GirlReaction Goes to the Movies: Favorites 2014

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Turns out I haven’t told you about my favorites since 2011. So I thought I’d drop a quick note to ya about 2014 while I’m waiting for my hair to dry. You are welcome! 🙂 HA!

I saw 29 movies in 2014, thanks to Project Life for reminding me of some of the titles as I sorta lost track of keeping up my list OOPS.

1, 2. My favorite two movies in 2014 were Only Lovers Left Alive and Words & Pictures with the former maintaining a slight lead over the latter were I forced to name an absolute favorite. They were both movies about relationships; about both who and what we choose to have in our lives; about the importance of art, words and music; about what maintains us across time; about how we have to live within our own choices and our weakness, and while sometimes that does damage, sometimes that’s a place to have strength. They were both filled with lovely performances and I loved them to pieces.

3. My third favorite movie was Guardians of the Galaxy, by far the most fun I had in the theater (both times!) all year. I’ve already watched it at home, I’ve listened to the music a million times (after I put the soundtrack into the correct order-it-was-played-in-the-movie order; that IS the music of much of my childhood, I was born in ’68 after all); and it only furthered the extreme goodwill I have had toward Chris Pratt since Everwood (where he got to play a *slightly* more layered character than his Parks & Rec tour de force as Andy Dwyer).

4. Calvary. Wicked powerful performance by Brendan Glesson. Very moving.

5. The Imitation Game. Love Cumberbatch, love Knightley, LOVE Matthew Goode (LOVE HIM, WATCH THIS!) Bring a kleenex for the ending–and I don’t mean the ending of the war. Lords of kobol, the horrible things we have done to people for so-called morality are just sickening.

6. Begin Again. I just rewatched this after recommending it to a friend for the James Corden performance as she’s geeking out into him in Into the Woods. This movie, like my numbers 1 and 2, is really about choosing what’s important to you and then being forced to live with that decision, through good and bad. I read an article recently about how this director (who also did Once, which I did NOT like, too sappy por moi) does all these films about unrequited relationships and how weird that is (how he thinks that’s what true love is, some unconsummated-esque state of being). I actually thought this movie was NOT about a relationship between Knightly and Ruffalo and that what happens romantically in HIS life in the movie was truly perfect. If you’ve ever seen Kevin Williamson defend the idea that Dawson was indeed Joey’s soul mate even if Pacey is her forever relationship…well I don’t think the Knightly/Ruffalo characters needed to be in love. That was my take anyway.

I also REALLY like: A Most Wanted Man (we sure are assholes, us Americans); The Grand Budapest Hotel (fantastic, but not as good as the fabfabfabulous Moonrise Kingdom, the standard against which all his movies shall forever be judged); Wish I Was Here, even if it stretched the reality a bit for Kate Hudson to be Zach Braff’s wife (doesn’t it seem Judd Apatow-esque to always have the homelier guy have the most gorgeous girl); Rob the Mob, which was fun and had some great performances from lesser known peeps; Wild, which I found oddly affecting; Magic in the Moonlight; and Edge of Tomorrow which was HILARIOUS. I mean the first 35 minutes of that movie are magically funny. Boyhood is definitely worth seeing, although maybe not deserving of its mostly format-based hype.
I liked but ultimately found unsatisfying Snowpiercer and Birdman.

I saw some other movies that were OK or fine but not horrible. You can check the list and ask me if you’d like to know about one or another in particular, I obviously am happy to share opinions/thoughts. HA.

What I did think was HORRIBLE was: Wolf of Wall Street, what an egotisitical piece of utter bullpucky; Under the Skin, monotonous and bizarre but not bizarre interesting more like bizarre this director told, showed and gave us NOTHING HERE; and sadly the new Chris Rock movie Top Five which I really really wanted to like because I think he’s a comic genius (and wicked smaht, yes please say that with a Boston accent) but ultimately was a big hot steaming mess.

