Ramblings of a squarish soul

still writing

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:10:27 GMT

Dear Microsoft Word,

Please stop underlining any sentence you decide is written in "passive voice." Not every sentence has to be the literary equivalent of a pushy used car salesman.

No love,
Spoofie

Jumper

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:08:53 GMT

I've had the novel Jumper in my possession for a while, and read it soon after getting down here to Florida. I'd been interested in the movie when I first saw the previews since the basic concept was an appealing one, but had read reviews recommending that one read the book instead. So I did, and it was utterly fantastic. I had trouble putting it down, and the older sci fi books I've been reading since have been disappointing because I miss reading Jumper. That's how much I liked it. But, having read it, I decided to get the movie from Netflix and see what they'd done with it. I knew it wasn't going to be great, but I figured that with such good source material, it had to at least be watchable, right?

Wrong. Completely awful. I absolutely loathe this movie. Couldn't even sit through it without getting my computer out and writing a review explaining how much I hate it to distract myself.

The book titled Jumper is a highly engaging, highly introspective book about a young man who has suffered a lifetime of abuse at the hands of his father before discovering at the age of nineteen that he has the ability to 'jump,' or teleport, and subsequently running away from home. The book combines the best of psychological storytelling with elements of science fiction, drawing the reader in as Davy Rice finds his way in the world with the help of Millie, a twenty-two-year-old psychology student he meets along the way. There are, of course, elements of an action story present, as seems almost inevitable in a novel about a young man with the ability to teleport, but they are in service to the overall story and character development.

The movie titled Jumper, on the other hand, is a shallow, vapid tale about a much less interesting version of Davy, dumbed down and made politically correct. Gone is the actual trauma that in the book led to Davy's stunted emotional growth, leaving the Davy of the movie nothing more than a brat with little or no reason for his selfish behavior. Gone are his struggles to establish himself in New York--that which provided the meat of the story for the novel is now compressed into the first act, thrown away in favor of playing up what the filmmakers no doubt thought was the more 'exciting' portion of the story. Even this is completely botched, with all subtlety thrown out the window, and some nonsense about 'paladins' and other jumpers inserted where there was previously a much more interesting contest of wills between Davy and certain agents of the NSA.

This movie is what happens when someone decides to make a movie out of a book, but doesn't bother to actually carry over any of the things that made that book work. For those who have only seen the movie without reading the book, this version of Jumper is most likely no worse than mind-numbingly boring and badly disjointed. For those who have read the book, however, the movie goes beyond dull and into the realm of the offensively bad.

In other news, I'm still working on that paper. This was my break from paper writing, and in retrospect it was not worth taking.

yet ANOTHER reason I wish I'd gone to Comic Con

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:02:12 GMT

"I've been waiting for that for years--thanks, David!"

Okay, so I'm thinking that this convention is probably the most awesome thing I could possibly do next summer (yes, even if the DW folks don't show up again next year). There go whatever savings I get scraped together from next semester's full time job already. And it's probably a bad sign that I'm thinking that one reason to go to UCLA rather than one of the schools in New York would be that I would be in the right state for Comic Con (assuming I live out there year-round, though, which I may still not).

oh, Heathrow airport

Mon, 11 May 2009 04:58:29 GMT

I've been reading baggage regulations for three different airline companies, looking up policies on leaving luggage at different places in London, and having a pretty good time making fun of Heathrow's security FAQ with Mom. I am deeply amused by the notion that these questions are indeed frequently asked. Anyway, this is one of the most patronizing FAQs I have ever read.

My favorites were, at first, the questions about what one could bring on a plane--not only is there a question about whether or not one is allowed to carry any reading material or children's games onto the plane, but apparently British question-askers believe that whether baby formula is diary- or soy-based will determine whether or not it is allowed on the plane. Also, I found a loophole in the whole no explosive materials thing: the answer to the question of whether or not one can bring a sandwich or crisps on the plane for one's child is "Yes, crisps are fine and sandwiches with any type of filling are also permitted." Any type of filling? *strokes chin, has evil laugh*

My very favorite, however, is a very special question filed under "Exceptional Items": "How can you assure me that there will be no terrorists on my plane? I would also like to know what checks you make on all the staff working at the airport – how do you know there are no terrorists working in security? Or smuggling bombs on planes via the food that is put on to the planes?"

I bet this is the most frequently asked question of all, verbatim.

movie meme!

Fri, 01 May 2009 06:25:00 GMT

Dug out ye olde movie quote meme again. Let's get this one circulating around the flists one more time.

Come on, it's been more than a year...that's long enough, isn't it?

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions!

1. ~~"Never...ever...fuck with an antiques dealer!!"~~
Dracula 2000, more or less guessed by nobleplatypus

2. Character 1: "Just what I've always wanted."
Character 2: "A restaurant?"
Character 1: "No, a friend with a restaurant."
hint: This movie is based on a song.

3. Character 1: "If you didn't kill him, then who did, sir?"
Character 2: "Who can say? Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere."
hint: The main character in this film is a woman.

4. ~~"I am the Amazing Bobinsky! But you--call me Mr. B., because amazing, I already know that I am."~~
Coraline, guessed by nobleplatypus

5. [To a police officer] "Don't get officious. You're not yourself when you're officious. That is the curse of a government job."
hint: This movie is about a very unusual romance.

6. ~~"If you have the tooth of a whale, you must have the jaw of a whale to wield it."~~
Whale Rider, guessed by nobleplatypus

7. "Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him."
hint: This movie has several sequels.

8. "Sorry we hurt your field, mister."
hint: Can't buy me love.

