This is what he did while I tended to the garden. He's like a gargoyle...
This is a terrifying photo!!! Not only is Courtney Love actually this skinny, but she had gastric bypass surgery to get this skinny!!! That is just terrifying. Notes for this week:
Thanks to whoever left the bottle of lemon juice on my stoop last night. You are my lemon juice fairygodperson and my hummous thanks you.
So here's a funny story I stumbled across today. Apparently today, Times Square is currently the site for the Movie-Watching World Championship. The deal is this -- the competitors will spend the next 5 days in the "arena" where they will watch movies continuously in the hopes of breaking the world record of 120 hours and 23 minutes. They get a 10 minute break between movies and they are not allowed to sleep or shut their eyes or even avert them from the screen. They can get up and walk around, stretch their non-existent muscles, as long as they keep looking at the screen. Why do this? For a $10,000 cash prize, a lifetime membership to Netflix and a Netflix Popcorn Bowl Trophy. 
On the opposite end of Heroes is the happy return of Pushing Daisies! I love this show so much and am thrilled that it's back! If not for the glorious sets and fun storylines, it's also worth watching solely for the envious wardrobe of "Chuck" played by the adorable Anna Friel. Seriously I would dress like that every day if I had the money or knew how to pull it off. The season premiere just illustrated that they've significantly upped the style factor for Chuck, not that it needed it at all really. SO gorgeous. The full skirts with belts and amazing dresses and hairpins.....it's too much!!! This show is pure eye candy on every level.
So during this week's episode of "Heroes" I actually, actually channel surfed away from it mid-scene to watch a segment of "Dancing With the Stars." Seriously. I hate that show. And I chose to watch it instead of what was going on with the "Heroes" crew. Seriously people, you gotta pick it up a notch to please prevent this from ever happening again. I really want to love you again Heroes. I really do. But you're not making it easy at all.Notes this week
You can get these doors for $400, the screens for $200 at the Etobicoke ReStore and they can make cool headboards when done right. The planter below is $100 and the pretty glass things are priced from $2 - $30 at the East York ReStore. Also at that ReStore are the coffee tables below which I think look great outside.
Maybe don't buy it all though. Small doses.......small tiny doses.
Spent the rest of the night at our annual big, giant, super cool party we throw during the festival that translated to a bedtime just shy of 4AM and a wake up call of 9:30AM. Saturday kicked my ass followed by a Sunday asskicking as well. Well played Cinefest....well played. Somehow we managed to drag our sorry butts to a movie Sunday afternoon that I think we all napped through. A U.K film called A Deal is a Deal that really had its work cut out for it. Fed up with city life and driving tube trains Paul Callow longs to commune with nature and novels, but that's easier dreamt than done. The trauma of having two people fall under his train in as many weeks does little to impove his mood, until he hears the 'Three And Out' rule: three fatal accidents in a month qualifies you for early retirement with 10 year's salary - as a lump sum! All he needs now is to find his third 'victim' and make a deal.
After that the rest of the day is kind of a blur. I napped my face off, had pancakes for dinner and watched the Emmy's while eating the remainder of Saturday nights 3Am potato chips.
From there we moved right into the screening of The Brothers Bloom starring Mark Ruffalo, Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz. One great movie followed another with this one. Your standard con movie, these guys make a living off of swindling millionaires for all that they're worth with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. When Bloom, the younger of two notorious sibling con-artists, announces his plans to leave the business and go legit, his brother Stephen implores him to carry out one last swindle. Despite his plans to leave his criminal past behind, the reluctant scammer finds that his brother has masterminded one last scheme to claim the wealth of an eccentric millionaire (Weisz).
I liked this movie a lot. It was clever and unique, gorgeous to watch with characters you can't help but love. Me, I personally can't stand Rachel Weisz and wouldn't cross the street to see a movie of hers for free. In this movie however, I wanted to eat her up she was so adorable and likeable. Unlike the shiny, glossy, "look at us we're so clever clever" heist movies like all the Oceans 11 garbage, this film really remained quaint and different and actually had something to offer. If I had to pick something to complain about, I'd say this film started stronger than it finished with something said early in the film by a lead character giving away the entire ending (if you were paying attention). Even with that, I still thought this movie was great and I can't say the ending really took away from my enjoyment of the film. On a sidenote, the wardrobe in this movie is to die for and I thought Marc was drooling more than a little bit at the fine tailoring of all the men's suits.
Finally, last night offered the stand-out film moments we've been waiting for!!!
Followed that by a cute little documentary called Just Say It which focused on public speaking - North America's #1 fear. For an early project it was pretty well done and had a good pace to it.
After that, a mockumentary called Let Him Be about a young couple off to discover if John Lennon is really alive and living on a farm in Northern Ontario. Not a great film but you can appreciate what he was trying to do. That and he got all weepy in the Q&A after the film and that was kinda cute.
On to the gala presentation of Fifty Dead Men Walking, a really really good film about the story of Martin McGartland who lived the double life of a secret agent to the IRA and the British goverment. This film was intense and hard to watch at times but moved quickly and did a good job capturing the rawness of that time in history. It also stars the handsome handsome Jim Sturgess who, even though he's playing this scruffy, dirty and grubby guy, you still want to smooch him up. And any movie starring Ben Kingsley has to be good. If I had to complain, it would be about some of the more graphic torture scenes which made me do the "Eeek!" and then arm punch to my boss sitting next to me, and the inclusion of Rose McGowan the most useless actress in the world.
Today we saw a movie about meth-addiction called Run Rabbit Run that sadly killed the buzz of the great gala the night before. This movie tried really hard to be edgy and graphic and succeeded in being only mildly interesting. The cast was here and we got to meet them and while they were lovely, polite and gracious, the movie itself didn't jive with me. It did make me never want to go anywhere near crystal meth though so maybe it did achieve its goal after all.
And that's it for me so far. There's some good movies playing tonight but I really can't go anywhere near them. I already took a giant nap right after work and I suspect I may have another before the night is done. Tomorrow I'm off to some other Northern Ontario stuff during the day and then perhaps the gala film of Stone of Destiny (who's director Charles Martin Smith is here at the festival -- he was in The Untouchables!!) and then The Brothers Bloom.
