Har har har, I'm so clever, aren't I? Terrible plays on words aside, this weekend was pretty cray. Matt and I are about to sit down and catch up on Walking Dead since we were at a Shadowbox Live performance of Spamalot, which was hilarious, with our friends Omri and Heather last night.
Friday night and Saturday night, we went to Halloween parties. I dressed up as the title character from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Here it is on Netflix. YOU'RE WELCOME. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and spend 45 minutes watching this short. Because it is one of my favorite things ever. Anyway, here was my costume:
I was pretty excited about it, but Spazzy thought it was too scary:
Matt was my nemesis, Captain Hammer. We like to get into character.
Sooo, yeah. Now it's zombie time :)
So last night, my friends Chasity, Kate and Kate's friend Jessica all went to see the premiere of The Great Gatsby. The theatre (the Drexel in Bexley, for you locals) did a little party before the 10 pm show, and encouraged everyone to dress up. We were some of the few who did, besides the swing dancers brought in as entertainment, but there were 20s-cocktails, so who cares, right?
It was a cute little party, mostly because I love any reason to play dress-up. And the movie? So. Good. So I'll do the main, spoiler-free review first, for the heathens folks who didn't read the book. Then some pictures (iPhone in low-light quality, unfortunately) and then some mild spoilers for anyone who's read the book and just wants to know how the movie compares.
So we saw the movie in 2D. Maybe it's just me, but I think watching a movie based on a literary classic (and one of my favorites, no less) in 3D is a little gimmicky. Anyway.
Overall, I thought it was extremely well-done. Hollywood adaptations tend to leave me feeling disappointed, but not this one. Baz Luhrmann reused a few storytelling techniques from Moulin Rouge (namely, the narrative framing device) to great effect, even though they weren't in the original novel.
Visually, it was pretty stunning. The use of dramatic, vibrant color worked really well with the movie's/novel's overall themes. The soundtrack, while anachronistic, wasn't entirely incongruous with the movie's feel. The rendition of "Crazy In Love" was particularly effective, I thought. If you're one of those who is going to get really annoyed with the modern-day music in this film, just try to focus on the dialogue and the visuals. The music is by no means overpowering.
The movie hit all of the novel's main plot points, and despite the 2+ hour runtime, it seemed to move at an almost breakneck speed. There were a few good laughs, mostly thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio's adorably awkward interpretation of Gatsby's infatuation with Daisy. My biggest complaint is the casting of Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway; I think he didn't really fill the character's shoes, not in the way DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan) did. Though disclaimer: I really, really can't stand Maguire. He drives me crazy. So I might be biased. I was a bit surprised to see Isla Fisher as Myrtle, but she did quite well. Elizabeth Debicki (Jordan Baker), Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan) and Jason Clarke (George Wilson) all were well-cast, too.
As a book-to-film purist, I can honestly say that I wasn't disappointed. It's a good film, it's an interesting adaptation, and I would definitely, absolutely see it again.
I got a little distracted, so this is the best shot of the headband I made. I just hot-glued some gems and feathers from Michael's onto a thinner workout headband from Target. Took like five minutes, haha!
They had an authentic 20s coupe parked out front!
Getting into this was not easy.
Told you. It gives you banshee-jaw. Not to mention major crotch-flash risk.
Dance club dancin'
PBR = classy ladies.
You guys. They had candy cigarettes.
Ok. Picture time over. Don't read any further than this unless you're prepared for some mild spoilers!
There were a few plot deviations, but I feel that they didn't distract too much from the work itself. They weren't changes made for the sake of change. And there weren't too many cut scenes; to be honest, I can't really remember any specific cuts, but I haven't read the book in a year or two.
The main change was that in the beginning of the movie, Nick is talking to a psychiatrist in a sanatorium. He's talking about Gatsby, and his summer in New York, but can't bring himself to discuss it. The camera pans over his medical file, and we he's been diagnosed with "morbid alcoholism," if I remember the phrase right, not to mention depression, anxiety and a slew of other ailments. So the doctor tells Nick to write his story if he can't talk about it.
The rest of the movie is Nick writing the story, first by hand and then on a typewriter. He narrates as he's writing and at times the words are superimposed over the scenes as they happen, to an interesting effect. When the movie ends, he's finished the book. The ;ast scene is him typing the cover page, "Gatsby by Nick Carraway." He then goes back with a pen and writes "The Great" before "Gatsby."
