Artsy or Awful?

I can't help it. I like seeing films even though I've read/heard bad things about them. I have to see it for myself in order to give a proper opinion, especially if its from one of the artsy directors I like or know.

With that in mind, I watched Lars Von Trier's Antichrist tonight. It was absolutely ridiculous. There was shot of a thrusting penis within the first five minutes of the film. Doesn't that qualify as pornography? It was not a flaccid penis.

It was slow going from the beginning, with or without Willem Dafoe's clenching butt. The film was tolerable until the characters played by Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg head to the woods to confront her "fears." He's her therapist husband, their kid fell out of a window, she flushes her meds down the toilet, and he takes her to the remote cabin that she keeps having nightmares about.

While out in the secluded forest, we see what looked like a deer pooping out a newborn deer: it runs around with this bloody thing hanging out of its butt. There's also a bird eating another baby bird that feel out of a tree.

It's slower going in the forest until the wife snaps and starts inflicting pain on her husband and herself. She knocks him out by throwing a block on his privates. She drills a hole in his leg and attaches some kind of circular weight to it. She, um, man-handles his man stick which gushes blood instead of semen (which makes a little sense since she did just crush his man parts). She mutilates her lady parts with scissors.

A deer, a fox and a big bird enter their cabin at some point.

There was no point.

Lars von Trier only makes films about tortured women. They hate themselves. They inflict pain upon themselves. Antichrist was his most literal exploration of this theme.

No wonder people booed the movie in Cannes: it was awful, not art.

time for a stiff drink

Just poured myself a still drink. Feeling anxious and frustrated. Saturdays are my longest work days. I get in at 8:30am and work til 4:30. Then I'm on call the rest of the night. It's dark by 5 so I wasn't able to squeeze in a run. There's a story coming in tonight for work so I have to dutifully be near the computer.

Also frustrated that they won't switch me to a Mon-Fri schedule. We have a major project launching Tuesday morning that still needs lots of work but I can't help with it anymore. Have to pass it on to already overworked people midstream. I would be much more effective on Monday than I am on Saturday.

Crunch time

Sixteen days until the wedding and I am feeling angry, disorganized, almost desperate. For a supposed low budget wedding, we are doing too much ourselves the day of the event.

chris is picking up alcohol and ice, setting up chairs for the ceremony, giving up his bed to his best man, and who knows what else. I'm organizing friends to help decorate day of so that I can concentrate on looking and feeling good.

I am regretting not having the ceremony near my mom's house. I have family here that would help with it all. but with the events up in L.A., there really isn't time for the family to help and get to the wedding on time. Very frustrating.

Chris is trying to do all himself. I just learned he's planning on breaking down the chairs and storing them in his garage after the ceremony. When does he plan on doing that? After the ceremony we're taking pictures and then to the reception. I'm getting angry already. It would have been so much easier and cheaper to do a destination wedding where other people take care of it.

Our catering will not adjust our price even though we have 30 fewer guests than expected. The venue closes off half of the center because of noise issues at 10pm.

Oh yeah, and my house was broken into this weekend and my room ransacked. Still picking up from that.

Grrrrrr

Missions: Accomplished

We are eight weeks out from the wedding. Definitely crunch time. Lots to do.

Chris and I were in unbelievable form on Sunday. After our morning exercises (10 mile run for him, a tough yoga class for me) and some errands, we had lunch at Cafe Laurent in Culver City (actually breakfast, as they don't serve lunch on Sundays) and proceeded to be wedding maniacs.

First stop, Men's Warehouse where Chris got sized and picked tuxes for his groomsmen. I mentioned that Chris' suits are usually too big and our salesman assured us it would fit him perfectly. Chris thinks he pulled the measuring tape too tight but we'll see when the tux comes in. Wedding party tuxes? Check!

We had a couple of hours to kill before a cake tasting appointment and decided to stop by the Fox Hills mall to look at wedding bands. Contrary to my instincts, we ended up spending an hour at a jewelry kiosk inside the mall. The woman was using the hard sell but we found nice, stylish, simple rings at a decent price. Wedding rings? Double check!

Last but not least, cake tasting. Five flavors, two people = 2 1/2 cupcakes each. We couldn't pick one so we picked three. Black forest, white cake with fruit, red velvet...everyone will be happy.

I've been modeling my wedding band to everyone I see. I really like it.

