Like Crazy and Other Thoughts

I've neglected this blog ever since I've joined Tumblr, and it's likely that I'll move there full-time, but I think I'll keep this for awhile since it's still good for nice, long rants that I won't subject my Tumblr followers to (there I have real friends following me, this blog is more of a secret). Another reason for not coming back here is mostly because I haven't had anything fashion or film related to rant about for the past few months. Everything's been politics or Harry Potter, and for that, there's Tumblr - I'm just madly in love with so many of the tumblrs I've found. I've found my online idol in STFUSexists, a feminist (duh) tumblr that's run by this wonderfully smart college grad with an often scathing and irreverent sense of humor. I'm so glad I'm on her side, because reading her takedowns of the various misogynists and all-around idiots unlucky enough to cross her blog (and wrath) is terrible and awesome to behold. The girl can fucking school.

But in this case, I'm just talking a bit about a movie that's zoomed up to the top of my must-watch list ever since the poster and trailers were simultaneously released:

One, I had heard about this movie already, since it had won Best Picture at Sundance, but I was completely disinterested. It didn't help that its female star Felicity Jones was already being compared to Carey Mulligan. By then I'd just had it with all the annual mandatory Sundance It girls. To be honest, they all seemed more irritating than the last. It took me a long time to warm up to Carey Mulligan, and by the time it happened, Jennifer Lawrence was starting to get on my nerves, which was weird because I was a fan of her performance in Winter's Bone, but she irritated me all throughout awards season (why, I honestly can't tell), and her performance in X-Men was just grating. Have you ever just disliked a particular actor irrationally, just because they seem obnoxious, although there's no definite proof of it? Yeah, that's pretty much me and Jennifer Lawrence. Anyhoo, I was losing track of all of THIS year's Sundance It Girls - Elizabeth Olsen and that girl who wrote and starred in Another Earth and then Felicity Jones - yawnnn.

A couple days ago the promotion for "Like Crazy" started, and I was struck by the poster immediately. A wistfully nostalgic, sun-lit image of an ideal young couple, and the I WANT YOU I NEED YOU I LOVE YOU I MISS YOU in the Eat Pray Love font that's becoming so popular for movie posters across the board. I just stared at the poster for about a full twenty seconds, mentally swooning. A tale of nostalgia (it seemed), missed chances, unfulfilled, uncompromising and all-absorbing love.

It's funny, because I've read comments over the past few days that describes "Like Crazy" as a split between "Blue Valentine" and "500 Days of Summer", presumably because it's about two young, idealistic lovers who struggle along the way (imagine that), but the poster was so appealing because it seemed like neither movie. Not "500 Days" practically drowning in its own self-conscious post-romance hipness, or the confining grimness of "Blue Valentine". I totally fell in love, right there and then. To hell with unconvincing quirk and bitter realism! Give me epic, sweet, struggling, yearning, all-encompassing love. I just want to watch a couple fall in love in screen convincingly and not have to roll my eyes. Please. That's what anyone really wants, actually.

Then I saw the first trailer, and found the second a few days later. I posted both here, and the second one is more explanatory, but I love the first one because it's made in the vein of my favorite kind of trailers - kind of unfocused and vague, more of a video essay than a plot summary.

Judging from the trailers, I have a good idea of how it'll probably end (or maybe it'll surprise me), but I'm glad that I don't care. I just hope it's a worthwhile love story. And Felicity Jones (who also won Best Actress at Sundance), you look awesome in this. Incredibly freaking radiant and not in a contrived way (which brings to mind Carey Mulligan again - I, like everyone else, enjoyed her performance in "An Education", but I found the random mugging - just brief shots where she would smile for no reason or glance directly at the camera with a charmingly flirtatious look - somewhat arbitrary and inexplicable). And Felicity Jones is so pretty in this, it hurts.

Random Observations from A Tale of Ice And Fire

Observations on A Song of Ice and Fire - massive, careless spoilers. As in literally, I just talk liberally about all four books, so yeah, stay away if you haven't read the books.

