Hint of Lime

District 9

2009-08-17T23:16:00.000-04:00

Okay so District 9 is awesome. But mostly I love the fact that District 9 is prompting all these people to talk about racism and xenophobia and immigration and Africa that wouldn’t normally do it. I love it.
And so I thought I would put in my two cents:
First of all let me just say that I really like the film. I found it fascinating on so many levels, as someone who has spent a decent about of time in Jo’berg where the movie takes place and pays attention to the politics and mood of that country, and also as someone who loves scifi and aliens and things going boom. But I was troubled by a couple of things that other people across the web have also brought up.
The criticism I have seen of the film seems to break down into two points.
Point one: as an allegory for apartheid it is pretty crummy and insulting. Black South Africans wanted to stay in their country, the aliens want to leave. Black South Africans had agency (see the Soweto uprising among others) the aliens in the movie are pretty meek and agency-less. And there is the simple fact that to compare black South Africans to bugs is pretty derogatory.
I think that point is easily dismissed. The movie is not, and never was meant to be a direct allegory for apartheid. Instead I think it is more an allegory for South Africa’s current immigration problems and even then it is not a direct allegory. It takes themes and images that we know and then uses them to move in another direction. It exists in its own world and that’s the whole point.
Point two: the movies depiction of black South Africans and Nigerians in particular is really problematic. The main human character of the movie is white as are both the main villains. Black South Africans exist but they are mostly on the sidelines. In the Alien slum the only humans are Nigerian immigrant drug lords who exploit the aliens, try to figure out how to make their weapons work, and participate in Muti—black magic. At one point, the main Nigerian villain almost commits cannibalism.
This point is far more troubling and difficult to dismiss. The Nigerians are caricatured over the top villains and-- especially since this movie was made and financed by white men—there is no getting around that.
BUT.. and I am hesitating to say this BUT..
That shit totally exists in South Africa. There are well-known, notorious and vicious Nigerian gangs in the slums. Muti is a real and commonly practiced thing and while I don’t know if cannibalism is ever a part of it animals are definitely sacrificed.
And so this discussion of this point boils down to how are white artists allowed to depict people of other races. Are they (we) allowed to acknowledge differences? At what time does that become caricature? The opposite extreme is ignoring difference and that becomes white washing.
I think Neill Blomkamp made a movie about South Africa as he sees it. A dangerous, dirty, racist, and multiracial country. I think the Nigerians are in there because Nigerian crime lords exist. I think the people in power are white because that’s the way it is still, nearly 15 years after apartheid. I think the film definitely walks the line between showing what is there and having the white gaze be too, well, white. And I think there are moments when it steps over the line.
BUT I think more times than not the film is true and honest and brave and fucking awesome. District 9 is exactly why I love scifi so much. As with Battlestar you can trick people into talking and thinking about important things. Come for the explosions and violence and people going squish, leave thinking about the fate of humanity.
Its awesome. Go see it.
Did I mention that people go squish?

2009-06-28T16:02:00.000-04:00

Years in New York: 5
Apartments: 4
Roommates: 12
Boyfriends: 2
Sort of Boyfriends: 3
Sort of Girlfriends: 1
One-Night Stands: 5
BFAs: 1
EMT Certifications: 1
Fringe Productions: 2
Jobs: 5
Cell Phones: 2
iPods: 2
Laptops: 2
Cats: 2
New Foods Tried: Bahn Mi, Ceviche, Bigos, Ethiopian, Falaphel, Ramen, Japanese Curry.
Neighborhoods Lived In: East Village, Greenpoint
Baby Showers attended: 1
Muggings: 0
Circuses Worked for: 1
Full Length Plays written: 5
Visited the empire state building: 0
Visited the statue of liberty: 0
Visited Ellis Island: 0
Visited the Transport Museum: 0

Shine on you prissy diamond! Shine on!

2009-05-20T22:29:00.004-04:00

OMG! Look at cute little Bella being defended by the manly menz. "Save me" her eyes say "protect me" as well as "I'm going to try to kill myself multiple times in this movie and its going to be so boring until Edward gets his sparkle on in Italy to try to kill himself since that is the signature of adolescent romance: attempted suicide." As well as "there will also be some hot wear wolfs to tie you over until Edward gets back"
Needless to say I am redonculiously excited. Look at the eyeshadow! Look at the glowering! Look at the ANGST!
Who? Will? She? Choose?
But I am most especially excited that they have now all signed on to make the fourth book into a movie. Why? Well for those of you with enough taste to not have read these books (spoiler? do you care?) Bella and Edward finally DO IT after three books of longingly staring at each other (because edward is a prude) but then she gets knocked up with a vampire baby cause shes still human because edward is a prude (no that doesnt make any sense even if you have read them). Vampire baby then breaks Bella's back and pelvis and tries to kill her from THE INSIDE. So edward bites the kid out of her stomach with his TEETH! BLOOD EVERYWHERE!
So yeah, I cant wait to see THAT made into a movie!
And also, this movie just gives me more opportunities to make fun of the prissy diamond that is edward cullen. SHINE ON.
PS I should totally be studying right now instead of thinking about the stupidest. books. ever. Which I am secretly obsessed with.

oh but this is awesome.

2009-04-18T12:56:00.000-04:00

I'm a bad blogger

2009-04-18T12:08:00.002-04:00

Sushi yelled at me for not blogging enough. Which I totally deserve. What is the point of keeping this thing active if I don't update it?
But I have refrained from posting because any any all posts would be some version of "Larkie on the verge of a nervious breakdown" and that one sentence is all I want to say on that matter.
But here is my favorite picture of me from mexico:

Yes that is me on a bike next to some mother fucking ruins. Suck on that world.

Reasons Why The Battlestar Finale Broke My Heart So (a list):

2009-03-23T14:58:00.001-04:00

1) Back when the show first started and the plot point of “looking for earth” was established I said that if they showed up in prehistoric earth I would stop watching the show. Clever them for holding it out until the last episode when it is too late for me to quit.
2) Cranky as I was, when Roslin died I cried.
3) I really, really hate that they gave up all their technology.
a. The reason why the giving up technology thing bothers me so much is that it is anti-science and also stupid. The second that first earth winter rolls around they’re all going to be longing for those heaters they flew into the sun.
b. It also undermines all the atrocities of human history. Sure the plague was bad but AT LEAST WE’RE NOT FIGHTING THE ROBOTS ANYMORE. Slave trade? Could be worse, could be robots. Holocaust? NOT AS BAD AS ROBOTS.
c. Their decision is laid out as though it is noble and smart to give up technology (and teach the native humans language but we will get to that in a second) and there is no space, or room for argument. It is presented as though going back to the land is the right decision. Which I don’t think it is.
d. When Apollo says he is going to explore the earth I shuddered. Anyone else see echos of Christopher Columbus and the assorted genocide?
i. And again he says these lines and I think the writers intend for it to be inspiring and beautiful. I think they want us to think “man, earth rocks!” But all I got was “fuck, Apollo is going to go subjugate some natives.”
e. And man did that section drag.
4) Could the opera house sequence have been any more bang you over the head obvious?
5) When Tori got her neck snapped I cried tears of joy.
6) Why did every single line once they got to earth have to be about how beautiful it is/was? I kept waiting for them to turn to the camera and say “now kids, remember to recycle.”
7) When they were all running through the opera house, I cried even though I was cranky.
8) Was Starbuck just a group hallucination? Tune into Caprica, premiering this fall to find out I’m sure.
9) Cavil just shoots himself? Well that was easy, now wasn’t it?
10) Uh… its really off and creepy that a majority white cast is talking about how they are going to colonize Africa and teach the natives language. Seriously the only two black characters were either a cylon or a suicide 10 episodes ago.
a. Oh and the Indian actor was both a cylon and strangled.
11) When boomer redeemed herself, I cried. And then she got shot.
12) Wait so Hera is mitochondrial eve? Even though there were 38,000 humans spread across the entire world? Huh?
13) When I though Helo was going to die, I cried.
14) Was the modern robot montage at the end supposed to be creepy? Because all I got from it was “man, our robots SUCK.”
a. And seriously, is the moral of this show that I should be nice to my blender? Cause that’s what I’m getting from it.
i. Side note: I am pissed there wasn’t a shot of a roomba in that montage. Of all modern robots they are the creepiest in my humble opinion.
1. unless they have a cat on them. Then they are awesome.
15) Wait so God (he doesn’t like to be called that) orchestrated all of this? The religious parts of this show were always the weakest in my opinion. And we’re supposed to just buy that the head baltar and head six are angels? Or something. Recall for a minute that head six made real baltar give Nina the nuke which she used to kill a whole bunch of innocent people. For no good reason. If god controlled everything he’s a very old testament and asshole god.
16) So…Daniel? Didn’t really have anything to do with anything?
17) Did we really have to have a “150,000 years later” title card? Really?
18) When I realized that the awesome space battle had transformed into shots of grass waving in the breeze I cried.

Food Network Fun

2009-03-18T22:13:00.002-04:00

I do believe that I have killed a good quantity of my taste buds. I now have to order my curry extra spicy just to get the kick I desire. And god knows I burn my tongue every single morning since I have no patience when it comes to tea. But after watching this clip I think I am going to need to swish with lighter fluid (lit of course).

My remaining taste buds want to die just thinking about that.

Because I can't.

2009-03-17T22:44:00.003-04:00

If you are in New York this friday I just figured out what you are doing with your night. You are going to go see Tommy Wiseau's MASTERPIECE "the room" at Village East Cinemas at a special midnight screening. The film is GENIUS. I have seen it on the dvd format but I would love love love to see it on the big screen. Unfortunately I have to be at the ER at 8am the next morning so I cant go. But you should. Do it for me.

If you don't go you will TEAR ME APART.
The only problem with seeing it in theaters, of course is that you can not stop and rewind to watch the following over and over and over.

God I wish I could loop seconds 2-8 and make that my ringtone.

I just want to say...

2009-03-17T22:34:00.002-04:00

That the shoes that Britney Spears wears in the if you seek amy video are hideous.

That is all.

So I told Slaney I wanted a puppy...

2009-03-12T11:08:00.000-04:00

Slaney: you are on animal rations right now
I can't have you being the nadya suleman of critters

I MUST write a screenplay about this woman someday:

2009-03-06T13:48:00.001-05:00

Conchita Cintrón Verill, bullfighter, died on February 17th, aged 86

Story time!

2009-03-05T22:56:00.002-05:00

So back two years ago when I moved into my current apartment my parents and brother helped me move (I very cleverly did this when they were in town to see my play. haHA!) After carrying my books, mattress, clothes, dvds and so on and so on down six flights of stairs we loaded it into the back of a uhaul van and departed for Brooklyn. Thing was, there were only two seats in the van, and four of us. Well we just stuck my mother and brother in back with my stuff. (In retrospect we should have put them on the subway.) No biggie right? Just don't slam on the breaks.
This was August, btw.
So we're hot and sweaty and the traffic is terrible into Brooklyn and my mom and brother realize about halfway across the williamsburg bridge that if we got into an accident all my worldly possessions would crush them like a pancake and were complaining about it for some reason when my father goes:
"You know, when Gandhi died, all he owned was a begging bowl."
To which I went:
"Well if we get into an accident my begging bowls are going to kill your wife and son."
Which luckily did not happen. My material things are not stained with maternal and filial blood.
Now, today there was an auction of Gandhi things (which pissed the Indian government off for some reason) and it turns out Gandhi also owned a WATCH. And SANDALS. GOD he was such a materialist bastard!
Anywhoo.
I sent the article to my dad with the subject line: "Oh look, I could buy Gandhi's begging bowl."
"eh," says my father "you'd just have to put it in a friends uhaul when you move."

Sometimes its the little (ridiculous) things of which you are most proud

2009-03-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

I have always been terrified of things under pressure. Balloons mostly. I distinctly remember a party in 4th grade in which we played a game where you sat on a balloon to pop it and I freaked out and started sobbing. Obviously I have gotten my various irrational fears under control as I age (I can get a shot with out being pinned down, I can hold balloons, I can aim a spotlight at someone firing blanks without needing to cover my ears, I can kill a spider with a broom, or even my shoe if I am feeling especially brave*).
But I still don’t LIKE things that are under pressure. They can explode! And make loud noises! And become missiles!
Yes, I realize that this incredibly ridiculous when talking about things like balloons, fire extinguishers, and propane tanks. But it is less so when you are dealing with oxygen tanks. Which do explode or break open and become missiles on a fairly regular basis.
And so I would just like to say that I handled an O2 tank, attached a regulator, attached a mask to the regulator, turned it on and off, and then took the whole thing apart without A) freaking out, B) dropping it, C) sobbing like a small child.
Be proud of me! I demand it.

*On the Colbert Report last week Stephen had tarantulas put on him while talking about race to demonstrate that he is not a coward. I was okay when they were just on his arm, and shoulder but when one got put on his head I couldn’t bear it. I started squealing and covering my eyes. IN MY DEFENSE I was bit by a tarantula in 3rd grade so I am especially frightened of them and their furry furry legs. THINGS SHOULD NOT LOOK LIKE THAT. TOO MANY LEGS AND EYES. UNNATURAL! GOD WOULD NOT HAVE MADE SOMETHING SO FOUL.
…
Okay, so I am still a ways away from becoming a baddass.

Creative Writing is Life

2009-03-02T21:59:00.002-05:00

As much as I love me a bizzaro creative writing prompt, I never really viewed them as anything more that exercises, a fun way to stimulate the brain. I never thought that "Describe a character by only talking about their hands" or "take this picture and write a story about it" would ever be practice for real-life-writing.
Until now.
Write a script in which one of the characters is a blogger and reference jezebel and fourfour and have a scene set in a underwear shop and have an older male actor in a central role.
It does sound a bit like a strange creative writing pull-things-from-a-hat exercise, doesn't it? And I am so excited to try to figure out a way to make it work. (especially the scene in the underwear shop! Actresses in their skivvies! YAY!)

Sorry

2009-02-27T14:32:00.002-05:00

I have been bad about posting lately. I've been super duper busy. Also, the only things I want to blog about are laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. So I have been restraining myself.
...
Me: I am never allowed to have more than three cats.
Jesse: To keep from becoming a crazy cat lady?
Me: I am dangerously close already.
Jesse: You're not that bad.
Me: All I want to do is post pictures of my cats on my blog!
Jesse: (long pause) You should resist.
Me: Let me show you this adorable picture I took yesterday! You can't see Edgars head!

