You Lift My Feet Off The Ground, You Spin Me Around...

Yes, I'm back on here again. Because I'm basically stuck in the house due to this head cold, and I get bored really easily. And when I'm bored, I tend to be on the computer a lot...

Which leads to this: remember what I said yesterday (in my previous post) about that concept for another video? Well, I just finished it. Yep, whereas my "Forever on the Dancefloor" video took over a month to construct, I completed this one in twelve hours or so. Wanna see? (I know those of you not interested in classic films are probably like, "Oh my gosh, this is so annoying...why does she keep posting stuff like this?" but I'm posting anyway...sorry guys.)

This time I kept to one movie - Top Hat, although I'd rather have used Swing Time, but it wasn't readily available to me. (Top Hat had been uploaded to YouTube, while Swing Time had not.) And I think that's why it took so little time to put together...I only had the video from one movie to work from, so I wasn't flipping around looking for the right clip within all the dances from their ten films. So anyway, stripping away the mistaken identity theme of the plot of Top Hat, because that's really hard to convey through a video, you get this:

Not as exciting as the "Forever" video, but I think it fits nicely because Fred always seems to sweep Ginger off her feet, whether it be literally or figuratively. "Crazier" has been in my head for a while, since we rented The Hannah Montana Movie from Netflix, and when the song came on, all I could picture in my head was Fred and Ginger dancing. My first thought was to do a medley of some of their dances, but then I listened to the song a few times and realized that since the song tells a story, it would look better if I sort of told the story along with the music.

Again, a couple of tiny black flashes where they aren't supposed to be, but they're not as noticeable as the ones in the "Forever" video. I took the opportunity to use the 'fade' transition in this video, which I think works better here because the song is slower and not as pop/techno sounding. (You get what I'm trying to convey here, right?) I don't know how good the quality is, but with the small screen, it should be okay. My only other complaint/regret is that I didn't use much of the actual dancing from the "Cheek to Cheek" sequence; I just didn't have room for it. Had the song been another thirty seconds longer, then I could have added it in somewhere...but I think it's fine even without it.

And now I'm just starting to ramble like the last time I posted a Windows Movie Maker video...typical me.

Why This Week?

Oh, how I hate my life right now. Wanna know why? Well, my brother picked this week, of all the weeks out there, to catch a cold, and then pass it on to me tonight. So, that means that I'm not only sick, but I'm going to be missing Anita's birthday party on Saturday. So, life is just dandy. (Sorry for the real bummer mood/vibe going right now...it'll pass, I promise.)

Anyway, recap for the past few days. Well, the only thing of any importance is the movies I've watched. (You know, I really should just call this a movie review blog and stop writing all the other boring recap crap, but then I'd feel like I was missing something. But whatever.) So, back to movies...

At The Theater - Inception. Awesome movie. I thought it was so cool, the whole plot and the "dreams within dreams" stuff. And the cast was really good, too. Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, etc., etc. The cliffhanger ending was annoying though, but I kinda liked it because it made you think a little harder about the movie. And the actual going to the theater was kinda neat for me because Quinn was sick, and so I got to go with my mom and dad, almost as if I was an only child, which felt cool for those few hours. Not that I don't love my brother...

On Netflix - Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I had seen 3/4 of it at Sylvia's a while back, and I had liked it, so we put it on the queue. And I loved it...very neat storyline. It had sorta the same story as Clash of the Titans, but as a modern-day, kids/teens version. And I kinda liked it better that way. More approachable, and more fun. I love the whole scene at the Lotus hotel in Vegas...just too funny. Quinn stuck around to watch it, even after saying that he probably wasn't going to like it, and when it had ended, he said he was wrong and that he actually thought it was pretty cool.

On the DVR - I've kinda accidentally been watching a lot of Humphrey Bogart films. After seeing Dark Passage, I watched Dark Victory, which starred Bogie and Bette Davis and George Brent and Ronald Reagan, which was very good. A very thought-provoking piece, as it dealt with one of the characters having only a few months to live, as the rest of the characters try to hide it from them, and being ready to face death when it comes, and so on and so forth. Very sad film, but a very good one as well.

The next one was Key Largo, which was the last of the Bogie-Bacall movies I had yet to see. This is definitely my least favorite of the four they made together, as the plot was just not up to snuff, and it seemed to drag on forever. But, it was still neat to watch...