#1. Is Arya a "psychotic?" (No)

"'Is there gold in the village?' she shouted as she drove the blade up through his back. 'Is there silver? Gems?' She stabbed twice more. 'Is there food? Where is Lord Beric?' She was on top of him by then, still stabbing. 'Where did he go? How many men were with him? How many knights? How many bowmen? How many? How many? How many? How many? How many? How many? Is there gold in the village?'" - A Storm of Swords

Weirdly enough, I always connect Arya's journey to two Christian Bale movies: Empire of the Sun and Batman Begins.

Arya is a hardened, devastated, bitter, vengeful 11-year-old girl who has killed more people than most people twice her age, but she's not a psychopath; psychopathic tendencies are mostly innate, but she's purely a product of her environment. She isn't Sansa, who's coping with her best attributes - charm, tractability, meekness - she's discovered the power of brute force, and she's made the journey from willful little girl to a brutal, realistic war survivor. Complete with John Malkovich character.

And as someone whose world has been destroyed through murder and injustice - her father executed with a lie, her mother and brother slaughtered without honor or mercy - she's the classic self-appointed vigilante who regards the world around her as a place without honor or justice. The justice system is broken in her eyes, and it can no longer be relied on after failing her and her family so utterly. Naturally, she pursues her own unique brand of justice instead. She still has honor, certainly, but it fits the dog-eat-dog style of her environment, more anarchic than the genteel form of honor that undid her family. She learns this lesson much more quickly than Cat, who if you notice, also turns to a ruthless style of justice after her world collapses. In fact, Catelyn has arguably further gone than Arya, considering the fact that Catelyn is a fully-grown woman and has rejected a lifetime of principles. Arya can also be compared to Sansa, who is also learning to survive the hard way, albeit with different skills suited to her environment. Arya's irrevocably changed by her experiences, as any war survivor may be, perhaps damaged, but she isn't lost, by a long shot. I can't wait to see how her story turns out.

#2: Why are all the Tully children so inept?

Catelyn is a well-intentioned and intelligent, but she is the mother of all trainwrecks, being truly her husband's wife. She seizes Tyrion Lannister on the road without giving a modicum to the thought that it's not the best idea to kidnap the son of the oh, MOST POWERFUL HOUSE in the seven kingdoms. I know you're pissed off about your son, but how about a little consulting or even restraining oneself from making spur-of-the-moment decisions that will obviously have powerful reverberations? Ultimately, Catelyn does everything out of love for her children, but these acts have a habit of having a worse effect on her family than anything else. Also frees her worst enemy, Jaime Lannister, during a moment of extreme vulnerability, which is the dumbest fucking idea in the entire world, even for a woman who is mourning for her murdered sons. Did she honestly, honestly believe that he would even have it in his power to return her girls to her? I respect Catelyn and her late fate in the books is kind of awesome, but she is such a naive and reckless dumbass. Seriously.

Lysa is in plain terms, utterly batshit. She's a simpering, inept, deluded weakling who is arguably much to blame for the War of the Five Kings, and all for a man who has clearly only loved her sister, and does not give a flying fuck for her. Lysa's many notable acts, all of them crazier than the last, include, 1) being infatuated with said man and persisting in the facade of his love, though she has always known that he doesn't care for her. Evidence: When Robert Baratheon accidentally uttered the name of his true love "Lyanna" while lying with Cersei, it killed any possibility of love or affection in their relationship. The same thing happened to Lysa, more or less, only it had the opposite effect. 2) poisoning her husband on the command of her lover, and pinning the blame on others, planting suspicions that trigger a freaking war 3) continuing to breastfeed her child even though he's already EIGHT FUCKING YEARS OLD 4) refusing to aid her own family despite the immense resources and arsenal at her command, for pretty much no reason at all. This one pissed me off the most, because it doesn't really matter what deranged crap she gets up to in her home, but this had the most dire impact. It is really not okay to stay neutral and stay lalalalala when your only sister's children are lost, missing, captured or dead, and the rest of your family is getting massacred and their cause going the same way. What the fuck do you do in your spare time, anyway? Oh yeah, 5) stalking your loveless husband and trying to push your 13-year-old niece, who is as far as you know, possibly the only remaining blood relative you have in the world - off a castle because you saw your husband give her a kiss in the garden.

