Happy Harry Potter Week!!!

In case you live under a rock and have not been ogling Daniel Radcliffe and/or Emma Watson (depending on your persuasion) for the past few weeks, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie comes out this week! We here at The Watchword are serious fans so we're dedicating the entire week to the magical peeps at Hogwarts. Get ready! More to follow...

James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech

James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech from James Franco

OMG! R.L. Stine is my favorite author, too!

Friday is for random stories

This one time I was up at the San Diego County building in Kearny Mesa for something to do with work. Now, San Diego County is kind of a hotbed of aviation. Charles Lindbergh's plane was built here, and he trained for his cross Atlantic flight here. Since the weather is usually so nice, a lot of people still fly small private planes here, and plus, we have a huge military presence, so its not odd to look up in the sky and see an experimental Navy jet or a Cessna flying around.


But this one time in Kearny Mesa, I saw a weird convergence of the two: A pair of Marine or Navy jets were up there, doing the Top Gun thing where they're flying together, doing the same manuevers, looking like they might crash into each other at any second; and then also, up in the wild blue yonder, was this little red bi-plane, like the kind you see in old photographs with flappers dancing on the wings.


I was staring at it, and this parking lot attendant came over. She was an older woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s, really short and fairly squat, and she saw me looking at the planes and starts giving me the rundown on everything they have been doing for the last 20 minutes. "The jets were up there and then the bi-plane came in and it was following them for a while, then it hung back" etc., etc., etc. Not knowing a damn thing about aviation, and to be honest, not totally caring, I gave her a polite, "Yeah, it's pretty cool."


Then she tells me, "I live around here and I see the planes all the time and I love it. A lot of people complain about the noise but I tell them, 'That's the sound of freedom right there.'"


"Indeed," I told her.


Indeed.

Top 5: Movies for Summer Vacation

I obviously don't get summer vacation anymore and my life is all the worse for it. The worst part is I work very near one of the best beaches in the country (IMO) and every day I see tons of tourists and locals enjoying the sand and surf and sunshine and I become very jealous. But this post isn't about me and my irrational jealously. It's about me and the movies I'd watch, over and over again, on summer vacation.

1. Summer School - Dreamy Mark Harmon stars as Mr. Shoop, a gym teacher who's forced to teach summer school because the dbag principal is jealous of his hotness. Of course, summer school is usually full of either losers (see: this movie) or overachieving dorks who want to get lesser classes out of the way so they can take more AP classes during the year (see: my life). Anyway, the students don't want to learn so Mr. Shoop bribes them with favors (he teaches one girl to drive, let's some other degenerates throw a party at his awesome beach house, allows Allison from Melrose Place to crash at his place and start acting like a crazy girlfriend). I think you can see this movie is pretty much the best thing ever. And look at the poster! A dog! In sunglasses! It doesn't get better than that, kids.

2. Field of Dreams - If you haven't seen this, I'm pretty sure that makes you a terrorist.

3. IT/The Stand - These made-for-TV Stephen King miniseries were perfect because they took up most of the day and that's what summer vacation is all about. Spending as little time socializing and running around outside as possible. Amirite?!?!

4. Clue - This is one of my all time favorites. I enjoyed rewatching over and over again in an attempt to spot any inconsistencies between the three endings. I never found any.

5. JFK - Another movie which took up most of the day and another movie so full of detail it seemed there was always something new to discover. I may or may not have also had a serious thing for Kevin Costner. Ah, the follies of youth!

What about you? How did you spend your summer days back when you weren't stuck in an office, enduring the slow soul suck?

Reblog!

I like this:
Via a bunch of sites

Bye bye, MJ

This is pretty much what I want my funeral to be like, complete with a program, red carpet, people dressed as me, speeches by Al Sharpton and Brooke Shields, and at least one performance by Usher. I don't want it in the Staples Center though, I think that's a little over the top.

An Open Letter to Kelly Clarkson

Rob Pattinson has nothing to do with this post, but I saw him and thought, "Why the hell not?"

Dear Kelly,

Thank you for entertaining me so very much at your concert last night. Sure, I felt a little out of place, being a music snob of sorts and without a gay boyfriend at my side (I'm between such companions at the moment), but I want you to know I sang heartily and totally did your jumping up and down dance when you sang "Since You've Been Gone."

