Tag: movie

Movies, murals, sewing

I have a few little things I want to blog about, so I guess I should do that before too much time passes!

Last Friday, George and I went to go see the documentary Three Identical Strangers that was briefly playing at a local movie theater here. I had been hearing about it for a while, ever since it was making the rounds of film festivals earlier this year, thanks to the Google notifications I get for “identical triplets.”

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In a nutshell, the movie is about a set of identical triplets that were separated at birth and reunited, just by sheer happenstance, 19 years later. It’s heart-wrenching and emotional and funny and sad and tears rolled down my face for the first thirty minutes and then I pulled myself together. It was just so good and so thought-provoking and if you can see it, you should. If only I could have worn a shirt that said “Mom of Identical Triplets” so I could have gotten free popcorn or something. Or a free daiquiri. The movie theater had daiquiris. I could have used one.

Later that day, I went to the first day of a sewing class at a local store, which was so amazing and exhausting. The goal was to make a box-pleated skirt. By the end of the weekend I had spent 11 hours in the store, and I still didn’t have a finished skirt. I still don’t. Still have some work to do on it. Heh. But it’s going to be amazing. And I learned so much! I will have an in-depth blog post about it later, once the skirt is all finished, but I have about 20 feet of hem to hand-sew so it might be a little bit.

Sneak peek:

And then the other day, my friend Jenn told me about a mural that a local artist painted last month on the side of a building of a French soccer star. Well, obviously I had to take the boys, so we went yesterday on the way to soccer. It was pretty cool! Oliver was less than thrilled, as this guy, Paul Pogba plays for Manchester United (when he’s not playing for the French national team) and Oliver is a Manchester City fan. Kids.

 

The Great Race!

Here it is, the film you’ve all been waiting for (I mean, since last Friday, at least.)

THE GREAT RACE

Who will explode in a fiery crash? Who will fall in a volcano? Who will lose their engine because of a ninja? Who will win!?!?

You have to watch and see…

Thanks to the Mini Art Center for such a fantastic week!

Miles’s movie star adventures, take 2

Yesterday Miles had his second day of filming. I was not super excited when I got our call time of 7:30 am, especially since it meant driving to Baton Rouge beforehand. The movie biz isn’t all glamour, y’all.

We were about 20 minutes away from the set when I got a call from a PA asking if we could get there sooner, because they wanted to get Miles’s scene done first. Fortunately, we were on track to get there about 15 minutes early.

Once we got there, of course, there was a little waiting around. Miles had a snack and after not too long, we were called to the set. (Man, I sound so knowledgeable with all my movie lingo, eh?)

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In the library stairwell. Can you tell he’s excited and a bit nervous?

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A bit more waiting.

Finally, it was time for Miles! His scene involved an elevator. The director had him practice a few times.

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Remember, his last scene was at the pool, so he had to wear the same bathing suit, and get wet down. They used water and baby oil so it would bead up and look shiny, I guess.

Action!

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Gotta keep the talent warm between takes.

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Rehearsing for another part of the scene.

Soon, he was all done! The crew all cheered for him when they said, “this is Miles’s picture wrap” or “Miles is picture wrapped” or “wrap picture for Miles.” I dunno, some kind of lingo I didn’t quite pick up about him being done with his scenes. I also heard someone say he has a bright future ahead of him, so I am pretty much assuming he is going to be taking me to the Oscars one day.

But in all seriousness, I don’t know if this is the beginning or end of his acting career, but I’m glad he had the opportunity. It’s kind of tricky when filming involves missing a day of school, but hopefully there will more chances coming up.

Miles is a movie star, part 1

IMG_9887Today Miles and I went to Baton Rouge so he could be in a movie!

A while back, Miles said he wanted to be an actor. So I added him to an extras casting website, and every so often, if I saw something he was qualified for, I’d submit him. Recently one came up for kids in a pool scene, and it was for today, which is a school holiday, so I figured, why not?

Lo and behold, I got a call on Wednesday saying the director wanted him to be a featured extra! Which, I don’t know, means he was just a little bit more of a special extra.

When the casting person said, “he’ll be playing a drowned child. Is that okay with you?” the amazing mother that I am said, “SUUUURE of course that’s cool!” I didn’t actually tell Miles he’d be playing a dead kid until we were on our way today.

We got to the set at about 9 this morning. I was doing everything I could to pretend I knew what I was doing, but I did not. I think I managed not to look like a complete idiot, at least.

