Waltz with Bashir (2008)
Written & Directed by Ari Folman
Animated (but adult themes, content, and cartoon nudity and sex)
Voiced (sometimes by the real people identified in the movie)
Ron Ben-Yishai as himself
Ari Folman as himself
Yehezkel Lazarov as Carmi Cna'an
Mickey Leon as Boaz Rein-Buskila
Watched July 29, 2010
Gomorrah (2008)
Directed by Matteo Garrone
Cast includes
Gianfelice Imparato as Don Ciro
Salvatore Cantalupo as Pasquale
Salvatore Abruzzese as Toto
Carmine Paternoster as Roberto
Based on a "nonfiction novel" by Roberto Saviano
Watched August 5, 2010
A few weeks ago, when I was bored, I told Red Envelop Movie Rentals to bring up movies for me to review, since I thought I'd probably seen movies that I hadn't reviewed on their site, which helps them recommend movies to you. Well, the site started bringing up movies that they had sent to me and that I'd sent back. And I realized that I had not watched so many of them! (The dvd fairy made me backup copies and sent them back, and the dvds await watching.) I also realized how many of those films were foreign language films. (Stupid American, with no foreign language skills.) There's a reason behind this, though not a particularly good one. See, before I decided to blog all the movies I watched, there were many movies I would watch with only one eye, while I did something else, but paying attention with my ears. That means that I didn't watch very many foreign language films. I have been trying to rectify that.
But sometimes watching a category of film you don't typically watch can highlight areas in which you are not educated. This was definitely the case with both of these films, which is why I'm blogging about them together. While these are both very different films on very different subjects, they both highlighted, for me, my lack of knowledge on political and sociological issues of other countries. (My subsequent cursory self-education, via imdb and wikipedia, highlighted how little free memory I have, but that's another issue.) While I doubt that either of these movies were made with a great deal of thought as to if foreign audiences with my same lack of fore-knowledge would be able to easily understand it, I will be giving some thought to that. This is not to say that I think that foreign filmmakers should always, or ever, make sure that stupid American audiences will easily understand their films, though I do wonder how easy our films are to understand to foreign audiences, which does matter as many of our films, especially big budget action movies, make huge profits overseas. Then again, Hollywood action movies aren't typically made for us to stretch our minds.
I watched the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir first. It is an animated film, but a very adult-oriented animated film, complete with deaths in war, nudity, and even animated sex. But the medium of animation is well-suited to a film about the nature of memory where character recount what they remember about a war that happened over 20 years ago. The film is re-creates filmmaker Ari Folman's journey to either recover his own memories of or to be told what happened around him during the 1982 Lebanon War. He starts this journey after a friend recounts a recurring dream in which his own role in the war haunts him. While Folman tells his friend that he doesn't remember hardly anything about the war, the friend says that it is Folman's duty as a filmmaker to tell this story. That night, Folman has his own dream about the war, just a fragment of a memory, which is the thread that he follows in an attempt to regain knowledge of what he was involved in. Of course, there's a reason that he blocked out all of these memories, as he witnessed and did nothing to stop an atrocity that this war would be known for. For me, this movie was beautiful, imaginative, and moving, though not in a way that leaves on feeling good afterwards. While it did deal with recent Israeli history, which is an area fraught with emotions and opinions and contradictions, I felt that it was much more about the journey of these men, but especially Folman, to regain memory, to acknowledge their role(s) in the war and atrocities of it, and, if possible, process that knowledge. The movie makes no attempt to assert that this war, or any war, is a "good war." The movie also doesn't make an assertions or take positions about Israeli politics. It just focuses on these memories of this small group of men.
Early on, the viewer gets the idea that this movie is about a conflict in which Israeli forces were in Lebanon and that it happened in the 1980s. But there is no overarching exposition. Folman does not in his voice over say, "So I went to see Carmi, who I'd served with in the IDF during the 1982 Lebanon War." When he mentions the Phalanges, he doesn't elaborate on who they are or how they fit into the war, because his movie's target audience is other Israeli's who already know all this history. I think that if you are a viewer who comes to the film just to be "entertained," you might have some issues with this, but I do think that it only takes a bit of viewing (instead of reading) comprehension to put together enough of the pieces for it to make sense. I think that the movie is perfectly enjoyable to someone coming in with very little knowledge of Israel's recent military history, as long as they don't mind thinking just a little bit. In a way, as the movie is about (re)gaining knowledge, it seems appropriate to me to be putting these pieces together while Folman puts together the pieces on screen.
On the other hand, I found putting the pieces together less rewarding as I watched the Italian film Gomorrah, though that might have been a matter of expectations. Gomorrah is a movie about gang life in Naples, which leads one to expect a sort of typical "mafia movie." I've seen it compared to the movie City of God. Ummm, yeah, not really either of those. While it is based on a nonfiction novel which follows several different people who either work for or are somehow involved with the Camorra crime family. The movie follows five of these stories, which don't overlap or interact, which I think most (American) viewers would expect. I did think that the movie presented a gritty criminal underworld well, but it felt without context to me. I'm sure part of that was just my ignorance of the socioeconomic situation of Naples and Italy in general, but the movie does not provide any sort of exposition or context for those not in the know. One of the stories centers on a middle-aged money man, who we see visiting various apartments, giving them money, which most do not seem particularly thankful for. It is never explained WHY he is giving this money to people. (One imbd commentor said it was money paid to those who had lost relatives to death or jail because of their involvement with the crime syndicate, which sounds like as good of an explanation as any.) Towards the end of the movie, a war breaks out between the main crime group and what the subtitles identify as "secessionists." Once again, being lazy, I'll rely on the imdb commentors who said that this is in reference to a real gang war in the 1980s between different alliances or clans within the larger crime family. But I think that a great deal of this movie was lost on me because I don't live with this in my papers everyday. While this movie got quite a bit of critical praise, it just didn't strike me. Maybe I'll get the book, read it, then rewatch the film. Right after I watch all the other films the dvd fairy left me.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
2012 (or how I learned to stop thinking and love disaster)
2012 (2009)
Directed (and co-written by) Roland Emmerich
Cast includes
John Cusack as Jackson Curtis
Amanda Peet as Kate Curtis
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Adrian Helmsley
Danny Glover as President Thomas Wilson
Running time: 2 hrs 38 mins (to paraphrase the movie's tagline: You were warned!)
Watched alone on DVD, early morning July 27, 2010
I got this movie from RedMailMovieRental (yeah, you know who I mean, but I'm trying for no free press) because my parents say the preview and said they would like to see it. I'm a sucker for an easy way to please my parents, what can I say. While my parents initially watched it without me, I thought I'd pop it in and watch it before I returned it. For those who don't know what this movie is about, it's pretty simple: The world is going to end and a mostly decent guy who's come up short with his family goes to heroic lengths to save them and others that they stumble upon along the way. This time the world is being destroyed by... um, I'm not really sure, but I think it's mostly the earth's tectonic plates/crust shifting, causing volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis. And the governments all over the world have pitched in money, artwork, rich people, and good genes to make some huge ships to save enough of humanity to rebuild society, but of course only a few people know about it and the plan only saves a small percentage of people.
I'd like to take a really quick sidebar to say that I never have, and probably never will, claim to be consistent in my little reviews of movies. As of right now, I'm not a professional film critic nor am a professional film scholar. And, not that I have to tell my RL friends but, my mood and events at the time really effect how I see any and all works of art. Also, for me, I try to take into account what the movie is trying to accomplish vs what I think it accomplishes, in addition to if I think the movie is good as a film, as a work of art. For example, I think that Inception was a better, more thought-provoking, more beautiful, more crafted film than 2012, but I also know that wasn't what 2012 was trying to be. On the other hand, as cheesy and emotionally obvious as 2012 could be, I still felt something during it, almost cried a couple times, whereas I didn't feel that emotion investment in Inception. I just wanted to be clear that I do not claim to be consistent. Or rational. Ever. Just take that into account.
So back to the movie. As I put the movie in, I saw the running time and thought, "Oh, shit. What have I gotten myself into? This is going to be so long and tedious and ugh. Oh well. What else am I doing?" Early on, I noticed things in the movie that just.... wouldn't happen. In one scene, though much later in the movie, one of the US bigwigs going to the ships, in semi-rural China, gets a call on his cell from his friend in India's cell. This is after most of the US and probably Europe has been wiped out. Um... I don't think so. Ok, so things like this and other too-coincidental incidents made me just throw all notions of "I know I need to suspend a bit of disbelief but it still needs to be realistic" out the window, so I just enjoyed what it was, CGI-destructo-fest. At which point, I actually enjoyed it. It was pretty good CGI of things we'll never see, as even if this scenario played out, there's very little chance we'd see all the things we do in the movie before we died. So if you want to enjoy a disaster action movie and are willing to suspend all disbelief, this is a pretty good movie. Later on that morning, I realized that day would have also been my grandmother's birthday. I really think she would have enjoyed this movie. While she complained about them making movies "too loud" these days, she always really liked action movies, even action movies these days, though she often "tutu"-d the crassness and everything-out-there-ness of most comedies and dramas "these days," after maybe 1985 or so. This movie is probably definitely for those people (like my parents and my grandma) who always asked me why I couldn't just enjoy the goddamn move, why did I have to think about it.
BUT I do want to touch on something that a few critics pointed out at the time the movie hit theaters. Though I can't remember who it was, I do remember the movie being called "disaster porn" by one critic. I will readily admit that while I watched the movie, I thought that more people in the movie should be more sad that almost all of humanity and all land-based creatures were dying, often in really horrible ways. There were times during the movie when I was sad about the general loss of life happening, even when the movie wasn't pointing that out, was instead pointing out all the really cool action happening. I completely understand what that critic meant. On the other hand, there are many things I enjoy, in all kinds of different weird ways, seeing, but would never ever ever want to happen in real life. Yeah, I got a kick out of seeing Los Angeles destroyed with all that cool CGI, but I no more want that to happen than I want people to be able to navigate my dreams or even for Kristen Bell and Josh Dumiel to find happiness and love together. I love a good horror movie, but I don't actually want killer bloodsucking vampires in real life or ghostly/demonic possession or spree/serial killers. That is one part of the thrill of movies, for me and for many other people as well, so I'm trying not to write this "disaster porn" off too quickly.
Directed (and co-written by) Roland Emmerich
Cast includes
John Cusack as Jackson Curtis
Amanda Peet as Kate Curtis
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Adrian Helmsley
Danny Glover as President Thomas Wilson
Running time: 2 hrs 38 mins (to paraphrase the movie's tagline: You were warned!)
Watched alone on DVD, early morning July 27, 2010
I got this movie from RedMailMovieRental (yeah, you know who I mean, but I'm trying for no free press) because my parents say the preview and said they would like to see it. I'm a sucker for an easy way to please my parents, what can I say. While my parents initially watched it without me, I thought I'd pop it in and watch it before I returned it. For those who don't know what this movie is about, it's pretty simple: The world is going to end and a mostly decent guy who's come up short with his family goes to heroic lengths to save them and others that they stumble upon along the way. This time the world is being destroyed by... um, I'm not really sure, but I think it's mostly the earth's tectonic plates/crust shifting, causing volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis. And the governments all over the world have pitched in money, artwork, rich people, and good genes to make some huge ships to save enough of humanity to rebuild society, but of course only a few people know about it and the plan only saves a small percentage of people.
I'd like to take a really quick sidebar to say that I never have, and probably never will, claim to be consistent in my little reviews of movies. As of right now, I'm not a professional film critic nor am a professional film scholar. And, not that I have to tell my RL friends but, my mood and events at the time really effect how I see any and all works of art. Also, for me, I try to take into account what the movie is trying to accomplish vs what I think it accomplishes, in addition to if I think the movie is good as a film, as a work of art. For example, I think that Inception was a better, more thought-provoking, more beautiful, more crafted film than 2012, but I also know that wasn't what 2012 was trying to be. On the other hand, as cheesy and emotionally obvious as 2012 could be, I still felt something during it, almost cried a couple times, whereas I didn't feel that emotion investment in Inception. I just wanted to be clear that I do not claim to be consistent. Or rational. Ever. Just take that into account.
So back to the movie. As I put the movie in, I saw the running time and thought, "Oh, shit. What have I gotten myself into? This is going to be so long and tedious and ugh. Oh well. What else am I doing?" Early on, I noticed things in the movie that just.... wouldn't happen. In one scene, though much later in the movie, one of the US bigwigs going to the ships, in semi-rural China, gets a call on his cell from his friend in India's cell. This is after most of the US and probably Europe has been wiped out. Um... I don't think so. Ok, so things like this and other too-coincidental incidents made me just throw all notions of "I know I need to suspend a bit of disbelief but it still needs to be realistic" out the window, so I just enjoyed what it was, CGI-destructo-fest. At which point, I actually enjoyed it. It was pretty good CGI of things we'll never see, as even if this scenario played out, there's very little chance we'd see all the things we do in the movie before we died. So if you want to enjoy a disaster action movie and are willing to suspend all disbelief, this is a pretty good movie. Later on that morning, I realized that day would have also been my grandmother's birthday. I really think she would have enjoyed this movie. While she complained about them making movies "too loud" these days, she always really liked action movies, even action movies these days, though she often "tutu"-d the crassness and everything-out-there-ness of most comedies and dramas "these days," after maybe 1985 or so. This movie is probably definitely for those people (like my parents and my grandma) who always asked me why I couldn't just enjoy the goddamn move, why did I have to think about it.
BUT I do want to touch on something that a few critics pointed out at the time the movie hit theaters. Though I can't remember who it was, I do remember the movie being called "disaster porn" by one critic. I will readily admit that while I watched the movie, I thought that more people in the movie should be more sad that almost all of humanity and all land-based creatures were dying, often in really horrible ways. There were times during the movie when I was sad about the general loss of life happening, even when the movie wasn't pointing that out, was instead pointing out all the really cool action happening. I completely understand what that critic meant. On the other hand, there are many things I enjoy, in all kinds of different weird ways, seeing, but would never ever ever want to happen in real life. Yeah, I got a kick out of seeing Los Angeles destroyed with all that cool CGI, but I no more want that to happen than I want people to be able to navigate my dreams or even for Kristen Bell and Josh Dumiel to find happiness and love together. I love a good horror movie, but I don't actually want killer bloodsucking vampires in real life or ghostly/demonic possession or spree/serial killers. That is one part of the thrill of movies, for me and for many other people as well, so I'm trying not to write this "disaster porn" off too quickly.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Orphanage
The Orphanage (2007)
Spanish film - both in language and location
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
Cast includes
Belen Rueda as Laura
Fernando Cayo as Carlos
Roger Princep as Simon
Geraldine Chaplin as Aurora (yep daughter of "that" Chaplin)
Spanish film - both in language and location
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona
Cast includes
Belen Rueda as Laura
Fernando Cayo as Carlos
Roger Princep as Simon
Geraldine Chaplin as Aurora (yep daughter of "that" Chaplin)
***BIG SPOILERS AHEAD*******
So I watched this last night and I'm still thinking about it. Overall, I did really like it, as it built the suspense, didn't use cheap scare tactics (that much), and didn't give definative answers to the "supernatural or not" question until the very end. The story is this: Laura and her family buy the orphanage she grew up in to turn into a home for special needs children. **Spoilers after here** Her and husband's son is adopted and is HIV+. When they move to this new place, their son has two imaginary friends, but he quickly gains six more. At the welcome party for the new home, the son disappears. Laura blames his imaginary friends. Big surprise - the people around her start to think she might be a bit crazy.
Here's what is bothering me: The wrap-up, "happy" ending, is Laura committing suicide. She gets what she wants, to be with her son again. Now, I know why, in the context of the movie and everything that is revealed, this makes a sort of sense and leads to what is probably the happiest ending possible for everyone involved (except Laura's now-widower husband), but I still feel uneasy about the ending of a movie that leaves suicide as the best option. For those who know me, it should be obvious why I feel this way. Of course, this has nothing to do with the merits of the film as a film, but it still effects how I view the movie.
But, for the most part, good, suspenseful, not overly gory, subtitled horror film.
