I guess I should start calling LA home now

I started this post on March 6th.

Today marks the second week of my glorious return to Los Angeles.

On the night I got back I was so shitfaced from the flight I went straight to bed. When I woke up I felt kind of stoned. First of all it was 5:00 am, a time frame I don't chew on easily. Second, I wasn't sure where I stood in relation to the place I woke up into, it felt like I knew it, in some sort of etherial way, like I had once dreamt of it. That kind of threw me off a bit. I floated around its lavishly dirty locales (two months and counting without a single dusting - but I have to admit it looked better than I expected, which was basically a single comprehensive rolling hay bale of lint) and since I couldn't really make out if I was awake or not, I went to get a new phone deal and a car. Upon my retreat to the palace I took a breather and realized that I had indeed not seen it in my dreams, quite the contrary, I had lived in it and made it much my own. A wave of recognition crushed my skull and everything suddenly started to get a lot more real. So real in fact that I got hungry, and wanted to make soup, only to discover that I had no gas. Apparently you have to pay bills in the US, tsk.

Cue day two. I took a trip to the Gas Company because they had to cross check two photo IDs before they could issue me any services. By any means the US government cares to make you feel like a vicious cockroach. When that was settled I found out the first available appointment with a technician was going to be in a week. Jesus H Christ. Ok Ralph's, load me up with frozen meals. Thank the begeezes I had purchased a microwave before leaving. No cooking ability at home gave me the opportunity to space out, thus making it possible for me to gather an LED TV, a 3D blu ray player, a Keurig, cable TV and a gazillion knick knacks to make my place much homier. So when gas finally made its way back I was totally dolled up in a bubble of joy. Not to mention that my week in the making gas guy found out the heater in my living room was slowly killing me via carbon monoxide. Bad bad bad rental agency. Should I sue? Come on it's America!!

The Oscars kind of marked the end of my big transition. It was so over the top to be here, just a couple of blocks away from the real thing that after that glorious Sunday things shifted back to a lower, steadier gear. As they should.

To begin with, Stacy Keibler was wearing gold. And a big fat flower on her hip. When her man is up for an award a lady does not outdo him. Take Angelina, and let's please forget about her leg for a moment, who stood aside and let nominated Brad Pitt walk the carpet alone and get his press and shiz. Now we know you're not really dating George, Stacy, but since you're pretending you should pretend well, and with class.

Then I saw Penelope Cruz, and once again she butchered the English language. Now these are things that fuck with me. She is allowed to come and go as she pleases, she practically lives here, and doesn't even care to learn how to speak. I'll tell you more. I went to Sears the other day looking for power strips, so I approached this sales assistant, regularly employed, possibly possessing permanent residency, Lord have mercy even citizenship, and told him what I needed. This is what he responded: "Can you ask someone else? I only be in America one year. I no speak English". Should I comment? No, because I totally could. In fact I will. One thing is to make it to immigrant status before I do, I will bitchslap you, but not hate on you. One entirely other thing is telling TO MY FACE that you are legally allowed to stay and work in this country, and you have in fact already been hanging around for a complete earth turnaround, and you didn't even bother learning how to fucking speak English... when I am quite frankly an asset but was cornered like a motherfucker and almost asked to pee on a stick to be allowed back in the door. How does that happen? HOW DOES IT HAPPEN??

Back to the Academy Awards, ok, they were obsessing over telling us how much they love the movies. Will you just go back to buying tickets to the theaters America? So they can spare us. Thank you very much. On this matter I actually read the tweet that summed it all up, @poniewozik wrote: You know what part of the Oscars should remind people that they love movies? THE NOMINATED FILMS. Amen.

And just as a side note everyone I know texted me about the lady dedicating her Oscar to Italee. Yes, we thug.

One more thing that strikes me every year is how all the technical winners always manage to stand up and walk to the stage, no matter how emotional or astonished. They cry and smile and overall healthily react to the win. It's a huge thing for them too you know. And then there's actors. Oh actors just have to add that twist. They have to. Octavia Spencer, I kind of like you. But what about the fact that you need help to be extracted from your chair and wobble your way up like a huge truffle with disabilities. You just wanna milk the very last drop of that standing ovation, attention whore. Actors.

Speaking of, watching with me in the Burbank living room it was mostly kiwi actors, out here for pilot season. They're all so pretty without even trying. Gracious, from within their sundresses and impossibly sculpted perfect fake bed hair.

