Five Things of the Week

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Straight-up the best fucking thing.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

  Christian Marclay, "The Clock"