I Like Dirt

I want to be this woman. Not Courtney Cox, Lucy Spiller. Actually now that I think about it, I want to be Courtney Cox too.

The FX series Dirt is back! I'm going to watch all of the inappropriate sex scenes and follow the ridiculous plot lines. God bless FX for keeping this crap on TV.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

A few weeks ago I was puttering around my apartment watching an episode of "The Charlie Rose Show." The guest, Julien Schnabel, had been invited back for an hour long discussion about his life and career as a modern artist and filmmaker. So I stopped puttering and started paying attention. Schnabel is the director of "Before Night Falls"and the recently released "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", which is now playing at Cinemagic in Squirrel Hill.

I'm not going to make the trip to Squirrel Hill unless one of my friends offers to drive me. So I may have to rent or buy as soon as it's released, because this movie looks and sounds awesome.

If you watched the Oscars last night, you may have noticed that it picked up a few nominations, but "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" cleaned house.

Anyway the movie is about the former editor of French Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby. He travelled, he indulged, he lived a life that most of us can only dream of. Then he had a stroke and developed what's known as locked-in syndrome. It's a state of almost total paralysis and only had the use of one of his eyes. One of his nurses would recite the alphabet, and when she would say a letter, he would blink. That's how this dude wrote his memoirs, by blinking a letter at a time.

The moral of the story? This man, who had once had everything, learned how to use his imagination and appreciate life because he was locked in his own body.

But this isn't a cheesy movie about how you should appreciate life, blah, blah, blah. It has a great script, acting, cinematography...Shall I go on? If anyone sees it let me know what you think. Its an American movie but based on a French novel, so it's filmed in French. Lovely.

Pretty Ladies

Alphonse Mucha is amazing. He was a commercial artist who created these pretty ladies for Job cigarette papers and other advertisements. Now he's more well known as an fine artist. Mucha's highly stylized and decorative portraits gave birth to what we know as Art Nouveau.

So let's all plan a trip to Prague to visit the museum. Shall we? I've never been to there. But everyone I know who has been to this gem of Eastern Europe, has fallen in love with it, and dreamed of revisiting.
Just thought I'd share.

I have a fantasy about being able to travel around the world to see the world's greatest museums and to visit galleries. I wish I had enough money to be an art collector, maybe even an art dealer. For me musicians and artists are as good a reason as any to travel to a new city.

But mostly I love art and artists because art is universal. I believe that good art transcends age and time and race. Most of the accomplished local fine artists that I know are much older than myself. And when I talk to them about their lives or families I feel like a polite listener, but when we discuss the art world and they're work or mine we become equals.

And I can't wait for the day that I get to walk on the streets of Prague like Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel, go to the museum and stare at Mucha's work from two inches away.

Personalization...

I would like to call this photo "Lazy, sleep deprived: one in the same."

After a class critique I've decided that I will be posting a picture of myself every once in awhile. I know that you can post a photo with your profile, but I would rather use this as an opportunity to bring my many fans into my day to day, or week to week (however it happens to be going). My friend Tom did a project called "Tom Rudich Everyday." He took a photo of himself every single day for a year. 365 days without fail. Along with the fact that my blog needs to be more personal, I now feel more inspired by Tom than ever. Here goes "Amanda Brobeck Maybe Every Once and Awhile."

This is my Christmas

I'm going to imagine that I actually have thousands of fans reading my blog everyday. I want to believe that repeatedly through out the day my weblog addicted fans are checking my blog spot (that sounded dirty) so my witty commentary can brighten up a dull moment in their day.

Assumedly, no one looks at my blog unless Dr. Chapin tells them that it's required.

Never-the-less, I'm going to share with "all of you" the joy I'm experiencing this evening.

It's Oscar night. This is my Christmas. I watch every year, through every bad joke, fashion disaster and lengthy speech. I've taken film classes, I've worked with actual celluloid and splicer's. I buy soundtracks. I read the novels that inspire the films. I try to see as many of the nominated films as I can, in my culture depraved valley by the river, before I watch the awards broadcast. I'm a massive dork, and I need to get out more.

But I just want to say, why is Miley Cyrus at the Oscar's? She haunts me. You think I'm kidding, but I AM NOT. I take it back, she's haunting all of us. This girl is a cockroach, I swear. She will come rising out of the ashes of the apocalypse wearing a blonde wig clutching a microphone and carrying a huge wad of the billion dollars she will supposedly have by the time SHE TURNS 18! What has the world come to? Miley give me all your money. Maybe I can work my way up through the ranks, become her friend and sometimes manager, feed her pills leaving her disoriented, and take some of her money, become infamous and leave. It could happen, I just need to stay focused.