When we arrived, the makeup person said they were going to cover his body in blue dead-looking paint, but in the end, since he was freshly drowned, it wasn’t necessary. Bummer. That would’ve been even cooler. Miles was v jealous of the other kid who got to be covered in blood. Maybe next time.

IMG_9725Anyway, after much waiting and watching them film some scenes by the pool, it was Miles’s turn! The director said, “okay, just get in the pool and hold your breath and float face down.”

I was skeptical. It was 56 degrees when we got there, so I’m sure the water was frigid. But Miles was game. He got in the pool, and turns out, while he can swim, he can’t really do the dead man’s float. After a bit of sputtering, the director was like, “oh hey, that’s fine, Miles, we’ll just have you dead on the side of the pool.”

(Everyone was v nice.)

So Miles climbed out, laid on the ground, and they took a bunch of pics. (He’s only dead in a photograph in the movie, in this scene.)

After that was done, he was in the background of some scenes, playing by the pool, apparently freaking out the main character, who I guess is thinking he’s seeing a dead kid? I’m not completely clear on the plot of this movie. I suspect it’s a thriller or a horror movie or something. It’s not in IMDb yet.

So after they did a zillion takes of that scene, from different angles, Miles was done! Except we didn’t find out we were done for about three hours, wherein Miles got very bored. Eventually, we were told we could leave.

But we’ll be going back in a few weeks to film another creepy scene (the casting people sent me that part of the script.) Should be interesting!

Power Rangers Megaforce: Showdown {world premiere}

Introducing…

an original motion picture event…

Written and directed by Linus…

who also stars, alongside his brothers Oliver and Miles…

It’s

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I actually had more fun than I expected “helping out,” (i.e., doing all camerawork and post-production and dealing with temperamental artists) and I was impressed with how much work the boys put into it.

Watch out, Sundance!

Friday five

Five things for today:

– Miles has a dance competition tonight. I don’t know what’s going to kill me first, this or the movie we’re working on. (Coming soon…very soon.) I’m not sure if I’m going to see the tango for the first time, but if it’s anywhere near as cute as the merengue or the swing, I’m doomed.

– I’ve been having pain in my achilles’ tendon for a couple of months now, and I finally made an appointment with an orthopedist to get it checked out. It turns out I have, as I suspected, achilles’ tendinitis, so I’ll be starting physical therapy next week to get that worked on. I was oddly proud when the doctor told me I had the tightest achilles’ tendon he’d felt all day! (How many achilles’ tendons does he feel in a day? A lot, I guess. He is the practice’s ankle expert, after all.)

I can’t run until it’s not pissed off at me anymore, so now I go to the gym and die of boredom on the bike or elliptical instead. I know lots of people think treadmills are boring, but you can run or walk or do intervals or go fast but on a bike or elliptical, you just…ride a bike or do whatever it’s called on an elliptical.

– A couple of weeks ago, when we came back from DC, I started a rotation on a new team. It’s really cool to learn a different side of things from what I’m used to. And on that note, if you have a passion for WordPress and helping people, we’re hiring.

Screenshot 2015-05-15 10.45.56– Yesterday was George’s birthday and at his request, even though it’s spring in Louisiana, I made beef and barley stew. I have to say, it was incredibly delicious. I used this recipe from Williams-Sonoma, but subbed out beef broth for all of the water, I used bone-in short ribs for most of the meat (took the bones out at the very end) and threw in a parmesan rind. Oh, and a dollop of red wine. I was using all of the tricks I could think of, and they worked. Man, it was good.

That’s four. Hmm. Here are some random photos, then.

Linus invented a game. I can’t figure it out, it’s way over my head.
The boys finally WANT to read. The trick was just figuring out what…
Dinner out with my triplet mamas!
My ankle got x-rayed.
New shoes for our trip to England, which is coming up soon! They will hopefully work for the “hiking” we’ll be doing (i.e., walking from pub to pub) in the Lake District.

Coming soon…an original motion picture

Linus is the brains behind the boys’ newest project, a movie involving Power Rangers and a ninja and some other stuff. I’m just the hired help.

We filmed over two days and now I just have to edit it all together and add special effects. I’m a little nervous about that part, since I only have iMovie. Maybe I can convince Uncle Evan to give it a little pizzazz. (Hint.)

It was actually pretty awesome to watch Linus and his brothers create this. There were costumes, a script, the fights were even choreographed!

part of the script
If this doesn’t shred your heart into a million pieces…I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

I was able to get some behind-the-scenes photos. I guess I’ll use these in the inevitable “behind-the-scenes” documentary.