Walk Hard
Walk Hard : The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Directed by Jake Kasden
Written by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasden
Cast Includes
John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox
Jenna Fischer as Darlene, Dewey's second wife and soulmate
Tim Meadows as Sam, the drummer, who always ends up paying for the drugs
Kristen Wiig as Edith, Dewey's first wife
and a crap ton of cameos of different actors playing different famous rock figures
The movie is a mockumentary, following the life of Dewey Cox, a rock singer/guitarist, from his start in the 1950s to his redemptive re-discovery in the 2000s, with all the trappings of rock stardom along the way: multiple wives, children, legal battles, drugs, the evolution of his music, and interacting with other actual rock stars. If you've seen Ray and/or Walk the Line, you know the territory. With a few quick exceptions (That's Amore), all the songs on the soundtrack are originals, hilarious but fitting for the eras they represent.
Even though this movie can go a bit overboard at times, I really enjoyed it, laughed quite a bit. You know, I actually think it's probably my favorite Apatow movie so far. Usually, my biggest problem with Apatow movies is the schlubby male protagonist who I never believe could pull in the hottie he ends up with and their relationship is usually the main focus of the movie. In this movie, while I know it's an obvious, over the top parody of rock biopics, hell of the life-arc of rock musicians in general, I believe that Dewey can and does do these things because I've seen the other biopics, know that other musicians' lives did follow this path. Though, on the other hand, because it is such an in-your-face parody, I don't need to believe that this could happen, know that it can't happen, that it's just an exageration of real life. It worked for me, especially when many of the "parody" movies lately have been so mind-numbingly stupid, just throwing together bits from all the latest popular movies and real-life celebrity scandals in the loosest possible story. I definately recommend this, especially for people who know the evolution of early rock'n'roll and don't mind it lampooned a bit.
Directed by Jake Kasden
Written by Judd Apatow and Jake Kasden
Cast Includes
John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox
Jenna Fischer as Darlene, Dewey's second wife and soulmate
Tim Meadows as Sam, the drummer, who always ends up paying for the drugs
Kristen Wiig as Edith, Dewey's first wife
and a crap ton of cameos of different actors playing different famous rock figures
The movie is a mockumentary, following the life of Dewey Cox, a rock singer/guitarist, from his start in the 1950s to his redemptive re-discovery in the 2000s, with all the trappings of rock stardom along the way: multiple wives, children, legal battles, drugs, the evolution of his music, and interacting with other actual rock stars. If you've seen Ray and/or Walk the Line, you know the territory. With a few quick exceptions (That's Amore), all the songs on the soundtrack are originals, hilarious but fitting for the eras they represent.
Even though this movie can go a bit overboard at times, I really enjoyed it, laughed quite a bit. You know, I actually think it's probably my favorite Apatow movie so far. Usually, my biggest problem with Apatow movies is the schlubby male protagonist who I never believe could pull in the hottie he ends up with and their relationship is usually the main focus of the movie. In this movie, while I know it's an obvious, over the top parody of rock biopics, hell of the life-arc of rock musicians in general, I believe that Dewey can and does do these things because I've seen the other biopics, know that other musicians' lives did follow this path. Though, on the other hand, because it is such an in-your-face parody, I don't need to believe that this could happen, know that it can't happen, that it's just an exageration of real life. It worked for me, especially when many of the "parody" movies lately have been so mind-numbingly stupid, just throwing together bits from all the latest popular movies and real-life celebrity scandals in the loosest possible story. I definately recommend this, especially for people who know the evolution of early rock'n'roll and don't mind it lampooned a bit.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
District 9
District 9 (2009)
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Cast includes
Sharlto Copley as Wikus van der Merwe
lots of cgi aliens
I just watched this movie earlier today on DVD. When it first came out last year, I really wanted to see it, thought it sounded very unusual. But I think that this was definitely a case for me where ignorance might have been bliss, as I've read so many commentaries and blog posts, especially questioning whether the racial allegory was really as redeeming as it might seem on the surface, that it ruined the cool, new factor of it all. Then again, I also made the mistake of watching it with my folks and my step-dad was kinda a spoil-sport. Boo. Just Mom is a much better movie companion.
Alright, so for those of you who don't know about the movie, here's the plot. An alien ship comes to Earth in 2001 and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of nothing happening, the government busts into the ship, finds severely malnourished aliens, who they shepard into a holding area, which quickly becomes fenced in, militarized, and then slums called District 9. For years, there is a sort of stasis, with the aliens living in their district, scrounging for trash and cat food, but never really doing anything to leave. While most of the humans consider the aliens the lowest of the low, no one in the government or the company in charge of relating to the aliens (which is primarily a weapons manufacturer who want to take advantage of alien technology) seems to know how to get them to go back home. Hell, no one seems to even be trying to learn the alien language, though the aliens seem to understand ours. Things come to a head when it is decided that the aliens must be moved out of their current slums into a specially built refugee camp hundreds of miles outside of the city. While serving the evictions, a dweeby bureaucrat becomes "infected" and starts to turn into an alien. He teams up with an alien trying to put a ship back together to go home to solve both their problems.
I think that, in the beginning, what made this movie different was that it falls into the category of oppressed alien movies, which is a smaller category than the scary aliens who come to Earth to take over and kill or enslave humans category of science fiction movies. Now, originally, I was going to add the word "sympathetic" to "oppressed aliens," but I think this is another place where the movie tries to do something it thinks is great, but it misses the mark for some people. The movie presents the aliens as more of a worker bee class, who resort to base instincts when they don't have a command presence, so they steal (not that they have an opportunity for legitimate work), fight, and scavenge. This behavior makes it difficult for many to root for these aliens to live in free society. This is often used as the excuse to segregate and hold back those of other classes and races, "Look what they do in their own neighborhoods? Look at how many of them are criminals?" without taking into consideration the lack of legitimate opportunites. Especially coming from and setting the film in South Africa, I'm sure that the writers and director were acutely aware of this. But sadly, the film never really changes that view of the aliens. The alien who helps Wikus, named by the government Christopher Johnson, only works to be the exception that proves the rule, the smart black or poor man who makes good and gets out. In the end, the aliens are still just rabid, destructive animals that must be herded together, far away from humanity. (And, yes, there is a name that the humans call the aliens, one that the movie even calls a derogatory term, though all the characters use that term thereafter. As I see that word, in the coontext of the movie, as the same as other words used to refer to other minority groups, I will not use it to refer to them any more than I would use the n-word.)
I think the bigger theme, one all too common in scifi movies these days, is how much bullshit everyone will accept from the government, large corporations, and the mainstream press, so that it is easier for them to go on with their everyday life. But that's not really anything new.
Oh, but I did really like the aliens. The farther we get away from humoid aliens in movies, the happier I am. I recently read an article that said scientists have found higher levels of methane loss than there should be on Mars and one of their hypostesis is that there may be methane based lifeforms on the planet. (FYI: Lifeforms on our planet are carbon based.) Reading that made me wonder how methane based lifeforms might look different from us and what other elements could be the basis for lifeforms. Hmmmmm.......
So I'm not sure whether or not I recommend it. If you've read this, you can decide for yourself. Just don't blame me either way.
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Cast includes
Sharlto Copley as Wikus van der Merwe
lots of cgi aliens
I just watched this movie earlier today on DVD. When it first came out last year, I really wanted to see it, thought it sounded very unusual. But I think that this was definitely a case for me where ignorance might have been bliss, as I've read so many commentaries and blog posts, especially questioning whether the racial allegory was really as redeeming as it might seem on the surface, that it ruined the cool, new factor of it all. Then again, I also made the mistake of watching it with my folks and my step-dad was kinda a spoil-sport. Boo. Just Mom is a much better movie companion.
Alright, so for those of you who don't know about the movie, here's the plot. An alien ship comes to Earth in 2001 and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of nothing happening, the government busts into the ship, finds severely malnourished aliens, who they shepard into a holding area, which quickly becomes fenced in, militarized, and then slums called District 9. For years, there is a sort of stasis, with the aliens living in their district, scrounging for trash and cat food, but never really doing anything to leave. While most of the humans consider the aliens the lowest of the low, no one in the government or the company in charge of relating to the aliens (which is primarily a weapons manufacturer who want to take advantage of alien technology) seems to know how to get them to go back home. Hell, no one seems to even be trying to learn the alien language, though the aliens seem to understand ours. Things come to a head when it is decided that the aliens must be moved out of their current slums into a specially built refugee camp hundreds of miles outside of the city. While serving the evictions, a dweeby bureaucrat becomes "infected" and starts to turn into an alien. He teams up with an alien trying to put a ship back together to go home to solve both their problems.
I think that, in the beginning, what made this movie different was that it falls into the category of oppressed alien movies, which is a smaller category than the scary aliens who come to Earth to take over and kill or enslave humans category of science fiction movies. Now, originally, I was going to add the word "sympathetic" to "oppressed aliens," but I think this is another place where the movie tries to do something it thinks is great, but it misses the mark for some people. The movie presents the aliens as more of a worker bee class, who resort to base instincts when they don't have a command presence, so they steal (not that they have an opportunity for legitimate work), fight, and scavenge. This behavior makes it difficult for many to root for these aliens to live in free society. This is often used as the excuse to segregate and hold back those of other classes and races, "Look what they do in their own neighborhoods? Look at how many of them are criminals?" without taking into consideration the lack of legitimate opportunites. Especially coming from and setting the film in South Africa, I'm sure that the writers and director were acutely aware of this. But sadly, the film never really changes that view of the aliens. The alien who helps Wikus, named by the government Christopher Johnson, only works to be the exception that proves the rule, the smart black or poor man who makes good and gets out. In the end, the aliens are still just rabid, destructive animals that must be herded together, far away from humanity. (And, yes, there is a name that the humans call the aliens, one that the movie even calls a derogatory term, though all the characters use that term thereafter. As I see that word, in the coontext of the movie, as the same as other words used to refer to other minority groups, I will not use it to refer to them any more than I would use the n-word.)
I think the bigger theme, one all too common in scifi movies these days, is how much bullshit everyone will accept from the government, large corporations, and the mainstream press, so that it is easier for them to go on with their everyday life. But that's not really anything new.
Oh, but I did really like the aliens. The farther we get away from humoid aliens in movies, the happier I am. I recently read an article that said scientists have found higher levels of methane loss than there should be on Mars and one of their hypostesis is that there may be methane based lifeforms on the planet. (FYI: Lifeforms on our planet are carbon based.) Reading that made me wonder how methane based lifeforms might look different from us and what other elements could be the basis for lifeforms. Hmmmmm.......
So I'm not sure whether or not I recommend it. If you've read this, you can decide for yourself. Just don't blame me either way.
Inception
Inception (2010)
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast Includes
Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb
Ellen Page as Ariadne (perhaps after her)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur
Tom Hardy as Eames
Ken Watanabe as Saito
I'll try to avoid major spoilers, but, as the commercials have been pretty big on visuals but light on plot, I'm not sure I can avoid not giving anything away.
As for plot, I think Tim, the movie blogger behind Antagony & Ecstasy, really gets it perfect: "Here's the story: Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a master thief with a shady past, given an opportunity by mysterious businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe) to redeem everything he's ever done, and in the process reunite with the children he left in the U.S. when he was forced for shady reasons to flee the country. Saito's offer includes completing an impossible mission, for which Cobb must assemble the best team ever compiled for such a mission. Everything else is just details." Ultimately, at it's heart, this is a heist film and a con film. It being set in a world of dreams and dreams within dreams adds amazing visuals and the undercurrents of what is really real versus what is just a dream, but that is all just icing on the cake for me.
Hmmmm, I guess I don't have a great deal more to say about it than that. I think I need another viewing. I was impressed visually. I thought the action was good. But....I'm still left kinda deflated. Maybe it was the movie since then, which i'll get to in the next post. I think I just need to watch it again..... I think if you saw Dark Knight and weren't disappointed by it after the hype, you'll probably be good to see this movie and I'm not really sure that the large visual pieces will translate as well to your tv, so you might want to catch it while it's on the big screen, even if it's at a cheaper twilight show.
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast Includes
Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb
Ellen Page as Ariadne (perhaps after her)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur
Tom Hardy as Eames
Ken Watanabe as Saito
I'll try to avoid major spoilers, but, as the commercials have been pretty big on visuals but light on plot, I'm not sure I can avoid not giving anything away.
As for plot, I think Tim, the movie blogger behind Antagony & Ecstasy, really gets it perfect: "Here's the story: Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a master thief with a shady past, given an opportunity by mysterious businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe) to redeem everything he's ever done, and in the process reunite with the children he left in the U.S. when he was forced for shady reasons to flee the country. Saito's offer includes completing an impossible mission, for which Cobb must assemble the best team ever compiled for such a mission. Everything else is just details." Ultimately, at it's heart, this is a heist film and a con film. It being set in a world of dreams and dreams within dreams adds amazing visuals and the undercurrents of what is really real versus what is just a dream, but that is all just icing on the cake for me.
Hmmmm, I guess I don't have a great deal more to say about it than that. I think I need another viewing. I was impressed visually. I thought the action was good. But....I'm still left kinda deflated. Maybe it was the movie since then, which i'll get to in the next post. I think I just need to watch it again..... I think if you saw Dark Knight and weren't disappointed by it after the hype, you'll probably be good to see this movie and I'm not really sure that the large visual pieces will translate as well to your tv, so you might want to catch it while it's on the big screen, even if it's at a cheaper twilight show.
Winter's Bone
Winter's Bone (2010)
Directed and co-written by Debra Granik
Cast Includes
Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly
John Hawkes as Teardrop
Kevin Braznahan as Little Arthur
Garrett Dillahunt as Sheriff Baskin
Saw at twilight showing at local art house theater July 14th, 2010, along with a dozen other people, mostly senior citizens
I thought this was a great, low-budget mystery movie, with something very real at stake. The movie is set in The Missouri Ozarks, not the partying by the lake area of the Ozarks, but the backwoods area that most people think are backwards, where many people live on and off of the land and woods. Especially when the small towns can't offer enough employment and those who live off of the land and the woods can barely eek out a living, these rural areas become havens for all kinds of illegal trade and creation. During prohibition, this meant moonshine. Nowadays, it means meth. Seventeen year old Ree lives with her nearly catatonic mother and a younger brother and sister in a small cabin surrounded by what her uncle calls "hundred year old woods." She has quit high school to take care of them, though she obviously values their education, quizzes them as she walks them to school. She dreams of going into the army, not to get away from her family, but to use the sign on bonus to care for them and to take them out of the Ozarks with her. She's a fairly straight arrow in a bad situation which soon gets worse. The local sheriff lets her know that her father is due in court the next week, but no one can find him, which is now Ree's problem since her father put up their house for his bail. Now this tough girl must find and confront her father's known associates, many of whom she's related to, in at least a distant way, and all of whom are involved in shady illegal activities that may come to light if Ree finds her father. All the while, Ree also tries to figure out what she'll do if, when, she loses the house and her family has no place to live. I thought this was a very good movie, harrowing in a everyday, down-to-earth way, just a young poor woman, struggling on the edge of homelessness, pushing against other people who were once in a situation like hers and chose illegal means to make a living.
Not that it's difficult for me to find something in a movie to relate to, but this movie did make me wonder how close my life might have been to this movie if just a few decisions were made differently. Now there were four people, two hetro couples it appeared, sitting in front of me, who "oh my" and "ugh"-d during scenes of backwoods life, like Ree showing her brother and sister how to skin a squirrel, so they could eat if something happened to her, or she wasn't around. I got he distinct feeling that these four sixty-something suburbanites felt they were above eating any such thing. Now I have eaten squirrel and I'm pretty sure it was killed by a family member. I've also eaten rabbit and quite alot of deer. After a bit of being a brat as a kid, I've gotten over not eating something because I thought I was too good for it. This would go double if I was in Ree's situation. Which is a situation that is pretty close to situaitons that some of my relatives have probably had. Much of my maternal grandfather's family still live in and around a small town in Southeastern Missouri where my grandfather's parents built their house. But none of these relatives have log cabins and large plots of land. Those who do have their own property live in a trailer on a small plot of land. I remember going to a funeral for one of my grandfather's brothers several years ago, before my grandfather passed. Afterwards, we went to my grandfather's sister's house, a trailer which could have been pretty nice if it didn't have too many people with too many clothes and school books scattered everywhere. My great aunt was taking care of four or five (or more maybe) of her grandchildren because their parents couldn't due to alcohol or drug addictions. Now what would happen to those kids if, when, my great aunt dies? Last I had heard, from my grandma, before she passed, my great aunt was taking care of even younger children, a baby or an infant that her youngest daughter had given birth to while she was clean from cocaine, before she got hooked on meth, the meth that my great aunt said was ravaging the area faster and more thoroughly than alcohol or any other drug had before. Watching this movie, especially watching one character who's face reminded me so much of my own grandfather, hollow, grisled, with that beak-nose, I wondered how my life might have been different if my grandparents had moved back to that small town after he got out of the army, if my grandfather had made it a regular habit to drink as much as his brothers, if, if, if. But a different decision here or there can change so much. Things might not always look so great right now, but I know that I am fortunate in so many ways, fortunate that my life isn't tougher, isn't closer to that edge. I just gotta try to be thankful for that more often.