Back on March 6th, this is where I was going to go with it:

- actors depress me, because they always look better than you, they are funnier than you, they have better answers and nicer jokes. They also most of the times have less brain, but that, not always I find easy to remember.

- coming down from the Oscars high was hard. The little animals of the forest retired in their warm burrows and left me out in the cold. No one seemed to remember I had once lived here, despite my describing all the newfound memories of me actually inhabiting the land. And then I discovered Food Network and I pondered a change of career. But that didn't happen. I'm too greedy to share meals with others.

And this is what I'm gonna say now:
- bye!

The Oscars red carpet

I walked on it the other day. Yes ma'am. It's pretty soft. Very carpety. I thought it would be more like a thin fabric, instead it has real texture, like 1/4 of an inch hair length. You could feel the depth, even from underneath a sea of cellophane. It looked like a freaking serial killer's dungeon in fact, every single Oscar was being suffocated. Exhibit A.

It was pretty clear from the get go that something was up. If you didn't know better you would almost say that a bunch of celebrities were about to go through. The whole lot in front of the building was blooming with pop up sheds, eight wheelers and satellite dishes the size of my dining room table, like a huge film production was seconds away from shooting the most expensive scene in movie history. The valet parking at the mall had been shielded with a velvety huge red curtain and to find a spot for our car we had to go all the way down to the center of the earth to parking level 5 where a Balrog was luckily pulling out so we could take his place.

I was curious to see what goes on around the area a couple of days before the event. It's my first Oscars in LA you know. I've had a bunch of firsts in the past year but this one is like EPIC. I've grown up watching the Oscars from 2 - 6 am on a school night by myself, every year, it was the closest I could get to Hollywood on the other freaking side of the world. Then when you live here you want to play it cool and pretend like you're used to this stuff, that you see it everyday. This is what Angelenos do and it's a pretty contagious behavior. I was like that, for a split second, riding the escalator to the Kodak theater and then I set foot on the carpet and it was MAGIC. I can't even explain the rush I felt but maybe some can understand. It was like being sprinkled with fairy dust and then finally hitting your happy thought and start flying. But taking off was hard, from street level it basically looks like a county fair.

It is fascinating as kind of a mystery, like a very elegant woman who doesn't show too much of herself. And overall very mystic. Happy and sad at the same time. Especially when I climbed up the Hollywood and Highland passageway and I had the full disclosure on the lady parts.

It was enthralling to see what they were doing down there, like being privy to some kind of ritual. They were probably briefing people that will direct the flow tomorrow, maybe hypnotizing a bunch of bystanders into joining Scientology, I don't really know. But all the same it was painstakingly hard to watch. Me, me, me. Me too! I was screaming while falling off the ledge and out of the cruel, ephemeral bubble that I like to call fucking blind ambition. No briefing, no stroll, no nothing for me. So I snapped a pretty picture of the pretty view and took off to Sephora where I have drowned my sorrows in a gallon of tinted moisturizer.

The pretty view!

By the way I got one of the employees of Sephora practically admit that they close the store at 2 pm on Oscar day and then just stay in there to watch the street go on fire. An this is their position from the hair products section. A little black uniform suits me, ya think?!

At the end of the day I came home to my cozy gas-less stove and stuffed myself with 300 gr (that's 0.66 lbs for those of you who still like to defy logic) of Gelson's roasted chicken and some left over salad. Which was supposed to be a healthy kind of meal and instead took me 48 hours to digest considering I gulped down quantities that would make a truck driver blush.

This is just half of the chicken by the way.

Road to the Oscars - first impressions

As a Script Supervisor I will always stand by my battle against the Academy for not recognizing our phenomenal, precious, creative and hard work. But secretly, way down in my dungeons, I have an Oscars shrine. Shhh.

Now for 2012 as award season progresses and I try as usual to watch all the nominated films - kind of hard since I'm in Italy and My week with Marylin yet has to get a release date here - two things come to mind.

Actress in a supporting role:

In a Criccicentric perfect Sims world I would make Jessica Chastain win. Will go as far as to say that out of everything from The Help, which by the way I did not like, she gave the most surprising performance, however small. It's easier to impress playing the fat black harassed woman, just saying. Her character went through a whole series of different phases, including dislikable asshole, and in that little screen time I believe she did a painstaking job at letting every single one of her emotions come through.

That said if someone could please explain Melissa McCarthy to me. I mean she was funny and shiz and I am all for including farting among honor worthy talents but... Big question mark.

