I hate it when in romantic comedies, the couple that finally resolves their issues in the end almost always kisses in front of a crowd and then everyone applauds.

WHO ACTUALLY DOES THAT?


Except maybe a bride and groom at their own wedding, I can't think of any real life examples of when it's ever appropriate or not awkward.

Werewolves

Bianca and her boyfriend, Steve, watched New Moon this evening and I dared to join them. I suggested Rifftrax as exemplified above, but they said no. Unfortunately.

New Moon was significantly better than Twilight, which is saying a lot. I think that the best way to sum up the movie is to quote Steve: "Wait, did she just say, 'I love you, don't make me choose, because it'll always be him'? What a cunt!!"

There it is, ladies and gentlemen. Stephanie Meyer is teaching the next generation of women to find their only worth and value in the love men give them and thereby reverse the advances of 50 years of feminism by making such a disastrous female the heroine of a poorly devised narrative.

Seriously, if more young women out there would read Jane Austen, they might learn a thing or two about life and love before they throw themselves at the first shiny vampire they meet.

Jane Austen knew her shit

"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it."

I'm afraid I will have to agree with our dear friend, Miss Eliza Bennet. I have had a habit as of late to watch documentaries online through Netflix. Food Inc. and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story are two recent ones. Both of which make the point that corporate CEOs have basically taken over the government. In the realm of fiction, I watched Idiocracy with Darren. I don't even know what to say about that one, it's quite scary how prophetic it could be.

Sometimes it makes me wish that America's economy would just collapse already, like it's been threatening to do. Yeah things would be bad, but then maybe we'd really be free -- without a bureaucracy dangling the keys to the mythical American Dream.

What's that? Not a good idea you say?
Oh, okay then.

I'll just go dig myself into a deeper educational debt hole and wait it out.

The Section Quartet

I have a new favorite band.



This is The Section Quartet. 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. I discovered them by watching the film Whip It! (which btw is an excellent coming of age story. Ellen Page is fantastic as always). I simply loved the score to the film and was delightfully surprised to discover that it was a group, not just a person. Their album "Fuzzbox" is a compilation of covers of rock bands, to sum up. Hope you enjoy the video.

Penelope

New favorite movie. Stunning visuals. Art direction and costuming was beautiful. It created its own fantasy world for the modern day. Loved it.

see through

"A realist masquerading as a cynic who is secretly an optimist."

Okay, so I'm quoting a movie.
Okay, so I'm quoting a silly romantic comedy.

But, really...
Really.


As of late: it feels like a very,
VERY true description of



Me.

haunted

That's the best word I can come up with for this...experience, this visceral reaction towards two films I've recently seen. One being (500) Days of Summer, the other, Revolutionary Road.

And what do I see?
A deathly look into what my future could be.
Why?


Well, first off, don't read this post if you don't want spoilers.

Revolutionary Road follows a married couple who see two different things when they envision at what their lives together could look like. "It takes courage to live the life you want," she says. She dies as she tries. She tries in the wrong way, but she certainly has the courage. Paris wasn't such a childish idea. It was heaven. It was original and different and lovely. RR is the story I'm scared of. It's the story that makes me run away and never ever want to touch that mystery known as marriage, because I see in film and in real life how it can tear your soul to pieces.

(500) Days recounts moments of a relationship between a young man and a young woman over the course of 500 days. The narrator tells us in the very beginning that it's not a love story, and it takes the entire 95 minutes of the film for me to believe this. I'm rooting for them and it all comes to nothing. Well, maybe just on his side. She says she found her fairy tale, even though she didn't believe they were real. But it leaves him in the dust, very misused.

They say that film is the new art form. They say that art reflects life. It's all an illusion really. Life is the everything and the nothing found on film. Rom-coms do nothing but increase the grandeur of the illusion, really. Yet sometimes I want them to make me believe in the lie. Because when these films, such as (500) Days and RR, come around that tout the same cynical perspective (that like Elizabeth though I profess it, it is not my own), I feel like something has died. Maybe if we just clap a little louder...?

I've come to the age where everyone around me is getting married and I think "Why? Why do you do this? Don't you know what you are getting yourself into?" Just this month, not even a full month, only 22 days, I have attended 1 wedding and have heard about 5 weddings and 3 engagements of people whom I know. Among those who are already married, I've heard about babies. Yet, I've heard stories of divorce that are just as rampant, however they are much more disturbing.

Yet, I envy them. I want a taste of that sweetness that has twice tempted my lips, but my story seems to end like Tom's: left in the dust.


I want so much more than the illusions brought to my door. I want so much more than a facade of celebration. I want so much more than they've got planned.

Oh, these paper bullets of the brain.

irony

I want to watch a movie I think
I scan through my collection
No, no, no, no...I want something to help restore my faith in humanity.
Why do I want this? God only knows.
Then my eyes rest on Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet Yes!

What? But they kill themselves.

But they kill themselves for love.


Hopeless. I am hopeless. I do not make sense.



Then the words begin: "Two households" etc
Two households...
The feud began, but no one knows where it started. And it just rages on.
Like in "Love Me Dead."
Roxy and James are of two households:
Art and Science.
Intuition and Logic.

Why didn't I realize this before?!
Epiphany. And Radiohead. Bada dum dum.

