Friday Finds: Film Petit

The supremely awesome Kristin at the Skirt as a Top blog is hosting a project called Film Petit that will blow your mind with its awesomeness. Here are the details taken directly from her blog:

• every month or so, Jessica and i (plus a guest blogger) will sew an outfit (or outfits) for our kid (or kids) inspired by a movie we love. our next guest will be shannon from luvinthemommyhood!
• please feel free to add any of your movie-inspired kid sewing to the film petit flickr group. if you sew along with our film petit choices, we’d love to see that too!
• this is a pretty relaxed series, really the only rule is to make outfits for kids based on films you love. if you have any questions, please let either of us know.

Words can't do it justice....check this out:

Moonrise Kingdom

Photo courtesy of Skirt as a Top

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Photo courtesy of Skirt as a Top

Amelie

Photo courtesy of Skirt as a Top

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Photo courtesy of Skirt as a Top

Psycho

Who doesn't love a gal who has her daughter act like a murderous old lady???
Photo courtesy of Skirt as a Top

Um-hm...awesome. And you can play along if you want to, that's the best part. I'm wondering if my boys need to recreate the characters from Raging Bull?

–Cassandra

Let me tell you about Wes

Every movie that Wes Anderson has made has given me shivers of pleasure. His aesthetic is everything that I love all rolled up in one place. As a matter of fact, when I am watching one of his films, I feel like he made it just for me. When I meet him one day, I'm going to thank him for that.

Last night I went to see Anderson's latest production, Moonrise Kingdom. I walked into the theater giddy with excitement and walked out wiping my eyes from the sweetness. On the car ride home I was framing everything in my field of vision - the traffic, the buildings, the people in their yards - as if they were storyboards in a Anderson film. Try it sometime, even the shabbiest of sights morph into something artistic and curiously innocent.

People dance together when they fall in love.

That innocence that he finds in everything and everyone, to me, is the heart of his work. No matter how deceitful the character or how ordinary the place, you get the feeling that you're viewing the scene as a childhood memory. And all the filters and revisionist history of remembering the past come along for that ride.

Sometimes grown-ups need to go outside with an axe and a bottle of red.

Anderson's movies have a "hey kids, let's put on a show!" (Little Rascals) quality. The sets, costumes, characters, dialog (and all the other stuff that movies are made of) seem to be designed from impressions. Let me clarify. I can draw a shark by sitting at the aquarium and sketching from life, or, I can just sit down with paper and draw a shark. An actor in a Wes Anderson's movie doesn't follow a doctor around for a month to learn to play a believable doctor... he puts on a white lab coat and stethoscope and plays his idea of a doctor, seemingly drawing from childhood impressions. Pulling that technique off so beautifully is one of the reasons I think Anderson is brilliant. It is a slippery slope where the movie could come off lame and amateur, but his never do. It becomes charming and leaves room for the visuals and music to help buoy up the story he's trying to tell. I think his characterizations work, in part, because he employs actors who "get it" and are able to make the process sing.

So, what makes me watch his movies over, and over, and over again? More than anything, it's the sets. I want to live on a Wes Anderson sound stage. The colors, the light, the furnishings...all so imperfect, but somehow perfect together. The style is always a careful blend of artistic and utilitarian. Every prop in every shot tells the story of the place and gives you insight into the character who belongs there. The most obvious example of this is the children's rooms in The Royal Tenenbaums:

I know that Anderson has a distinct style, and some scoff that he is a "one trick pony". I disagree. He's not a filmmaker who is bringing to life someone else's screenplay, his movies are cradle-to-grave his own. He is an artist creating a body of work. Like Picasso's cubism or Richard Avedon's portraits, he is creating a series that in retrospect will make perfect sense. An artist has to explore every nook and cranny of the theme that is driving them to create.

Thanks for letting me gush on about this subject. And, for the record, I could keep on going...

