Intro -- My First Post On This Site

Hello all. This is my new blog. I've moved it from MySpace so that anyone can access it at anytime. This more public space is also good inspiration to blog more often, as I've dropped off in recent months.

I'll be writing about anything that crosses my mind, whether personal, political, or purposeless.

I'm reading Stephen King's memoir, On Writing, right now and in it, he advises would-be writers to write at least ten pages a day and to read as much as possible. The TV is the enemy in his mind. As much as I agree, I've already spent hours vegging out to What Not To Wear, Project Runway, and the Real Housewives of Atlanta and don't think I'll give up the boob tube entirely.

King's book has helped me realize that I'm not a writer as I've claimed in the past, but rather someone with mild interest in the craft. I am competant, sure, but not at the same level as people who sit down every day for hours and can rightfully be labeled "writers." I wrote for a living for seven years, yes, but it is definitely not the only thing I am capable of doing. The writer's lifestyle is romantic but I don't have it in me to be a freelancer. I am a 9-5 kind of gal. I like steady paychecks.

So for now, I'll just write about whatever suits my fancy and save delusions of granduer and bestsellers for later. I'm thinking there will be lots of music, movie, and TV musings as well as my take on unemployment and living at home again.

One thing that's on my mind today is the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I read glowing reviews of it and fell for the hype. I should know better: no movie is ever as good as critics make it out to be. I wanted it to be fantastic for a couple of reasons: 1) I think Danny Boyle is a great director, 2) I like "feel good" movies, and 3) Slumdog was the first movie I was going to see in a theater with my new boyfriend Chris, and I wanted it to be memorable.

What Slumdog turned out to be was a perfectly competant tale of a poor Indian kid's journey to winning 20 million rupees on TV. The main character is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millioniare and is arrested for cheating on the show. As he's interrogated and tortured by the police, flashbacks reveal how he came to learn information vital to his TV win even though he was poor and uneducated. The other main characters in the movie are the tough brother and the beautiful female friend, and it's no mystery who ends up with whom in the end.

I rooted for a movie in the vein of Danny Boyle's tearjerker Millions or his flawed, but touching, Sunshine, but didn't like it as much as those titles (I cried like a baby watching Millions and highly recommend it, and stand behind Sunshine for the first two-thirds of the movie.) That said, Slumdog was better than your average movie and made the sights and sounds of India come alive. There was also social commentary that didn't hit you over the head and that's a good thing.

On my never-before-revealed ratings system (pay full price, see it at a matinee, wait for DVD, maybe catch it on TV, or forget about it entirely), I say wait to see Slumdog Millionaire on DVD.

As for some of the other movies I've seen lately, here are my opinions: Waitress was a dud -- forget about it, Black Book was solid matinee/DVD fare featuring lots of toplessness by the attractive lead actress; A Man And A Woman is a French classic worthy of a Netflix; The Lives Of Others is full price material; Michael Clayton is matinee/DVD material; I'm Not There is only for Bob Dylan fans catching it on TV; and The Darjeeling Limited should be renamed the DarjeeLAME Limited-- do not see it, even on TV.