Movies, a Book, and Cillian Murphy

34 has been jet setting all over New York for the past three weekends–"the Hamps," upsate in lovely Ancram (where I kept thinking, "Maaaan, I could so live in the country... I really could grow vegetables and eat creamery ice cream and hit up crafts fairs and read books in fields and go for runs through forests and deer and never look back to city fanciness, I could, I could!), and this weekend in Sea Gate. So that's the excuse for hardly ever posting. Here are some things we've done:

I've been way excited about The Devil Wears Prada for a while now, and kept asking Jeff, "So you don't want to see it, right," kinda hoping he'd say yes. He didn't. But then Sarah suggested it as our Friday night activity when we arrived upstate. Hooray! 2 to 1, we win! It was what I expected: delicious movie candy. Meryl Streep blah blah is as good as everyone and their mother has been saying, and I think I have a girlcrush on Anne Hathaway. The plot and acting are also lame in many parts, sure, but all in all it's good fun. What is it about this movie, though? The buzz has finally faded, but 2 weeks ago, I swear it was mentioned no fewer than 187 times in the Times. Everyone has seen it. LIke really important grownups have all seen it! Why? Does Streep's presence give all a green light to see a chick flick?

Since Jeff took one for the team, I agreed to see Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel) this Friday night, after a super yummy Korean dinner in the East Village (my new BFF is pork bulgogi). The movie was interesting, mostly because of the "real life" animation format, which I now see is called rotoscoping. Basically, Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., and others acted, animators traced over, and the result is a trippy, floaty viewing experience that matches the trippy, floaty story of drug culture in the near future and the people out to destroy it. The story, based on Dick's real-life experience with drugs in the '70s, is filled with the paranoia and euphoria that he and his buddies must have experienced tons when they were using. I'm not the biggest fan of drug movies that take on the experience of the user (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Trainspotting just annoy me), but this one was interesting enough. The visuals alone are enough to recommend it.

While in Sea Gate, I read Curtis Sittenfeld's second novel, The Man of My Dreams (ick! that title!). It's kind of Prep-lite–even though I wouldn't stop reading until I had finished, it's definitely two steps back, for sure. It just feels like Random House forced Sittenfeld to pump out a second novel FAST without giving her time to work through the issues the final product has with the passage of time and the development of every character besides main character Hannah. The last chapter was flat-out awful. I'm bring a bit harsh. I still love, love, LOVE her because she gets it, and I really breezed through the book. I'm nervous for #3, is all. Take your time, Curtis, and don't take obvious shortcuts.

FINALLY, tonight we rented Red Eye on the recommendation of Sarah's parents. Cillian Murphy is effing freaky. It's a perfect Sunday night rental. I screamed once, kind of just for the sake of screaming.

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