Get it? Boozy drinks? For Halloween? Okay, I suck at puns. It still makes me giggle :)
Anyway, Matt and the girls upstairs and I threw a little Halloween house party on Friday. Naturally, I turned to Pinterest for some themed drink inspiration, and I used these two pins as jumping off points:
And, in true scatterbrain fashion, I completely forgot that I pinned the above recipe for Butterbeer (just click the picture to go to the original link). So I turned to trusty old Google and found one here. I remembered a little of the first recipe, though, and kind of wound up combining the two recipes in my head to come up with this:
Basically, I just stirred together two liters of cream soda, a dash of vanilla extract, a bigger dash of butter flavoring and a healthy dose (as in, maybe a cup or two?) of butterscotch schnapps. For the foamy top, I combined some heavy cream, marshmallow fluff and butter flavoring in my food processor. (Note: When your foodpro comes with a "max fill" line, you should probably heed that warning. Unless you want cream and marshmallow fluff all over your walls.) Anyway, it was really, really delicious.
Yeah, I had to do the cheesy mustache shot. Can you blame me?
I also riffed on the idea of serving drinks in a pumpkin a little. But instead of shoving a few bottles into a gourd, I made a jack-o-lantern with a giant mouth, and filled it with...Jell-O shots! Kind of my specialty.
And if you're wondering about my costume, I was dressed as Leeloo from the movie The Fifth Element. Matt, of course, went as Korben Dallas. For some reason, he preferred the movie-climax-torn-tuxedo outfit to my preference, the bright orange tank top ;)
Did you guys go to any Halloween parties this weekend? What did you dress as?
Ah, Halloween. Quite possibly one of my favorite holidays of the year. This year's festivities were a bit tamer than those of years past, but only because my last four Halloweens were spent at OU, reigning champion of the Halloween Party.Friday we went to a party at a friend's house. I made costumes for Matt and I...any guesses as to what we were?
Stan and Wendy from South Park! I love it. I found Matt's sweatshirt/pants at Volunteers of America for a dollar each, we bought the wig and I made his beret. For my costume, I already had the coat and jeans, so I just made the gloves and sewed some fabric over a beanie I had. (Making your own beanie? Really, really difficult to do by hand.)Also on Friday, I got a little package in the mail. It was my giveaway win from Sydney of Take me for a Twirl!
She sent it with a sweet little note, complete with a sealed-with-a-kiss envelope and glitter in the card. How cute is that?Saturday I grabbed lunch with my dad and brother, who were in town, and did some major work on my freelance stuff before heading in for a shift at the restaurant/bar. It turned out to be a great shift; not only was it Homecoming and Halloween weekend at OSU, but we pulled out an unbelievable victory, so all our guests were in great moods and therefore tipped really well. (Also, when that final winning touchdown pass was caught, a bunch of middle-aged men dogpiled on the floor. I'm not even kidding. I narrowly escaped being crushed. Hilarious.) It didn't hurt that we were packed until 2 am, either. As a result, I finally reached my goal of saving $1,000!!!I'm not quitting just yet, though. That amount was the minimum I wanted to save; I'm going to try to get a little more cushion going before the holiday season hits, all the students leave campus and business plummets.Sunday was just a lazy day; I napped a lot (didn't get to bed until 3 or 4 am all weekend!), relaxed and did a little work in the evening.All in all? A great weekend :)
Lately, I've been having these incredibly vivid dreams about food. Normally, my dreams are pretty nonsensical (earlier this month, I had a dream about a cat that had my brother's head on it). So to have relatively normal dreams about eating delicious foods (albeit in sometimes bizzarre circumstances) is kind of nice. And man, this food tastes good.Last week, it was a decadent chocolate cake. A few nights ago, the best apple pie I've ever had in my life. Last night, an incredible root beer float. So weird. The downside? I wake up craving food that 1) has no right being eaten for breakfast and 2) is simply impossible to replicate in real life. That's how good these dreams are.Didn't mean to get off on such a detailed tangent about food dreams. I woke up an hour ago. I'm starving.
blazer and shirt: thrifted
slacks: New York & Company
shoes: Franco Sarto via Marshall's
necklace: DIYed-ish
bracelet: Forever 21Last night, in addition to getting groceries and doing some major work on my current freelance project, I finished Matt's Halloween costume. It looks horribly hand-made, but I figure, he's a boy dressing as a girl. How good can it really look?For my costume, I just need to pick up some fake vomit and a nice bottle of whiskey. (Yes, the whiskey is an entirely necessary part of the costume. Hooray!) I can't wait to show you all photos! It's going to be awesome.
