I love movies, even though I just cancelled Netflix, canoeing on the Concord River, getting ice cream from dairy stands and fried clams from clam shacks, needlepoint on winter nights, minor league baseball games, watching people eat giant-sized food like a pork chop on a stick at state fairs, and telling my daughter about the old days when you had to watch a movie AT the movies, and how we used to play out doors with round bouncy things called balls and repeatedly jump over a rope with handles at both ends.
Hmmm. Right now, the guys from Flight of the Conchords or anyone who could give me a writing job I can do from my porch. Antonio Bandaras would be nice too. But not the current one. The one from the Almodovar movies, when he didn't speak much English. Also, a strong professional woman who can give me some solid career advice, and possibly a writing job I can do from my porch (see above).
I hate music. No, just kidding. My husband introduced me to y'alternative some years ago, so we have a lot of Drive-By Truckers, BR549, Robbie Foulks, Amy Rigby, and I secretly enjoy opera and show tunes, but if you tell anyone, I'll deny having met you.
I love food-related films like Babette's Feast, Like Water For Chocolate, and Eat Drink Man Women, and even Goodfellas falls into that catagory for me. I watch a lot of old films on Turner Classics, and will spend a sunny Saturday on the couch if Sunset Boulevard is on. I've turned my daughter on to movie musicals, and I'm very proud when she quotes West Side Story or Singin' in the Rain to her bewildered friends.
I feel like I watch a lot of TV, although not usually when it is on. Right now, I'm loving Mad Men on AMC, and have also felt love for HBO's Rome, Flight of the Conchords, and Six Feet Under. Comedy-wise - I liked Extras, and both the British and American versions of The Office. I think 30 Rock is frequently hilarious.
I'm a big reader, but don't usually recommend books because people don't usually like what I like. I got a masters degree in American literature some 10 years ago, and still like reading the works of the early 20th century - including Edith Wharton, John Dos Passos, and other modernists like Virginia Woolfe (English, though, I know, but I love her). As for contemporary writers, I really enjoyed Claire Massud's The Emperor's Children, and Special Topics in Calamity Physics (forgot the author's name). I'm reading The Afternoon of the Boating Party, (I could get up and find the author, but I'm not going to) which is kind of a back story of the famous Renoir, kind of like Girl with a Pearl Earring.
You know, I don't really have any heroes. Do people really have heroes anymore? I admire truly talented writers and creative people, and wish I had a tenth of their talent.