#$%#$%@#$%@^%**&%^#@!

2009-02-09T14:59:00.001-05:00

I don’t get angry about much. Irked yes. Annoyed yes. Pissed off, oh quite often. But truly, deeply angry is an emotion that I rarely feel. But one of the things that makes me literally-see-red-angry is parents that refuse to vaccinate their kids. I understand that it is scary being a parent, and that autism is incredibly devastating BUT it is also an incredibly selfish thing to do. Not vaccinating your kids depends on EVERYONE else to vaccinate their kids, essentially having everyone else risk their kid’s brain, for yours. And when certain communities reach a tipping point in the number of children not inoculated the MEASLES BREAKS OUT AGAIN YOU MOTHER FUCKS. And it takes down infants, and children too sick to be vaccinated with it. When there was an outbreak in Orange County this fall I think I literally spat on someone I was screaming so loud.
And now it turns out that the doctor who original spread the vaccines-cause-autism fears FALSIFIED HIS REPORTS. Why would he do that? Why? And so there is no basis for this fear, there has been no proven cause, its all just a bunch of alarmist assholes who don’t understand BASIC FUCKING SCIENCE.
And the worse part is, it’s the kids that suffer. Its not the parents getting measles. I really hope this news story gets spread fast because this is a trend that needs to end. Now.
***
Up next: Creationists: why they suck.

Doll Hos*

2009-02-05T11:30:00.004-05:00

Last night I was out at a bar (Gatsby’s without Sushi, which was weird) and on the many bar televisions appeared an add for Josh Whedon’s new show “Doll House.” Obviously, I am a huge Whedon fan (I bribed, bartered and snuck my way into a screening of “Serenity” at Wesleyan, which remains a highlight of my film viewing history) and I think Eliza Dushku is a highly underrated actress and I really want Helo from Battlestar Galactica to have a career post BSG. But… um… WTF nakedness?

Keep in mind that I still haven’t seen this with sound, as my office computer is without speakers but is Naked-Eliza-Dushku really the only option here? There are a whole host of vaguely NSFW promo shots that really just look like a maxim spread.

Compare this to another sci-fi fox show that (while I found the pilot unbearably stupid) had a compelling poster campaign.

Tis the season to stick your fox heroines in water apparently.

So I don’t know, Defamer thinks this is a good move, but it reeks of desperation to me. Chris Plante says the buzz is that the pilot was terrible and had to be completely reedited and much as I like to ignore him, maybe he is right.
Please please please let this show be good and survive. Once BSG dies in 5 episodes I don’t know where I will go for dark, women-kicking-ass television.

*Shut up. You think that is totally clever.

And sometimes the world is awesome.

2009-02-03T15:20:00.003-05:00

This is purely awesome and intensely magical:

During the cold and dark Berlin winter days, I spend a lot of time with my boys in their room. And as I look at the toys scattered on the floor, my mind inevitably wanders back to New York.

@ the nytimes.

Ways in which my morning could have been worse.

2009-02-02T11:41:00.001-05:00

Instead of slipping on a patch of ice and falling on pavement, I could have FALLEN IN LAVA.

Instead of scraping up my hands and twisting my ankle and landing on my back (on Leonard street no less. Gross) I could have broken my wrists. And leg. And neck.

Instead of the G not showing up for 15 minutes after I just barely missed the train (due to the aforementioned fall -> bleeding -> begging napkins off a deli so I don’t bleed all over myself) it could have never come at all. Or crashed into the platform, Die Hard II style.

I suppose technically the E could be more crowded, though I’m not sure that possible.

Instead of my Tupperware leaking sauerkraut juice all over my purse it could have leaked gasoline. And then caught on fire.

Instead of all my things (and me) showing up to work late splattered in blood and smelling of Germany, I could have been laid off by now and had no job to show up to.

And of course, instead of oversleeping I could have DIED.

Its Edgar and Lenore's day!

2009-01-29T14:35:00.002-05:00

On this day in history - 1845 – "The Raven", a narrative poem by American poet Edgar Allan Poe about a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, was first published in the New York Evening Mirror.
Thanks Wikipedia!
...
Now I feel even more guilty that I can't remember if I refilled their food dish or not this morning.
...
I'm going to assume I did. Monsters COMPLAIN if they don't have nibbles.

Baby Baby Baby Gee Gee Gee

2009-01-28T21:02:00.004-05:00

Ever since four-four tipped me off to this song last week I have been completely obsessed. From what I can gather Girls Generation is a Korean pop group that is really more of a dance team than any sort of band. There are nine of them. NINE! I could barely keep the spice girls straight and there were only four of them (Five? Four? It changed). Seriously, how do you keep any sort of band unity with that many people? Thats like the cast of real world. (OH MY GOD PLEASE RELEASE "GIRLS GENERATION THE REALITY SHOW!")
Regardless they are completely amazing, from their jaunty hats to their interactive black board to their knocking-as-dance-move. I have no idea what the song is about. I'm guessing boys. I mean, what else do girls sing about?

In my next life can I be a Korean pop star?

Racial Disharmony on the E train

2009-01-27T14:09:00.002-05:00

Every morning I take the E train from Queens into Manhattan which sucks so incredibly much I may revert to taking the 7 (or, god forbid, the L) even though it takes a good 10 minutes longer. The stop where I catch the E is the last one before Manhattan and so has been slowly accumulating people for an entire borough. By the time I get on, sardine-can is an understatement. Once we get into Manhattan people start getting out so it isn’t so bad, but the trip under the east river is pretty awful.
But this morning it wasn’t the pressure cooker that put me in a horrible mood. Hell is other people.
After the usual hell trip under the east river people started piling out at the first stop in Manhattan. In an effort to get out of the way I headed towards the end of the car. I saw a seat opening up next to an older Asian gentleman. Huzah! I thought and headed towards it. But a young Asian lady, about my age has also seen it and we noticed each other at the same time. Instead of being an asshole and racing her to the seat I let her take it and leaned up against the door.
Well, standing next to me was this middle-aged, beefy, white guy with a thick New York accent. Sort of the epitome of the stereotypical New Yorker. He’d seen this whole thing play out and turned to me smiling.
“Those damn Chinese, they’re always fighting with each other.”
At first I didn’t think I had heard him correctly through my headphones but the older Asian guy looked up at him, looked at me and started to stand to give his seat to me.
“No, its okay.” And I gestured for him to sit back down.
“You sure?” Said beefy guy, smirking at me.
“Shut the fuck up.” It came out soft, and almost questioning, but I said it and it shocked him. He immediately turned his back to me and went back to reading his tabloid. And that’s what made me most angry. His shock that I didn’t agree with him. That he assumed, that just because I am white, he and I could share a moment complaining about the Chinese.
I often hate being white. Fucking racists ruin it for everyone.

Shout Out (or shameless self promotion, you decide)

2009-01-25T15:25:00.002-05:00

Dave posted a conversation on his blog that we had a Sunday ago. I will refrain from posting the conversation here because I make quite the fool of myself over sports related issues (What? I don't know football teams? You're shocked, I'm sure.)
But anyway, yes. Its there.
Also, while you're on his blog check out his twilight fan fic.
Ehem.
I'm FAMOUS!!!!

WE ARRE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!!!

2009-01-22T13:29:00.001-05:00

I was literally bouncing in my seat as I read this article.

Electronic screens as thin as paper are coming soon!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Because you care:

2009-01-22T10:41:00.002-05:00

My Oscar Predictions (with out having seen 55% of the movies nominated.)

Best Motion Picture of the Year
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008):
Frost/Nixon (2008):
Milk (2008):
The Reader (2008):
Slumdog Millionaire (2008):

Should be: WallE - but its not nominated. So....
Should be: Milk – its really really solid. And timely. And important. Aka it should win this thing. But it wont because…
Will be: Slumdog millionaire – I like this film a lot. But I don’t really see it as the best picture of the year. Which means it will win, naturally.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Richard Jenkins for The Visitor (2007/I)
Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon (2008)
Sean Penn for Milk (2008)
Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (2008)

Should be: Richard Jenkins – that film was marvelous. It was one of those films that my mom had to drag me to kicking and screaming, and yet once I actually watched it I looooved it. I want it to get some recognition.
Will be: Mickey Rourke – Though I cant really begrudge him this win. I do love a comeback story.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Angelina Jolie for Changeling (2008)
Melissa Leo for Frozen River (2008)
Meryl Streep for Doubt (2008/I)
Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008)

Confession time: I haven’t seen a single one of these movies.
Will be: Kate Winslet – its her year.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Josh Brolin for Milk (2008)
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder (2008)
Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt (2008/I)
Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008)
Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road (2008)

Should be: Heath Ledger – he was the best part of that movie. No other actor in this category, Robert Downey Jr included, transformed himself so completely.
Will be: Heath Ledger – and its not because of his performance.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams for Doubt (2008/I)
Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Viola Davis for Doubt (2008/I)
Taraji P. Henson for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler (2008)

Should be: Taraji P. Henson – Okay, I haven’t seen the movie, but in everything else she’s been in she has been the best thing about it. I want her to be more famous than she is.
Will be: Marisa Tomei – Deservedly.

Best Achievement in Directing
Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Stephen Daldry for The Reader (2008)
David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon (2008)
Gus Van Sant for Milk (2008)

Should be: Gus Van Sant – He did marvelous work with those actors.
Will be: Danny Boyle – I think Milk is going to get completely shut out. Which makes me sad.

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Frozen River (2008): Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008): Mike Leigh
In Bruges (2008): Martin McDonagh
Milk (2008): Dustin Lance Black
WALL·E (2008): Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon

Should be: WallE – that movie is the most perfectly structured screenplay I have ever seen. Every time I watch it I am blown away by how subtly they set up the story. I think it is pretty close to perfect.
BETTER NOT BE: In fucking Bruges: I like Martin McDonagh as much as the next theatre nerd but good god. That movie was a fucking mess. Its tone and style was all over the fucking place and just when it got you to care about a character it pushes them out of a bell tower. I know that viciousness is his style, but the stylized violence and over blown characters that work on stage DO NOT WORK in film. In my opinion. Of course, everyone I have talked to about this movie has disagreed with me.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008): Eric Roth, Robin Swicord
Doubt (2008/I): John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon (2008): Peter Morgan
The Reader (2008): David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Simon Beaufoy

Should be: The Reader.
Will be: The Reader? Though Slumdog might take this too.

Best Achievement in Cinematography

Changeling (2008): Tom Stern
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008): Claudio Miranda
The Dark Knight (2008): Wally Pfister
The Reader (2008): Roger Deakins, Chris Menges
Slumdog Millionaire (2008): Anthony Dod Mantle

Should be: Slumdog Millionaire -This is where I think Slumdog really shines (haha literally! gigglegiggle SNORT). But I am also a sucker for rich colors.
Will be: Dark Knight – aside from the joker, this was the best part of the movie.

Best Achievement in Makeup
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008): Greg Cannom
The Dark Knight (2008): John Caglione Jr., Conor O'Sullivan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008): Mike Elizalde, Thomas Floutz

Should be: Hellboy – it’s a Gothic fairy tale with monsters and princess. Sure its over the top, but, uh, its for make up.
Will be: Dark Knight – I wasn’t a fan of two face. But the joker sure was awesome.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008): Alexandre Desplat
Defiance (2008): James Newton Howard
Milk (2008): Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire (2008): A.R. Rahman
WALL·E (2008): Thomas Newman

Should be: Dark Knight – it wasn’t nominated? Really?

In that case it Should be: Slumdog
Will be: WallE

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song

Slumdog Millionaire (2008): A.R. Rahman, Gulzar("Jai Ho")
Slumdog Millionaire (2008): A.R. Rahman, M.I.A("O Saya")
WALL·E (2008): Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman("Down to Earth")

Want it to be: PLEASE GOD LET MIA WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD! OMG! That would be hilarious.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Bolt (2008)
Kung Fu Panda (2008)
WALL·E (2008)

Should be: WallE for best fucking picture period.
Will be: WallE. Its a goddamn consolation prize at this point.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008)(Germany)
Entre les murs (2008)(France)
Revanche (2008)(Austria)
Okuribito (2008)(Japan)
Vals Im Bashir (2008)(Israel)

Confession: I haven’t seen any of these.

Will be: Waltz with Bashir – I hear its good. Though I'm gonna root for the German one. Against the Israeli one. Because I am a bad Jew (AND I LIKE GERMAN CINEMA MORE OVER ALL. JEEEEEZE).

Cats and Chickens

2009-01-20T17:22:00.003-05:00

My dad commissioned family friend Kendahl Jan Jubb to paint a picture of the chickens for my moms birthday. She threw in our cat Percy for good measure.
Muffy, Buffy, Shanti, and Claire, and Percy immortalized for the ages.

Some things:

2009-01-19T11:33:00.004-05:00

When the phone doesn't ring for a half and hour at a time at work I start to freak out and worry that the phone is off the hook and calls haven't been coming in and business has ground to a halt... and then I remember that I am special for getting to work on Martin Luther King Day.
And so, A LIST:
1. I cut my bangs way too short. Which apparently makes me look more polish? The people on the street have been much more chatty to me.
2. The Russian-Turkish Baths are AHmazing. I can't believe I've lived here this long and never experienced it before. I went from bitching to slaney about the various injustices in my life to completely relaxed in less than an hour.
3. The kitties (whose names, may I remind you, are Edgar and Lenore) are very upset about the Ravens not making it to the super bowl. Get it? GET IT? I AM SO CLEVER!!!
4. Its a pretty insane episode of Battlestar Galactica where the reveal of the final cylon is not the most intense thing that happens. In spite of all the craziness, there were still waaaaaaay too many shots of water, and waves and people looking and the water, and wandering into the waves... I know it represents their depression. Or something. But all I have to say is that water better be another cylon. Though at this point I definitely feel that they are going to reveal that ALL THE HUMANS ARE CYLONS! AAAAAAA! Otherwise, how do you explain starbuck? Really?
5. I received the following text from Asher:
"[Asher's roommate] told me he saw you on the train by was afraid of there not being enough to talk about so he didnt go over to say hi."
Asher and I couldn't decide what this meant, and so I've made a poll.

I voted A. But only because I am feeling bad about myself today.

