Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas Q&A @ Music Box
Perfectly summing up the last few weeks: The Longest Winter by Julie Doiron. Hey, what!? I just found a cover of another one of my favorite winter Julie Doiron songs by David Bazan. One day this week I was walking back from the car and realizing that it was the coldest I had ever been in my entire life. That moment was utterly petrifying; to realize something to be absolutely true and that there was nothing I could do about it. Multiple pairs of socks and at least two layers of clothing worn at all times other than in the shower. This winter is sucking the life out of us in Chicago. This is only the first time in 10 years here I’ve ever felt this. This winter I’ve made plans to go out and changed my mind back when I realized it would involve stripping off a couple layers only to have to put them back on later and lose that brief warmth. The one positive is that I’ve been doing a LOT of baking & cooking and I made my friend’s lentil soup, which was delicious. I also made gluten-free brownies, pancakes, and gf orange pecan muffins – all in one day. I also made a nice dent in prepping my Rhymes with Twee tax stuff, which is for me, like most crafter friends I know, the worst type of hell.
All things that I had to and did do this week: Tilda dental. nickd bday. Damien Jurado @ Schubas. After seeing Damien over 10+ times at my rough count, I felt this was the weakest show I’ve ever seen, and I know it’s because I don’t connect to ‘Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son’ like I do to any other DJ album. It sure sounds pretty, but none of the lyrics do it for me. The fact we saw the early show when he was pressed for time also might have hurt my take on this show, but at least his stage banter was top notch.
Films watched 5th week of the year:
In a World…
Happy Christmas
American Hustle
The King of Comedy
World War Z
Not one bad movie this week and each one was oh so different. Lake Bell is really flipping cool. I wish I knew how cool when I saw her at The Room screening Z and I saw at Laemmle’s in LA because I would have high fived her. She wrote/directed/starred in In a World…. I am really into movie previews. I hate missing previews in the theatre. I watch then when we play DVDs at home. I seek them out on Flixster whenever I see one I have even 10% interest in the film it’s made for. When I saw the preview for this; a film about voice actors who did the voiceovers to previews, I knew it looked good, but it ended up being great.
Happy Christmas was really charming – might be a TINY bit biased since Joe is a friend and Jude is his son, but this truly is Joe’s most accessible film. When I told my parents to see Drinking Buddies because I was an extra, I told them they I was not sure they would like it [they ended up not seeing it due to a short run in the NOVA area, but I stand by this], but this film is one I know they would enjoy.