Well, Christmas is over and currently I am sitting at my sister's computer, which works a little better than the one that sits in my parents' living room. We are enjoying season one of House, which was one of my Christmas presents. We are currently watching the first of my two favorites- the one where Cameron makes House take her out on a date. (For anyone who hasn't seen it, the date is a total fiasco. My absolute favorite is the one where Sela Ward plays House's ex and we learn what happened to his leg.) I also recieved David Gray's newest CD, which is a work of art. It is a work of art. That's all I can say about it right now, I will give a complete rundown at a later date.

Other than totally cleaning up when it came to Christmas presents (Space: Above and Beyond on DVD and both of Adam Pascal's CDs, not to mention Serenity and a really colorful scarf- I am rolling in sundries!) I have been eating nothing but ham. My mom bought a ham for Christmas dinner, and then right after she purchased it, my sister, Jenny got one from work as a Christmas present. So, it's been ham ham ham ham ham, and I even get to take some home with me! I think Saturday, I'm going to lay on my couch all day, watch all 22 episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, and eat ham.

I don't really have anything interesting to relate; this is Malden. It's not exactly a hotbed of interesting activity. I've got one friend, Jonce, who still lives around here, and we went out the other night. He's a public defender with the county and he had some funny stories to tell, but I don't know if I can repeat them in polite company.

So, since, I don't have anything to report, I'm going to sign off. Next time: A detailed discussion of David Gray's Life is Slow Motion. Trust me, it's beautiful. Till then,

Brianne <><

Hello, all. I know that it's been forever since I last posted. I just didn't have anything interesting that I could wriite about on my blog. Right now I'm sitting in my parents' living room in Malden, MO, home for Christmas. I get a whole week here, which is nice. I'e needed the vacation.

Can I say that I am having an immensely hard time typing tonight? This computer that I am working on is so slow that I could do something like, say, floss, while I'm waiting for it to load. It doesn't even show my typing that fast. So if there are any mistakes in spelling that I forget to correct, sorry. I feel like my fingers have a mind ofv their own, and that mind is the one of a three year old retarded monkey.

This is going to be a short one tonight, so I'll just make you a list of the things that I am grateful for in this holiday season.

1. I just downloaded "What you Own" from Rent as the ringtone for my cell phone.
2. My mom made lasagna tonight.
3. Danielle, my blessed roommate, got me Adam Pascal's CD for Christmas. This Christmas miracle is slightly marred by the fact that Jenny, my ever-loving sister got me the same CD. I think she's going to keep it.
4. I just found out that the Rent DVD comes out in February.
5. King Kong was awesome.

That's it. Mostly I just wanted to tell you about my mom's lasagna. Man, that stuff is good!

More later, and if I don't get back soon, Happy Christmas!

Brianne <><

Could I get an Award for being Obsessed with Awards Shows?

I have big news.  Last night I went over to Travis and Erin’s for dinner.  I called Travis right after I left because I had forgotten to tell him something, and he informed me that Emma, their daughter, had just said “Dada.”  And then she said it into the phone to me!  I mean, I’m not her Dada, but her Dada was sitting right there, so she said it to him and I got to hear it through the phone.  I was so happy!  She’s seven months old.  I don’t know when kids start talking, but I think that Emma is of above-average intelligence, anyway.  I was just blessed to be one of the first people to hear her first word.

I’ve been happy the last couple of days because it hasn’t been so bloody cold.  I looked back on my last couple of posts and they’re like one long kvetch about how cold I am and how sick of winter I am already and blah, blah, blah.  Yesterday it was very nearly temperate, almost fifty degrees. I didn’t have to thaw out The Beast with the hair dryer yesterday morning before I left for work, so that was a plus.  

The Golden Globe noms came out this morning.  No nominations for Rent, alas.  I didn’t really expect much, but I was hoping for a supporting actor nom for Jesse L. Martin, at least!  Rent did receive some Broadcast Film Critics’ Association nominations, best ensemble cast and a few other things, so that made me really happy. They also gave it a pretty good rating on their website.  (You can go here for a complete list of noms: http://www.bfca.org/nomineesWinners.asp) Like I said, I don’t expect much in the way of awards, but it really was a good movie, even if it did get mixed reviews.