Dave Gets the Last Word

2009-01-16T11:56:00.003-05:00

David: Damn.
You ruin everything.
me: I know
its my superhero skill
David: It's a good one.
me: I was once told by a southafrica acquaintance that my xmen power would be sucking the fun out of a room
we didnt really get along
David: Jesus. That's harsh.
me: he wasnt particularly nice
David: Our team-x-power should be finding that guy and kicking the shit out of him.
me: to be fair, I might have said that his xmen power would be getting angry about stupid things
or something along those lines
so if memory serves, I started it
David: Oh, of course you did. Your xmen power is STARTING THINGS!

I would like one heart warmer please!

2009-01-16T09:56:00.003-05:00

"When all were out, the pilot walked up and down the aisle twice to make sure the plane was empty, officials said."
***
I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" last night with Sushi and I couldn't help but compare it to "Synecdoche." Where "Synecdoche" wallows in pain and death and illness, "Slumdog Millionaire" states that life is ugly and gross, and then milks it for comedy. "Synecdoche" sees the worst in people, "Slumdog" sees the best. And on a day after a miraculous plane crash (never thought I would type those three words together) I would much rather see the best than the worst.
Sometimes humans can be good.
Sometimes we can be beautiful.
UPDATE:
Sushi: that may be my favorite movie of the year
Sushi: and i'm not just saying that cause i'm brown
Sushi: cause you know how i feel about bollywood

Heeheehee

2009-01-15T11:39:00.002-05:00

Via Curbed: The Sub-neighborhoods of Greenpoint!

According to this I live on the border of SoPosh "South Polish Strong Hold" and DeCor "the Daddy’s-Enid’s* Corridor with the idea being that those are two anchor points if you will of an area that includes a lot of up-and-coming high rises that are perfect for upwardly mobile young folks."
Actually, I believe I am downwardly mobile, but touche curbed. touche.

(*Daddys is a shity hipster dive and enids is over priced brunch, in case that doesn't make any sense.)

So I said some pretty negative things about Sam Mendes recently...

2009-01-13T23:23:00.002-05:00

I take it all back. His production of "the cherry orchard" was incredible. I stand by my statement that he is only as good as the scripts he works with but when he is given a Checkov...wow.
Go see it. Now.

Best. Quote. Ever.

2009-01-13T11:51:00.001-05:00

"I suppose counsel have a penumbral constitutional right to regard each other as schmucks, but I know of no principle that justifies litigation pollution. … This case makes me lament the demise of dueling. I cannot order a duel, and thus achieve a salubrious reduction in the number of counsel to put up with."

--U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley (Western District of Oklahoma)

Synechdoche: a figure of speech in which a part stands for a whole .

2009-01-11T11:54:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to seeing "Synecdoche, NY" and after thinking about it, reading several reviews and talking about it a fair bit I have decided that I don’t like it. Which isn’t to say YOU shouldn’t see it. You should. It is a chaotic, ambitious and deeply flawed project, the likes of which we hardly ever see coming out of American Cinema. And while I KNOW that the Very First Thing I was trained to do in writing school was to put aside likes and dislikes and look at Structure, and Plot, and Character; whether or not I like something is still how I judge it. Sue me.
So in spite of the fact that it is Brilliant and Challenging and Ambitious (capital letters all) which are things I am usually a sucker for (see: my love of the giant fucking mess that is Southland Tales), why don’t I like it?
I want to be emotionally engaged with a movie. And while emotional engagement has a tricky/ controversial history in theatre history (Brecht: its BAD and DANGEROUS) it is still what I look for. I like it when movies make me feel patriotic (Independence Day) or thrilled (Jurassic Park) or remind me what love feels like (I Capture the Castle) or scared (Let the Right One In) or depressed (The Marriage of Maria Braun). I DO believe that catharsis is an important part of storytelling, even if it is as simple as yeah!-we-kicked-alien-ass! I still look for it in my film viewing experience.
Synecdoche keeps you at a distance, which is odd because the movie is about death, dying, losing and gaining love, the desire to make something, the love of a father, hatred, longing, art, and creativity. Big things that every human deals with at some point or another. I mean, we all die, and part of the movie is about mourning your own death. I distinctly remember the first time that the reality that I will someday die hit me. (I was at the Seattle Zoo. Make of that what you will.) And I believe that we all need to think about that fact every now and again, if nothing else to let us mourn and accept it. So yeah, that is totally something a movie should tackle.
Mahnola Dargis at the Times argues that the entire movie takes place in the five minutes it takes Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to die, and that the story is his mind, trying to make sense of his life:

“The curtain rises on his production, as it were, with a fade up to a digital clock reading 7:44 a.m. The film cuts to a shot of a man we soon come to know as Caden Cotard lying in bed… listening to a woman on the radio with a German accent talking about autumn as “the beginning of the end.” The radio host has announced that it’s Sept. 22, “the first day of fall.”
“It’s also the first day of Caden’s fall, the day his life begins to collapse, or, depending on how you read the signs, the day he dies. (Another clue: Cotard is the term for a delusion of people who believe that they are dead.) Near the close of the story, after Caden has grown old and stooped and people he loves have died, Mr. Kaufman suggests that the entire film has been a dream upon dying. As Caden totters around the enormous theater set that he has spent half his life creating, there’s a shot of a clock with its hands set to 7:45. A woman says in voice-over: “Now you are here, it’s 7:43. Now you are here, it’s 7:44. Now you are” — there’s a pause — “gone.” And then he is.”

She may very well be right. I have heard this exact same explanation put forward for another movie I don’t like very much in the same way that I don’t like Synecdoche: “Mullholand Drive.”
Both Synecdoche and Mullholand feel like they are going to add up to something, that in just five more minutes you will understand what is going on, you will have clarity, but neither movie gives it to you. David Lynch just does that with everything, but other Charlie Kaufman scripts have come together at the end into something heart breaking (the last shot of “Being John Malcovich” the restarting of the love affair in “Eternal Sunshine”). You could argue the Kaufman needs a director, but this movie is so blatantly more ambitious than previous (also incredibly ambitious) films that I'm not sure any director could make sense of it with out destroying it.
And what frustrates me about Synecdoche is that it has these moments of unbelievable beauty, most notably the very last five minutes, which I wanted desperately to give myself over to. I wanted to cry with Caden at the numerous funerals through out the film. I wanted to root for him and Hazel (Samantha Morton), to feel something when they get together, break up, get together. But because the movie is so unclear about what world we are in, and what time it is and what is going on, that I was too busy trying to figure out what the ef was going on to feel anything at all. Which left me frustrated and intellectually stimulated and unmoved.
None of which, really is a judgment call on the movie. Its a judgment call about myself. Everyone who has an interest in film and/or the creative process should see it. But I want to be given a chance to mourn the perfect script I will never write.
Charlie Kaufman came thisclose to giving it to me. And then he didn’t. Why won’t you give me catharsis, chuck?

So my cats are at the vet…

2009-01-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

Jesse: Do you ever think that crazy people go to a vet and try to pick up pets that aren’t theirs.
(Long Pause)
Me: WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?
Jesse: Now you know how parents feel about day care.

From Helen Suzman's Obituary:

2009-01-08T13:54:00.002-05:00

"In a parliamentary career of 36 years, she spent only six in a party of any size. She quit the paternal United Party in 1959, frustrated that it was so wobbly against apartheid, to join a Progressive Party of 12 members that was wiped out in an election two years later. She was the sole survivor, for 13 years a one-woman opposition to the relentless consolidation of white rule. The small but determined voice of the “neo-communist” and “sickly humanist” would call out “No”—to the Sabotage Act, the Terrorism Act, the Ninety-Day Detention Law—and she would be left sitting alone in a sea of empty green benches.
"Her strength was that she knew the facts, and knew her rights. South Africa’s devotion to the Westminster parliamentary system, a figleaf of democracy over barbarism, meant that the Speaker was bound to let this “lone Prog” speak, and ministers had to answer her questions. She was allowed to bring one Private Member’s Motion a year, so she would try single-handedly to repeal the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, or propose a minimum wage for blacks."
--Economist.com

Lets All Have Big Round of AWWWWWi

2009-01-08T13:39:00.002-05:00

"Outlaw" Bikers Rescue Orphaned Kittens

And you know I love grotesquely hallucinatory

2009-01-06T10:07:00.003-05:00

The few episodes of Nip/tuck that I have seen have left me feeling pretty meh about the show. Theres just so many other TV shows to watch. Shows with spaceships! And robots hallucinating!
HOWEVER this promo for season six is fantastic.

If the over all show was this grotesquely hallucinatory ALL THE TIME you know I would be completely addicted.
Oh you know what is a complete trip? Southland tales.

Why don't I own that movie yet? I do love it so.

Today I Was Out To Brunch And... (a critical analysis)

2009-01-04T19:23:00.004-05:00

Scene: Brunch. Three Cousins. All from different branches of the Family.
Characters:
Cousin 1: Female. 23. Playwright. Receptionist.
Cousin 2: Female. 23. Engineer with out Borders.
Cousin 3: Male. 50s. Lawyer.
Time:
This morning.

Scene one:
Cousin 3: Hows life been since you graduated, cousin 1?
Cousin 1: Oh you know, hard, haven't gotten into anything I've applied for, but you've got to keep trying, you know?
Cousin 3: Yeah, that's the way theatre is. There's just too many people and not enough positions. Not like you, Cousin 2. There are just too many projects and not enough engineers.
Cousin 2: Yeah there is a lot that needs to be done.

Critical Analysis:
In this scene, based on true events, the playwright is trying to distill the inherent contradiction that is being an Artist. In this context, Art is created to serve the public good. But if the purpose of the Artist is to serve the public good, wouldn't her time be better spent elsewhere? Say, being a doctor?
The defensiveness in this short scene perhaps reveals the fact that the playwright is indeed haunted by her choices. If being a writer is the same as being in engineers with out borders, why would she write the scene? What is she trying to reveal? Is it, perhaps, a cry for help?
This scene is deceptive in its simplicity, revealing many hidden layers of anger, defensiveness, annoyance, yet ultimately, agreement. And that is the heart breaking revelation of the piece. That underneath it all, the playwright, cousin 1, agrees with her detractors.

What I did in 2008 (in nutshell format)

2009-01-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

(I’m totally stealing this format from Em.)

In 2008:
I learned about the economy, I figured out that birth control gives me anxiety attacks/claustrophobia/nausea, I learned that I really like school, I saw some good theater and some bad, I finished “a mars play,” I graduated from college, I worked in a circus, I saw a lot of burlesque, I went to Portland, I went to Ashland, I adopted some kittens, I got a full time job, I developed a taste for whiskey, I dated and broke up, I made some new friends, I climbed to the top of a mountain, I went horse back riding, I went to Paris, I discovered the awesomeness that is the New York Historical Society, I researched a massacre and made a kick ass power point about it, I made cookies, I went to some good restaurants, I discovered some new favorite authors, I went kayaking, I baked a wedding cake, I fell in love, I had some flings, I learned about Catholicism, I wrote some poems, I had some feuds and maybe, just maybe, figured out a five year plan.

In 2008 I did not:
Save enough money, travel enough, write a tv pilot, finish “Sound of Planes,” write a musical, see “Top Girls,” get into any of the festivals/ theaters/ writers groups that I submitted to, have a mutually fulfilling romantic relationship, had anything in production, or go to Alaska.

Magic

2009-01-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

So this happened to me when I was home and it has been haunting me ever since.
***
Sometimes when it snows hard enough my family can cross country ski out our front door. There is less than a mile between my parents house and path along the creek that is great for mountain biking/ dog walking/ assorted outdoor activities. All that lies between are gravely roads. And when it snows hard enough the ski-destroying gravel is covered.
Which happened this winter.
The house I grew up in (which I am struggling to call “my parents house” as opposed to “home” in some effort to force myself to at least verbally leave Montana behind) is on the outskirts of town. I think you could call it a suburb except suburbs don’t really exist in Montana. Borderline rural? There are horses and cows down the street but my parents have neighbors. Does that help?
Regardless, my parents live in the strange murky divide between wild and human. That borderland where houses move into traditional migration zones. And so when we ski out of our front door, we can get into the woods very very quickly.
And in the woods it is quiet and there is deep snow. Its so cold, 3 degrees cold, that the creek has frozen and mini ice damns have formed. The water flows over the ice giving the light a mysterious green-blue color. It is unnatural looking. Water shouldn’t flow over ice. The only colors are dark green and white, mostly white. The snow has built up on the trees because there hasn’t been any wind. And in the quiet, stark and beautiful winter wonderland someone hung Christmas ornaments.
On assorted trees along the trail someone put blue and green and pink and red and gold Christmas globes. They sparkled and reflected and stood out against the simple pallet of snow and tree. It was a little like finding a lamp post in the middle of the woods. And the farther we went the more globes we saw. No foot prints led to them, which didn’t really mean anything since it hadn’t stopped snowing but added an additional level of mystery. It was something that if I saw in a movie would feel cheap and contrived. But the farther we went and the more brightly colored symbols of Christmas cheer we saw, the more it felt like a dream. And even though we hadn’t gone through a wardrobe it was a little like magic because someone had taken the time to decorate the trees along this trail. For no real reason. Just because it would be beautiful.

Not-Rape

2008-12-31T10:27:00.003-05:00

Right before Christmas Latoya Petersen over at racilious wrote a heart-breaking and wrenching essay about the "not-rape" epidemic. Not-rape is a term she uses that is has been described in other places as gray rape. Both are ways to try to describe a sex act that is not the held-at-gun-point-stranger-rape but is still a coercive and morally wrong event. All week the various jezebels have been responding including Tatiana and I wanted to share this paragraph:

"And as Peterson's essay illustrates so aptly, there are a million male behaviors that are not so much rape as rape spectrum, or rape-ish, or not rape by degree instead of by kind, an entire constellation of potential violations, that almost every sentient woman has more than enough reason by experience to be afraid of. We are taught to put such extraordinary faith in such ridiculous talismans — I can go jogging if it's still light, I can walk these three blocks if I hold my keys out, I can leave my drink unattended while I go to the bathroom if I put a napkin over it, I can trust him if he's so-and-so's friend — that, if we stopped with the bargaining for a minute and actually thought about the chances we have to take to live as men take for granted or to try and have some semblance of trusting romantic relationships, we might never leave the house again. Refusing the fear — walking home alone when the buses have stopped running, doing anything at all alone after dark to make the point that you can — doesn't feel entirely liberating, either. It mostly feels stupid. (I still do these things, sometimes, because if I'm going to feel putting-a-napkin-on-my-drink stupid, I might as well occasionally feel walk-home-drunk-alone stupid.) How to contend with this fear is, I am convinced, the major question of 21st century womanhood."

