I had to work Inventory at work again last night. I was scheduled until 3 am and actually managed to leave at 3:30 (but only because I was giving a colleague a ride home, and she was scheduled to work today… I’m sure I would have been there until 5 am or later again. F that).

So, I got home just after 4 this morning. I planned ahead and had a juice box and Chex Mix waiting for me in my room… yum. I watched last week’s episode of Modern Family and then read some more of a Carol Burnett book I’m reading and finally went to bed around 5:15 am. I woke up 5 hours later, still bonkers tired.

After a snack I played my mom in some Wii Sports. My back and arms hurt really bad from Inventory (seems that all the work-safety rules about lifting heavy boxes are scrapped when it comes to Inventory… so I was lifting way too heavy stuff and being forced to sit/squat/bend over for extended periods of time to scan barcodes so I was all out of whack by time I woke up), so I wasn’t quite up to par. I still did all right.

After lunch, I went and saw True Grit. I hadn’t seen the original and I purposefully didn’t read up on the plot (though I have seen the trailer a bunch of times). I usually dig Coen Brothers movies (with the big exceptions of The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty and No Country for Old Men), and I dug True Grit. (Though, at one point in the movie, Mattie said the words “true grit,” and I hate when movies flat out say a title like that… see also Life as a House, etc…)

Besides my unwavering love for Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, I really liked Hailee Steinfeld and her character, Mattie Ross. That girl was smart, had an excellent vocabulary, wouldn’t take crap from anyone, and was the perfect balance of independent and knowing when she needed help. Mattie Ross is one of the few teenage girl characters that I would consider to be a good role model for younger female viewers. She wasn’t swoony, she wasn’t vain, she didn’t cry or lose her temper when things didn’t go her way, she wasn’t manipulated by anybody, she didn’t cave in to peer pressure, she stood up for herself and what she thought was right… I could go on and on. But my point is, is that younger female viewers should be more exposed to characters like her and not ones like, oh I dunno… Bella Swan.

(I could go on an epic tangent about how much I dislike Bella Swan [and a majority of the other characters] in the Twilight Saga. Now, before you hate on me for my opinion, know that I read all four Twilight books and saw all three of the movies that were released thus far. Hell, I have the first one on DVD. [I got it for $4 at a Hollywood video because I was interested in hearing the audio commentary to see if the director and actors had any excuses for how the movie turned out. They didn’t.] I could write about this forever, but I will just briefly say that Bella is more of an object to Jacob and Edward and has such low self esteem that I don’t think young girls should even want to be like her.)

But I digress. Mattie Ross (and Hailee Steinfeld) were a joy to watch. That girl had some serious gumption.

Also, what I loved most about the movie were some of the amazingly stunning shots. I love epics… and westerns have the potential to show nature and America as this gorgeous, sprawling, open space. My two favorite shots of the many, many favorite shots I had were (1) the wide shot of that guy hanging from the tree when Mattie and Cogburn ride up on their horses and (2) the first rear-shot of Cogburn throwing cornbread up in the air to shoot it. Excellent use of framing, camera angles and color. Just beautiful.

Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper all gave solid performances (as usual), but I walked away from that movie really being impressed with Steinfeld.

After the movie I was going to go to Target and then get gas in my car, but I was too tired and traffic was too bad, so I went home. Mom and I had dinner and watched a couple reruns of HIMYM. Who doesn’t love the Swarley/crazy eyes episode? And there was also the one where Ted runs into Stella and then she asks him to talk to Tony after Tony breaks up with her. Although my favorite part of this episode is the scene where Robin, Ted and Marshall talk about the murder house, Stella actually has my favorite monologue (and I *hate* Stella). It’s when she and Ted are sitting in the car and Ted says that he’s tired of waiting for the kind of love that Lily and Marshall have. And Stella (blah) tells him the joke about getting out of a speeding ticket. (I am epically paraphrasing this, but…) She says that she got pulled over by a cop. The cop saunters over to her car and says, “Missy, I’ve been waiting for you all day.” And she says, “I’m sorry, sir. I got here as fast as I could.” And then she tells Ted that the right girl for him is out there, and it may take a little while longer, but she’s getting there as fast as she can.

Awwwwwwwwwww, right?

And then there was Glee 🙂 It was a rerun of “Duets”, an episode that j’adore because it has so much music in it. And it has my favorite musical performance of the season… Finn and Rachel singing “With You I’m Born Again“. LOVE IT! (btw – I gushed about this episode in a prior post… which is why I’m not gushing now.)

Poor Kurt… he just wanted to sing with Sam. You can totally tell that the writers were seeing if they wanted to make Sam’s character gay or straight. I’m glad they kept him straight and he’s with Quinn… I don’t think Kurt and Sam would have made a good couple (though I know there are tons of people out there who ship Kurt and Sam. More power to them… but I am Team Klaine any day of the week).

I wish new Glee episodes started now instead of February. But, until then, I shall watch reruns and prep for the Golden Globes (Sunday!) and other movie awards ceremonies. (As much as I heart Glee, movie/television/broadway awards shows are my drug of choice.)

Anyway, off to bed… gotta get up early for work tomorrow. Blah

Have a good one!