Must Love Dogs

Last night on my way home from rehearsal I saw a little Jack Russell wandering on the side of the road. I'd been seeing signs posted up on the side of the roads in my area for days now, about a missing Jack Russell, so I immediately stopped my car and got out to try and catch the poor little thing, in case it was the right one. He/she was so scared, though, that he just bolted away from me into the darkness. I drove to find one of the signs about the dog and called the owner to tell them what I'd seen, and he drove straight out to the intersection. He smsed me later to say thanks, but they hadn't been able to find the dog.

I felt so sad that it hadn't worked out. I love dogs so much (all animals, really), and I just lay in bed feeling sad and missing my dog Shadow, who had died in 2006 at the age of 17, and thinking about how devastated I would have been if she'd ever disappeared and I'd never found her. And in fact, feeling sad and missing all my pets that have passed on. And I've had a lot.

I'm so weird, but I'm really upset about this poor dog and its poor owners. :-(

This is Shadow. What a sweet girl.

The Little Things

Little things make me happy. This morning I got into my car and saw that Mel, our landlady, had painted red flowers all over the black rubbish bins. I smiled. It kind of made my morning.

Later I was at the shop, and when I put the tub of margarine into my trolley I saw that it had a picture of some perky, smiling little insect on the lid, instead of just the usual branding. It was adorable, and I burst out laughing.

I went to photograph some tablescapes for a magazine, and my friend Eve gave me the leftover white tulips because I love them so much. I had to stop off for a lunch date on my way home, and they turned into the child of Floppy Mcfloppyson. Now I've got them in a glass of water, trying to nurse them back to perkiness. This makes me happy.

After I did my Trash the Dress recently, my wedding dress has ended up hanging over the back of a chair in our bedroom, while I get around to having it dry-cleaned. It makes me smile every time I see it.


I put in a cd I haven't listened to in a while, and I forgot that one of my favourite songs was on there. I got so excited when I heard the intro.
And bubbles. Bubbles make me happy. Don't ever lose your childlike joy. I need mine to make it through the day.

TV that shaped my life

You might have noticed that I'm a leetle obsessed with movies. I'm also pretty much as obsessed with tv shows. This leaves my previous lifelong obsession of book-collecting on the shelf for the time being (ha, see what I did there?), but it's ok; they're still there looking pretty, and anyway, movies are cheaper. And tv is even cheaper. And this is an important thing in my world at the moment, cos it's slow season and Mr Ruby Slippers just pointed out that I he forgot to pay ask me to pay rent at the end of May, so I just got walloped with double rent this month. Oh, the fun.

I reckon tv shows kind of shaped my life. I'm an incredibly nostalgic person; one whiff of the theme to The Littlest Hobo and I'm pretty much finished. That show made me cry at the end of every episode, ergo I cry now when I hear the theme song, even though it's been at least twenty years since I last saw it.
Here are the end credits, because this is where I was usually crying my eyes out. He came along like Mary Poppins, helped everyone, and then left. :-(


However, despite the epic tears, I don't really remember that show very well. I didn't, for instance, record it every week and then watch every episode every single day when I came home from school, to the point where I could (and still can) recite entire episodes. The 6-year-old brain is a sponge. That honour was reserved for the best cartoon of all time:



Hell to the yes. There will never be a better cartoon than Gummi Bears; not Ducktales, Thundercats, My Little Pony, Bionic Six or even Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, all of which I used to watch and love. My childhood kicked ass. We seriously had the best cartoons in the 80s.

Speaking of the 80s, we also had this guy, the most ingenious gadget-maker and bomb-dismantler of all time. Oh yes, say hello to the mullet-sporting (but we won't hold that against him), army knife-carrying pacifist.


Famous lines from pretty much every episode: "What are you doing?" "Getting us out of here."

I think I had a crush on this guy even when I was five years old. I don't remember what night it aired (Friday, maybe?) but the whole family would gather round and watch MacGyver create some crazy thingymajig to get the baddies/stop the baddies/escape from the baddies. I could watch these credits over and over and over; they totally kick ass.

There was also a spate of sometimes funny, sometimes sappy family sitcoms. Who remembers Growing Pains, Family Ties, Full House and Who's the Boss? Always with an issue to be solved, always with a little moral at the end. And the violins start playing. And Dad has some moving, poignant lines. Awww.

Ah, yes, Kirk Cameron when he was young and cute, and not a crazy ranting lunatic trying to tell the world that atheists use big words to confuse you into believing in evolution.

Aw. look at little Alyssa Milano! And Katherine Helmond. I loved her.

OMG, Mary-Kate or Ashley! And now they run a trillion dollar empire. And damn, John Stamos was kind of cute. Pity about the hair, though.

I loved this family! And who doesn't enjoy Michael J. Fox? He was awesome in this.

In the early 90s I was a tween and young teenager, so I branched out from the family viewing and started watching my own stuff. Grownup stuff! Santa Barbara and Loving were my two earliest soap encounters. I have to give props to my parents for not forbidding me from watching this stuff when I was all of eleven years old. They made sure that I knew that what I saw on tv was *not* real, and that people didn't act like that in real life, and left me to it. I just enjoyed the scandals and family feuds and romances and kidnappings and paternity suits. If I wanted to see real life I could watch the people on the bus home from school. Yawn.