Matt Jones is the owner of these beautiful photographs of my beloved play.

-------------------------------

I wonder what it's like to love something so much that you would do anything for it, even die. That's how we're supposed to love God because that's how he loves us, but I don't think I've ever been there. I think most of the time I'm just existing and thinking (about myself) and hoping for the next best thing even though the next best thing may never come.

vicariously victorious

I think I'm doomed to live vicariously through other people's lives.

After all, I'm going into theatre. And not only that, I'm going to be dressing actors. I won't really be on the stage myself. And theatre is about thrusting yourself into a story and feeling and living a story in order to understand something new about the world. Or, in many cases, to simply affirm one's own worldview. This happens quite often in musicals.

Another example may be seen in how I spent my day today: 1.5 episodes of "Green Wing" plus a film and a movie: Rachel Getting Married and Confessions of a Shopaholic. I will probably watch more "Green Wing" later on tonight. These sorts of activities are regular occurrences in my life in Redlands.


Green Wing is a British hospital comedy television show. It's like Scrubs, but 5x as many inappropriate sexual jokes, better witty jokes, and wackier characters. And loads of angsty tension between two main characters. Oh, it's wonderful. Go watch the first season on Hulu. Second season is on MySpace.


(my mood right now can best be described as a mixture between "Mad World" and "Both Sides Now." I find this slightly depressing)

I know.

Han Solo is my movie crush. There are just so many things that I love about him. And he's just totally bad ass and that makes everything better.

Also, despite some of my feminist tendencies with a dash of bitterness, I'm still a complete sucker for a good love story, or even just a cheesy made for TV movie. I'm not sure that it's hope. Unless "hope" is another word for an ache that something better exists even when what I experience makes it seems impossible. The word "hope" usually indicates some kind of optimism and I don't think I have more than an eighth of a glass left.

get a clue

Clueless is on TV right now and I feel inspired to post on it.



Clueless is a 1990's modern take on Jane Austen's novel, Emma. Being an avid Jane Austen fan, you would think that upon hearing that Emma was being turned into a story about a snobby girl from Beverly Hills who has a revolving closet and says "like" more an encyclopedia of similes, that I would be completely horrified. Yet, I'm not. In fact, I think that this particular movie adaptation of an Austen novel is probably one of the better ones out there. Why?

What Clueless does that other Jane Austen movie do not always succeed at:

• It does not severely deviate away from the basic plot and characters
• It keeps with the spirit of the story
• It remembers to not take itself too seriously. Jane Austen is FUNNY
• The screenplay is actually well-written
  

I have no idea how accurate this movie is to the experience of a 16-year-old girl from Beverly Hills. To me, this movie seems like an exaggeration of the experience, mostly for humorous purposes. I think the comparison between Cher and Emma works very well though. Emma is a very rich 21-year-old woman who has nothing better to do but meddle in everyone else's business. Similarly, Cher meddles in her friends' and teachers' lives. She is used to getting her way simply because she's got money and cute face, which means people rarely deny her what she wants. Cher and Emma also have a simply character arc where they are humbled by someone pointing out their flaws. That recognition that they aren't perfect and they don't have an answer to everything is what makes their story irresistible, because there are times when you seriously can't stand them at the beginning.

television might eat our brains

Today I have watched:

3 movies and 1/2 of two separate movies.
1 episode of Extreme Home Makeover

This mean I have spent approx. 9 hours of my life on a couch or on the floor (because of my sciatica) just today.


And it's now after 10pm and I'm still awake trying to think of something to do besides working on my portfolios and the only thing I could think of was to either watch The Empire Strikes Back (seriously, cannot get enough of Han Solo) or watch a movie on Hulu.


What?

(I decided to clean my room, because my life is really that pathetic)

nuff said

birds

I'm currently sitting in the library of my college campus attempting to write a reflection paper that's due in a few days. I'd like to finish it today because then I won't have anything to do next week during finals. But of course, I'm distracted. By birds.

Outside on the corner of the library is a bird's nest. For the past half hour 12 or 13 birds have been flying around in circles. Flying, squawking circles. And I'm thinking "what the hell is going on??" The birds appear to be rather small, but they sound eerily familiar to a type of parrot that lived in some trees near the house where I grew up. These parrots were much larger than these birds and usually stayed much farther away from humans than these birds are doing. I've concluded that these are the same parrots, but considering that it is spring, they must be baby birds and they are learning to fly.

I feel as though I could identify with them on some level. In just one week and one day I will turn my tassel towards another life. One in which I do not return to another year of schooling in the fall. I'm taking a new step. I'm leaving the warm comfy bird's nest of formal education that has consumed the last 16 years of my life. I must learn to fly. I must leave behind what I know and journey elsewhere. Even though I have these grand visions of life beyond the nest, I stay nearby and fly in circles. Desperately hoping that I can navigate this in between world of staying in this city, near many friends, and a new life. Which isn't even that "new" because I will go to grad school fall 2009 for another three years of education. I can't seem to get beyond that circular formation because my heart and my fears tell me to stay with the nest.

This feels like a dreadfully formulated analogy.

"Fiddlesticks, boy. Feed the birds and what have you got? FAT BIRDS."