Bold is mine. What Petersen and Tatiana and all of the Jezebels and really any modern woman are attempting to figure out is how to be alive in this day and age. There is such judgment attached to rape: "she shouldn't have been drinking alone." "She shouldn't have opened the door." "She shouldn't have been out so late." "She shouldn't have dressed like that." If you actually think about it, it is impossible to live fully in the world without breaking the rules of how-to-not-get-raped. If you are out, you are lucky if a boy will even walk you to the train station and then its probably because he wants kisses (let alone accompanying you all the way home with out the expectation of sex.)* I am a solitary person and sometimes I don't want to be out and about with a posse. I like dressing pretty and wearing make-up and will scream at you if you cat-call me on the street (not helpful, I know, but it makes me feel better.) And yet all of these are things that if I were to press charges against an assailant would be used against me in court. I know this because it has happened to other people. My knee-high boot wearing/ drinking alone/ walking home late habits are asking for it.
And what is so frustrating to modern day feminists is that there's not really anything we can do about it. Its cultural, not legal. We can not rally and protest the way our grandmothers did to get suffrage. Its long slow work with lots of backsliding and infighting. Is girls gone wild good or bad for modern feminism? How about burlesque? Jezebel? Nothing is really clear except that we live in a culture where rape is, if not acceptable, common and commonly perpetrated and elicits very little outrage unless it is held-at-gun-point-stranger-rape. The very fact that to talk about other, more common forms of rape we have to give it a new name "not rape" "gray rape" is horrible. But I don't really know what else we can do. Put our faith in ridiculous talismans I guess. And hope that luck is on our side.

*Not that I think men should be required to walk their friends home. I'm just stating that not-walking-home-alone is rarely an option.

Sometimes all the pop culture in my life ties together.

2008-12-19T11:19:00.002-05:00

So I am a little over halfway through this EPIC series called the Baroque trilogy by Neal Stephenson which is about, among many other things, the battle between Newton and Leibenz as to who exactly invented calculus. Through this I am learning far more about British and French history pre American revolution but post Elizabeth I (which is sort of a blank area in pop culture even though there were some awesome king beheadings) than I ever have, well ever. And I am learning so much about the effects of mercury poisoning (TURNS YOU GREY). Apparently Newton was super big into alchemy and was obsessed with finding the philosophic mercury, that essence that is both what gives us consciousness and proves gods hand in the world. And this meant playing around with lots of normal mercury. And drinking it. While the book is fiction this whole Newton/alchemy thing is true and I highly recommend the series if you have a three or four months of your life to spare.
Which ties into Speed the Plow and Jeremy Pivin who has quit the show due to MERCURY POISIONING. Mamet has possibly the best quote ever in response: "I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury. So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer." I thought Piven was great but the person who could possibly even greater is William H. Macy who is replacing him! I wasn’t that keen on the show over all but I am super intrigued by the prospect of Macy. As well as understudy Norbert Leo Butz. All three of these actors are so different and if I had $50 to throw away on rush tickets I might just see it two more times just out of curiosity.
Which ties into SNOW. As in, cocaine. As in thats probably what the mercury poisoning is. And as in what is going on outside my window at the moment (frozen water not illicit substances).

2008-12-15T15:25:00.002-05:00

Me: I decided last night that cats are the perfect cross between a stuffed animal and a husband.
Sushi: Oh my god.
Me: sure they won't set up the internet. But they talk back less.
Sushi: Please. Please make that your facebook quote. Put it under life philisophy.
Me: Religion.

I Hate to be the Bearer of Bad News but…

2008-11-17T11:07:00.001-05:00

The new James Bond movie is thoroughly disappointing. I’m not quite sure what went wrong. While the directors changed, the writers are the same (and as a writer I tend to blame them for everything.) The first one was tight, sexy thriller with genuine romance this one is almost like a parody of a Bond movie. The number of exotic locals is gratuitous and the women are empty shells. There is one visual reference to Goldfinger that I alone found hysterical. But other than that it is a grim, joyless, incomprehensible thriller that really has no tie to Casino Royal aside from mentioning Vesper Lynd all the time (which on the 8th mention of her name I realized is a pun for West Berlin). The action scenes are shot in dizzying close up and there is no real sense of danger. The new Bond girl is lovely but she and Daniel Craig have no chemistry and her arc is boring. Of course Judi Dench is fabulous and the movie picks up whenever she is on screen.
Rewatch Casino Royal, and skip Quantum of Solace. The action is better, the story makes more sense, and there is Eva Green.

Prop 8 Hate:

2008-11-16T15:07:00.001-05:00

So I have mixed feelings about the response to Prop 8. I mean, obviously I hate Prop 8 and I think it is terrible and a giant step back. But shouldn’t all of these protests have happened BEFORE the election? I mean, the people of California have spoken, what exactly are these protests hoping to achieve? If it gets overturned by the state supreme court its not going to have anything to do with the protests. Its not like the polls lied, leading up to the election it looked really close so why are people surprised that it passed? Again, all this money and the energy should have happened before the election. And the blaming the whole think on black people really creeps me out. Plus, why are there protests in New York and Philly and Montana when this is a California measure that affects California citizens?
I personally feel that all this energy would be better spent trying to pass gay marriage laws in other states. New York is thisclose to having gay marriage be legal, it feels like if just the tiniest bit of pressure was put on our Gov he would pass any legislation that came his way. Obviously, Montana is far too conservative to have a gay marriage bill passed but hate crime and antidiscrimination bills still need to be passed and the libertarian live-and-let-live mentality (while often hypocritical) can be exploited.
Obviously I am not a lawyer or even an activist and maybe I am wrong and insensitive. Perhaps these rallies are a good way to build energy and momentum (instead of wasting it), to rally the base. But it the more tangible boycotting of organizations (theatres, restaurants) who gave money in support of prop 8 is more the kind of thing I can get behind.
Am I completely wrong?

Blasted.

2008-11-13T10:03:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw Blasted by Sarah Kane at the Soho Rep. I don’t think I have ever been more terrified going into a play in my life. I made sure to sit on the edge so I could leave if I had to. I have never walked out of anything in my life but I gave myself permission to do that if I had to. Why was I so scared? I shall quote from Emily’s blog about her experience seeing Blasted:

“I broke into a cold sweat about halfway through scene three. Then my vision got all blurry and I thought I was going to die, but I did not. I'm sure everyone has their own limitations, but this was the first time (and I've read the play, so I did know what I was getting myself into), but this was the first time I've ever felt truly shocked.”

I read the play four years ago and found it disturbing but not particularly affecting. It’s a strange play, absurdist in structure. The characters and situation don’t really change, everything just gets worse. Reading it I found it more a sad commentary on the state of Sarah Kane’s worldview. It is clear in her writing that this was a woman who saw society as thin and tenuous thread, that truly believed in her heart of hearts that humans are feral and we eat our young, that love is only a lie we use to manipulate each other. Sarah Kane killed herself in 1999 and anyone who has read or seen her work would not be surprised.
So when I heard that soho reps production of Blasted was THE production to see I bought a ticket with out thinking twice. I’ve survived Requiem for a Dream. I’ve written rapes and atrocities into my work. Whatever.*
Then I read Emily’s response and I got scared. Really really scared.
And so when I saw it I very consciously tried to focus on structure and technique. As things got worse I assumed horror-movie-position: thumbs over ears and fingers spread over my face to cover my ears and eyes at a moments notice. And when things got really, really eye-ball-sucking-and-dead-baby-eating bad and did not look at all. I examined the lighting rig.
And I did not vomit and I did not faint and I did not have to leave and I stayed all the way to the depressing end. And I smiled and sent a jokey text to Emily after curtain call. And I was pleased that I had remained unaffected.
But then on the train I realized that I didn’t really remember my walk. I was in a daze. And suddenly, on the packed L, I began to weep. Well, not so much weep as leak.
You know how when you’re sick, and there is no one to take care of you and you have to make soup and buy ginger ale for yourself, and everything takes an incredible amount of energy and thought? Just paying the cashier and putting soup in a pan takes conscious effort and is ultimately exhausting. That’s how walking home and taking care of the cats felt. It was as though the joy had been sucked out of me.
Thank goodness that the trifecta of hot chocolate, kittie cuddles and old school simpsons will cure almost anything.
Its hard to argue with Sarah Kane’s world view. There are situations where people go feral, where the only response is insanity. Right now, the tenuous peace in the Congo has fallen apart. And that is what is so scary about Blasted, not the incredible make up effects, not the brutal rapes, but the fact that there is a part of me, a very very small part, that agrees with her. But unlike Sarah (and her work), I (and my work) have hope.
And adorable kitties.
Its hard to recommend the play. But I will put it like this: if you are going to see a production of Blasted in your lifetime see this one. Everything is incredibly well done. Why you would want to see Blasted… well I leave that up to you.

* I have never “seen” the sexual violence in my plays performed. Whenever the gun-in-mouth moment in BANG/whimper came up in rehearsals or the production I would close my eyes. During the rehearsal of the attempted rape in Nothing but the Truth I drew flowers on my script. And when they insisted on rehearsing it over and over I nearly fainted. Take that for what you will.

Theatre and such

2008-11-12T14:12:00.000-05:00

So I haven’t been updating this thing for one reason or another. Haven’t really had anything that felt worth saying. BUT I have seen some theatre and opera (look at me! So classy!) these past few weeks so how about some capsule reviews?
Black Watch (again): It is so good. SO GOOD. I know its like impossible to get rush tickets so pay for it. It is worth it. I can’t really articulate how good it is.
Speed-the-Plow: So I’m not really a Mamet person. And this play is a lesser Mamet. Where Glen Gary Glen Ross and Oleana ride on the bleakness of Mamet’s worldview to intense and devastating conclusions Speed the Plow just… kind of… ends. The stakes are so low, whether or not this movie or that movie will get greenlit, that it is hard to care. HOWEVER Jeremy Piven was great playing exactly the same roll he plays on entourage as was Raul Esparza. Elizabeth Moss didn’t really have anything to do and it remains to be seen whether she has any range at all (much as I love her as Peggy on Mad Men). But it was great to see her without peggy-bangs and in a bombshell outfit.
I ___ NY: a rather exciting play written by Lonnie Carter (dear Prof of mine). Definitly still a work in progress but there is so much good there that I can’t wait to see how it progresses. The collaborative approach that they are applying also reminds me a lot of the way theatre is done in South Africa, which intrigues me greatly.
Doctor Atomic: It is LOOOONG. And it has that whole opera thing of if-I-said-it-once-I should-say-it-eight-times. And it’s sort of atonal. And I’m not sure I would have had any idea what was going on if I hadn’t read the 20 pages of writer and director statements in the program. BUT the last 10 minutes of both acts were so devastatingly beautiful that I forgive it everything. It has haunted me a little bit.
Ivanov: Jesse was in a production of Checkov up at Columbia. Jesse was awesome (and vaugly frightening) though the production lacked a cohesive style.
Equus: I sat in the stage seats which meant the actors had their backs to me most of the time and I couldn’t really see their eyes. BUT both Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliff are fantastic and the six dancers who play the horses are stunning. It really is all about the horses. Beautiful tall men, in platforms in the shape of horse shoes with leather and metal masks covering their faces. Oh man. They completely capture the essence of horse. Its pretty incredible.
However, the play itself hasn’t aged that well. The idea that Alan’s madness comes from a stifling family life is very 1973. Peter Shafer is totally a romantic. Both Amadeus and Equus have older men jealous of crazy, talented, passionate young men. He believes that madness and art go together and (I am assuming) that he is a lesser artist for his sanity. But anyone who has actually dealt with severe (horse blinding) mental illness knows there is little romantic about it. Its gross and messy and dangerous and frightening. Shafer wants the audience to feel a little sad that Alan will be brought back to society and cured. But for the sake of the horses I don’t give a damn about his passion.

Introducing Edgar and Lenore:

2008-11-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

The battle escalates

2008-10-15T15:37:00.002-04:00

I have long wondered if dogs would ever manage to top the lolcat. After over a year of lolkittyenjoyment I had come to the conclusion that cats are just funnier than dogs.
That was until I encountered upsidedowndogs.com
It's so simple. Yet so awesome.
Ball's in your court cats.

Hot Kieblbasa!

2008-10-10T15:15:00.001-04:00

I know I should be upset that there was an interstate drug ring based mere blocks from my house but I just have the giggles that the code word for cocaine was "Hot Kielbasa."

So bad its good? Or just bad?

2008-10-10T11:03:00.002-04:00

So lets get one thing clear. I have no shame about my love for the Twilight books. Yes, everything that has been said about how they are trash (true) and anti-feminist (I mean, the heroine spends 90% of the time being carried) and creepy (the hero is totally a stalker) is completely correct. But they also managed to capture that obsessive feeling of the first time you are in love. That oh-my-god-no-one-has-ever-felt-as-deeply-as-I-do teenage narcissism. Edward is totally the man that every one 16-year-old girl wishes she dated in high school (and every older woman recognizes as being dangerously unhinged but still there is that residual longing for someone to possess you.) Its all very regressive but also archetypal. No one will remember these books in ten years, I mean, they’re crap. But really engaging crap.
So why am I so disgusted by the poster for the movie?

They took everything that is weird and unappealing (yet easily ignorable) about Twilights vampires: the fact that they glitter, feel like stone, and their eyes are golden; and were like “ah yes, this must be what is making all those girls swoon” when it is not that at all! That stuff is all weird! And a desperate attempt to differentiate these books from the rest of the vampire cannon! What makes girls swoon is the fact that Edward is HOT! And this…. This is gross.

Disenfranchise me.

2008-10-08T09:19:00.002-04:00

So it turns out that over this past week, while I have been calmly giving myself agoraphobia (I WILL post about that at some point) the republicans in my home state have been trying to take away my right to vote. Montana Republicans challenged almost 6,000 voter registrations in key Democratic counties, I know that number doesn't seem like a lot but in a state like Montana it is. "Republicans had notified seven counties last week that they were challenging the registrations of 5,977 voters whose addresses did not match a U.S. Postal Service database. Party leaders said they were trying to guard against voter fraud." Included in the people whose registration was challenged were friends of mine who live outside of Montana for college.
THANKFULLY logic prevailed and the challenges were thrown out.
"The maneuver - just weeks before the November election - drew criticism from state and county election officials who had to investigate the claims. Nonpartisan voter rights groups said there was no proof of fraud in the state and said the GOP effort was partisan-driven.
Challenged voters could have been forced to reregister or submit an affidavit proving their current address."
I know both sides are dirty as sin in this election but jeeeze louise. How desperate can you get?