Cruz and Eden, my favourite couple of all time. She was a spoiled little rich girl, and he was a Latino policeman from the wrong side of the tracks. Soapie perfection. By the time I stopped watching Santa Barbara they still hadn't got married! Sigh.

Recently I've been getting a kick out of Beverly Hills 90210. Not the shitty remake, the real one with dreamy Brandon, rebel Dylan, nice girl Brenda (haha), spoilt Kelly and bimbo Donna. In the 90s it was really daring with it themes of sex, drugs, alcoholism. Now it's more "Oh look, an issue with a moral". Kind of lame, but still something awesome about it.

Whoa, look at those high-cut bikinis! Scary.

The mid-nineties was a great time for tv. Sitcoms were moving on from being about families to being about single people, so there was a nice mix of the two on the air at the same time. Two of my favourite sitcoms of all time came from this period. Guess what they are.






Still guessing?
















Ok. Here you go:

Duh.

And:

The Nanny! This show is still hilarious. And incidentally, did you know that the youngest girl (the cute one in the black and white checkered dress) is the slutty girl from Californication who punches and fucks David Duchovny and then steals his book? Blows my mind every time.

Special shout-outs to Frasier, Will & Grace, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Cybill for being awesome 90s comedies. I think I watched pretty much every sitcom that was on tv at the time, but those stand out for me.

Still on the 90s, but only discovered later by me, a show that became an obession:

Hooo boy. If Joe Lando was any hotter my tv would have melted. I did love the quaintness of the show, and their old-fashioned lifestyle and comments on "new-fangled" inventions like trains, but I think we all watched it because we wanted to be Dr Quinn. Not to be all pioneering and fighting for feminism and saving lives; no, we just wanted to be kissed by Sully. Swoon. If he walked into my room I'd do him right now. He's on my list. Yes, THAT List.

Another show I seem to have got into years after everyone else, but that became an obsession anyway:

In fact, this was completely stupid (not the show, just my timing) because I got into the show on its 9th and final season. Yeah, talk about being late to the party. In X-Files terms I arrived at the party after everyone had pretty much packed up and left. That didn't stop me, though, and thanks to BFF Ruby Slippers  I had a supply of some earlier seasons and recommendations of which others to rent. Just like Dr Quinn, I quickly became obsessed with the relationship between Mulder and Scully. When they kissed (you could count the number of times on one hand, sadly) I got butterflies. The alien stuff was only secondary. Who cares that Cigarette Smoking Man is going to destroy the world with an alien colony? Mulder and Scully shared a meaningful glance!

PS - the recent film was SHITE. If you saw it, don't judge The X-Files on it.

PPS - The X-Files has some of the best dialogue ever. In fact, the only dialogue that can match it comes from  this next show, which I adore:

Joss Whedon is a genius. That is all. But Buffy, in my opinion, is his best creation to date. I thrive on well-written dialogue, humour in the face of despair, fearless plots and the fact that you don't always KNOW who is going to win. If someone important needs to die for the sake of the plot, Joss Whedon will let it happen. And that, my friends, is tension. Watch it. Seriously. This means you, sister Ruby Slippers. If only she read my blog :-)

I'm going to do the rest in a Part II, because seriously, the 2000s deserves an entire blog post of its own. That's how obsessed I am with the tv it produced. So, so good.

Books & shelving

Lately I've kind of been obsessing over shelving. Especially bookshelves. Mostly because I have what Mr Rubyslippers would call a metric fuck ton of books. And dvds. We have nine, yes, NINE, bookcases in our bedroom and Spare Oom, and the depressing thing is that I've left hundreds of books at my parents' house because there was nowhere to put them here, and I kind of miss them. I mean, I probably wouldn't be reading them anyway, but I miss having them around. Books to me are twofold: they are awesome to read AND they look awesome on a shelf. Maybe it's the collector in me, but I just love the look of rows of books. Especially if there's a full series. MMm. This is probably why I still look out for the Nancy Drews I don't have, even though I haven't read one for years. I am a completist.

Anyway, lately I've been saving a lot of pictures of bookshelves and just shelving in general. Some practical, some not at all, but still totally awesome.

This is what I've always wanted: a full wall of shelving (except mine would go all the way up to the ceiling, because, really, that's just wasted space up there!)

Another one that's pretty awesome:

But then I see awesome things like this, and I want them, no matter how much space they waste:

Clearly I like tree-shaped things. :-)

And then I get into swirly shapes, and it just sets my heart aflutter:

And my personal favourite:

Look, another tree:

I love the idea of this, even though the book-lover in me cringes at the idea of leaving a book lying open face-down like that. It's SO bad for the spine! But look how cute, like a little birdhouse!

This is so elegant:

And this is completely crazy:

I'm so obsessed with interior decor at the moment!

Randoms & Ramblings

Just a bit of a brain-dump for you this fine Wednesday night; or actually, early Thursday morning.

Pick 'n Pay has started making their own Jaffa Cakes. Result? One very thrilled Mr Ruby Slippers, and one "suddenly-really-liking-guzzling-Jaffa-cakes-late-at-night-oh-shit-this-is-bad" Mrs Ruby Slippers. I've already gained enough weight this year. I could barely fit into my wedding dress anymore at my TTD. It's all this sitting on my lazy ass in front of the computer all day I'm doing now. Gah.

