Back in my Corner

I did it. Somehow I managed to get this rewrite done, delivered this morning, after it had loomed over me like this huge impossible task. Doesn’t it always feel that way? Impossible — until you just shut up and do it!

So now I’m back in my corner — there’s good company to be found there — catching my breath, getting my encouraging pats on the back, and having a sip of water before delivering another script on the 9th. That’s Genie/Jutra weekend.

In the meantime I’m pausing here for lunch with MJ, there for Nuit Blanche, and over there for dinner with Myr. Need to get away for a couple of days. And then  finally introducing Jube to JG here in Montreal (JG to me, before a recent dinner on St-Laurent: “Do you want to invite Julien to dinner — since you’ll be referring to him every 2 seconds?” Ha!) I expect they’ll fall in love of the brom-com variety and forget about me forever.

Before I run off (literally, I’m going for a run), I want to send my sincere thanks to SODEC for their announcement last Friday and for their  continued support of my various projects. Thank you, SODEC!

My sister is coming back from Korea in just over a month, fiance in tow! So, let the wedding planning begin! I’ll have to add weddinggawker to my gawking collection (dwellinggawker and foodgawker). Does that mean I have to become that kind of girl?

The Strong Silent Type: CDP’s 2012 Oscar Predictions

Ah yes, I know this feeling.

I’m cutting it close this year because I’m swamped. I’m so swamped that my relationships are beginning to feel like the one pictured above. I don’t even think I’ll have the time to watch the Oscars because I’ll be up to my eyeballs in rewrites. One of which is so complex and tightly-knit that it requires absolutely all the concentration I can muster. I’ve even got a bristol board on the wall of my office adorned (read: overwhelmed) with colour-coded post-its and colour-coded Sharpie markings.

But my prediction is this: The Artist will sweep this year, and the red carpet will be in contrast with the black and white reigning film. Dresses will be in bold and bright;  emerald, canary yellow, or crisp winter whites. Also, based on New York and London Fashion Week trends (nevermind Montreal — ouf!), expect lots of Gatsby-reminiscent 20s fringe.

I’ll wake up the next morning and check the style pages on my iPad hoping to catch a glimpse of some new Reem Acra. I love Reem Acra. I’ve never loved any designer more than I love Reem Acra. If I ever marry, my dress will be Reem Acra. I will get married JUST so I can wear something Reem Acra. Erm, maybe not. But I will make point of working my way to the Oscars for it. Or I’ll certainly try to.

This is a dress you sadly will not see at this years Oscars. But I love it so let's pause and admire it for a moment.

Ok, so my full predictions are as follows. I haven’t seen all of the films so there’s some additional guesswork on that front, but I kept an eye on how these films fared with other awards. And off we go:

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin in The Artist

Best Actress: Viola Davis in The Help (or a possible upset by Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer in Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer in The Help

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash for The Descendants

Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris

Best Animated Feature: Rango

Best Documentary Feature: If a Tree Falls

Best Foreign Language Film: Sadly, I expect our Monsieur Lazhar to lose out to Iran’s A Separation

Best Art Direction: Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo for Hugo

Best Cinematography: Guillaume Schiffman for The Artist

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell for Hugo

Best Film Editing: Thelam Schoonmaker for Hugo

Best Makeup: Marese Langan, Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland for The Iron Lady

Best Original Score: Ludovic Bource for The Artist

Best Original Song: Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, Siedah Garrett for Real in Rio from the film Rio 

Best Sound Editing: Eugene Gearty, Philip Stockton for Hugo

Best Sound Mixing: Tom Fleischman, John Midgley for Hugo

Best Visual Effects: Robert Legato, Edson Williams, Ben Grossman, Alex Henning for Hugo 

Best Animated Short: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Best Documentary Short: God is Bigger than Elvis

Best Live-Action Short: Raju

Ok, now I know that the count here has The Artist at 5 wins and Hugo at 6, but I also think that The Artist will win one category in which I don’t expect them to. Which will either tie them with Hugo, or snag a win in a category that I expect will go to Hugo. In any case, I expect 2012 to at least feel like it was the year for The Artist.

And there you have it! Put on your nicest threads, sit back, and enjoy! And if Monsieur Lazhar wins, someone call me so I can pause to celebrate!

On the fringe.

Valentine's Day mood lighting, screenwriter-style

Mmm. It’s only just after 10:30 p.m. and I’m already under my duvet with my laptop and I’ve got the Drive soundtrack playing on low on my iPhone dock and a pot of cinnamon tea at my bedside.  I’m tuckered out from a day of walking the city (Outremont -> Westmount; Westmount -> Old Port; Old Port -> Outremont), a lunch meeting, a soak, a steam, and a haircut. Life is so hard, right? (Also: one of these things doesn’t belong.)

But really, thank goodness for today; the volume of work I’ve been churning out is verging on obscene. I needed to resuscitate myself because the rest of the week is filled with story meetings, lunch meetings, and deadlines. It doesn’t help that I’ve been having trouble sleeping for absolutely no (read: absolutely a million) reasons.