I'm writing to let you know we should pretty much be best friends. We have so much in common! When you joked about your mic pack falling out of your back pocket because you have a big butt, I though, "OMG! I have a big butt, too!" When you told everyone the confessional nature of "Because of You" makes you want to "barf," I thought, "No way! I use the word 'barf' All. The. Time!" and when you covered Janet Jackson's "If" I realized I totally love to dance to that song and may or may not still know the wacky dance moves from the music video!

Needless to say, as your BFF, I promise to never upstage you when you make me one of your backup singers, help you with your psuedo-tragic fashion sense (Seriously. Enough with the terrible black bell-bottoms!), stick up for you when people say you're a lesbian because you don't have a boyfriend (The Stars: They're Just Like Us!) and kill whomever runs Google images for suggesting "Kelly Clarkson fat" when I Google image your name (sometimes, I really hate this universe). So, yeah. Call me Kelly because my life kinda sucks without you.

xoxo,

Red

Happy Birthday America!

Only I could get sick on the Fourth of July. Needless to say, I don't care. Liz and I will be celebrating our freedom in traditional fashion at our favorite watering hole. Hopefully, you're doing something similar. Be safe! And have fun! You never know when an impromptu dance party may happen upon you!

I'll be somewhere just left of this photo watching fireworks tonight. God bless The Diego!

Top 5: Movies to Make You Cry

So yesterday, I asked if Gran Torino is the new Bravehart (the movie to make men cry), and apparently Braveheart never made any man cry, ever. My intel must be faulty. However, something good did come out this debacle...a post idea! Here now are the top 5 movies that made me cry like a little baby*:

In America - The story of Irish immigrants in America makes me weep every time I see it. Liz watched it recently and said she just got teary. Obviously, Liz = No Soul.

Dances With Wolves - I don't even remember now why it made me cry so hard, but I remember the friend I saw it with said to me after I'd cried through the end credits, "Why are you still crying?" Obviously, that "friend" = No Soul.

Searching For Bobby Fischer - This movie is about a little boy who plays chess. Chess! Who cries at the freaking chess movie?!? I do, apparently. I guess I related to the pressure little Josh (chess boy) felt to be amazing at something, realizing he'd always come up short.

Sense and Sensibility - When Elinor bursts into tears at the end because [Spoiler Alert!] she realizes Edward didn't marry that terrible skeeze, I lose it. Every time.

A Mighty Heart - I didn't realize until halfway through the film that Daniel Pearl was the reporter who was beheaded in Pakistan (I'm not so good with the names sometimes) and I spent the rest of the movie worried they would show the actual beheading. What I should have worried about was the gut wrenching final scene when Angelina realizes her husband is dead. What a mess that made me.

So, many of you noted the movies that made you cry in the comments yesterday, but if you didn't, get on it! I know you're all so stoic and nothing makes you cry, ever, but just make something up if you must.

* It should be noted, I cry at, well, a lot. I mean, I refused to let anyone watch the Gilmore Girls series finale with me because I knew I'd cry through the whole damn thing...and I did.

Add This to Your Queue: Gran Torino

Remember when we used to "review" movies on this site? Let's give that another whirl, shall we?

Saturday afternoon, I popped in Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood movie from last year that wasn't The Changeling. (Seriously, how does this old man keep pumping out 2 movies in a year?! Madness, I say!) I'd heard great things about the movie and Eastwood's performance and, I must say, the hype was warranted.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a veteran of the Korean war who's recently lost his wife. He lives in a once lovely neighborhood in Detroit (apparently, those did exist at one point), now rundown and almost exclusively Asian (we are to believe Walt it the last remaining white dude). Needless to say, the combination of PTSD from Korea and Asian neighbors is not such a good mix for old Walt. Anyway, through a series of events, Walt becomes close with the two teenagers next door and a wacky comedy of cultural and generational misunderstandings ensues. (I kid, I kid. There is very little wackiness (though Walt is racist as hell and it's pretty amusing. Only Eastwood could make this curmudgeonly character so lovable)). It's actually an interesting look at culture clashes and the lack of respect paid to the heroic elders in this country. Funny, sad, political and thought provoking, Gran Torino is absolutely worth your 2 hours and your tears.

P.S. If you've seen this and you are male, please comment of my theory that this is the new Braveheart (i.e. the movie to make men cry). Thank you in advanced.