An Extra is Born!

This morning I took Annie to her first ever job on a movie set. I don’t know who was more excited Annie or me! She is an extra in a movie called The A-List which is filming at her high school. She plays a “High Schooler”. She had to bring her High Schooler clothes, electronics and other High Schooler equipment.

I’ve never been on a movie set before, I probably still haven’t but I have now been in an Extras Holding Area, must have something to do with Cattle Calls. There were about 20 kids +/- in a classroom at the high school. It’s the same high school that I went to. Well it’s on the same property, the high school I went to was razed and the current magnificent high school was built. Other than that, I don’t know much, since as her mother, she requested that I leave tout de suite. More details tomorrow.

In honor of Annie’s new found movie extradom, I was going to post a list of my favorite movies. But I’m not going to. I thought about it and while many people on WordPress have done Top 10 movie lists, not one of them has done a list of my favorite movies, which is bullshit. I’m not doing their work for them.

This is my Top 10 List of movies everyone thought were great and I didn’t or that are considered to be great and I haven’t seen them.

1. Atonement. I saw this in the theater with my friend, Danni. When it was over, she asked me if I liked it and I said absolutely not and she said, “Good because if you did, we couldn’t be friends anymore.” This movie was considered one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007. It was stupid. It was so self-consciously aware of how artistic and haunting it was. Kiera Knightley is beautiful and is capable of expressing the full range of emotions from A to B, as my father would say. Atonement angered me. I have no idea what film critics and award committees were thinking.  Yes, the little girl was creepy, but other than that? Nuttin’ honey. Go see this movie if you want to lose two hours and three minutes of your life for no good reason at all.

Oh Miss Knightley, you are so thin and brooding.

2. No Country For Old Men. This movie won the 2007 Best Picture Oscar. I haven’t seen it. I’ve heard it’s good (really Maggie, where?) but I think the violence would be too much for me. Also, I try to read Cormac McCarthy novels but I can’t get into them.

3. Forrest Gump. What? I never understood what the hell was the big deal about this movie? I think by the time Mitch and I saw it on video we had heard too much about how amazing it is and it really wasn’t. Sure amazing if it were a true story but really kind of silly as fiction. But the movie was taken so seriously, that they couldn’t have been going for silly.

4. Shakespeare in Love. To begin with Gwyneth Paltrow just flat out bugs, irritates and annoys me like a persistent rash.  And I think it is complete ass-hattery that this movie won the Best Picture Oscar and Saving Private Ryan didn’t. What??!! The Weinstein Brothers bought that award. Oh, and no I have never seen Shakespeare in Love and I’m not going to. I will judge this movie by its cover and not see it.

Oh wow Gwyn, I thought you were a man. And you know what else? I don’t like Coldplay either.

5. The English Patient. More than one person in my life has likened me to Elaine on Seinfeld. Just like Elaine, I have not seen this movie and I’m not going to. I don’t even know why I’m not going to because I love Kristin Scott Thomas. I’m just not gonna do it.

No! We are not going to see the English Patient!

6. Apocalypse Now. My dad took my brother to see this movie. He said it wasn’t for girls so I didn’t get to go. And now I’ve gone so long without seeing it, I’m a little freaked out to see it. It’s in my Netflix queue just waiting for me. I gotta man up and just push play.

7. The Wizard of Oz. You can see I’m getting a little controversial here; that’s what I do. I upend the status quo. You never know what pot I’ll stir. The movie was fine. It scared me as a kid but I always watched it because back in those days, it was on TV once a year and if you wanted to see it, that was your chance. But really not my fave and those freakin’ flying monkeys.

I don’t care how old I get, Flying Monkeys are scary.

8. Titanic. This list is in no particular order so if you want to mix it around and put this movie on the top, you should feel free. I knew going in that this was an overblown, over-hyped movie. What pisses me off the most, okay second most after what an ass James Cameron was at the Oscars, is there were plenty of amazing true stories in the sinking of the Titanic, there was no need to create a completely implausible romance. I hated this movie. Hated it.

Best part of the movie

9. Avatar. Never going to see it because of how much I loathe James Cameron and it’s not my kind of movie anyway. I loved that Cameron’s ex-wife won Best Director that year for The Hurt Locker, which is a great movie. Haha king of the world.

James is such a joker, he doesn’t really want to choke his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow for winning the Oscar. He’s happy for her.

10. Dirty Dancing. Who doesn’t flinch when they hear, “No one puts Baby in the corner.” Gah!!! RIP Patrick Swayze but really “she’s like the wind through my tree”? Wha? I honestly would have walked out of this movie but my roommate, Laurie, wouldn’t let me.

And as a postscript and knowing this will upset my sister…. 40 Year Old Virgin…meh, not so much.