I think I have a Problem

2008-10-03T15:57:00.001-04:00

I have now worked at my desk job for one month. That’s four whole weeks, guys! Lets take an inventory into how I have made the space my own.
- Chicken on the Computer desktop (I LOVE CHICKENS)
- Aveno Hand Lotion.(Lavender Scented!)
- Altoides (Necessary)
- Extra pair of shoes (so I can wear sneakers on the subway but look classy at work)
- Green Tea (I mean its me)
- Earl Gray Tea (I really love tea)
- Ginger Tea (I really REALLY love tea)
- Sugar packets (for the tea)
- Clif bars (in case I get hungry)
- Box of Kudos (…in case I get hungry)
- Bag of Chocolate mint milanos (wait, isn’t there a vending machine like 20 feet from your desk?)
- Box of CheeseIts (Its 100 feet away! That’s really far.)
- Gummy worms (That’s not far! And isn’t it in a kitchen that has FREE TEA)
- Oreo Snack Cakes (Its Lipton tea Lipton sucks. And what if I don’t have change for the vending machine? What then? I’ll have to ask for an advance.)
- Assorted Dumdums and other candy stolen from banks and doctors (OMG YOU ARE SUCH A PACKRAT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?)

Cool things:

2008-10-02T15:31:00.002-04:00

The webcam for the Large Haldron Collider. You know, the one the Swiss built to eat the universe.
You might have to right click 'play' to make sure its turned on.

Step #1 in becoming Awesomest Spinster Ever!

2008-10-02T15:16:00.002-04:00

So I am going to get a cat. I have wanted a cat since I moved to New York. Before this I have always ALWAYS lived with a cat. When I lived in berlin there was a cat. When I lived with Michael, there was a cat.
And then I moved to New York.
And there were no cats.
And I have been very very sad.
But now I am steady employed and so will get a cat!
HOWEVER I will not get this cat which is advertised on the Brooklyn Animal Rescue Coalition's website.
Valencia
#1901
Want to have a difficult, tempestuous relationship without all the psychotherapy and damage to your self-esteem? Consider Valencia. His last relationship ended when he was returned to the shelter because of a tendency to attack his person, who also said he can be loyal, affectionate and totally charming. It's just that he can be possessive and domineering—and tends to vent. And yet, he thrives on attention and is genuinely affectionate. He might do best in a home with plenty of toys, and possibly another cat who wouldn't be intimidated by him—so he would have some outlet for his predatory energy. His rough-edged charm is not for everyone, but with careful matchmaking, it could work for the right person. He is not suitable for a home with young children. We think he was born in 1999.
Breed: Domestic Short Hair
Color: Orange Tabby Age: Adult
Size: Medium Sex: Male
***
I have to give them props for being honest at least.

My Dad Has Seen More Russia Than Sarah Palin

2008-10-01T16:42:00.001-04:00

I have this wonderful blue jacket that I’ve had since middle school and is totally lame and the least fashionable thing I own but I LOVE it because it is incredibly warm and has a walrus on the back.
This is the only photo of the jacket I could find on Facebook. It gets points off for not showing the back which is where the islands and the walrus are, but it gets bonus points for including a chicken.
My dad got it when he and my grandma went on a cruse around Alaska and Russia back when I was in 5th grade. They stopped at this little island called little diomede which is the closest American area to Russia (Big Diomede island is Russian and visible). Back in the cold war there were a lot of cost guarders stationed on little diomede. You know, incase the Russians invaded.
Its where my dad bought the jacket (big and little diomede are on the jacket).
And is a place Sarah Palin has never been.
Ergo, my dad should be president.

My Onion Horoscope For This Week tells the TRUTH!!!

2008-10-01T16:26:00.001-04:00

Gemini May 21 - June 21

You'll be awarded the Nobel Prize For Not Paying Attention And Letting The Damn Rice Burn Again this week.

Today's recommendation of JOY: Double Mint Edition

2008-09-30T15:31:00.002-04:00

So I know we are in a recession and we all need to cut corners and glamorous little cookies are going to be the first to go but OMG Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Mint Milanos are AMAZING. They are about as close to Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies as you can get without actually interacting with girl scouts.
SPECIAL BONUS RECOMMENDATION:
The french movie "Tell No One." The premise of the movie is that a man's wife is killed and then eight years later he gets an email that might be from her. To say anymore would be to spoil the twists which is 90% of the fun of the movie. It had been recommended to me as "the best movie I have ever seen" which is a set up for disappointment. The fact that I still was head over heals in love with it, even with heightened expectations is a testament to its greatness. It is also the best acted movie I have ever seen. The entire ensemble just inhabits their characters completely. There is one scene in which a woman doesn't have a single line, and yet, because she is acting so well, and because the writing has done such a great job of setting it up, we know this woman's entire story. The vibe reminds me a lot of "Cache" in that everything just feels real and lived in. And because it is so real, the moments of brief gore and terror are so much more effective. I watched it with Asher and apparently I was squirming all over the place, covering my eyes, gasping, etc. I was completely entranced the entire time.

Other people saying goodbye to Crumley

2008-09-26T16:23:00.004-04:00

From the NYTimes:

If Mr. Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson had collaborated to produce a literary offspring, Mr. Crumley would unquestionably have been the result. In just seven private eye novels he carved out a genre that might properly be called gonzo gumshoe, set mostly in the back alleys, seedy bars and wild, forbidding countryside of Montana.

Roger:
James Crumley didn’t give a hoot what people thought about how he lived his life and he didn’t judge anyone on how they lived theirs, unless they were cruel, small spirited or high and mighty. He wasn’t really fond of sloppy drunks, academics or the very wealthy, but he cut them all a lot of slack.

He was more genuinely interested in listening to people than anyone I’ve ever known. I’m supposed to do that because I write people talking for a living; Jim gently showed me how bad I was at listening, and casually and constantly reminded me that nothing is more important.

From the Independent Article:
In an article that appeared in the Independent Sept. 26, 2006, Crumley wrote of his friend: “It’s no secret that Mr. Kittredge and I, during our misspent youths, spread disorder and various sorrows across several Western states, but we always paid our bar tabs and tipped like gentleman."

RANT (in list form!)

2008-09-26T13:49:00.004-04:00

I try really hard to be a calm, peaceful person. You know: cool, collected, takes everything with a grain of salt, doesn’t rise to anger.
Obviously, I fail.
And today is one of those days in which I am failing more than usual. And so a list!
The top 5 things that are blinding me with rage on this rainy Friday:

5. The New Yorker article on Lenora Hemsley giving her dog 10 million dollars. What. The. Fuck. Did you know that America donates 2.5 times more money to Animal shelters than to organizations that help abused women? I love puppies and kittens but this woman had a sentence in the charter for her trust to help children and she TOOK IT OUT in favor of helping dogs. This is in addition to the obscene amount she left her little dog. Doesn't she know Animals are meant for eating? I mean, I don’t really like people either but her whole point seemed to be rubbing the fact that she cut her grandkids out of her will in their faces. I’d call her a bitch but I think that’s getting too pun like.
4. Sarah Palin. I am no longer amused. I no longer have western pride that she can field dress a moose. I am so angry. At the fact that she can’t answer questions. At the fact that she described meeting with foreign leaders as “fun.” She is bad for women. She is coming off as stupid and cowardly and the McCain camps sheltering of her is – pardon the s word – SEXIST. SHE IS NOT A LITTLE DOLL. SHE CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS. AAAAAAAAAAAGH!
3 . The Economy. Okay, so I have no idea what is going on and I recognize that since I am not planning on buying property in the next few years it doesn’t really affect me but jesus, someone figure it out. PLEASE. In issues that I don’t understand I tend to trust the economist and they said that the $700 billion plan that fell apart last night was probably the best possible plan. And now it fell apart. God damn it.
2. The SEC chairman. There are three people who are in control of the economy – the fed chairman, the cabinet secretary and the SEC chairman. And we’re only hearing about two of them. This American Life had a report about how the SEC chairman has missed all these important meetings to go to birthday parties and the like. It made me SO ANGRY. And usually This American Life just makes me cry cathartically. So I was double angry at being made angry by This American Life.
1. John McCain. Waaay back when it looked like Huckabee had a chance of taking the primary I said that I would be okay with a president McCain. “He’s a moderate,” I said, “And even if I disagree with him I will know where he is coming from.” I TAKE IT ALL BACK. Apparently McCain thinks the definition of “Maverick” is making decisions with out thinking about the consequences. From Sarah Palin to canceling the debate he just seems to do things. Baaaaad things. And now he went back to Washington to try to “help” with a situation that he has no expertise in and managed to FUCK. IT. ALL. UP. (okay, I recognize that there were a lot of factors at play but I am going to blame him right now because I feel like it.) Please god, if he wins don’t let him bomb Russia. Because at this point I think he would.

I want to be Helena Bonham Carter when I grow up.

2008-09-25T16:57:00.002-04:00

Will you be my Tim Burton?

I wish I supported Sarah Palin

2008-09-24T22:45:00.002-04:00

Because this would totally be my computer background.
LOL.
Pity. The gleeful fascination has worn off and now I am just angry and afraid. Though still a little gleefully fascinated.

Roommate conversations:

2008-09-24T22:35:00.001-04:00

Tom: I just don’t understand. We are so in debt. Where is $700 Billion dollars coming from? They are bailing out companies that were faking money with fake money. I don’t understand!!!!
Me: I’m sure someone we went to college with took economics and can explain it to us.
Jesse: Hey guys. We can order Pizza from our TV!

Hate is such a strong word...

2008-09-24T15:48:00.001-04:00

I get mistaken for a vegetarian a lot. I don’t know why. For some reason I give off a veggie vibe. Which is weird because I don’t think I know a single person (outside of my family) who eats as much meat as me. I tried to be a vegetarian in middle school, not because I particularly care about animals, but because the meat industry in this country is disgusting and unsustainable. I ended up eating tuna with every meal and by the end of my four month experiment I was craving meat so badly it was all I could think about. So ultimately I just accepted that my body needs meat and decided to enjoy it.
Also, its weird that people think I am a vegetarian because I hate PETA with every fiber of my being.
In theory I support PETA (see above statement re: meat industry – disgusting.) but in practice their methods just seem intent on alienating any possible ally they could have. Feminists. Jews. Ben and Jerry Lovers.
Yes that’s right, PETA is going after Ben and Jerrys.

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.”

Yep. Apparently they don’t have anything better to do with their time.

My life is finally starting to calm down...

2008-09-21T19:56:00.000-04:00

Movies I want to see:

A girl cut in two
Traitor
Burn after reading
Vicky Christinina Barcelona
Sukiyaki Western Django
Hamlet 2
Tell no one

Plays I want to see:
Boeing-boeing
Beast
Three Changes
The Seagull
Equus

...and the girl who serves your food is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

2008-09-19T11:05:00.002-04:00

Jim Crumley died on Wednesday.
I’ve been talking about him a lot lately because I recently finished this novel “The Last Good Kiss” which is amazing. I was going to do a write up of it here (and how its structure totally screwed with my mind) but never got around to it. Shit.
Crumley was a fantastic writer but he was also a person who has been in my life for the past 8 years. I wouldn’t say we were friends, barely even acquaintances, but he was around and a presence. He was always funny, always kind. He left an impression on people and I often found myself in bars talking about him. "Oh that Crumley..." He appeared gruff but he was gentle too. He was dearly dearly loved by two of my close friends. And most of all, he was a hell of a writer. He is someone it is hard to imagine Missoula without. It is hard to imagine mystery writing without. There is an emptiness where he should be.
The title of his best novel comes from one of my favorite poems of all time Richard Hugo’s “Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg.” Which I will print here as a memorial. Its just right.

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can't wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs--
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won't fall finally down.

Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn't this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You're talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it's mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

I think this is so awesome:

2008-09-16T15:56:00.001-04:00

“Tony Kushner, the award-winning playwright who has spent much of his time in recent years writing Hollywood scripts, is the first recipient of a newly created $200,000 prize for playwriting, by far the largest theater award in the nation, and one of the biggest cash awards in any of the arts.”

The Steinbergs are awesome. First of all they fund one of the better classes at DDW and now they’re funding playwrights directly! While their first pick is pretty safe, what excites me even more is that they plan on giving two $50,000 prizes every two years to writers who are just starting out. Which is more money than I will make all year at my full time job.
Putting aside the selfish fact that I would love to get that prize myself I think it is amazing that every two years two young playwrights will have the financial solvency to take a year off work and just focus on writing. Because the biggest barrier to being a writer (for me as well as others) is not having the time and not even being sure if it is financially worth it in the long run to stay in the theatre. I don’t blame any playwright for jumping ship to film and TV but this prize might help bring some of them back, starting with Tony Kushner. I think these prizes will only bring good things to American theatre.

(Side note: I love Tony's smile in that nytimes photo. That is the smile of man who just won $200,000)

14 Things That Irritated Me About The Pilot of Fringe

2008-09-16T15:22:00.001-04:00

The weirdo symbols that we cut to right before every commercial break
Dharma initiative anyone?

That the scientist character is crazy.

That the insane asylum scene included both screaming sound fx and maniacal laughter sound fx in the background.

That someone okayed the line “You just don’t like me because I used to be the Marine special prosecutor and I put your friend away for rape.”

That the virus is a direct rip off of the X-files movie virus.
With the translucent skin, and the stickness, and the needing to be kept cold to slow the virus’ gestation.

The over dramatic music.
Just because the music is scared doesn’t mean I am.

That they did nothing with the cow.

That someone okayed the line “How is the doctor?” “He’s completely nuts. He’s also my only hope.”

The intrusiveness of the titles.
I shouldn’t be talking about the titles.

The unnecessaryness of the Baghdad scene.
Aside from the fact that we need to know that Joshua Jackson’s character speaks Farsi?

That a character as “smart” as Joshua Jackson would be so easily manipulated.

That the science has no apparent tie to reality.
Talking to the dead, anyone?

That the Kyle MacLaughlin-look alike being a twin is a complete cop out.