AND BONUS:
I saw 30 movies in 2013 and my favorites were: Flight, Zero Dark Thirty; Much Ado About Nothing (LOVE!!), Mud, Fast & Furious 6 (YES I SAID IT), Fruitvale Station, American Hustle, and it’s a tough call between Dallas Buyers Club and Philomena. Least favorites were: Byzantium (overwrought), What Maisie Knew (sadly not very compelling), To Rome with Love (lame)….I don’t know, looking over that list right now nothing jumps out as me as SUCKING AS MUCH AS WOLF OF WALL STREET. So maybe I just didn’t really see many bad movies in 2013.

I saw 34 movies in 2012 and my favorites were: the aforementioned Moonrise Kingdom; Silver Linings Playbook; Skyfall (SO GOOD); Cabin in the Woods (damn smart); A Separation, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Least favorites: Magic Mike (so disappointing), Killer Joe (so disgusting horrifying); and Battleship (so so so so bad). OH WAIT I actually wrote a post about my 2012 faves. I guess my memory has changed things, eh. HA.

Science Fiction: Horns, by Joe Hill

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No idea what made me pick this up in the bookstore the other night but it was actually kinda tough to put down…despite being really nasty and vile and mean and icky. People have been killed, tricked, screwed over and continue to mess with each other throughout the book. But at the very deep down heart of it is a sweet teenage love story gone wrong. And there’s some clever wonderings about theology folded in as well if you’re interested in that.

I’m definitely interested in reading more of Hill’s stuff although I definitely need a palate cleanser before that.

Big Screen: Big Eyes

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Christoph Waltz is SO (appropriately) creeptastic in this movie. And then I think about who and how he is in other movies…and then I listened to him being interviewed by Elvis Mitchell on The Treatment…and I’m wondering if creepy is where his true acting forte lies. (GAH. Horrifying.)

This is such an intensely weird, unsettling story. Well acted, well directed. But certainly not lovable.

There were some things about it that I thought could have been fleshed out more. And in some ways it’s one of those movies that doesn’t really GO anywhere with what it’s got to say (it just calmly tells this woman’s story from one point to another). But it’s worth seeing.

Science Fiction: The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Gift from Dad for christmas in 2007, finally found its way to the top of the list. Heh.

First book finished in 2015 and it’s a doozy–I started it back in November and while admittedly I don’t have designated reading time these days (I’m not on public transit for school), it took me longer than it could have. It’s got numerous, very disparate sections as the characters keep (unbeknownst to themselves) reincarnating and regrouping in different places and times. There were some sections I just looooved (Nsara) and others I had a hard(er) time maintaining focus/interest in.

But throughout he’s not just telling you a story or having characters interact–this is a novel (and novelist) of big, huge, ginormous ideas and just as the characters in this book struggle with them through all different times and places, they are the questions that really inform our entire existence. So exhausting to think about at times! The ideas of how we move through our own histories, and how we arrange our belief systems, and how we choose to negotiate with others… truly fascinating, sometimes disturbing, never boring.

Having JUST finished an entire year of Project Life (scrapbooking, basically), I couldn’t stop grinning at this quote: “What’s hardest to catch is daily life. This is what I think rarely gets written down, or even remembered by those who did it–what you did on the days when you did ordinary things, how it felt doing it, the small variations time and again, until years passed.”

And questions like this one are what keep me up at night, usually worrying for my students’ futures in this messed up world of ours: What causes well-fed and secure people to work for the subjugation and immiseraton of starving insecure people? How many people can the Earth support? Why is there evil? How can we make a decent existence? How can we give to our children and the generations following a world restored to health?”

Because when it comes right down to what’s really important: how can we be decent humans in THIS life…and possibly our next?