Directed and co-written by Debra Granik
Cast Includes
Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly
John Hawkes as Teardrop
Kevin Braznahan as Little Arthur
Garrett Dillahunt as Sheriff Baskin
Saw at twilight showing at local art house theater July 14th, 2010, along with a dozen other people, mostly senior citizens
I thought this was a great, low-budget mystery movie, with something very real at stake. The movie is set in The Missouri Ozarks, not the partying by the lake area of the Ozarks, but the backwoods area that most people think are backwards, where many people live on and off of the land and woods. Especially when the small towns can't offer enough employment and those who live off of the land and the woods can barely eek out a living, these rural areas become havens for all kinds of illegal trade and creation. During prohibition, this meant moonshine. Nowadays, it means meth. Seventeen year old Ree lives with her nearly catatonic mother and a younger brother and sister in a small cabin surrounded by what her uncle calls "hundred year old woods." She has quit high school to take care of them, though she obviously values their education, quizzes them as she walks them to school. She dreams of going into the army, not to get away from her family, but to use the sign on bonus to care for them and to take them out of the Ozarks with her. She's a fairly straight arrow in a bad situation which soon gets worse. The local sheriff lets her know that her father is due in court the next week, but no one can find him, which is now Ree's problem since her father put up their house for his bail. Now this tough girl must find and confront her father's known associates, many of whom she's related to, in at least a distant way, and all of whom are involved in shady illegal activities that may come to light if Ree finds her father. All the while, Ree also tries to figure out what she'll do if, when, she loses the house and her family has no place to live. I thought this was a very good movie, harrowing in a everyday, down-to-earth way, just a young poor woman, struggling on the edge of homelessness, pushing against other people who were once in a situation like hers and chose illegal means to make a living.
Not that it's difficult for me to find something in a movie to relate to, but this movie did make me wonder how close my life might have been to this movie if just a few decisions were made differently. Now there were four people, two hetro couples it appeared, sitting in front of me, who "oh my" and "ugh"-d during scenes of backwoods life, like Ree showing her brother and sister how to skin a squirrel, so they could eat if something happened to her, or she wasn't around. I got he distinct feeling that these four sixty-something suburbanites felt they were above eating any such thing. Now I have eaten squirrel and I'm pretty sure it was killed by a family member. I've also eaten rabbit and quite alot of deer. After a bit of being a brat as a kid, I've gotten over not eating something because I thought I was too good for it. This would go double if I was in Ree's situation. Which is a situation that is pretty close to situaitons that some of my relatives have probably had. Much of my maternal grandfather's family still live in and around a small town in Southeastern Missouri where my grandfather's parents built their house. But none of these relatives have log cabins and large plots of land. Those who do have their own property live in a trailer on a small plot of land. I remember going to a funeral for one of my grandfather's brothers several years ago, before my grandfather passed. Afterwards, we went to my grandfather's sister's house, a trailer which could have been pretty nice if it didn't have too many people with too many clothes and school books scattered everywhere. My great aunt was taking care of four or five (or more maybe) of her grandchildren because their parents couldn't due to alcohol or drug addictions. Now what would happen to those kids if, when, my great aunt dies? Last I had heard, from my grandma, before she passed, my great aunt was taking care of even younger children, a baby or an infant that her youngest daughter had given birth to while she was clean from cocaine, before she got hooked on meth, the meth that my great aunt said was ravaging the area faster and more thoroughly than alcohol or any other drug had before. Watching this movie, especially watching one character who's face reminded me so much of my own grandfather, hollow, grisled, with that beak-nose, I wondered how my life might have been different if my grandparents had moved back to that small town after he got out of the army, if my grandfather had made it a regular habit to drink as much as his brothers, if, if, if. But a different decision here or there can change so much. Things might not always look so great right now, but I know that I am fortunate in so many ways, fortunate that my life isn't tougher, isn't closer to that edge. I just gotta try to be thankful for that more often.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Gasland
Gasland (2010)
Documentary by Josh Fox
Watched on July 4, 2010 at home on HBO OnDemand
(post written longhand on July 12, 2010, while on vaca and away from my computer)
I've put off writing about this because I thought time would bring clarity but it has really done the opposite. I'm more ambivalent than ever.
Gasland is a documentary by Josh Fox, following his fourney to understand how hydraulic fracture natural gas drilling has effected the lives of people who lease their land to be used to frilling, as Fox himself is asked to do in the beginning of the film by a natural gas company hoping to frack for gas in Pennsylvania near the Delaware river. With the aid of colorful but simple graphics, he gives an overview of the hydralic fracturing processes and the largely unregulated and not completely retrieved chemicals used. The audience is also treated to footage of Fox's efforts to contact first well-known figures in major natural gas drilling companies in the US, then just someone, anyone who will talk to him, but he never really gets anywhere. Instead, he relies on local reporting, both in print and on television, in locales where drilling has been going on for years to guide him to locals who might talk to him. The audience follows Fox as he meets and gets to know families who's natural gas contaminated well-water can be lit on fire as it comes out of the tap, who have physical illnesses (usually either neurological problems from water toxicity or respiratory problems from chemicals that have evaporated into the air), who's water wells have exploded. These average, working-class folks, hardly people who are anti-corporations or anti-oil and gas (at least before these things), cheerfully show Fox their homes, land, and animals, most relating their stories with a mix of "if you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry" attitude and a sense of disbelief that no one, not the government or the companies, either will or can help them. They also allow Fox to take water samples from their wells. Fox also attends a NY state congressional committee meeting on opening up more land in NY state for drilling in which the men from the natural gas companies testify again and again that it has never been proven that their drilling processes harm the groundwater or the people, animals, and plants around the drilling sites. If I remember right, there were four representatives from the natural gas companies and only one environmental scientist, who was largely ignored when he disagreed with those in the oil company reps. He also talks to the head of the department of environmental protection in PA who steps around much of Fox's questions but does admit that compromises must be made so that people get the energy they want while we try to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Also, while he won't say that the wells people claim are contaminated are actually contaminated, the bueracrat won't drink any of the water from any of the wells that Josh Fox as collected during his travels. In the end, Fox has no real hard answers, though the knowledge that he gains leads him to decide against leasing his lands for any future drilling, no matter how much money they offer him.
By the end of this movie, I was overwhelmingly sad. Not mad, which is what I would have been in previous years, as I'm sure the filmmaker might have anticipated, a sense of righteous indignation that might drive the audience to push politicians and bueracrats to tighten and enforce regulations and to pull back our energy use. Nope, just really sad. And completely helpless. How can I actually change any of this? I don't live in a drilling area. I doubt I could convince my parents to switch from natural gas to another energy source, not that it would help as electricity here is made from burning dirty coal. I have no say in PA or NY where the current debate on to frack or not to frack is happening. Sure, I can vote on representation in and from my state but is there any chance that anyone who is pro-regulation and strong oversight really win in a conservative area in a conservative state, especially given the current pro-corporate stance of the Republican party? If that person did win, would they be able to get any laws through? The same, and then some, goes for the president.
I recently read an op-ed article in the NYT in which the writer suggested that we should think less about whether we want kids but more about if the world needs more kids, that it would be nice for individuals to forstall a kid or two to help not contribute to worldwide overuse of resources and to overpopulation. The writer specifically stated that he didn't want a mandatory government program of any kind, just a voluntary thoughtfulness. Now, I'm pretty sure I do not want any children, for a variety of reasons, but, though I've usually kept this to myself, I've also questioned the wisdom of growing the world's population, especially as we worry about how our way of life harms the planet and the population. So I'm on board with the guy who wrote the op-ed. But after watching this movie, feeling so sad and helpless, I wondered if just not having kids wasn't enough? How about a mass die off? Sometimes this happens to animals accidentally - their population grows too fast for the area they live in to sustain them, their waste pollutes their water supply leading to illnesses, etc. The black plague is often credited with thinning the human population in Europe, but large wars also help humans thin our own herd.
Ok, ok, so I know that by now you are saying, "A mass die off is too extreme. It could lead to genocide, since the majority would pick a disliked minority group to do most of the dying, or people with the 'worst' lives, whether through discrimiation or socioeconomic situations, would volunteer, creating a defacto genocidal situation. Plus, we are working as hard as we can on new energy sources and we can always cut down on our use. And it's not like you're the epitome of environmentally friendly." And I'm not. But I guess I have a harder time staying motivated for these things when I see larger forces working against it. There are people working on 'green' technological advances, but those companies in Gasland, and other large corporations, who make their huge profits on non-green, dirty energy sources, have more money, more lobbying power, more clout with politicians on both sides who have recieved large campaign contributions from them, and can quickly buy off the little guys who are hurt. They have a vested interest in keeping the energy status quo and blocking green energy and I feel helpless in the face of that. There was a day when I would have found this documentary a call to arms. Now I feel that I can't help the situation in a big picture way and I continue, in my own little way, to make it all worse, just by my everyday living.
A friend recently told me that, to her, in many instances, ignorance is bliss and that's why she doesn't watch the news. She doesn't worry about going into a neighborhood that others have told her are "bad" because she doesn't want some crime stat, or someone's opinion of what a bad neighborhood is, to get in the way of her living her life. Somedays, I do wish I could be more like that.
Gasland's movie site
Documentary by Josh Fox
Watched on July 4, 2010 at home on HBO OnDemand
(post written longhand on July 12, 2010, while on vaca and away from my computer)
I've put off writing about this because I thought time would bring clarity but it has really done the opposite. I'm more ambivalent than ever.
Gasland is a documentary by Josh Fox, following his fourney to understand how hydraulic fracture natural gas drilling has effected the lives of people who lease their land to be used to frilling, as Fox himself is asked to do in the beginning of the film by a natural gas company hoping to frack for gas in Pennsylvania near the Delaware river. With the aid of colorful but simple graphics, he gives an overview of the hydralic fracturing processes and the largely unregulated and not completely retrieved chemicals used. The audience is also treated to footage of Fox's efforts to contact first well-known figures in major natural gas drilling companies in the US, then just someone, anyone who will talk to him, but he never really gets anywhere. Instead, he relies on local reporting, both in print and on television, in locales where drilling has been going on for years to guide him to locals who might talk to him. The audience follows Fox as he meets and gets to know families who's natural gas contaminated well-water can be lit on fire as it comes out of the tap, who have physical illnesses (usually either neurological problems from water toxicity or respiratory problems from chemicals that have evaporated into the air), who's water wells have exploded. These average, working-class folks, hardly people who are anti-corporations or anti-oil and gas (at least before these things), cheerfully show Fox their homes, land, and animals, most relating their stories with a mix of "if you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry" attitude and a sense of disbelief that no one, not the government or the companies, either will or can help them. They also allow Fox to take water samples from their wells. Fox also attends a NY state congressional committee meeting on opening up more land in NY state for drilling in which the men from the natural gas companies testify again and again that it has never been proven that their drilling processes harm the groundwater or the people, animals, and plants around the drilling sites. If I remember right, there were four representatives from the natural gas companies and only one environmental scientist, who was largely ignored when he disagreed with those in the oil company reps. He also talks to the head of the department of environmental protection in PA who steps around much of Fox's questions but does admit that compromises must be made so that people get the energy they want while we try to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Also, while he won't say that the wells people claim are contaminated are actually contaminated, the bueracrat won't drink any of the water from any of the wells that Josh Fox as collected during his travels. In the end, Fox has no real hard answers, though the knowledge that he gains leads him to decide against leasing his lands for any future drilling, no matter how much money they offer him.
By the end of this movie, I was overwhelmingly sad. Not mad, which is what I would have been in previous years, as I'm sure the filmmaker might have anticipated, a sense of righteous indignation that might drive the audience to push politicians and bueracrats to tighten and enforce regulations and to pull back our energy use. Nope, just really sad. And completely helpless. How can I actually change any of this? I don't live in a drilling area. I doubt I could convince my parents to switch from natural gas to another energy source, not that it would help as electricity here is made from burning dirty coal. I have no say in PA or NY where the current debate on to frack or not to frack is happening. Sure, I can vote on representation in and from my state but is there any chance that anyone who is pro-regulation and strong oversight really win in a conservative area in a conservative state, especially given the current pro-corporate stance of the Republican party? If that person did win, would they be able to get any laws through? The same, and then some, goes for the president.
I recently read an op-ed article in the NYT in which the writer suggested that we should think less about whether we want kids but more about if the world needs more kids, that it would be nice for individuals to forstall a kid or two to help not contribute to worldwide overuse of resources and to overpopulation. The writer specifically stated that he didn't want a mandatory government program of any kind, just a voluntary thoughtfulness. Now, I'm pretty sure I do not want any children, for a variety of reasons, but, though I've usually kept this to myself, I've also questioned the wisdom of growing the world's population, especially as we worry about how our way of life harms the planet and the population. So I'm on board with the guy who wrote the op-ed. But after watching this movie, feeling so sad and helpless, I wondered if just not having kids wasn't enough? How about a mass die off? Sometimes this happens to animals accidentally - their population grows too fast for the area they live in to sustain them, their waste pollutes their water supply leading to illnesses, etc. The black plague is often credited with thinning the human population in Europe, but large wars also help humans thin our own herd.
Ok, ok, so I know that by now you are saying, "A mass die off is too extreme. It could lead to genocide, since the majority would pick a disliked minority group to do most of the dying, or people with the 'worst' lives, whether through discrimiation or socioeconomic situations, would volunteer, creating a defacto genocidal situation. Plus, we are working as hard as we can on new energy sources and we can always cut down on our use. And it's not like you're the epitome of environmentally friendly." And I'm not. But I guess I have a harder time staying motivated for these things when I see larger forces working against it. There are people working on 'green' technological advances, but those companies in Gasland, and other large corporations, who make their huge profits on non-green, dirty energy sources, have more money, more lobbying power, more clout with politicians on both sides who have recieved large campaign contributions from them, and can quickly buy off the little guys who are hurt. They have a vested interest in keeping the energy status quo and blocking green energy and I feel helpless in the face of that. There was a day when I would have found this documentary a call to arms. Now I feel that I can't help the situation in a big picture way and I continue, in my own little way, to make it all worse, just by my everyday living.
A friend recently told me that, to her, in many instances, ignorance is bliss and that's why she doesn't watch the news. She doesn't worry about going into a neighborhood that others have told her are "bad" because she doesn't want some crime stat, or someone's opinion of what a bad neighborhood is, to get in the way of her living her life. Somedays, I do wish I could be more like that.
Gasland's movie site
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Bug, the movie
****Spoilers Ahead******
Bug (2006)
Directed by William Friedkin
Cast includes
Ashley Judd as Agnes White
Michael Shannon as Peter Evans
Harry Connick, Jr, as Jerry Goss
You know sometimes you'll see something with bugs crawling on a tv show or you get surprised by a spider or bug or rodent in your house and then you feel like something is crawling on you the rest of the night?
You know how sometimes you'll read an article or a book or hear a talk show about the Bilderberger Group or Obama's FEMA camps and then you start to obsess on these big conspiracies that you could probably do nothing about, even if they were true? Well, unless you are Jesse Ventura and some cable network gives you a show so you can go harass those people and places at the heart of the conspiracies.