That the plot doesn’t make any sense emotionally or logically.
Its just being convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I know that describes Lost but Lost is genuinely scary at times and the characters are compelling and well drawn from day one. Here its like they just strung together a series of traits –he has gambling debts and hates his father, she has trouble saying I love you etc – in replacement of character. I know its not fair to judge a show by its pilot. Some of my favorite shows took a while to get on their feet (30 Rock, American Office). But still this is JJ fucking Abrams we are talking about. The pilot of Lost is TV genus. This is just shit.

2008-09-15T16:52:00.003-04:00

I think it is a tribute to David Foster Wallace's genius that no one who has taken the time to read him feels indifferent about his death. I love Hemingway but I could understand feeling meh about him. But DFW inspires such passion, either loathing or love. To quote my father:

"The disturbing thing to me is that I saw/see him as a really life-affirming author with whom I share a number of important interests (Wittgenstein, drugs, county fairs, and even lobsters). His description of his female companion's being shaken upside down on some illinois fair ride by a lecherous carny is one of the funniest (and, I think, full of life) things I have ever read."

And to quote the AVclub:

"His specialty, to me, was always the seriousness with which he surveyed those little private moments that engender shame, that special kind of embarrassment-before-self that makes us wither and recoil when we're left alone in churning judgment of ourselves and all the ways we flounder in the world. Maybe it was always darker than I knew, but I've always read him in those moments as possessed by a special kind of glee. He was so good at it, so piercing and poignant, that I assumed Wallace must thrill over his own work as much as those of us who lapped it up so electrically. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't."

I know I already wrote about him but I just keep crying about it. Which is inexplicable. But still it happens.

Must Read:

2008-09-15T10:56:00.002-04:00

This sunday's New York Times article about Sarah Palin. It gives a good idea of what the country will be like if she runs it. That woman is terrifying.

On the off chance that you haven't seen it already:

2008-09-14T17:09:00.000-04:00

RIP

2008-09-14T13:31:00.002-04:00

My friend Theresa got very depressed when Norman Mailer died and I have to admit I didn't really get it. He's just a writer, I thought, his work is already published, whats the big deal.
I totally get it now.
David Foster Wallace died this weekend at the age of 46 and the world is a worse place without him. He was one of the most talented, intelligent and ambitious writers of our age. He always wrote knowingly about the world's pain but his writing never gave the impression of one who was overwhelmed. I think the reason why I am so sad is that his work had such a humor, such an amusement at life, that if he couldn't handle this world, who can?
His writing is so much smarter than me that reading him made me feel like a better person for having shared the journey. He's not everyone's cup of tea but no one can deny that he was genius.
In Neil Gaiman's sandman books there is a library in the realm of dreams that stores all the books never written. I would like to visit that library some day and read all the books Foster Wallace never got the chance to write.

This weeks recomendation of JOY is:

2008-09-13T14:07:00.002-04:00

Bollywood film "Om Shanti Om."
"Om Shanti Om" is like "Hamlet" crossed with "Singing in the Rain" with reincarnation, set in Bollywood in the 70’s and today.
And yes it is just as great as it sounds.

That song might sound familiar to you "So You Think You Can Dance" watchers.

Yet more evidence that So You Think You Can Dance is the awesomest thing ever.

It's almost as though they're disappointed.

2008-09-10T16:40:00.002-04:00

So I sent out a text message saying essentially YAY the swiss didn't destroy the world. And I got back the following:
From my dad: "Just talking about that in class. According to Rossler it could take a month 2 expand & swallow us!"
From my brother: "Yeah I saw! They haven't done the big experiments yet though so there's still a chance"
From Asher: "ive read it could take up to 50 months, which would mean the mayans are wrong about 2012. and james cameron was way off with skynet."

OH MY GAWD GUYS! Just be happy we live to breath another day! The swiss will find a way to destroy the universe yet, don't you worry.

Yes I Watched it.

2008-09-10T15:28:00.000-04:00

And I am not ashamed.
But the official verdict is that High School Musical 2 (Aka 2 Chaste 2 Serious) is not nearly as good as High School Musical 1 (aka the whole not kissing thing kinda makes sense because none of the characters have started dating yet). Yes it picks up in its last 45 minutes with an awesome baseball dance sequence but before that there is waaay too much talking. Dear Disney, I do not watch High School Musical for the convoluted plotting, I watch it for the perky perky dance numbers. Which are, ehem, legitimately good. Hopefully they will step up their game for High School Musical 3 (maybe this time the characters will make out? Or come out?).
And yes I do plan on seeing it.

It's taken Apple close to 5 years...

2008-09-09T15:12:00.003-04:00

But they now have a purple Ipod.

I want it. I want it now!

I need some help

2008-09-09T11:58:00.002-04:00

So an old friend of the family sent me an email but I think I could use some help answering it:
Hi Larke,
“Uncle” Rick here. David and I were talking about movies worth watching. (You and he turned me on to The Departed last year – great flick!)

Any chance you would recommend a handful to me? I am contemplating a Blu Ray player so action, panoramas, “guy movies,” anything worth enjoying in 1080p are all potentials. I found Pulp Fiction unpleasant, but loved American Werewolf in London. I own all the Lethal Weapons, Bourne Identities, Dirty Harrys and Die Hards, as well as Director’s cuts of E.T., Terminator 2, and the Lord of the Rings series.

Thanks,

Rick

***

Below is my response:

Hey Rick,
I essentially just looked at my netflix history for the past three years and pulled stuff off of it that I really enjoyed and think you would too. Some of these are pretty mainstream and you might have seen already. Some are not.
Because you enjoyed the Departed so much you might be interested in checking out the Hong Kong movie it is based on. It’s called Infernal Affairs and is readily available. Its great in a slightly different way than Departed and fascinating to watch them both.
And now a list:
Memories of Murder and the Host – two Korean movies, one about serial killings and the other about a monster terrorizing Seoul. Both beautiful to watch, and really awesome plotwise.
The Devils Backbone - awesome ghost story from the director of Pans Labyrinth
Donnie Brasco - Mob movie from the late 90s with Johny Depp and Al Pacino. Im not really a fan of mob movies but this one is quite good.
Gone baby gone - a kidnapping drama from last year that got completely ignored at award time which I don't understand at all. Its incredibly tense and morally ambiguous.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - I love this movie. I think it is gorgeously shot and subtly scary. My mom thinks it is the most boring thing she has ever seen in her life. Take that for what you will.
Michael Clayton - fantastic legal thriller from last year.
3:10 to Yuma - Western from last year. I bet it would look gorgeous in bluray.
Nightwatch - completely bizarre Russian scifi craziness. If you don't like weird, avoid this one. If you do... well its a gem. Unfortunately its sequel Daywatch is incomprehensible.
Breach - political thriller from last year. Again I don't know what this was ignored at awards time.
Zodiac - the pinnacle of serial killer movies. I dont think they will get any better.
City of God - AHmazing Brazilian movie about gang wars. Absolutely beautiful and fascinating. Probs my favorite of all the movies on this list.
Layer Cake - British mob thriller with Daniel Craig. Just a lot of fun.
Snatch - British mob thriller a la layer cake. Fun and what not.
Out of Sight - thriller from the mid 90s with Jenifer Lopez and George Cloony. Okay, i know, that makes it sound gross but it is a lot of fun and very sweet and swear JLo is actually good in it.
Idiocracy - deeply flawed but very funny movie about a future in which all the smart people have died out and the world is inhabited by idiots. An average man from our time who has been cryogenically frozen wakes up and discovers he could rule the world.
Brick - a nior mystery set in a southern California high school.
Rounders - fun poker movie.

***
I feel that certain people who read this blog (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) might actually have tastes closer to Rick's than mine. So please, boys and girls, leave your recommendations in the comments.

uuuuuhhhh.....?

2008-09-07T10:42:00.002-04:00

So apparently they made a "The Fast and the furious 4." But they titled it "Fast and Furious." As in, the just took out the "the" from the original title. At first I thought that they were rereleasing "The Fast and the Furious 1" in theaters. You know, like they did with "Apocalypse Now." But no. Its a "New Model, Old Parts." (Which, granted I know nothing about cars, but isn't that, like, a bad thing?)

Really I think that removing the "the" is all they did. I bet they just edited together left over footage from the first movie. Which I have foggy memories of, at best. Mostly I just remember being shocked that I was so bored by car chases.
Which makes me sad because I have a warm spot in my heart for Vin Disel and I really wish that he would stop making such sucky career choices (Fast and Furious 4, Vin, Really? There is nothing else?) and do something INSANE like The Rock in Southland Tales.

Dear Vin Disel,
Put yourself in Richard E Kelly's nutso nutso hands.
Love,
Larke

I KNOW WHO SARAH PALIN LOOKS LIKE!

2008-09-04T15:46:00.004-04:00

I'm just saying this:
looks a lot like this:

Notice how I even found a picture of Laura Roslin with McCain-bot Saul Tigh.
Am I saying all brunettes with glasses look exactly the same?
Yes, yes I am.

A duo to be scared of.

2008-09-01T16:40:00.000-04:00

"Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.

"And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off limits."
--Barack Obama

I think Megan might be my favorite Jezebel

2008-09-01T15:39:00.002-04:00

And not just because she is the only one posting on Labor Day.
Megan Carpenter over at Jezebel has a great one-two punch about the treatment of Sarah Palin by the liberal media. This morning she posted about the liberal blogospheres glee at the rumors that Trig Palin was actually Bristol's child.

"And when liberals and progressives pounce on rumors like this one about Trig's "true" parentage — whether or not it is true, which I'm pretty sure it's not — or rumors about Republican politicians' sexuality (in the absence of crimes committed) we are conceding that conservatives are right, and personal choices do qualify or disqualify one for certain aspects of participation in public life and this democracy. We are accepting their terms, their definitions of appropriate private behavior, and attempting to use those definitions to defeat their candidates. And once we do that, even if we do "take down" Sarah Palin or whatever Republican candidate in order to protect gay rights or reproductive rights or educational rights, then we've lost on those issues anyway because we've conceded that the underpinnings to the Republican positions on those issues is valid."

And then this afternoon, when it came out that 17 year old Bristol is five months pregnant she wrote:

"there's no evidence that I can find that she yanked Bristol out of sex ed classes or denied her contraceptive education. To make a 17-year-old girl who didn't likely choose either to be pregnant or to be some political football the new poster child for attacking her mother's policy positions doesn't leave any better a taste in my mouth this afternoon than I had this morning...
Yes, we need to have a rational conversation in this country about striking the balance between providing students with age-appropriate sex education and a rational discussion about moral values and their role in making sexual choices. I am a full and complete supporter of comprehensive sex ed — which includes information like "there is no such thing as blue balls" and "no means no" and "saying no to sex can be a sign of respect for both of you." But clapping our hands in joyous rubbernecking over Bristol Palin's being in the family way is not going to be the start of any discussion. It makes us look as judge-y as we accuse Them of being, it makes us look like abortion-promoters instead of choice-respecters (it does mean both choices, after all) and it makes us look like we think a 17-year-old target is easier to hit than a 44-year-old target."

Go read both full posts. I think she makes a fantastic claim for, um, not being fucking hypocrites. Which is even more amazing because it comes from Jezebel which, while I love it, does have a habit of shaming anyone who makes a date rape joke unless its one of their editors. Then it's funny.
So yes, lets all agree to try to be civil and while it might be amusing in the short term to make fun of Larry Craig and so forth it really just makes us all worse people and a worse country. I think we can all agree that NO ONE has any idea what the next 60 days hold.

Dakota Freaking Beautiful

2008-09-01T13:43:00.004-04:00

So I was less than a fan of "The Secret Life of Bees" book which is racist in the most condescending way. This family of strong black women just needs a little white girl to come along so their story can be told. I would much rather just hear about Boatwright women, I really couldn't care less about Lily and how her mom died. The movie looks like more of the same and I'm just meh.

Except...
OMG DAKOTA FANNING is in the process of becoming a stunner. If she can just make it through adolescence with out a crack addition she is going to be one gorgeous broad.
Though I would also like to note that she is the same age as....

Miley Cyrus

And Ali Lohan.

And whereas Dakota looks like a 15 year old Miley and Ali look 30. Which is appropriate since Lindsay is looking about 40.
This isn't to body-snark about the Lohan girls, its more to just give props to Dakota and her handlers for keeping her age appropriate and not pushing a Lolitaesque image which frankly creeps me out when I discover that these girls are 15.

I love my Gov

2008-08-30T02:16:00.001-04:00

Montana Govener Brian Schweitzer at the DNC

He's such a dork.
I like the "that was good" from Bill at the end.

Very Clever, John McCain

2008-08-29T11:39:00.002-04:00

Very clever.
Also shes gorgeous. And looks a little bit like Tina Fey.
Its going to be a very close race.
UPDATE: I am not the only one who noticed the Tina Fey resemblance.

To the violinist on the 4 train 1:15 am Friday August 29, 2008

2008-08-29T02:09:00.001-04:00

Oh my god.
You are so fucking good.
I can still hear your music
Strains of summertime and Mozart
you could play professionally
not that I’d know but
here on the 4 train I wish I could give you more than the
75 cents in my wallet
I wish I could
Take you home
With me
Wrap you in my arms
Make love to you while you cry out your orgasm
in your violin.

You look like the boys I went
To high school with.
The boys I first kissed
First loved
Hippie boys
Hair full of dirt
Brains full of pot
Hearts full poetry
Kerouac and the open road
Box car hopes
And Alaskan dreams
Biking to Oregon
Working on tall ships
The boys who I left
Wrote off
Fools
Dreamers
Christopher McCandles
The boys who do not exist in new york
With curly hair and tattered sneakers
You look poorer than most bums.

Make love to me.
Let me take you home.
I will be your patron
Your muse. I will
Pay you in kisses and sex if you
Will only play for me forever.
Your music makes me want to cry and for some reason
That makes me love you.
Come home with me.
Make my tears into music
Make my pain beautiful
Give it meaning.
But you
You have no time for this
You are going to play all night
Until you have enough change for a big mac
Or the parks become safe to sleep in
You are going to ride the 4
Up and down manhattan.
I could follow you
I do think about it
I do
But I don’t want my heart to break
Not tonight.

So I get off the train
Go home
Write you a poem.
Swear that I would have loved you
Forever and ever if only…
If only…
If only you were as real as my love.
Oh well.
You probably have crabs anyway.

Symmetry

2008-08-25T17:08:00.002-04:00

Today I dropped two script submissions in the mail, bought a sandwich on my way back from the post office and picked up the mail which included a rejection letter for a different script.
Symmetrical.