I just watched season one of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one; that all my friends and I were obsessed with when we were 12/13, not the shitty remake/re-imagining). It's so awesome. TOTALLY cheesy, and so dripping with moral messages that you could sink and drown in them, but I'm loving it! I'm so getting season 2 ASAP.

I just about died during the Grey's Anatomy season finale. I don't know how I'm going to wait until September to see what happens. One of the best finales EVER, I thought. Unlike Lost, which was, as I suspected, a huge letdown. I should have stopped after season one. Clearly, like Heroes, they had a fantastic premise which just couldn't last. At least I managed to stop putting myself through Heroes, but I got too invested in Lost, and the time-travel stuff in season 5 was so frikkin AWESOME.

My awesome husband is in the production of Noises Off that my theatre group is putting on, and tonight I went along to rehearsal. It's turning out soooo good! If you're in Johannesburg at the end of July/beginning of August, you have to come see it! The cast is working really hard, and it shows.

On a related note, I wish I could have seen the Noises Off production that starred Patti LuPone. Bootleg, anyone? Or of anything else with Patti? We are so out of the loop here at the arse end of Africa.

One of my friends is in the USA right now, and just saw Liza in concert on Sunday, and Promises Promises with Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes today. I am completely eaten up inside with jealousy, especially  because he does things like this all the time. Bloody rich people. But at least he knows how to spend his money. Dammit, someone pay for me to go to America and see shows. Seriously.

A friend of mine went to Australia for business (also jealous!) and brought me back some chocolate, some cocoa-flavoured body lotion, and chocolate kisses lip balm. I guess I'm just really obvious.

That's it for now! Sleep tight/good morning/good evening, wherever you are!

Do it at home, people.

Today on my way home from an awesome photography workshop-slash-get-together, I got the following text from Mr Ruby Slippers:

"Supper plans? Because I was thinking (doesn't need to finish sentence)"

Which made me chuckle, because obviously - to me - he was referring to eating out, which we both love, and which is probably our one vice as a couple, because it tends to eat into your bank balance a lot more than cooking at home. So naturally I said yes.

Anyway, once I got home we decided on ribs from the only place near us that makes ribs worth eating, Thundergun. NOM. We then had to decide on somewhere else, because it was nearly 7pm and I made Mr RS call and make sure there was a table. Which there was...in "at least an hour". So it was back to our old faithful, Ruby's sushi, which has great sushi and is never jampacked. And I'm kind of glad we did, because we got to hear the couple at the table next to us having a fight, which totally made my evening, if only because it highlighted how much cooler we are than them. Ugh. We would never go out for sushi and then spend the evening bitching at other in lowered tones that everyone around us could hear anyway about "never listening" and "this is shit" and "I care more about you than you do about me" and other such crap.

I have to say this tiff at the table next door really aroused my curiosity, because I'm nosy like that. It took Mr RS longer to cotton onto the fact that there even was a fight, but then I think men don't eavesdrop as easily as we women do. Sorry ladies, fact. So there we were in the middle of a fab conversation about how they could possibly make a continuation series of Firefly  (which would have to be a prequel so that Wash could be there, but then that would leave out River and her brother, which I was fine with because Summer Glau has always kind of annoyed me anyway, but Mr Slippers, for some reason, likes her, so he disagreed) and all the while I was straining my ears to hear what on earth was going on with this crazy couple, while still listening to Mr RS and responding intelligently. If ever you want to test your powers of concentration, do this. It's hard.

Anyway, I somehow got the feeling that the beginning of the fight sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere, soon after the arrival of their sushi (where they discussed which piece was which), because "you never talk to me and you never listen" (guess which gender said THAT). And I couldn't help but think it was because they were listening to us talking and laughing and making it look so easy to be a fun, in love couple who could happily just talk about random interesting things. Because there certainly was a pause from their table (seriously, these tables were close. I could have stretched out and taken their sushi without getting up) while we were having a conversation about alleged top movies, and why 2001: A Space Odyssey needs a rewatch to be sure it is that bad (Mr Slippers) and why Butch Cassidy was awesome, and ergo why we should watch The Sting (me). Maybe it's all in my head, but I think they envied us. So of course we endeavoured to make our conversation all the more sparkling and witty, because that's just what we do. All in unspoken agreement, of course. Afterwards, when we both admitted we'd been doing it, I fell in love with Mr Ruby Slippers just a little bit more. :-)

As for the couple, eventually the woman got up and hissed, "I don't want to argue in front of these people," and I thought "I thought you already were", and the man said, a split-second later, "I thought you already were." I almost went "SNAP!"

Then they stalked off outside, and when we left, the woman was sitting in her car alone, and the man was halfway down the block, sulking next to a streetpole. As for us, we went and got delicious icecream and said things like "I love us" a lot.

I wish people would have the decency to fight in the privacy of their own home, but since it happened that they didn't, I rather enjoyed it. I just wished I was someone like House, and could come up with some flabbergastingly brilliant remark, and actually have the guts to say it. Now that would have been awesome.

Movie Resolution List: More Done!

 So I had to be doing something in all this time I haven't posted (aside from working, which I really HAVE been doing!). Anyway, remember my Movie Resolution list? I've since watched the following:

On The Waterfront (#19)

Eh. It was ok. I'm really not a Brando fan, but it was watchable.






















