Random things!
First, since I promised I would post the link:
Michelle Phan's make up tutorial videos. I don't even wear makeup, but I watch her ever week. It's always a thrill to watch someone who's so good at what she does! All her videos are pretty good, definitely worth a look, even if you don't like makeup.
Second, I watched some movies!
On Netflix I watched Pageant, which is about drag queens competing to be Miss Gay America. It felt more like an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras than a documentary, except the toddlers were overwrought drag queens (which isn't that much of a stretch) and there were no awesome/horrible pageant parents (the best part!). My main complaint was that too much attention was focused on the families of the 5 contestants they followed (very little of which ever came back to be important, or even shed light on the man behind the makeup), and not nearly enough screen time was given to the awesome drag acts or the back stage prep. Overall it was pretty entertaining, but it could have been much more.
I also watched Skid Row, a documentary by Pras Michel of the Fugees where he leaves his rockstar life style to live 9 days on LA's Skid Row, squatting zone of the largest homeless population in the US. The parts I liked best were the segments about the history of Skid Row, why it exists, how it's changed, why people go there, etc. Those were very good. The actual Pras wanders around being poor was mostly just a point of view connecting the good bits, though some of his interviews were interesting. If there was anything I didn't like, it was Pras and his occasional hissy fits, though considering the conditions he was under, I can't really blame him. I'd probably be a bitch to my film crew too if I was starving and had slept the last night in a tent being assaulted by rats. Worth the watch, though.
Last, Trav and I went to see 2012. We enjoyed it immensely, mostly (I think) because we went in with the right level of expectation. We knew the plot was going to be terrible (and it was), but we weren't going to see a great work of art here, we wanted to see world monuments being destroyed in epic fashion, and we got what we paid for in spades!
The film is beautifully made and wonderfully shot with national monuments leaping on the screaming cast like stone tigers roused from their slumbers! Seriously, there was a scene that went like this:
PRESIDENT: I'm going to find this lost girl's daddy! OH NOES, WHAT'S THAT?
WASHINGTON MONUMENT: Rarw!!! (falls over)
PEOPLE OF DC: AHHHH! *squish*
I never knew buildings could fall forward with such menace! It was awesome! And while the plot was extremely silly, it didn't really matter. The characters were surprisingly well written and well acted, and I felt genuinely bad when some of them met their dramatic ends. No one (except the computer graphics engine) is going to win an Oscar for 2012, but the actors held things together with laudable skill. Really, though, the star is the disaster waiting around every corner. Nothing is ever so bad it can't get worse for the poor people of earth. Travis and I were cheering for the volcano the whole way through. Go super volcano!! Eat Las Vegas!!!
If you can check your brain at the door, 2012 is a very entertaining movie that is well worth the price of a matinée to see in a theater. Just let your understanding of science go, watch the pretty pictures, and you'll have a great time. Travis and I are actually hoping they make a sequel, "2012: The Stuff We Didn't Show You Last Time." Seriously, there were so many monuments that didn't get their proper screen destruction it was sad! The next movie won't even need plot or characters, it can just be 2 hours of the Grand Canyon flooding as rafters madly paddle away from the giant wave, or the Pyramids jumping forward to crush Cairo (Roland Emmerich, call me!).
Michelle Phan's make up tutorial videos. I don't even wear makeup, but I watch her ever week. It's always a thrill to watch someone who's so good at what she does! All her videos are pretty good, definitely worth a look, even if you don't like makeup.
Second, I watched some movies!
On Netflix I watched Pageant, which is about drag queens competing to be Miss Gay America. It felt more like an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras than a documentary, except the toddlers were overwrought drag queens (which isn't that much of a stretch) and there were no awesome/horrible pageant parents (the best part!). My main complaint was that too much attention was focused on the families of the 5 contestants they followed (very little of which ever came back to be important, or even shed light on the man behind the makeup), and not nearly enough screen time was given to the awesome drag acts or the back stage prep. Overall it was pretty entertaining, but it could have been much more.
I also watched Skid Row, a documentary by Pras Michel of the Fugees where he leaves his rockstar life style to live 9 days on LA's Skid Row, squatting zone of the largest homeless population in the US. The parts I liked best were the segments about the history of Skid Row, why it exists, how it's changed, why people go there, etc. Those were very good. The actual Pras wanders around being poor was mostly just a point of view connecting the good bits, though some of his interviews were interesting. If there was anything I didn't like, it was Pras and his occasional hissy fits, though considering the conditions he was under, I can't really blame him. I'd probably be a bitch to my film crew too if I was starving and had slept the last night in a tent being assaulted by rats. Worth the watch, though.
Last, Trav and I went to see 2012. We enjoyed it immensely, mostly (I think) because we went in with the right level of expectation. We knew the plot was going to be terrible (and it was), but we weren't going to see a great work of art here, we wanted to see world monuments being destroyed in epic fashion, and we got what we paid for in spades!
The film is beautifully made and wonderfully shot with national monuments leaping on the screaming cast like stone tigers roused from their slumbers! Seriously, there was a scene that went like this:
PRESIDENT: I'm going to find this lost girl's daddy! OH NOES, WHAT'S THAT?
WASHINGTON MONUMENT: Rarw!!! (falls over)
PEOPLE OF DC: AHHHH! *squish*
I never knew buildings could fall forward with such menace! It was awesome! And while the plot was extremely silly, it didn't really matter. The characters were surprisingly well written and well acted, and I felt genuinely bad when some of them met their dramatic ends. No one (except the computer graphics engine) is going to win an Oscar for 2012, but the actors held things together with laudable skill. Really, though, the star is the disaster waiting around every corner. Nothing is ever so bad it can't get worse for the poor people of earth. Travis and I were cheering for the volcano the whole way through. Go super volcano!! Eat Las Vegas!!!
If you can check your brain at the door, 2012 is a very entertaining movie that is well worth the price of a matinée to see in a theater. Just let your understanding of science go, watch the pretty pictures, and you'll have a great time. Travis and I are actually hoping they make a sequel, "2012: The Stuff We Didn't Show You Last Time." Seriously, there were so many monuments that didn't get their proper screen destruction it was sad! The next movie won't even need plot or characters, it can just be 2 hours of the Grand Canyon flooding as rafters madly paddle away from the giant wave, or the Pyramids jumping forward to crush Cairo (Roland Emmerich, call me!).