Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Crazy Heart and crazy movie-goers

Favorite thing AM did this week
We've been watching a fair amount of the Olympics lately (Go USA!). AM has gotten pretty efficient at calling out the names of the sports at their basic level (skiing! skating! hockey!). She doesn't quite differentiate between the speed skating and the figure skating, or between moguls and the downhill yet, but that will come. Tonight we were watching snowboarding, which she actually referred to as "flying," and they interviewed Sean White after his run. She looked at him for a while and said, "That woman is a skiier who talks like a man!" I had to explain that men could have long hair (I could just show her a photo of her dad and his friends in high school, but I'll wait; that could be too shocking).


Favorite thing I saw this week
We saw Crazy Heart last weekend, and Jeff Bridges is worthy of all the praise. He is incredible as Bad Blake, the washed-up, drunk country singer-songwriter. Also really good are Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall (of course), and Colin Ferrell (his American accent is fine, and his singing is actually pretty good!). The movie itself is good too, but the performances reign. I really hope Jeff Bridges wins the Oscar. If Clooney wins for Up in the Air, I'll throw up.


In a related story, as my friend Kristi and I were enjoying the first 15 minutes of Crazy Heart, this woman walks in the theatre late. Kristi was sitting on the aisle seat (keep in mind that the theatre was not at all empty, I think there were people almost directly in front of and behind us), and this woman stops at Kristi's seat as she's climbing the stairs and asks her what has happened so far. Kristi, too nice to not give her a quick summary, tells her something really fast about Bad Blake showing up for a gig drunk; meanwhile, I'm next to her trying to stifle my laughter. I mean, who asks strangers to summarzie what they missed in movies?!

Favorite thing I read this week
The final sale price of my Wedgwood stickpin on ebay--$66.00! I've never had much luck selling things on ebay, but maybe my luck is changing. Or maybe there's just a larger than I anticipated market for Wedgwood jewelry. Too bad I don't have anymore...

Favorite thing I ate this week
daniel george (www.danielgeorgerestaurant.com), one of our favorite eateries in Birmingham, is now open for lunch. Snow delayed our Valentine lunch we had scheduled for Friday to Monday, but daniel george did not disappoint. So glad Mt. Brook Village has another yummy lunch alternative, especially since the closing of Browdy's (R.I.P.).