Movie Weekend

Since sometime last fall and into January, we've been watching the Showtime series, The Tudors. We watched King Henry marry and get rid of all of those wives, and we liked it. But somewhere in season 4, we got stuck. I really thought that if I had to watch one more episode, I'd lose it. So, three DVDs of the series sat in the drawer of our entertainment center for over a month. Instead of continuing until the end, we watched nothing. Why we didn't just package those DVDs up and mail them back, I don't really know. Last week though, I finally got around to it. So this weekend was a movie weekend, just like old times!

I already mentioned It's Kind of a Funny Story. We also watched The Social Network, which everyone else in the universe has already seen. It was decent, I noticed myself having emotional reactions like thinking Zuckerburg was brilliant and geeky in a good way, then brilliant and geeky in a bad way, and back and forth and back and forth. Then the movie ended, and I convinced myself that I should come up with the next billion dollar idea. I'm planning on working on that later this week.

Last night, we watched Get Low. Apparently this movie came out in 2009. Where was I to have missed it two years ago? It was good! (I've got to work on my list of adjectives. I have a hard time summing up a movie with a word other than good or not-so-good.) Will looked over at me at one point while we were watching and said, "Why are you making that face!?" Then I realized I was making a face because I was having a reaction to the movie! Because it was "good" I guess. When I went to governor's school way back in high school, I remember one of our teachers telling us that if we could "upset the reader's expectations" then we'd written a decent piece. Her name was Cathy Smith Bowers, and I loved her. She was named poet laureate of NC in 2010. I never forgot that piece of writing advice, and now every time I read/view/hear something that is creative, if I catch myself having a reaction (even making crazy faces), I think about how the writer/screenwriter/artist/musician was successful because of that. Something else I remember about Bowers is that on the Friday of the week she was our writing teacher, we all wore our pajamas to class as a way of celebrating. I don't remember what we were celebrating. Maybe Bowers? I'm sure she felt honored that we showed up to her class with the pajamas we hadn't washed since we'd arrived 5 weeks earlier. Maybe we were celebrating that it was the last Friday of being locked (kind of literally since we didn't have cars)in the Furman University campus, which might seem lovely to some, but when I was 17, it was confusing.

Random governor's school memory aside: One night someone (I seriously can't remember if it was my boyfriend at the time or really some random friend) brought me Taco Bell. This was SO against the rules! If you are furrowing your brow and wondering why, I totally understand. I did the same thing back then when I wasn't allowed to have Taco Bell for 5 weeks. Anyway, I got busted with the Taco Bell and had to go in my room 30 minutes before curfew, which would have been 9:30 I guess, due to the fact that I'd taken the contraband Taco Bell and was caught happily eating it. I remember telling my hall counselor (don't you think she felt important being a governor's school counselor!?), "Okay, seriously. If your boyfriend brought you Taco Bell right now, you'd tell him to take it back? Eat it himself? I don't think so!" She agreed. Told me to eat the TB and go to my room, which I did. Being 17 is weird and filled with stupid ideas.

In addition to movie weekend, I also downloaded Tina Fey's new book, Bossypants. Add it to your list. It's a good one!