Movie Night

I got the idea in my head one day to do a weekly Movie Night with my friends and family and it was really a success.  We had themed snacks and tried to match the movies to the appropriate time of year.  It was so fun! There were five of us and we all picked ten movies, so that after one year we all watched each other's favorite movies together as a group.  It was a fun way to get to know each other better because a person's top ten list can say a lot about them.  This will be one of my shorter posts, but you should learn a little bit about me from it.  Please, post your top ten in the comments so I can learn a little about you, too (I know it's tough to keep it down to ten but usually 12 or 15 is a doable goal).  Maybe sometime I'll do an entire 'list' post to tell you my favorite TV shows, books, songs... who knows what else.  In no particular order, here are my top ten favorite movies:

• Tommy Boy
• The Goonies
• Fight Club
• The Color Purple
• Elf
• A Christmas Story
• Fame
• Chorus Line
• You've Got Mail
• The Mighty Ducks 2

Bonus: A few that barely missed the top ten are Slumdog Millionaire, Hairspray, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction and Jersey Boys. 

Mitch Grassi

In my last post, I mentioned that I had mailed two letters, and the first one was obviously to Steven Moffat, so by now you're all (both?  haha) probably wondering who got the second one.  As the title suggests, it was Mitch Grassi, the tenor from the Grammy-award-winning, super-famous a cappella group Pentatonix.  I kind of hate to single out one member of a group when all of them are so hugely talented (and that Avi ain't too hard on the eyes, either).  In fact, Mitch doesn't even do lead vocals on most of their songs.  That would be Scott Hoying, who's the other half of Superfruit, an adorably fun YouTube sensation (maybe leave the small kids home while you watch their videos, though).  Here's what I wrote to Mitch, adjusted a bit to better fit the format around here.  He's another super busy guy, with a nearly constant touring schedule so I'm not sure I expect a response but if I get one, you'll hear about it.

"I just love Mitch's voice so deeply, down to the very core of my being because of the way it hits me.  It's not the way it sounds, but the way it feels. It feels sweet, clear, effortless and golden; so, so golden.  Have you ever been outside on the beach or in a field during sunset?  You know the exact moment that the air turns to gold? Everyone looks backlit from every direction and they're all wearing those glistening auras.  You can feel that halo subconsciously even while you're having too much fun in the moment to acknowledge it.  When Mitch Grassi sings Valentine, he pours that gold into me and it just... hits me.  It stops me in my tracks every single time, draws the air from my lungs and makes me nostalgic for a moment that I didn't even know was important to me.  But it is important.  Because creating that kind of beauty is, simply put, impossible.  To accomplish the impossible is what life is about, and it's a wonderful thing to witness." 

So basically, I played it totally cool.

Check them out on Youtube or watch their documentary on Netflix
Look at their website http://pentatonixthealbum.ptxofficial.com/
On Twitter, find:
Pentatonix https://twitter.com/PTXofficial
Scott https://twitter.com/scotthoying
Kirstin https://twitter.com/kirstin_taylor
Avi https://twitter.com/Avi_Kaplan
Kevin https://twitter.com/KOlusola
Mitch https://twitter.com/mitchgrassi
Superfruit https://twitter.com/SUP3RFRUIT

Steven Moffat

Strangely enough, the only two letters I've written to celebrities so far were not to people I've admired for decades, or who shaped my psyche as a child.  My first one was to Steven Moffat, the head writer for Doctor Who.  I sent off my rough draft without making any sort of copy so I don't really remember it well enough to relate it all to you now.  Off to a great start with this blogging thing, eh?  It was a very short, quick note about how the first episode of this season (The Magician's Apprentice) was the best episode of anything that I've ever seen. 

Now, you'll see in the future that I exaggerate and speak mostly in hyperbole, but honestly I stand by what I said this time.  The jokes were all winners, the surprises all worked for me and we all knew the cliffhanger ending was coming so the only disappointment there was that it came too soon. One of Moffat's strengths is suspense.  The man can build suspense like no other! He plants questions in your mind and makes you think everything is a clue.  If I had a nickel for every time he had me overthinking an issue until I made myself so crazy that the actual answer was a let-down... well, my pocket would jingle when I walked, I guess.  But this episode, the suspense was agonizing (in a good way, of course) but the payoffs were equally huge.  It was so good that I grabbed a pen and wrote my first piece of fan mail the next day. 

Man, now I'm hoping I didn't oversell it so that anyone who hasn't seen it thinks I'm some sort of crackpot after they do! Aaaaaanyway...

I only included this story because, guess what?  HE WROTE BACK! Actually, there's that exaggeration I told you that you could expect.  It was really just TL;DR in postcard form.  An assistant sent it, but he signed it himself, and I'm totally willing to tell myself that that's what happened and it's definitely not a stamped-on signature.  Don't be silly, of course it's not!  Okay, it is.  But I still love my little postcard either way.  Here it is:

So that's my bit of excitement for today.  I thought it was a great place to start.  If you have any questions or comments, leave them below.  In the mean time, go check out Doctor Who, why dontcha? It's on Netflix and it's seriously the best if you like Sci-Fi at all.

***Edit- The Netflix goons took away our precious Doctor! It's not on there anymore.***

Thanks For Stopping By!

Hi, my name's Tina.  Welcome to my blog, I hope you like it. I think you'll find it to be part review, part fangirling and part biography.   I expect plenty of self-indulgent nostalgia too, so feel free to wear your Debbie Gibson shirt each week. 

So here's where it started: I sat down to write a fan letter the other day and it occurred to me that, even though it took me nearly 35 years to write to a celebrity, fame- specifically the fame of others- has genuinely shaped who I am as a person.  Gary Coleman taught me that everyone's feelings are complex and valid, the Coreys taught me to stay away from drugs and Roseanne taught me to thrive, even when I knew I couldn't.  My plan is to show you who has affected me and how, and whenever possible I'll send a (probably abridged) handwritten version to anyone involved.  If I get a response back, I'll always let you know because that's obviously the most exciting part.  Of course, sometimes it won't be possible to send letters to... ya know... the great beyond.  I'll just have to hope that Larry Linville and Jane Austin are reading my blog for themselves (and that they're not the only ones!). 

Some of my posts will be fairly long and some will just be simple reviews.  You can probably count on spoilers, because everything I've seen or read is from before my first kid was born a half a decade ago.  Feel free to post your own stories and opinions in the comments section each week.  We should have a ton of fun!