...In which our heroine presents her guide winter watching.

2010 is the worst year I can ever remember for movie-going. Right now, my top five is something like Kick-Ass, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, Inception, and ... Yeah, it's that terrible of a year. I'm being crumedgeondly about things like The Social Network, but if a Facebook movie is the best Hollywood can do, then I'm all good sticking to Netflix.

But that doesn't mean that the awards season doesn't bring things to look forward to. With that, I present Katydid's Guide to Winter Films.

November 26th - The King's Speech
I adore Colin Firth, and A Single Man was one of my favorite films from last year. I definitely have to be in the mood for these haughty period British movies, but the winter is the time that generally puts me in that mindset. I also love Helena Bonham-Carter and Geoffrey Rush. Should be a winner. 



December 3rd - Black Swan 
All in all, despite some missteps, I really love the diversity of story in Darren Aronofsky's work. The film festival reviews on this have been a little mixed, and I think this trailer gives too much away, but  Natalie Portman as a ballerina trying to succeed Winona Ryder? So there.


I Love You, Philip Morris
It's really a shame Jim Carrey doesn't get a chance to do more drama, because he's so damn good at it. I've honestly been reading about this movie for about, oh, three years, because it's had a really difficult time finding distribution. The story its based on, which is true, is pretty fascinating.


December 10th - The Fighter
Speaking of actors who need more dramatic work, let's talk about Marky Mark. There's a moment in this scene, from Boogie Nights, in a long take when it's just his face on the couch that blows my mind every time. It's remarkable acting, and yet he does shit 99% of the time. The Fighter, which has also gone through years of development hell, looks promising. And we get creepy-skinny cracked out Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and a Jersey Shored-Melissa Leo. I smell Oscar nods.



December 17th - Tron Legacy 
Tron Legacy is this year's Avatar for me - I'm not expecting much, except some awesome visuals, the Daft Punk score, and some beardy delightful Jeff Bridges. This is a dream movie for stoners everywhere.



Rabbit Hole 
Nicole Kidman hasn't done a goddamn thing for me as an actress since To Die For fifteen years ago. She bores me. BUT, I do love me some Aaron Eckart, and some Dianne Wiest. This film is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, who rose to prominence with his first infamous film, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, then topped it with real actors having real sex in Shortbus, which is one of the best films about love and relationships I've ever seen. So I'll deal with some non-moving porcelain faced Kidman, it's a concession I'm willing to make.


December 22nd - Somewhere
Sofia Coppola is my favorite working filmmaker, along with Paul Thomas Anderson. There are better filmmakers, but as a woman who wants to be in the industry, I worship her style and vision as an auteur. Again, the reviews have been mixed on this film from the festivals, but I'll be there the day it opens. Anyone who can look at Stephen Dorff and think "lead in at arthouse film shot at the Chateau-Marmont" has fucking commitment.


True Grit
Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy, No Country for Old Men, Fargo, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing, O Brother Where Art Thou - I really think the Coen Brothers might be consistently the best filmmakers of the past thirty years. Nobody else has that many fantastic films, and True Grit just looks amazing. And the Dude is playing the John Wayne part? Cannot fucking wait.


December 31st - Blue Valentine
I'm really concerned for this film. It just got an appeal to get its NC-17 rating, the kiss of death for commercial releasing, kept, meaning it'll play about 500 screens across the country. Chop heads off, but don't have something resembling real sex - good job, MPAA. Fuckers. I'm all about exploratory films about relationships, a la Cassavetes, and this seems like a good one. The buzz out of Cannes and Sundance has been great, and you really can't do better than Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams for actors of their generation. Getting my tissues ready.


I'm definitely most excited for the last three on this list, and I hope Cincinnati has enough foresight to play them while I'm at home. Doubtful for Blue Valentine. But these are my recommendations for what I think is worth seeing in the months to come, just another baby film snob, take them for what they're worth.

...In which our heroine is in the right place.