Basically, this movie is both of those, wrapped up in a big folie a deux (madness shared by two.) It is a tense brutal movie that takes place almost entirely in a small, slightly grimy motel room in Oklahoma. When Agnes' only friend brings the quiet but seemingly nice Peter over before a party, he and Agnes start their brief but intense, co-dependent relationship. In an extra on the DVD, actor Michael Shannon, who plays Peter, says that he thinks this is really a love story, though a love story between two very damaged people. I would agree with that, but have to add the caveat that it isn't the uplifting, make your life all better kind of love we usually think of. It's the kind of all-consuming, irrational, dangerous love which often leads both people on a downward spiral fueled by their own neurosis, false beliefs, and weaknesses.
I keep thinking of the true crime story about a 'vampire clan' led by Rod Ferrell. I'm not sure that they all really believed they were vampires, the Dracula or Lestat or Jean-Claude variety who must drink human blood to survive and can't go out in the daylight, but there was a kind of group-mind that happened, just like in any other cult, where a part of you knows that what's going on is wrong or too far, but you are so far in that you don't know how to get out.
Obviously, this movie is also about paranoia. It never really answers what exactly propels Peter's delusions and it even leaves some doubt that they are suffering from a delusion. But, as with all mental illness, there are really only a matter of degrees between real life conspiracies, what we view as typical paranoid conspiracy theories, and the ravings of delusional people. Are there parasites in our bodies? Well, there can be. There's even a show on cable, on Nat Geo, I think, about people getting parasites. Has the US government done testing without consent on people? Sadly, yes. Does our government spy on us? Yeah, it's called Echelon and if a person says certain keywords in their phone conversations, it is flagged so a human agent can listen to it. So when this is the truth, who's to say this guy is so crazy? What is more interesting is why how a grown world-weary woman could so easily start to share this same delusion.
I would definately recommend this movie, as long as you don't mind the seeing the scratches and gouging and..., well, that spoils too much, that come when you think you have bugs under your skin.
Bug (2006)
Directed by William Friedkin
Cast includes
Ashley Judd as Agnes White
Michael Shannon as Peter Evans
Harry Connick, Jr, as Jerry Goss
You know sometimes you'll see something with bugs crawling on a tv show or you get surprised by a spider or bug or rodent in your house and then you feel like something is crawling on you the rest of the night?
You know how sometimes you'll read an article or a book or hear a talk show about the Bilderberger Group or Obama's FEMA camps and then you start to obsess on these big conspiracies that you could probably do nothing about, even if they were true? Well, unless you are Jesse Ventura and some cable network gives you a show so you can go harass those people and places at the heart of the conspiracies.
Basically, this movie is both of those, wrapped up in a big folie a deux (madness shared by two.) It is a tense brutal movie that takes place almost entirely in a small, slightly grimy motel room in Oklahoma. When Agnes' only friend brings the quiet but seemingly nice Peter over before a party, he and Agnes start their brief but intense, co-dependent relationship. In an extra on the DVD, actor Michael Shannon, who plays Peter, says that he thinks this is really a love story, though a love story between two very damaged people. I would agree with that, but have to add the caveat that it isn't the uplifting, make your life all better kind of love we usually think of. It's the kind of all-consuming, irrational, dangerous love which often leads both people on a downward spiral fueled by their own neurosis, false beliefs, and weaknesses.
I keep thinking of the true crime story about a 'vampire clan' led by Rod Ferrell. I'm not sure that they all really believed they were vampires, the Dracula or Lestat or Jean-Claude variety who must drink human blood to survive and can't go out in the daylight, but there was a kind of group-mind that happened, just like in any other cult, where a part of you knows that what's going on is wrong or too far, but you are so far in that you don't know how to get out.
Obviously, this movie is also about paranoia. It never really answers what exactly propels Peter's delusions and it even leaves some doubt that they are suffering from a delusion. But, as with all mental illness, there are really only a matter of degrees between real life conspiracies, what we view as typical paranoid conspiracy theories, and the ravings of delusional people. Are there parasites in our bodies? Well, there can be. There's even a show on cable, on Nat Geo, I think, about people getting parasites. Has the US government done testing without consent on people? Sadly, yes. Does our government spy on us? Yeah, it's called Echelon and if a person says certain keywords in their phone conversations, it is flagged so a human agent can listen to it. So when this is the truth, who's to say this guy is so crazy? What is more interesting is why how a grown world-weary woman could so easily start to share this same delusion.
I would definately recommend this movie, as long as you don't mind the seeing the scratches and gouging and..., well, that spoils too much, that come when you think you have bugs under your skin.
The Twilight Saga (So Far)
***Spoilers ahead***
Ok, so before I actually start writing about seeing the three movies in The Twilight Saga (so far), I feel like I should add two things about movies and how I view them.
The first is the Bechdel Test. This comes from an episode in a comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. In it, one of the characters says that she only goes to movies that have 1) two named female characters who 2) talk to each other about 3) something other than a man. (Website with list of movies and icons to identify how they fair on Bechdel Test.) Now, don't get me wrong. Movies that pass this test aren't feminist or feminist-friendly, but I find it hard to believe that a movie that doesn't pass this test could be feminist or feminist-friendly. When you start to think about this test, you might start to realize how many movies with big female heroes (think Alien/s or Terminator 2) never have two named female characters talk to each other. Also, I would love to find a comparable test for non-racist or non-homophobic or non-hetrocentrist movies. Maybe that a mainstream movie has to have two named minority characters in which they talk to each other but not about a white character? I'll have to think on that. But I'm using this to draw a larger point. I try to look at movies (and books and tv shows and all other types of media) as both entertainment and as a part of the larger society's discourse.
Which leads me to the second thing I wanted to write about my movie viewing habits. What I wrote in the last paragraph about how I view these things - yeah, that IS how I enjoy them. Please don't read what I might say about a movie (or other piece of media/work of art) and tell me/write to me that I should "Just sit back and enjoy it," implying that I shouldn't analyze it or think about it, because that to me is a contradiction. I am trying more and more to accept the contradictions in the things I like, that a really funny comedy seems to be kinda racist or that I like Chinatown even though I think Roman Polanski should immediately go to a US prison to serve a term for rape, but I have to first acknowledge the problem aspects as well as the better aspects before I can come to terms with the contradictions. Now, when I tell my parents about a movie and include any of those bits, my step-dad always asks me why I can't just enjoy a movie for once. I could never really find a good answer for that, until I read a blog post, which I sadly can't find now for the life of me though it was either on a feminist blog or a blog that deals with race & pop culture, in which the author explained just what I wrote above in such a simple straightforward way that I felt stupid for not having thought of it earlier. I guess this is my way of saying that if you don't like looking at movies this way, which is perfectly fine, you might not like my opinions on movies.
So with that out of the way....
The Twilight Saga (so far): Twilight (2008), New Moon (2009), Eclipse (2010)
Directors (respectively): Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz , David Slade
Cast:
Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen
Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black
Billy Burke as Sheriff Charlie Swan
Anne Kendrick as Jessica
Nikki Reed as Rosalee Cullen
Alice Greene as Alice Cullen
Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Cullen
Elizabeth Reaser as Esmee Cullen
Rachelle Lefevre/Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria
Peter Facinelli as Dr. Carlyle Cullen
(ok, that was a pain, you get the picture)
So last night I went to see the first three movies in the Twilight saga, in a row, in a proper theater. I had seen the first movie previously, with a friend, on DVD, on a less than theater-sized screen and had read the first book before that. I wasn't too impressed with either. But I still felt like I should bear witness to this pop culture phenomenon, especially when it was less than $5 a movie, all on a big screen. There are some good things to the movies, but I'll let others talk about those things. The biggest thing that I took away from these movies is that this series seems to be a primer in creating a dependent, sad-sack young woman who accepts (and participates in) emotional manipulation and is attracted to aggressive, possessive passive-aggressive men. To me, many of the things that happen within these relationships seem to spell out the possibility of an abusive future relationship.
In this vein, there are two events in the movies that really stuck out to me. The first is in New Moon and is pure, but very disturbing emotional manipuation on Bella's part. ***Spoilers Ahead*** After Edward abandons her, after exacting a promise from her that she won't do "anything reckless," Bella proceeds to do reckless things, once she figures out that Edward will appear to her when she does them, in an attempt to stop them. Her last act of recklessness is cliff diving, fully clothed, into freezing cold water, which leads to her near drowning and her would-be killer almost getting ahold of her. Now, maybe you haven't heard this one before, but to me it sounds like, "If you don't come back, I'll kill myself. See, I've got the razor blade out. I'm serious. Come stop me." But not only does Edward not come back but he also doesn't contact anyone to tell them that Bella needs serious help. He also doesn't seem to see that, by appearing to her every time she does something reckless, he is only rewarding her bad behavior, thus driving her to more and worse behavior so that he will pay attention to her again. Take it from someone who's been there: This is not healthy!
While the second event comes from a particular scene between Bella and Jacob, I think that this speaks to the possessive, aggressive nature of the men Bella won't just leave alone. In Eclipse, after Bella breaks the news to Jacob that she is planning on being turned into a vampire just after graduation, Jacob throws a wrench and tells her, "Better you be dead than one of them." I should acknowledge that, as a teenager, I dated a guy who liked to punch walls and trash bins that were near me when he was mad, as opposed to hitting me. Humans can make horribly bad relationship decisions, especially when they are teenagers. Why should I expect Bella and Jacob to be different? I guess I don't expect the teen heartthrob of the moment ("Team Jacob! Woooooo!") to seem like he's on the verge of becoming an abuser while still having our female protagonist want to be with him. (In New Moon, Jacob explains his trepidation in dating a human by telling Bella how his pack leader's fiancee got so injured: the leader got upset, lost his temper for just a moment, and she was too close. While Jacob does say that the pack leader feels horrible and guilty, no one seems to equate this with physical domestic abuse.) This physical violence is reciprocated in the next scene when, after Jacob kisses Bella without her consent, Bella punches him in the face, which, as he's a big buff werewolve, results in Bella getting the injury, a sprained hand. But still Bella kinda sorta pursues something with Jacob, while still committing to Edward, who starts to back down and loosen up on his possessiveness. In the end, when Bella decides to be with Edward, not Jacob, it isn't because of the actions of their men. It is simply because she loves Edward more than Jacob. Now, in real life, I would probably just throw up my hands and let humans be humans. But hundreds of people have worked hard to create these stories, many of them agonizing over these decisions. And I bet not one of them would want their daughter to consider a guy who said he'd rather she be dead than a part of another group. To them, I'm sure that disqualifies that guy for the affection of their daughter. So why are they selling this crap to our daughters?
Now, especially when we are talking about children's or young adult literature, I assume that there are 'lessons' that can be learned from the text. While I read a recent quote from (adult? regular? literature) writer Ian McEwan, "Psychological realism demands that sometimes the wicked prosper," I do not think that the same sentiment prevails in...well, most forms of entertainment, to be honest, but especially in literature pointed towards non-adult readers. Think about all the 'lessons' in Harry Potter books (acceptance of and promoting the welfare of minorities 'Mudbloods' and house elves) and all the positive character traits Harry either already possesses or that he develops as the story moves along. While I think there are supposed to be some morality imparted in the Twilight movies, our protagonist only seems to demonstrate any of these through self-sacrifice, never through actual achievement. Other characters also do things that might get them killed or harmed, but they do it through fighting as opposed to giving up, running away, hiding out, or delivering themselves to their enemy. Midway through the second movie in our triple feature, I realized the real reason why I prefer my smutty supernatural books, like the Anita Blake series, to the Twilight series, and it's not the sex, which is what I was citing as my reason. It is that Anita Blake started out as a badass woman with her own skills and talents, whereas Bella seems to possess none of those things. Yes, I know, the reason Bella is beloved by readers is because she's just like them, average, with some flaws, thrown into a crazy world she doesn't fit into as she falls into love. But if you want to think that you are just like her, so you could be her, well.... don't you want to be able to think of yourself as having something special and unusual about you? Throughout the Blake books, Anita grows in power and self-knowledge, though even in the first book I think many women could relate to a young woman who is up and coming in her career, but sometimes finds it a cold and alienating boy's club. I think that in the start of the books, she's only in her early 20s. I've also read the first two books in the LA Banks' Vampire Huntress Legends, about Damali, a spoken word artist and kickass vampire and demon hunting teenage woman, coming into her own, both in terms of power and sexuality. While both these series are popular, they are obviously not as popular as the Twilight series, obviously not popular enough to get their own movies. But I would argue that these are much better female role models than Bella.
Sigh. Alright, so I'm tired. If this was a formal, classroom /published essay, I'd come up with some bullshit at the end. But this is it. These are my theories about these movies. As for moviegoers who don't want to think about this stuff, well, they get better as they go along, though the pale vamp makeup still looks stupid. (How can they make the werewolves look so good in CGI but their makeup looks so bad? Ugh.) The second and the third movie have decent romance elements and the third movie has some pretty great fight scenes. There is no horror or scare value, despite the vampires and werewolves, but at least there is some (intentional) comedy in the third movie.
PS Among the things I didn't get to are the disappearing minorities in the movie, as the series starts out with quite a diverse cast both in the town and in Bella's high school, but these elements are quickly stripped away to leave the almost all white cast of vampires and Indian werewolves, most not played by Native American actors. And I think that all the color, other than Indian werewolves, in the second and third movies are vamps of color who are quickly killed off. I'll let you think on that.
Ok, so before I actually start writing about seeing the three movies in The Twilight Saga (so far), I feel like I should add two things about movies and how I view them.
The first is the Bechdel Test. This comes from an episode in a comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. In it, one of the characters says that she only goes to movies that have 1) two named female characters who 2) talk to each other about 3) something other than a man. (Website with list of movies and icons to identify how they fair on Bechdel Test.) Now, don't get me wrong. Movies that pass this test aren't feminist or feminist-friendly, but I find it hard to believe that a movie that doesn't pass this test could be feminist or feminist-friendly. When you start to think about this test, you might start to realize how many movies with big female heroes (think Alien/s or Terminator 2) never have two named female characters talk to each other. Also, I would love to find a comparable test for non-racist or non-homophobic or non-hetrocentrist movies. Maybe that a mainstream movie has to have two named minority characters in which they talk to each other but not about a white character? I'll have to think on that. But I'm using this to draw a larger point. I try to look at movies (and books and tv shows and all other types of media) as both entertainment and as a part of the larger society's discourse.
Which leads me to the second thing I wanted to write about my movie viewing habits. What I wrote in the last paragraph about how I view these things - yeah, that IS how I enjoy them. Please don't read what I might say about a movie (or other piece of media/work of art) and tell me/write to me that I should "Just sit back and enjoy it," implying that I shouldn't analyze it or think about it, because that to me is a contradiction. I am trying more and more to accept the contradictions in the things I like, that a really funny comedy seems to be kinda racist or that I like Chinatown even though I think Roman Polanski should immediately go to a US prison to serve a term for rape, but I have to first acknowledge the problem aspects as well as the better aspects before I can come to terms with the contradictions. Now, when I tell my parents about a movie and include any of those bits, my step-dad always asks me why I can't just enjoy a movie for once. I could never really find a good answer for that, until I read a blog post, which I sadly can't find now for the life of me though it was either on a feminist blog or a blog that deals with race & pop culture, in which the author explained just what I wrote above in such a simple straightforward way that I felt stupid for not having thought of it earlier. I guess this is my way of saying that if you don't like looking at movies this way, which is perfectly fine, you might not like my opinions on movies.
So with that out of the way....
The Twilight Saga (so far): Twilight (2008), New Moon (2009), Eclipse (2010)
Directors (respectively): Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz , David Slade
Cast:
Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen
Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black
Billy Burke as Sheriff Charlie Swan
Anne Kendrick as Jessica
Nikki Reed as Rosalee Cullen
Alice Greene as Alice Cullen
Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Cullen
Elizabeth Reaser as Esmee Cullen
Rachelle Lefevre/Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria
Peter Facinelli as Dr. Carlyle Cullen
(ok, that was a pain, you get the picture)
So last night I went to see the first three movies in the Twilight saga, in a row, in a proper theater. I had seen the first movie previously, with a friend, on DVD, on a less than theater-sized screen and had read the first book before that. I wasn't too impressed with either. But I still felt like I should bear witness to this pop culture phenomenon, especially when it was less than $5 a movie, all on a big screen. There are some good things to the movies, but I'll let others talk about those things. The biggest thing that I took away from these movies is that this series seems to be a primer in creating a dependent, sad-sack young woman who accepts (and participates in) emotional manipulation and is attracted to aggressive, possessive passive-aggressive men. To me, many of the things that happen within these relationships seem to spell out the possibility of an abusive future relationship.
