Five Things of the Week

We rank our five favorite things of the week, because why not?

[fiveoftheweek]

Things 1-5

YO I'M IN PARIS AND PARIS IS DOPE.

A few weeks ago, I went to New York. It was also dope. I was gonna write posts about the best things I saw/did there, but I got too sad. So now you know, I guess.

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#Spiceless

The Downtown Independent does monthly double feature drinkalongs, and this month we went to Spice World/Clueless for Callie's birthday (a lot of birthdays this week). Free beer with your ticket, singing along, shouting at the screen, and a reminder of how good these movies are. This was great. If you have the chance to rewatch either, definitely do it, and also do it at the Downtown Independent. The best.

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The Griffith Park Observatory

So I'm pretty famous for not liking science. It's boring and complicated and annoying. But for Natalie's birthday, we went here, and it was so awesome. I wasn't great at learning things, but I saw some really cool stuff, like the pictured Periodic Table of Elements, which Charis claimed existed but I doubted, and a ceiling mural from 1934, which I am looking at here. We got there too late for a few of the place's features, so we will go again. If you live in Los Angeles (and you should), you should do this.

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Grizzly Man

This movie is also on Netflix and I forgot to see it when it was in theaters. It's terrific. I've been trying to see more Herzog movies lately because the dude's hilarious/ridiculous/terrific. Grizzly Man is a great movie that gave me a Lot To Think About. You should totally see it. Nature, and stuff. It made me feel like I'd just gone outside.

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Marwencol

This movie is streaming on Netflix and it's good! I forgot to see it when it came out. Now I have seen it. You should see it too! It's great. And it ALSO has some surprises you should not spoil yourself for.

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The Cabin in the Woods

This was a good movie! You should see it! I recommend it! But don't spoil yourself, a lot of the fun is the surprises.

*

We saw it at the Arclight, though, and don't see it there, because that place sucks.

[fiveoftheweek]

  Caine's Arcade

Straight-up the best fucking thing.

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  Sweet Genius

Why is everybody not talking about this show and also watching it all the time? It is like Chopped but for dessert and completely ludicrous. It is hosted by Ron Ben-Israel (above), who appears to be a real-life Bond villain. Contestants cook three courses of dessert: chocolate, candy, and then cake. In each round, there are mandatory ingredients and also an "inspiration": lighting, ballet, magic, etc. On the most recent episode I watched, the cake inspiration was Chef Ron himself! He rode out on a conveyor belt.

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  Pretty Poison

Obligatory Cinefamily post! This black comedy with Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld feels ahead of its time (1968). It sort of feels like a John Waters movie? Whatever, it was good; I liked it.

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  squirrel stealing my lunch

My friend Sarah met a squirrel, and they are pals now.

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  Old People Writing on a Restaurant's Facebook Page

I could do without "old people" being in the title--many of the ridiculous comments seem to be left by middle-aged OR EVEN YOUNG people--but this tumblr of posts on the Facebook walls of chain restaurants is mad funny.

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Bees!

We went to a museum where we'd been a ton of times, but this time we went with The Museum Slut, who recommended we sneak into places at the museum, including on the roof, where someone was keeping BEES! It was awesome.

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Depressing Triple Feature

I watched three very good documentaries the other day:

The Trials of Henry Kissinger was all about all the terrible crimes Henry Kissinger did and how he won a Nobel Peace Prize. The movie was trying to encourage people to demand, like, a trial for the war criminal. Instead, fun fact, after the movie was released, Kissinger was brought in to the White House to consult on the Iraq War. So that's something!

12 & Delaware is an excellent movie about an intersection in Florida - on one side there is an abortion clinic, across the street there is a Crisis Pregnancy Center that lies to women to try to trick them into not having abortions. The tactics used by the Crisis Pregnancy Center are pretty appalling - at one point, they lie to a woman about how many weeks pregnant she is (they tell her she's seven weeks when she's actually ten) so she thinks she has more time to consider her options than she actually has, so that by the time she decides to get an abortion, she no longer legally can in Florida. Stuff like that. At the end of the movie, text on the screen indicates that there are several thousand Crisis Pregnancy Centers in America, and a few hundred abortion clinics. So.

Into the Abyss is Werner Herzog's documentary about death row, we meet a human being and then that human being gets killed by the state.

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Thai New Year!

We ended up at the Thai New Year festival at the intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia, and saw part of a drag show, and had some good Thai food and just generally had a nice time. You should go to this next year probably.

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Singing along, Los Angeles

We did a lot of singing along to songs in cars this past few days. We blew our throats out shouting along with You & I on Hollywood next to a motorcycle caravan whose members were DEFINITELY jealous of us.

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Re-watching Spice World

I'm always down to re-watch Spice World, so we did it the other night, and it was, predictably, great. Here's my Spice World argument: It's hilarious. It was made to capitalize on the Spice Girls' fame, of course, so it had no reason to also be good, but it is, just for fun. It's a better movie than Hard Day's Night, fact. It's funnier, and the Spice Girls are better actors than the Beatles. DWI DGAF SMDH

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Week of 3/22/12 (Natalie)

  @RoseBankside

  Small Change (Pocket Money)

  Pilvi Takala, "The Trainee"

  Azealia Banks, Fuck Up the Fun

  Christian Marclay, "The Clock"