Yes, it's been a while and I thought today is the day! After all that happened at last night's Oscars I am compelled to update my blog with all the wonderful goings-on of my life and the life that I observe around me.
First off: MARTIN SCORSESE FINALLY WON!
Hopefully this makes up for the fact that
Dances With Wolves beat out
Goodfellas in 1990. But really how could it? Raging Bull being beat out by the tear-soaked Ordinary People? That's gotta still smart. Back in '90 I of course was just a young lass of 17 who worshipped at the feet of Costner and I truly creamed myself with joy when his little Indian-Picture-that-could won. Now I look back and think: Are you fucking kidding me? It's way worse than Pacino winning for
Scent of a Woman. WAY.
But let us focus on the near perfection that is
The Departed. I saw this movie in Los Angeles at the Mann's Chinese 6 with Mary Pat Farrell. We were both beside ourselves with anxiety for much of the film. It was exhausting. It was exhilarating. When I say near perfect I mean it: we could only come up with one thing that stood out as a bit troubling in the storytelling: what was in the yellow envelope? Never explained. Never addressed. Only we have to jump a couple of steps and say, well obviously it was all this information about Damon and obviously Dicaprio had instructed her to take it to Wahlberg if and when he became one of the departed (you like that?). But the thing is...usually we get some sort of indication...we don't usually have to piece it
all together without even a little showy showy. Anyway: minor minor minor complaint. I fucking loved this film, I loved Leonardo in it and don't know what the fuck all this Blood Diamond shit is about and I LOVE that Martin Scorsese finally won his mother fucking Oscar and for such a kick as film! Some say it "unravelled" at the end and they just killed everybody and I have two things to say to those people: "Fuck Off" and "Hamlet".
So last night I'm watching the Oscars at the Highland Gardens hotel on Franklin Avenue here in LA. My friend Kristen Hager (fabulous young actress soon to be seen in the Bob Dylan bio-pic
I'm Not There opposite Cate Blanchett) lives at the Highland Gardens right now and the HG is quite popular amongst Canuck actors who come into town for pilot season. It was quite a mellow night at the HG, considering it's usually overrun with young bearded assholes who think they're Ryan Gosling waiting to be discovered.
The thing I could not get over was the fact not only was I in town for the Oscars (first time...last year I had just arrived in frigid Halifax to do a couple episodes of
This Hour Has 22 Minutes and watched the program in my apartment-hotel with some way over-priced Thai take out and a sad sappy face that said: this is the most boring Oscars EVER)--
so here I was last night, not only
in town but
down the fucking street from the Oscars! Los Angeles was kind of a mad house yesterday...every bloody cop who ever took a shift, who ever took a cop class, even the ones on suspension were working yesterday. Mainly guarding streets that were shut down and designated as a limo-only zone. I stopped at the Trader Joe's to pick some tequila, limes and nibblies before heading to Kristen's and it was INSANE. I have never seen the TD's like this. It wasn't this busy before the Superbowl or Thanksgiving! And that is when I said: this is where you live. A town where at 3 pm on a Sunday the Trader Joe's was running out of beer and those mushroom pastry appetizers I love because the Oscars were starting in two hours.
Yes, the Oscars start at 5:30 here because of the time difference so I was drunk when it was still light out. We had a great time. We did a last minute Oscar poll and Kristen and her man James tied for first (I came in next -- I picked
Pan's Labyrinth over
The Lives of Others for best foreign film! -- both of these films are my top picked for the year and it was so hard to think which would win!)
Overall, I'd have to say the Oscars started off pretty great with the honoring of the nominees and that insanely hilarious song from Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly...and the montage sequences for Foreign Films (and the odd and obligatory montage of American films--what was that??)--they seemed to put some thought into making the top of the show flashy and fun to help us recover from the fact that they are no longer handing out the supporting actor and actress awards at the top of the show...something they used to do, I suppose, to get people focused and whet their appetite a bit for the big awards that weren't gonna be handed out for another THREE hours.
I didn't mind the change but man, that middle section was brutal, wasn't it? Oh for the days of the Debbie Allen-choreographed dance sequence!
So what else? I'm living in Echo Park, which is not far from downtown LA and not far from Hollywood either. My neighborhood is right next to Silverlake, which is one of the cool, hip neighborhoods. We like to think that Echo Park is so cool and upcoming that it is infact the coolest. All my neighbours, save a few, are Mexican. I love it. The sounds and smells of my building and my neighborhood are unlike anything I've lived in before. I eat so much freaking Mexican food, I'm starting to think my corn intake is way too high.
I love it here. I'm subletting from a young female filmmaker/artist named Crystal and she is coming back from out of town in less than three weeks and I'm gonna have to figure out what I am doing for the next month or two. At this point I don't really know if/when I am heading back to Toronto: waiting to hear April 1st if my play,
Them & Us got in to the Summerworks Theatre Festival. Idon'twanttothinkaboutthissoIamchangingthe subject. UGH.
Since coming to LA I have been lucky enough to live in West Hollywood, Hollywood proper, Silverlake and now Echo Park. I REALLY want to live in Los Feliz...the coolest neighborhood ever (as far as I can see)--actually Silverlake, Los Feliz and Echo Park are all kind of nestled together on the east side and right near the 101 highway.
My pal Marya and I went to the Los Feliz 3 cinema on Friday night and finally saw
Pan's Labyrinth and I loved it so much I can't wait to see it again. I think my favourite movies of 2006 are: THE DEPARTED, PAN'S LABYRINTH, THE LOVES OF OTHERS, THE HOST (GWOEMUL).
I also loved Spike Lee's
Inside Man alot but it was Lee's
When the Levees Broke that made one of the biggest impressions on me this past year. If anyone is reading this I must urge you to rent it and marvel in it's mastery and poetry and humanity and tragedy. It is art and it should be required viewing (for the US government anyway)
So I'm here in LA...should be at my actor audition camp this morning but I've taken the morning off! Just had to sleep and now I'm gonna make a kick ass breakfast, run, take my recycling to the depot (ya, you have to haul it over and get your money...I want my five cents!) and then tonight I have a casting workshop...this is where a casting director comes and pairs up actors and gives them scenes from shows they work on and you get ten minutes to work on it with your partner and then you do them for the CD and then they remember you and call you in for jobs. It's a very cool situation here and it there are alot of them. I was super lucky to get in on one where you a)don't have to audition just to attend and b)don't have to pay some initiation fee just to attend...I just pay per workshop. And I hear ALL THE TIME that people get called in for auditions and book jobs from these workshops...so here I am doing my bit!
I've gone in for some good pilots: one from the guy who created My Name Is Earl, one from Mitch Hurwitz (who created Arrested Development)...Oh and I was really fortunate to get an audition for Curb Your Enthusiasm (the audition is you go in and improvise with Larry-------HELLO.) so that was insanely intense and amazingly fun.
I must bid farewell loveys. I will try and not wait so long to write stuff here. It really was a shame I let it go so long.
KEEP THE FAITH, ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT, EXPECT THAT IT IS COMING.
love, Tracy
