Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day Movie Recommendations:


Fun/family:
The Secret of Kells -- GORGEOUS animation, lovely story.
The Secret of Roan Inish -- I guess there are a lot of secrets in Ireland? Directed by John Sayles.
Into the West -- one of my all-time favorite movies. I love Jim Sheridan. Gabriel Byrne doesn't hurt either.


Serious:
The Wind That Shakes The Barley -- I cried. A lot. And it made me angry. With Cillian Murphy.
In the Name of the Father -- ditto. But a bit more uplifting than the previous entry. Really great film. Jim Sheridan, Pete Postlethwaite, Emma Thompson, Corin Redgrave, Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Boxer -- also excellent. Also Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis, with Emily Watson.
Angela's Ashes -- also with Emily Watson. The book is better, but I liked the movie, too.


Thanks to my Godmother Pauline, who made sure I got my Irish culture in, complete with Frank Patterson, fiddle music, Riverdance (really), and scary stories about the Cliffs of Moher. And of course, my mom.

There was an earthquake in New Zealand, now in Japan, are we next? These things make me nervous.

Meanwhile a close friend will be moving to Japan. She won a job there, yay! But sad for me here in LA.

Oscar time!

I am going to weigh in on the Oscars, because, well, what is a blog for but to give the interwebs one's unsolicited opinion?

I'm glad Inception won some, it was visually quite stunning. I am also very happy that Natalie Portman and Colin Firth won, I think they both deserved their wins for their roles and I admire their careers in general. They also seem like nice people, compared to some other Hollywood types, though that's pretty hard to tell. I think Melissa Leo deserved her Oscar but she seems like a weirdo. And Christian Bale also deserved his. It was strange to hear his normal speaking voice, not sure that I've ever heard it before.

I think that Inception should have won over The Social Network for score. Sorry, but I do. In general I think that The Social Network was well-made and an interesting movie, but I just didn't like it that much. Winter's Bone, Black Swan, and True Grit were all good, but I do think The King's Speech deserved its Best Picture win. Still haven't seen 127 Hours.

I wish I had more opportunity to see some of those short films! And I need to get on top of the foreign ones. I hadn't seen any. Anne Hathaway and James Franco were cute as hosts, but I would love Billy Crystal to come back. And James seemed a little stoned . . .

Best song, whatever, nothing seemed all the great to me. Jai Ho was much more fun. Toy Story 3 was good, but it wasn't an Up or a WALL-E.

For the dresses, my favorites included Natalie, Amy Adams, Hailee Steinfeld (who looked adorable in her dress--it was nice to see a young star wearing sometime age-appropriate, instead of going Lindsey Lohan/Miley Cyrus), and two of Anne Hathaway's: the opening white dress and the burgundy one.

the Decemberists - the wanting comes in wavesrepaid - (8 of 17)

Also really been enjoying the Decemberists The Hazards of Love in the car!

Fabrizio de Andre - Volta la carta

I was listening to this in the car today. I used to dance to LOVE to dance to it when I was about 4.

I've seen this posted on facebook a few times and felt a need to share. Because it's awesome.