Eight weeks. Still need photographer, transportation, a rehearsal dinner location, presents for wedding party, undergarments, shoes, invitations, etc.

Wedding burnout

A little more than two months from the wedding and I am tired of it. It's all I spend my free time doing. Frankly, there are a lot of other things I'd rather be doing.

But it's crunch time and I need to get moving. Still need a cake, a photographer, invitations (they're being designed), playlists for when the band's not playing at the reception. Also need wedding rings, vows, pre-marital counseling, etc.

The music aspect of the reception has me plowing through old and new stuff. I want dance music and I like hip-hop but the lyrics just won't cut it at a wedding. I've never really thought about how inappropriate most rap songs are. They're either cursing or abusing women or cursing. Same goes for my favorite Mexican rock-rap act, Molotov. Lyrics about having sex with people's sisters or admiring women's breasts are too tacky for a family event. My in-laws are not Latino and I certainly don't want to feed into some vulgar stereotype. I can hear it now, "What does 'chi-chi' mean?"

Screwed

A woman has been hired full-time to our team. This is her first job out of college. She got the best shift available.

My request to switch out of my Tuesday-Saturday shift was denied. I am bitter. I know where I stand with my boss now so my only course of action is to begin sending out resumes again.

I feel much like my sister who had seniority at her job as a high school counselor and was demoted to the classroom in favor of worse paid, less experienced counselors. Hard work is not rewarded in our professions, it seems.

July 6th, 2010

My Fourth of July weekend is finally coming to an end. Since I work Tues-Sat, my three day weekend doesn't start until Sunday and I have Tuesday off. It really feels like forever even though I worked Saturday and had to deal with work stuff Saturday night too.

Great weekend. It's the first 4th in a long time that I wasn't running around fighting traffic down at the beach. I'm usually in Manhattan Beach or Venice where an acquaintance of mine is part of a block party every year. No one told me about the party this year so I accepted an invite to a friend's pool party within walking distance of my house. That was the right plan. Chris and I walked over, ate lots of food, took tequila shots, watched the neighborhood light up, ate more food and walked home at maybe 10pm? The idea was to get to sleep at a decent hour but my neighbors' fireworks kept that from happening. I thought about calling to police to get them to stop. Yes, I was willing to be a party pooper because honestly, I don't think people should be setting fireworks off all night long. A couple hours, sure, but all night? No.

We slept in Monday and went over to Chris' mom's house so he could help her with some things. She keeps asking about the wedding and I don't have much to tell her about it. We're not registered yet, we haven't sent out invites, etc. She's from the South too, so my lack of tradition has got to frustrate her to some degree.

We had lunch with Chris' roommate at Don Antonio's on the Westside and then went to the mall to pick up a present for Chris' dad before hitting the 4:20 show of "Get Him to the Greek." Oh my god. The mall was swarmed! Not a parking space in sight. We aborted mission, ended up at the Westside Pavillion to regroup, and decided to park at the park in Rancho Park and walk over to Century City to see the movie. It was either that or get super frustrated trying to find parking at the mall. It was a nice day. The walk was nice.

"Get Him to the Greek" was fun. My expectations weren't that high, which helped, but it was funny and edgier than I expected. My only complaint is Jonah Hill as a leading man. He's too fat to be a leading man. Fat guys can be funny or character actors but they are not good straight men. I just didn't buy that he was married to a cute, hard-working med student. There's a threesome scene and the last thing I wasn't to see was him making out. Ewwww.

Our evening ended with a couple of episodes of "Deadwood." Perfect.

Today I slept in and took a long bike ride on the South Bay bike path. Watched Uruguay lose to Holland in the World Cup semifinals, went to the Manhattan Beach farmers market with my sister and brother-in-law, stopped at Trader Joe's and then holed up at home. Watched "The Reader" today. It was okay. Kate Winslet was solid as usual and of course she wins an Oscar in a role where she's naked a lot. Halle Berry was naked in "Monster's Ball." It helps.

Emmy nominations come out Thursday morning which means I'm at the office by 5:15am. The good thing is that unlike with my last job where I was on my own, lots of people work at that horrid hour at The Hollywood Reporter.

Two people on my team gave notice last week. They're scrambling to hire one of our temps full-time now. I told my boss that the new hire should get my Tues-Sat schedule since I have seniority and should get the Mon-Fri shift. He didn't sound convinced. If he doesn't go for it, I'd better brush off the 'ol resume and get to it.