A Domino Effect

Anyone else a massive fan of Clueless?  Anyone else spend chunks of their teenage years wishing they could get away with wearing tartan mini skirts, berets and knee high socks to school (perhaps a question for the laydeez, that one)?  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched this film – and the number of hours my friends and I have spent quoting it at each other – but it never fails to bring a smile to my face.  How could it, when it’s full to bursting with stomach-achingly funny moments such as these?  Dirty Dancing?  Bah…

• Cher: OK so you’re probably going “Is this like a Noxema commercial or what?”.  But seriously?  I actually have a way normal life for a teenage girl.
• Murray: Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression.  Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking but not necessarily mysogynistic undertones.
• Tai: Do you think she’s pretty?  Cher: No, she’s a full-on Monet.  Tai: What’s a Monet?  Cher: It’s like a painting, see?  From far away it’s OK but up close it’s a big old mess.
• Tai: Wow, you guys talk like grown-ups!
• Cher: I want to do something for humanity.  Josh: How about sterilisation?
• Cher: It’s like that book I read in the 9th grade that said “tis a far far better thing doing stuff for other people.”.
• Mel: Which reminds me, where’s your report card?  Cher: It’s not ready yet.  Mel: What do you mean it’s not ready yet?  Cher: Well some teachers are trying to low-ball me Daddy.  And I know how you say “Never accept a first offer” so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations.
• Mel: Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel.  I doubt anybody would miss you.
• Christian: Do you like Billie Holiday?  Cher: I love him.
• Cher: So, until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news, there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value!

What are your all-time most eminently quotable films?

What did you guys get up to this weekend?  I spent a lot of time reading this magnificent book in the warmth and snugness of my sofa nest while eating home made scones with jam.  Joy.  Here are the rest of my highlights from the past week…

• On Tuesday I went to a blind gig (a new term I’ve coined for seeing bands I’ve never heard of before.  Like blind dating but without the awkwardness).  The National are now firmly on my “listening to” radar as a result.
• Cinema (as always)!  On Wednesday I saw One Day which I really enjoyed (I know, I know) and on Friday I watched The Guard, which I recommend to anyone in need of a few laughs and some sharp wit.
• Spooky ghost touring on Wednesday night!
• On Thursday I watched trashy films on TV while mending/altering/customising some clothes.  Time spent with my button collection is rarely time wasted, I find.
• Taking myself off to Stockbridge for a wander, a panini and a rummage in the charity shops (and the rain) on Friday.
• My boyfriend and I had a little 80s party for two on Saturday night while we were getting ready to go out to an actual party.  My head has been full of classics like Rush Hour by Jane Wiedlin ever since.  Watch the video below and let me know if you have any answers to the following: 1) Why is it full of dolphins?  2) What’s up with her wetsuit?  3) Are they really trying to make it look like she’s playing guitar underwater?

• To fend off the post-party hangover, I ate a huge bacon, black pudding and fried egg roll on Sunday morning.  With obligatory lashings of brown sauce, of course.
• And on Sunday night I caught up with an old housemate over dinner.  The perfect end to a lovely weekend.

So this is my last week before I start my new job.  I’m nervous, and excited, and nervous some more (over surprisingly trivial things, like getting up early every day again, and what to make for packed lunches).  The Summer has been a bit of a mixed bag to be honest -- a couple of crap things have happened and I’ve wasted a bit of time stressing out over stuff that probably isn’t worth stressing out over.  Several projects I had envisaged have failed to materialise but then other things that I didn’t foresee have popped up in their place, which is nice.  All in all, I do feel refreshed and rested and ready to start something new, which I guess is a good way to feel.  This week I’m going to tick a few organisation-y things off of my list, see a few friends and probably treat myself to cake to celebrate changing seasons and new beginnings.  Oh, and I’m going to see The Arcade Fire play at no less a venue than Edinburgh Castle on Thursday.  Hurrah!

What’s on your agenda this week?

Image above from here.

How were your weekends guys?  I baked a raspberry cheesecake (above) with my boyfriend, mooched around the Foodies Festival in Holyrood Park and drank the usual five gazillion coffees.  Here are my highlights from the last seven days:

• Lunch in the park on Tuesday, followed by a uniquely satisfying trip to the library – the kind where the right books just seem to launch themselves at you from the shelves.
• As a result of said library trip, reading Call of the Wild by Guy Grieve in what felt like five minutes but was actually more like four days.  My fascination with Alaska deepens…
• Three cinema trips!  I saw Bridesmaids for the second time on Monday (equally as funny/touching as the first time around), Super 8 on Wednesday (brilliant) and Rise of the Planet Apes on Friday (which, to my surprise, I really enjoyed).
• Enjoying a cheeky gin and tonic while reading a magazine in the bath on Sunday.
• Having dinner with one friend on Tuesday, drinks with a second on Friday and lunch with a third on Sunday.  Perfect.
• Foodie highlights: I made couscous with roasted vegetables on Tuesday; spicy chicken with broccoli and noodles on Thursday and wholewheat spaghetti with honeyed mackerel and lemon juice on Sunday. Yum.
• Watching my lovingly tended herb garden grow and grow.  I now have basil, coriander, parsley and mint.  Some chilli seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago have also just sprouted – I anticipate lots of spicy dinners in the next 6-8 weeks!
• Seeing the sun shine after days and days of little but drizzly rain.

What’s on your agenda this week?  I’m going to be busy attacking the job of putting together an office wardrobe on the cheap.  I’m also off to see Tom Hodgkinson at the Edinburgh Book Festival tomorrow – the brains behind the brilliant How To Be Free.