Neil Gaiman Obsession Continues

2008-08-21T14:47:00.001-04:00

“I Google You” Music and Lyrics by Neil Gaiman, Performed by Amanda Palmer.

I saw her perform this last Monday? The Monday before? down at the Spiegeltent.

I Google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends

I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you dance

And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

I know that I
should let you fade
but there’s that box
and there’s your name
somehow it never makes the pain
grow less or fade or disappear
I think that I should save my soul and
I should crawl back in my hole
But it’s too easy just to fold
and type your name again
I fear
I google you
Whenever I’m alone and feeling blue
And each scrap of information
That I gather
says you’ve got somebody new
And it really shouldn’t matter
ought to blow up my computer
but instead….
I google you

****

I’m reading the last sandman book like a page a day. I really don’t want to say goodbye to Dream of the endless. I know him better than some of my friends at this point. I think when I finish it I’m going to go through a mourning process similar to a breakup. The second to last book “the kindly ones” kicked my ass emotionally. I’m very involved. It’s probably not healthy.

Jesse and I are thinking as going as Dream and his sister Death for Halloween.

I have a new favorite person!

2008-08-19T17:39:00.000-04:00

When I stole that candy bar in 3rd grade I totally blamed Reeses. It was asking to be eaten.

2008-08-19T14:41:00.001-04:00

So apparently Camille Paglia said that women getting falling-down-drunk at frat parties and then getting raped are akin to leaving your car keys in the ignition and then being surprised when the car gets stolen.

While I get the whole women-need-to-be-careful angle why isn’t she saying “boys, just because you see a car with the keys in the ignition doesn’t mean you can steal it”? So much of the language discussing date rape (or gray rape or whatever it’s still rape) has to do with women drinking too much or wearing short skirts. While yes it is stupid to get smashed in a frat house and yes if you go to someone’s room there are societal expectations that you shouldn’t be surprised if they come into play (regardless, no means no) I don’t understand why the frat boys don’t have to take responsibility for their car stealing ways. Just because the skirt is short doesn’t mean you can rape her. Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean you can rape her. Just because you’re drunk and don’t know any better doesn’t. Mean. You. Can. Rape. Her. You rarely hear these statements made with a “YOU.” Because us girlies have to guard our chastity. It’s our responsibility. And I think that’s what drives me crazier than anything else. That all the “she was drunk” “she was dressed like a slut” “she led me on” completely takes away all agency from the person who had power. The rapist. You have power over your actions. If you see a car with the keys in the ignition and you take it that is car theft and I really doubt “the car was asking for it” would hold up in court. So dudes remember, a girl doesn’t get raped because she’s drunk or slutty or stayed out too late. She gets raped because she is in the presence of a rapist.

It's almost like I can tell the future!

2008-08-17T14:16:00.002-04:00

So remember last year when I said that I like to think that if I ever worked in a burlesque circus like say Moulin Rouge I would totally be a sexy singer/ acrobat/ the courtesan-that-everyone-loves and then I realized that if I had been alive during Moulin Rouge times I would not be Satine but Ewin MacGregor’s emo writer character sitting in a corner mooning after all the beautiful acrobats?

Um. Yeah. That came true.

I now run the spot light at Absinthe, the burlesque circus show at South Street Seaport. I sit in the back, wearing all black, while gorgeous Russian gymnasts tumble about in their underwear. Its pretty great.

Just when you think they can't LOL anything else...

2008-08-12T14:11:00.000-04:00

They make LOLBush.

A Ridiculous Thing I Did While Looking For A Job

2008-08-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

Today I coordinated my manila folder to my blouse.

I did not mean to do this. Which actually makes it worse, I think. The fact that I A) own a pink manila folder, B) that pink is my preferred manila folder for carrying around resumes and C) that I own not one but three pink blouses is evidence that I may –just may – be becoming the cheerleader I’ve always hidden deep inside me.

It may have worked out in my favor however. The HR person who interviewed me today thought it was hilarious and adorable. Which means memorable. So…yay?

In which Asher is super duper helpful.

2008-08-06T22:53:00.001-04:00

me: So I'm trying to summarize my thesis to send to a playwriting competitions and it is PAINFUL

me: everything that is good about that play is NOT in the plot

Asher: thats why its a nice play, i think

Asher: just write "trust me, its awesome"

What the hell?

2008-08-04T13:48:00.003-04:00

Just when you think that McCain has the corner on stupid campaign ads the Obama peeps release this. WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE A COMPUTER? YOU STUPID IDIOT!
Its like they were like "McCain compaired us to Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears? OH NO THEY DIDN'T. The hideously rich white woman Obama most resembles is Gweneth Paltrow. Get it right guys. Geeeze. I see your idiocy and raise you a smug. "
Arugla eating elitist indeed.

In which Asher and I discuss "The Dark Knight", "Watchmen" and the MPAA."

2008-07-20T17:23:00.011-04:00

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for "The Dark Knight." It also probably doesn't make any sense unless you've seen "The Dark Knight," "300," read "The Dark Knight," and "Watchmen."

The background to this convo is that I insulted TDK in my facebook status (the mature outlet for all aggression) and was roundly insulted. Asher responded: "no wall posts since july 6th.
insult the dark knight and within 10 minutes, 3 posts about how youre wrong."

Me (4:53:28 PM): In my defense I didn't insult it

Me (4:53:35 PM): I just refused to get on the bandwagon

Asher (4:53:50 PM): but the wagon is so soft and welcoming

Asher (4:53:51 PM): join us

Asher (4:54:13 PM): and I also think its unfair to compare the Nolan movies to the Burton movies

Asher (4:54:24 PM): cause they’re not trying to do the same things

Me (4:54:17 PM): I mean, agreed

Me (4:54:23 PM): they’re completely different

Asher (4:54:32 PM): yeah

Me (4:55:46 PM): I guess my thing is that frank millers "the dark knight returns" is much better than Chris Nolan’s "the dark knight" and they both bring up the same issues. what does vigilante power do to a man? what happens to civil rights? etc. which Nolan flirts with but ultimately does nothing with

Me (4:55:58 PM): though I had a jolly good time and was engrossed the entire time

Me (4:56:06 PM): and the joker was terrifying

Asher (4:56:16 PM): I think Nolan did a pretty good job bringing up the issues

Asher (4:56:28 PM): cause I think, and I need to see it again, but I think he wanted to raise the issue

Asher (4:56:30 PM): not answer it

Me (4:56:32 PM): he touched on them

Me (4:56:47 PM): but the whole spying thing was like oh well we'll destroy it and it will all be okay

Me (4:56:55 PM): same with the torture issue

Asher (4:57:08 PM): right

Me (4:57:09 PM): have you read millers dark night

Me (4:57:12 PM): ?

Asher (4:57:16 PM): I haven’t

Asher (4:57:19 PM): I bought it

Asher (4:57:34 PM): I bought it before but I didn’t know if I wanted to read it first and then see it

Asher (4:57:42 PM): somehow I decided to convince myself to see it first then read it

Me (4:59:06 PM): okay, I mean they’re completely different stories

Me (4:59:24 PM): but miller completely revolutionized the batman comic

Me (4:59:38 PM): essentially laid the ground work for Nolan’s movies

Asher (4:59:53 PM): hm, yeah that makes sense

Me (5:00:05 PM): so know that going in

Asher (5:00:29 PM): yeah, millers always darker

Me (5:01:12 PM): I guess I feel like yeah it was a pretty awesome movie, but I’m resentful of all the praise its getting because what everyone is praising it for has been done with more violence and more darkness and better in comics like watchmen and dark knight returns and I guess someone’s got to start the backlash and it might as well be me

Me (5:01:37 PM): the ideas it raises while new to super hero movies are not new to super heroes

Asher (5:01:57 PM): no you’re right

Me (5:02:15 PM): and its frustrating that this is considered so revolutionary when this was being done 20 25 years ago by Frank Miller and Alan Moore

Asher (5:02:07 PM): but for mainstream movies, its all new

Asher (5:02:57 PM): I mean, think about this vs. superman or Spiderman or xmen

Me (5:02:21 PM): this is true

Me (5:02:28 PM): and it was pretty damn kick ass

Asher (5:02:41 PM): yeah

Me (5:02:48 PM): "how about a magic trick, I’m going to make this pencil disappear"

Asher (5:02:59 PM): oh my god

Me (5:03:07 PM): exactly

Asher (5:03:12 PM): the entire packed theater - "OH GOD"

Me (5:03:23 PM): we'll see how watchmen does with these same issues next year

Asher (5:03:32 PM): yeah it’ll be really interesting

Asher (5:03:40 PM): to see how audiences take to that after dark knight

Me (5:03:51 PM): the groundwork is there for it to surpass this, but I also don’t trust the director one bit

Asher (5:04:01 PM): agreed

Me (5:04:24 PM): I mean the source material is great, the cast is fantastic, the visuals look awesome

Me (5:04:28 PM): lets hope it doesn’t suck

Asher (5:04:40 PM): I hope so

Asher (5:05:15 PM): I think the script will be interesting

Me (5:05:17 PM): yeah

Me (5:05:21 PM): its such a huge book

Asher (5:05:24 PM): and if Snyder can control his urges to make it too 300y

Asher (5:05:27 PM): yeah

Me (5:05:26 PM): yeah

Me (5:05:27 PM): seriously

Me (5:06:03 PM): I mean he’s def drawing on the visual style of the book which is exactly what he did with 300, and the story of watchmen is just more interesting than 300 to begin with

Asher (5:06:12 PM): yeah it is

Me (5:06:13 PM): and fun as it was 300 is completely ridiculous

Asher (5:06:19 PM): I think for the 300 he did a fine job

Me (5:06:21 PM): exactly

Me (5:06:24 PM): for what it is

Me (5:06:26 PM): I had fun

Asher (5:06:27 PM): for all that’s in the 300, he tapped it dry

Asher (5:06:28 PM): yeah

Me (5:06:38 PM): but watchmen is so much more

Asher (5:06:49 PM): yeah

Me (5:06:53 PM): it is one of the most revolutionary comics of all time

Me (5:06:56 PM): so we'll see

Me (5:07:00 PM): nothing to do but wait and see

Asher (5:07:10 PM): yeah, when is it? march?

Me (5:07:39 PM): something like that

Me (5:11:31 PM): back to dark knight I approve of the flipping of trucks

Asher (5:11:51 PM): in tdk?

Me (5:12:10 PM): yes sir

Asher (5:12:17 PM): oh man

Asher (5:12:30 PM): that whole sequence I thought was genius

Asher (5:12:32 PM): with no music

Me (5:14:35 PM): oh god

Me (5:14:40 PM): completely terrifying

Me (5:14:51 PM): and knowing what was going to happen to dent made it all the more tense

Asher (5:15:00 PM): oh man

Me (5:15:00 PM): I was like "is this the moment? this? no this"

Asher (5:15:08 PM): I know!

Me (5:15:24 PM): also, the blowing up of the hospital

Me (5:15:26 PM): hilarious

Asher (5:15:37 PM): it was so awesome

Me (5:16:30 PM): I mean every scene with the joker

Me (5:16:35 PM): awesome

Asher (5:16:55 PM): so so so creepy

Me (5:17:14 PM): seriously

Me (5:17:21 PM): the make-up team out did themselves

Asher (5:17:38 PM): my brother said one of his friends had to leave because she was so scared

Me (5:17:45 PM): I could see that

Asher (5:17:44 PM): yeah, no cgi

Me (5:18:03 PM): they must have done cgi on two face

Asher (5:18:26 PM): oh, yeah 2 face was

Asher (5:17:59 PM): I still am amazed it was pg13

Asher (5:18:16 PM): I hate the mpaa and this is such a clear reason why

Me (5:18:21 PM): they should have rated it r

Asher (5:18:41 PM): like, I watch horror movies that are R and not as scary or gory or violent

Asher (5:18:55 PM): but I’m pretty sure you never see anyone die in DK

Me (5:19:17 PM): no its just implied, but implied in a scary scary way

Asher (5:19:41 PM): yeah

Me (5:19:39 PM): the moment when the hung batguy bangs against the commissioners window

Asher (5:19:48 PM): oh man

Me (5:19:47 PM): I screamed a little

Asher (5:19:57 PM): I think I did too

Me (5:20:07 PM): cause other times I was braced

Me (5:20:16 PM): that time, not so much

Asher (5:20:54 PM): yeah not really

Me (5:21:21 PM): I wish there had been more scarecrow

Me (5:21:36 PM): I love cillian Murphy

Me (5:21:41 PM): with all my heart

Asher (5:21:47 PM): I agree

Asher (5:21:54 PM): I think that was a little flaw

Asher (5:22:08 PM): unless its followed up a lot in a 3rd movie

Asher (5:26:25 PM): but yeah I wish we just saw cillian one more time instead of just assuming he’s in jail

Me (5:27:02 PM): yeah

Me (5:27:12 PM): I feel like he and the joker would have been friends

Asher (5:27:27 PM): yeah

Me (5:27:34 PM): though I fully recognize there was probably casting issues and he had to work on a different movie blah blah blah

Me (5:27:35 PM): but still

Me (5:27:45 PM): it was weird to throw him in there just at the beginning

Asher (5:27:53 PM): yeah

Asher (5:28:03 PM): he’s gotta finish off somehow

Me (5:28:29 PM): I hope

Me (5:28:41 PM): I’m def curious to see if they do a number three

Me (5:28:47 PM): and if so what villain they use

Asher (5:29:38 PM): agreed

Asher (5:29:51 PM): I’ve been looking around the boards and such and everyone has a theory

Asher (5:30:01 PM): but I asked joblo and he told me no talk of a 3rd yet

Asher (5:30:53 PM): it’ll be really interesting

Me (5:31:12 PM): yeah nothing on imdb

Me (5:31:22 PM): I don’t believe any rumor until its on imdb

Asher (5:31:27 PM): if Nolan does a 3rd, if they have joker again and recast, if they just say "oh yeah the jokers in jail and we cant see him ever again..."