Good news from the Golden Globes, though, was the television nominations.  Matthew Fox, Hugh Laurie, and Patrick Dempsey all got nominations in the drama category, and this is vexing because I love all three of them and I don’t know who to cheer for.  (So far, Hugh Laurie is winning out in my heart.  Sorry, Jess.)  Lost and Grey’s Anatomy both are nominated for best drama, but I know that I have to cheer for Lost or I would just feel dirty.  Naveen Andrews was also nominated for supporting actor, with no competition from William Shatner this year.  (Here’s where to go for the complete, although unfortunately, Rent free list: http://theenvelope.latimes.com/awards/globes/env-globesnomslist13dec13,0,7929053.htmlstory?coll=env-globes)

Well, I think that’s all for now.  As usual, TV has taken over this post.  I think I’ll go find a tape that I can record House on tonight.  A bientot,

Brianne <><

Christmas has come back to Christian-type Movies.

Last night Danielle and I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  And just let me say, it was magnificent.

Let me back up. I saw The Passion of the Christ when it first came out.  My church got a big group together, we like, rented out a theater or something.  I didn’t really want to go, but some of the kids from the youth group were going and I figured that I should go just in case they wanted to talk about it.  And I hated it.  I spent half the time with my eyes closed.  I bawled the entire time and wondered why I was subjecting myself to something so horrible.  As a Christian, I know the reality of my Savior’s death.  I know it was horrible, even more horrible than the movie showed.  If it hadn’t ended with Jesus stepping out of that tomb at the end, I might have completely flipped out.  I will never see that movie again because it was so violent.  I can’t in good conscience recommend the movie to anyone, including Christians.  

The Passion of the Christ portrayed the truth in the most visceral, graphic possible way.  Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t cancel that out.  However, it portrayed the truth in a way that was almost completely inaccessible to unbelievers.  I’ve heard a small handful of stories of people who were converted after a viewing of The Passion of the Christ, praises be.  Personally, if I weren’t a Christian, being bashed in the head with that kind of graphic horror for two hours would not convince me that it was the best way to go.  I would think that obviously, Christianity is a crappy belief system if that can happen to their own leader, right?  

On the completely different end of the spectrum, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a refreshing, exhilarating portrayal of the truth that anyone can enjoy.  Granted, it is a completely different type of film.  The Passion of the Christ strove to be historically accurate (even down to speaking in the language of the time period,) while The Lion, the Witch, and that Wardrobe is a fantasy.  But the truth was there.  

When I was thinking about what to write today, I tried to pretend that I’m not a Christian and I had seen the movie for the first time.  If I didn’t know anything about Jesus, what would I think of this movie?  And I realized that if I didn’t know Jesus, I would still think how extraordinary it was that a ferocious leader like Aslan would lay down his life for someone who had been so blatantly treacherous against him and his people.  That was what was most indelible for me: the fact that Aslan offered up redemption, and laid himself down in the name of love.  And then he came back!  He didn’t leave them alone in the battle, he came back when they needed him the most.  Just like my Jesus.  

Anyway, those are some of my scattered thoughts.  Go see this movie.  I have no caveats to put on this one; it’s the perfect movie for parents to take their kids to see.  Or for adults to take their unbelieving friends to see.  Until next time,

Brianne <><

"Always winter..."

You know what is sort of pathetic?  I’m sitting here, trying to think of something exciting that happened over the last couple of days, and the only thing that comes to mind is Alias last night.  Sark was back!  Holy crap!  Is that pathetic or what?  Sometimes I think that my life completely revolves around the television.  House on Tuesdays, Lost and sometimes Alias on Wednesdays, Everwood on Thursdays.  Not to mention what happens if anyone ever involved with Rent (stage or screen production) shows up on a talk show, or if a band I like is on late night… really.  Seriously.  I think I have a problem.

Okay.  Getting away from my neuroses, Danielle and I are going to see a midnight showing of The Chronicles of Narnia tonight.  We have good reasons for this.  1) Friday is both of our days off, and we want to spend it doing something worthwhile, like sitting around and doing nothing and 2) there will most likely not be any kids at the midnight showing, seeing that it’s a school night.  Besides that, it’s going to be a tremendous movie, and I love The Chronicles of Narnia, anyway.  My favorite of the books is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader- mostly because I love the scene when Eustace turns into the dragon.   So, you’ll probably hear all about what I think of the movie tomorrow or the next day, but I already know that I will love it.  

