Oscars Prep - Watch Shoplifters by Hirokazu Koreeda

Hi ya Gorgeous,

It's  award season and all things come to a big finale tonight at the Academy Awards where an Oscar will go to many winners in many categories and Shoplifters is nominated for best foreign language film.

This film was written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

who is also known for Nobody Knows, Still Walking, and After the Storm.

I had the opportunity to watch a screener at home, though the film is available in theaters and I would highly recommend seeing this on a big screen. The coloring is muted, though I think that speaks to the dull work life the family experiences and then in the next scene a bright pop of color as the family is enjoying a meal, a bath or a trip to the beach.

This film has some mature content and is rated R. Though this is a film about family it is not suitable for youth.

The thing I liked best about the film is that the family was patched together like strays creating a pack. Even though there is little blood relation between the characters they lived as a family and you could say that their familial bond was tighter than most blood ties
Each character in the Shoplifters has a full story arc and life in the film and  as the story progresses in it's almost 2 hour run  time, we watch the family members  make tough life choices and life the consequences of it.

This is a beautiful story and it's very well told.  If you enjoy a good drama with masterful storytelling that peels back layers of a character relating to their world, you will enjoy Shoplifters.

Please tune in tonight as Shoplifters is nominated for an Oscar - and it has already won the Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival so there is a strong chance that Hirokazu Koreeda can take home the trophy!

Below is the official story synopsis from the IMDb website:

After shoplifting from a store, Osamu and his son run into a little homeless girl shivering with cold. At first glance, Osamu's wife is not quite keen to take her under her wing, but she eventually feels sorry for her. Despite eking a living from shoplifting, the family is happy until an unforeseen incident unveils a secret that puts their bond to the test.

Couple Osamu and Nobuyo, their adolescent "son" Shota, and Nobuyo's "sister" and "mother", Aki and Hatsue, live together in Hatsue's small and isolated house in Tokyo. Although Osamu and Nobuyo have legitimate blue collar jobs, and Aki works as an exotic dancer of sorts in a men's club, they largely exist on Hatsue's deceased husband's pension and through shoplifting whatever they may need, in addition to Nobuyo stealing from her employer. Osamu's outward belief is that if something is in a store and no one has yet bought it, it doesn't actually belong to anyone and thus shoplifting is not stealing from anyone. Osamu and Shota do the bulk of the shoplifting of their day-to-day goods, their shoplifting M.O. which they have perfected to pat routine. On their way home after a shoplifting run, they spot a five year old girl who they have routinely seen huddled outside what they assume is her house, she as usual looking scared and malnourished.

This day, they decide to take her home with them, in the process over time learning that she is Juri, an abused child. Ultimately, Osamu and Nobuyo decide to keep her, eventually changing her name to Lin and cutting her hair to make her look different after they discover two months after the fact that her abusive parents are finally looking for her. As Shota ends up being Lin's most frequent companion in he not attending school - Osamu and Nobuyo who have told him that only children who don't have the luxury of being taught at home need to go to school - he involves her in his routine shoplifting, the only life he knows. This new situation of Lin in their lives has the potential to bring this makeshift family come tumbling down around them as each person begins to question their past actions. If this figurative house does come crashing down, the alternative may not be better in the options of what is one's choice versus what is one's circumstance, the latter quite often biologically-based.





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Remembering Pearl Harbor today

Hi ya Gorgeous,
Today is a day in history for the United States of America as we remember the attacks on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The phrase for today is " a day that will live on in infamy".

Today, Japan is one of our strongest allies, though it wasn't always so.

The target ship USS Utah, and the battleships USS Arizona and Oklahoma, were the only ships the Japanese left beyond repair. The Utah remains on the Pearl Harborfloor along with the Arizona. The Oklahoma was raised after a massive effort but proved to be too damaged to return to service.

The day before the attacks, the USS Arizona took on a full load of fuel, nearly 1.5 million gallons. Much of that fuel helped ignite the explosion and subsequent fires that destroyed the ship, but — amazingly — some fuel continues to seep out of the wreckage. According to the History Channel, the Arizona “continues to spill up to 9 quarts of oil into the harbor each day“ and visitors often say it is as if the ship were still bleeding.

Survivors of the attack have the option to join their lost comrades and make Pearl Harbor their final resting place. Crew members who served on board the USS Arizona during the attack — the ship that experienced the most devastating damage — may choose to have their ashes deposited by divers beneath one of the sunken Arizona’s gun turrets. Roughly 30 Arizona survivors have chosen this option and less than a dozen of the 355 survivors are still living. Other military survivors can choose to have their ashes scattered wherever their ship was located during the attacks.

Remember: you are beautiful! Thank you for visiting the blog and check back for promotions and beauty giveaways!

Sources: Huffington Post, Google, Wikipedia

Are you ready for an emergency? How is your beauty bag-is it ready?

