Various movies, plus memory lane...

I have spent the entire day thinking that I have to re-watch Up in the Air because I don't remember Clooney wearing wingtips at the end - and then I realized. He says in the voiceover that"one of the stars, brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over." I think that means the wingtip on the plane, not a wingtip shoe. But I'm fascinated by the way that completely changes the ending of the film.

I think I first started liking Hugh Grant when I saw About a Boy. I actually liked that Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie (I think it's called Two Weeks Notice), which really surprised me, since as a rule I don't care for Bullock and didn't enjoy Grant at the time either. (Trivia note - the same guy directed Two Weeks Notice and Music & Lyrics. Or maybe it's the same screenwriter.) But the first time that I really liked him was definitely About a Boy, which I thought was a terrific move. I still haven't seen Love, Actually - I guess I'd better add it to the Netflix queue. So many movies, so little time...do you remember how many movies we used to see? I guess that's one of the ways we spent our time before we became parents - Tim and I have been trying to remember what we did, exactly.

I recently watched, thanks to Netflix, Next Stop, Greenwich Village. Have you seen it? Early Mazursky, set in, of course, Greenwich Village, in the early 1960s - or maybe the late 1950s. Even though our time was decades later, it made me so nostalgic for that time in our lives - young, aspiring artists in NYC. It's a state of mind and being that only a few of us are privileged to experience, and while watching that movie, I truly felt in my bones that it really doesn't matter what happened to those dreams. I don't at all mind that my life turned out so differently than I'd imagined - I'm honestly very happy, and I know how lucky I am. But I will forever be grateful for the years I spent dedicated to the belief that my life would turn out exactly as I pictured it, and that I was able to experience life in the hum and roar of that city. I don't want to live there again - but living in NYC is such a specific experience. It really is like no other place, isn't it?