Onto the Next

Last night I went to the NYC Photogroup Salon, a monthly gathering in a Soho gallery, which features invited photographers to present their work to an audience. My beloved friend Stephen was one of the photographers featured. His photos were great, and were well received by the audience. Very exciting! Today the weather was gorgeous, but I was feeling under the weather, so I kept it low key and stayed in with Gustaf. So as you know I've been lamenting over the end of my arguably favorite show of all time, "Queer As Folk". Showtime has some really good series! Well, I decided to give "The L Word" a chance. I'm looking for something relevant, and stories about gays and lesbians are definitely relevant, yet underrepresented, in my humble opinion. Sadly, my past favorites like "Californication" and even "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" have gone south. So far, so good with "The L Word"...I'll see what the other episodes have to bring...

The Great Sperm Race

Yesterday Marcus and I went to the theater district and watched Mamet's "Race". We really liked it. In classic Mamet style, it was sharp, sarcastic, and very layered. I'd recommend it. And the seats were pretty good, and fairly comfortable considering it was a theater. Last night we watched a couple of good programs on the National Geographic Channel. First there was one on the history of LSD and its possible medicinal uses. Then we watched "Sizing Up Sperm". It was pretty cool; it described a sperm's journey to fertilizing an egg with a human point of view...meaning they scaled the journey and its challenges in terms we could relate to. It makes you realize sperm are like the mega triathalon athletes of reproduction! And P.S. to my vet school friends---remember Dr. Travis the repro specialist/research guy?? Well, he's in it. Ha ha. I just finished watching "Azucar Amarga"...a Cuban film about present day Cuba, and how the Revolution has adversely affected all walks of life there. Very depressing. But I like watching these kinds of movies because since I don't know when I'll be able to go to Cuba (aka when it's no longer a socialist society) it's as close as I can get to seeing what it's like, and seeing how my relatives there may be living like. What else? Well it's the Ides of March...and my sisters' birthday!

Look What Came in the Mail...

Check out this ridiculous photo. Yes, it's the postcard my sister Jennifer mailed us from Scotland. She went there with her boyfriend Neil to visit his parents (he's from Scotland). You see this type of postcard is very typical of my family's type of humor. It's great. Anyway, I just finished watching a sweet horror flick that Stephen (a.k.a. Film King) told me about. It's called "The House of the Devil". I love the way it looked, and how it flowed. It was recently made, but takes place in the 80's. It kinda gave me the "Rosemary's Baby" feel...sorta. Speaking of Roman Polanski, I really want to watch his new movie "The Ghost Writer". This morning I went to MoMA and checked out Monet's Water Lillies. So impressive. And I don't consider myself a big Impressionist fan. But it was beautiful. Then of course I briefly went back to the permanent collection to take a quick glimpse at my favorite stuff--Matisse.

A Last Thought: Everybody's Fine

I forgot to mention Marcus and I watched "Everybody's Fine" on Demand...it's that most recent De Niro flick. It got bad reviews from what I recalled, but we really liked it. It was really, REALLY depressing, like you start crying...augh. I'd recommend watching it, but not if you're already bummed out! It's about the complex relationships between parents and their kids, their expectations, their mistakes, and regrets.

A Mis-Casting Disaster

Yesterday my friends Gina and Christina met up with me here in the city. We ate brunch at Odeon, then walked along the Hudson River down in the World Trade Area. We ended up at our apartment just hanging out and catching up. It was so good to see them! I had not seen Gina in seven months...so sad. Last night Marcus and I watched "Falling For Grace"...this indie movie that I took some form of interest in since my beloved "Queer As Folk" series is done! Augh. Makes me heart sink. Anyway, one of the stars from the show was in the movie---Brian! So I rented it. Talk about MIS-CASTING. The storyline basically goes like this: successful Asian American woman has always dreamt of being part of the elite socialite crowd in New York. Somehow gets mistaken for being a member of a prominent, wealthy family, and gets introduced to successful lawyer who also happens to be part of a super upper crust rich New York family. She fails to tell him the truth. Not to mention the actress looks significantly older than the guy, and isn't too attractive, making the premise that he would fall for her not so believable. It wasn't a very good movie, but Marcus and I both agreed that had the lead actress been more age and visually appropriate, the movie would have worked better. I was boggled how she was cast for this movie, since I recognized the casting director, Billy Hopkins. I remember working with him back in the day when I was in film production and he's the creme-de-la-creme of casting on the East Coast. Turns out the lead actress co-wrote and directed the movie...no wonder. So I guess no one had the heart to tell her she was completely wrong for the part...or she didn't listen. I do give it kudos for being a romantic comedy about an interracial couple. We need more movies like that. P.S.: go "Hurt Locker"! Excellent film, first female director to ever win!

Overwhelming

It was somewhat temperate when I walked outside today to meet up with Teri, a friend of mine, to check out the Tim Burton Exhibit at MoMA. I'm not a big Tim Burton freak, but I can definitely agree he's a very creative artist with a whimsical, slightly "off" sense of humor. Anyway, we went up to the permanent collection and I was completely overwhelmed...it's been SO long since I've seen some of these beautiful paintings...as images in a book, even. So we walk in and BAM: Pollack, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Warhol, Cezanne...just to name a few, EVERYWHERE...Teri made a great point---it's crazy that every piece of art in MoMa's permanent collection is a masterpiece! And to see Matisse's stuff, without any preparation, was kinda crazy because way back when, as a kid, it was his paintings that had really inspired me to draw and paint...to pursue art. So I wasn't really prepared to see those images live in person...but it was great. After that, we left the museum and got some coffee...and it was freezing! I was under dressed for that weather!

So...

Okay, so last night there was nothing really to watch on TV. I started watching the old flick "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", but I stopped. I need to watch the rest of it. So I ended up watching that tweeny-teeny bopper pop vampire movie "Twilight"...yup. All I have to say is what happened to tight story lines and character motivation??? I know, I know...it's about a mortal teenage girl and a vampire falling in love...and I guess I could excuse a lot of the unwarranted emotional intensity to being hormonal teenagers falling hard for each other. We've all been there, right? But there were too many things that didn't add up! And not for nothing, when you see a guy with cherry red lips and porcelain white skin, how does the entire population not think something's up with that?! Entertaining nevertheless! Then something slightly concerning happened today: I was flipping though the TV channels and stumbled upon a Johnny Depp red carpet interview and he seemed to have a slight British accent?! Does he have the same illness that Madonna now has??? He was pronouncing his "a's" like "ah's". Damn, I really like him as an actor---I hope he's not going act like he's European just because he lives there now!