Best motion picture:

I have recently seen The Artist and you don't have to fight the urge to know what I thought about it for you can read this. And I have watched The Help back in LA but didn't see what other people saw. I like Emma Stone, and I will write it again in capitals, I really LIKE her, but this time I couldn't go past the hair and the lisp. I'm sorry. She was plastic. And so was the plot... I don't know. Bryce Dallas Howard ate shit, so what? A little girl with some frizz problems makes all the black women wanna join her/their cause, woosh, over my head. The wannabe emotional parts were too long foreseen and by the time they actually hit you you were already thinking about how much you would be paying for parking. If I may, 50/50 did a better job at messing with my lacrimal gland.

My two cents on: The Artist

And then he puts a glass down with a thud.

There are many reasons why The Artist may be a contender this year, one of them called Harvey Weinstein, and the fact that people like him will not accept to be called crazy.

But it is not so much the courage to go for it that impressed me. Neither was the acting, or the plot.

It was the mustache.

I'm kidding.

There's a certain revenge-of-the-nerds pride in seeing a silent black and white movie woe the masses. There is definitely appreciation for Jean Dujardin's independent eyebrows. And most of all there is obsequious reverence towards the reconstruction of the talkies' advent. Carbon copy Singing in the Rain.

I don't read reviews before I see a movie. I don't even like to see trailers most of the times so I usually try to enter the theater a virgin, unless the gods forbid me of course. I knew for example that Bella Swan falls in love with a vampire, and a warewolf, and can't act. Some things are just common knowledge. But in this case I foresaw nothing, so when it became apparent to my oblivious mind that I was about to be witness to a tale of good looking people in Hollywoodland in the late twenties I peed in my pants. I live in a 1944 building built for screenwriters at Paramount, so you can appreciate my being drenched into the specific subject matter.

But, as I am a film graduate and cinema technician first and foremost, the key to me here is  the use of the craft's main tools that had been long lost beneath piles of crane shots, photoshop brushes and the void in Kristen Stewart's eyes.

First of all the 4:3 frame format. I didn't notice it right away, I was kind of raptured by the Metropolis-esque opening. But something was indeed missing, or quite differently concentrating the action to the core of my sight span. It's a little touch, but very thoughtful towards the roundness of the watching a silent movie experience.

Secondly, a few minutes into the movie Mr. Mustache, our hero, has breakfast, and dinner and lunch with his wife, sometimes intent in reading a paper. The camera angle, the focal length, everything screams Citizen Kane, as it should I guess when you're paying homage to cinema. For a minute I was kind of hoping a superimposed room would start spinning over their faces, but the filmmakers didn't go there, and all in all upon second consideration I'm kind of glad they didn't as it made the homage more graceful, and there's only so much you can do when you want to approach Orson Welles.

Some time later Mr. Mustache meets a girl while shooting a scene of a movie and she gets under his skin, without saying a word. So humorous I am. The moment is sapiently told through the same means of the moment itself. Hold on, it's a mind-fuck. He is a star, she is an extra and they have to interact all through scene #20. A dolly across a room full of people dancing. We get to observe all the numerous takes, along with board in between them, directly from (meta)camera point of view as we sweep around the ballroom, and giggle at how time after time he doesn't seem to be able to get his mind off of her and onto acting. Delicious. I almost cried.

And then there was the time I had to gasp for air. Executive producer John Goodman tells Mr. Mustache that talkies are the future of movie making but he refuses to compromise his integrity as a silent movie artist for what he believes to be just a fad. So he stomps back to his dressing room. And then he puts a glass down with a thud.

Sound and camera movement are at the heart of the modern cinematic craft, if you consider sound not merely as speech but as a way to get the audience to emote. At the utmost peak of the art behind The Artist is the capability of forgetting about the heaps of crap loaded over  filmmaking during the years and restore that simple way of expressing ideas through the moving image and silence, or sound. That very sound of silence, as opposed to background music, is molded as punctuation that enhances the image, which in itself already needs to be more expressive than ever because it has to tell a story without the help of any spoken word. And very few cards either. To be honest I was really impressed at how little these actors really were aided by words, both spoken or written.
But no one should hear the details from me. One should tap dance their way to the theater.

Not saying everyone out there should consider making silent films now, there has been a hundred years of evolution for a reason, but I feel like thanking Michel Hazanavicius for surprising me with a truth I had somehow lost.