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timepiececlockWritten late/early last night:
Diet Coke consumption: 5, maybe 6
Today I did a couple of boring things that left me with opinions, some strong and some not. Since it’s 2:34 am as I write this, it’s best if I start from now and work my way backward.
1. I just spent over an hour skimming and flipping through a huge (seriously, I mean huge) paperback guide to independent films. Some I didn’t even realize were “independent”, like The Graduate, Shakespeare In Love, and a personal favorite that I was when I was too young to get every nuance-- The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. I ended up reading the description of a film that I once caught the final minutes of on cable-minutes which mostly consisted of the bizarre scene of long-haired Ewan McGregor nailed to the floor with a kitchen knife laughing as his blood drips through the floorboards onto stacks of hidden money, and across town a woman screaming as she sees an empty suitcase (which I assumed was supposed to have said money.) That scene had lingered in the back of my mind for the last few months since I saw it, and now that I know the title (which I’ve left out since I just spoiled the ending), I think I’ll have to add it to my Netflix list. Netflix, by the way, is brilliant. And it helps that the Netflix people live in the South Bay, so it takes about 2 days fro them to get my DVDs returned in the mail, tops.
2. Before and while diving into the film book I watched a strange but stupid film called Invinsible on channel 41, which is just below USA and MTV and a few stations above FX on our cable. It starred Billy Zane, the funny demon lord who danced with Jada Pinkett PreSmith in Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight and the pompous jerk fiancé in Titanic. The movie was about this evil guy who was transformed into Zen!Mastaaah good buy in the first 3 minutes, and then spent the rest of the movie training these four other people to be Zen!Mastaaah warriors against the shadow men. Unfortunately, the dialogue sucked a big fat one badly, and the whole thing was too into its own Zenness to see when it had been reduced to corny. Also, the acting was bad. I’ll break it down by rank: 1st- John Doe from that stupid Fox tv show that beat out Firefly, only with a cute Aussi accent and could actually manage to make corny lines sound real and honest, or at least bearable; 2nd- the Asian guy, who made me feel really bad for his character when he was crying to the image of his dead sister in Chinese-- I don’t speak Chinese, but his face was affecting; 3rd- Billy Zane, who had the third worst lines of the bunch and did the third best with them; 4th- the token angry young black man who was treated in the script as the token angry young black man and did little as an actor to rise above this unfortunate stereotype; 5th and last- the token tough cop chick. These films often have a token tough chick (I can tell from her lines that this script was probably written by a man; I’d bet chocolate on it), and I say token because if the movie was serious in its Zen-balance-world-energies themes it’d have 2 women 2 men in its group of chosen warriors, instead of 3 men and 1 women-and the woman would not be so cliché as cop-judgmental-ice-queen-softened-by-Aussi-thief’s-charms. Blehhhgggh. Where’s Agent Scully when you need her?
3. Watched the a good deal of the movie Dark City, and was reminded again of how much of The Matrix seemed like a rip-off of it. However, I’m willing to give The Matrix some benefit of the doubt since it was released only a year after DC, which means they were likely made at about the same time, and so outright theft of ideas is unlikely. Also, I like Rufus Sewell but I’m having trouble watching him for reasons you’ll see in number 9 or so on my list tonight.
4. Watched Coupling. I’m out of sync with the progression of events on this show (so I have no idea why Steve and what’s-her-face are broken up), but fortunately that’s not a necessity to enjoy this show and it was funniness as usual.
5. I made dinner. Chopped up fried pork chop, fresh corn fried in butter, and way too much garlic and lemon pepper. Will lighten up on spices next time.
6. Caught a bit of Sex & The City while checking an old tape recording, and realized that I’d positively shoot myself if I ever had to stay in a room with any of these four women for more than 18 hours, much less be in an actual relationship with any of them. Sure, they’re smart and loyal and witty and love each other like sisters, but they’re also fucking annoying. Carrie is the least annoying in that I can actually imagine having an enjoyable conversation with her, but if I had to date her I’d go insane. No wonder Aiden left her; I’d leave her too. All that being said, I liked Berger and he left Carrie for the wrong reasons, the jerk. He should leave her because she’s high-maintenance and self-obsessed, not because she’s more successful than him. Jerk.