Duff at the Movies 2014

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  • Top Five (12/31)
  • Wild (12/30)
  • The Imitation Game (12/27)
  • Mockingjay Part 1 (Hunger Games) (12/21)
  • Birdman (11/11)
  • The Skeleton Twins (9/13)
  • Frank (8/31)
  • Land Ho! (8/24)
  • Calvary (8/9)
  • Lucy (8/6)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (8/4) (& 8/23)
  • Boyhood (7/31)
  • I Origins (7/30)
  • Magic in the Moonlight (7/27)
  • A Most Wanted Man (7/26)
  • Wish I Was Here (7/22) (& 8/2)
  • Begin Again (7/20)
  • Snowpiercer (7/19)
  • Words & Pictures (6/27)
  • The Grand Seduction (6/26)
  • Edge of Tomorrow (6/24)
  • Only Lovers Left Alive (5/17)
  • Under the Skin (5/10)
  • Rob the Mob (3/29)
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel (3/22)
  • Monuments Men (3/16)
  • Wolf of Wall Street (2/15)
  • The Past (1/25)
  • Her (1/4)

Books Read in 2014.

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date refers to date finished; i.e., just b/c I finished two books in a given day doesn’t mean I read two entire books that day!

  • Mean Streak, by Iris Johansen (12/25)
  • The Parsifal Mosaic (12/23) (reread)
  • The Moving Toyshop, by Edmund Crispin (11/27)
  • Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel (11/26)
  • Magic Breaks, by Ilona Andrews (11/22)
  • Magic Rises, by Ilona Andrews (11/22)
  • Magic Slays, by Ilona Andrews (11/20)
  • Magic Bleeds, by Ilona Andrews (11/17)
  • Magic Strikes, by Ilona Andrews (11/16)
  • Magic Burns, by Ilona Andrews (11/15)
  • Magic Bites, by Ilona Andrews (11/11)
  • The Young Elites, by Marie Lu (11/2)
  • Sinner, by Maggie Stiefvater (11/1)
  • Blue Lily, Lily Blue, by Maggie Stiefvater (11/1)
  • Personal, by Lee Child (10/26)
  • One Kick, by Chelsea Cain (10/19)
  • Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (10/18)
  • How to Talk so Kids Can Learn, by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish (10/12) (nonfiction) (teaching)
  • Knife of Dreams (WoT 11), by Robert Jordan (10/11)
  • Summer and Bird, by Katherine Catmull (10/5)
  • The Beginning of Everything, by Robyn Schneider (10/4)
  • Broken Monsters, by Lauren Beukes (9/20)
  • The Secret Place, by Tana French (9/13)
  • The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell (9/13)
  • The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, by Julia Quinn (9/1)
  • Crossroads of Twilight (WoT 10), by Robert Jordan (8/31) (reread)
  • Winter’s Heart (WoT 9), by Robert Jordan (8/30) (reread)
  • The Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen (8/30)
  • The Path of Daggers (WoT 8), by Robert Jordan (8/29) (reread)
  • Transformation (Rai-Kirah 1), by Carol Berg (8/23)
  • A Crown of Swords (WoT 7), by Robert Jordan (8/18) (reread)
  • Lord of Chaos (WoT 6), by Robert Jordan (8/17) (reread)
  • The Fires of Heaven (WoT 5), by Robert Jordan (8/16) (reread)
  • The Shadow Rising (WoT 4), by Robert Jordan (8/14) (reread)
  • The Dragon Reborn (WoT 3), by Robert Jordan (8/13) (reread)
  • The Great Hunt (WoT 2), by Robert Jordan (8/12) (reread)
  • The Eye of the World (WoT 1), by Robert Jordan (8/11) (reread)
  • Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson (8/8) (poetry) (reread)
  • Red Doc>, by Anne Carson (8/7) (poetry)
  • It’s All Too Much: A Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh (8/7)
  • The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa (8/1)
  • To Desire a Devil, by Elizabeth Hoyt (7/25)
  • Hero on a Bicycle, by Shirley Hughes (7/25)
  • Mass of the Forgotten, by James Tolan (7/25) (poetry)
  • Highland Captive, by Hannah Howell (7/25)
  • Lara’s Gift, by Annemarie O’Brien (7/23)
  • Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch (7/21)
  • Whispers Under Ground, by Ben Aaronovitch (7/21)
  • Moon Over Soho , by Ben Aaronovitch (7/20)
  • Midnight Riot, by Ben Aaronovitch (7/18)
  • The Tempest, by William Shakespeare (7/14) (play) (reread)
  • The Tilted World, by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelley
  • Landline, by Rainbow Rowell (7/9)
  • A Summer to Remember, by Mary Balogh (7/5)
  • The Clock Flower, by Adrian Rice (7/2) (poetry)
  • Lexicon, by Max Barry (7/1)
  • Ruby Red, by Kerstin Gier (6/29)
  • Hill William, by Scott McClanahan (6/27)
  • We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart (6/26)
  • Ruin and Rising, by Leigh Bardugo (6/26)
  • Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo (6/24)
  • Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo (6/23)
  • Where She Went, by Gayle Forman (6/22)
  • The Gathering Storm, by Robin Bridges (6/21)
  • If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (6/21)
  • Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (6/20)
  • Sea of Shadows, by Kelley Armstrong (6/18)
  • What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, by Kristin Newman (6/14) (memoir)
  • The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton (6/14)
  • Faking Normal, by Courtney C. Stevens (5/31)
  • Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8), by Patricia Briggs (5/17)
  • One Foot in Eden, by Ron Rash (5/12)
  • How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, by Kiese Laymon (4/23) (essays)
  • This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett (4/22) (essays)
  • Damn Love, by Jasmine Beach-Ferrara (4/17) (short stories)
  • Dreams of Gods & Monsters, by Laini Taylor (4/16)
  • Someone Else’s Love Story, by Joshilyn Jackson (4/16)
  • A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki (4/14)
  • Artifact (Jaya Jones #1), by Gigi Pandian (4/5)
  • The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (3/19) (reread)
  • Pack Up the Moon, by Rachael Herron (3/9)
  • Days of Blood and Starlight, by Laini Taylor (3/8)
  • Champion, by Marie Lu (2/1)
  • Prodigy, by Marie Lu (1/28)
  • Legend, by Marie Lu (1/27)
  • Wild Born, by Brandon Mull (1/15)
  • No One Else Can Have You, by Kathleen Hale (1/12)
  • Horde, by Ann Aguirre (1/11)
  • Quintana of Cheryn, by Melina Marchetta (1/11)
  • Hild, by Nicola Griffith (1/3)
  • Forbidden, by Jo Beverly (1/2)
  • Christmas Angel, by Jo Beverly (1/1)

