A Standing Ovation

I can’t help but recommend Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway Nights. At first I thought I’d just recommend it to a select group (i.e., Jen), because it’s so focused on theater and Broadway inside jokes and references that I didn’t think the rest of you would like it much. That may still be true, but I ended up enjoying it so much that I simply can’t be that stingy with my recommendation.

Rudetsky is a minor B’way celeb himself. He hosts a show called Broadway Chatterbox on Thursday evenings (6:00 so there is still time to make an 8:00 curtain), and it’s hilarious. He interviews Broadway actors and actresses, makes them sing, entertains his audience, and generally rocks the shizzle (yeah, I said it). Jen and I went to the show twice about ten years ago and loved every minute. While I was in Chicago we hatched a plan that we’d be Thursday night regulars as soon as I moved back. Somehow, that plan failed utterly, and I’m still not sure why, but I digress.

The point is, Rudetsky’s humor translates completely to the written page. The book is fluff through and through (reading fluff is my M.O. Lately. It allows me to keep up with fun reading while not taxing my homework-taxed brain even further), but it’s also absolutely hilarious. Some of the humor is theater-specific, but much of it is not, and I throughout the course of my reading I became convinced that one need not be a Broadway hanger-on to enjoy this book.

Forgot one!

I also loved Tarji P. Henson's white dress.

Oscar Fashion

I used to love the Oscars, but something hasn't really clicked the last few years. They just seem to get more and more boring. I thought Hugh Jackman was a great choice for the host, though he should have been more visible throughout the show. He started out strong (loved his opening number) but faded throughout the night. I'm the right demographic for a song and dance number, but that routine with Beyonce was just bad.

There weren't many surprises for me in terms of the actual awards, either, which made it less exciting. This was the first year in many that I wasn't in a pool, and I wish I had been. I performed very well, so I think I could have taken home some cash. And where were the emotional speeches? Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn got me the most with their political angles. The rest were just blah.

All this is to say, though, that the fashion is the most interesting thing to recap. Below are my two favorite and two least favorite dresses of the night.

My absolute favorite was the dress Penelope Cruz wore. Since she started acting in English I've often found her annoying, but she does know how to rock a poofy skirted dress. Do you guys remember her 2007 Oscar frock? Beautiful!

Anne Hathaway is beautiful no matter which way you slice it, but she looked extra stunning and statuesque on Sunday night. It's too bad that she couldn't have done her dance number in it, because this dress is way prettier than the one she changed into to play Frank Langell/Nixon.

I don't even know what to say about Reese Witherspoon. This dress is just not cutting it. She's lovely but this dress is not. It's too bad, too, because she's looked gorgeous other Oscar nights.

And possibly the worst of the worst: Jessica Biel. The dress was wrinkled and puffed out in a really unflattering way. Her hair was gross looking (very greasy), and overall she just looked like a nightmare.

Be Mine, Coraline

I’m not really a big believer in Valentine’s Day. While it’s always nice to tell people you love them, the holiday seems too consumer-driven and artificial for me to get too excited about it. It’s more meaningful to tell people throughout the year what they mean to you, and I hope I succeed in doing that.

All this is to say that I wasn’t looking for a dozen roses and a standard V-Day outing on Saturday. Instead, Todd treated me and Dylan to Coraline in 3-D. It was great! I’ve never read the novella by Neil Gaiman, so I went in without any adaptation-related complications. I loved the movie! It was just creepy enough and extremely well done. The 3-D effects were excellent, too; their quality was immediately evident and outclassed everything we saw in the 3-D previews. They didn’t go for any of the cheap reach-out-and-grab-you 3-D moments, though, and just used it to make the movie look great. I’d recommend seeing it in 3-D if you have a theater close to you. If you don’t, though, the storytelling and movie won’t be compromised. You should still see it.

I’m adding this to my reading list, too.

Books As Art

If any of you get bored with the look of all your books lined up against your walls, here’s a nifty way to give it a whole new look. I’m pretty sure I’ll never do this, but I’m tickled by the concept nonetheless.

Slumdog Success

I finally made it to see Slumdog Millionaire this past weekend. I’m now only woefully behind on Oscar Watch instead of incredibly woefully behind. After so many comments on my Benjamin Button post about how Slumdog was the movie to see, I went in with high expectations. I don’t think it totally lived up to the hype, but I still really, really liked it. I’ll spare you all a full blown review since most of you have already seen it. I will say, though, that I thought it was very well told, the performances were excellent across the board (especially impressive when dealing with child actors), and the music was great. I don’t know exactly which two songs are Oscar nominated, but I intend to find out. There are a couple I’d like to add to my collection.

Proof that you can simultaneously go to grad school and read for pleasure

So one of the ways my grad school angst manifested itself was a fear that I wouldn’t get to read a book for fun for the next two years. This wasn’t helped by just about everyone I know saying some variation on this theme. I heard, “Oh, I guess you won’t be going to the movies for two years;” and “So, we probably won’t be talking as much for a while now;” and “We should get together for drinks now before you disappear for two years.” It started to feel like I was sentencing myself to prison, and I had to tell everyone to put a lid on it (not in so many words).

The reality, of course, is that I do have less free time. That’s ok, even if it’s not really fun. Everything is a trade off, right? And I’m happy to say that when I finished Tom Robbins’ Villa Incognito last week, I proved to myself that it’s possible to scale back and not cut the things I love out of my life entirely while I’m in school.

This is the first Robbins book I’ve read. I inherited several of them from Rena when she did her big clean out ages ago and, with the 80-some-odd books in my to-be-read pile, it took this long for one of his to make it into my hands. I didn’t absolutely love the book, but there is no denying that Robbins has a formidable imagination. With his mixture of mythology, American history, personal relationships, religion, and drug trafficking, he creates something more unique than most authors will ever achieve. More than one person has mentioned Skinny Legs and All as a Robbins favorite, so I’ll have to dig through that big ol’ pile of mine and see if that’s one that Rena gave me.