Edmure Tully

Also a royal screw-up. A screwup in the battlefield (you know you can't do anything right when you end up apologizing to your sixteen-year-old nephew and promising to make amends), whines entirely way too much in a period of warfare (nobody gives a shit who you marry), complains about everyone else, makes inept threats (next time for starters, try NOT being in a bathtub when you threaten to kill a dude), falls for Jamie Lannister's entirely raw deal. Edmure, do you really think that your worthless life is worth your family's ancient stronghold and the sacrifice of your badass uncle, who is one of the greatest characters in the series as well as the only Tully that's not a complete inept fool? Use your brains. They can't kill your unborn child because it's half-Frey and the only heir to a powerful house, and it would serve the Freys better off alive than dead, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life as a Lannister servant anyway. YOU WITLESS COWARD. Even some of the things he does that's entirely not his fault - like bedding your new bride while her brothers are butchering your relatives downstairs - is indicative of his general cluelessness and futility.

So Edmure is more or less slave to his greatest enemy, Catelyn is undead, Lysa is murdered by her own husband, and justifiably so. Brindyn "Blackfish" Tully, their aged, formidable uncle who is possibly the only character in the series that possesses both deadly good sense and unshakeable loyalty and honor, is on the run thanks to his useless nephew.

Forget it. I was all for the Starks/Tullys but the latter house really doesn't deserve to survive, to an extent. There's the good-hearted loveable fool, like an 11-year-old Neville Longbottom, and then there's the really really exasperatingly stupid gobsmacking incompetent fool of questionable morality that makes you go, "eh, probably would be more beneficial to evolution if they're just all wiped out, anyway."

Authenticity in Acting

Taking a break from my English paper for some rambling thoughts on authenticity and experience. It must be the caffeine in my blood - I'm not a big coffee drinker.

Where was I? Oh yes. Just thinking about what kind of movies I like and it somehow progressed to an internal monologue on actors, as always. I was thinking about the difference between the movies that romanticize and the movies that stir far deeper emotions. Generally, the movies deemed the greatest (Citizen Kane, The Godfather, etc.) have a tendency to leave an romantic impact that leaves the viewer mostly unharmed. Movies are fake, of course, but they can make a genuine and personal connection to the viewer, but the ones that mine the deepest are usually too strange or subjective to be universally praised. All the movies I've truly loved - Bright Star, a random Korean war movie, something else - have left me deeply hurt or vulnerable. And I don't mean "general crying and sorrowful emotions for the character", though that occasionally is the case - but rather something that settles in me and feels much stranger and stronger than conventional reactions. A couple of Jane Campion's movies, for instance, unearths this intangible longing, some sense of beauty and loss that - as strange as it sounds, and I'm not a particularly religious person - brings me closer to something like holiness, and I become so unbearably and inexplicably sad that I have to go distract myself. Other moments from movies of mixed quality stay with me over time and wound me in a way I can't even acknowledge. And most of the time I end up scolding myself, but I feel like I can be so easily seduced by cheaply romantic moments. That's why I love movies so much, and aren't we all? But I think that these rarer moments can count as authentic ones, because they always pass and I can't get quite the same feeling again from watching the movie. Or is that a contradiction? Ugh, it's frustrating.