In this vein, there are two events in the movies that really stuck out to me. The first is in New Moon and is pure, but very disturbing emotional manipuation on Bella's part. ***Spoilers Ahead*** After Edward abandons her, after exacting a promise from her that she won't do "anything reckless," Bella proceeds to do reckless things, once she figures out that Edward will appear to her when she does them, in an attempt to stop them. Her last act of recklessness is cliff diving, fully clothed, into freezing cold water, which leads to her near drowning and her would-be killer almost getting ahold of her. Now, maybe you haven't heard this one before, but to me it sounds like, "If you don't come back, I'll kill myself. See, I've got the razor blade out. I'm serious. Come stop me." But not only does Edward not come back but he also doesn't contact anyone to tell them that Bella needs serious help. He also doesn't seem to see that, by appearing to her every time she does something reckless, he is only rewarding her bad behavior, thus driving her to more and worse behavior so that he will pay attention to her again. Take it from someone who's been there: This is not healthy!
While the second event comes from a particular scene between Bella and Jacob, I think that this speaks to the possessive, aggressive nature of the men Bella won't just leave alone. In Eclipse, after Bella breaks the news to Jacob that she is planning on being turned into a vampire just after graduation, Jacob throws a wrench and tells her, "Better you be dead than one of them." I should acknowledge that, as a teenager, I dated a guy who liked to punch walls and trash bins that were near me when he was mad, as opposed to hitting me. Humans can make horribly bad relationship decisions, especially when they are teenagers. Why should I expect Bella and Jacob to be different? I guess I don't expect the teen heartthrob of the moment ("Team Jacob! Woooooo!") to seem like he's on the verge of becoming an abuser while still having our female protagonist want to be with him. (In New Moon, Jacob explains his trepidation in dating a human by telling Bella how his pack leader's fiancee got so injured: the leader got upset, lost his temper for just a moment, and she was too close. While Jacob does say that the pack leader feels horrible and guilty, no one seems to equate this with physical domestic abuse.) This physical violence is reciprocated in the next scene when, after Jacob kisses Bella without her consent, Bella punches him in the face, which, as he's a big buff werewolve, results in Bella getting the injury, a sprained hand. But still Bella kinda sorta pursues something with Jacob, while still committing to Edward, who starts to back down and loosen up on his possessiveness. In the end, when Bella decides to be with Edward, not Jacob, it isn't because of the actions of their men. It is simply because she loves Edward more than Jacob. Now, in real life, I would probably just throw up my hands and let humans be humans. But hundreds of people have worked hard to create these stories, many of them agonizing over these decisions. And I bet not one of them would want their daughter to consider a guy who said he'd rather she be dead than a part of another group. To them, I'm sure that disqualifies that guy for the affection of their daughter. So why are they selling this crap to our daughters?
Now, especially when we are talking about children's or young adult literature, I assume that there are 'lessons' that can be learned from the text. While I read a recent quote from (adult? regular? literature) writer Ian McEwan, "Psychological realism demands that sometimes the wicked prosper," I do not think that the same sentiment prevails in...well, most forms of entertainment, to be honest, but especially in literature pointed towards non-adult readers. Think about all the 'lessons' in Harry Potter books (acceptance of and promoting the welfare of minorities 'Mudbloods' and house elves) and all the positive character traits Harry either already possesses or that he develops as the story moves along. While I think there are supposed to be some morality imparted in the Twilight movies, our protagonist only seems to demonstrate any of these through self-sacrifice, never through actual achievement. Other characters also do things that might get them killed or harmed, but they do it through fighting as opposed to giving up, running away, hiding out, or delivering themselves to their enemy. Midway through the second movie in our triple feature, I realized the real reason why I prefer my smutty supernatural books, like the Anita Blake series, to the Twilight series, and it's not the sex, which is what I was citing as my reason. It is that Anita Blake started out as a badass woman with her own skills and talents, whereas Bella seems to possess none of those things. Yes, I know, the reason Bella is beloved by readers is because she's just like them, average, with some flaws, thrown into a crazy world she doesn't fit into as she falls into love. But if you want to think that you are just like her, so you could be her, well.... don't you want to be able to think of yourself as having something special and unusual about you? Throughout the Blake books, Anita grows in power and self-knowledge, though even in the first book I think many women could relate to a young woman who is up and coming in her career, but sometimes finds it a cold and alienating boy's club. I think that in the start of the books, she's only in her early 20s. I've also read the first two books in the LA Banks' Vampire Huntress Legends, about Damali, a spoken word artist and kickass vampire and demon hunting teenage woman, coming into her own, both in terms of power and sexuality. While both these series are popular, they are obviously not as popular as the Twilight series, obviously not popular enough to get their own movies. But I would argue that these are much better female role models than Bella.
Sigh. Alright, so I'm tired. If this was a formal, classroom /published essay, I'd come up with some bullshit at the end. But this is it. These are my theories about these movies. As for moviegoers who don't want to think about this stuff, well, they get better as they go along, though the pale vamp makeup still looks stupid. (How can they make the werewolves look so good in CGI but their makeup looks so bad? Ugh.) The second and the third movie have decent romance elements and the third movie has some pretty great fight scenes. There is no horror or scare value, despite the vampires and werewolves, but at least there is some (intentional) comedy in the third movie.
PS Among the things I didn't get to are the disappearing minorities in the movie, as the series starts out with quite a diverse cast both in the town and in Bella's high school, but these elements are quickly stripped away to leave the almost all white cast of vampires and Indian werewolves, most not played by Native American actors. And I think that all the color, other than Indian werewolves, in the second and third movies are vamps of color who are quickly killed off. I'll let you think on that.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Movie Catch-up
Ok, so I know I promised to blog about every movie (new to me movie) I watched and I've been kinda lax about doing that in a timely manner. So here are my reviews of the movies I've seen recently, though they might be shorter than usual.
Get Him to the Greek (2010)
Saw Saturday 6/19/2010 at local multiplex with my mom
Directed by Nicolas Stoller
Cast includes
Jonah Hill as Aaron Green
Russell Brand as Aldous Snow
Sean "P Diddy" Combs as record label head Sergio Roma
Rose Byrne as Jackie Q
and tons of celebrity cameos
This was a pretty hilarious send up of current pop/rock/celebrity culture, with a very healthy dose of rauch and gross humor. I was skeptical at first that a movie about a minor supporting character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall would work, but, upon further thought, Brand's Aldous Snow was probably the least whangsty introspective, but still funny, part about that movie, so I guess it was a good call to make a summer comedy about him. I do have to say that I think my favorite bits in the movie come from Byrne's Jackie Q, the raunchy popstar ex-wife of Aldous Snow, and the "The Jeffrey"/furry wall drug sequence. I hope that "The Jeffrey" makes its way into our illegal drug lexicon, though I'm not sure it really exists. I definately recommend it if you like other comedies directed or produced by Judd Apatow, though with some less sad-sack guys featured.
Oh, and sidenote: Rose Byrne's British accent was really good. I'd watched her on Damages on FX and just felt "meh" about her, but I found her really funny in this movie. Until I saw it, I guess I just assumed that she was American, but it turns out she's Aussie, so she seems pretty good at those accents to me. Also, in one scene, at Snow's very Brit themed NY apartment, Green wakes up using what looks like a British Union Jack flag as a blanket, which made me wonder if they have real quilts that are made out of soft fabric but look like the Brit flag. If so, I want one.
Black Is...Black Ain't (1994)
Watched on DVD Monday 06/21/2010 at Miss Kee's house
Directed by Marlon Riggs
Documentary including commentary from Riggs himself, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Barbara Smith, and Cornel West
Hmmm so I'm kinda speechless about this movie, unless I'm talking to someone else who has also seen this movie and is interested in the topics it brings up. So the short of it is that it's a really... interesting doesn't quite cover it but I guess it'll do, interesting nontraditional documentary about African-American life, touching on how it intersects with feminism and homosexuality and gender identity. But that doesn't quite seem to cover it. It was produced, directed, and featured Marlon Riggs, a gay African-American poet, filmmaker, and activist, who would die from AIDS before the film could be properly finished. It was sorta amazing to Miss Kee and myself that this was done back in 1994, but many of the issues haven't really changed. I think that to me, the most exilarhating part was getting to see Angela Davis and bell hooks talk about their personal experiences of being young black women. But I think I most liked it because it dealt with these issues in a very upfront, honest, but personal matter.
Lastly....
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Ok, so it wasn't the first time I saw it. I originally went to see it with TyRoy at a local art house theater about a month ago. I'd read the book it is based on, the first in a series of three internationally bestselling Swedish novels, and TyRoy was reading it at the time. Miss Kee called me last week, asking if I'd heard about a movie that she'd been told about by a customer at work. This movie. So we went to see it together. She liked it.
I still liked it, though a second viewing allowed me to wonder about how much is lost on someone like Miss Kee, who hasn't read the books and probably isn't going to. It's a big story to fit in a two and a half hours.
A part of me is always interested in audience reaction when I see a movie in a theater. Or even with friends at home. When TyRoy and I went to see this movie, we were a bit worried for the audience. There are several brightly-lit scenes of sexual violence. We observed many.... um, how to put this nicely.... older people there. Many who looked older than my mom, who's in her early 50s. Now, because there is a good story, I think I might recommend it to my mom, but only with very strong warnings about the sexual violence. TyRoy and I heard some of the people talking about having read the book, so they should have known what they were in for, though I still contend that this movie shows the sexual violence in a more brightly-light, unblinking way than most American movies. But many of those older people talked solely about the rave reviews the movie recieved from the local paper. (Oh, yeah, and obviously we were eavesdropping.) We had read the review and it didn't warn about the violence. We were worried about these folks. But not as many people left as I thought. One woman my age left during one brutal scene, which I didn't blame her for. I'm starting to think that there should be a "Trigger Warning" website, just like many religious people go to movie review websites that tell them how in line (or not in line) a movie may be with their religious and moral beliefs, before they let their kids watch them or even watch them themselves. The second time I saw it, on a weekday afternoon, there were considerably less people there. But during the last major brutal scene of sexual violence, one older man left the theater, via the exit up front, by the screen. Miss Kee and I discussed the possible reasons for his departure after the film ended. She shared my first impression, that he had left solely because this scene involved sexual violence against a man, unlike the others. I thought that we should allow room for the explanation that he had just seen several scenes of sexual violence and thought that rest of the rather long movie would be like that, though it isn't after that scene.
Ok, well, that's it. I'm caught up. Nighty-night.
Get Him to the Greek (2010)
Saw Saturday 6/19/2010 at local multiplex with my mom
Directed by Nicolas Stoller
Cast includes
Jonah Hill as Aaron Green
Russell Brand as Aldous Snow
Sean "P Diddy" Combs as record label head Sergio Roma
Rose Byrne as Jackie Q
and tons of celebrity cameos
This was a pretty hilarious send up of current pop/rock/celebrity culture, with a very healthy dose of rauch and gross humor. I was skeptical at first that a movie about a minor supporting character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall would work, but, upon further thought, Brand's Aldous Snow was probably the least whangsty introspective, but still funny, part about that movie, so I guess it was a good call to make a summer comedy about him. I do have to say that I think my favorite bits in the movie come from Byrne's Jackie Q, the raunchy popstar ex-wife of Aldous Snow, and the "The Jeffrey"/furry wall drug sequence. I hope that "The Jeffrey" makes its way into our illegal drug lexicon, though I'm not sure it really exists. I definately recommend it if you like other comedies directed or produced by Judd Apatow, though with some less sad-sack guys featured.
Oh, and sidenote: Rose Byrne's British accent was really good. I'd watched her on Damages on FX and just felt "meh" about her, but I found her really funny in this movie. Until I saw it, I guess I just assumed that she was American, but it turns out she's Aussie, so she seems pretty good at those accents to me. Also, in one scene, at Snow's very Brit themed NY apartment, Green wakes up using what looks like a British Union Jack flag as a blanket, which made me wonder if they have real quilts that are made out of soft fabric but look like the Brit flag. If so, I want one.
Black Is...Black Ain't (1994)
Watched on DVD Monday 06/21/2010 at Miss Kee's house
Directed by Marlon Riggs
Documentary including commentary from Riggs himself, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Barbara Smith, and Cornel West
Hmmm so I'm kinda speechless about this movie, unless I'm talking to someone else who has also seen this movie and is interested in the topics it brings up. So the short of it is that it's a really... interesting doesn't quite cover it but I guess it'll do, interesting nontraditional documentary about African-American life, touching on how it intersects with feminism and homosexuality and gender identity. But that doesn't quite seem to cover it. It was produced, directed, and featured Marlon Riggs, a gay African-American poet, filmmaker, and activist, who would die from AIDS before the film could be properly finished. It was sorta amazing to Miss Kee and myself that this was done back in 1994, but many of the issues haven't really changed. I think that to me, the most exilarhating part was getting to see Angela Davis and bell hooks talk about their personal experiences of being young black women. But I think I most liked it because it dealt with these issues in a very upfront, honest, but personal matter.
Lastly....
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Ok, so it wasn't the first time I saw it. I originally went to see it with TyRoy at a local art house theater about a month ago. I'd read the book it is based on, the first in a series of three internationally bestselling Swedish novels, and TyRoy was reading it at the time. Miss Kee called me last week, asking if I'd heard about a movie that she'd been told about by a customer at work. This movie. So we went to see it together. She liked it.
I still liked it, though a second viewing allowed me to wonder about how much is lost on someone like Miss Kee, who hasn't read the books and probably isn't going to. It's a big story to fit in a two and a half hours.
A part of me is always interested in audience reaction when I see a movie in a theater. Or even with friends at home. When TyRoy and I went to see this movie, we were a bit worried for the audience. There are several brightly-lit scenes of sexual violence. We observed many.... um, how to put this nicely.... older people there. Many who looked older than my mom, who's in her early 50s. Now, because there is a good story, I think I might recommend it to my mom, but only with very strong warnings about the sexual violence. TyRoy and I heard some of the people talking about having read the book, so they should have known what they were in for, though I still contend that this movie shows the sexual violence in a more brightly-light, unblinking way than most American movies. But many of those older people talked solely about the rave reviews the movie recieved from the local paper. (Oh, yeah, and obviously we were eavesdropping.) We had read the review and it didn't warn about the violence. We were worried about these folks. But not as many people left as I thought. One woman my age left during one brutal scene, which I didn't blame her for. I'm starting to think that there should be a "Trigger Warning" website, just like many religious people go to movie review websites that tell them how in line (or not in line) a movie may be with their religious and moral beliefs, before they let their kids watch them or even watch them themselves. The second time I saw it, on a weekday afternoon, there were considerably less people there. But during the last major brutal scene of sexual violence, one older man left the theater, via the exit up front, by the screen. Miss Kee and I discussed the possible reasons for his departure after the film ended. She shared my first impression, that he had left solely because this scene involved sexual violence against a man, unlike the others. I thought that we should allow room for the explanation that he had just seen several scenes of sexual violence and thought that rest of the rather long movie would be like that, though it isn't after that scene.
Ok, well, that's it. I'm caught up. Nighty-night.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
So I wanted to make myself write more, no matter really what it was, so I thought I would start attempting to blog about every film I saw. So that starts here:
Title: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Year: 1962
Genres: Thriller, Horror
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson, Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson, Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg, Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt
For those who love horror but are a tad jaded by the current trends of lots of gore and torture porn, this movie will rekindle your love for horror and your admiration for directors who can really create suspense. Yes, I even talked to the screen, I was so invested in what was happening with these characters.