Me (5:31:39 PM): they’re not going to recast the joker

Me (5:31:48 PM): like, that would be the stupidest move ever

Asher (5:31:56 PM): I would agree

Me (5:32:06 PM): even before the movie opened it was an iconic performance

Me (5:33:09 PM): they would have to do something like "oh he’s in jail, or he was killed" or whatever but almost everything would be a let down

Asher (5:33:17 PM): but then its just an issue of how you deal with the fact that he was just left hanging

Me (5:33:21 PM): yeah

Me (5:33:24 PM): literally

Asher (5:33:30 PM): yeah

Asher (5:33:36 PM): so it’ll be interesting

Asher (5:33:51 PM): also what comic they would use, or villain

Me (5:34:05 PM): yeah

Asher (5:34:11 PM): I read somewhere that Nolan said he would want to use villains that haven’t been used in other movies yet, after joker

Me (5:34:30 PM): I don’t know batman really like at all but joker is THE MOST iconic of the villains aside from catwoman

Asher (5:34:40 PM): agreed, he is

Me (5:34:45 PM): and I feel like Nolan wouldn’t want to touch catwoman with a ten foot pole

Asher (5:34:55 PM): no not at all

Me (5:34:55 PM): especially after the halle berry disaster

Asher (5:34:59 PM): yeah

Me (5:35:06 PM): I love catwoman as a character but it would just be stupid

Asher (5:35:19 PM): the only real Nolan esque villain is the riddler but he’s very joker esque

Me (5:35:22 PM): yeah

Asher (5:35:28 PM): bane is really dark

Asher (5:35:40 PM): which would be interesting but I don’t think he was that big

Me (5:35:55 PM): yeah

Me (5:36:04 PM): the thing is though batman is just packed with villains

Me (5:36:26 PM): its almost like Nolan could find a story he wanted to tell and then just pick a villain that would work for that story

Asher (5:36:38 PM): this is also true

Me (5:37:13 PM): I’m sad they killed Rachel dawes

Me (5:37:18 PM): I mean, I know it needed to happen

Asher (5:37:21 PM): meh

Asher (5:37:22 PM): yeah

Me (5:37:32 PM): but she was like, the only woman in the entire movie

Me (5:37:39 PM): aside from traitor Ramirez

Asher (5:37:52 PM): who didn’t have any actual lines

Me (5:38:02 PM): she said Bruce a lot

Me (5:38:08 PM): and Harvey

Me (5:38:28 PM): I though Maggie was great personally

Me (5:38:35 PM): at least in her death scene

Asher (5:39:01 PM): I think they wrote it too dumb for her

Asher (5:39:03 PM): cause she’s a real actress

Asher (5:39:10 PM): but it was written for like, Katie Holmes

Me (5:39:19 PM): yeah but she did good stuff with it

Me (5:39:44 PM): I mean it just shows how weak Kate Holmes is

Me (5:39:51 PM): I feel bad

Me (5:39:56 PM): she was just outshone

Asher (5:40:03 PM): don’t feel bad

Asher (5:40:10 PM): how recently have you seen batman begins

Me (5:40:23 PM): parts of it with Clayton this spring

Asher (5:40:41 PM): cause she is so bad in that

Asher (5:40:42 PM): like

Asher (5:40:50 PM): possibly one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen

Me (5:41:00 PM): she’s charming in other things

Me (5:41:17 PM): I just feel bad that her brain has been eaten by zombietomcruse

Asher (5:41:25 PM): no seriously

Asher (5:41:28 PM): like, worst performance ever

Asher (5:41:32 PM): I watched it before DK

Me (5:41:33 PM): brain eaten

Asher (5:41:44 PM): my mom was like, wow she’s a bad actress

Fire on the Mountain

2008-07-10T11:55:00.003-04:00

Remember that hike I did in May. Well, its on fire.
I did not take this picture, because something is seriously wrong with my camera but Tomfite on flickr did.
So yup, the fire season has come early this year.
Missoulian.com

Review: Californication

2008-06-21T19:29:00.001-04:00

Assume that there be spoilers for the entire first season of Californication. Yes I watched the entire season and though I watched every single episode I honestly don’t think it is worth it so please read my rant and spoil the show for yourself if you haven’t seen it. Ready? Okay.

The number one problem with Californication is that it doesn’t use the red hot chili peppers song at any point during the first season.

The number two problem? There are a lot of number two problems.

The first season follows Hank Moody, a blocked novelist living in Los Angeles. His novel God Hates us All (so he’s what? Christopher Hitchens?) has just been adapted into a shit movie called “Crazy little thing called Love.” His ex-girlfriend Karen is engaged to not him and their 13 year old daughter is, well, 13. He is completely miserable. To cope Hank sleeps with anything that moves. One night he picks up a sassy young thing in a bookstore (she’s reading his book.) They sleep together, she punches him, he never calls her back. A couple of days later he’s at Karen’s house when her fiancé’s daughter Mia comes in. It’s the same girl. She’s 16. Oooops.

The arc of the first season follows Hank trying to stop his ex’s wedding, while being manipulated by Mia who steals his new book (the book that will save him, he thinks). Meanwhile, Hank’s agent Charlie’s marriage is on the rocks. He starts messing around with his assistant. The assistant then starts sleeping with his wife Marcy while manipulating Charlie into training her into being an agent.

Did you get that? I used the word manipulate twice in one paragraph.

So why did I watch the entire first season?

Charming is not the right word to describe David Duchovny performance. He’s too pathetic to be charming. But he’s charismatic and clever and he knows how to turn a phrase. The show would be completely unbearable with out Duchovny showing the anguish that lies just below the surface. In one scene Charlie and Hank have just been caught having a threesome by Karen and Marcy. Hank hugs Charlie and says “No wives to hold us down, isn’t life grand.” Charlie agrees but the misery on both their faces speaks otherwise.

The plots are very smartly structured meaning that in the middle of every single episode I would have a moment where I went “this show is so miserable, this is the last episode” but the very last scene would always end on an unexpected turn that left me going “oh nos! how is Hank going to get out of this one?” And thanks to the miracle of ondemand I could find out immediately and repeat the vicious cycle.

But no matter how cleverly written, no matter how witty it doesn’t change the fact that all the characters are one dimensional. Hank is the tortured writer who, no matter how awful his behavior, women will flock to, an archetype that bothers me so much because I see people I know perpetrating it. (Being emotionally mature and managing to have a healthy adult relationship will not hurt your writing, guys, in fact it might even teach you how to write women, something you boys are incapable of pulling off. Oh but who needs to write women? They’re all sluts or manipulative minxes. Ooops, I forgot.) Karen is the long suffering wife archetype who thinks she wants stability but really wants the excitement of being tortured (oops, I mean adored) by an artist. Obviously Hank knows what she wants better than Karen. The assistant and Mia are both seductresses and nothing more. The only interesting woman is Charlie’s wife Marcy but aside from being a wit to rival Hank she has very little to do except sleep with the assistant and then miss her husband. I can’t remember if she has a job or a hobby. Her character arch is limited to her sex life.

I have this theory that all the people writing for Californication wish they were Hank, a man who can write a genius novel in two weeks and who people still want to work with despite his hideous behavior. They wish that their ex-wives still loved them, that their daughters adored them best, and that 16 year old sluts would throw themselves at them (there is a scene in which Hank gives a talk at Mia’s school and afterwards throngs of sweet young things wait outside the door giggling, wanting nothing more than to accost him.) And as well as the writers fantasies becoming Hank’s reality their terror becomes Hank’s terror, when Mia blackmails him, when Charlie’s assistant supplants him couching her bad behavior in the language of feminism and sleeps with his wife to boot. That’s right guys, feminism will rob you of your books and jobs and turn your wives gay to boot. To be fair, my least favorite episode, the one which has both Mia and the assistant justifying their bad behavior as feminist victories was written by a woman. But women can be just as misogynist as men. The reason why sexism still exists in that women are incredibly willing to be complicit in their own oppression. Just as Karen is complicit in her own misery.

In the last episode Karen leaves her own wedding to run off with Hank, despite the fact that we have just spent an entire season watching Hank be an asshole to her in between declaring his undying love. Lady, you are just rewarding his bad behavior and when he makes you miserable for the entire second season I know you are going to blame Hank. But you’re the one who ran out of your own wedding. Its your own fault. Live with the consequences.

I am being a little unfair. At least once an episode some character would do something that surprised me, Mia having a touching moment with Hank’s daughter for instance or the scene in which Hank opens a letter from his dead father. This is one of the reasons why I watched the whole season, there were these flashes where there were real, complete people on screen and not witty stereotypes. People with a range of emotion beyond the miserable-horny-miserable continuum. But those flashes always ended by the next scene and I was left being frustrated at having these moments of genius taken away from me.

And that’s what pissed me off most of all. The writers are so smart, the actors so skilled. LA has never looked more like a sunny den of sin. So why does the show have to retread over boring stereotypes and wallow in misery. (I’m all for wallowing in misery in a place like Deadwood.) There is a quote from a book I never read but I really like it that goes “we accept the love we think we deserve.” What it means is that when you keep sleeping with sluts who have no respect for you, there is nothing wrong with the sluts, there is something wrong with you. Hank needs to go to therapy and do some self reflection and stop being such a goddamn martyr. But Hank belongs to that school of writers who believe that therapy will kill their writing… I admit that I am part of this group but I don’t whine about how miserable I am. So shut the fuck up Hank, I don’t care about your bullshit anymore…Until the second season come out.

Michael's Question

2008-06-20T15:27:00.001-04:00

Michael wants to know “Do you identify more strongly with your Quaker or your Jewish heritage or equally with both? Why? What informed your connection?
Can I steal this?”

I’ll answer the last one first: of course!

Before I moved to New York I definitely felt a lot more Jewish than I do now. That identification stemmed less from actual agreement with the principles (in the abstract my spirituality is much more Quaker than Jewish) than from opposition to my surroundings. Growing up one of 5 Jews (yes I know that’s an exaggeration) in a rather conservative and Christian part of the world made me different. In elementary school when we started learning about the holocaust the teachers would turn to me and ask me if we knew any family who had died. In retrospect that seems totally fucked. What 8 year old is equipped to explain their family’s oppression, to talk about genocide for Moses’ sake? But I was the go to girl for Jewish questions for a while, some polite and some hostile.

That period of my life was also the period when the evangelicals stood outside the farmers market and told everyone they were going to hell. It was the period when the Jehovah witnesses came by at least three times a year. And it was when my classmates were starting to go to bible camp and came back with questions about why I didn’t go too. I learned to make Jesus killing jokes really early. I knew of no other way to deal with it. And so I became more Jewish than I have in my life to the point where I was wearing a Star of David necklace. If I was going to be the Jew girl I was going to claim that for myself. And so I answered the questions, and corrected the pronunciation of Yom Kippur (I have heard it pronounced like the fish so many times). This is all funny of course because my family left words out of the Chanukah prayer my entire life. Really I was barely Jewish. My dad, grandma and I would all be hard pressed to tell you anything coherent about Jewish Dogma. But that didn’t really matter. Our last name is Jewish and we are Jews.

One of the reasons I moved to New York was because I wanted to be around more Jews. But once I showed up I realized that I don’t actually believe in the Jewish God and that my identification was based solely out of being an other. I identify with being a God-killing-Jew not so much the normal, everyday Jew.

And so I have faded from that identity. I go to the High Holidays services because it is a connection to my ancestors and I like the food. That’s about it.

Note 1: I have never been physically hurt or threatened for being Jewish so all of the above may come off as a poor-oppressed-me whine. But one of the very first Chanukahs in my memory we wouldn’t put the menorah in the window because a family’s windows were smashed in Bozeman. That sort of thinking at such a young age combined with the fact that the only Jewish history that was taught was the holocaust really affected me for a long time.

Note 2: I’m not Jewish enough for many Jews because my mom isn’t Jewish. Having this strong identification forcibly taken from me by other Jews (Jews from places like New York or California where it was never dangerous to be a -stein or a –berg) made me incredibly angry and sped up my alienation. But that’s a whole other kettle of gefilte fish.

***

In reading over this I realize that it is interesting that while I had the choice to identify with either the safe religion (Quaker) or the unsafe one (Jewish) I chose the unsafe one and played it up. Take from that what you will, armchair psychoanalysts.

Newest Addiction

2008-06-19T21:13:00.003-04:00

I wasn't so sure about this song when I first heard it but it's totally snuck up on me and now I'm obsessed. Solange Knowles' voice is not nearly as effortless as her sister Beyonce's. But after listening to this song several times I think the slight strain adds a dimension that the perfection of Beyonce lacks. Also it keeps her from the vocal aerobatics that honestly drive me crazy in most Beyonce songs. Not to mention that the video is absolutely awesome.

Questions from Sushi and Eliza

2008-06-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

I’m going to answer Liza and Sushi’s questions together which are “do you actually believe in god? or is it something that's been so integrated into your heritage, etc. that you feel obligated to buy into it? and if you do, what do you think god/the afterlife consists of?” And “What do you think happens after you die?”

So heres a story. On Monday my play was read and both my parents saw the play for the first time. They hadn’t read it before and aside from the basic premise (nuns on mars) they knew nothing about it let alone how much it deals with trying to have faith. Afterwards we all go out to dinner and my mom turns to me and says “Why did you write a play about God? You don’t believe in God… Do you?”

Believing in God was not part of my heritage, in fact given the way I was raised I should be an atheist. Yes my family is culturally Jewish and Quaker but that just means we’re in it for the food. Yet I have always felt this ache that the world can not be explained in purely scientific terms. That there are mysteries that will never be explained. So coming to a point where I could admit that I believe in a God was very hard and took a very long time. Its something I have struggled with my whole life. I still don’t believe in God as a white bearded man sitting in the clouds. Its more an acceptance that there are mysteries. (I would call myself “spiritual” except those god damn new age hippies took that word and made it all lame with their crystals and incense.) There is a lot of ambiguity in the play which is exactly the way I feel. I think if you have seen the play you essentially have listened to three different sides of me hash it out for 90 minuets. The last lines of the play are:

LUCIA

What does it mean?

CARDINAL

Must everything have meaning?

LUCIA

Yes.

CARDINAL

It means... have hope.

LUCIA

That is not what it means.

CARDINAL

I’m just an old man. I don’t know what it means. I just know I would really like a hot chocolate.

LUCIA

Do you have chocolate bars?

CARDINAL

Yes.

LUCIA

Come in. I’ll make you some.

***

In summery, we’ll never know. But we should hope. And drink hot chocolate. Because hot chocolate is awesome. “We have to build the republic of heaven where we are. Because for us there is no elsewhere.” --Phillip Pullman

...

And in regards to what happens after we die I have made a conscious decision to believe in The Amber Spyglass thesis. Its very long and beautiful and I am going to rob it of some power by trying to condense it here. But essentially it goes that we will tell our stories to the guardians at the gate and if we tell it truthfully our matter will drift apart and we will rejoin the stars.