That was the first part of my thought. Then in a bizarre way, I started transitioning from thinking about authenticity in movies to authenticity in actors. Take Kristen Stewart. She and a host of other young, precocious actors are undeniably good and sensitive, but they seem incapable of mining any deeper force of emotion. And though it's all about "good acting", I truly think that great acting has always been able to draw on genuine experience and emotion. All the great actors - from Brando to Dustin Hoffman and Greta Garbo to Meryl Streep - have in common slightly fucked-up early lives that surely lent authenticity to their performances. And I started thinking about Kristen Stewart's constant moping and angst in movies - and how strange, because isn't angst an emotion that's natural but insubstantial, and in our modern culture, mocked for being increasingly fetishized? She may be a smart, sensitive individual who's generally in tune with her emotions, but my theory is that she doesn't have the requisite pain of true experience. She's had too much of a good life insofar. As much as she defines herself as apart from the celebrity sphere, she's still part of the lifestyle and the inevitable complacency and coddling that irons out any surface-level angst pretty quickly. She, like other child performers, may have experienced a taste of pain and open emotions during childhood, but child emotions are just fundamentally different in expression than adult emotions. That's why, in my opinion, so many child actors are inferior adult actors, even if they are successful. Wisdom can't be cultivated through contrivance, and what was originally deemed precocity becomes a static quality that drags you down if it isn't expanded through natural progress. In my opinion, Anna Paquin has given the same exact "precocious" and child-like performance for the past fifteen years or so, I have a feeling that Dakota Fanning will head the same way.

Well, that was an exquisitely unorganized thought process - I was basically shitting my brains out onto the internet, but oh well, that's what a personal blog is for.

Well Gee

According to the media, now would be a good time to deflate the political rhetoric and calm the increasingly unstable political climate before, you know, more people are senselessly gunned down. Frankly, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert foresaw this before anyone of the bickering, persnickety media did.

Today, in the aftermath of Congresswoman Gifford's shooting, the NYtimes is now wondering if we should maybe attempt to not "conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon." Good job, media. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have been pleading this for more than a year, with the urgency of their message culminating in the Rally to Restore Sanity/And or Fear, which took place in October.

"We live in hard times, but not end times", was the summation of their message. Basic civility must be reinforced, no matter the level of disagreement. How hard was that? And their powerful message went mostly unnoticed - I scanned major news sites after returning from the rally, and the summaries in the NYtimes and online blogs seemed more preoccupied with how many people had attended vs. the attendance number at Glenn Beck's rally, or dismissively patronized it as a political Woodstock event, reefer included. Even the liberal pundits seemed so terrified of affiliating themselves with this comedic duo, that their coverage on the event was minimal at best. Truly, the tone of every article on the rally - sans Huffington Post, since Ariana is like StewartColbertfan #1 - was implicitly condescending. Probably the fact that Jon Stewart's keynote speech so adroitly attacked the media, or the "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator", as he called it, didn't sit too well with them. Stewart's ernest words were too sane and reasonable to be a proper reality check. Until now.

What a complete media fail.

The Problem

It's so easy for young cynical teenagers fresh off World History class or rock metal or Neitzsche or whatever hip groovy materials they're absorbing to claim that Christianity is the root of all problems. The problem is certainly not Christianity per se. The problem is people's bewildering need to inflexibly, unreasonably, and infallibly adhere to a single source that they view as transcendent and/or worthy of reverence. It can be the Bible, or it can be the Founding Fathers of our country. It can be the power of our scientific technology or our still-limited knowledge of the universe. Either way, I think such unyielding belief in anything man-made is silly at best and an obstruction to adaptability and open thinking.

Fanpeople

Argument with a person over The Hours today. I said that I loved the ending scene and that last shot of Nicole Kidman sliding into her watery grave (made beautiful by the cinematography and Philip Glass' score) but that it was melodramatic and pretentious; she said it was not. Just that. "It's not". Personally, I think that she confused emotional resonance with quality. That kind of reaction just bothers me, frankly. You can acknowledge that something that reponds to your inner needs and desires can also be a piece of trash, subjectively speaking. The aesthetically pleasing can also be devoid of any real meaning. There's merit in both viewpoints. That's what separates the despicable fanperson from the thinking and the aware.

