The Mallory Project

Today's movie was #1 on the AFI list, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane . According to Netflix: Orson Welles reinvented movies at the age of 26 with this audacious biography of newspaper baron Charles Foster Kane (in essence, a thinly veiled portrait of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst), who rises from poverty to become one of America's most influential men. A complex and technically stunning film, Citizen Kane is considered one of the best movies ever made. I'm going to be completely honest here and say that I didn't really pay attention to the movie. I was reading articles for another class assignment, so I didn't get the full Citizen Kane experience. And I think that that is why I didn't quite get it. Not the film. I understand the film. The satire, the story about journalism from 1890 to 1940, the sense of loss. I understand why the movie is considered one of the greatest of all time. The cinematography is amazing, the writing is good, the acti...

I am a Gleek and proud of it. It took me a little while to get into it. The pilot premiered on the day I graduated college, so I obviously had other stuff on my mind. Then when it re-aired in September, I was still getting used to living in Hawai`i and going to grad school, so I didn't watch the first few episodes. However, many of my friends were obsessed with the show and talking about how amazing it was, so I decided to give it a chance. The first episode I tried watching was Episode 4, Preggers. The first musical number was "Single Ladies", but the characters weren't singing, so my first thought was "huh. Ok. Good dancing, but I wanted some singing." And then I saw Quinn's explanation of how she got pregnant and I thought "holy crap, this is dumb. The show is trying to get away with *this*?" (For those of you who don't know, Quinn claimed that she got pregnant when her boyfriend came early in a hot tub. In reality, she had cheated on hi...

I cheated today. I was really in the mood to watch a movie, but I'm suffering from a really painful 2nd degree burn and chronic back pain (a story for another time) so my doctor gave me Vicodin. So...the movie I watched today is definitely not on the AFI Top 100 List... I watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I'll admit that I have a bit of a thing for Andy Samburg. And if I was a dude, I'd totally go gay for Neil Patrick Harris. This is one of my favorite movies so I knew that I had to watch it, especially if I'm too loopy to really do anything else. Besides, you can't truly appreciate the genius of Martin Scorsese or James Dean while looped up on Vicodin, right?

I decided that I needed a few laughs, so I chose movie #31, Woody Allen's classic, Oscar-winning Annie Hall . I am, course, quite familiar with Woody Allen, but I've never actually watched any of his movies. But I am very glad that I chose it today. I really enjoyed it, and I even laughed out loud a few times. I loved the fact that Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum were in it (and Sigourney Weaver, too, but she didn't have any lines). I feel like I identify more with Alvy, Woody Allen's character, more than any other. I am anal like him and definitely neurotic. Maybe not quite as neurotic, since I can drive, haha. But his opening lines just seemed like they were written about me... "There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel ...

This blog thing has definitely not worked out the way I planned. In September, my restaurant went into it's "slow period", so everyone's hours got cut, and my paycheck took a bad turn. So, in order to save some money, I haven't been able to eat out as much, and when I cook for myself, I make my same, old, trusted menus (pasta, tacos, veggie stir-fry). I've also been very busy with school and with my internship. Now my internship is over (unfortunately, we didn't win the election, but it was still a great experience) and midterms are over, so I have a little more time to blog! One of my courses is Film Criticism, and I've been exposed to a lot more movies. I have always loved movies, but I tended to stick to my favorite genres. Rom-coms, family dramas, musicals, animated, etc. We've watched a couple of great movies in class, and it has inspired me to watch some of the "greats". And since I don't have much else to do (at least until I...