This is my first Chicago Halloween that didn't didn't make a massive kerplunk sound. I should be writing claims and subclaims for my exploration of Lynch's auteur style in Twin Peaks, but I owe you and myself a check-in.  Hello - how have you been? How fucking great was The Walking Dead tonight? SO GREAT. Really scary, and really well-shot. I would be worried about the sustainability, but since I hear the comics give lots of rich source material, I'm less concerned. Also - way to cut off the end of Dawn of the Dead, AMC. Dorks.

Today I'm talking about Halloween and music, and memory. It's a Halloween post, but not really.

It was party time at the residence last night. Alyssa seriously was the best costume - a giant pot leaf - but Grace as Misty from Pokemon was pretty legit as well. We had about thirty people show up, and after a lot of whiskey apple cider and much due revelry, the stragglers started to abandon ship. Ben was the first one to get here, before we were even dressed, because he was working early and leaving early. Well, guess who was the last one sitting on my couch at three in the morning. Predictable unpredictability. Look who magically got their shift changed.

We were always trading music, giving songs to each other, sharing what we loved. He gave me Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, My Bloody Valentine, etc. - I gave him Pixies, The Cure, Neil Young. And there he was again, stealing Horses and other things off of iTunes. We listened to Meadowlands by the Wrens, then Monsters of Folk, then Since I Left You by the Avalanches. I'd never heard the first and the third albums, and now their mine.

Last night solidified something for me. "The Right Place" by Monsters of Folk came on and I really listened to the lyrics, and thought about this boy in my bed. This boy who I loved so my freshman year, the answer to my everything...and how different I felt. I'll always love him a little bit, but something about that song made me realize that I'm in the right place. I watched him sleep this morning, and nothing about him made me want to leap into his arms, proclaim my love, worship him. He's just a boy, imperfect and perfect just like everyone else. I'm so far away from the person I was two Halloweens ago, when we got busted smoking pot in his dorm room I can't believe it. We've moved into a comfortable place where it isn't just awkward glances at parties any more, but it isn't doing our grocery shopping together either. It's the right place.

Yes, I know sleeping with my ex-boyfriend is probably not the smartest choice I could be making, but it's my choice. I keep getting warned about falling back in love, how it always get messy, but listening to that song, watching him sleep, I realized it might get messy and it might not, but for that moment, I was in the right place. My roommates made me feel pretty shitty about it this morning, well one did, who said I "should work out another arrangement," but she made me realize too that her maturity just isn't in the same place as mine, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Maybe it's meditation with yoga, but I'm in this really clear headspace where I'm finding that things will happen, and we can make them happen or not, but mostly they just happen to us. And most of them aren't worth freaking out about. It isn't worth worrying about your roommate's arrangement or whether you just missed the goddamn train. Just let it go, let it sink into the floor with savasana, the corpse pose for meditation, and breathe. People will come into your life and go out of it, so why not appreciate them while they're around? Why does it all have to mean something greater? Just enjoy the moments you have.

Halloween has been a major holiday for me since I realized it was a holiday - I enjoy it more than Christmas - and there's always been a pull and a power to this time of fall for me. Maybe that's just the hippie bullshit head trip I'm on right now, but damnit, I'm on it, and I'm in the right place.

There will be boys and songs and parties and Halloweens yet to come. The past is past, and what comes is better than what came before. All I do is smile in this moment about the fucking horrendous paper I still have to write because it's just a paper I won't remember six months from now. But what I will remember are the songs, the music, and the comfort of Ben's arms around me so tight then, so tight again. It could happen again, it couldn't, but worrying about it either way doesn't take the place of how good the songs are, or how nice it is to have his glasses on my nightstand occasionally.

Is this a weird post? Do you need to know this? I need to confess this, because there's no need for me to feel like a bad person (cough roommates cough), and I feel like putting these thoughts out into the black hole of the internet is easier than telling them to people, because here, I can just talk and be judged silently or not at all. They're my choices, of an almost twenty-one year old living in Chicago with a predilection towards zombies, chai tea, and obsessive pop culture saturation. My choices, to live and deal with as I please. But it always helps to write them down, to give a voice to the thoughts in my head.

