Project Runway All-Stars

This blog really got started with Project Runway, so it's only right that I do a review of the "biggest and best" season.

Back in the day, I spun this off of a few of my other blogs (yes, I have lots of blogs, I like compartmentalizing) because I was doing weekly recaps of Project Runway episodes based on the fashion. You can see them in the tag if you want to go back, though I never managed to finish an actual full season. That's something I'm going to try to fix for next season.

There are two reasons I didn't do episode recaps of this season. One, because I've been so busy with my film and other projects that I just couldn't spare the time. Two, because it bored me to death.

I don't know what it was. There was nothing specific to point to, because it wasn't like they changed the formula. This time I actually knew everybody going in, so I didn't spend the first five episodes going "Wait, who is she again?"

A lot of the personalities were chosen well, they were over the top and known for being good on camera. Between Austin, Kenley, Michael, and Anthony it should have been one of the most fun seasons yet.

But it wasn't. The challenges weren't any better or worse than other seasons. The judges were pretty good, and I've been sick of Michael and Nina and wanting a change for a while anyway. The host did a pretty good job, though I still like Heidi's enthusiasm better. Tim Gunn was clearly a better mentor, and it's insane to try to do ProjRun without him. But it wasn't like any of those pieces of the puzzle were so out of whack. All of those things were still done well, the production company did their job.

Maybe it's because they had all done this before, so it was harder to throw them. Maybe they were more reserved and aware of how they came across on camera so the footage was harder to find things that were raw and realistic. Maybe it's because most of the "characters" have become actual characters.

Or maybe it's because throwing in people we already know and doing challenges we've (mostly) already seen (with a twist) a viewer has time to sit back and realize that the format isn't that fresh and innovative any more. What was really new and different when the show premiered so many seasons ago is not only old hat now, but reality competitions have evolved past that format now. We're on to a new style now, and Project Runway is actually not on the cutting edge anymore. One day you're in, the next day you're out.

When Top Chef did an all-stars season, it quickly became my favorite season of the entire show. Partially because I got to see more of Carla. But it still had the energy of the regular show. I think part of Project Runway's problem was taking itself too seriously. They were thinking they were haute couture when they're really off the rack. Where were the really off the wall and memorable outfits? Where was the cornhusk dress? Where was the Santino like insanity? Nobody took real risks, and everybody was so serious about how artsy they were.

Which meant they were boring. I can't even remember Rami being on the show. I know he was, I remember him being there. I think he even won a challenge, but I can't remember. I don't remember Anthony contributing really anything, which makes me really sad because he is probably one of my favorite designers from all the years of the show.

In the end, the entire thing seemed like a recitation rather than a new design.

Keep To The Schedule

Between traveling for my film and the other work I've been doing, keeping our house clean has gotten to be one of those things that falls quickly by the wayside.

Shortly after I got back from a two week trip out of the country, I looked around my house, threw my hands in the air and yelled "I've had it!" I wouldn't say the place was a sty, and even when my house is messy it's not like Hoarders messy or anything.

But it was too much, and it was causing me anxiety and it had to stop. So I spent a few hours working with a Google Calendar and worked out a cleaning schedule. I wasn't sure if it would work at first, but it's been two months now and it seems to be doing the trick.

First and foremost I have to admit that we don't really keep perfectly to the schedule. But having it helps us identify what we've let slide. If we didn't clean one night because we were out with friends, we know exactly what we skipped out on.

I spent five years saying I would just "do what needs to be done." Guess what, it didn't get done. Some people don't need a schedule to keep their house clean, they really are so well organized and put together that if the trash needs to go out they just do it right then and there and it's finished.

This schedule isn't really for those people. It's for people who say "I can't figure out how to keep my house clean, every time I turn around it's a mess again." It's for people who think, "there's just so much to do and I'm so busy all the time."

The basic idea is this: you divide your house up into five zones. My schedule is like this:

Monday: Living room/dining room.
Tuesday: Kitchen
Wednesday: Hallway and half bath
Thursday: Full bath and master bedroom
Friday: Guest bedroom/Library/Home Office

I don't give myself cleaning jobs on the weekend so that my husband and I can spend time together, and because I usually travel on weekends so that makes it less disruptive.

I set up my Google calendar so that under the description I have a list of the bare minimum that needs to be done in that room. I did make it a calendar on it's own so I can turn it off if I want to.

The main crux of the idea is this: every room has it's day, and if it's not the day for that room you DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. Obviously if it's a gross mess (like spilled food) then you have to take care of that right away. But if it's not Monday, and I leave my library book on the coffee table, I'm not going to sweat it. It'll get taken care of soon enough. Because each room is cleaned once a week, then it's really difficult for any amount of mess to build up, which is another key to the plan.

For example, right now it's Tuesday, Kitchen day. We took care of everything on that list, and the kitchen is looking good. Because we've been working around the house, our hall closet has gotten a bit disorganized. But I'm not stressing about it today, because I know it's on the schedule for tomorrow.

Now, there's a few other things I added to the calendar to keep this system working. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are dish days. All a dish day means is that at the end of the day, all the dirty dishes should be in the dishwasher. If it's full, it should be run. But we probably only run the dishwasher once a week.

Tuesday and Thursday are laundry days. On those days, I do all the laundry unless I put in a load and there's only a few things left over. Those wait for the next laundry day.

These are the key to making the schedule really work. Dishes and laundry are the two things that you're guaranteed to deal with every single day. You will eat food, and you will wear clothes. I know a lot of people who manage to actually put dirty dishes in the dishwasher as soon as they are done with them. I am not one of those people, I never have been. We also spent several years repeating that we would do a load of laundry whenever the basket was full. This never happened, and most of the time we would try to do three weeks worth of laundry in a single day because we had put it off so long nothing was clean.