9. ~~"The #1 movie in America was called 'Ass.' And that's what it was...for ninety minutes. It won four Oscars that year, including best screenplay."~~
Idiocracy, guessed by nobleplatypus

10. "I like to watch women doing little domestic chores."
hint: The original version (which this quote is from) is a horror movie, but the remake is a comedy.

11. "For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
hint: This movie is long like a very long thing.

12. "I cannot be contained in any container!"
hint: This movie came out in 2008.
hint 2: It was nominated for an Oscar.
Bolt, guessed by nobleplatypus

13. "Listen. I don't like to preach, but here's some advice. You'll meet a lot of jerks in life. If they hurt you, remember it's because they're stupid. Don't react to their cruelty. There's nothing worse than bitterness and revenge. Keep your dignity and be true to yourself."
hint: An animated film for adults.

14. "Take these three items: some WD-40, a vice grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone."
hint: Get off my lawn!

15. "That's the great thing about the outdoors: it's one giant toilet."
hint: This movie begins with a funeral.

I'll give everyone a day or two to guess before I start adding hints.

this is what I do when I should be studying.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:55:50 GMT

So agenttrojie started an "I Love the Whole World" rewriting craze on metaquotes, and I decided to get in on it with a version for film students - or at least critical studies students.

Inspirational posts are here and here.

I love photography
I love the zoetrope
I love the Latham loop
And the kinetoscope

I love film history
And all its gadgetry
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

I love Cahiers
I love Bela Balasz
I love Munsterberg
And Soviet Montage

I love film theory
What is Cinema?
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

I love realism
I love Expressionists
I love illusions
And all the plot twists

I love that whole world:
The moving picture show
Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats! \o/

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:36:19 GMT

When I agreed to watch Death Bed: The Bed That Eats with my brother, my expectations were pretty low. Low-budget indie horror films from the seventies tend to be, with rare exceptions, badly-paced, drawn out snoozefests with inexplicable plots and awful characters.

This is one of those exceptions.

Death Bed is a shining example of a writer/director (George Barry, who is not credited on IMDb as ever having made another movie) taking extremely limited resources and turning out a film that is not only watchable, but highly engaging. The sets are minimal, the special effects are often extremely unconvincing, and the acting ranges from decent to downright awful (there is a flashback in which a gangster character being eaten by the bed says "I'm being eaten alive!" in a strange, matter of fact way while shooting his pistol in the general direction of his own crotch, viewable in the first part of this small collection of clips). The concept, at first, seems not just unreasonably bizarre but incapable of supporting an entire film.

But for all that, George Barry managed to put together a film that somehow works. It has a snappy pace and, very importantly, the action and the backstory are explained very clearly throughout the film (except for the ending, which gets a little vague). This is accomplished through the presence of the artist character - a ghost trapped behind his own painting across the room from the bed, where he receives the inedible belongings of the people the bed has eaten, has flashbacks concerning the bed's history, and repeatedly informs the bed of how much he hates it. It is perhaps somewhat unfortunate that he is the only proper character in the movie (interestingly, he is played by two actors - this is possible because he never speaks aloud, allowing him to be voiced by someone other than the man who provides his visual representation). The rest tend to be lacking in personality or history, though there is a strange set of sequences in which one of the girls is set up as if she's going to be our heroine, complete with internal monologues, before she falls victim to the bed. There are a lot of internal monologues in this film though, lending it a sort of dreamy quality. When characters do speak aloud, the deliverance of the dialogue still tends to seem distant, almost abstracted, leading me to believe that the poor acting might have actually benefited the film by keeping it at a strange remove from reality.

Predictably, Death Bed uses its subject matter as a jumping-off point for inclusion of seventies sleaze (it's a seventies movie about a bed that eats people - how could it not include an orgy that ends in the deaths of all involved?), but it's portrayed surprisingly cleanly (don't be surprised to see some nudity here and there, though). Sex is a factor in the story - a very large factor - but its portrayal onscreen is clearly not where Barry's interests really lay when he made this film. The "orgy" in question is depicted by a bunch of people sitting under the blankets and waving their arms to give the scene some movement - hardly the sexiest of orgy portrayals.

Death Bed is surprising because not only is it a fun film (you know the instant you see the bed downing a bottle of Pepto-Bismol that it's definitely okay to laugh at parts of it), but it's also surprisingly artistic. What might have been nothing but laughs a la the Pepto-Bismol sequence works surprisingly well as a serious dreamworld of shifting themes and tones.

If you looked at the title and thought it sounded at all interesting, see it. As George Barry says in the introduction to the film on the DVD (which you must also watch to get an idea of the history of the film and of the personality of the man who made it): "You might as well give it a try."

screw you too, Art International Radio

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:27:48 GMT

So here's the deal: The Film-makers' Coop is being evicted from the space where they have had their archive and their offices for about nine years for the sake of a new project headed by one Alanna Heiss, who just plain doesn't seem to get that kicking these guys out is a move that could bring an end to this organization. As of now, they don't have the funding they would need to support relocating thousands of 16mm prints and a massive paper archive. Articles about the situation are here, here, and here.

At this time the Film-makers' Coop is often the only resource available for exhibitors in need of prints of rare independent works, or for independent filmmakers in need of some form of distribution. As at least one of the articles mentions, in some cases the Coop possesses the only known copy of a film. Losing this resource would be a massive blow to organizations like TIE, who rented films from them for their 2008 fundraising event, and also any museums wanting to expose the public to alternate cinemas.

Here's the part that requires effort on our part: going to this page and sending a message to NY Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin asking for support for the Coop, either in remaining where they are or in moving to another location. Even if you're not into experimental film, think of the potential loss in terms of art history. No way should we lose this collection just because some nitwit wanted to start an online radio station.