Peace out, 2014.

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[Old photos, not from 2014.] Candles, In Memoriam

Once, when posting pictures from a trip to Europe, I sheepishly mentioned that despite avoiding religion as much as possible, I do still light candles in memoriam. And my friend Ashley said “hey, sometimes it’s just about bringing a little light into the world.”

I have shared part of this quote before. It’s from the Christmas bulletin at my parents’ church.

If you choose, you can be instruments of hope in the world.
If you choose, you can counter the voices of anxiety and despair in the world.
If you choose, you can fight against the fear that freezes the heart of many.
The choice is ours to make, how we live into the possibilities.

Hey 2015, be the possibility. Bring a little light.The Gate at Chion-In 4
Stairs
Lit Up Bamboo, Inside
Pile of Christmas Family

Love Actually.

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Although I have watched this movie numerous times, and will probably continue to do so*, I pretty much agree with every single thing this (long) article details about its true non-romanticness. Especially this:

The fundamental problem with Love Actually is that it presents romance as either absurdly easy—something that strikes you like a thunderclap and requires only a single grand gesture in order to be fulfilled—or all but impossible. Notably absent is the idea that love might ever be worth a little sustained effort: some mutual exploration and discovery, a bit of care and nurture, maybe even the overcoming of an obstacle or two.

*I really watch it because I enjoy the Hugh Grant performance so much. It is a nice pairing with either Two Weeks Notice OR Music and Lyrics, both charming lovely movies.

p.s. I just rewatched it last night after totally cracking up over this tweet (& video).

