The film Austenland makes me nostalgic for my days of dance reenacting, and reflect on dance, fantasy, and romance.

As I’ve said here before, I’m a big fan of romantic comedies. In fact, I admit there are times when I need to watch them. But with the low quality and quantity of today’s theatrical release rom-coms, I tend to go back to the old standards.

Pride & Prejudice, natch, is one of the classic stories (this year marks its 200th anniversary) that I—and many others—return to. It’s had many direct and indirect film adaptations, from the Colin Firth BBC classic miniseries to the smaller-commitment-but-still-brilliant Keira Knightley film, to Bridget Jones’s Diary, You’ve Got Mail, and the recent Emmy-winning, online, modernized adaptation, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which I just discovered and devoured. Even films like When Harry Met Sally and tons of television shows use the convention that I believe started with P&P: the couple have an awkward or uncomfortable meet-cute where he falls in love with her, but she instantly forms a negative opinion of him. Of course, by the end of the film, she reciprocates and they live happily ever after. There’s a reason the story is so timeless, and so frequently copied: it works.

Austenland is the latest film to use this convention, and I was really excited to see it—not just because it’s an Austen-based romantic comedy, but because it peeks into, or at least hints at, the world of historical reenacting, a world I have experience in. I’m always happy when pop culture references this fringe society, especially in a remotely positive way. 

When a comparison friends made years ago resurfaces, I consider the impression I make on others.

When the Ang Lee-directed movie Sense and Sensibility came out in 1995, I was 25 years old (was there actually a time when I was 25 years old?), and dancing with the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers in Massachusetts, a company that specializes in nineteenth-century social dance. Though I’ve done lots of English Country and Regency dancing, the styles most associated with Jane Austen’s time, CVD didn’t do as much Regency then, focusing instead on the 1860s, 1890s, and Ragtime (19-teens). But we certainly loved any era of the 19th century, and we loved Jane Austen.

I saw Sense and Sensibility in the theatre with two friends from the company, and they instantly commented how similar I was to its heroine, Marianne Dashwood, played expertly by Kate Winslet. I looked like her, I acted like her, I was young and passionate like she was, and I even had occasion to dress at least a little like her, but usually with a lower waistline.

I didn’t love this comparison.

We file into the red velvet seats of the wood and gold-colored theatre on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas cruise ship. It’s day three of the third annual JoCo Cruise Crazy, and I’m excited to see today’s performer, cellist Zoë Keating. I had heard some of her music online, and in the television show Elementary, and I look forward to seeing her live. I have no idea what’s in store.

Keating’s look is unique. Like all concert cellists, she wears a black dress, but knee-length, with red peek-a-boo sleeves. Wicked, square whirlpool-patterned stockings cover her thin legs. Her stark white hair is extremely short, perhaps growing out from a shag-rug shave, and bright red dreadlocks sprout from the left side.

“Everything that you hear is live, there’s no pre-recorded stuff,” they tell us during Keating’s introduction, and I have to continually remind myself during the performance. Keating produces such a rich, full sound, it’s hard to believe she is playing solo, just she and her cello—and a computer.

After too much time away, I've decided to return to my blog, and perhaps try to make it last a bit longer. I'm hoping to balance it with a freelance writing career, at least until I can get a staff position somewhere (and hopefully after). I just need to bite the bullet and write, and publish, and promote the blog, come what may. I'm being brave.

I'm going to start by posting some of the recent pieces I've written for my classes at UCLA Extension, starting with a review of the wonderful experimental cellist, Zoë Keating. I first saw her perform on JoCo Cruise Crazy 3, the amazing nerd cruise I've attended the past three years. She blew me away. I had heard her recordings, but really didn't have a good concept of how she created her music, so to see it live was incredible. I was so inspired that I knew I just had to write about her.

She is performing at the Largo in Los Angeles tonight (September 12, 2013), and while I'm not able to attend, I thought I'd relive the concert on the cruise through this review.

I hope you enjoy it, and absolutely see Zoë perform when you can.

Last night I attended Chevrolet Film Night, a special event sponsored by Chevrolet and Creative Artists Agency (CAA), “celebrating the film industry and Chevrolet’s unique place within it,” as the evening’s printed program explained.

It was a terrific and informative evening. I met lots of cool people and heard some of the top producers in the business discuss the filmmaking industry. As someone who’s only been in the Los Angeles area for 3 months, I appreciate any opportunity to meet new people, especially industry folks.

Even the product placement was cool. While I understand the necessity of it, I’m often bothered by product placement, especially depending on how obvious and obtrusive it is (the Subway sandwich ads built into the episodes of Chuck leap screamingly to mind). But somehow, with a product like a car, it doesn’t seem as blatant. Characters often need cars to get around, but I don’t always notice the kind of car they’re driving.

For example, I hadn’t realized that the examples in the promotional film they showed last night were Chevys. It was pretty cool. They had clips from old and new movies: Transformers, The Fast and the Furious, Terms of Endearment, Beverly Hills Cop, even Saturday Night Fever; all those films incorporated (and sometimes blew up) Chevy automobiles. And cars, much more than food or drinks for example, can really capture the culture and era of the film they appear in.