Cause I like where I’m livin’, and I like what I do, and I like what I’m seein’ when I’m lookin’ at you. I still like what I’m saying when I open my face. I think I got the right feeling. I think I’m in the right place. I think I got the right feeling. I think I’m in the right place. 

 The Ladies of Mad Men: Betty Draper, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson

...In which our heroine is kind of a big deal.

Over the summer, we found out at CCAP we'd won a $1 million grant over the next four years to provide technology programs in some of our community schools. Because we've had $600,000 cut from our budget this year, the grant was a huge boon for us, and provided lots of happiness in the office after ten people were laid off.

In addition to this bit of good news, we also got, and I quote, a major award: the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, presented to us by Michelle Obama. Our executive director David, Herzl Elementary resource coordinator Rachel, and head of community schools April were in DC to accept it, as well as one of our students.

It was, I believe, our sixth year applying for the award, and we were picked as one of only 15 recipients. We watched the live stream this morning, complete with fist pump from the First Lady when our name was announced, and celebrated with cupcakes.

The Chicago Tribune wrote about us. The first lady gave us a plaque. We're kind of a big deal.

UPDATE: Now with photos!

Of all the great things Columbia and Chicago have given me, I think my work with CCAP might just be the greatest.

PS - I'm dying for not being at the five-night, discography spanning My Morning Jacket shows at Terminal 5 in New York this week. DYINGGG. They dressed Pooch in a leisure suit for chrissakes!

...In which our heroine celebrates a milestone.

It's my 250th post. I should have something profound to say. I do not. Instead, here are eleven of my favorite scenes from my eleven favorite films.

Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe, 2000


The Sweet Hereafter - Atom Egoyan, 1997


Blade Runner - Ridley Scott, 1982


Blue Velvet - David Lynch, 1986


A Woman Under the Influence - John Cassavetes, 1974


Boogie Nights - Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997


Leon - Luc Besson, 1994


Lost in Translation - Sofia Coppola, 2003


True Romance - Tony Scott, 1993


The Big Lebowski - The Coen Brothers, 1998


Evil Dead II - Sam Raimi, 1987

...In which our heroine has only one thing.

COULD THIS LOOK ANY FUCKING BETTER? I MEAN, REALLY.

...In which our heroine provides the necessary updates.

See, I told you updates would be sporadic. If you could see the mountain of laundry in my closet, you would understand these things. While I LOVE my apartment, the hour and a half total it takes me commuting every day really does make me have to plan my time much more effectively. But I have an hour before I have to leave for yoga, so let's play ketchup.

Speaking of the devil, yoga is the best thing I've taken up in a while. Every part of my body feels better, especially my brain. It's affecting how I sit, how I stand, how I sleep. At points during the week my joints will pop or I'll feel a muscle I didn't know existed, and it's wonderful. I can even buy into some of the spiritual aspects of it. WHO AM I? A baby hippie. My teacher Nadine is really awesome, and makes things really approachable and works with everyone on their specific body needs. The coolest thing I can do so far is stand with my feet spread, then bend at the waist and touch my head to the floor. The next part of that pose? Standing on your head.

I'm pretty happy with all of my other classes, actually all of them except my television class, but I get to spend the semester on a term paper about Twin Peaks so it isn't all bad. Adaptation is incredibly laid back and my professor is a legit filmmaker. I'm finally working on my teenage girl sex comedy, called Mantises for the moment, in Screen Treatment & Presentation, in which my ten minute pitch went well this week. I have this terrible ability to be able to just fucking wing it when I pitch and still sound good, which is not smart. Preparation, not perspiration. Peace Studies is like story time, only the stories are about the fundamental human questions in yourself. No big deal.