You, in three songs.

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I have been obsessed with this Fuel/Friends blog post since it went up in September. I’m home this morning thanks to a midday dr appt to check on my summer back injury (since apparently 2014 was the year my body completely fell apart. Six months healing my torn PCL followed by mystery incapacitating back injury that started July 1 followed by being sick ALL FALL–today is literally the FIRST DAY in 33 DAYS that I can fully hear out of my left ear), so I thought I’d whiz by and drop by a blog post on you. Then Safari crashed and I had to start all over so…this may not go up until tonight. ANYWHOSIT…

Here I am. This is me.

Take It on the Run, by REO Speedwagon
My favorite song since high school (yes I’m that old, I was entering high school when it first came out!). Ah, high school relationships. “Talk is cheap when the story is good” indeed. I was involved in a long-term relationship in high school with someone possibly even more violently moody than I am, so to say I spent a lot of time wondering what was going on behind the scenes would be a massive understatement. The way the singer vacillates between (I paraphrase) I totally don’t believe you cheated but you better run away if you did is such a microcosm of all young relationships isn’t it. Or just ME in relationships as short-term, long-term, friends before, never friends, no matter the situation it always feel both super serious AND super precarious to me. I also love the whispered quality of the beginning and end–this isn’t really being sung to the object of affection, it’s being muttered to oneself, while worrying, worrying, worrying. Yup, me to a T.

Bonus: my other favorite high school songs are 1) “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC possibly the best song in the entire world and I maintain that Back in Black is one of the world’s top 10 all-time albums; and 2) “Slow n’ Easy” by Whitesnake. Nuff said.

(Bonus 2: check out this hilarity. COME ON the lyrics are not that confusing.)

Weather With You by Crowded House
Gee, another song from 20+ years ago, who could’ve even guessed. My mom has always claimed that I’m such a strongly mooded [sic] person that it always wore off on all the people around me–if I’m in a good mood, suddenly the whole room is. And, unfortunately, VICE VERSA. I don’t know if I truly believe it, but I do see the effect of my mood on my classroom very strongly these days. That’s part of what this song is about for me–my emotional weather is how the world feels no matter what the sky looks like. Also not just in this song but in so many Crowded House songs, clever unexpected lyrical allusions just get me: “Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire / couldn’t conquer the blue sky.” They probably tried though!

Bonus: If you don’t know it, you MUST listen to “There Goes God.” The lyrics are amazeballoons. Here, lemme give you a sample: “Hey, don’t look now / but there goes God / in his sexy pants and his sausage dog / And he can’t stand Beelzebub / because he looks so good in black, in black.”

COME ON NOW. Also: Crowded House is one of those rare groups where their fast songs and their slow songs are equally fantastic. They could do ANY style well.

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, sung by Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty
The first single from the fabulous Belladonna album that I still listen to quite often, even though it’s, you guessed it, 20+ years old. There’s another duet on this album also (“Leather and Lace” with Tom Henley) but Stop Draggin’ is by far the superior tune. This is also the album with the fabulous “Edge of Seventeen”, the compelling beginning of which was sampled in “Bootylicious” (Destiny’s Child). Basically this is the album no one should have ever stopped listening to… I mean I haven’t! And clearly Beyonce hasn’t either. Why is this song me? Well…I’m a bit of a typical pisces. Despite being born on the cusp, I have a completely overloaded empathy gene and man I can get my heart dragged around by so many different things. I have to work pretty hard to protect myself from falling apart at times. Just in case, say, I randomly see a commercial filled with Americana, a red pickup driving down a dusty country road past two boys tossing a baseball OMG WEEPING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. Kidding…but it has happened. I’ve started crying WHILE READING ALOUD to my students (Martin’s Big Words, SOB). I teared up during an interview while talking about how important literacy is. The world has dragged my heart around so many times, and that’s not even thinking about relationships.

So those are definitely my all-time three, although at any given moment I could certainly come up with a “right now three” that would be entirely different.

What three songs tell YOUR story?