The event also included an awards ceremony for the winners of Chevrolet’s Mofilm and Young Creative Chevrolet (YCC) contests. These are both worldwide initiatives that connect filmmaking and branding, where aspiring filmmakers, fashion and visual arts designers, and photographers can compete and have their projects judged by major figures in the business. The winners hailed from all over Europe, including the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Serbia.

Jon Landau, producer of James Cameron’s two biggest hits, Titanic and Avatar, is one of the aforementioned major figures judging the competitions, serving on the advisory board for Mofilm. He joined 3 other filmmakers for a panel discussion last night, moderated by journalist Ari Karpel (who teaches my Freelance Entertainment Journalism course at UCLA-Extension, hence my invitation to the event). Ian Bryce, producer of Transformers, Saving Private Ryan, and the forthcoming World War Z; Rob Cohen, producer and director of The Mummy, The Fast and the Furious, and the new Alex Cross; and F. Gary Gray, director of The Italian Job, Be Cool, and Friday, also served on the panel. (Actor Will Arnett and producer Gale Anne Hurd of The Walking Dead were supposed to attend but canceled at the last minute.)

The four told stories of their lives and work in film, including how they started in Hollywood. Most began in places far removed from the industry; Rob Cohen first worked in an animal hospital, squeezing dogs’ and cats’ swollen anal glands! Their stories inspired, and they further encouraged the contest winners and students (mostly film production, screenwriting, and criticism students) in attendance to chase their dreams into reality through persistence, hard work, saying yes to everything, and learning as much as you can along the way.

The opening reception before and the dinner party following the presentation allowed ample time to meet with participants and attendees, as well as enjoy good food, free drinks, and fun music (including many songs that mentioned Chevys). The event took place on the Paramount Studios lot, its New York Street decked out with lounge chairs and tables, mood lighting, and scattered with Chevy cars, some from movie sets. Naturally, my inner teenybopper, whom I take great strides to embrace, screamed for me to take a picture of Bella’s truck from the Twilight movies.

I had a moment to speak with Jon Landau, who was incredibly kind and friendly. He asked if I die my hair to match my outfit. I just confessed that purple was—obviously—my favorite color. I also told him the huge shocker that one of my all-time favorite movies is Titanic. I’m sure he still hasn’t recovered.

Alas, I wasn’t able to meet the other panelists, but I met so many other great people: many students from UCLA and USC’s film departments, a handful of folks from CAA, a few directors and producers, and two journalists from a German entertainment publication who flew in just for this event. Everyone was so friendly, wonderfully talented, and great fun. It felt like one of those storybook Hollywood events that I’d dreamed of attending, and the reason we made the big move to LA. I hope to attend many more like this in the future.

Special thanks to my teacher, Ari Karpel, and to CAA for extending the invitation.

So readers, have you had an experience like this, something that you dreamed of that turned out just as you imagined? Is there an event you're looking forward to that could be like that? On the other hand, what do you think of product placement in films or TV? Does it bother you, or do you just consider it a necessary evil (as I often do)? What are some you've seen that are particularly egregious, or smoothly unobtrusive?

My husband Alex and I are big movie buffs. We love seeing movies in the theatre, and will often go on opening night to experience the film with other enthusiastic movie-goers. Having grown up on live theatre, the audience is a huge part of the experience for me. However, there have been many weekends of late where we opt not to go to the theatre at all. This is because nothing is exciting or compelling enough to get us out of the house, especially with today’s exorbitant ticket prices.

It’s very disappointing to find that almost nothing has garnered my attention, let alone my active interest or excitement. Of the 6 trailers shown before a movie we saw recently, only one, the Ben Affleck political thriller Argo, caught my interest at all. To boot, I’d seen the trailer before, so I already knew I wanted to see the film. There has been more of interest to Alex than to me lately, because he enjoys big action movies more than I do. But even for him, there’s been little that has really drawn us to the theatre. Even movies that usually interest me and that my friends are excited to see, such as Wreck It Ralph, are not really thrilling me. I’m sure I’ll go see it, but I’m not terribly excited about it.

Granted, at home we have trouble choosing what movies to watch on video or cable, because while there is plenty that we both enjoy, our go-to choices differ. You can tell just by looking at our collection which DVDs are Alex’s and which are mine. I hate that we seem to follow stereotypical definitions, but it appears to be the case: His genre of choice is science fiction, followed closely by action. He likes to be taken to another world. I prefer romantic comedies, and I sometimes like real world or historical dramas. While I like some action movies, I need to have at least a little comic relief, and ideally, a little romance. Alex jokes that if there aren’t any explosions in it, he doesn’t want to see it.

Some time ago, I read in Entertainment Weekly that B-movies are a thing of the past, and there are only two kinds of movies today: blockbusters and independent films. While the definitions are in flux and I think are becoming less about distributors and more about content, blockbusters generally tend to have huge budgets, both for production and marketing, and they are shown in more theatres across the country so they can garner enormous audiences to pay off their enormous expenses. They contain fanciful and amazing stories; lots of chases, explosions, and special effects; and big-name stars. Independent films generally have smaller budgets and fewer (if any) special effects, and are often about more “real-world” topics, such as love and relationships, office or work place situations, or subversive subjects like political, social, or class commentary.