Please spread the word to your flists and to any relevant communities, too.

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:18:47 GMT

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

agenttrojie gave me M:

#1. Man of La Mancha

And yes, that's a Torchwood fanvid set to John Barrowman singing the song. What can I say? He has a very pretty voice, even if he is awfully young to be Don Quixote.

#2. Pearl Jam: Man of the Hour

...come on, that isn't even a proper video!

#3. Scott Joplin: Maple Leaf Rag

I thought this guy was playing it awfully fast (though my experience comes only from a single recording I got as part of the materials for a class freshman year)...and then I saw this:

Daaaamn.

#4. The Mickey Mouse Club March

Okay, that video is nothing short of awesome - even apart from having the full original Mickey Mouse Club opening, it also has a commercial in which women sing about the wonders of "New Super Hard Gloss Glo-Coat" for their kitchen floors. Bwaaaaah! (and my women and film teacher would have a field day with that commercial, btw)

#5. Sondheim: My Friends, from Sweeney Todd

lulz, I'm kidding. Here, have a good version of the same:

...I need to go do homework or something. This is ridiculous.

OH THE SUFFERING

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:49:30 GMT

I'm hoping to do my book and movie reviews sometime this week, but it hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of other stuff going on right now.

Anyway, on Tuesday in women and film we watched Letter from an Unknown Woman, which is a melodrama that's apparently still pretty popular with certain audiences. It's what was known as a "women's film" or "weepy." It came out in 1948, and it really pissed me off. A proper review will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, I would like to present you with my own little Letter from an Unknown Woman In Five Minutes. And yes, this does contain spoilers, since I'm going over the entire story. I personally wouldn't recommend that you see this movie anyway, but if you're really into angst and self-sacrificing love and all that nonsense and actually want to see this thing, you might want to steer clear.

Basically, it goes like this. Stefan, a former virtuoso pianist, receives a letter the night before he is to take part in a duel. In it, Lisa relates her story, starting out with a statement to the effect that she is probably already dead as he reads it, and that she has always been his. Always. So we go into the letter and see the story unfold.

VIENNA, SOMETIME IN THE LATE 1800's:

Lisa, age 14: *is perfectly happy, if somewhat nondescript*
Stefan: *moves into her building and starts playing his bootiful moosik, though it doesn't ever seem to actually line up with the movements of his hands on the keys*
Lisa: "I HAVE ONLY JUST NOW TRULY BEEN BORN." *proceeds to stalk him, even to the point of sneaking into his apartment and feeling up his piano while he's out*
Stefan: *has women in and out of his apartment constantly, but manages to notice Lisa once when she opens the lobby door for him*
Lisa: *MELTS*

A FEW YEARS LATER:

Lisa's Mom: "I fell in love with some guy and we're going to move to another city."
Lisa: "NEEVEEERR!!!"
Lisa's Mom: "...why not?"
Lisa: "NO REASON." *suffers quietly*

IN...WHEREVER THE HELL THEY MOVED TO:

Lisa's Mom and Stepdad: "Hey, Lisa, meet this Military Guy."
Military Guy: "Hi, Lisa!"
Lisa: "hello." *suffers*
Military Guy: "Hey, now that we've hung out and had some good times for the last few months...wanna get hitched? I think you're swell."
Lisa: "I'M ALREADY ENGAGED."
Military Guy: "Buhwhuh?"
Lisa: *runs away back to Vienna*

BACK IN VIENNA:

Lisa: *gets a job modeling clothes in a shop, and spends all her free time stalking Stefan*
Stefan: *plays moar bootiful moosik*
Lisa: *skulks in the shadows*
Stefan: *is a complete manwhore*
Lisa: *pines*
Stefan: *spots her in the shadows* "Hey, you're pretty cute. Wanna go out with me?"
Lisa: "OMG YES"
Stefan: *takes her out to expensive places* "Tell me about yourself!"
Lisa: "No, you tell me about YOURself!"
Stefan: "...okay!" *does so* "But seriously, I want to know more about you."
Lisa: "I WANT TO MAINTAIN THE SENSE OF MYSTERY." *clearly suffering*
Stefan: "...right. Want to go back to my place?"
Lisa: "Sure!"
Movie: *implies that they had hot sex*

THE NEXT DAY:

Stefan: "Ha-HA! I managed to figure out where you work so I could come see you! But I have to go out of town for two weeks. Wait for me!"
Lisa: "I'll do that." *WEEPS*

NINE MONTHS LATER:

Nun: "Tell us who your baby's father is!"
Lisa: "NO. I WILL SUFFER ALONE!!" *suffers WITH A VENGEANCE*

NINE YEARS LATER:

Lisa: "Oh, look, I've married for the sake of my son!" *completely fails to describe the nine years of single motherhood in 1890's Vienna*
Hubby: "I love you, Lisa."
Stefan Jr.: "I love you, Mother."
Lisa: *puts on veneer of happiness, underneath which she is clearly SUFFERING*
Hubby: "Let's go to the opera!"
Movie: *mangles the second act of The Magic Flute*
Spoofie: *is severely distracted by the mangled Flute business* "...Why is it in Italian all of the sudden?"
Lisa: *runs into Stefan at the opera*
Stefan: "Hey, have we met before?"
Lisa: *weeps and runs off*
Hubby: "WTF wummun, I'm your husband damnit!"
Lisa: "MY LOVE FOR HIM IS ALL-CONSUMING."
Hubby: "Bitch."
Stefan Jr.: *is oblivious*

SOME SHORT TIME LATER:

Lisa: "I'll see you again soon, Stefan Jr." *loads him onto a train, getting in with him for a few minutes to say goodbye*
Stefan Jr.: "I'll see you in two weeks, Mother!"
Lisa: *WEEPS*
Medical Guy 1: "Make way, folks, we've got a typhus-ridden corpse to get off the train here!"
Medical Guy 2: "Gee, I don't think this is going to lead to any suffering or anything!"