Alright, let's get the plot out of the way. There are a pair of sisters, blonde "Baby" Jane and brunette Blanche. Baby Jane has fame as a vaudeville performer in 1917, but is a mean little brat. Later, in the mid-1930s, as young women, Blanche gains sucess as a film actress, forcing the studio she works for to also hire her sister who is already a washed-up boozer who's day has passed. But then there's a horrible accident that leaves Blanche paralyzed from the waist down and in the care of her sister. There seems to have been a stasis for 20+ years, until Blanche decides they might be better apart.
Of course, what is a great movie without a great backstory, right? Basically, Davis and Crawford hated each other, so much so that there's a whole book about it. Crawford even campaigned against Davis winning the Best Actress Oscar for Baby Jane. But to me, I wonder if either of these actresses found anything striking about playing past their prime stars still deluding themselves, to one extent or another, that they are significant. It's also sad that they have to play down their looks and/or play up how badly they were aging (especially in Bette Davis' case) to play significant roles. Davis' Baby Jane character wants to attempt a comeback, having adult-sized versions of her childhood costumes made, and hiring a piano accompanyist, but the audience can see how grotesque and desperate this performance really is. I wonder if Davis felt like she was in on the joke, or if she was oblivious to the fact that part of how grotesque Baby Jane is to the audience is wrapped up in how ugly Davis is able to make herself. On the other hand, I get a certain pleasure from the knowledge that Joan Crawford, who would later become almost as famous as "Mommie Dearest" as she ever was as an actress, played the role of the tortured and terrified Blanche. There are several scenes that I know couldn't have been comfortable to film. Hehehe. Yes, I'm a mean person. So was she.
I definately recommend this movie for any lover of suspenseful movies. I'd warn contemporary audiences that the pacing of any film from earlier decades will not be what they are used to, but give it some time. If you find yourself bored, examine Baby Jane's face and think about what boozing and smoking and harsh chemicals are doing to your own body, how they will affect how you age. Also, there are some gaping plot holes, but please just suspend your disbelief. It was the 60s and you don't know what it was like back then, whippersnapper. But enjoy.
Title: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Year: 1962
Genres: Thriller, Horror
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson, Joan Crawford as Blanche Hudson, Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg, Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt
For those who love horror but are a tad jaded by the current trends of lots of gore and torture porn, this movie will rekindle your love for horror and your admiration for directors who can really create suspense. Yes, I even talked to the screen, I was so invested in what was happening with these characters.
Alright, let's get the plot out of the way. There are a pair of sisters, blonde "Baby" Jane and brunette Blanche. Baby Jane has fame as a vaudeville performer in 1917, but is a mean little brat. Later, in the mid-1930s, as young women, Blanche gains sucess as a film actress, forcing the studio she works for to also hire her sister who is already a washed-up boozer who's day has passed. But then there's a horrible accident that leaves Blanche paralyzed from the waist down and in the care of her sister. There seems to have been a stasis for 20+ years, until Blanche decides they might be better apart.
Of course, what is a great movie without a great backstory, right? Basically, Davis and Crawford hated each other, so much so that there's a whole book about it. Crawford even campaigned against Davis winning the Best Actress Oscar for Baby Jane. But to me, I wonder if either of these actresses found anything striking about playing past their prime stars still deluding themselves, to one extent or another, that they are significant. It's also sad that they have to play down their looks and/or play up how badly they were aging (especially in Bette Davis' case) to play significant roles. Davis' Baby Jane character wants to attempt a comeback, having adult-sized versions of her childhood costumes made, and hiring a piano accompanyist, but the audience can see how grotesque and desperate this performance really is. I wonder if Davis felt like she was in on the joke, or if she was oblivious to the fact that part of how grotesque Baby Jane is to the audience is wrapped up in how ugly Davis is able to make herself. On the other hand, I get a certain pleasure from the knowledge that Joan Crawford, who would later become almost as famous as "Mommie Dearest" as she ever was as an actress, played the role of the tortured and terrified Blanche. There are several scenes that I know couldn't have been comfortable to film. Hehehe. Yes, I'm a mean person. So was she.
I definately recommend this movie for any lover of suspenseful movies. I'd warn contemporary audiences that the pacing of any film from earlier decades will not be what they are used to, but give it some time. If you find yourself bored, examine Baby Jane's face and think about what boozing and smoking and harsh chemicals are doing to your own body, how they will affect how you age. Also, there are some gaping plot holes, but please just suspend your disbelief. It was the 60s and you don't know what it was like back then, whippersnapper. But enjoy.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The subconscious is a bitch
The house went on the market last weekend. The house that my grandparents built and raised their children in. The house I grew up in, full-time for the first 7 years of my life, then part-time, one weekend a month and holidays, for the rest of my youth. The house I could always call home, no matter what the situation. The house I've begrudgingly helped my family clear out and stage for sale. And, contrary to what we were expecting given the current housing market, there is already an offer on the table. And not flippers, who'll tear apart the house, or people who intend to rent out the house to people who'll leave the house in ruins. Nope, they're a young couple just about to be married.
My mom told me all of this Sunday. And I spent the rest of my time at TyRoy's that day crying. And a good deal of time since then too actually. I knew it'd be hard to do this, but I didn't know how hard. And the closer we got to actually being finished with the house, the harder it got for me. It was like losing my grandparents all over again. As melodramatic as it sounds, it was like I was letting them be killed, inch by inch, cleared out room by moved recliner. Intellectually, I know all the reasons we have to sell the house. It's owned by my mother and her two brothers. No one person has the money to buy the others out of the house. And no one (but me) wants to live there. They all have homes, or at least another town they call home, and don't want to leave them. And everyone could use the money from the sale of the house, especially my youngest uncle, the one who is living with cancer. Yes, intellectually, I know we have to sell it. But my heart just can't let it go.
I remember Sir telling me that life is not what happens TO you; life is just what happens. I keep trying to tell myself that, but I don't really think it is helping. As childist and, once again, melodramatic as this sounds, I feel like things keep getting taken away from me. Things I either really had no hand in building, such as my family and home, or things and people that entered my life when my circustances were different so I'm not sure I could replicate them now. It is easy to say that I can (and probably should) find/build a new home for myself and find new lovers when mine is transferred. But I cannot replace my grandparents or my uncle, who will be taken from me far too soon. And I am lost, confused, and absolutely rudderless when it comes to what to do when I actually can make a life of my own, when this death watch is over. (And yes, that is what it is. I value that he is here and I will love and care for him until he is gone, but I am only being honest, with others and myself, when I say that he will die, sooner than anyone could ever want. I refuse to apologize to people who think I'm cruel but have never watched with certain knowledge that a loved one is going to die. I also refuse to chase false hopes and miracle cures when there are no more left.)
All I want is someone who will listen to me and who I can believe them when they says they understand or that they are sorry. Someone who can show me enough emotion for me to believe that they sympathize with me. I have yet been able to find that, despite the fact that many I care for have diligently tried. Sadly, today I was once again reminded that those I could always count on to have both the emotional capacity and life experience to bring insight or a different point of view to a situation are cut off from me in this situation. Gram, always one to voice her opinion even when it was unsolicited, is no longer here to share and I'm sadly devoid of the supernatural powers I would need to hear her now. My uncle is...well, honestly, what could I say to him about all this? My mother is always there to listen and I know she is aware of what I am feeling to some degree, but I am afraid that she'd pull back all the caretaker responsibility she's entrusted in me, which would mean it would all fall on her. I don't want to be a martyr, but I don't want her to be one either. I believe the burden should be shared, as best we can manage, even if it tears us both apart.
Last night I had this dream. Now, most of my dreams are fantastical, rarely touching on real life situations, though things I have seen or thought about during the past day or days do pop up. Just my brain transfering memory around. But last night's dream mirrored what had been happening with the house during the preparation phase: Mom was trying to keep everyone on task, though that is easier said than done. My uncle was hindering progress, "Well we can't do A because of X. We can't empty the garage because it's too cold today. Etc." My step-dad was supposed to be fixing things but he was really just making a big mess. And my gram and I were mostly just crying. (Oddly, in dreams, my gram is usually still alive while my grandfather either appears as a ghost or I know he's dead despite the fact that he's physically solid. My mom suggested that it was because I was there when my grandfather died so his death is more real to me.) Back to inside the dream, where my mother and I ran an errand to go pick up some things from the local lumber yard, which was owned and run by Dr. Phil (who knows). I was thinking about how I should send out a tweet/facebook status update, but all I wanted to write was, "This is all your fault. I will never forgive you. I will hate you until the day you die," which in my mind was directed at my uncle. That's about the time I woke up. And when I was slapped in the face by that evil little reality. That despite how much I might love my family and want to help as much as I can in all this, I'm also bitter and frustrated and hateful. I detest that it is so, but it is. And I have no more idea what to do about it than I do anything else.
On a brighter note, my mom also had a dream. She dreamt that I had become a famous and wealthy writer of cheesy romance novels. Of course, I wrote under a pen name, something equally cheesy, like Sweetpea Smith, and none of my friends believed me when I told them that it was really me who was that famous and wealthy writer. (Mom must have seen Lethal Weapon 4 recently. Wasn't it 4 where the one cop's wife was actually a romance writer and that's how they could afford all their stuff?) But every year I sent a Christmas card to my grandparents' former house, telling them that if they ever wanted to sell the place, I'd pay handsomely. Finally, one year, they bit. Then, I started buying up all the houses around my grandparents' house, demolishing them all and building a big mansion on the hill. And you had to take Sweetpea Lane to get there (or whatever my pen name was.) Mom didn't say whether or not I left my grandparents' house standing or not. I bet I did, though. Well, a girl can dream, right? Guess I should get to writing those romance novels.
My mom told me all of this Sunday. And I spent the rest of my time at TyRoy's that day crying. And a good deal of time since then too actually. I knew it'd be hard to do this, but I didn't know how hard. And the closer we got to actually being finished with the house, the harder it got for me. It was like losing my grandparents all over again. As melodramatic as it sounds, it was like I was letting them be killed, inch by inch, cleared out room by moved recliner. Intellectually, I know all the reasons we have to sell the house. It's owned by my mother and her two brothers. No one person has the money to buy the others out of the house. And no one (but me) wants to live there. They all have homes, or at least another town they call home, and don't want to leave them. And everyone could use the money from the sale of the house, especially my youngest uncle, the one who is living with cancer. Yes, intellectually, I know we have to sell it. But my heart just can't let it go.
I remember Sir telling me that life is not what happens TO you; life is just what happens. I keep trying to tell myself that, but I don't really think it is helping. As childist and, once again, melodramatic as this sounds, I feel like things keep getting taken away from me. Things I either really had no hand in building, such as my family and home, or things and people that entered my life when my circustances were different so I'm not sure I could replicate them now. It is easy to say that I can (and probably should) find/build a new home for myself and find new lovers when mine is transferred. But I cannot replace my grandparents or my uncle, who will be taken from me far too soon. And I am lost, confused, and absolutely rudderless when it comes to what to do when I actually can make a life of my own, when this death watch is over. (And yes, that is what it is. I value that he is here and I will love and care for him until he is gone, but I am only being honest, with others and myself, when I say that he will die, sooner than anyone could ever want. I refuse to apologize to people who think I'm cruel but have never watched with certain knowledge that a loved one is going to die. I also refuse to chase false hopes and miracle cures when there are no more left.)
All I want is someone who will listen to me and who I can believe them when they says they understand or that they are sorry. Someone who can show me enough emotion for me to believe that they sympathize with me. I have yet been able to find that, despite the fact that many I care for have diligently tried. Sadly, today I was once again reminded that those I could always count on to have both the emotional capacity and life experience to bring insight or a different point of view to a situation are cut off from me in this situation. Gram, always one to voice her opinion even when it was unsolicited, is no longer here to share and I'm sadly devoid of the supernatural powers I would need to hear her now. My uncle is...well, honestly, what could I say to him about all this? My mother is always there to listen and I know she is aware of what I am feeling to some degree, but I am afraid that she'd pull back all the caretaker responsibility she's entrusted in me, which would mean it would all fall on her. I don't want to be a martyr, but I don't want her to be one either. I believe the burden should be shared, as best we can manage, even if it tears us both apart.
Last night I had this dream. Now, most of my dreams are fantastical, rarely touching on real life situations, though things I have seen or thought about during the past day or days do pop up. Just my brain transfering memory around. But last night's dream mirrored what had been happening with the house during the preparation phase: Mom was trying to keep everyone on task, though that is easier said than done. My uncle was hindering progress, "Well we can't do A because of X. We can't empty the garage because it's too cold today. Etc." My step-dad was supposed to be fixing things but he was really just making a big mess. And my gram and I were mostly just crying. (Oddly, in dreams, my gram is usually still alive while my grandfather either appears as a ghost or I know he's dead despite the fact that he's physically solid. My mom suggested that it was because I was there when my grandfather died so his death is more real to me.) Back to inside the dream, where my mother and I ran an errand to go pick up some things from the local lumber yard, which was owned and run by Dr. Phil (who knows). I was thinking about how I should send out a tweet/facebook status update, but all I wanted to write was, "This is all your fault. I will never forgive you. I will hate you until the day you die," which in my mind was directed at my uncle. That's about the time I woke up. And when I was slapped in the face by that evil little reality. That despite how much I might love my family and want to help as much as I can in all this, I'm also bitter and frustrated and hateful. I detest that it is so, but it is. And I have no more idea what to do about it than I do anything else.
On a brighter note, my mom also had a dream. She dreamt that I had become a famous and wealthy writer of cheesy romance novels. Of course, I wrote under a pen name, something equally cheesy, like Sweetpea Smith, and none of my friends believed me when I told them that it was really me who was that famous and wealthy writer. (Mom must have seen Lethal Weapon 4 recently. Wasn't it 4 where the one cop's wife was actually a romance writer and that's how they could afford all their stuff?) But every year I sent a Christmas card to my grandparents' former house, telling them that if they ever wanted to sell the place, I'd pay handsomely. Finally, one year, they bit. Then, I started buying up all the houses around my grandparents' house, demolishing them all and building a big mansion on the hill. And you had to take Sweetpea Lane to get there (or whatever my pen name was.) Mom didn't say whether or not I left my grandparents' house standing or not. I bet I did, though. Well, a girl can dream, right? Guess I should get to writing those romance novels.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
House That Built Me - Miranda Lambert
Yeah, I know this is a country one, but there's something on youtube about it also having been recorded by pop chick Kelly Clarkson, so suck it up. It's a beautiful song and one that I think many of us can relate to.
I first heard this song on the first trip I made to help get my Grandma's house ready for sale. Of course, it made me bawl my eyes out and it still does. From the time my gram died, I didn't want to give up the house. Still don't, but now I see why it's necessary and I'll tow the party line on this one. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to think about other people living in that house or to know that soon I'll never be able to go back to that "home" again. And, despite that fact that I've lived many places, none but my grandparents' house was ever really home to me. Hell, it was even where I retreated to after the home invasion and attempted burglary of the first place I lived "on my own." It was the one place I knew I"d feel safe at a time when I couldn't bear to close my eyes to sleep after dark.
So here's the song. I hope it makes you into a blubbering idiot just like it does me. :P
House that Built Me
(skip to about 1:20 on the video to get to song)
I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From "Better Homes and Garden" magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama's dream.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
I first heard this song on the first trip I made to help get my Grandma's house ready for sale. Of course, it made me bawl my eyes out and it still does. From the time my gram died, I didn't want to give up the house. Still don't, but now I see why it's necessary and I'll tow the party line on this one. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to think about other people living in that house or to know that soon I'll never be able to go back to that "home" again. And, despite that fact that I've lived many places, none but my grandparents' house was ever really home to me. Hell, it was even where I retreated to after the home invasion and attempted burglary of the first place I lived "on my own." It was the one place I knew I"d feel safe at a time when I couldn't bear to close my eyes to sleep after dark.
So here's the song. I hope it makes you into a blubbering idiot just like it does me. :P
House that Built Me
(skip to about 1:20 on the video to get to song)
I know they say you cant go home again.
I just had to come back one last time.
Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam.
But these handprints on the front steps are mine.
And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom
is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.
And I bet you didn't know under that live oak
my favorite dog is buried in the yard.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
Mama cut out pictures of houses for years.