And the one I most recently watched was The Two Mrs. Carrolls, which was...interesting. Bogart plays an artist who, every time he falls in love with another woman, slowly poisons his current wife with glasses of milk. Yes, that's the plot. It's technically more complicated than that, but I can't seem to find the right way to lay it out for you...you'll just have to trust me on this one.

Um, what else? Well, in it's absence, I've reconnected with my love of Criminal Minds. A&E runs marathons sometimes, and when we have nothing else to watch, most of the time, that's what goes on. I cannot wait until September when Season 6 premieres...they left us with a nice cliffhanger ending with the ever-creepy Tim Curry as the bad guy, and I'm anxious to find out what happens. In the meantime, I've been watching bloopers online and looking at the music videos that people have made with scenes from the series.

Ooh, speaking of music/tribute videos, I'm back on Windows Movie Maker...I've got a concept for another Astaire/Rogers video, but we'll see how it all plays out. WMM is so annoyingly tricky...it always freezes up on me, so we'll see how long my patience lasts on this one.

Okay, I've written enough, and I'm really tired right now...must be the cold getting to me. So, I bid you farewell for the time being...

I'm So Lazy...

You know it's summer when the days all start to blur together. Which is exactly how I feel right now. Things are pretty normal around here...nothing much to report, but, as usual, I'm blogging anyway.

We haven't really been doing much, mainly because of the heat. But we have been watching movies...Mom and her Netflix obsession. We watched The Duchess a few days ago, which was actually really good. It was about Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire; the storyline was very Marie Antoinette-esque, but good nonetheless. Keira Knightley just looks like she belongs in period films. The costumes were spectacular, and the acting was good, too. Ralph Fiennes and Dominic Cooper were, I think, a good fit for each of their roles. Anyway, I thought it was a neat movie.

The other movie we saw was The Taking of Pelham 123, starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington, which was pretty boring for me. I mean, I enjoy hostage scenarios and all that, but the whole plot just wasn't that interesting. There's one part where the whole squadron of cops-on-motorcycles is leading a car carrying the money to the subway station, and the whole scene is just so unbelievable... But oh well.

I spent a few hours on Saturday at Sylvia's with Anita, which was really fun. We played with Mickey, who is absolutely adorable, and then we put on our swimsuits and went to her neighborhood pool. And we talked and started making plans for a couple of get-togethers. And then we went back to her house, and we pretty much left after that. But, I had a lot of fun, as I always do spending time with my friends.

On the agenda for the week... Mom's working more hours this week since some of her co-workers are going to be off, so that means a lot of movie-time for me. Dinner with my grandmother as usual on Wednesday. And only two and a half weeks until the start of the beach trip!

Another Busy Weekend: Recap

Okay, so, right now it's about ten til midnight, and I'm in my room, not tired at all, and therefore bored out of my mind. So, here I am, writing on my blog because I have nothing better to do.

The past few days have been fun...our weekend was pretty normal, except for Saturday, which was weird because of the rain. But anyway, our weekend included a trip to Enchanted Cottage and Casanova's (the coffee shop next door) with my mom, watching Zombieland with Mom, which was hilarious...yes, it was sort of stupid, but it was funny, too. Kinda like Shaun of the Dead, except not. And Mom and I ran errands.

My big thing this weekend was printing all the stuff from Ancestry.com because our subscription renewed on the 19th, and Mom didn't really want to pay for another month. So, after a bunch of problems in trying to print the tree and all the info and documents and such, I got everything working (and worked around some problems) and got everything printed and put into page protectors and into a nice little three-ring notebook...very organized. I ended up finding some really cool things, like draft registration cards for some of my ancestors, ship records, and census records.

Um...what else? Well, today I got up and as usual, watched a couple of movies, Alibi Ike and Dark Passage. Both were really good, but very different. Alibi Ike was more of a light, funny film, while Dark Passage was kinda film noir. And I just realized that I've seen three of the four films husband and wife Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together (To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage...the only one I have yet to see is Key Largo, which comes on within the next week or so.)

And then I washed the dishes, and when Mom came home, we went over to Target to look at cover-ups for our upcoming family beach trip. And of course, I not only found a really cute cover-up, but a swimsuit as well. So, now I have three bathing suits for the trip, which is probably two more than I need, but oh well. The one I bought is really different from the halter top ones I normally buy, so it'll take some getting used to, but I like it. Mom was able to find a cover-up for herself, and she got herself and Quinn some new flip flops for the beach and pool. And then we saw my aunt, so we ended up talking for a while with her.