SOME SHORT TIME LATER AGAIN:

Lisa: *goes to Stefan's house*
Stefan: "Hey, you're pretty cute and vaguely familiar. Wanna go out with me?"
Lisa: *SUFFERS, FOR HE HAS FAILED TO RECOGNIZE HER*
Stefan: "Whee, champagne!"
Lisa: *sneaks out*

SOME MORE TIME LATER:

Lisa (writing): "...and that's how I came to be here in the hospital, dying of typhus and SUFFERING. ALONE. Oh, and our son died a couple weeks ago, btw."
Stefan (reading): "WHUT."
Note from the nuns: "We figure this letter is probably for you, since she said your name with her final breath and all."
Stefan: "O WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN."
Jealous Hubby: "Hey, dude, it's time for our duel."
Stefan: "I GO TO DIE NOW."

THE END (and the music swells!)

productivity: minimal

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:49:36 GMT

I keep itching for an excuse to switch from doing homework to watching more Jeeves & Wooster. Am trying to pace myself, though, and also to actually do some of my homework this weekend. I didn't wake up until one in the afternoon again today, which was pretty lame. I get what should be a sufficient amount of sleep during the week, but then when I get a chance (or even when I don't) I find myself sleeping for ten or twelve hours at a time. I remember hearing that excessive sleeping is a symptom of depression, so that's not a good sign. I don't want to be depressed - not because of the stigma attached to that, but because it would be so incredibly inconvenient. I should probably go exercise or something, since that seems to help, but it's hard to get the motivation stirred up for it when I really don't like exercising (it's boring).

In other news, I have at least finished my Russian workbook chapter, and deleted my Elfwood accounts (they hadn't been updated since high school and I was tired of getting emailed flames for artwork I'd forgotten I'd even done). That's about it, though.

The only other news is that I've started drawing a lot in women and film, since we're not allowed to have laptops in that class. Give me a notebook and a lecture, and it's drawing time - the only reason I don't draw all over my Russian notes is that there's a constant demand for participation. I'm uploading the latest page of drawings to devART as something to put in scraps, since it's very rare for me to update there anymore. Sometime I should go over to Fanart Central, grab all the pictures I still care about, put them on devART, and delete my FC account as well to make things all tidy and centralized.

Here's the new submission.

new things, old things

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:27:54 GMT

I'm currently sitting in the newly remodeled reference area of my university's main library. Finally, after an entire semester of having the airiest, most pleasant part of the library walled off and unavailable, it's back with new furniture and the wall knocked down between the old study area and the new reference area. It's quite shiny.

In other news, I wanted to post about a poster I saw up in my old freshman dorm, Cheyenne-Arapaho. I didn't read the entire thing, as most of it was about the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and in very small print, but I did notice the very large
~~Chey-Ho~~
written on it, crossed out like that. I read the relevant part of the display, and it was an entreaty to students to both refer to the hall by its full name and to spell that name correctly (i.e., not "Cheyenne-Arapahoe). I don't remember the reason for them being so excited about making sure no one put an 'e' on the end, though I can sort of understand just wanting people to spell it right as a matter of principle (even though the common spelling of 'Arapahoe' is with an 'e,' as in Arapahoe County, Arapahoe Libraries, Arapahoe Avenue, etc, so heaven knows why they decided to go without and then got all surprised when Colorado natives went around spelling it wrong).

Anyway, matters of spelling aside, under the big crossed-out "Chey-Ho" the creator of the display went on at length about how the hall was named for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, and how it was "disrespectful" and "offensive" to shorten the hall's name to Chey-Ho (pronounced "Shy Hoe"), and haven't we done enough to these poor people already without being flippant about their tribes' names, and anyway Cheyenne and Arapaho are two separate halls, donchaknow (that's news to me!).

I contend that this is just an example of someone getting their panties in a bunch due to the fact that we, the people of Boulder, live in an idiotically hypersensitive little bubble, and that to ask the students to refrain from using an abbreviation is nothing short of completely moronic.

#1. When students use the term "Chey-Ho," they are referring to the Cheyenne-Arapaho residence hall, not the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. If it is disrespectful to abbreviate the names, I would like to point out that it's probably also disrespectful to hyphenate them into one name in their full forms, as it implies that the two are homogenous, and each tribe worthy only of having half a building named after them (a side note: the building was formerly named for a single man, but renamed later due to the fact that the school administration concluded that his war heroism against the Native Americans was not heroism after all).

#2. Chey-Ho is not two halls. It has only one office, one mail room, and one building name (made out of two names). Yes, it is structured to have an East wing and a West wing, but never has one been referred to as "Cheyenne" and the other as "Arapaho." Furthermore, several other halls have the same structure (they seem to have built a bunch of cookie-cutter dorms in the middle of the last century), and each of those buildings is only one hall. If Chey-Ho is two halls, then so is Libby.

#3. If one is violently opposed to the idea of a name being shortened or used in a flippant manner, it's probably not a good idea to use that name on a university campus. After all, when given the choice of what to name the then-new grill in the UMC, CU students of the '70's chose to name it after Alferd Packer, the notorious cannibal. Furthermore, the School of Arts and Sciences is often referred to as "the School of Arts and Crafts," and Kittredge West (another residence hall) is almost always referred to as "Kitt West," and sometimes even jokingly called "Kitt What." Isn't that disrespectful toward that hall's namesake?