But who cares, the big news is that I got my hair cut! Stop the presses! My bangs are now actually bangs again! I can see!

I recently had dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and he asked me why I had decided to let the bangs grow out in the first place. I offered two very good reasons: 1) I stopped having time to cut my hair; and 2) I had decided that the bangs made me look too young and I was tired of being asked for ID any time I wanted to replenish the Ardbeg (as though I were buying wine coolers or some similar crap).

“I’m trying to be more womanly,” I elaborated playfully, trying to make my voice all breathy and sexy (in other words, the opposite of what it actually is). And then he said something really interesting. He said he didn’t buy it.

He and I often return to the subject of self-fashioning and very often it becomes the subject of my writing:

Excerpt from Penny on the Verge

But this time my friend suggested that the register of my voice, my [spoken] diction, and my slightly adolescent physicality have all been conscious choices. Selections, even. You know, like an outfit.

So what? You’re absolutely right. His suggestion isn’t very far-fetched; in the case of my idiolect, for sure, I’m extremely conscious of how I speak to different audiences. But I never considered my voice or physicality to be a part of my projected persona. Emphasis here on the word projected. And what’s more: he suggested that if what I really wanted was to be more womanly, that I would simply act more womanly. That I would move like a woman and speak in the voice of a woman, that I would be less self-deprecating, less self-effacing, less awkward, less playful, and essentially that I would undermine myself less in how I present myself and my ideas. He’s well-versed on this topic, of course, because he’s a man who has made quite a career for himself based on the fact that he speaks in a way that just makes people listen up. But I found this conversation to be more than a little perplexing. I’m trying to imagine sitting at the dinner table in the country with my family, or having coffee with a friend, or giving a lecture, or taking a story meeting, and speaking in a different tone of voice (different how? I can’t even imagine), changing the way I gesticulate and express, you know, facially. I mean, imagine how strange that would be, in particular for those of you who know me personally.

It would take all of 20 seconds before someone would call me on it and ask me what the f*ck I was up to. “Oh, I’m just trying on a new persona — you like?” No. Nope. I’m afraid I can’t do that. The hope is that the audience will listen more to what I’m saying than how I’m saying it. Which, I realize, is the opposite of how it actually works. (Example: Oh, I don’t know, Hitler.) But I imagine one day I will naturally stop projecting like a 20-year old. In fact, today — even with my bangs — a woman at a restaurant guessed that I was 28. 28, people! Nobody’s thought I looked 28 since I was 17 or so! Not only that, but she said I was “chic.” Ha-ha-ha. Things are looking up, my friends!

Hey, you know who else has great fringe? The girl from The Chromatics. Who have a song on the Drive soundtrack. Which I’m listening to right now. See? Full circle. Goodnight. And let this blog post be pathetically remembered as The One in Which She Blogged About Her Hair.

Jet Lag.

I know, I know, this is a fake excuse for falling behind on the blog. But it’s only 80% misleading. Returning from three weeks of traveling — even when you worked the entire time you were away — does involve a certain game of catch-up, professionally and socially, plus the added book launch and play opening. At which, whenever someone asks “how was your vacation?” or, worse, “how were your vacations,” you kind of want to make a lewd gesture.  And when someone asks you “where’s your tan?” you try not to cry because you bloody well are tanned (isn’t it obvious?); in fact that’s the only thing you were able to do while you were working the entire time! But you zip the lip, because you are indeed a very lucky girl for being privileged enough to be working in the sun rather than the slush.

The beginning of 2012 seems to be a lot about choices. I suppose I could say it’s about investment. Both in the most obvious sense (a wink and a nod, here), but also where I’m going to invest creatively, energetically, emotionally, etc. Sometimes it’s obvious. When I’m blessed with the opportunity to collaborate with brilliant and passionate people with vision and resources, I go for it. No-brainer. When I meet people who are kind and open and generous, I cultivate those relationships. No-brainer. And other times there’s the underdog investment. You look at the odds, you look at the circumstances, and on paper it looks a little bleak. But your gut says otherwise. It says “stop over-thinking; just go.” I think it’s important to listen when that happens. Especially since your gut doesn’t usually say much except for “Diet Coke, please” and “did you really need to eat all of those?” So I guess, in a sense, this sort of opportunity is kind of a no-brainer in its own right. As in, “shut up, brain.”

On Thursday night and Friday morning I scrambled and sweat to meet two rather difficult deadlines. But I met them. I celebrated by treating myself to a matinee of The Artist. Which successfully made me all schmoopy and misty-eyed. (Also: Jean Dujardin. Whoa.)

This followed by dinner and drinks at Myr’s with writer/director/journalist/blogger D.A.K.. And then today I’ve dedicated entirely to Diet Coke and 30 Rock in my pyjamas. Resting up, because I’m expecting producer’s notes and as of tomorrow I’m back to the grind until the end of February. Two more deadlines looming, not to mention the time/energy I’m also investing in my play, which I’ll refer to here simply as Penny.

Ok, Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin await. Weekends are kind of fab, aren’t they? I should make a point of having them a little more often.