When we finally got home, it was already 6:30 or so, and so we had dinner and watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and then Quinn went downstairs. So, Mom, Dad, and I watched The Hurt Locker, which was just alright. It was cool to see all the IED removal procedures and the crazy ways you could hook up a bomb, but the storyline itself wasn't terribly interesting for me. But it might just be one of those films that you need to see more than once to really get it...

And after that, I let Ella out for a while. The platform we ordered (she's chewed the original one up so much that its unstable and we had to order a replacement) finally arrived, and I got it all set up for her. Hopefully, she won't chew this one apart, but if she does, replacing it is relatively cheap, so we should be good either way. And I have this wonderful scratch mark on my leg from where she jumped off my leg while I was cleaning her cage on Sunday...which looks just great, by the way. Haha.

Okay, well, that's really about it for me. I might do some rearranging on the layout now, maybe add a few pictures or something...idk. :) [Update: Because I am so horribly indecisive, the blog name has changed yet again...and it will probably change again soon, but I felt the need to change it due to a change in mood/thinking from when I started using "One Step At A Time". Hope nobody minds...]

Crazy Busy Day...

You know, I just realized that my last post was Post #100 for my blog...awesome. Anyway, onto the actual post.

So, today was...well, crazy would be a good word. I woke up fairly late (as in, like, 10:15am) and we pretty much immediately went to the bank. And when I say "we", I mean Mom and I, as Quinn stayed up last night and was sleeping in (and he ended up sleeping until about 5 this evening.) So, then Mom and I went over to Shattalon Tire to pick up my dad, because his car was leaking radiator fluid, and we had to get that fixed. So, we drove him home, and then headed to my aunt's to check out the progress on the pool.

It looks great...they just finished putting in the flagstone all around the pool, and most of the boulders are cemented in place. The next thing is working on the equipment, and then plaster and they still have a bit to go on the hot tub. But it all looks great so far. It's scheduled to be finished in early August...we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Then, we went grocery shopping, and got home in time to put away the groceries before going to my appointment, and then we came home and Mom and I had lunch and watched Zombieland, which was awesome. Totally hilarious, as we expected. It was one of the Netflix "instant play on the Wii" things, so I'll definitely be watching it again, probably when Dad watches it, because I think he said he'd watch it. But anyway, I loved it.

Then, we came upstairs and had watched tv, and Mom made dinner. She made barbecue chicken sandwiches, which were awesome, and we had corn on the cob with it. Then, we watched a 48 Hours Mystery, which happened to be running, and there was really nothing else on. And now, I'm down in the basement, letting Ella run around. Life is good...

Um, well, I had planned on writing more, but that's pretty much all that's at least semi-important, so I guess that's it.

"It's So Fluffy!!!"

So, the past few days haven't been all that exciting...but I just had a wonderful day.

I ended up watching one of my TCM recorded programsthis morning, Thank Your Lucky Stars, made in 1943. Which was cute...a little long, but cute because there were a lot of cameos of Warner Bros. stars, and it was really cool to see stars like Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Olivia De Havilland sing and dance for a change. (The whole movie centers around a wartime "Cavalcade of Stars" show to raise money and morale and such.) The best cameo, in my opinion, was Humphrey Bogart failing at being a tough guy, then saying something along the lines of "I hope my movie fans don't see this." Haha...too late.

But anyway, I watched that, and then waited around for Mom to come home, and then we grabbed Quinn, and the three of us went to Carmike to see Despicable Me. Awesome movie...I laughed so hard. We did go to the 3D showing, which was great cuz everything just looked awesome, the roller coaster scene especially. And there were some really funny movie references..."You know, when they said we were being adopted by a bald guy, I thought it was going to be more like 'Annie'." and they even included a take on a scene from The Godfather! So, I loved it, and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. It was cute enough to be a kid's movie, but had enough inside jokes and things to be amusing to teens and adults as well. :)

Yeah, so after that, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and then came home. And Dad and I watched Deadliest Catch for, like, 4 hours. They were doing a sort of Phil Harris tribute (the boat captain who passed away in February after suffering a stroke), and they were premiering the episode in which he actually passes away, so I watched. And then I watched their "After the Catch" program, which follows the end of each crab-fishing season, the most hilarious part of which was when they talked about Phil Harris' voicemail recording, which went sort of like this. "This is Phil Harris, leave a message. If it's important, I'll get back to you. If you don't hear back from me...well, you know why." Which I thought was ingenious. The whole show was pretty much a tribute to him, and the other captains told some really great stories.