Like I said, this schedule isn't for people who already have their act together.

By giving myself a specific day to deal with the laundry, it never piles up. Taking care of it twice a week means that I rarely do more than two loads in a single day. It became a very low stress situation. The dishes are pretty similar. Because we are dealing with it in small increments, and consistently, the dishes don't get out of hand.

I know it probably seems like I haven't actually figured out a way to keep my home clean, but just a way to keep one part of it clean at a time. But the end result has been pretty staggering. What happens when you make sure that the main things are taken care of regularly is that things don't pile up, they don't become insurmountable. When we ended up hosting a game night last weekend, it took me less than ten minutes to clean up and get to what I refer to as "in-law clean." That means that it was the same level of clean that I make things when the in-laws come and visit.

The only way to achieve that for me was consistency, and sticking to the schedule has helped me keep that up. I'm never overwhelmed by my own house anymore because I have a list. Every day I can open up my calendar item and see what needs doing (though by now I have most of it memorized). I've started adding biweekly and monthly chores to it too, so everything is slowly getting cleaner and cleaner. And I've not really increased my time commitment to cleaning, I've just spread it out. It's a matter of five minutes worth of work now saves me an hour later.

I highly recommend a schedule based on areas of the house to anybody that's having trouble keeping their house clean. I don't have kids, but I imagine it can be tweaked to work in a household with kids too, especially if you have one day a week where the kids are all in charge of cleaning their own rooms. I'd love to see somebody with kids use something like this and let me know how it works out for them. I do think that in larger households the number of dish and laundry days would either have to go up or be divided out between people (each family member gets one dish day a week maybe).

Good luck!

The Hunger Games

I have a secret: I tried to read The Hunger games back in 2008 when the first book was all there was. And I didn't enjoy it. I boiled down to two things I generally always dislike: first person POV and a love triangle. Some stories can overcome that for me, but if your entire book is going to be in one character's head it better be the best place you can possibly be. In The Hunger Games, from inside Katniss' head was not the best place to tell that story. It was a good place to be sometimes, but I think the film version proved to me without a shadow of a doubt that the real meat of the world of Panem was outside with the Game Makers. The movie also proved that the narrative didn't suffer at all from toning down the romance aspects. In fact, it made Katniss a stronger and better heroine by doing both things.

Obviously, as little as I enjoyed the book, I actually really enjoyed the movie. I thought it took the promise of the premise and made it stronger. The film had a better delivery of the world that we were given. We really SAW what it was like to take this to extreme levels. We were witnesses to the Game Makers gleefully sending disasters after the tributes, and when you combine the marketing and the film itself the movie did something the book never managed: it forced us to face the fact that we are all, in a way, citizens of the Capitol.

Now I do want to get one problem out of the way. You see, only twice in my life have I ever actually spoken out loud in an "outdoor" voice in a movie theater. I just don't do it, I'm a filmmaker, I respect the film in front of me no matter what. But when the film is first showing us scenes of District 12 and the camera can't stay still for ONE SINGLE SECOND to actually give us an idea of what we're looking at, I said "Oh COME ON, stop moving the camera!" I doubt anybody outside a two foot radius heard me, but still, I couldn't help myself because it was that annoying.

If the movie had continued that way throughout, I probably would have ended up walking out. Or been simply miserable and hated everything about it. It was an artistic choice made for the right reasons, but used in a terrible way at the worst possible time. How could anybody really get a sense of the poverty and horrible conditions in District 12 if they can't see anything? I don't care if you were trying to replicate Katniss' point of view, it was detrimental to the film and to the purpose of the scene. Later on when a similar technique was used during the Cornucopia scene, it was used to good effect and it was perfectly chosen. But in the opening? That's bad camera work kids, don't do that at home. Or on set. Or ever again, please. I'm begging you.

Comic from Rock, Paper, Cynic, 02-08-2010

With that out of the way, as I said, I really thought that the film version surpassed it's source material in a major way. First and foremost with the casting choice of Jennifer Lawrence. While I recognize that certain things were mishandled during the casting process, they chose very well for Katniss. The character became the embodiment of the film ideal of "show, don't tell." We weren't in her head completely like in the book, but Lawrence brought out the emotions and the turmoil perfectly. In doing so, she also allowed the audience to put some of their own feelings and reactions into the character, making her more personalized and interesting.

By making Seneca Crane a character, we were also able to really explore what everybody says the books are about: reality television. As a filmmaker, I'm fascinated by how things are made. How do they put together this broadcast? How is it done? Who is in charge? How many people does it take? Do they follow their ratings? Are they entertainment professionals or government officials? The film answered these questions, and they gave us a real look into how strange and messed up Panem really is. These people have watched The Games their entire lives, this is the world to them, they don't know the difference. And that is the most terrifying thing in the entire story. The film brought that out in a new way.

Lastly, I'll briefly touch on the toning down of the romance. All I can say is "thank goodness." Isn't it about time we had a heroine who isn't actually all that distracted by boys? As much as we've praised this story for being about a capable and kick-ass female protagonist, you can't deny that in the book she spends an inordinate amount of her time worrying about Gale and Peeta. But in the film, she's not that stereotypical. It's Peeta who is love struck and who makes bad decisions because of his emotions, which was a nice change.

I'm very grateful that the film changed that, because it made Katniss' a stronger female character, a more identifiable one, and one that would be an easier sell across various demographics. Which means better return on marketing dollars, which means more money for similar projects, which is a win for everybody.

Plus it just made me like her better, which made me enjoy the film.