7. Mowed the lawn and had an interesting conversation with a little old Asian lady who lives on the next block. Never met her before, but she seemed positively piqued that I was mowing the lawn, and kept calling me a “nice girl.” She also wanted to know if I was married (no), how old I was (19), if I had a boyfriend (no), I’m cute enough so why not (because I’ve not met anyone who I wanted to be my boyfriend who also wanted to be my boyfriend), was I going to school (yes), and did I know that she had a cute grandson? I liked talking to her (she was quite polite and smiled a lot) but the whole conversation had a distinctly sitcom feel and I eventually had to give her a polite brush-off to finish mowing the lawn. Which, no, I don’t get paid for (she asked that too.)
Side note: It’s always irritated me that adults think I’m cute and keep expecting me to have a boyfriend, and yet no boys expressed an interest throughout my entire 13 years in public school, and I’ve never been asked on a date in my whole life. Why don’t I have a boyfriend? I’d like to know.
On the other had, a very cute 21 year old thought I was hot last year at an anime convention, and at least I got kissed before I graduated.
Crap, now I’m going to be thinking about Portland, and He Who Might Have Been My Boyfriend If He Wasn’t Moving To Oregon.
8. Did things.
9. Woke up late, watched the second half of the tv special Helen of Troy on USA that I’d recorded last night. It was decently written and mostly well-acted, however I got mad at a lot of the characters. I was sad when Hector died, as he was treated as fairly noble in the film, but I felt nothing for Paris, who was supposed to be one of the super-sympathetic main pairing. The other half of that pairing, Helen, was pretty enough but I soon got sick of her pity-me attitude and her stupid selfish decisions. Meneleus was a macho jerk, but I felt bad for him because he was not a bad sort underneath his insecurities. Cassandra was cool, and well acted. Agamemnon was creepy though, and he was played by Rufus Sewell, who I used to like but who upset me a great deal here. Him sacrificing his child daughter to the gods made me sad, but the scene in the end when he rapes Helen felt gratuitous and unnecessary to me. Why was that included? To punish the “harlot” because every man had spent the film lusting for her? To piss of Meneleus, who dared to defy him? To punish Helen for starting the war that he wanted anyway, and because she was the symbol of the war he sacrificed his daughter to the gods to win? Pisses me off. It was pointless punishment of the female character and didn’t serve the plot, and I can imagine the rape that happened in conquering cities in ancient times without having to watch it, please. Still, I felt a good deal of satisfaction when Helen’s sister (and Agamemnon’s wife) Clytemnestra stormed in on her husband while he was bathing, threw a net over him, and stabbed him to death in the pool to avenge her daughter’s sacrifice. Yeah, stab that sonofabitch 20 times, girlie. I’ll cheer from the couch.
Still, I’m annoyed that I can’t enjoy watching Rufus Sewell anymore. Why did watching his character rape Helen (with much more murky lighting and clothes on) leave me with more lingering disturbed emotions than watching Spike attempt to rape Buffy in Seeing Red episode? I can still watch and like not only James Marsters the actor, but also Spike’s character, whereas I can barely watch Rufus Sewell play entirely different character. Maybe because the rape scene in Helen of Troy was so cold and methodical, so much more an act of punishment? I dunno. Both scenes disturbed me (I’ve only seen SR once) but this one shocked me less, yet pissed me off more. Then again, it was months between the end of season 6 and watching Spike return in Season 7, and it was only a dozen hours between watching Agamemnon conquer Troy and watching James Murdock beat the psychic aliens in Dark City.
Final note: I’ve got to find me some screencaps of the climactic duel at the end of Dark City, where he and the alien are floating in the sky psychically rebuilding the skyscrapers around them as they mentally throw daggers at each other. There were some images that’d make cool icons and wallpapers.