 
Chinatown (#21)  

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like 70s movies, as a rule (despite my all-time favourite movie, What's Up, Doc?, being from the 70s). Chinatown was slow and kind of dull. And it wasn't even set in Chinatown; they just talked about it a bit. Well done, Roman Polanski, I knew I didn't like your movies.



Duck Soup (#60)

Duck Soup was AWFUL. It was painfully bad. It was one of the most unfunny things I've ever seen. Which is a shame, because I quite enjoyed A Night at the Opera, and I had great hopes for this one.



Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73)

This, on the other hand, was AWESOME. Full of funny lines and great adventure. I loved these guys! No wonder they made another movie with Paul Newman and Robert Redford (which I'm definitely watching ASAP); they work really well together. LOVED it.


The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36)

I loved Bridge on the River Kwai! Alec Guiness is awesome in just about everything he does (just about...see next). Great story; the ending was a bit rushed, maybe, but overall it's fantastic!






Lawrence of Arabia (#7)

What a snoozefest. Seriously one of the most boring films I've ever seen in my life. Even Alec Guinness couldn't save it. Neither could the ever-awesome Claude Rains - nor Peter O'Toole, who is always good. I think I've seen enough riding through deserts to last me a lifetime. Soooo boring.



















So all I've got left to watch are:
The French Connection
A Streetcar Named Desire
Modern Times
Bonnie & Clyde
MASH

I can so do this! :-)

Friday Night movies

So on Friday night I went to go watch Sex and the City 2 with my BFF and some other friends. I tried to get hubby to come along, because I hadn't really seen him all week, but I wasn't particularly surprised when he pointed out that I'd have to pay him to watch that movie, and much as I love him, I wasn't prepared to part with perfectly good hard-earned cash so that he could sit in masculine agony beside me while Carrie stressed about her marriage, Samantha talked about - and had - sex a lot, and Charlotte and Miranda were basically filler. (Note: I thought all this before I saw the movie, and guess what? I was right! :-))

I'm not a huge Sex & the City fan, actually. But I am a huge Liza Minnelli fan, and knowing that she was in the movie was enough to get me there on opening night - where, as predicted, I was surrounded by fuckwits who spent the entire movie repeating the dialogue and adding pointless commentary of their own. But since I was only there to see Liza, I didn't turn around in my giant chair - Oh, Monte Casino, your cinemas delight me - and tell them to shut the fuck up, like I normally would have.

Liza was on on the first five minutes, and she was AWESOME, of course. The rest of the movie was just "Lalala, this is vaguely fun and entertaining, but I hope it ends soon because I have to work tomorrow" for me. PS - it didn't end soon. It was incredibly overdrawn. Sigh.

Oh, and by the way, am I the only person who thinks the fashion those girls purport to love is pretty much heinous? You'd have to pay ME to wear half those overpriced, designer outfits. Ugh.

So when I got home my husband had watched The Human Centipede while I was out, and tweeted the following:

I watched The Human Centipede. @katforsyth watched Sex and the City 2. I guess we both watched a horrible abomination tonight.

Heheh. If you don't know what The Human Centipede is (and I wouldn't blame you) you can go watch the trailer on Youtube. But be warned, it's a horrible, horrible concept, and you might have scary dreams about it. Or maybe that's just me.


So later on, while we were in bed, we got to wondering: if the girls from Sex and the City had to be made into a Human Centipede, who would be in the front and who at the back? Ok, actually my husband got to wondering, but I thought it was pretty funny. Because we're kind of quirky-gross like that. My theory was that Carrie would have to be at the front because she has to narrate, which I stand by, even though hubby pointed out that the narration is voiceover, so she doesn't actually have to physically be able to speak. I still think she needs to be the head, though, because she's the lead. And Samantha would be at the back so she can still have sex. Because that's what she's there for. True, she'd have to stop making crass comments, but hey, when you're a human centipede, you win some, you lose some.


And this is how we spend our Friday night pillow talk. I love us.

Oscar Predictions!

With just a few hours to go before Oscar lift off, here are my predictions. But first I have to say that for the first time in ten years, I will not be watching the Oscars as they are broadcast live. Except for that time two years ago when we had stock take on the morning of the Oscars and my boss wouldn't let me have the day off. But that was all conspired against me. This time I'm doing it on purpose.

It's always kind of a pain to get up at 2am and drive off to someone's house (usually BFF Ruby Slippers, who has satellite tv). But it's worth it to enjoy the show. However, when they put ad breaks between every single award, and play the same three ads in those breaks over and over over the 4 hour period, not to mention during the pre-shows, it kind of makes me want to stab my eyeballs with a fork. It's funny, really, that the Oscar bigwigs are always trying to find a way to make the show shorter and more interesting, and if they just took out ALL THE BLOODY AD BREAKS it would be, and people might actually watch it. And then they'd make no money. Ha.

Anyway, I'm still pretty Oscar-keen, so I'm getting up at about 6:30am and driving through to BFF's house. I should arrive as the show ends at around 7am, and then she'l give me the tape she recorded it on, and I'll drive home, eyes averted from all news headlines on the side of the roads, and watch it With No Ad Breaks. Bliss.

