Today is Wednesday. Monday night Dane and I went to see Mates of State at the Granada, and while half the people that read this have already heard this story, basically the show started at 8 but instead of being MoS with Black Kids as their openers it was a co-headline tour with another opener, so MoS didn't go on until probably 1030 or so, which I am old and also employed, and that is kind of a tad late for a Monday night. But really not so bad, I was in bed by like one and it didn't really bother me yesterday.
But then last night we all went over to the Beckmans' for chicken and noodles and I made dirt with pudding and crunched up oreos and it was super fun, but as always with the Beckmans I stayed until like elevenish, which usually I blame on Dane and/or Jon but neither were there so I guess it's not really ALL their fault every other time we stay over there way too late. And then I hadn't seen Dane yet at all so we stayed up even later just catching up. And rescuing each other from huge-normous bugs with grabby legs that had crawled WAY up our pants and made us scream and jump around like a little girly crazy person. Or at least one of us rescued the other one, that one wasn't so much reciprocal.
But THEN I totally woke Dane up at about 5:45 by like completely freaking out in my sleep, I was having the WORST dream ever, it was totally terrifying and thank GOD he then woke me up. And we had to kind of chill for a few minutes and then Susanna randomly texted me at like 6:15, which I was still awake and trying to get back to sleep, but that is so random, so I texted her back, and then that kept me up for probably thirty more minutes, and yeah, I'm pretty pooped.
The dream wasn't even about junebugs, or any bugs, that's the weird thing. I shall tell you.
So we were in some kind of vacationy place with like a cabin, and the details of the first part are fuzzy but basically there were like mannequins in several of the rooms or the restaurants in this town, and there were these little kids (probably 8-10 years old) that kept coming to the door or just walking in and if we tried to cover up or put away the mannequin people they would get SUPER pissed and throw a fit until we put them back, and they always talked about them like living people, but never talked to them.
Then we were driving down this road, maybe trying to leave but I don't think so, and we started seeing all these mannequins hanging from the power/telephone lines over the road. At first they were sort of posed like they were some weird kind of advertisement, all in these brightly colored like shorts and polos and whatever, but then as we kept driving there were more and more, and several of them were hanging with the line through their belt loops so they were kind of hung/bent over, and then a few had it wrapped around their necks. Then all of a sudden something hit the back window of the car, there was this one sliding down the power line behind us almost like a zipline or something, and had bumped into the back of the car with its plastic legs, and kept bumping it no matter how fast we went. Then all the sudden (I was in the back seat for some reason) the window was open and these legs swung into the car, so I tried to push them out, still all plastic and hard, and then out the back I saw the mannequin drop off of the power line thing and then LAND, like, ninja-style, on the ground on both feet and start running after the car, which he caught, and started climbing in the window. That was where Dane woke me up all freaking out and hyperventilating.
Elements:
1) Coraline visual style/moods with the first part with the kids
2) Old Navy commercials with the talking mannequins
3) Brandon's story at the Beckmans' last night about when he rolled off
a top bunk as a kid, fully asleep, and somehow landed on both feet like
a cat.
Please interpret.
Two movies I've seen lately --
Dane and I went to see Sunshine Cleaning a couple weeks ago with Susanna and some of her friends. It was entertaining, but not really my favorite. I have really truly loved Amy Adams in a lot of movies, she's great and can be so adorable and hilarious and just light up the screen. There's the Drop Dead Gorgeous version, which was hilarious and genius, and the Enchanted version which is innocent and precious, and the Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day version which is sort of a mix of both of those and whom I could watch all day, and we're going to pretend the Talladega Nights version never existed, except that it was a lot like the Charlie Wilson version.
Then there's the Junebug, Sunshine Cleaning, Doubt Amy Adams, which is kind of all quivering bottom lip and wide blue tear-filled eyes and defeated smiles and Lucille Ball hand-wringing (know what I mean?) and this mix of innocent and sweet and pitiful and desperate. That one was just done one too many times and turned up to 11 in Sunshine Cleaning and may have ruined that whole Amy Adams for me for a while. Probably only for a while though.
Then they had this plotline with Emily Blunt, whom I also happen to love, that was kind of awkward and never really went anywhere, and I'm not sure what the point of it was. I mean I kind of get it, but sometimes it seems like "let's throw a few controversial-ish themes in there, even if they don't lend to story or character, just because it'll make us more Indie and will take the place of creative plot twists and if people have a problem with it we'll call them narrow-minded."
BUT THEN.
Last night we watched Let the Right One In, which I pretty much loved completely. I've had less time to think about it, so that could be part of it, but I was just sucked in. It was unbelievably refreshing to me how they told SO much of the story in shadows or off-screen or only showing you the few moments before something happened. It's like they actually believed that I have my own imagination, or something. Crazy, right?
I wished I saw it on the big screen, because even on our teeny one in non-HD, it was just one of the most beautiful movies ever. It opens with a kid walking through snow (or at least that's in the first couple minutes) and my immediate thought was "ew, I'm so glad we don't live where it's that cold". 20 min later I was like "I want to go to SWEDEN." Just soooo soo pretty. I was sold even with the screwed-up American subtitles. I hate it when you can TELL they say this whole long sentence and you even recognize a few words or a name, and then the subtitles are all "NO, THANK YOU." And you're like "Come on! I know that's not all they said." I guess I'll just have to learn Swedish.
Anyway, worth checking out. Kind of gory, and not really terribly cheery, but not scary like I thought it would be, not at all. Just beautiful and sweet. In a little bit of a murdery kind of way. And with the second kid named Oskar that I've loved recently, the other being Oskar Schell from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Dane nixed it as a kid name though. Too bad.