#4. The matter of the reason behind the abbreviation. Cheyenne-Arapaho is just too long. You can't dump freshmen in a building with a five-syllable name and expect them to refer to it by its full name every single time it comes up. "Chey-Ho" is a catchy alternative - quicker to say, and easier to write. Is it any surprise that it has caught on as a nickname? This comes back to reason #3: if they were so desperate to never have it shortened, perhaps they should have chosen a name that didn't call out so loudly for an abbreviation.

So that's my two cents, and then some. I called it Chey-Ho when I lived there, I've called it Chey-Ho for the three years since, and I'm going to keep on calling it Chey-Ho, no matter how many posters they put up to discourage me.

Maybe I should send a note to the administrators.

...lotta movies.

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:55:43 GMT

Maybe I should post movie reviews twice a week if I'm going to do it for everything I see. Or maybe after this week I'll only review stuff I hadn't seen before.

Anyway, here's a pretty good haul for the week. They're just in the order that I saw them.

Rebel Without a Cause

This week marks my second time seeing Rebel Without a Cause, a film that is hard to separate from the events that surrounded it - both in terms of that point at which the teenager suddenly became a demographic with a culture all his own, and of course in terms of the death of James Dean. It's a little difficult to view this movie simply as a movie, but I don't want to get into a big lecture on the emergence of the teenager or on Dean's cult status postmortem.

Like many other movies, when Rebel Without a Cause is shown in class, the teacher tends to give a disclaimer about the era in which it was made and to exhort the students to take it seriously, even though it may seem dated and certain moments might be unintentionally funny to a modern audience. If I have trouble relating to the characters or the situations, though (and I do), it is less because of the difference in time frames than because I don't really understand most teenagers, especially not movie teenagers. Their lives are full of drama over things that I've either not experienced or didn't find all that dramatic (or at least that I don't remember having found that dramatic), and sometimes I wonder if I didn't miss the boat or something.

That being said, you don't have to be a teenager to appreciate Rebel (though it may help). Jim Stark is less some mysterious teenaged being than simply a young man facing a lot of confusion without much (or anything) in the way of guidance from anyone he feels he can both trust and respect. One of the main themes, expressed repeatedly through compositions that have Jim pushing against the top of the frame. It's less a film about some rock star (or pre-rock star) personality than about the generation gap and tension in a nuclear family.

Rear Window

Rear Window was one of a dozen or so Hitchcock movies that I watched on my own prior to seeing it in a film class, probably on my brother's recommendation. There's really not much one can say about any Hitchcock movie that hasn't already been said (well, you can say "I don't really like Vertigo," but it's not so much that that hasn't been said as that it hasn't been said out loud, much like the fact that it's easy to find a CU student who can't stand Brakhage's films, but very hard to find one who will say so to any of the instructors).

Anyway, Rear Window is interesting because it's technically a single set film like Rope and Lifeboat, even though the action takes place in a relatively large area compared to those films. Where Rope was concerned with the goings-on inside an apartment, though, Rear Window uses an apartment as a private box from which the characters observe the activities of their neighbors. The parallel between cinema and Jeffries's observance of his neighbors through the frame of his window is clear enough, though the point at which the metaphor becomes most interesting is when the basic rules of cinema are violated and the characters begin to look back.

The Return of the Living Dead

I can honestly say that not only had I never seen Return of the Living Dead (Dan O'Bannon, 1985) before today, but I had never even heard of it. It's exactly the sort of movie I would expect to cause a fight between my brother and myself over whether or not to watch it - I would be happy to pass it over without a second glance based just on the cover, and he would beg me to watch it with him. And of course, just like so many movies that caused such conflicts, I did end up seeing it (though this time for my film theory course), and I did end up getting some enjoyment out of it.

Whether or not I even need to include a synopsis is questionable. There's an accident in a medical supply warehouse that leads to some corpses reanimating, the characters handle the situation poorly, and the problem spreads to the cemetery next door (where a bunch of ostentatiously dressed and be-chained punk kids are having a party while they wait for a friend who works in the warehouse to get off work. There's an undertaker involved (this cul-de-sac is like a triumvirate of death-related enterprises), as well as a number of unfortunate paramedics and police officers. The movie is fairly tongue-in-cheek about all this death and zombies business, and outright refuses to follow in zombie flick tradition.

To be honest, the concept of intelligent, talking, tool-using, running zombies (that can function in pieces or without their brains, no less) really kind of pisses me off. It's just not sportsmanlike. And yes, I do realize that that's the point of the movie - where Romero almost always left someone alive, Return of the Living Dead pointedly kills off all the characters. How do they get out of this kooky situation? They don't. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty fun movie (as bad as it is, it's really hard not to laugh when you see a pair of paramedics get tackled by a huge mob of zombies) and the animatronics are gorgeous, but in the end The Return of the Living Dead is just too sadistic for my tastes.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

First off, for those not familiar with Leni Riefenstahl, the quick answer to the question of who she was is that she was the director of Triumph of the Will, a movie that has been hailed as the best propaganda piece of all time (and, having seen clips from it in this documentary, I have to agree that it is breathtaking), and which just happens to be a documentation of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.