Congrats to Javier Bardem, for winning Best Supporting Actor. He deserves it, he set the tone in No Country For Old Men.

Anywho, most of the chicks on the red carpet played it safe, pretty and boring. And Jennifer Hudson redeemed herself from looking like a damn space ship last year. Go girl.

I'm done boring no one now. Can't wait til next year.

All Hail the Queen

I once spent $50 on a one year membership to Madonna's fan club. "Icons", as paying fans are referred, are given the chance to win advanced tickets to Madonna's concerts and to also win one of a kind prizes and give aways.

I didn't win anything, and I never went to her concert that year. But I don't get down about, I'm not bitter.

Anyways, I'm totally obsessed with her. She's kind of old, too serious, not that great of a singer, or actress. But her ambition is hard to match. Most of us are exposed to Madonna's pop sensibilities and perceive her as, well, total crap. But during my lifetime as a superfan, I've been pleasantly surprised over and over gain by Madonna's sophisticated taste in art, music and culture. If you scratch just below the surface of the glossy magazine covers and shallow sound bites you'll find a real artist who's made the most of her life and career. She works with the world's most cutting edge producers, directors and fashion designers. Check the liner notes see what it's all about. Click here for info on her directorial debut, the latest news, all of her music videos and my favorite feature, the photographic timeline.

I wish I didn't understand her, but I do. I want to just say no, but every time she comes our with a new album, I buy it. Then I find the collector's edition and I buy that too. And then I find the concert DVD, and I buy that too. I'm a whore.

Awards Season!

Awards season is upon us. I know we've had the Golden Globes and the SAG awards already, but the Grammy's make the season of winning just commercial enough for it to register with me. And I don't really care about the Grammy's, it just gets me excited about the Oscars! I'm a total sap for classic films and Oscar nostalgia.

No Country For Old Men

I went to see the new Coen Brothers film, "No Country For Old Men" on Sunday afternoon. I went to a matinee, it's only $5.75. It was the best $5.75 I've ever spent in my life. Javier Bardem's acting is unbelievable, frightening and awakening.

Basically the plot follows a hired killer, who happens to be a psychopath, and his journey in rural Texas to get the job done. From the moment the house lights were dimmed, to the moment they were raised, the mood was tense and brutal.

I don't want to say to much, because I want everyone to go see this movie.

Another interesting and unexpected factor...practically zero soundtrack. The Coen Brothers last few movies have had soundtracks that were almost equally narrative and successful as the films themselves, "No Country" has no music, only a few low volume soundscapes that are barely noticable.

For some odd reason, that I will not question, "No Country" and the new Daniel Day-Lewis vehicle, "There Will Be Blood" are being shown at Cinemark in Center Township. Take advantage of his break in normal Beaver County culture!

Also, even though the film was totally brutal, the matinee crowd was an odd mix of cotton ball haired bubbas and middle-aged couples...wierd.

I didn't want to have to do this

I've been following the Britney Spears debacle since day one. My fascination with Britney isn't a new part of my life. I like her music, the upbeat stuff can really keep me moving on a treadmill. And the images I have in my memory of how she looked back in the day, on MTV in that barely there, sequined jumpsuit, are enough to motivate me to get on a treadmill.

There are so many aspects to what's happening to her, that everyone has an opinion. People who are divorced, kids who are estranged from their parents, anyone who's had their heartbroken, if you've had a rough night immortalized on film or if you've ever dreamed of being famous.

Anyway, when someone is mentally ill, addicted or otherwise it's so easy to say, "Someone should have helped them. How could there family let that happen?" When you try to help someone who doesn't want help, because they don't think that they need help, good luck. That shit is WAY easier said than done. WAY easier. I've know a few people who let themselves get to a point almost beyond help because their family couldn't face the truth, and their mental illness didn't develop overnight. It developed over years. And idiosyncraies that you thought were hilarious or exciting become dangerous and detrimental.

I blame Justin Timberlake. HA! Deal with it. Let's all admit it, she went down hill after that, and then KFed put the nail in the coffin so to speak.

My dream is to see her come back around and do another Diane Sawyer interview. Or go down like Francis Farmer, crazy as a shit house rat.

More on this later, trust me.