From "Better Homes and Garden" magazines.
Plans were drawn, concrete poured,
and nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama's dream.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could just come in I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
You leave home, you move on and you do the best you can.
I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am.
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like i'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.
If I could walk around I swear i'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Sacrifing at the Altar of Mental Health
Possibly TMI (too much information) about personal sexual matters. Read with caution.
This probably won't be your typical post, with a real point to it. Mostly just venting because I don't know what else to do. I fear that if I don't DO something, I'll just curl up in a ball and shut down. I don't want to shut down. But I don't really know what to do to help. And there really isn't an immediate crisis that needs tending to, more an internal personal crisis. So just bear with me as I vent. If you have constructive criticism or helpful advice, feel free to give it to me. If not, no worries, thanks for at least bearing witness to my cry to heaven.
I had a fiction teacher who told us that melodrama ended in a perfect bind where someone had to die for it to be resolved, where all the choices left to the protagonist were horrible ones, usually being suicide or murder. I guess I'm being overly melodramatic by comparing that to my situation, but I do feel like I'm in a double bind.
The lithium has saved my life and put me on an even keel. I cannot imagine going of this medication because I honestly don't want to return to being so imbalanced, to having to constantly right against manic suicidality, or the lovely hospital stays. BUT it has changed my personality and habits in ways that I do not like and can't see myself living with long-term. This is especially true in the case of my sex drive, sexual interests, and sexual response. So in addition to my ability to think quickly and in depth, which I've talked about before, I'm also sacrificing my sex life on the altar of 'mental health.'
My psychiatrist asked me to think of these changes in my mood, behavior, thought process, etc, as bringing me closer to normal, as showing me how un-normal my thinking was previously, before the lithium, so I might appreciate this new way of thinking. Sigh. That was before all the sex stuff really kicked me in the teeth. Without going into too much detail about the circumstances, TyRoy and I decided to indulge in some even-less-mainstream sexual adventures. Part of it was that we just never really took advantage of having each other this time, of having a crazy freaky sex partner who would be up for sexual adventures with other people and TyRoy will be transfered by his job in the next 6 months. For me, there was another part- I just hadn't been as interested in sex since I had started taking the lithium. I wasn't looking for outside sex partners, like on Craigslist or other personal's sites. I haven't been having solo flights, despite a pretty new 'jackrabbit'-type vibe. While TyRoy had known for about a year that I hadn't been as horny, I don't think he really realized the fully extent of the change in me, mostly because I don't often turn him down and I thoroughly enjoy it when we do have sex. Honestly, I think I was trying to deny the whole situation. But the adventure we sought out this past weekend meant I had to face it. Or...well, face it only to run away like a giant coward, while my issues chased after me, refusing to be ignored.
I don't like this person that I feel I've become now. I don't like this woman. When I was much younger, I recognized that I might not be the unattainable heartbreaking lady who existed in so many pop songs, but I could at least be that lover who pulled you into bed with passion and fire and a VERY open-mind. I wanted to try almost everything sexual. I've known for a long time that I many kinky interests. After finding Savage Love, I realized that I always wanted to try to be GGG (good, giving, and game) and that I wanted to try to create a continiously loving and sexual relationship with any and every long term partner. But this me doesn't have the same interest in actually having sex. I do think about sex all the time. I like learning about it still. It doesn't turn me off. But actually having sex, even with my hot stud of a not-boyfriend, is more like eating dinner at 6pm when you aren't exactly hungry. You do it because it's that time. It tastes great. And you feel much better after you're done, so you do it. But I don't want sex to be like that. I still want to seek out new sexual experiences. I mean, what is an open-mind about all these sexual things if you can't use it to actually DO something?
I also fear for my next sexual relationship. I don't think the sexual relationship with TyRoy has necessarily suffered but that is because he prefers initiating sex, so it's not as if alot has changed. But not all people are like that. Also, fairly, most men and women want their partner to initiate sex at least part of the time. They don't want to feel like they are always pushing themselves on their partner. They want to feel like their partner also wants them enough to get the action started. Goddess help me if I get with a person who is used to their partner being their aggressor. They'll be waiting forever and we'll never have sex.
Fuck, I just feel like things, possibilities just keep getting taken away from me. I'm in all these no-win situations. I know in my heart I'll almost always make the right decision, do the less selfish thing, but a little part of me doesn't want to. I want to run away. Every time I think about that, think about sharing that sentence with someone else, especially whenever I'd think about texting it to MP, I'd realize how 'teenager' that sounded. But maybe part of me is stuck back there. And I lack all the hallmarks of adulthood - degrees, career, children, ownership. But I do have that restlessness still. There are many times that I just wish I could start over, as if a new place and new life would erase history and mental illness. Well, life is longer than we think. Maybe I'll get to try it out yet.
My mom seems to think the lithium is some kind of miracle in my life. Maybe it is. But I still don't have a job and I still disappear into sleep for 12-48 hours at a time every week or two. I asked TyRoy, point blank, if he prefered how I was before the lithium or how I am now with the lack of sexual adventure. After only a few seconds of thought, he answered that he prefered me now, lacking in sexual adventure, but no longer prone to show up at his house at 10 pm after I'd been threatening suicide all night. I do see his point. But there's always a "BUT..." for me.
Is it wrong that I wonder how it might have been decades, centuries ago, before psychiatric drugs? I guess I'm thinking of the romanticized lives of artists, though, while they may have lived 'romantic' lives, they often lived lives of poverty, just like everyone else of their day who suffered from a mental illness and was unable to work and/or self-medicated with alcohol.
I don't think I've gotten any further in my thinking but at least I did something and now I'm closer to tired. Thanks for listening.
This probably won't be your typical post, with a real point to it. Mostly just venting because I don't know what else to do. I fear that if I don't DO something, I'll just curl up in a ball and shut down. I don't want to shut down. But I don't really know what to do to help. And there really isn't an immediate crisis that needs tending to, more an internal personal crisis. So just bear with me as I vent. If you have constructive criticism or helpful advice, feel free to give it to me. If not, no worries, thanks for at least bearing witness to my cry to heaven.
I had a fiction teacher who told us that melodrama ended in a perfect bind where someone had to die for it to be resolved, where all the choices left to the protagonist were horrible ones, usually being suicide or murder. I guess I'm being overly melodramatic by comparing that to my situation, but I do feel like I'm in a double bind.
The lithium has saved my life and put me on an even keel. I cannot imagine going of this medication because I honestly don't want to return to being so imbalanced, to having to constantly right against manic suicidality, or the lovely hospital stays. BUT it has changed my personality and habits in ways that I do not like and can't see myself living with long-term. This is especially true in the case of my sex drive, sexual interests, and sexual response. So in addition to my ability to think quickly and in depth, which I've talked about before, I'm also sacrificing my sex life on the altar of 'mental health.'
My psychiatrist asked me to think of these changes in my mood, behavior, thought process, etc, as bringing me closer to normal, as showing me how un-normal my thinking was previously, before the lithium, so I might appreciate this new way of thinking. Sigh. That was before all the sex stuff really kicked me in the teeth. Without going into too much detail about the circumstances, TyRoy and I decided to indulge in some even-less-mainstream sexual adventures. Part of it was that we just never really took advantage of having each other this time, of having a crazy freaky sex partner who would be up for sexual adventures with other people and TyRoy will be transfered by his job in the next 6 months. For me, there was another part- I just hadn't been as interested in sex since I had started taking the lithium. I wasn't looking for outside sex partners, like on Craigslist or other personal's sites. I haven't been having solo flights, despite a pretty new 'jackrabbit'-type vibe. While TyRoy had known for about a year that I hadn't been as horny, I don't think he really realized the fully extent of the change in me, mostly because I don't often turn him down and I thoroughly enjoy it when we do have sex. Honestly, I think I was trying to deny the whole situation. But the adventure we sought out this past weekend meant I had to face it. Or...well, face it only to run away like a giant coward, while my issues chased after me, refusing to be ignored.
I don't like this person that I feel I've become now. I don't like this woman. When I was much younger, I recognized that I might not be the unattainable heartbreaking lady who existed in so many pop songs, but I could at least be that lover who pulled you into bed with passion and fire and a VERY open-mind. I wanted to try almost everything sexual. I've known for a long time that I many kinky interests. After finding Savage Love, I realized that I always wanted to try to be GGG (good, giving, and game) and that I wanted to try to create a continiously loving and sexual relationship with any and every long term partner. But this me doesn't have the same interest in actually having sex. I do think about sex all the time. I like learning about it still. It doesn't turn me off. But actually having sex, even with my hot stud of a not-boyfriend, is more like eating dinner at 6pm when you aren't exactly hungry. You do it because it's that time. It tastes great. And you feel much better after you're done, so you do it. But I don't want sex to be like that. I still want to seek out new sexual experiences. I mean, what is an open-mind about all these sexual things if you can't use it to actually DO something?
I also fear for my next sexual relationship. I don't think the sexual relationship with TyRoy has necessarily suffered but that is because he prefers initiating sex, so it's not as if alot has changed. But not all people are like that. Also, fairly, most men and women want their partner to initiate sex at least part of the time. They don't want to feel like they are always pushing themselves on their partner. They want to feel like their partner also wants them enough to get the action started. Goddess help me if I get with a person who is used to their partner being their aggressor. They'll be waiting forever and we'll never have sex.
Fuck, I just feel like things, possibilities just keep getting taken away from me. I'm in all these no-win situations. I know in my heart I'll almost always make the right decision, do the less selfish thing, but a little part of me doesn't want to. I want to run away. Every time I think about that, think about sharing that sentence with someone else, especially whenever I'd think about texting it to MP, I'd realize how 'teenager' that sounded. But maybe part of me is stuck back there. And I lack all the hallmarks of adulthood - degrees, career, children, ownership. But I do have that restlessness still. There are many times that I just wish I could start over, as if a new place and new life would erase history and mental illness. Well, life is longer than we think. Maybe I'll get to try it out yet.
My mom seems to think the lithium is some kind of miracle in my life. Maybe it is. But I still don't have a job and I still disappear into sleep for 12-48 hours at a time every week or two. I asked TyRoy, point blank, if he prefered how I was before the lithium or how I am now with the lack of sexual adventure. After only a few seconds of thought, he answered that he prefered me now, lacking in sexual adventure, but no longer prone to show up at his house at 10 pm after I'd been threatening suicide all night. I do see his point. But there's always a "BUT..." for me.
Is it wrong that I wonder how it might have been decades, centuries ago, before psychiatric drugs? I guess I'm thinking of the romanticized lives of artists, though, while they may have lived 'romantic' lives, they often lived lives of poverty, just like everyone else of their day who suffered from a mental illness and was unable to work and/or self-medicated with alcohol.
I don't think I've gotten any further in my thinking but at least I did something and now I'm closer to tired. Thanks for listening.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Public Smoking
There's something luxurious about having a girl light your cigarette. In fact, I got married once on account of that. ~Harold Robbins [true for me, only it was a man who lit my cigarette]
There's a lot of people who, a cigarette is about the only vacation they have. ~Trey Parker, mini-commentary on DVD South Park episode "Butt Out"
I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker.... but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table. ~Michelle Pfeiffer
Ah, smoking! How I love it! As in the last quote, I don't particularly like identifying myself as a non-smoker or a former-smoker. It's like saying you are celibate just because you can't find anyone to have sex with you. And, like the author of the first quote, I fell in love with sexy french inhale as much as I did a man. Also, I'm not a fan of smoking bans for restaurants and especially not for bars. It just doesn't seem natural to not be able to smoke when you are drinking in public.
BUT
I'm quickly discovering that not being able to breath sucks ass. Now I've always had what I called a slight case of "exercise-induced" asthma, though that probably wasn't really asthma. It was just that I was overweight and out of shape, so, when I'd physically exert myself, I'd have trouble breathing and my lungs burned. Asthma sounded better than fat and out of shape though.
But I did begin having real problems over this past summer. I continued to cough and wheeze after a particularly difficult to cure case of strep throat, during which I also had issues keeping down my medications. Now, my throat, esophagus, and perhaps even my lungs have some level of damage from years of acid reflux and the vomitting that came along with painful gall stones and gall bladder issues several years ago. When I couldn't get the coughing and wheezing to stop and I had several severe incidents of shortness of breath, I finally went to a doctor. After seeing a general practitioner and then a team of pulmonologists, it was concluded that I had adult-onset asthma. They weren't really sure what caused it and finding out would be even more expensive and wouldn't assist in my treatment, so no further testing was done. The doctor conceded that my weight and acid reflux might be contributing factors, but they weren't the only thing causing my current condition. I now use Symbicort twice daily, though I'm about at the end of my samples and I can't afford the $200 a month that it costs. I also have Abuterol rescue inhalers that I inherited from my grandmother.
OK SO WHY AM I TELLING YA'LL THIS?
I am sharing all this because I wanted to help you, those who know me and hang out with me, why it is important to me to know beforehand if a place we are planning on going allows smoking. The times that I have brought this issue up, I felt like I was dismissed for being worried about it when everyone knows that no place allows smoking anymore, which obviously isn't true as several places our group has gone to in the past several months have allowed smoking. Some townships and areas of the metro still allow smoking in restaurants and bars, though it is often difficult to know where those city lines are drawn and who allows what. But it is important to me to be able to decide for myself if I want to be in that environment and to plan ahead by not being anyone's driver and making sure I have my abuterol. (Yes, I know I should ALWAY have a rescue inhaler, but I don't always like dragging around a purse full of everything I might possibly need.) And finding out only after I've arrived, especially when I either rode with someone or drove someone to the location, makes me feel obligated to stay in a situation in which I'm uncomfortable, which leads to me feeling annoyed, bitchy, and anti-social.
I would also like to point out that all people with a certain illness are not the same in how they experience and deal with that. Just because somebody else in our group might also have asthma and does not seem to be bothered by smoke doesn't mean that my own requests should be dismissed. While not a perfect metaphor, some recoving alcoholics can be in places where liquor is served while other recovering alcoholics could not handle the temptation or the environment. Either way, one would hope that their friends would not be dismissive of any requests they made so that they could take responsibility for their own health.
I don't want to make this into a "this person did or didn't do this" and I know that I didn't mention this to all of you. I wrote this because I obviously wasn't clear enough in what I was hoping for when I did mention it to the people I did so I thought I'd attempt to explain why and be clear to everyone. So I would ask anyone who plans an outing to find out if a place allows smoking and to let everyone know, especially me. If you are uncertain, especially if a place is in Shawnee, Merriam, or North Kansas City (the places that I think might all still allow smoking), call and ask. Thank you. Once again, I have no problem with smoking, smokers, or smoking in public places. I am also not asking for anyone else not to go or for events not to be planned at places where there is smoking. I just know that I'd appreciate a heads up so that I can make that decision for myself, and I"m sure there are others who would to.
There's a lot of people who, a cigarette is about the only vacation they have. ~Trey Parker, mini-commentary on DVD South Park episode "Butt Out"
I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker.... but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table. ~Michelle Pfeiffer
Ah, smoking! How I love it! As in the last quote, I don't particularly like identifying myself as a non-smoker or a former-smoker. It's like saying you are celibate just because you can't find anyone to have sex with you. And, like the author of the first quote, I fell in love with sexy french inhale as much as I did a man. Also, I'm not a fan of smoking bans for restaurants and especially not for bars. It just doesn't seem natural to not be able to smoke when you are drinking in public.
BUT
I'm quickly discovering that not being able to breath sucks ass. Now I've always had what I called a slight case of "exercise-induced" asthma, though that probably wasn't really asthma. It was just that I was overweight and out of shape, so, when I'd physically exert myself, I'd have trouble breathing and my lungs burned. Asthma sounded better than fat and out of shape though.
But I did begin having real problems over this past summer. I continued to cough and wheeze after a particularly difficult to cure case of strep throat, during which I also had issues keeping down my medications. Now, my throat, esophagus, and perhaps even my lungs have some level of damage from years of acid reflux and the vomitting that came along with painful gall stones and gall bladder issues several years ago. When I couldn't get the coughing and wheezing to stop and I had several severe incidents of shortness of breath, I finally went to a doctor. After seeing a general practitioner and then a team of pulmonologists, it was concluded that I had adult-onset asthma. They weren't really sure what caused it and finding out would be even more expensive and wouldn't assist in my treatment, so no further testing was done. The doctor conceded that my weight and acid reflux might be contributing factors, but they weren't the only thing causing my current condition. I now use Symbicort twice daily, though I'm about at the end of my samples and I can't afford the $200 a month that it costs. I also have Abuterol rescue inhalers that I inherited from my grandmother.