I’m already getting sick of winter and it’s only the beginning of December.  I forgot to mention in a previous post that I had to use the hair dryer to thaw out my car recently because my windshield and frozen on the inside.  In what universe does that happen?  I have never heard of that happening to anyone but me.  This was last Wednesday, when I was already late for work.  It was horrible.  Also, it snowed here last night. As you may have already guessed,  I’m not a snow junkie like Danielle or my friend Rachael (she is originally from Florida, so I think that explains it.)  Actually, I’m pretty ambivalent about snow.  On one hand, it’s pretty (most of the time.  Not today- you can still see ground.  That just makes it trashy looking.)  On the other hand, I hate getting in my car and going anywhere when it’s snowy or even this cold (read my previous post about how I don’t do well in cold weather.)  When I was a little kid, I would stay outside until I lost a toe from frostbite, but now… meh.  I’m such an old lady.

I have today off until three or three thirty or so, when I have to go into town for all the church stuff I do on Thursdays- Salt and Light, and also a meeting with the worship team.  I just cooked myself some lunch- chicken and vegetable stir-fry.  It’s not a stir-fry in the strictest, Oriental sense of the word, because I basically threw in every vegetable I could find in my refrigerator including tomatoes.  I also added thyme, which I don’t think they use in Asian cooking.  But it was good, and completely low fat.  The only thing that was fattening was the Thai dipper olive oil I used to cook the chicken and onions in.  The rest of it was all vegetables and free range chicken and rice.  I feel so virtuous.  It makes me want to bake some peanut butter cookies to celebrate.  

Anyway, that’s about it for me today.  Next time: I tell you what I think about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Till then,

Brianne <><

Oh, and also...

As soon as I logged off from blogging this morning, I was flipping through the channels and ran across the Tony Danza show… and Adam Pascal was on there this morning!  Oh, unbridled bliss!  He was only on for five minutes, but what a glorious five minutes it was.  I taped it.  Okay, really, I’m done.

The Winter of the Movie

Good morning, all.  I don’t know what’s up with me waking up early like this on my day off.  It’s about nine o’clock now, when I’m starting to write this post, and I had every intention to sleep until ten o’clock or so. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  I do have several things to do today, including calling the Branson public schools to see if they need any substitute teachers.  See?  I am doing something about this job-related anxiety!  (I did have another brief moment of panic this morning- same as yesterday- but when I walked outside to turn off the Christmas lights I didn’t see Jenn’s car across the street, so that made me feel better.)

We’re right in the middle of rehearsals for Annie, which is the Tri-Lakes Community Theatre production for this year.  Now let me make something clear here.  I’m a redhead.  I always have been.  My hair is curly and kinky and when I was a little girl I would wedge myself onto my windowsill and pretend that I didn’t have any parents and sing the song, “Maybe.”  So being in Annie now is kind of a cool thing.  I had only seen the movie, so I didn’t realize that the actual stage show is pretty fun.  It has some real tongue-in-cheek moments (like the song, “Hooverville” that comes at the beginning.  Very “social commentary-esque.”)  I am a Boylan Sister, which means that I get to sing the song “Never Fully Dressed” on the radio show where Annie and Warbucks go to announce to America that they are looking for her parents.  I am also a servant and a townsperson, so I get to be in a lot of scenes.  The show is going to look amazing because Alison, the director, is immensely creative and she has a gift for blocking and choreography.  It’s going to sound amazing because Danielle and Morgan are two of the best musicians I know.  So, we’re in good hands.  

Jumping tracks, I said yesterday that I would evaluate the other two fall movies that I saw right around Thanksgiving: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Pride and Prejudice.  I’ll start with Harry Potter.

In a previous post I said that I liked it and that it was a good movie.  It was.  Many of the moments were spot on (When Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret, when Harry brought Cedric’s body back) but a lot of the scenes were rushed.  Now, I know that the book is huge, the biggest yet to be made into a movie.  They cut out a lot of stuff altogether (everything to do with house elves and SPEW, for instance.)  My complaints:

1. The dragon scene was overlong (though it looked marvelous, I have to admit) and the scene where Voldemort came back was too short.  That is the pivotal scene from the series and they rushed it?  It was powerful, it was scary, and it could have been more so if it had been given the treatment it deserved.


2. No Mrs. Weasley at the last task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.  For that matter, no Mrs. Weasley at all.  She is a stabilizing force in Harry’s life and the only example of motherly love that he has ever had, and I thought it was horrible to cheat him like that at the end of the movie, when she was supposed to be there to comfort him after Cedric died.


3. Very little Sirius.  He’s also supposed to be there at the end of the movie, and all was saw of him was his head in the fireplace.  He is dreadfully important, especially in the next story.  Things in this book set up action in the next story- they’re going to have to backtrack a little to make up for some things if they want to do Order of the Phoenix right.

Anyway, those are just my little beefs.  It really was a good movie, I immensely enjoyed it, it just wasn’t what I expected it to be.  On to Pride and Prejudice.

