Sunshine & Weekend Things

Literally, as I wrote that post title, the sun disappeared behind a giant cloud.

I’m sorry if you live anywhere on the East Coast (North or South), but aside from the aforementioned cloud, we’ve got sunshine and 65 degree weather here in Colorado.  I planned to take full advantage by going on a outdoor run, but I came down with a cold (that’s #2 of the year for those of you keeping track), so I’m taking advantage by writing this post out on the back patio.

How was everyone’s Valentine’s Day?  I kicked mine off early by sneaking into my parents’ office with my sister on Thursday night and putting balloons, flowers, chocolate and a card in my mom’s office.  Word on the street is that she was totally surprised and we made her cry.

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Joey and I celebrated by having an early dinner at a new-to-us restaurant called Humboldt where I learned that Merlot can also be white and that while fried broccoli drizzled in a cheese sauce might defeat the purpose of broccoli, it is also 100% worth it.  In all seriousness, I was blown away by the service, ambiance and food!

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Afterwards, we headed to the movie theater, watched 40 minutes of Her then evacuated when the fire alarms started going off.  We ended up waiting outside for half an hour while the fire department checked everything out then got to watch the rest of the movie, which I loved.  It was realistically futuristic, funny, sweet, sad and thought provoking all at once.

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Guess what we did on Saturday morning!  Cake Tasting #3.  Last one, I promise.  This one was in Park Hill, a Denver neighborhood I’d never really been to but thought was so cute!  Definitely a family-friendly type of place.  And the bakery was packed!  We took that as a good sign, but after tasting the cake, we decided it wasn’t our favorite.  Then I pawned all this off on my mom 😛

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Later that afternoon, we headed into Boulder for the Boulder International Film Fest, or as I like to call it, “BIFF.”  I definitely did not expect to have to wait in a giant line outside the Boulder Theater but it turned out that we did.  We saw The Face of Life, which is about a woman who starts a relationship with a man who is identical to her deceased husband.  I liked it but I think (after only two years of attending) I’m over BIFF.  I could watch a non-mainstream movie at home and I wouldn’t be in the second to last row of a crowded theater that I paid $13 to get into.

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By this time Cold #2 had me feeling pretty wiped out, so I was in bed by 5 PM and basically didn’t get back up for the rest of the night.  We tried to catch up on the Olympics (oh my god Jeremy Abbott!) and watched one of the documentaries that’s up for an Oscar this year.  And then I ate like 3 meals in bed.  Because the age old adage of “Feed a cold, starve a fever” is the only good thing about being sick, right?

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Today started with me feeling like crap (morning and nights with a cold are the worst!), but I felt better once I got up, showered and ate breakfast.  I even rallied and opted to walk instead of drive over to a coffee shop to do some Save the Date addressing.  Although, I made us leave once I’d reached shaky hand levels of caffeination, which was making it difficult to write.

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Once we got home, we dined alfresco for lunch then hung out with this cat, which I think belongs to our next door neighbor.  Fact: I am a total cat person.  Fact: Joey is allergic and therefore hates cats.  I spent most of lunch trying to convince Joey that it’s eyes were normal cat eyes, it wasn’t going to attack him and the sound it was making was purring, not hissing.

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So now that I’m finishing up this post, the sun is finally setting, so I’m moving… to my bed — I swear I’d be sitting on the couch if it wasn’t still in the middle of our kitchen, up against a super dusty plastic divider — and taking it easy, while Joey continues his rampage of productivity.  True Story: He doesn’t handle caffeine well and can’t seem to sit still.  I’m fine with it because it means our yard is raked, the laundry is done and he just headed out to the grocery(?!?!).

Happy Sunday!

A Few Thoughts on the Oscar-Nominated Shorts

Short Films

If you’re anything like me, when the Oscars roll around to the awards for Best Live Action Short and Best Animated Short, you either A) decide this is a good time to catch up on Twitter or B) declare it bathroom break time.  Every year, without fail, I completely ignore this part of the Oscars because I haven’t seen a single one of the nominees and I wouldn’t even know where to see them if I wanted to.  Which brings me to about a month ago when I saw 12 Years a Slave in a funky little Denver theater and noticed a sign advertising the showing of all the Oscar-nominated shorts and realized this was my opportunity.

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On Friday, we saw all five of the Live Action Shorts.  They were separated by these brief interviews with a bunch of film makers (Steve McQueen was one of them), which I thought was so interesting.  I mean, it’s nice to get some insight into the process of making a short film from the pros and they pointed out some things that I may not have thought about if they hadn’t brought them up.  It made for a much more thought-provoking experience than I had expected to have and I genuinely loved it.

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The thing I found most surprising and interesting was how powerful the emotion was in each of the shorts.  Each film seemed to have a different emotional focus — sadness, fear, happiness — and I think it was because each film was so short that the emotion seemed to be intensified.  I also really loved how different all the films were — from the length to the subject matter to the complexity of the narrative.  It was pointed out that you can’t really develop characters during a short film so the narrative becomes the most important thing and I thought it was amazing how the films were able to fully develop a storyline in such a short period of time.

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We saw the Animated Shorts on Saturday night (yes, back to back nights at the movie theater…) and Joey and I 100% agreed that the Live Actions were overwhelmingly better and more interesting.  That being said, we loved the Disney short that blended the old school black and white cartoons with a more modern version of the beloved classic Mickey Mouse characters.  Having one of the characters using an iPhone was genius.  Also interesting that despite being animated, the subjects of almost all of the films was kind of heavy.  I mean, I didn’t really expect a cartoon to be tackling the issues of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and death, but turns out, it can be done.

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Overall Favorites: “Helium”, “The Voorman Problem”, “Get a Horse!” and “Room on the Broom.”

Have you seen any of the Oscar-nominated shorts?