So here are my predictions:

BEST PICTURE
Avatar

BEST DIRECTOR
The Hurt Locker (Yup, I'm predicting a split here)

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blindside

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mo'nique, Precious blah blah

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

ANIMATED FEATURE
Up

ART DIRECTION
Nine

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar

COSTUME DESIGN
Nine

EDITING
Avatar

MAKEUP
Star Trek

ORIGINAL SCORE
Sherlock Holmes

SONG
Crazy Heart

SOUND EDITING
Avatar

SOUND MIXING
Avatar

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Up in the Air

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Inglourious Basterds

FOREIGN FILM
The White Ribbon


As you can see, I'm predicting a bit of a sweep for Avatar, as is, you know, THE WORLD, but aside from all the effects and CGI stuff and sheer beauty of it, I don't think it deserves too much. It was a visually stunning film with a tired old plot and very little heart and soul. Personally, having now seen 8 of the 10 best picture nominees (The Blindside hasn't opened yet and Precious only opened on Friday, and I didn't have the time) I think the best films are An Education and Up in the Air, but if we're equating groundbreaking and impressive with "good", then Avatar will win every time. But it won't stand the test of time, once every movie looks like that...

AFI Movies # 2, 3 and 4 done!

I'm totally on a movie roll this month. I've been trying to spend less time arbitrarily clicking round the internet, and more time watching movies I've been meaning to forever. Which is why I made that list of 15 movies on the AFI Top100 List to watch this year. I already posted that I'd watched Jaws. Since then, I've watched:

 

Which was rather sweet and quite fun. You have to be in the right mood for Chaplin (well, at least, I do), but when you are he can be such fun!

  

Which was about what I'd expected: typically 70s, angry protagonist in an imperfect world, and not my kind of movie at all. It's not bad, though, and I'm glad I watched it eventually.

This was pretty good. Maybe a bit too over-acted, but that's how they did stuff back then, and the 40s is one of my favourite movie decades. It's pretty much all about greed and how it affects one. Good stuff.

This leaves me only:

1) On The Waterfront (#19)
2) Chinatown (#21)
3) Duck Soup (#60)
4) Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73)
5) The French Connection (#93)
6) A Streetcar named Desire (#47)
7) The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36)
8) Modern Times (#78) .
9) Bonnie and Clyde (#42) .
10) M*A*S*H (#54)
11) Lawrence of Arabia (#7)

But right now, I'm off to catch up on my Oscar movies. Predictions tomorrow!

Movie #1 Done!

Remember my New Year's Goal to watch 15 movies I hadn't seen off the AFI Best 100 List? Well, I started in at the bottom and watched this:

And, much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it! I don't see what it's doing on a Top Film list, to be honest, but it was a great, fun, adventure, with a nice number of "jump in your seat" moments (though, to be honest, the one that startled me the most had nothing to do with the shark at all!), and a nicely-paced story. I'd been worrying about how on earth they could be on a boat looking for a shark for the length of an entire movie, but the set-up took a good portion of the film, and I enjoyed it too.

Not a bad start to my 15! Let's hope the next 14 are as enjoyable, though I have my doubts about a few... :-)

Oh, by the way, I found the most wonderful time-wasting movie site. It's called ICheckMovies, and it's basically a checklist of every top movie list ever made, including the AFI, Oscar winners, Roger Ebert and so on, as well as things like "top sequels" and "top horrors". Go. Play.

Another one gone

I just heard that Kathryn Grayson died yesterday, and I'm inexplicably sad. Now before you all go, "Kathryn who?", she was one of the big musical stars at MGM in the 1940s and 50s. She co-starred with people like Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Mario Lanza. She was in Showboat and Kiss Me Kate. I'm not exaggerating when I say she was one of the biggies.

And I didn't even like her.

I never was a big fan of the soprano leads in musicals, like Kathryn and Jane Powell. I found them a bit shrieky and I never liked the songs they chose for them. I'm much more of a jazzy, alto, Judy Garland-type lover (well, duh, if you know me at all). But I'm so SAD about Kathryn's death. You see, with her passing, we come ever closer to losing every last one of the great stars of my favourite film era of all time - the Golden Age of Hollywood. And THAT makes me want to cry.

As soon as I heard the news of Kathryn's passing, I went and dug out the list I made a few years ago of the big classic stars who are still alive. Maybe it's a bit of a depressing list, but I'm morbid that way, and anyway, I LIKE lists. I hadn't looked at it for some months, and I immediately had to delete Jennifer Jones, Jean Simmons and Karl Malden, as well as Kathryn. What saddened me is I didn't even know that Jean Simmons had died until a friend told me last week. I guess it just wasn't big enough news, which makes me even sadder.

I love old Hollywood. I adore it. And yes, I know these stars will live on through their films, and them being alive or dead really makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. But for me, it's like a piece of magic has disappeared off this earth.

Here is the list of those magic-makers who are still with us. Please let me know if I've forgotten someone, because I very likely have! And it would make me feel so much better if the list were longer.  The dates next to them are their dates of birth.

