The hills are aflame / with the sound of music.

In local news, the hills are on fire. Luckily, the roof isn't.

While the hills of Sierra Madre went up in flames, John and I obliviously watched Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, which was really, really, really funny. It probably had more laughs than Whitecastle, but a lot less subtlety and cohesiveness. Still, I recommend this movie to those who think Harold and Kumar is a layered and relevant exploration of race in America, and to those who just like pot and nudity.

This week, I'm looking forward to the new episode of House in all its slashy splendor, This American Life, Live!, Kronos Quartet at Disney Hall, L.A. Master Chorale performing modern works by some of my favorite choral composers (if we can get tickets), and a mild case of ash-lung. *cough*

Swing Kids.

Hi everybody! Since John's away on vacation, I spent my lonely Thursday night curled up with the cat, watching the movie Swing Kids. Somehow, this is the first time I've seen it!

Swing Kids is about a group of friends who use swing dancing as their form of rebellion against Nazi Germany. I'll admit that the melodrama gets downright silly at times. It also treats the Nazis as a generic force of absolute evil, skimming over who the Nazis actually were or what they did. But it also features wonderful dance sequences (Swing movies always show aerials on the social floor. Totally unrealistic and dangerous! But cool to watch!), a great performance from Robert Sean Leonard (most notably a spaz-tastic Charleston, a very strange-looking Lindy basic, and one scene where he cries tears! Awwwww!), the message to maintain solidarity in the face of evil, and (edited to add) the idea that refusal to protest the system is the same as supporting it (yay for present-day parallels). Ultimately, I thought the film was well-done considering it was targeted towards young teens, which is probably why people my age thought it was cool (the movie came out in 1992).

So yeah, I always thought this movie was well-received and respected, but apparently not! The critics hated it for its watered-down portrayal of Nazi Germany and found it totally offensive! Wow! I was shocked, shocked! to read the reviews after seeing this movie. Those of you who have seen it, what did you think?

(edited more to add)
Couldn't end the post without a teeny bit o' guy-love:

Hot!! By the way, RSL's friend is young Christian Bale, and the guitar player (played by Frank Whaley) deserves a mention because he was my favorite. :)

Home, sweet home.

Hi! I'm back from my North Carolina/South Carolina/Georgia mountains-to-beaches road trip adventure, in which I had no Internet access, and therefore spent a lot of time getting in touch with nature. :) Photos of me bonding with wildlife are coming soon!

And, because I've been happily frolicking with animals a lot lately, I've decided to make an attempt at vegetarianism. I haven't eaten meat all weekend. I am so hungry! I've been surviving on tofu -- don't tell AstroTofu! John has informed me, however, the Juicy Pork and Crab dumplings are actually made of soy, carrots, and sunflower seed husks. Hooray!

So much... everything, so little time.

I've always known I had an obsessive personality, but... damn.

There's a reason I don't buy sweets at the grocery store. It's because I have no discipline! I will eat that whole bag of peanut M&M's in one day!

And after having gone years watching almost no TV, I catch one friggin' episode after the Superbowl, and my life is over!

I've spent the last month -absorbing- House. In the world of canon, I've finished watching the first season and read the scripts for the later storylines. In the fandom, I've been reading -a lot-. Smut (sex!), slash (romance, sometimes sex), het (oh how normative!), gen (no romance), MST (bad!fic, mocked), meta (writing about fandom... fan-on-fan!), AU (alternative universe), zombie!fic, and fanfic from awesome to awful. The fan universe is so -big-! A lot bigger than the show itself. It's amazing!

So yeah, life lately has consisted of the 4 H's: House, husband, hamster, and homework. (In that order? :P)

Thankfully, now that John and I have finished Season 1, we're taking a break so that we can, you know, talk about other things. Good luck, us!