Remember: Coffee Break is full of odds and ends I’d like to discuss including films I’m watching, links I like, stuff I’m into and oh yeah, coffee!
That’s a shot of me the morning after seeing The Cornetto Trilogy. I’m not hungover here but sluggish from an overload of Fish & Chips. Later in the post you can see a couple of photos from the event!
I haven’t really seen many new flicks recently. I rewatched both Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers, both were enjoyable experiences but for different reasons. Pain & Gain was as entertaining as the first time, which makes me feel confident in my review. Spring Breakers didn’t feel as long as my first viewing experience but wasn’t nearly as WTF entertaining. I still think the scene where James Franco’s character Alien explains the greatness of ‘all his shit’ is one of the best of the year though.
One movie I almost forgot I even watched was The Spectacular Now. The film is getting praise just about everywhere I look but Jess and I felt differently after our screening. I found a gchat convo we had on the subject that pretty much says everything. I scaled the convo down to exclude unrelated bits and I brushed up the grammar so the internet wouldn’t explode (possible spoilers?):
JM: I’m kind of bothered by how unimpressed I was with The Spectacular Now. Just reading the snippets on rotten tomatoes and they are SO glowing
LS: Yeah it was honestly just a very unimpressive experience
JM: I don’t know how much of that I can attribute to the hype
LS: It was like something I would have started mid way through on cable and watched to the end just to see what happened but right after it was over just roll off the couch and get lunch and never really think about again
JM: hahaha
LS: whoa 91% is a little high. Maybe it was because I couldn’t connect with that type of relationship at all. I didn’t find the overall relationship particularly authentic even though individual moments were. And I definitely couldn’t relate to the majority of their issues.
JM: Yeah… it felt like a lot of issues too… Like Sutter could have just had a drinking problem or just had dad issues and maybe if they had just focused on one it would have worked better.
LS: Yeah, I don’t know if that would have helped very much, I mean Perks of Being a Wallflower had 78932 issues in it and it did a much better job emotionally connecting the thread
JM: That’s very true. I was thinking about all of these people comparing this to Perks and I don’t think it really comes close to that. I actually think I liked Like Crazy more than this.
LS: I certainly connected personally with Like Crazy a lot more. I think Like Crazy felt much more authentic to my experiences than TSN did. I was also slightly uneasy about the movies message. I felt like what it was going for was like “embrace the moment but don’t neglect the future, not making decisions only keeps you stuck in the past.” But i almost never felt the ‘beauty’ that Sutter did ‘in the now.’ He was almost always making bad choices or unfair ones
except the moment at prom when he un-subtly states his euphoria and the camera takes a look at the prom and I’m like ‘uh, yeah it looks…fun?” but i didn’t really feel it. It didn’t feel magical like I imagine it was supposed to.
JM: haha same. I was like “I guess prom was pretty fun…” Any of the moments of “joy” in the movie were sort of tainted for me because either a. they were drunk or b. Sutter seemed like he was playing Amy so her devoted-ness just felt sad. Like when they had sex I just felt kind of bad because it seemed like she was SO much more into him and he was just like “Yay I get to have sex!”
LS: Exactly. And that sex scene went on way too long IMO
JM: I think if I was genuinely into their relationship or I knew Amy better I would be very invested in the moment but as it was, I didn’t really know how to feel about it.
LS: I agree. It seems we felt very similar on this one.
JM: Honestly, I could feel during the movie that you weren’t responding any better than I was.
Calvin Klein Down Town Fragrance Commercial: First of all, no I’m not kidding with this. I saw it on TV the other day and was completely entranced by Rooney Mara’s glorious face roaming around town and that sexy Yeah Yeah Yeah’s tune playing. I was like “what is this product, I must get it!” It turned out that it was for the perfume, which I don’t need but nonetheless I thought the commercial was gorgeous. Come to find out, the ad was directed by David Fincher. That explains a lot.
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: I may have already mentioned this before, possibly on this very same feature, but the simple concept web series is an addicting little show. Jerry fills my Seinfeld void while all his comedian friends offer fun insights into their everyday life. I like the bare bones aspect of the show because I think it creates a stress free, down to earth environment that allows the comedians to riff and joke at leisure. Plus the coffee always looks DELIGHTFUL.
Drunk History: The Funny or Die web series turned Comedy Central TV show is one of the funniest ideas I’ve seen executed in a while. More comedians, but this time with hard liquor. Hilarity ensues.
That’s a shot of me and Jason dressed in red for the Cornetto Trilogy at the Alamo Drafthouse in DC! Seeing all three films in a theater full of fans was an intensely awesome experience. They even raffled off a beautiful mondo print for the event (I was 2 seats away from the winner!) Also, I hope everyone notices the COFFEE in the foreground 😉
And here’s a shot of the whole theater just minutes before The World’s End came on. We were instructed to bash our neighbors with our “You got red on you” bats we were given. Can you spot FTS?
Here’s my test shot before heading out to Baltimore Comic Con. I’ve had my comic book converse since middle school!
The lovely Jess enjoying her BCC coffee break.
The less-than-lovely me attempting to wake up! I totally over did it ordering a Venti coffee. 20 oz of intimidation.
I managed to get out of the con spending a lot less money than I normally do. One of my lighter purchases this year came from artist Drew Blank‘s quick little character quotes. I bought a bunch of Anchorman sketches and a Pulp Fiction one to stick somewhere. Both Will and I picked up some prints from Drew last year and I highly suggest checking out his website for all the rest of his art.
I looooove this print for The Thing that I picked up from Chris Schweizer. He also had gorgeous Sherlock prints as well but I kept my purchase to one.
My biggest expenditure of the weekend went to these Breaking Bad prints from Blake Wheeler. They were easily the nicest BB-related prints we had seen so both Jess and I scooped them up. All of Blake’s work was super stunning. I’d love to own a painting by him some day!
I’m looking forward to seeing Tom Hanks performance in the new Paul Greengrass film Captain Phillips so I grabbed a mug shot from one of my favorite Tome Hanks movies: Catch Me If You Can. The diner scene is filmed in one of movie’s most used filming locations, the Quality Cafe in Los Angeles, California. If you can’t quite place it, check out it’s entry on this list.