Luise Rainer (1910)
Tony Martin (1912)
Kirk Douglas (1916)
Olivia De Havilland (1916)
Joan Fontaine (1917)
Lena Horne (1917)
Ernest Borgnine (1917)
Celeste Holm (1917)
Maureen O' Hara (1920)
Mickey Rooney (1920)
Jane Russell (1921)
Deanna Durbin (1921)
Esther Williams (1921)
Doris Day (1922)
Eva Marie Saint (1924)
Lauren Bacall (1924)
Tony Curtis (1925)
Gloria DeHaven (1925)
Angela Lansbury (1925)
Farley Granger (1925)
Patricia Neal (1926)
Leslie Nielsen (1926)
Gina Lollobrigida (1927)
Sidney Poitier (1927)
Ann Blyth (1928)
Shirley Temple (1928)
Jane Powell (1929)
Tippi Hedren (1930)
Joanne Woodward (1930)
Rita Moreno (1931)
Debbie Reynolds (1932)
Peter O' Toole (1932)
Elizabeth Taylor (1932)
Omar Sharif (1932)
Kim Novak (1933)
Shirley Jones (1934)
Sophia Loren (1934)
Shirley Maclaine (1934)
Julie Andrews (1935)
Margaret O'Brien (1937)


Please tell me someone else is sad about how short this list is! And I can't even let BFF Ruby Slippers know, because she's on holiday in the bush, with no cellphone reception. :-(

Yours, sadly,
Ruby Slippers

The best Trash the Dress photo EVER.

I just wish it was mine!

It won't let me save it, but do yourself a favour and go see it here. Because, wow.

Dream Home

I think I might have found my dream house (or loft, in this case):

Look at the low-running bookcases! I want!

There is a little garden IN the kitchen! And the space! Divine.

I think this might be the most perfect bathroom ever. Be still my beating heart.

 

See the rest here.

in the hospital

So. Remember my last post, where Mr Ruby Slippers had a stomach bug and I was sitting on the computer in the middle of the night to avoid his possible vomit? Yeah...turns out, not so much a stomach bug. We went off to the doctor in the early morning, after the poor guy was unable to sleep because he was in so much pain. Many X-Rays and ultrasounds and even more $$$ later, it was discovered that he had a blockage in his intestine. And they had to operate. Twelve hours after I wrote that last post, he was being prepped for surgery.

I did NOT see that coming.

I was assured that he was never in any danger and that it was all pretty routine, but it was just so...hard. Hard seeing him lying there, barely able to move, with tubes down his nose and in his arm and up his...well, you know. Hard to drive to the hospital two or three times a day to see him. Hard to be strong for him when I just wanted to cry. And hard to carry on with work when all I wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep. I never realised just how exhausting it is to have someone in hospital. I don't cope well with stress, I think.

Mr RS was released from hospital eight days after his operation. He hobbled around at home for a while, and he had his stitches out last Thursday. Now, aside from a painful and quite scary-looking scar, he's doing okay. And my mind is getting more or less back to normal. I felt quite hazy for a while there.

As for what caused the blockage, we still don't know. The surgeon said it was something he ate, something mostly fibrous, that hardened into a bezoar (and yes, I also immediately thought "ooh, those have magical properties!"). Unfortunately we didn't get to keep it :-)

Anyway, so that's where I've been for the last two weeks.

I'm going to leave you with a pretty picture I found on desiretoinspire.net:

 

It's a fairytale. LOVE it.

Middle of the night ramblings

So it's 1:30am and I'm here, writing. It's not unusual for me to be up this late - in fact, since I started working from home, I often find myself going to bed at 2am and waking up at 11. I'm sorry, I know you're all gasping in envy, but I seem to need 9 hours. It's what my body wants. If I get less, I just sit there craving a nap the whole afternoon. And I can work whenever I want, so why not sleep half the morning and do my work at night? Sounds reasonable to me!

Anyway, right now Mr RS is is the throes of a stomach bug of some sort - he seems particularly susceptible to them - and is lying groaning on the bed. I was keeping him company, until he suggested that he might need to vomit at some point, at which point I left the room at the speed of light. You might remember my intense fear of vomit. So now I don't know if he has - you know - or not. I much prefer stomach flu that only comes out the correct end. I won't be able to sleep if I think he might throw up. Which kind of ticks me off because I LOVE sleeping. No, I'm not pissed at my poor husband for being sick. I'm pissed at my own stupid phobia for making me unable to sleep in the suggested possible tentative chance of the presence of vomit.

Funnily enough, the cat vomit doesn't bother me. Well, that's because I don't believe Gollum know how to chew, because he always brings up a neat pile of unchewed cat pellets. They just look like damp new ones. So those I can pick up. Also, they smell like cat food, not like vomit. That's a big part of it.

So apparently this is just going to be a rambling, middle of the night post. Sorry. I'm bored. I don't feel like watching tv anymore, and nothing's happening on Twitter or Facebook in the middle of the night. My night. Actually, there is stuff going on on Twitter because it's still evening for the Americans. I'm just not in the mood. Maybe now would be a good time to go and read some of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November. I haven't even looked at it since I finished it.