That's the quick answer. The long answer involves her career first as a dancer before she became an actress/mountaineer in Arnold Fanck's mountain films, the other, less Nazi-oriented films she made, such as Olympia, her documentary of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, her banishment from the German film industry after the end of World War II, her later photographic work with the Nuba tribes of Sudan, and late in her life, her romantic involvement with Horst Kettner, her cameraman and later SCUBA buddy, who was forty years her junior.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl is a three-hour-long documentary that attempts to take an unbiased look at Riefenstahl's life story and address the questions that surround her involvement with the Nazi party. The filmmakers go to great lengths to chronicle the parts of her life before and after the rise and fall of the National Socialist Party in Germany in an attempt to provide context for her actions and to present her as a human being with a life outside those terrible events. The viewer is never lead to a solid conclusion as to either her guilt or her innocence, but left to ponder the contradictions between the defense she gives in response to these questions and written historical accounts. Upon locating outside information on Riefenstahl, one quickly realizes that this documentary, comprehensive though it may try to be, simply can't provide all the pertinent information (not to mention that Riefenstahl was not always cooperative with the film crew about topics that apparently hit too close to home). And, too, even if Riefenstahl is telling the truth in the numerous interviews that dot the film, one has to wonder where disinterest ends and criminal negligence begins (a line that it's nearly impossible to deny that Riefenstahl crossed somewhere along the way, even if one believes her protests to accusations of having been a staunch Nazi supporter).

It's a Wonderful Life

Whenever I tell people that I never saw It's a Wonderful Life when I was growing up, they react with disbelief - how could I ever have lived without seeing this movie? For a few years now, I've had it on my list of movies to see, figuring that anything that famous should be seen at least once, if only so that one can catch references to it in other movies and shows. With that in mind, I picked up a copy from my library this week, and yesterday Ben and I sat down and watched it together.

I think that It's a Wonderful Life is perhaps a film I might have found more endearing as a child. Yes, we did both enjoy it, despite knowing at least the gist of the story going in, but to be honest (and I might piss some people off here), it was kind of sappy in parts. I like the idea of it, and I liked George and the other characters (except of course Mr. Potter, who reminds me of the Penguin from Batman - "wah wah wah, I'm going to put you out of business, Bailey!" *wiggles flipper-hands*), but I could have done without the lengthy opening with the talking galaxies, for instance. Still, though, I cared about the characters, and the ending was really uplifting.

The Nostalgia Critic presents a very good point about Mary's fate without George in his Christmas special countdown, though. Oh noes, she never got married?!?! That's so much worse than Harry drowning or an entire military transport getting sunk!!! Come on, 1946, I didn't think you were that sexist. Guess I was wrong.

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure

"Your harsh words strike me like blows from the fists of a large dockworker...I would cry now, were it not so bourgeois."
Lars

The sequel to Disney's original animated version of 101 Dalmatians looks on the surface to be yet another of those straight-to-DVD, lower budget, low quality sequels Disney has pumped out over the years to cash in on the popularity of their more worthwhile films (see Brother Bear 2 for a prime example - or rather, don't). It's unfortunate that Disney has put out so much in the way of sub-par videos that are little better than ripoffs of the work of the great writers and animators who have served the studio in the past, as it means that the discerning viewer is likely to skip seeing any of their straight-to-DVD output at all, despite the fact that there are a few gems to be found (see The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, or, to a somewhat lesser extent, The Lion King 1 1/2 - and no, I don't think it's a coincidence that both showed up in the same franchise).

101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure tells the story of, you guessed it, Patch, one of the puppies from the first movie. Disturbed by his apparent anonymity even to his parents due to the sheer number of dalmatian puppies living in their townhome, Patch runs away when moving day comes in favor of seeking out Thunderbolt, the star of his favorite show, who happens to be in London for a publicity event. Meanwhile, Cruella De Vil is out on probation and full of obsessive angst. She meets an eccentric painter named Lars, who easily makes the entire film worth viewing all on his own, and commissions him to make a special painting to "soothe her tortured soul."

This is really where the film takes off from what might have otherwise been nothing more than a mediocre story about some cute animated dogs. Don't get me wrong - Patch's adventures with Thunderbolt are plenty of fun on their own, but it's only the sort of stuff you would expect to go on in a Disney movie about canines. The interactions between Cruella and Lars come completely out of left field, and never stop bringing the laughs.

Fans of the original movie may have difficulty initially with getting into this sequel, as the voices are different (understandable, considering the forty-two year gap between the releases of these two movies) and the animation doesn't have quite the same look as the original for reasons both of budget and of differences in personnel, but it's worth getting into. For those with children, there are a lot worse things a kid could be watching, and I would recommend this film at least as a rental for anyone who enjoyed the original.

moar review tiem

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:53:40 GMT

If current trends hold up, there could be a lot of movie reviews showing up on here from now on. I should probably find a community for to post them, or put them on Netflix or something or other. I'll figure it out.

Just a quick review today. Again, no spoilers in the review, though they may come up in the comments.

This is really more of a DVD review, I guess. The Animation Show is a program of short animated films selected by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. Some are funny, some are serious, some are just bizarre, but they're all engaging. This DVD showcases a wide variety of uses for animation, from the off-the-wall humor of the show's animated hosts to the tragedy of Aria and the strange rhythm of Bathtime in Clerkenwell. My favorite from the collection is Das Rad ("The Rocks"), which comes toward the end of the show.

Not everything in the show was to my taste, of course, but it was all well worth watching, and I'll be looking into watching the other two volumes, as well as perhaps buying copies to have around (I got the DVD from Netflix, as usual).

movies today (er, yesterday)

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:27:15 GMT

I've decided that I need to start writing mini-reviews for all the movies I see and the books I read. I've been logging both of these in the calendar pages of my planners for several years now, but when I look back at the titles even a few months later I sometimes find that I can't actually remember what the book or movie was about, or whether or not I even liked it. Bad sign for my memory. Anyway, I should probably be practicing writing reviews anyway. Maybe I'll re-join the bookshare comm to post my book reviews (I'm working on World War Z right now, and it's awesome)

I saw two movies today. First, I went with my staff this afternoon to see Bedtime Stories. Then, I went with Ben this evening to see Gran Torino. Can you say "world of difference"?