*By fanperson, I mean anyone who vouches for a pop culture subject to such an extreme degree that he/she refuses to acknowledge even a differing opinion that is less than fervently positive.

**Thought more about this after seeing Eat Pray Love over the weekend - it was a pretty meh adaptation, but I saw quite a few people crying whenever Julia Roberts' Liz was depicted struggling with her failed marriage and breakups, which pretty much proves my point. They would have cried at any movie that reminded them of all the painful breakups they went through - that doesn't automatically render the movie great in its own right.

2010 Movies.....

Nothing on this list matches the excitement I had for 2009, when the trifecta of Where the Wild Things On, Bright Star, and Public Enemies had me foaming at the mouth at the mere mention or sneak preview of said movies, but I did garner up some anticipation for some new movies (some that have already been released) that I'd really like to see.

In no particular order:

Eat Pray Love

It doesn't seem like a terribly great movie, but c'mon. If there's anything I have a weakness, nay, an indulgence for, it's bohemian-chic journeys featuring sad, beautiful, wealthy people finding the meaning life through great food, sunshine, linen dresses, and rumpled lovers (James Franco and Javier Bardem, the latter who also starred in my sun-porn favorite of 2008: Vicky Cristina Barcelona). It looks like fun.

Greenberg

It's gotten so much buzz and controversy (Armand White anyone?) but the reviews that were good impressed me, since it seems incredibly hard to make a movie about a disaffected, cynical midlife-crisis without coming off as incredibly self-indulgent or annoying. And I'm so intrigued about Greta Gerwig. A brand-new American actress with the full package? YES PLEASE. How long since we've had one of those?

The Kids Are All Right

Interested, due to buzz about Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. Heard it's funny and engaging. More than enough these days.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Cue fangirl excitement. My devotion to Harry Potter has been off the charts over the past few months, since I'm discovering that less and less kids are reading Harry Potter nowadays. It truly, truly makes me sick and frightened at the thought of Twilight becoming more popular than J.K. Rowling's hilarious, imaginative, cross-generational (and hugely educational) baby as the years go on. Harry Potter truly made our generation as awesome as it is now. We grew up with the three main characters as our role models - compassion from Harry, uber-wit from Ron, and academic overachievement (but also grounded and wise!) from Hermione. The series emphasized friendship and kindness as the transcendent powers in addition to courage and cleverness. Not to toot my own horn, but everyone I know who grew up with the books can be counted on to be pretty cool, nice, snarky people. I can say with all my heart that these books had a truly transformative effect on us.

And the generation after us got Edward and Miley Cyrus. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. No wonder they suck.

True Grit

No, I have not seen the original (I will, I will). Yes, I am compelled by the combination of Matt Damon, Joel and Ethan Coen, Jeff Bridges, and other similarly chill and awesome-in-real-life-as-well-as-onscreen folks.

Leaves of Grass

Thanks, Roger Ebert. Crossing my fingers in hopes that it will signal Norton's grand return to the screen and another long-deserved Oscar nom. He is truly the finest actor of his generation.

Tree of Life

Fine! I have only seen one Terrence Malick movie (actually two - I also remember watching A Thin Red Line but the only thing I remembered was being startled by George Clooney's minimal role near the end, so it doesn't count) but The New World was so special and any Malick movie is an event, so count me in.

The Grand Master

Tony Leung, Wong Kar-Wai. DO I NEED TO GO ON?

The Tempest

So my sweetie Ben Whishaw rocks the shit out of Shakespeare and poetry, so I imagine this won't be a departure from his most lauded work. Plus I just enjoy Julie Taymor, Shakespeare, and Helen Mirren in general.

The Rum Diary

I'm up for any Johnny Depp movie that doesn't involve Tim Burton.

Never Read Oscar Reader Comments Ever Again

I am seriously despairing that I live in a world where most people have never re-read a book, but somehow, eagerly prefer to watch regurgitated Lifetime feces like "The Blind Side" even though they know exactly what they're getting. And love it unabashedly. And call movies like "Avatar", "Up in the Air", and "Inglourious Basterds" (and I quote), "depressing obscure artsy fare".