Diet Coke consumption: 5, maybe 6
Today I did a couple of boring things that left me with opinions, some strong and some not. Since it’s 2:34 am as I write this, it’s best if I start from now and work my way backward.
1. I just spent over an hour skimming and flipping through a huge (seriously, I mean huge) paperback guide to independent films. Some I didn’t even realize were “independent”, like The Graduate, Shakespeare In Love, and a personal favorite that I was when I was too young to get every nuance-- The Prime of Miss Jean Brody. I ended up reading the description of a film that I once caught the final minutes of on cable-minutes which mostly consisted of the bizarre scene of long-haired Ewan McGregor nailed to the floor with a kitchen knife laughing as his blood drips through the floorboards onto stacks of hidden money, and across town a woman screaming as she sees an empty suitcase (which I assumed was supposed to have said money.) That scene had lingered in the back of my mind for the last few months since I saw it, and now that I know the title (which I’ve left out since I just spoiled the ending), I think I’ll have to add it to my Netflix list. Netflix, by the way, is brilliant. And it helps that the Netflix people live in the South Bay, so it takes about 2 days fro them to get my DVDs returned in the mail, tops.
2. Before and while diving into the film book I watched a strange but stupid film called Invinsible on channel 41, which is just below USA and MTV and a few stations above FX on our cable. It starred Billy Zane, the funny demon lord who danced with Jada Pinkett PreSmith in Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight and the pompous jerk fiancé in Titanic. The movie was about this evil guy who was transformed into Zen!Mastaaah good buy in the first 3 minutes, and then spent the rest of the movie training these four other people to be Zen!Mastaaah warriors against the shadow men. Unfortunately, the dialogue sucked a big fat one badly, and the whole thing was too into its own Zenness to see when it had been reduced to corny. Also, the acting was bad. I’ll break it down by rank: 1st- John Doe from that stupid Fox tv show that beat out Firefly, only with a cute Aussi accent and could actually manage to make corny lines sound real and honest, or at least bearable; 2nd- the Asian guy, who made me feel really bad for his character when he was crying to the image of his dead sister in Chinese-- I don’t speak Chinese, but his face was affecting; 3rd- Billy Zane, who had the third worst lines of the bunch and did the third best with them; 4th- the token angry young black man who was treated in the script as the token angry young black man and did little as an actor to rise above this unfortunate stereotype; 5th and last- the token tough cop chick. These films often have a token tough chick (I can tell from her lines that this script was probably written by a man; I’d bet chocolate on it), and I say token because if the movie was serious in its Zen-balance-world-energies themes it’d have 2 women 2 men in its group of chosen warriors, instead of 3 men and 1 women-and the woman would not be so cliché as cop-judgmental-ice-queen-softened-by-Aussi-thief’s-charms. Blehhhgggh. Where’s Agent Scully when you need her?
3. Watched the a good deal of the movie Dark City, and was reminded again of how much of The Matrix seemed like a rip-off of it. However, I’m willing to give The Matrix some benefit of the doubt since it was released only a year after DC, which means they were likely made at about the same time, and so outright theft of ideas is unlikely. Also, I like Rufus Sewell but I’m having trouble watching him for reasons you’ll see in number 9 or so on my list tonight.
4. Watched Coupling. I’m out of sync with the progression of events on this show (so I have no idea why Steve and what’s-her-face are broken up), but fortunately that’s not a necessity to enjoy this show and it was funniness as usual.
5. I made dinner. Chopped up fried pork chop, fresh corn fried in butter, and way too much garlic and lemon pepper. Will lighten up on spices next time.
6. Caught a bit of Sex & The City while checking an old tape recording, and realized that I’d positively shoot myself if I ever had to stay in a room with any of these four women for more than 18 hours, much less be in an actual relationship with any of them. Sure, they’re smart and loyal and witty and love each other like sisters, but they’re also fucking annoying. Carrie is the least annoying in that I can actually imagine having an enjoyable conversation with her, but if I had to date her I’d go insane. No wonder Aiden left her; I’d leave her too. All that being said, I liked Berger and he left Carrie for the wrong reasons, the jerk. He should leave her because she’s high-maintenance and self-obsessed, not because she’s more successful than him. Jerk.
