welcome to elaney!

Everyone has days when you wake up, hit your alarm to snooze, skip spin class, and wear your hair wavy.  As Atlantans know, today’s weather makes you want to listen to Belle & Sebastian, drink hot tea, and cuddle up on the couch and watch movies during the day.  And do laundry. (loooove to do laundry.  Love the way clean laundry feels, smells, love the way the house feels when the washing machine and dishwasher are running.  Love it love it love it).  But alas, work calls.  However, if you WERE at home and COULD watch a movie during the day, what are your favorite movies to watch over and over and over again?

We love SATC!!  And we just want to be free!!  As you wind down the last pre-Christmas working hours, enjoy watching the newly released trailer for SATC 2 – coming out this May.

You bust out old Chevy!  Christmas movies!  What a joy for all.  There are so many good ones out there, but because [insert 2 twins related to elaney that have given us a strict order to stop mentioning them on the blog - exact words "laney you are unprofessional"] looked just like little Macauley Culkin, Home Alone is our runaway (or should we say “left behind”) favorite.  Other top contenders…The Santa Clause, The Holiday, and Christmas Vacation (duh).  We know you wanna answer…what are yours?

Considering the trailer has led us to a stream of tears twice already, we are scared to see this movie, but very much looking forward to it.  Precious has received some solid press, as it has been blowing film festivals out of the water AND Mariah Carey “gets ugly.”  Set in Harlem in 1987, Precious is the story of a sixteen-year-old African-American girl pregnant for the second time by her absent father.  Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her.  (paraphrased from RT).  Just thinking about the theme song is risky.   Verdict?  Waterworks.

Julie & Julia is the story of 30 year old government employee Julie Powell and the story of the Great Julia Child.  After reading the book Julie & Julia, we were a little apprehensive, because while Julie’s story is charming, it’s just sort of medium, and while Julia’s story is of course delightful, it’s better read in My Life in France (sidebar: GREAT book).  However, the movie is quite cute, and we fully endorse it with the elaney seal of approval.

More than that, Julie Powell kind of got us thinking.  If you aren’t one of those people that want to be a doctor (or insert other career that requires a lot of commitment) your whole life, there may be a tendency to think that one day your “future” will present itself to you.  If you’ve been called a “dreamer” once or twice, you may think that one day you’ll find your future under a rock.  Oh here it is!  Just stumbled upon it!  You imagine your future packaged in expensive wrapping paper from Neiman Marcus behind door number 3 with the answers to all the unknowns.  But Julie Powell’s story kind of got us thinking.  Your life really is a series of choices – whether it’s to cook all of Julia Child’s recipes, or to go back to school, or to get married, or to try out for Food Network’s “The Next FN Star.”  And if you decide never to really make a choice, your life might be fine, but maybe not exactly what you want.  In the words of eDaddy, “at some point, you just have to choose.”

So, on Monday morning, here’s to making decisions – just making them.  Thinking, praying, analyzing, and then at some point finding the courage to muster the close-your-eyes-and leap-sensibility that brings smiles to faces and realizes dreams.

We’ve been looking forward to The Ugly Truth for awhile now, as the trailers started playing forever ago.  Sure Kat Heigl is a little bit annoying, but she’s married to an Augusta boy, and we can’t lie, we liked 27 Dresses (sidebar, if you feel the need to start a sentence like this “hey, it’s kind of funny that your name is ‘Laney’ and her name is ‘Janey’ – about 27 people have beat you to it).  But Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 13%!  Ouch (less than half of 27).  However, it also predicted Bride Wars to be horrible, and it was kind of fun.  Maybe the ugly truth is that The Ugly Truth is a rental.  What do you think – are you going to see it?

UPDATE:  It’s ugly.