AMC Best Picture Showcase 2010

A couple of years ago I went to the AMC Best Picture Showcase (you remember: Juno , No Country For Old Men, Atonement,  Michael Clayton ) and it was AMAZING! However, some of it was painful (There Will Be Blood was like watching his life in real-time, ugh!) The good part was that you can just get up and leave the theatre if you want to skip a film! Full Day Pass Baby!*

For the most part, I felt like I accomplished something. I successfully sat on my ass for an entire day, ate a lot of movie theatre crap and watched FIVE films.

The Answer

To Be or Not To Be...a lawyer, that WAS the question. Until recently. Now that I've been practicing law for the past three and a half years, I realize that I would rather play a lawyer on tv or on film.

While I was plowing my way through law school, I thought I wanted to be a trial attorney because I would get to "perform." Well litigation, thus far, sucks ass.

The only performance I give is pretending NOT to hate the face of the opposing counsel who is usually an obnoxious Plaintiff's attorney. Or when I put on my sheath dress and Audrey it up with pearls in my lawyer-uniform. I'd much rather wear a t-shirt and jeans.

Litigation was supposed to be fun! Much better than sitting in a stuffy office. That trial methods course I took in law school was a total lie. It was the most fun I'd had in law school because I was pretending. I had a script, I played a witness, then the prosecutor and it was fun! Don't get me wrong, I sometimes have fun deposing a witness or arguing a motion in Court, (ok that's a lie, its not fun. Its stressful and I hate it), but its nothing like that course in law school.

All this time what I really wanted was a forum where I could let the creative juices flow (hence the painting, teaching, writing, blogging, tweeting, etc). Law school was something I had to do, to prove I could do it, to make everyone proud, and to prove everyone wrong who doubted me. But this acting thing, well, I gotta do it for me, no matter the result. The only thing I need "To Be,"is happy.And I'm on my way.

"Think Green" with your Time

With so much focus on saving the environment before its too late, I often think of what "too late" means. Consider this quote from the film "A lot like love:"

"This is your life, right now, it doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet."

Ashton Kutchers character wanted to get his "ducks in a row" before he actually lived. Many of us believe things have to be a certain way & that we have to do certain things to be successful people. Yet all around us the world is whispering: act now- don't wait.

Life is happening regardless of whether we try to postpone it until we're "ready." We need to save ourselves from ourselves before its too late. Before time withers away in a blink and we sit there stunned at our wastefulness, scrambling to get bits & pieces back, simply because we were too afraid to just BE.

So take that trip, see that friend, take that class, leave that job, love with your whole heart. Take that chance. Go dance, sing & be merry, because all we have is NOW and no one promises tomorrow.

My favorite line from 'Frida'

" I don't believe in marriage...I think at worst it's a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it's a happy delusion - these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they're about to make each other. But, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don't think it's conservative or delusional. I think it's radical and courageous and very romantic." What a wild concept and one that I have held as true, in part because I have witnessed the failure of so many marriages. Maybe fear has me clinging to this quote, or rather, just being hopeful and realisitic at the same time (if that's possible).