Drag yourself to the video store and rent Drag Me to Hell which just came out on DVD.  It’s scary and fun.  This is my favorite film released so far in 2009. Then again, I haven’t been to the movies often this year.  I have been way too busy with life, grad school and Gulag –oops! I mean the job I love here at WWNY!

Still I think Drag Me to Hell would be one of my favorite movies of 2009, even if I had seen Julie and Julia, which I missed, but will put it in my Netflix queue as soon as it becomes available.  BTW – (I know annoying text abbreviations annoy us) – the star of this film, Allison Lohman was married right here in Watertown earlier this year.  The Bride made a successful and healthy trip down the aisle (despite her fate in the film) with Watertown native, Mark Nevedline, who is etching out a very successful Hollywood director/writer career.  Could it be that they didn’t want to be bothered and wanted to avoid the paparazzi? What better place to do it, then Watertown?

This cool tidbit aside, I loved Lohman in Drag Me to Hell and gave her a rave review, when I originally reviewed the film. This film has such a gleeful old-fashioned, yet original sense of story-telling that it is like an amusement park ride.  You think you know where it is going to go, but goes other places instead.  

On another note, I recently went to San Francisco for a long weekend.  Yes, its reputation as a beautiful city is rightfully owned.  If you want to get into shape fast, spend a few days strolling from neighborhood to neighborhood negotiating the sometimes very steep 42 hills. While there I visited the Richard Avedon photography exhibit at the San Francisco museum of modern art.  The exhibit was interesting, but not awe inspiring, and the entrance the museum was like the hills, steep.

San Francisco has a charm all it is own, unlike any place on earth. There are so many fantastic restaurants, cafes and coffee shops that it is a bit overwhelming.  If ever there was a city that feels like Oz, it is San Francisco.  Beautifully located at the tip of a peninsula and surrounded by water, it looks like a city someone created in a fantasy novel and not a real city.  However, one thing is a bit too real, the expense.  What an incredibly expensive place to live, eat and buy stuff.  You expect this in New York, but somehow feel cheated when you pay such high prices in a fantasyland.