...but it is what we wish were true."

I found the official trailer from LA Story on YouTube:



It's the movie from which our website gets its name.

We watched it for the first time since getting to California last night. Steve Martin is one of my heros, mostly because he's always been able to make my mom laugh. My mom doesn't just give away laughs, they have to be earned, and Steve Martin specializes in the unique mix of slapstick and surrealism that kind of hits you in the funny bone and the brain all at once.

His movies tend zap you with the thesis of the story with the subtlety of a police tazer, but I like that. Spielberg has the same subtlety without the charisma of Steve Martin films.

Spoiler alert! The clip below is kind of long, but serves as the best Enya video ever, I think. But it definitely gives away a key part of LA Story, if you have never seen it.



Sarah Jessica Parker is in the movie too and I remember thinking back in 1991 that Hollywood hadn't produced anyone more adorable yet. Then I remember seeing Sex and the City for the first time about 2003 and wondering what the hell happened to her.

It was mostly my lack of empathy for Carrie Bradshaw, her character in Sex, who possessed neither a spine nor standards when it came to her promiscuous "love" life. Plus they dressed her hideously on that program.

And I'll never forgive her for how she treated Aidan. We all knew he was too good for her from the beginning, at least I did. Anyway, SJP married Mathew Broderick, so she can't be all that similar to Carrie Bradshaw. And they've been married a while, which is quaint in a celebrity marriage.  

Back to LA Story. Watching it now, after being here a while, was fun, but it certainly showed how different the clichés and generalizations of LA and life here on the northern edge of LA county, in the high desert, are. This ain't Hollywood. I think that Kelly's parents realized that.

I think that one of the things that we like about it here is that it is an extreme place, the way Syracuse was. We may not get the snow here, but we do have wind, heat, and dryness, which like snow are things many people choose not to deal with.

There are also the rewards for dealing with the extremes. In Syracuse the rewards are May, June, September, and October. Here the reward is October through May. Not counting the fires.