Reading that films are either blockbusters or indies shocked me, as I realized just how much that explains about the state of film today. I would think there must be some middle ground, but apparently there isn’t—at least not any more. And how, why, and to what extent this effects whether films interest or disappoint me is something I’ll be considering more in posts to come. To generalize hugely, while maintaining our stereotypical male/female definitions, Alex is more interested in the blockbusters and I’m more interested in indies. Of course, that’s not true of everything; there are plenty of blockbusters that interest me, and plenty of indies that don’t, and the opposite is true for Alex. Living in Maryland made it more difficult to see some of the independent films that caught my attention. If they came to town at all, they were only in one or two theatres in downtown DC. At least here in LA, it’s slightly easier to see some of these movies. They eventually come “to a theatre near me,” or I can go into town to see them, but it doesn’t seem as far away as downtown DC did. Perhaps I’m still so new to the area that I’m more open-minded to the distance. I still enjoy the view.

Even the few films we trek out to see have been disappointing in some way or another. Perhaps it’s my state of mind lately, or just the speed with which time passes and life moves on, but I don’t recall many that completely blew me away. The Adjustment Bureau and The Switch stand out as exceptions: films I truly loved, and much more than I expected to. There are a handful of others, like MI3: Ghost Protocol and Men in Black 3, that I enjoyed, but I tend to forget about them shortly after I’ve seen them. (The huge exception to this entire discussion is The Hunger Games, which I was excited about seeing and I absolutely loved, but that’s largely because I read the book first; I’ll probably discuss this in depth another time). The indies I’ve seen have been so miserable and depressing that I’ve almost regretted seeing them. This is a concern I have about The Perks of Being a Wallflower (though I’ve not read the book). I’m all for films that provoke thought and critical discussion, but somehow there’s a thin line. I’m definitely more of an escapist, and it’s easy for me to make myself miserable; I don’t need films to help me get there.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, both the indie vs. blockbuster idea and the fact that movies have been so disappointing to me lately, so there will probably be more on the topic in the future. I’ll also look more closely at some of the films I’ve seen. In the meantime, am I the only one feeling disillusioned with the movie industry? Have you been disappointed with movies of late? What are you looking forward to seeing in the future?

It’s always good to be aware of one’s strengths and weaknesses—without using them to beat yourself up or shortchange yourself.

One thing I realized about myself, long ago, is that I am very good at giving advice that I don’t follow myself. I have ideas and opinions about things (and who doesn't), from business and marketing to life and relationships, that I’m happy to suggest to people I love, if they’re willing to hear it, of course. But I don’t apply the advice to my own situations, even though they usually apply. That’s because coming up with the idea for the action is a lot easier, quicker, and safer than actually following through on said action.

This blog is the latest example of this. I’ll explain how after some background.

My husband Alex and I have recently made some huge life changes, all centered on what we have been, and would rather be, doing for a living. In November 2011, we decided to move from our massive 4-bedroom, 1 ballroom (yes, ballroom) house in government-focused DC, to a small 2-bedroom apartment in Burbank, CA, so that we could try to find work in entertainment-focused Hollywood. We were finally able to sell our house in May and moved to Burbank in early July 2012.

We both had projects we wanted to work on, largely as a way of getting closer to our entertainment-related goals. Alex’s project is his new Lovecraft-ian web comic, Miskatonic U, and mine is this here blog. While we have been discussing and researching these projects since at least November, we had been too busy with the move to really focus on them. Now that we’re settled in our new apartment, we’ve had some time.

In late-July, after organizing, unpacking, and finally vacuuming (one of the last details involved in settling into a new place), we were ready to hone in on our projects. Alex wanted to do more research for his strip, but I suggested that he try doing a quick, one panel drawing of the main characters, just to see what it felt like and to introduce the comic. My thinking was that, rather than spinning wheels with more research, he would actually be jumping right into the project. He embraced it full on (as he does), creating the first strip of the series, and posting it on Facebook. He then continued the momentum, creating several more strips. His comic is now live and quickly gaining followers.

I was also planning to do the same thing with my blog: I was going to just write a blog post and post it, just so there would be something online, and I will have started something. And here it is… finally… a good 2 months after Alex posted his first comic and I first made the suggestion. (Sad trombone: Wah-Waaahhh!)

There’s a very thin line between being aware of your strengths and limitations, and beating yourself up over them. I am definitely trying to do the former with this post, because I do think my ideas are good; I just need to be better about actually executing them. I am also trying not to compare myself to other people; everyone works on their own time. But it is beneficial to be aware of these things, and late is definitely better than never.

So readers, is this a common trait? Have you found yourself giving advice to others that you should also be following yourself? What was it? What do you think stopped you from following through on it? Is there something you always wanted to do that you haven’t yet? What’s holding you back? Share in the comments. … Or not. :)