And so, I ended up watching some sort of screen all day...from the tv this morning, to the theater this afternoon, to the tv again this evening, with the computer screen scattered in between. Which shows I am a lazy person after all. Haha. But anyway, I just wanted to get all that down before the little details slipped my mind. And it's already after one in the morning...

Movie Milestone: Favorites

Yes, I know I promised this post earlier, but today got away from me, with my brother's birthday and all, I figure I have a fairly good excuse. So, again, this should be a fairly short post, as I'm extremely indecisive about my favorite of anything, but I figure this whole "100 movies" thing has been more than just facts and numbers. It's a sort of cultural experiment for me, to allow me not only to become more familiar with the past through cinema, but also to escape the complexities of daily life and just relax.

So, onto the actual post...my favorite:

- [I'm starting off with the hard one.] Film: Haha, so I've sat here for, like, 5 minutes trying to decide on even just a few, and I can't. So, some of my fave non-musicals...The Philadelphia Story, It Happened One Night, It's Love I'm After, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Snake Pit, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind.

- Musical: Still can't choose a favorite...Top Hat, Singin' in the Rain, Swing Time.

- Actor: You know, I might as well just start giving my top few answers to each question...Leslie Howard, Fred Astaire, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart.

- Actress: Olivia De Havilland, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn.

- Costumes: Well, just about anything Ginger Rogers wears in her films with Fred Astaire, but I especially like the "Never Gonna Dance" dress from Swing Time. And I love period costumes...Captain Blood starring Olivia De Havilland and Errol Flynn has some pretty outfits.

- Sets: Again, there's to many to list, but one that really stood out to me was the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

- Song: "The Way You Look Tonight"...and not Sinatra's more popular version. No, I mean the original sung by Fred Astaire in Swing Time as Ginger unglamorously washes her hair in the next room. That, and Ginger singing "We're In The Money" in pig latin in Gold Diggers of 1933.

- Dance Number: This is the one that kills me, cuz I love musicals. I pretty much fall in love with any Fred Astaire routine I watch, especially the 'dancing on the ceiling' thing in Royal Wedding. And anything Fred & Ginger, because they can practically never do wrong. I pretty much loved all the routines in Singin' in the Rain, too. [And on a side note, I have a new appreciation for Fred & Ginger's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" dance...I can't even imagine how hard it must be to tap dance in roller skates! I can't even skate around the rink without feeling like I'm going to trip and fall, let alone come to a complete stop and tap dance.]

- Funniest Lines/Moments: Anytime Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont speaks in Singin' in the Rain, the "Quit Bawling!" scene from It Happened One Night, the whole plotline of Some Like It Hot, and practically anything Eric Blore says or does. [Note: I can't embed any of the clips I wanted to for Singin' in the Rain, but if you watch this, you'll understand why I find Lina's voice so hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3OkXi5osfU]

And now I'm sure you're all tired of videos and pictures and such, so I'm going to stop myself right here, and make myself sign off. I'm now pretty confident in my picture and video uploading skills, so maybe I'll be adding them to my posts more often.

Movie Milestone!!!

So, the reason for this post is because I just watched my 100th pre-1970 film, my first big milestone. And I thought, "Why not do a special little post for it, just because?". So, here it is... I intend to make this a fairly short post, because I'm sure nobody really cares but me, but I wanted to have it up here anyway. So, here's the breakdown...

- First film watched was Gone with the Wind (1939), and the last film was The African Queen (1951).

- The earliest was Our Hospitality (1923), and the latest was The Lion in Winter (1968).

- The longest was Gone with the Wind at 238 mins., the shortest was Indiscretion of an American Wife at 63 mins.

- My most-watched actress was Olivia De Havilland with 17 films, and my most-watched actor was Leslie Howard with 13 films. My most-watched pairing was Olivia De Havilland and Errol Flynn with 5 films.

- The director I saw the most films by was Michael Curtiz with 6 films (The Charge of the Light Brigade, Captain Blood, Casablanca, Dodge City, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Adventures of Robin Hood).

- I watched more movies made in 1941 than any other year with 9 films (All Through The Night, Citizen Kane, The Great Lie, The Maltese Falcon, Out of the Fog, Pimpernel Smith, The Strawberry Blonde, That Hamilton Woman, They Died With Their Boots On).