*Excuse me while I go read a 50000 word novel. I'll be right back.*

Movie Lists

Ha, so I've already broken one of my New Year goals - which was to post on here at LEAST once a week. Oops. Anyway, I thought I'd expand a bit more on some of my goals, and the first one that caught my eye was the one about watching 15 of the 40 AFI Top 100 movies I haven't seen. When I told Mr Ruby Slippers about this, he said it was a pointless endeavour, because "top" lists of anything are usually stupid, and influenced only by what the makers think people should think. Or something. Still, I think it's worth seeing some of them, especially the ones that are considered "important" films. Also, I like to see films just so that I can truthfully be able to say "I thought that was the most incredibly overrated film of all time" (*cough*BarryLyndon*cough) instead of, "Oh...I haven't seen that yet." But then, I am a movie person. :-)

So I thought I'd make a list of the fifteen films I intend to watch this year, and then I can cross them off publically on here as I watch them. That might motivate me a bit. :-)

For interest's sake, here is the full AFI list (the recent 2007 version). Everything I HAVEN'T seen is in red.

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.
2. "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "Casablanca," 1942.
4. "Raging Bull," 1980.
5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.
6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
8. "Schindler's List," 1993.
9. "Vertigo," 1958.
10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
11. "City Lights," 1931.
12. "The Searchers," 1956.
13. "Star Wars," 1977.
14. "Psycho," 1960.
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968.
16. "Sunset Blvd.", 1950.
17. "The Graduate," 1967.
18. "The General," 1927.
19. "On the Waterfront," 1954.
20. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946.
21. "Chinatown," 1974.
22. "Some Like It Hot," 1959.
23. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940.
24. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," 1982.
25. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962.
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939.
27. "High Noon," 1952.
28. "All About Eve," 1950.
29. "Double Indemnity," 1944.
30. "Apocalypse Now," 1979.
31. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941.
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974.
33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975.
34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937.
35. "Annie Hall," 1977.
36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957.
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946.
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948.
39. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964.
40. "The Sound of Music," 1965.
41. "King Kong," 1933.
42. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967.
43. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969.
44. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.
45. "Shane," 1953.
46. "It Happened One Night," 1934.
47. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951.
48. "Rear Window," 1954.
49. "Intolerance," 1916.
50. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.
51. "West Side Story," 1961.
52. "Taxi Driver," 1976.
53. "The Deer Hunter," 1978.
54. "M-A-S-H," 1970.
55. "North by Northwest," 1959.
56. "Jaws," 1975.
57. "Rocky," 1976.
58. "The Gold Rush," 1925.
59. "Nashville," 1975.
60. "Duck Soup," 1933.
61. "Sullivan's Travels," 1941.
62. "American Graffiti," 1973.
63. "Cabaret," 1972.
64. "Network," 1976.
65. "The African Queen," 1951.
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.
67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 1966.
68. "Unforgiven," 1992.
69. "Tootsie," 1982.
70. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.
71. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.
72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.
74. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991.
75. "In the Heat of the Night," 1967.
76. "Forrest Gump," 1994.
77. "All the President's Men," 1976.
78. "Modern Times," 1936.
79. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.
80. "The Apartment, 1960.
81. "Spartacus," 1960.
82. "Sunrise," 1927.
83. "Titanic," 1997.
84. "Easy Rider," 1969.
85. "A Night at the Opera," 1935.
86. "Platoon," 1986.
87. "12 Angry Men," 1957.
88. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938.
89. "The Sixth Sense," 1999.
90. "Swing Time," 1936.
91. "Sophie's Choice," 1982.
92. "Goodfellas," 1990.
93. "The French Connection," 1971.
94. "Pulp Fiction," 1994.
95. "The Last Picture Show," 1971.
96. "Do the Right Thing," 1989.
97. "Blade Runner," 1982.
98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942.
99. "Toy Story," 1995.
100. "Ben-Hur," 1959.


There are actually quite a few on there that I really WANT to see, and I've just never got around to it. Why on earth haven't I seen Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, for goodness' sakes? Luckily I have a couple of movie-crazy friends, and I'm pretty sure they can hook me up with the ones I want to see, which are:

1) On The Waterfront (#19)  ~ it doesn't sound that interesting, and Marlon Brando always annoys the heck out of me, but it won a bunch of Oscars, including best picture, which means I can cross it off THAT list too. And it's supposed to be good. I might enjoy it.

2) Chinatown (#21) ~ I hear it's good, and it has Jack Nicholson in it, which usually takes a movie up a notch. Unfortunately it's directed by Roman Polanski, and I'm usually not a fan of his films. Still, I'll give it a go. The plot sounds good.

3) Duck Soup (#60) ~ I actually really want to see this one. I love the Marx Borthers. I just haven't been able to get hold of a copy.

4) Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#73) ~ Young, gorgeous Paul Newman and Robert Redford. In an adventure getaway caper. I'm there. And yes, I do already know how it ends.

5) The French Connection (#93) ~ A classic I keep seeing clips from everywhere. It looks like a good plot, so why not?

6) A Streetcar named Desire (#47) ~ I really have to watch this. It's just that I did the play at university, plus a bunch of other Tennessee Williams plays, and I really, really dislike his work. But bloody hell, if I sat through 'Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf' I can get through this.

7) The Bridge on the River Kwai (# 36)  ~ I've been meaning to watch this for ages. Secret? Ssshh. I already have a copy. I'm such a procrastinator.

8) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (#38) ~ Another one of those "it's famous, it looks good enough, it has quotable lines, why haven't I seen it?" movies.

9) Modern Times (#78) ~ I can watch Chaplin. In small doses, maybe, but he does have a quality about him. I enjoyed The Gold Rush, so I'm keen to see how this one turns out.