OK SO WHY AM I TELLING YA'LL THIS?
I am sharing all this because I wanted to help you, those who know me and hang out with me, why it is important to me to know beforehand if a place we are planning on going allows smoking. The times that I have brought this issue up, I felt like I was dismissed for being worried about it when everyone knows that no place allows smoking anymore, which obviously isn't true as several places our group has gone to in the past several months have allowed smoking. Some townships and areas of the metro still allow smoking in restaurants and bars, though it is often difficult to know where those city lines are drawn and who allows what. But it is important to me to be able to decide for myself if I want to be in that environment and to plan ahead by not being anyone's driver and making sure I have my abuterol. (Yes, I know I should ALWAY have a rescue inhaler, but I don't always like dragging around a purse full of everything I might possibly need.) And finding out only after I've arrived, especially when I either rode with someone or drove someone to the location, makes me feel obligated to stay in a situation in which I'm uncomfortable, which leads to me feeling annoyed, bitchy, and anti-social.
I would also like to point out that all people with a certain illness are not the same in how they experience and deal with that. Just because somebody else in our group might also have asthma and does not seem to be bothered by smoke doesn't mean that my own requests should be dismissed. While not a perfect metaphor, some recoving alcoholics can be in places where liquor is served while other recovering alcoholics could not handle the temptation or the environment. Either way, one would hope that their friends would not be dismissive of any requests they made so that they could take responsibility for their own health.
I don't want to make this into a "this person did or didn't do this" and I know that I didn't mention this to all of you. I wrote this because I obviously wasn't clear enough in what I was hoping for when I did mention it to the people I did so I thought I'd attempt to explain why and be clear to everyone. So I would ask anyone who plans an outing to find out if a place allows smoking and to let everyone know, especially me. If you are uncertain, especially if a place is in Shawnee, Merriam, or North Kansas City (the places that I think might all still allow smoking), call and ask. Thank you. Once again, I have no problem with smoking, smokers, or smoking in public places. I am also not asking for anyone else not to go or for events not to be planned at places where there is smoking. I just know that I'd appreciate a heads up so that I can make that decision for myself, and I"m sure there are others who would to.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Temporarily Abled
I'd like to start out by saying that I do feel kinda silly writing this. I worry that I always sound like I'm complaining or whining, that my life and what I am able to do does not look the same from the outside, which means I shouldn't vent this stuff, that I don't have permission from... society? to express this. But lately I've been reading more and more about people living with disability, especially hidden disabilities, from the people themselves, most notably on Feministe and Three Rivers Fog. Not only has it raised my consciousness in dealing with and looking at those who do and do not fit our stereotypes of atypical ability and atypical neurological states, but it has also allowed me to contemplate the ways that I might not currently be as abled as I might be expected to be. I hope that makes sense. I'd don't know all the right terms, but I think it makes sense.
For a while now, I've recognized that I spend large chunks of my life planning for when my life will really begin. While I've been thinking lately about one small segment of my life in particular, that of working a paying job, I seem to be bumping into some of the same issues. First, I had to get my meds straightened out. Then, it was just hard to find a job. Next, Gram passed and I stayed in Slightly Larger Midwest City to help my uncle who was undergoing a treatment there. Now, as my uncle gets chemo in his hometown, I'm commuting the four-hour roundtrip to help him when he gets chemo and playing homemaker when I'm home. Though I might have heard it before and just tuned out, I was told last week that my uncle will likely be on chemo either for the rest of his life or until his body can't handle it anymore, so I'm not thinking that this commute will end anytime soon.
But when I honestly reflect on my last ten years of employment history, ok so all of my employment history, I haven't really been able to commit to anything for a long period of time. The best I've been able to eek out were two one-year stints at part-time jobs. There are various reasons behind this, though a great many of the times I quit jobs had to do with symptoms of my issues with depression and/or bipolar disorder. The biggest of those symptoms was disordered sleep. That hasn't gotten any better and is the biggest issue that I see in any job-seeking future.
For awhile, I thought the root of the problem was getting to sleep. And it is a part of the problem. But when I take an honest look at it, I have times when I sleep 24, or even 48, hours, straight through. At the very least, when I don't force myself to get up, I sleep about twelve hours. Now, for as much as I know a great many people who'd love to be able to sleep that long, ever, it really isn't normal and it definately isn't condusive to working an outside the home paying job. I have, to a certain extent, been able to get when I go to sleep under control, when I want to, when I take the time and thought to really plan taking certain meds at certain times and then making a point of relaxing after that. Oh, yeah, unless my legs start acting up and then I'm screwed. But getting up on time is.... well, I'm barely able to do it. With the exception of my uncle's chemo days and then I'm on it.
Which leads people to tell me to just FORCE myself to get up on time, to pull myself up by my bootstraps and be like a normal person. I mean, if I can do it for my uncle's chemo day, why can't I do it for other days? For a regular job? Or an irregular job? Well, mostly because that takes alot out of me. Friday I slept all day, until about 9pm. I was only up until about 3am until I went back to sleep and didn't get up again until I was dragged out of bed at 8:40pm. I also slept for over 12 hours on Sunday. I was up all day Monday, only to sleep 25 hours on Tuesday. So being up to make sure my uncle is on time and has company meant that I slept through the next five days. I don't mean for that to sound like I'm complaining. I'm not and it's totally worth it to be there for my uncle. BUT that's the reality of my situation.
So I'm starting to wonder if, after all this is done, all I have to look forward to is a string of mind-numbing part-time jobs, which barely pay for my meds anyway, that I keep for a maximum of a year. This really isn't alot to look forward to. When the doctor at the pulmonologist suggested I go on disability, honestly, I was kinda appalled. I guess my main thought was that I wasn't really that bad, I wasn't dis-abled enough by my condition that I was unable to work. There's also another part of me that suspects that, if I got disability, it would take it away from another person who had less resources than I. But now I'm worried that, even when the economy gets better and all this is done, I won't be able to find and maintain a paying job, even a part-time one.
Not sure what I'm looking for here guys. Guess partly just to vent and share my own experience. Maybe to find some advice or experience that I haven't heard before, though I'm not sure that exists. Fuck. Whatever.
For a while now, I've recognized that I spend large chunks of my life planning for when my life will really begin. While I've been thinking lately about one small segment of my life in particular, that of working a paying job, I seem to be bumping into some of the same issues. First, I had to get my meds straightened out. Then, it was just hard to find a job. Next, Gram passed and I stayed in Slightly Larger Midwest City to help my uncle who was undergoing a treatment there. Now, as my uncle gets chemo in his hometown, I'm commuting the four-hour roundtrip to help him when he gets chemo and playing homemaker when I'm home. Though I might have heard it before and just tuned out, I was told last week that my uncle will likely be on chemo either for the rest of his life or until his body can't handle it anymore, so I'm not thinking that this commute will end anytime soon.
But when I honestly reflect on my last ten years of employment history, ok so all of my employment history, I haven't really been able to commit to anything for a long period of time. The best I've been able to eek out were two one-year stints at part-time jobs. There are various reasons behind this, though a great many of the times I quit jobs had to do with symptoms of my issues with depression and/or bipolar disorder. The biggest of those symptoms was disordered sleep. That hasn't gotten any better and is the biggest issue that I see in any job-seeking future.
For awhile, I thought the root of the problem was getting to sleep. And it is a part of the problem. But when I take an honest look at it, I have times when I sleep 24, or even 48, hours, straight through. At the very least, when I don't force myself to get up, I sleep about twelve hours. Now, for as much as I know a great many people who'd love to be able to sleep that long, ever, it really isn't normal and it definately isn't condusive to working an outside the home paying job. I have, to a certain extent, been able to get when I go to sleep under control, when I want to, when I take the time and thought to really plan taking certain meds at certain times and then making a point of relaxing after that. Oh, yeah, unless my legs start acting up and then I'm screwed. But getting up on time is.... well, I'm barely able to do it. With the exception of my uncle's chemo days and then I'm on it.
Which leads people to tell me to just FORCE myself to get up on time, to pull myself up by my bootstraps and be like a normal person. I mean, if I can do it for my uncle's chemo day, why can't I do it for other days? For a regular job? Or an irregular job? Well, mostly because that takes alot out of me. Friday I slept all day, until about 9pm. I was only up until about 3am until I went back to sleep and didn't get up again until I was dragged out of bed at 8:40pm. I also slept for over 12 hours on Sunday. I was up all day Monday, only to sleep 25 hours on Tuesday. So being up to make sure my uncle is on time and has company meant that I slept through the next five days. I don't mean for that to sound like I'm complaining. I'm not and it's totally worth it to be there for my uncle. BUT that's the reality of my situation.
So I'm starting to wonder if, after all this is done, all I have to look forward to is a string of mind-numbing part-time jobs, which barely pay for my meds anyway, that I keep for a maximum of a year. This really isn't alot to look forward to. When the doctor at the pulmonologist suggested I go on disability, honestly, I was kinda appalled. I guess my main thought was that I wasn't really that bad, I wasn't dis-abled enough by my condition that I was unable to work. There's also another part of me that suspects that, if I got disability, it would take it away from another person who had less resources than I. But now I'm worried that, even when the economy gets better and all this is done, I won't be able to find and maintain a paying job, even a part-time one.
Not sure what I'm looking for here guys. Guess partly just to vent and share my own experience. Maybe to find some advice or experience that I haven't heard before, though I'm not sure that exists. Fuck. Whatever.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
CPOS vs HNMG
"I could never be in an open relationship," is something I hear quite often from my friends and acquaintances. Strangely, most of these people have cheated, have been cheated on, are currently cheating, or are actively contemplating cheating on their significant other. Hell, I was one of those people myself. I was a Cheating Piece of Shit in every single monogamous relationship I attempted. That was part of what lead me to try being an Honest Non-monogamous Gal.
"I would be too jealous. I couldn't stand the thought of my significant other being with someone else." Jealousy is actually another big reason why I chose to be non-monogamous. In a strange way, I trace most of my cheating back to my own jealousy. Here's the script: Significant Other is currently having a life- hanging out with people of both sexes, doing things that I'm not particularly interested it, working, going to school. During this time when SO is not with me, my big imagination is writing stories about a BJ from a waitress at the restaurant SO's friends hang at or a passionate but as yet unconsummated love affair with the nerd chick in SO's robotics class. These imaginings lead to me starting fights, making accusations, being cold, and generally pushing my partner away. Now I begin to feel a distance, not realizing that I created it, but it still leads me to feel unloved, uncared for, etc, which means that I'm unworthy. Then, when someone, anyone, starts to show me attention, affection, well, I jump at the chance to feel good again. What's worse is that the guilt about the cheating makes me feel even worse about being around my SO, the one person I actually do want to work it all out with, so I'm left with the only person who still makes me feel good, the person I cheated with.
So why not flip the script? If I'm always dreaming imaginary liasons for my SO, why not let hir have real ones, safely, honestly, and openly? If I'm always worried that my SO wants someone else more than me, won't I feel more secure when zi comes home to me? If I don't push my SO away with the things I only imagine, because I now know exactly what is happening, won't that be one less thing to come between us? And a fresh injection of new attention on my side, without the guilt, could be enough to keep things fresh and new. Also, I think that it helps to break the cycle in which I cling on for dear life to my SO, even when the relationship should have ended long ago, even when we are not good for each other, even when we are emotionally abusing each other, just because I feel like I will have nothing left without that person. Don't get me wrong: That break-up is still gonna hurt like hell. But it makes it easier to know that you have at least one person who's bed you can find comfort in, even if that person isn't ever going to be the next love of your life. Especially because you've hopefully also chosen a person who can be a friend and can understand the grief you're feeling. Maybe you also helped them through theirs.
When I try to explain any part of this to most people, anyone not in the choir, I get the feeling that I'm talking past them. I think some people think I'm a slutty party girl with daddy issues who is sleeping around until she finds her Prince/Princess Charming. I think other people think I'm jaded, had one too many bad relationships, but that it will all change when I meet the right person. The rest just think I'm a weirdo. None of them think that it will ever work. That someone will get hurt, that someone is bound to get jealous, that no one will ever be happy in this situation. That is true. But do you know what else is true? That people in monogamous relationships get hurt, get jealous, and very few, if any, are happy. I can't say that this take on relationships has worked spectacularly, but my previous take didn't either. But I can say that it leaves me feeling more in control of my own life and more honest, both with other people and myself. As with anything, it's for now. And, for now, it works.
After my rather long silence on my blogs, I was driven to write this after reading this blog post on the marriages of other people. (I might write another post later dealing more directly with the post but not tonight. I'm almost tired.) But it reminded me that the systems we are given and that we are supposed to accept without question are often very flawed and work for very few people. Everyone has to build their own lives and their own relationships. There is no one way. And I guess that's what I should start telling my friends.
"I would be too jealous. I couldn't stand the thought of my significant other being with someone else." Jealousy is actually another big reason why I chose to be non-monogamous. In a strange way, I trace most of my cheating back to my own jealousy. Here's the script: Significant Other is currently having a life- hanging out with people of both sexes, doing things that I'm not particularly interested it, working, going to school. During this time when SO is not with me, my big imagination is writing stories about a BJ from a waitress at the restaurant SO's friends hang at or a passionate but as yet unconsummated love affair with the nerd chick in SO's robotics class. These imaginings lead to me starting fights, making accusations, being cold, and generally pushing my partner away. Now I begin to feel a distance, not realizing that I created it, but it still leads me to feel unloved, uncared for, etc, which means that I'm unworthy. Then, when someone, anyone, starts to show me attention, affection, well, I jump at the chance to feel good again. What's worse is that the guilt about the cheating makes me feel even worse about being around my SO, the one person I actually do want to work it all out with, so I'm left with the only person who still makes me feel good, the person I cheated with.
So why not flip the script? If I'm always dreaming imaginary liasons for my SO, why not let hir have real ones, safely, honestly, and openly? If I'm always worried that my SO wants someone else more than me, won't I feel more secure when zi comes home to me? If I don't push my SO away with the things I only imagine, because I now know exactly what is happening, won't that be one less thing to come between us? And a fresh injection of new attention on my side, without the guilt, could be enough to keep things fresh and new. Also, I think that it helps to break the cycle in which I cling on for dear life to my SO, even when the relationship should have ended long ago, even when we are not good for each other, even when we are emotionally abusing each other, just because I feel like I will have nothing left without that person. Don't get me wrong: That break-up is still gonna hurt like hell. But it makes it easier to know that you have at least one person who's bed you can find comfort in, even if that person isn't ever going to be the next love of your life. Especially because you've hopefully also chosen a person who can be a friend and can understand the grief you're feeling. Maybe you also helped them through theirs.
When I try to explain any part of this to most people, anyone not in the choir, I get the feeling that I'm talking past them. I think some people think I'm a slutty party girl with daddy issues who is sleeping around until she finds her Prince/Princess Charming. I think other people think I'm jaded, had one too many bad relationships, but that it will all change when I meet the right person. The rest just think I'm a weirdo. None of them think that it will ever work. That someone will get hurt, that someone is bound to get jealous, that no one will ever be happy in this situation. That is true. But do you know what else is true? That people in monogamous relationships get hurt, get jealous, and very few, if any, are happy. I can't say that this take on relationships has worked spectacularly, but my previous take didn't either. But I can say that it leaves me feeling more in control of my own life and more honest, both with other people and myself. As with anything, it's for now. And, for now, it works.
After my rather long silence on my blogs, I was driven to write this after reading this blog post on the marriages of other people. (I might write another post later dealing more directly with the post but not tonight. I'm almost tired.) But it reminded me that the systems we are given and that we are supposed to accept without question are often very flawed and work for very few people. Everyone has to build their own lives and their own relationships. There is no one way. And I guess that's what I should start telling my friends.
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