My outrageously beautiful Busby Berkeley dream #1: Macaroons

I'm going to attempt to make macaroons (the almond, not coconut kind) this weekend. We'll see if that doesn't become a total disaster. Per the directions I've already got the egg whites sitting out in the fridge, and I'm going to be forced to pester someone at Whole Foods about almond flour. (Is there a bourgier request?) If I am successful in making anything vaguely resembling some of these, I will feel damn self-sufficient (left on my to-do list will be learning how to cartwheel..for real). If not, well, I'll have Batman and 2 Amys to console me.

And taking names

Manohla Dargis's review of Wanted makes it sound pretty much like what I would expect. Guns, post-Matrix effects, etc., and Angelina Jolie's character's too perfect name, Fox.

As Dargis says re: Jolie, "Few American actresses, especially those with such pin-skinny arms, can make beating a guy to the ground look so easy and, yeah, man, like fun." Here is where I maybe would have liked an Uma reference, because, hello, as much as Tarantino likes his obnoxious T&A closeups, he has some effing badass heroines. Stuntwoman-cum-actress Zoe Bell is also pretty great in Death Proof.

Heroines and horses

Last night, in talking to a coworker, Estelle, who likes horses, I remembered a Disney film, Wild Hearts Can't be Broken, that I watched repeatedly when I was 8 or 9 or 10 and in a horse phase. Did any of you see it? The main character, Sonora, was a badass. Then, doing some research today, I realized it was based on a true story and one very real Sonora Webster Carver.

According to her 2003 NYT obituary, "In 1924, she made history when she plummeted 40 feet on horseback into a tank of water." That's what the movie is all about, but holy crap! It takes on a whole new dimension when it's not just the stuff of Disney imagination. Then, despite the jumping making her go blind, she KEPT doing it for years.