10) Bonnie and Clyde (#42) ~ Kind of middle of the road for me, but I reckon I'll enjoy it once it's there.

11) M*A*S*H (#54) ~ I'm starting to push it here as thing appeal to me less. It looks ok, though. And it can't be too bad if they made a soin-off TV show (that was how it went, right?)

12) Taxi Driver (#52) ~ I should TOTALLY have seen this. It just doesn't appeal to me. But I really should, and will!

13) City Lights (#11) ~ Ok, I can do two Chaplins.

14) Lawrence of Arabia (#7) ~ Sigh. It's high on the list, and it's famous....and stuff. I'll try.

15) Jaws (#56) ~ Hopefully this will now be too naff to scare me, which is why I've avoided it all my life. And it's famous, I should have seen it.


So...That's that. If I can make it through these 15 movies I'll probably never see any of the others, most of which I'm avoiding because I don't like the subject matter/plot (Raging Bull, Rocky, Do the Right Thing, Spartacus, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, Nashville...) But hey, you never know.

In case you're interested, my picks for "WTF is this movie doing on any kind of Top List??" (that I've seen) are: The Godfather, The Last Picture Show, The Maltese Falcon, Snow White (being groundbreaking doesn't mean you're brilliant, IMO - in that case include Star Wars and Toy Story as well), Network, Raiders of the Lost Ark (it's fun, but it's Indiana Jones, for goodness' sakes!), and Blade Runner.

My picks for "hell to the YES for including this!" are: Singin' in the Rain, The Shawshank Redemption, Sunset Blvd, Bringing Up Baby, Some Like it Hot, It Happened One Night, All About Eve, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Forrest Gump and The Sixth Sense. And perhaps Swing Time, though I have to say that Top Hat would have been a better choice if they wanted a Fred & Ginger movie.

Did I mention I'm a film nut? Does anyone else make lists of movies to watch, or lists of movies they've seen?

Yet another year, with bigger and better goals

Two years ago, at the beginning of 2008, I was newly-engaged (a whole two years and ten days ago I got engaged! Wow), and because of that, my New Year's goal for 2008 was pretty much "get married awesomely". Most of 2008 was sucked away in accomplishing this, but I'm okay with that, because I DID accomplish it, and it was awesome. I also managed to break free of the horrible chain bookstore job I'd had for three years, which I hated 98% of the time*, and found myself in another retail job that I thought I'd like more, but which I ended up despising for different reasons (except for the customers. I hated them in both shops).

One year ago, at the start of 2009, I posted a list of New Year Goals. You can see the full list and explanations here, but I'm going to go through them now, and see how I did. This is a bit scary, because I haven't actually gone back and looked at these since I wrote them, or at least not since early last year, so I'm not really sure how I did. Even now I haven't looked at them. I'm going to go through them one at a time.

1. Get a new job. DONE
I started my own photography business, although I probably still need a part time job to bring in more money so I can afford stuff.


2. Take at least a month off before starting alleged new job. DONE
I took my photography course during this time. I REALLY needed this break. I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown, the way I started crying every time someone asked me how work was, or how I was.


3. Buy a house. NOT DONE

Yeah...we just didn't have enough money to consider this one. But we still need one, so badly. Renting is horrible.


4. Take singing lessons. NOT DONE
I don't mind so much that I didn't get to do this one. When it came down to it, I had to decide whether to put the money I had towards singing lessons or photography classes. At the time I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to make photography my career, but I knew I most certainly wasn't going to make one from singing, so I chose photos. And I'm glad. I can always do it one day.


5.Do a Photography course. DONE
Self-explanatory. Best thing I ever did.


6. Be happy within myself. MOSTLY DONE

This is a hard one, because there's no tangible evidence that I accomplished it. I AM happier, though. I finally have a new job I love, and that makes a huge difference. No one is trying to steal a piece of my soul anymore, I'm not treated like a moron, and I can go to the damn toilet without having to ask customers to leave, lock up, and get a security guard to watch the outside books. Oh, and I get a lunch break. Of my very own! :-)


You see, I'm a person who likes solitude. I go crazy in busy places, and I get all weirded out. My brain starts going fuzzy and I forget words and talk nonsense. It's not as bad as it sounds, but I do go slightly weird. I really should never have worked in retail. I'm surprised I never had an anxiety attack or something around Christmas time. Working as a photographer is perfection for me. You get to spend time with people on their happiest day, and then go home and work on their images in peace and quiet. And eat lunch without interruptions.


So, now for THIS year:

1) Shoot at least twelve weddings as the primary photographer.
2) Grow Kat Forsyth Photography into en established business, with a recognisable name (or at least, the beginnings of that)
3) Buy a house (well, there has to be one carry-over, right?)
4) Get some kind of part-time income in order to afford to buy and decorate said house.
5) Tidy and clean the house more often (I'm a lazy slob sometimes)
6) Go to gym at least once a week (technically it should be twice, but I might have mentioned I'm lazy)
7) Watch at least fifteen of the forty movies I haven't seen on the AFI's 2007 Top 100 Movies of all time list.
8) Have a proper Date Night with my husband once a month.
9) Post on here once a week, at least. Preferably twice.

I think that's enough for one year!

I hope you all have a great one. I intend to.




*I still miss the 2% I didn't hate.