Happy Halloween!

via Bohemea on Tumblr.

Have a spooky Halloween, everyone!

Total Recall

Totall Recall: Remade.

I saw the big budget remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Sharon Stone scifi actioner, Total Recall. This new version stars Colin Farrell (taking over from Arnie), Kate Beckinsale as his wife/watcher (originally played by the Mars hating Sharon Stone), and Jessica Biel in the rebel/lover role (originally played by the sleazy but demure Rachel Ticotin).

The plot for this “remake” > and its predecessor is very loosely derived from a short story by Philip K Dick. In this version of the story, Farrell’s Douglas Quaid is a lowly factory worker with a beautiful, devoted wife (Beckinsale) who lives in the oppressive confines of The Colony but commutes to work (via a world spanning train tunnel) to the seemingly utopian Britain to work. He feels a deep dissatisfaction with his daily life and has dreams about being trapped in a place, trying to escape with the aid of an equally beautiful mystery woman (Biel).

One of the things that I like most about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall is that it has a sense of humor; it’s a wild romp and had a “damn, doesn’t that make you grin at the shittiness of it all” kind of pluck to it. It took itself just seriously enough to carry you along for the ride. The fact that at the end of it you, as the viewer, we’re left to decide if it was real or all in Quaid’s head was icing on the cake.

This version is humorless, joyless and filled with hard, ruthless people who aren’t even enjoying being hard and ruthless. It doesn’t help at all that the script and direction don’t bring anything new to the table as far as ideas are concerned. You’re left realizing at the end of it all that you just watched a fairly standard chase movie with a lot of special effects thrown in purely for the sake of spectacle. Themes of identity and purpose are present but so eclipsed by visual bombast that you just don’t care whether Quaid finds out who he is or isnt.

I was disappointed by this effort in the extreme. I will take the Verhoeven/Schwarzenegger version over this one every time because as cheesy as it is, it has a heart. Wiseman/Farrell and Co? Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

I really think that instead of rehashing movies that were pretty great in their original versions (Footloose and Spiderman, anyone?) Hollywood should focus on taking a chance on creating something new and different. There are some great scifi stories out there that could be crafted into the next big thing. I’d rather have somebody try and fail at that than get served another helping of “been there, done that”.

Final recommendation? Skip it. Go see The Dark Knight Rises again.

Totally Inspiring Room

The living room of Anna and Caroline Burke in Lonny Mag March April 2012.

Just a quickie post. This is one of my recent faves from Lonny Mag. I hope you all are having a wonderful week! Until next time!

Summer Breezes

Indigo Shoal Asymmetric Dress at Anthropologie, $248.

I got an email from Anthropologie today with some previews of their offerings for summer. When I clicked the link this dress caught my eye. If I’m being entirely honest here, I’ve always been a sucker for deep indigo prints on white, no matter what it is (dresses, bedding, dishes…). So this is really floating my boat.

Happy Thursday!

The One That Got Away…

Dining room from Rue magazine (l) and chair currently for sale on Etsy (r).

I bought a desk not long after I returned to the Seattle area. It is a lovely CL find that I fell in love with as soon as I laid eyes on it. It needs some TLC and a nice desk chair to make feel less lonely.

So I searched and searched and somewhere along the way I had the brilliant idea that it needed to be a more modern chair, preferably with a brass finish… And I found this:

"Modern Glam Chair" from Gallivanting Girls on Etsy.

It’s brass. It’s modern. It’s beautiful. It’s also out of my part time job price range at $180. I resign myself to the fact that I’m probably going to be a wish monster galore on this one…

A couple of weeks later, I head over to Rue Magazine and lo, and behold! There is this swank little room with not one but two of those very perfect chairs. They are chrome (and not brass) but still the lovely modernist shape and with better fabric to boot.

Dining space from the February 2012 issue of Rue Magazine.

Someone out there is like me and wants this chair badly. They saw that spread in Rue too… And they can’t get their mind off of the beauty and perfection of those chairs. They want them and they’ve been searching but they can’t find them. Well, at last here it is. Solo, yes… but one is better than none. Grab it while you can. 🙂

A New Year!

I’m not a New Year’s resolution maker. I find that typically they don’t work. People rarely want to to do the day to day work required to make lasting change in their own lives. We all pretty much default to the path of least resistance. I’m guilty of it as well. So, I just tend to do what I’m doing and make changes as life comes at me.

This year I’m doing something different. Let me preface this by saying that I’m a late bloomer. I’m not twenty anymore and I’m just getting my confidence, my sea legs, for this adventure called life. It has been been scary, exhilarating, dangerous, painful, joyous, and fulfilling. And I’m not done yet…

In 2012 I’m going to take the time to cultivate my life. Make it as healthy as humanly possible. Weeding out the choking weeds, fertilizing my favorite hopes and dreams, planting new passions, nurturing maturing visions, and harvesting accomplished goals.

That’s my resolution for this year. I think with some hard work 2012 will be all anyone I can hope for in this new year.

Shame

I found this picture of an abused looking poster for director Steve McQueen‘s new film, Shame, while surfing Tumblr. As I’m a Michael Fassbender fan, I’m anxious to see this controversial film about a sex addict whose life spins out of control because of his addiction. I have to wait until January to see it here as that’s when it hits the art house in Charlotte. That’s OK. It gives me something to look forward to in the new year.

Speaking of which, can you believe that it’s almost 2012? Did this year slide off the plate or what? I hope you’re having a nice, lowkey Monday. See you tomorrow!