How to Know When Your Beauty Products are Expired

You wouldn't eat a granola bar six months past the expiration date, so why use beauty products way past their time? See what to throw out -- stat

This is a TotalBeauty.com beauty products article It's easy with food, for the most part, to know when it's better in the bin than on your plate, but with beauty products, which rarely boast a written expiration date, it's a different story. See how to tell if your products have "gone bad" without you knowing. See advice

Hello Gorgeous!
Today I was reading a newsletter and it was about emergency preparedness for your family in the event of a disaster! (God bless Japan and speed the healing of that great nation!)
So as I continued to read, I realized that just because there is a natural disaster there is no reason to look bad when it's bleak!
So my emergency beauty bag now contains:
1. Sunscreen
2. Eyedrops
3. Mascara
4. Dark green eyeliner
5. Eyeshadow-dual compact with light beige and brown this way I can do my eyebrows, a simple day makeup look or smoky eye.
6. Dual finish compact for use as foundation and powder
7. Nude lipliner
8. High pigment gloss with spf
9. Comodynes face wipes to remove all my emergency makeup
10.Travel set of brushes (powder/blush/slant tip/eyeshadow)

Phew! I'm ready for anything now! Read below and think about it!
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*NOTE* This is a newsletter I received and found it interesting, maybe you will to? I got it from Off The Grid News. Enjoy!

This has been the decade of disasters. Beginning with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 that saw the destruction of the Twin Towers to the nightmarish aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; from massive flooding and wildfires in the United States to devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile; from Mexican cartel incursions across our border to the mass killings at Fort Hood; and now the unprecedented destruction in Japan that has seen coast-side cities wiped off the face of the map and nuclear power plants melting down, the last ten years has seen an ominous spike in events that only makes disaster preparation that much more of a necessity for all of us.

It doesn't matter if it's a situation that happens in your home, in your community, at the workplace, at a state or national level... if you're not prepared, the cost of that inaction can be greater than anything you've ever imagined.

The ice storm in northeastern Oklahoma in December 2007 left thousands without power for a week or longer.

Few were prepared.

Major floods in July 2008 overwhelmed Iowa and portions of Illinois. Thousands fled water-filled homes, but it was a week or more before power was restored. Because of flood contamination, there was no drinking water, and the sewers were overflowing from the deluge.

Hurricane Ike devastated most of the coastal area of Galveston, Texas in 2008, and once again, all systems of infrastructure they had relied upon for years were gone in a moment.

If you were placed in a situation where the TV newscasters were warning you to get out of an area or batten down the hatches, would you be prepared? Would you even know how to prepare? If you answered "No" to both those questions, don't worry... you're not alone.

According to an article in the December 18th, 2006 edition of USA Today, "The non-profit Council for Excellence in Government [has] developed a Public Readiness Index as part of its report, rating people's preparedness on a one-to-10 scale based on answers to 10 questions. The questions range from whether people know about their community's disaster plan and how to find the emergency broadcasting channel on the radio, to whether they've prepared a home disaster kit and established a meeting place for family members.

The average score on the index was 3.31."

And this more than five years after 9/11 and a little more than a year after the devastating hurricanes that wiped out New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The thing most dangerous to a nation's citizens doesn't appear to be their government.

It seems to be their complacency.

What's On Your Preparedness List? Do You Even Have a List?

The recent ice and snow in the Southeast this winter drove home an inconvenient truth.
If you try to prepare for an emergency while it's upon you, you will fail.

The words "snow" and "ice" had barely left the meteorologist's mouth before Walmart's parking lot was overflowing. Bread? Nothing left. Milk? Forget it. Canned goods? Nope. Water? Better figure out a way to melt ice and snow.

I went home to cupboards that, while not bare, were not exactly stocked with items to get me through an ice storm. I was going to have to get pretty creative. And then it happened.
My central unit died.

I didn't even have an alternative heat source. There was no sense in getting out to find a spot heater either. Those were gone before the bread and milk.

I wasn't too smart. I had let my "I'll take care of that tomorrow" attitude get in the way of smart thinking and preparation, and now I faced something that could, if events ran along the same vein as the last ice storm we faced, put me in a perilous situation.

I didn't even have a list that I was keeping of items I needed. It was all in my head, stuffed in the back behind what I considered more important things and pursuits.



What I Needed...

...besides a big kick in the backside, was Solutions From Science's manual Gone Before You Get There.

The report shows you a ton of ways to get out of any mess that a panic driven shortage or meltdown may bring your way. Like when the power goes out and it's freezing cold outside. The report shows you how to stay warm when everyone else is getting cold!

You'll also learn...

The things you absolutely must have in your house before any crisis strikes.
How to have all the pure drinking water you need without buying an expensive filter!
Which 3 food items have an almost indefinite shelf life
4 grains that have a two year shelf life
Gone Before You Get There covers short-term and long-term preparation needs. It covers everything from natural disasters to bug-out situations. For example:

What do you do when the power goes out?
What are the 8 survival habits that can save your life?
Why do you need more water in a crisis?
How do you keep your pets alive?
What are the 77 items that leave the store shelves the quickest in an emergency?
What items need to be on any preparedness list?
Gone Before You Get There answers these questions and many more. It provides you with solutions for many disaster situations you may encounter. In addition, it gives you a list of items that needs to be on anyone's preparedness list, as well as an appendix of valuable resources and websites to help you prepare for any emergency.

In the middle of a crisis, when the meteorologist is telling you to head for the hills, is not the time to begin looking for supplies. Order your copy of Gone Before You Get There today, to prepare yourself for the uncertainty of tomorrow.




Remember: you are beautiful! Thank you for visiting the blog and check back for promotions and beauty giveaways!