Some weeks my highlights posts are harder to put together than others.  In fact, sometimes I completely forget what I actually did with my week let alone what was good about it. Then there are weeks like this one, when the highlights come flying in from all directions and I have a hard time choosing what merits a place on the list and what doesn’t (I realise I could just list everything, but really, too much talking about oneself is rarely a good thing):

• Films films glorious films.  I’m taking full advantage of my new-found cinematic freedom at the moment by gobbling up as many sittings as I can find the time for.  I saw Harry Potter Part 7 Mark II for the second time on Tuesday (a perfect slice of escapism for a drizzly August afternoon) and Horrible Bosses on Wednesday (watchable, but highly likely to induce spontaneous and prolonged bouts of cringeing.  Do not see this film on a first date).
• I also watched Fair Game this week, which made me really rather depressed about the state of the world.  Good film though, so a highlight nonetheless.
• Devouring Tina Fey’s book Bossypants in two days.  Read my review of it here.
• Cooking up several storms over the course of the week.  On Monday I made chicken adobo, the recipe for which I found on the fabulous Budget Bytes; on Tuesday I made carrot and coriander soup (using my home-grown coriander shoots – oh the self-sufficiency!) and on Wednesday I made chicken and mushroom risotto.  Delicious, and leftovers a-plenty.  Win.
• Finding THE jeans I’ve been waiting for my entire life in a charity shop on Friday.  Dark indigo denim, low rise and straight legged as opposed to skinny (my round-hipped, full-assed figure needs that extra width on the ankle to stop me looking like an upsidedown pyramid teetering on its point). Originally from Gap, but snapped up for a princely £6.  Huzzah!
• A late-evening walk along the Union Canal on Wednesday.  A quiet drink at the other end and a slow stroll back.
• Visiting the recently re-opened National Museum of Scotland on Friday.  Or to be more specific, visiting two rooms plus the coffee shop of the recently re-opened National Museum of Scotland (the place is HUGE).  All marvelous.
• Caravanning the weekend away with my boyfriend’s sister and her friends.  Eating lots of cheese (totally fell off the skin improvement wagon – will haul myself back on it this week), drinking lots of red wine and completing the infamous Elie chain walk in one piece despite being chronically underprepared in the footwear department.

So to this week!  I’m currently sans plans, but thinking I might try and sniff out some cheap/free Fringe tickets and see some comedy.  I’m also going to scour the charity shops for work attire, given that my new job starts exactly four weeks today (eep!).  What are you up to?

Image above from here.

I’m a pretty prolific cinema go-er, as you well may know.  My Last Week’s Highlights posts often feature at least one film I’ve seen and there are always plenty more that I wouldn’t mind watching given the chance…

…and the money.

See, the cinema is an expensive game.  Even if (like me) you only pay for a ticket and bring your own snacks (yeah, I’ll admit it corporate cinema chains, I SNEAK MY SNACKS IN!  Deal with it or slash those crazy prices!).

Anyway.  Edinburgh is an especially lucky city when it comes to cinemas.  Sure we have the usual big chain players, but we are also blessed with a generous sprinkling of independent cinemas.  Cinemas with old-fashioned red velvet chairs and gold-fringed curtains that swish open at the beginning of the film and closed again at the end.  My favourite cinema in Edinbugh – the Dominion – takes the experience a whole step further with its comfy two-seater sofas, each one replete with cushions, armrests that are actually as wide as your arm(!) and foot stools.  Real foot stools!  Squeak!

And I love the independents.  I love the fact that they are locally owned and managed by people who are genuinely into film.  I also love it that some have been around for decades, not attempting to take over the world, but simply plodding along, quietly showing their movies to those of us who care to watch them.  The independent cinemas represent a little slice of my ideal world – a world where old-fashioned, family run enterprises are the norm, companies are content to just ‘be’ as opposed to ‘grow’ and our towns and cities feel unique, and not just the same as we already know with different street names.

But here’s the thing.  This last year, I’ve been a student and so have had the benefit of a generous discount on my cinema ticket prices.  Which was great while it lasted, but lasting it no longer is.  The other night I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows mark II** with a friend and, my student card having expired, was resigned to handing over a small fortune just to see the film.  Forget drinks, forget snacks, the ticket itself was almost £10.

And I was so surprised/horrified at this that I went home after the film and did what I’ve always sworn I’d never do.

I signed up for a Cineworld Unlimited card.

I know, I know, principles out the window; moral code ripped in half; poor, independent cinemas floundering at the loss of my custom (OK, not quite)…  But you guys?  I can’t afford my principles!  I can’t afford to pay over a tenner each time I want to see a film, even if it does go towards a local, independent business and not a giant money-spinning conglomerate!  Who can?!

And you know?  As much as I like to moan about big companies taking over the world, I’m also not made of cash.  And the Cineworld deal is a good one.  For £14.99 per month I can watch as many films as I want, as many times over as I want.  No limits (but you got that from the title, didn’t you?).  Rainy Friday with no plans?  I can see three films in a row.  Don’t understand something the first time round?  I can watch it again the next day.  All I have to do to be saving myself money is go to the cinema twice a month.  Easy, considering I sometimes go twice a week as it is.

So there you have it.  I’ve sold my soul to the commercial devil.  I have no right to cry when the independent cinemas start closing down.  I am a Bad. Person.

But I’m also quids in…

What are your thoughts on independent cinemas?  Would you sign up for/do you have an Unlimited card?

Image above from here.

**LOVED the film right up until the final three minutes (you know the bit I mean, Potter fans) which I will forever count as some of the most uncomfortable moments I ever spent in a cinema.