And what you’ve all been waiting for…the movie’s trailer that I put together last night. Gotta build up some buzz, you know.

Sonic had an epic adventure, apparently

In their quest to make movies as goofy as Uncle Evan, Miles and Linus filmed a story about Sonic and some other hedgehogs. It’s kind of violent, but at least the actors are stuffed, so they don’t get hurt too badly. I’ll admit, the plot goes over my head a little bit, maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough.

I’m trying to get as many views on this video as possible, just to give the boys a little thrill. So grab the closest kid and watch this piece of movie history (and a tour of my messy house, thanks boys.)

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4/28/08

Oh now, look what I’ve done. I shouldn’t have blogged every day last week. Now I’ve gone and set a precedent. We’ll see if I can keep this up, but I fear our life just isn’t interesting enough to justify a post every day. Maybe I’ll start doing interesting things just so I can write about it. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve done that a lot! Why do you think I had triplets? My blog was v dull before that.

(I kid, of course.)

This weekend was pretty rough. Well, I should say, most of it was. We had babysitters on Saturday night. My coworker Robert and his wife and son and my other coworker David came over to watch the boys. I think they’ll never make the mistake of offering to babysit ever again, because the boys didn’t do what they usually do at night. Usually, they go to sleep at 6:30 or 7 after their bottle at 6ish. But no. They didn’t want to do that. Stinkers! They wanted to stay awake and play! Meanwhile, George and I went and saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Funny! I love going to movies, and I’m sad that we hardly ever get to go to them anymore.

Yesterday was the rough day. We stayed at home most of the day. I did take Linus grocery shopping with me, and he was v good the entire time. But the boys started getting very cranky way too early. So they ended up going to bed earlier than usual. Fortunately they slept pretty well last night, from about 6:30 – 6:30, only waking up at 12:30 to eat. Can’t really complain about that! Though I do long for the day when they don’t wake up at all in the middle of the night. That will be heaven!

Tonight, if the weather is good, we’re going walking with the girls. I live for these walks. It’s a big pain to get the boys all ready for the walk, but it’s so worth it. Next week, it’ll be easier. We’re getting a v fancy new stroller, purchased as a gift by a group of my friends. I’m incredibly lucky to have such kind and generous friends. Check out this puppy:
http://www.strollers.com/asp/show_detail.asp?sku=PGR1200&refid=FR67-PGR1200
(Sorry, can’t post a picture when I’m posting via email.)

It’s like the Cadillac of strollers!

Okay, must be off now…

7/29/05

Well, my sister was right. (You won’t catch me saying THAT very often.) Wedding Crashers was hilarious. George even loved it. He loved it so much he didn’t even mind that there were three little old ladies sitting behind us exclaiming at everything slightly shocking. That was entertaining in itself. I don’t think they were very shocked, either. I think they liked Vince Vaughn.

Went to pick out tuxes last night. Suddenly I can’t wait to see George in a tux. I don’t want to see him until the wedding in it. Is that traditional? I don’t know. But I want it to be a surprise, like him seeing me in my dress. However, don’t think this means I let him have a free hand in choosing tuxes. No way. He’d pick the Matrix-style tux if I left him alone. I know better than that.

This weekend should be fun. Have some fun plans.

Don’t want to say too much, but let’s just say next Thursday, you people are going to be clamoring for my autograph. Tee hee!

Blog is back!

Moved the blog back here, as it won’t be a training blog anymore. At least not until the next marathon…

This weeked I worked at the ticket booth for the neighborhood home tour, and met a woman, Romie, who belongs to a running group called the 26.2 Krewe. Or something like that. I’ve seen then running around Lafreniere Park. I’m thinking about joining them. She’s supposed to send me some information. Who knows, maybe I’ll do the Mardi Gras Marathon after all! But I’ll keep the blog here for now, anyway.

Dressed up as a witch for Halloween, along with everyone else in our department. As a whole we won the “Most Original” prize in the costume contest. (Yeah, a bunch of witches…but we sang a song…) Our prize is a $50 gift certificate to the bar at the Windsor Court. Ooooh, fancy! But there were nine of us, so we may be able to afford a Sprite each. Ha. After work went to a Halloween party on my street. Fun. Hot dogs. Yum.

George and I went and saw Love Actually, a British romantic comedy. We loved it. It really was great, highly recommend. We saw a sneak preview, I think it’ll be out in two weeks or something.