Our hot and hilarious neighbor Logan moved out this week but he left us some great stuff. We now have 5 more chairs including every stoner's delight, a mushroom chair, a big area rug for the living room, a new DVD cart, the cinema tour de force Hollywood Hineys 19 on VHS (!), and five bottles of the finest alcohol that can be bought for eight dollars. All three of us totally had a crush on him, and there are some gross DePaul girls moving in, so I'm sad. Their first question to us was "So do guys like, have like, sick parties here?" Barf.

And there's a new boy, but with complications. Will is my friend Steve's roommate: 23, film major graduating in January, from the suburbs, working on Ride Along which will be on Fox this winter. I like him - he's charming and very kind, not an asshole, not a drunk or a degenerate drug addict. Cool, great. But the boy is shy. Painfully shy. He drove me home Thursday night, and since we've been flirty for a while, I asked him out. To this, he pulled his baseball hat over his eyes and said only, "yeah, sure," then left like a bat out of hell. It isn't that he's not interested, Steve took care of that question mark for me, but he has no idea how to deal with a real, live female like most of his film school brethren. We've been doing a month or so of flirtation, and I'm impatient. Will graduates in January and is moving back to the 'burbs, so it begs the question if its even worth my time at all - I really don't see him magically developing social skills during this week, so if I have to be the aggressive one, should I even pursue something that'd be over in three months? All of this just further proves my theory I need to fulfill Beth Harding's prophecy and date someone older. Someone who has their shit together and has maybe touched boobs or gone on a date in their lifetime. I feel like a terrible person, but I can only be so forward.

I only have two full books to read before Wednesday, awesome! All of my cool pop cultural finds now live on tumblr, so pardon the lack of them on here. This is ramble-only space now. But it's OCTOBER, meaning fall, meaning my absolute favorite time of year. Music Box Massacre 6 - 24 hours of horror movies at the uber-cool Music Box Theatre - is next weekend, but I'm just content to watch all the cheeseball shit on AMC, TCM, and the local channels. Did I mention SIX WEEKS from tomorrow I will be TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE? Festivities are already being planned. Halloween is looking like Hit Girl from Kick-Ass. I always miss being at home during this time of year - fall does something to me that brings all of these new exciting possibilities to the surface for me. And I really fucking love Halloween. And my birthday. And cardigans. And pumpkin-things, accompanied by cream cheese.

Yes, I do in fact enjoy this version of "I Put a Spell on You," and the video is footage of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which may well be the first zombie movie. Deal.

...In which our heroine crunches the numbers.

I made a last.fm account last year when Cassie came to visit for Regina Spektor. It's one year anniversary was September 19th. Let's assess some stats, shall we?

Total Number of Scrobbles:
8529

Seems like a huge number - it counts for about 23 songs each day. Commuting will certainly make this number jump in the next year, I think.

Most Played Artists:

My Morning Jacket: 724
The Beatles: 284
Radiohead: 208
Pixies: 209
Fleet Foxes: 197
Depeche Mode: 196
Led Zeppelin: 172
Kings of Leon: 157
Girl Talk: 156
Neutral Milk Hotel: 141

This is pretty accurate, I'd say. I've gotten into MMJ in a huge way over the past year, and that shows. I don't know that The Beatles and Girl Talk should really be so high on the list, as my listening of them has fallen off as of late.

Most Played Tracks:

Cry - Godley & Creme: 52
Another Night Another Dream - La Bouche: 52
Like a Virgin - Madonna: 50
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes: 48
Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues: 45
Rhythm is a Dancer - The Real McCoy: 45
Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode: 43
Heavy Cross - The Gossip: 43
I Say a Little Prayer for You - Aretha Franklin: 41
Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon: 41
Tyrone - My Morning Jacket: 41
Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 2 - My Morning Jacket: 39
Do You Believe in Magic? - The Lovin' Spoonful: 38
Me & Mia - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: 36
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison: 35

SO embarrassing to have bad 90s house music so high on the list. I'm generally more of a singles than record person, so once a song is stuck in my head, it's there for good. "Nights in White Satin" and "My Sweet Lord" will always be on my most played list.

Maybe this is boring, I dunno, but I thought it was kind of interesting, at least for my own personal sake.