Bedtime Stories (Adam Shankman) is geared toward a younger or a family audience. The premise is that Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler) is a man who has been passed over his entire life. When his sister, Wendy (Courtney Cox), loses her job due to the impending closure of the school where she works, she leaves her children with him for a week while she goes job hunting in Arizona. Oh, and of course she also leaves her hawt coworker, Jill (Keri Russell) to help take care of the kids during the day (can you see where this is going?). Anyway, Skeeter discovers that the kids' bedtime stories are coming true the day after they're told, and tries to use that to his advantage.

While I don't expect that a movie with this premise to be completely true to life, I feel cheated by the refusal of the filmmakers to provide any sort of baseline of reality. If you've seen the previews, you've seen Bugsy the guinea pig. Bugsy isn't the film's biggest problem, but he ranks pretty high on the list of stupid things included in Bedtime Stories for no apparent reason. There really is absolutely no reason for this guinea pig to be included in the film, let alone for it to have hideous computer-generated googly eyes. It felt like Bugsy was just shoved in there to be the Cute Animal Companion - his inclusion in any scene basically amounts to one of the characters going "Oh, look, Bugsy ate too many hamburgers!" and the editor cutting to a shot of Bugsy, who has become a bloated orb from eating said hamburgers (I am not making this up). Then Skeeter says "Woa, you're right! Lay off the hamburgers, Bugsy!" and Bugsy mugs at the camera for a few seconds before we're allowed to get on with the movie. Repeat ad nauseam.

There were a few things I liked, such as the germ-phobic hotel chain owner (Richard Griffiths), and Skeeter's friend Mickey (Russell Brand). The latter has all the funniest lines and gags, and to be honest, I just like looking at Russell Brand. The big climactic race to save the day montage was pretty well done, but I was unable to fully enjoy it due to the filmmakers throwing the laws of physics out the window. The interesting part about the stories becoming reality is that they do so in ways that are physically possible in the real world - so why isn't even the real world sticking to its own rules?

In conclusion, Bedtime Stories has the same problem a lot of children's movies do: it doesn't respect its audience. And yes, you can get away with showing just about anything shiny and fast to a four-year-old, but there are other audience members to keep in mind. Parents are a big one (it's always nicer to watch a movie that caters to both kids and adults than to sit through two hours of bathroom humor and nonsense). Older kids are also a factor. The reason movies like The Secret of NIMH and The Goonies are good is that they respect the intelligence of the audience members enough to give them a real story that at least mostly makes logical sense, even though said audience members are often going to be children. That's what makes kids feel like the filmmakers really get where they're coming from instead of just talking down to them, and that's what gives a film staying power and makes you want to buy the DVD and watch it repeatedly.

If Bedtime Stories made me forget why I bother seeing new movies, Gran Torino made me remember. The premise is simple enough: Walter Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is a crotchety old white man living in a neighborhood that has long since gone over to housing Hmong immigrants. He's a Korean War veteran and has recently lost his wife, leaving him alone in his well-maintained house with his dog, Daisy. He spends his days sitting on his porch drinking beer and squinting and growling at his neighbors (one of whom is an old woman, who squints and growls right back from her own porch). All he wants is to be left alone, having avoided becoming estranged from his sons only by the fact that they were never close in the first place, but he is continually pestered by Father Janovich (Christopher Carley), whom his wife told to badger him into going to confession, and by the activities in and around his neighbors' house. We are also introduced to Thao (Bee Vang), a boy living next door whose cousin is trying to pressure him into joining the local gang (the two meet when Thao is sent on an initiation mission to steal Walt's prized 1972 Ford Gran Torino).

The basic themes of Gran Torino seem simple at first glance, even trite if one is to come out and say the truth, that it's a movie about second chances and about the real meanings behind concepts like family and friendship. This is no after-school special, though. Walter Kowalski is unapologetically un-P.C. - oh, let's just come out and say it, the guy is racist - spouting racial epithets almost every time he opens his mouth and spending his time with Father Janovich telling the priest just how ignorant Walt thinks he is. He starts out as an antihero - he's that crotchety old guy who putters around his own place and snarls at anyone who tries to make contact (and yes, at one point he can be seen brandishing a rifle and uttering the classic crotchety old man phrase: "Get off my lawn!"). Walt is a man who seems to have let life slip him by (Father Janovich comments that he "seems to know a lot more about death than about life"), finding himself old and alone, full of regrets, and lost in a changed world. The overall thrust of the movie is fairly obvious, but the story and characters are realistic, nuanced, and often surprising, and the ending will knock you flat. It's an intense movie, but definitely a must-see.

ETA: I forgot to mention that my reviews will not contain spoilers, unless the "spoilers" are in the previews where you've probably seen them anyway. There may be some spoilers in the comments, but if they originate from me they will be hidden with white text so that you have to highlight them to read them. Note that LJ's message notification system will deliver said comments to your inbox sans html markups if you track the comments on this post, so you could get an inbox full of undisguised spoilers if you do so.

Sam Clemens on a Tuesday Morning

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:38:02 GMT

The folks over at Berkeley have just digitized the only known footage of Mark Twain, shot sometime between 1900 and 1910. See him toddling around in a stately manner! Thrill as he eats breakfast! Squint at the sadly unrestored film!