- Of the 100, 6 were Best Picture winners - It Happened One Night (1934), Mutiny On The Bounty (1935), Gone With The Wind (1939), Casablanca (1943), An American In Paris (1951), and On The Waterfront (1954).

- Nineteen of the AFI's Top 100 Film Quotes appeared in the movies I watched.

- I watched 76 black and white films, and 24 color films.

- I watched 18 musicals, and all but 3 of them either starred Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.

So, that's the factual breakdown of the 100 films...I want to work on a 'favorites' section, but I don't have time right now...maybe I'll work on it tonight for posting tomorrow.

Lots Of Get-Togethers...

So, I know I haven't posted in a while...contrary to my normal laziness excuse, I've actually been busy. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but the long-story-short version of the past few days goes a little something like this:

On Thursday, I spent the night at Sylvia's to celebrate her birthday. Sylvia, Emma, Anita, Ellie and I had a great time - going out to see Grown Ups, swimming at the pool, eating pizza and cake, and modeling Sylvia's clothes. Yep, we all love Sylvia's clothes so much that we raided her closet. Sylvia picked out three outfits for each of us, and we did our make-up and hair and then went into her basement, turned on some music, and modeled the clothes and took lots of pictures.

So, afterwards, we watched (500) Days of Summer, which, in my opinion, wasn't all that great. It skipped around too much for me to keep track. But anyway, so we went to sleep after that, and Emma and Ellie left early the next morning, and Sylvia and I watched part of Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief before I went home.

On the 4th, we didn't really do much...just invited my grandmother over for dinner and then lit some sparkler fountains (they're not really fireworks, so that's my new name for them) when it got dark. My dad and brother took my grandmother home, while Mom and I worked on a jewelry project that I wanted to finish. And we watched a couple episodes of Criminal Minds before going to bed.

Except we didn't go to bed until like 2:45am, cuz Quinn saw what he said was either a rat, a mouse, or a really big spider down in the basement, and so we woke Dad and searched for whatever Quinn said he saw. And not ten minutes later, we had a teeny tiny field mouse (and by teeny, I mean like his body was only like an inch or two long) in a box, and Quinn got to let it go outside. Our guess is that he got into the garage when we were doing fireworks, and then he got into the house when we opened the door to go inside, because we couldn't find any holes or anything that he could've gotten in through.

Anyway, today I woke up late, after staying up so late the night before, and then I got ready and went to Skate Haven to meet up with a bunch of Emma's (and mine, too) friends. And we had fun skating and talking and eating and laughing and all that stuff. Sylvia won the limbo contest, and I got to catch up with Madison and Chandler, and I found out that Rachel (one of Emma's friends from Reynolds, who I just met today) and I have a lot in common. Anyway, all in all, I had a great time, and then when we took Sylvia home, I got to see her new puppy, Mickey, who is the most adorable little thing I've ever seen.

And that's basically it, so I'm going to end it here. The next few days are going to be kinda busy, so I'll have more to talk about then.

Forever On The Dancefloor...

So, I was bored, and looking for something to do, and this is what happened. I'm just testing this to see how Blogger handles videos...

And by the way, I've still got a few bugs to work out of this video. There are a couple of parts where it goes black for a split second, which I just figured out is a problem with the original video that I used, and a few spots where you see another clip for a split second, which is because I've had to cut clips and Windows Movie Maker is not very precise. There's not a lot of effects or transitions right now either, as I couldn't decide which ones I liked best...so it's a pretty simple video.

And I didn't notice any of this stuff until I got it all finished and saved and converted and played it on Windows Media Player...so I'll have to go back and redo some of the clips. But that will all come later...and please excuse the quality of the actual video; this was the highest (or at least I think it was) setting I could convert it to so that it was inside the 100 MB maximum upload size. But, it's a small screen, so the quality is actually pretty decent.

So, my first ever creation in Windows Movie Maker...the description is fairly simple - a montage of video clips from various Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers films set to Chris Brown's "Forever".

Alright, let's see if this works...it took forever to load. [Update: It is working...thank goodness!] Hope you enjoy it... (Oh, and by the way, this is not only my first WMM file, but also my first video upload to my blog!)

Just a note: The audio is off just slightly...this probably happened during the upload...so, to my eyes at least, it doesn't flow as smoothly as it should.

Haha, I keep coming back to this post and adding more writing...okay, so contrary to all the stuff I've written about it not being perfect, I'm proud of my work. As it should be...