This is another example of literary interpretation, and having to cut stuff to make an extremely dense book come in under three hours on the screen.  The A & E Pride and Prejudice, which some consider the best adaptation (although that could be on account of Colin Firth’s wet shirt scene) was a six-hour miniseries.  Every nanosecond of the book played out on the screen in that version.  The new adaptation doesn’t drag us to every single party, but they do give us a sense of what is going on while elaborating on the action that really interests us: the love story between Darcy and Elizabeth.  And holy crap, did they make that sizzle.  This movie reaffirmed my belief that you don’t have to show people having sex for something to be romantic or sexy.  Darcy and Elizabeth didn’t even kiss until the end of the movie (it wouldn’t have been proper) but their romance boiled through dialogue and longing looks.  My favorite moments:

1. The ball where Darcy and Elizabeth dance.  I love this for two reasons.  A: In the scene when they dance, the director shot the first part of it with them dancing with other couples, and the last part of it with them dancing alone in the room.  He kept the shot tight so you didn’t really see them dancing alone, you just got the feeling of space and the impression that they felt like they were alone in the room. B: There was this really neat, long steadycam shot, winding through the entire party.  The different members of the Bennet family came into frame in their own way, and it really illuminated the characters.  It ended on Elizabeth, short of breath because Darcy takes it out of her.


2. The scene where Darcy tells Elizabeth that he loves her, and Elizabeth tells Darcy that she wouldn’t have him if he was the last man on earth.  The acting is superb.  Everything about this scene is top notch.  This was one of my favorite scenes in the A & E movie, as well, and it totally delivered here.


3. The photography, cinematography, and camera work was the most beautiful I have seen in a movie, excluding Lord of the Rings.  (It’s not really fair to compare any movie to Lord of the Rings, because I think that it’s the best movie of all time.)

Let me explain something.  I am not really a sappy girl.  (That title belongs to my beloved Jess.)  I normally hate romantic-type movies.  This movie melted me.  I loved it.  It was the most gloriously romantic movie I have ever seen.  It almost made me forget how much I love Colin Firth and that he wasn’t in this movie, it was that good.  Anyway.  I’ll drop it.  I’m just saying, it was a magnificent movie.

All right.  I’m wrapping this up.  This weekend, Danielle and I have plans to watch Walk the Line (the last of the big fall movies that I have to see) and The Chronicles of Narnia, (the first of the big winter movies that I have to see.)  I have heard raves about both, so I am excited.  It’s The Winter of the Movie!  (And it will be The Spring of the Book, but more on that later.  I’m going to go broke because I have four books coming out within weeks of each other.)  Also, completely off the plot, I had a dream last night where Anthony Rapp made an appearance.  I don’t even remember what was going on, only that he was there.  I guess that my Rent obsession is still going strong.  Until next time,

Brianne <><

Guess which part of me is freezing off. Go on. Guess.

Holy crap, it’s cold!

It’s like nine o’clock in the morning and I walked outside around eight to turn off my Christmas lights, and I almost froze myself into a coma.  I was watching the news this morning and it said that it was fifteen degrees in Springfield, which is the nearest city to here.  

I don’t do well in cold weather.  I’m basically a big giant wuss, if you want to know the truth.  A couple of years ago I was over at my friend, Daniel’s apartment and we discovered that my comfortable temperature was 82 degrees.  We discovered that because that’s what his thermostat said when he asked me if I was comfortable- I’m pretty sure that he had sweat dripping off of him.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to the Branson Christmas parade, but I didn’t feel like getting out into the cold to stand around in the cold all by myself- I couldn’t find anyone to go with me and I was feeling particularly sociable that day.  I know that that must make me a terrible person, to skip something that my kids were involved in just because I didn’t want to go out into the cold weather by myself, but darn it if I can’t muster up enough feeling bad to make myself feel really guilty.  Does that sound uncompassionate to you?

This morning I woke up in a panic because I was afraid that I accidentally wrote my schedule down wrong and that I was supposed to be at work.  I actually called work to make sure someone was there so that I would know that I was in the clear.  Am I a total spaz?  Do normal people flip out like that?  Last night I had a dream that I went to work at A & W as a second job, except all the people I worked with at the bookstore were there, too.  I think that I am just feeling a particularly nasty brand of work-related anxiety, seeing that I just quit my second job that so desperately frustrated me (still not divulging that name) and I don’t know what I am going to do next.  Also, about three weeks ago, I actually did write my schedule down wrong, but it was a closing shift, thank God.  It wasn’t like I was the only one to open the store and if I didn’t open the store then it didn’t get opened.  That would have been horrible.  