No, but seriously, this is pretty much awesome.

hokai

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:13:10 GMT

For quite a while, I've been unable to load the 'manage subscriptions' page here on LJ and edit what I am and am not tracking. Then, I stopped being able to track anything at all. I put in a support request, and found out that hey, if you keep adding subscriptions without deleting old ones, the page will stop loading - which first stops you from editing it, and then from adding more new ones. After a few days waiting on those ~~insane~~ helpful people who give their time to help with this stuff, I got someone to wipe all my subscriptions so I can start over. Yey! My eljay be working again!

But that also means that hey, all my subscriptions are gone. So if I'm being unresponsive to anything on recent (or not so recent) posts, it's because I'm having to completely rebuild my comment tracking system (and hopefully I'll start clearing it out often enough that this doesn't happen again).

two years after they were made....

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:51:46 GMT

Well, I've finally posted all my super 8 films from fall 2006 (my first semester of production courses) on YouTube, having managed to show one, and only one, at a film festival, where it was nominated for "best bad film" but did not get the prize. Distressing.

I'm going to link instead of embedding because you really need to click on the "watch in high quality" button under the video to get them to look even halfway decent, and I don't know if that shows up on embedded videos. Also, this way I don't feel bad about not putting this under a cut.

The first is the aforementioned nominee at the BFD, Dog Dreams of Autumn. The title was shortened to Dog Dreams by the organizers of that festival, but if you're going to put a pretentious title on something you shot in your backyard with your brother and your dog, you might as well go all the way. By the way, don't ever try shooting something you have to edit in-camera with an animal.

I think that Sick Day was the second film I shot that semester, but I'm honestly not sure. Well, it was the second one I shot, but not necessarily the second one I made, since I'm not sure whether it came before or after the next one on the list.

Seasons was my first attempt at a cameraless/scratch film, and I think it's a fairly good first attempt. Sometime maybe I should upload my new direct film, but I'm kind of thinking of expanding on it and seeing if TIE will show it.

Last but not least is The Making Of, which was, ironically enough, a giant pain in the ass to shoot. Keeping things in focus was never really one of my strong points...but never mind that, just look at the stop motion, which is less wobbly than in Sick Day. We shot several more stop motion shots than appear in the final film, but they came back unusable, either because of exposure or focus.

gah, LJ

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:31:28 GMT

Is anyone else having trouble getting the 'track this' function to work?

I love this so much

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:51:58 GMT

The Doctor's list of instructions to Martha, circa Human Nature, viewed at normal speed:

Remember that letter to the editor?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:57:41 GMT

Well, my letter to the editor re: gay marriage got both printed in the paper and posted on their website, where people can comment on it. There are 79 comments for yesterday's letters - I have only read through the first few, but so far they've all been in response to my letter.

[link deleted]

Note that the fourth comment down starts with "Kathryn Kramer, I find it very sad that you are asexual. Sex is one of the greatest pleasures a human being can have."

Congratulations, "nobama," on proving that even in hippietown, there are plenty of people with their heads up their asses when it comes to sexuality. I'm thinking my response will start with "nobama, I'm find it very sad that you're so closed-minded. Approaching topics like human sexuality intelligently is one of the greatest intellectual pleasures a human being can have."

*x-posts to asexuality*

ETA post-troll: Link deleted since the page contained my full name and home city. Hate speech deleted from comments, troll banned from commenting here, etc.

Spoofie says something meaningful

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:50:47 GMT

The letter I just sent to my local paper (and some of you have already heard this argument from me before):

A law against gay marriage is a law against religious freedom.

In the wake of Proposition 8 and a number of other anti-gay measures being passed across the country, the only word to describe my feelings is outrage. I am outraged, of course, as a person who identifies as asexual and therefore also as queer, but moreover I am outraged as a Christian and simply as a human being. The question of the institution of marriage is not one that should ever have come into the hands of the state. The separation of church and state was put into place in this country to both protect the state from the church and, equally important, to protect the church from the state. Any ban on same sex marriage is a violation of that pivotal policy, and it is a violation in both directions. In this case, the religious right has violated the separation of church and state by forcing its beliefs on the government - and the government will now proceed to violate its supposed separation from the church by forcing those churches that support and uphold same sex marriage to cease and desist from performing religious ceremonies - namely, certain marriages. The question of whether or not any two consenting adults can and should get married should never be decided by the government, or even by the people. Whether or not a church chooses to perform gay marriage should be entirely up to that church. No one would dream of forcing a church to perform a certain marriage, so what gives anyone the right to ban another church from doing so? As for secular marriages, any legal right held by heterosexual couples should be held by same sex couples. There is no valid reason to deny our brothers and sisters the rights we enjoy just because of whom they happen to love.

Woohoo, Obama won!

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:56:54 GMT

What's really sad is that so much of my life is centered in fandom that I actually spent a moment or two wondering if I ought to put that under a cut to protect my flist from spoilers.

Maybe now all the politicians can stop calling me three or four times a day.

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:12:29 GMT

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

Frotu, this one's for you.

oohoo

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:05:39 GMT

You know what movie you all should see? The Piano. We watched it in film theory on Tuesday, and discussed it yesterday. Now I've gone and looked at the reviews on Netflix (I should stop doing that. There are a lot of idiots on that site). And yeah, most of the ones on the first page are glowing, but then there are people going on about...well, I don't want to ruin it for you. Anyway, the romance is unconventional, and the most potentially troubling aspect of the movie, but one that makes sense if you see it the way you're probably supposed to. Let's just say that for a while it doesn't seem like a feminist film, when it really is at heart.

Oh gods, this idiot is going on about how the entire movie was ruined because the piano was shipped in an unrealistic fashion.