–Cassandra

Weekends Are Too Short

I think we can all agree, right? Five days of work and two days of "leisure" is an incorrect balance. I mean, first of all, those two days are never actually leisurely to begin with so, really, you're working seven days a week - just at different jobs.

That being said, I do manage to cram a lot of fun into my two days of housework and errands.

This past weekend, I saw two movies at the theater (trying to keep up with my summer blockbuster movie list). One of these viewings allowed me to spend time with a group of friends that I don't get to see nearly as often as I'd like. I also did some gardening, cleaned my house, went to an Arbonne party where I spent more than planned (imagine that), and hosted a birthday party for two friends who both turned *cough, cough* this month. Not a bad showing for a mere 48 hour period of time.

As for movies, I finally saw Snow White and the Huntsman. It was really good - dark, creepy, and lots of action. The story seemed more like the original book than like the Disney-movie version. I'm tempted to go read the book again to see how closely it followed. There were a couple of "revisions" I didn't care for but, overall, it was pretty awesome. Charlize Theron is the best wicked witch ever. Seriously. I could have done with someone other than Kristen Stewart as Snow White. I just didn't buy her as "fairest in the land". She's pretty and all but she can't hold a candle to Charlize.

I also saw Moonrise Kingdom - the new Wes Anderson movie. *sigh* If you're not a fan of the Andersonian quirk, steer very clear of this movie. It is HIS movie - funny, beautiful, and weird. I was lucky enough to view it with three friends who are involved in movies - two for work, one as a reviewer - as well as three others who are passionate movie-goers with great opinions. After the film, we went out for a drink so we could "discuss it". One of the most film-educated of our group is exhausted by Anderson's need for the set/costume design and shot set-ups to take precedence over the story and acting. We had a lot of lively discussion about whether or not one could love a Wes Anderson film for just being pretty. And, me, being the corporate shill that I am, brought up the fact that, if Anderson stopped making Andersonian films, people might stop going to see them. Regardless of artistic integrity, at some point his style became his franchise. If the dude wants to keep making money, he needs to keep making his style of film. (see: Woody Allen)

You may also be interested in what happened in my garden this weekend. As many of you know, I've been battling a variety of garden pests and learning all about how to control the destructive little bastards as organically as possible. On Saturday, I discovered a whole new level of (*#$&Q$^ bugs on my chard plants - Leaf Miners (aka: Cockroaches of the Plant World) I swear, if there's a nuclear explosion, Leaf Miners will be living alongside the cockroaches in the brave new insect-ruled world.

Here's the deal - leaf miners start out as flies that lay eggs which turn to larvae on the backsides of your chard leaves (also susceptible are beets, spinach, and other leafy plants). The larvae then burrow in between the layers of the leaf and start eating, destroying the leaf in the process. Once the larvae is done, it turns into a fly which then lays more eggs and the cycle continues. Basically, they can wipe you out of leafy greens for the entire summer. So, how do we get rid of them? Well, outside of using some really harsh chemicals, the only option is mitigation and control - trying to stop the cycle before it happens again and staying on top of any eggs/larvae you see.

I spent over an hour on Saturday cutting all the damaged leaves off my chard plants *sob!* (they were almost ready for harvest too), and then sitting amongst my plants with a wet rag and insecticidal soap, wiping the disgusting eggs off the backs off all the undamaged leaves. If that's not garden love, I don't know what is.

Finally, for the birthday party we had at my house, I tried a variation on a recipe that I shared with you all a couple of weeks ago - Spinach and Feta Orzo Salad. Since a number of the attendees are vegetarian, I decided to try making the salad with quinoa instead of orzo. Not that orzo isn't vegetarian - it's a pasta - but the quinoa would add protein to the meal. The texture is very different but I have to say that I really enjoyed the end result - maybe even more than the original recipe. If you're interested in trying it, use all the same ingredients as the original recipe except substitute the orzo with 1.5 cups of quinoa cooked in vegetable broth.

So, those are the highlights of another too-short weekend. I think that, next weekend, I might just plan to do nothing. :)

- Alex