So yesterday I said that I would describe my Christmas decorations.  I totally swung into Christmas-spirit high gear this weekend in that I even hung Christmas lights outside.  I’ve never done that before.  (All I did was wrap lights around the railing on the deck and hang them around the front door, but it made me feel distinctly domestic.)  Hanging lights outside wasn’t the tacky part.  I also got busy on my inside decorations, which I made out of construction paper like I was a particularly demented kindergartener.  I made a menorah, glued a picture of one of my Rent friends on each candle, and wrote “Would you light my candle?” underneath.  (People familiar with the show will get that.  Sorry, Bud.)  I made a yule log especially for Danielle that is inscribed with a quote from Blackadder: “May your yule log roll out of your fireplace and burn your house down.”  And my favorite of them all, I made a “Calvin and Hobbes” style snowman. This one has a giant hole in its largest section and a bewildered look on its snowy face.  The cannon that made the hole is nearby.  Today I’m planning on gluing Hugh Laurie’s face to a cutout of a house and writing underneath it, “There’s no place like House for the holidays.”  Hee hee.  

Well, here’s another post long enough to rival the Communist Manifesto.  I see that I haven’t lost my touch.  Tomorrow:  I tell you what I thought of the other two fall movies I watched- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Pride and Prejudice.  Bye for now,

Brianne <><

Hello, all. I realized that the last time I posted was on Rent day and that was an eternity ago! I mean, it felt like an eternity. It really wasn't that long ago, but we were having computer issues and I haven't been able to log on in a long time.

So I'll use this opportunity to tell you what I thought of Rent. I knew that I would love it because it's Rent, but I didn't know if I would like it as a movie. I'm happy to say that I really did like it overall. It did have a few weird moments- my biggest beef was that the songs that were converted to dialogue sounded a little cheesy. I mean, some of it still rhymed. I was also disappointed that they didn't show April's suicide or even allude to it (if you didn't already know that she killed herself, you were left thinking that April died of AIDS) and both "Halloween" and the last part of "Goodbye Love" were cut out of the movie. The scene where Mark and Roger fight in "Goodbye Love!" My favorite scene from the musical, cut! The most revealing moment about their two characters, tossed aside. (I know, I'm sounding very melodramatic.) Anyway, there's always hope that it will be on the DVD. On to the good moments.

There were so many. As usual, I have to praise Adam Pascal because he is my favorite. He played Roger so broken and sad- a switch from the stage show, where his anger really came out. "One Song Glory" didn't have any surprises in it (we had already seen a lot of the footage in trailers and on the net) but "Another Day" was awesome. Let me say it again. Awesome. It's always been one of my favorites, but it really came alive for me in the movie. Rosario Dawson totally delivered as Mimi. She can sing, she can act, she can dance. I originally didn't like "Without You" when I first heard it on the new soundtrack- I thought Rosario sounded good, but it seemed a little forced from Adam. I didn't even notice what I didn't like about it when I watched the movie, it was so well done. It was scenes of Mimi scoring drugs and going through withdrawl interspersed with scenes of Angel dying (another Adam moment: I loved, loved the little scene with all of them gathered around Angel in the hospital bed, and Roger sitting off to the side, miserable and not even trying to hide it.) That was the song where I started crying and I didn't stop until the end of the movie.

Everyone was good in the movie, but I am now in love with Jesse L. Martin. He owned every scene he was in. I don't know if "stole the show" is the right terminology because you really can't with that cast (everyone is a powerhouse performer) but he was definitely a standout in an ensemble cast. Please, powers that be, nominate him for best supporting actor at the Academy Awards!

Anyway, it was a great movie. I was pleased. I've seen it twice already, with plans to see it again as soon as possible. (That would be again again, as I have been putting it.) It's been getting some mixed reviews, but many of them have been really positive. You can read all of the ones I have read over at Rotten Tomatoes (I think I still have a link to it in my sidebar.)

That's most of what I have to say about that! I'll be back more often now that we have the internet up and running. To all those adults reading this: go see Rent! To anyone still in their parents' care: talk to them about it first. Even though it's rated PG-13, it's still contains drug abuse; partial nudity; foul language; sexual innuendo, dialogue, and situations. I would strongly advise parents to evaluate it carefully before allowing their teenagers to go see it.

That's all for today. In tomorrow's post: I describe my blatantly tacky and possibly offensive Christmas decorations. Till then,

Brianne <><