weekend. Work again tomorrow, but at least I'm done sitting through vendor demos. My car has been a little finicky today so I will take it to the car place tomorrow if I get a chance. It's coming up on 57,000 miles and probably needs new spark plugs or something. At least, that's what I'm going to assume until the people at Firestone tell me otherwise. Soon enough it will be time for the 60,000 mile service, maybe it's cranky and wants some extra attention now. I don't know, I'm not a car person.