PG-13 . . . really?

Last night Tom and I had the opportunity to go to a benefit viewing of Live Free or Die Hard on the lot at Fox. This was pretty fun because a) we got to see a free movie, b) before the movie we got lots of snacks, and c) money spent by the firm on our behalf went to a good cause (although, ha ha, I have no idea what that cause was). My expectations for the movie were pretty low; I have not seen any of the other Die Hard movies and all of the trailers that I had seen involved lots of guns and explosions and that is not usually my type of movie. I will admit . . . I enjoyed the experience quite a bit, but after the movie Tom and I looked at each other and asked, "That was PG-13?" To be honest, I rarely pay any attention to what a movie is rated. I think that the ratings system kind of picks and chooses what it wants to take into consideration when it rates movies and I think that violence is taken entirely too lightly (these feelings have definitely been influenced by the film classes I took in London in which we frequently discussed the American vs. European ratings systems). Live Free or Die Hard definitely should have been rated R. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the experience was the number of the people in the theater who laughed when people in the movie were killed. Or maybe it was the juxtaposition of violence with comic relief in the film. Regardless, PG-13? I don't think so.

Anyway, it has been a few days since I blogged. The apartment that we were supposed to get fell through, but we have procured another one. We (tentatively) have the address for the new place (it's still in the university housing, it's just a different apartment) so let me know if you are interested.

We have been pretty busy with firm activities over the last few days. There are a few restaurants in LA that I have really been looking forward to trying, and we checked one of these out last week. It is called Asia de Cuba and it is a Cuban/Asian fusion restaurant. It was really great (particularly the dessert) and we were able to chat with the guy who initially interviewed Tom for his job. The next night we tried A.O.C. which is a little tapas style restaurant. This place was not our favorite, but it did have this really great corn and shrimp salad (mom, you would love this). On Monday we went with the firm to Color me Mine which is a place where you paint pottery and then they fire the pottery for you. Tom and I are not the most artistic people in the world, but we made good use of the stencils and both painted plates. We won't have them back until next week, but when we do I'll be sure to post pictures. Afterwards we grabbed some mexican food at El Cholo.

It has been an exhausting week. Several days Tom has picked me up from work and then we don't get home until 10 or 11. But I guess I can't complain; the firm has been unbelievably generous and we are really enjoying seeing a side of LA that we never thought we'd see.