7. Mowed the lawn and had an interesting conversation with a little old Asian lady who lives on the next block. Never met her before, but she seemed positively piqued that I was mowing the lawn, and kept calling me a “nice girl.” She also wanted to know if I was married (no), how old I was (19), if I had a boyfriend (no), I’m cute enough so why not (because I’ve not met anyone who I wanted to be my boyfriend who also wanted to be my boyfriend), was I going to school (yes), and did I know that she had a cute grandson? I liked talking to her (she was quite polite and smiled a lot) but the whole conversation had a distinctly sitcom feel and I eventually had to give her a polite brush-off to finish mowing the lawn. Which, no, I don’t get paid for (she asked that too.)
Side note: It’s always irritated me that adults think I’m cute and keep expecting me to have a boyfriend, and yet no boys expressed an interest throughout my entire 13 years in public school, and I’ve never been asked on a date in my whole life. Why don’t I have a boyfriend? I’d like to know.
On the other had, a very cute 21 year old thought I was hot last year at an anime convention, and at least I got kissed before I graduated.
Crap, now I’m going to be thinking about Portland, and He Who Might Have Been My Boyfriend If He Wasn’t Moving To Oregon.
8. Did things.
9. Woke up late, watched the second half of the tv special Helen of Troy on USA that I’d recorded last night. It was decently written and mostly well-acted, however I got mad at a lot of the characters. I was sad when Hector died, as he was treated as fairly noble in the film, but I felt nothing for Paris, who was supposed to be one of the super-sympathetic main pairing. The other half of that pairing, Helen, was pretty enough but I soon got sick of her pity-me attitude and her stupid selfish decisions. Meneleus was a macho jerk, but I felt bad for him because he was not a bad sort underneath his insecurities. Cassandra was cool, and well acted. Agamemnon was creepy though, and he was played by Rufus Sewell, who I used to like but who upset me a great deal here. Him sacrificing his child daughter to the gods made me sad, but the scene in the end when he rapes Helen felt gratuitous and unnecessary to me. Why was that included? To punish the “harlot” because every man had spent the film lusting for her? To piss of Meneleus, who dared to defy him? To punish Helen for starting the war that he wanted anyway, and because she was the symbol of the war he sacrificed his daughter to the gods to win? Pisses me off. It was pointless punishment of the female character and didn’t serve the plot, and I can imagine the rape that happened in conquering cities in ancient times without having to watch it, please. Still, I felt a good deal of satisfaction when Helen’s sister (and Agamemnon’s wife) Clytemnestra stormed in on her husband while he was bathing, threw a net over him, and stabbed him to death in the pool to avenge her daughter’s sacrifice. Yeah, stab that sonofabitch 20 times, girlie. I’ll cheer from the couch.
Still, I’m annoyed that I can’t enjoy watching Rufus Sewell anymore. Why did watching his character rape Helen (with much more murky lighting and clothes on) leave me with more lingering disturbed emotions than watching Spike attempt to rape Buffy in Seeing Red episode? I can still watch and like not only James Marsters the actor, but also Spike’s character, whereas I can barely watch Rufus Sewell play entirely different character. Maybe because the rape scene in Helen of Troy was so cold and methodical, so much more an act of punishment? I dunno. Both scenes disturbed me (I’ve only seen SR once) but this one shocked me less, yet pissed me off more. Then again, it was months between the end of season 6 and watching Spike return in Season 7, and it was only a dozen hours between watching Agamemnon conquer Troy and watching James Murdock beat the psychic aliens in Dark City.
Final note: I’ve got to find me some screencaps of the climactic duel at the end of Dark City, where he and the alien are floating in the sky psychically rebuilding the skyscrapers around them as they mentally throw daggers at each other. There were some images that’d make cool icons and wallpapers.
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Date: 2003-08-11 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-11 03:06 pm (UTC)