DO WE HAVE BRAINS THE SIZE OF CATS AND DOGS TO THE POINT WHERE WE FIND EATING SHIT APPEALING?

Sorry. Just in a slightly emotional state right now.

My Dissertation On Love, Sex, and Marriage

My conclusion on love and sexuality. # of Woody Allen movies seen = 2

As Woody Allen would probably say, I think whatever works is best. This is what I came after seeing "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" - afterwards I read a few reviews that criticized what they saw as WA's apparent anti-monogamy stance. But the character of Scarlet Johannsen's Vicky just completely smashes that criticism to bits. She's presented as the free minded liberal that's completely open about sex and standards, but she's not riding off into the sunset, either. As Javier Bardem's character tells Maria Elena, "when she finds the right one - not you or me - she will settle." People are just so different. I'm not sure we were all meant to be bound to one set of standards. You can't say that just because a traditional marriage worked for you, means it's going to work for me. Or an arranged marriage is inherently doomed (heck, statistics show that arranged marriages are actually more likely to succeed than most). You find out what works for you - polygamy, open marriage, traditional, unmarried, friendly - and deal with it.

Same with sexuality. Again, taking a cue from Vicky's character - "I see no need to label everyone else." I think people can choose for themselves. My theory is that individual sexuality is like thin steel. It can bend, stay, whatever - but it's overall flexible. Some people may be firmly attracted to one gender for the entirety of their lives, down to a specified set of traits - creamy skin, gray eyes, thin lips, whatever. After hearing all these stories about people who knew they were gay from the time they could walk (David Sedaris) or people who discovered a changing preference in their teens (my friend) - sexuality is be anything, man. It doesn't have to be set in stone. Would it be too crude to compare it to a preference for sandwiches? Some people can eat a ham-and-cheese sandwich, every day, for eighty years. Some people need variety. Some people prefer the bologna instead, and some people discover, to their amazement, that they want to switch after twenty years on the ham, or switch to bologna after the ham runs out (that was a prison reference). It's all good. 

In the end, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. What matters is that you find at least someone, or some people, to love and take care of. And that's as simple as it gets. 

Not On the Ground, Not To the Sky, But What's In Front of Me

I can't stand it. Why am I a moderate? Because people gravitate to the extremes, too much of the time. We're either inspecting the wrinkles in our leather shoes or gazing sadly into the murky, unknown, tantalizing depths of the Milky Wa - oh, get over it. 

Now is the time for college essays, and everyone's telling me about how they're writing about religion or science or the "potential link between neuroscience and religion as the key to our souls", and I'm just like "good for you! fuck that shit." I went through a self-aggrandizing, intellectual phase in freshman and sophomore year, and I am THROUGH with it. I am the not the first to think those through, nor am I the last. Billions of people, most of them smarter of me, have asked and probed the same questions. We want to think that we're special for thinking these recycled, tired thoughts that have will not get us very far. Well guess what? What we want is not the same as what we need.

We need to find that intersection between the past, present, and future. To look straight ahead while walking. Look at the flowers that mean more to us than our futile words can ever express, accept the candy from Halloween, pick up the person who is lying in the street, crippled. Be active and healthy, dreamy and appreciative. Fucking READ those health articles in the Reader's Digest so everyone can stop getting cancer and heart attacks. It's much more preventable than you think it is. And please, stop talking so much. Recently I've gone through a phase where I've heard endless speakers give their spiel, all the while thinking, "I could have taken your half-hour speech and condensed it into five-sentence bullet points. Unless you're a ridiculously eloquent speaker whom we pay for the pleasure of listening, jaw-dropped, catching each word like a goddamn gold nugget, BE EFFICIENT. Be efficient, be happy. Dily-dally over good food, good music, plants, the beauties of life, help each other to do the same, and don't shit over who you're going to sit on the bus with or the psychobabble of religion. That is all.