What? It's true.
So I recently noticed that I haven't done one of those posts where I just ramble for awhile, about nothing in particular, just an update on how things are going at Inty. Themed posts are well and good, but I LOVE writing Ramble!Posts, so tonight, lovely readers, that is what you're getting.
To start off: THE SNOW. I'm crazy for snow, I really am. I loveloveLOVE snow, so to wake up to a world covered in white fluff is like an early Christmas for me. EVERY DAY, because at Interlochen (see my posts from last February if you need a reminder about this), snow is UNAVOIDABLE. Either you love it, or you hate it. I happen to absolutely adore it, so I do redonkulous things like jump into piles of snow the way some people jump into leaves, throw snowballs at people whether I know them or not (yes, I HAVE done this, don't judge!) and, like any other snow-lover, eat handfuls of the stuff when I think no one's looking.
I guess you'd have to be a hardcore romantic to truly understand why I love the snow so much. To me, snow is not just that fluffy white cold stuff that you have to wade through every day from December to March. It's the symbol of a beautiful season. To me, snow is walking through a Christmas tree farm with my dad, baking sugar cookies with my mom, watching It's A Wonderful Life and How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Christmas Eve, sitting in front of a much-appreciated woodstove wearing fluffy socks, snuggling up on the couch with a good book, hearing "Santa Clause Wants Some Lovin'" for the fifty billionth time, having a massive snowball fight in my front yard, shoveling the driveway and laughing at my dad's inability to get that damn ice off the pavement, singing along to holiday songs (off-key, of course), driving around at night and seeing entire neighborhoods lit up with multicolored lights, digging out all those old Christmas decorations from the basement...I could go on forever, but you get the idea. For me, snow means so much more than "Ugh, it's cold and wet outside." It reminds me of my family and of a time when I really feel happy...and yes, I am fully aware of how cheesy I sound right now...
Recently I watched Eclipse in the Writing House (again, please don't judge). I left before the movie ended, first of all because I knew perfectly well how it ended and second of all because I wanted to walk home alone. I love walking alone in the snow. Don't get me wrong, I love walking in the snow with my friends, but this was one time when I really just wanted to be alone. After watching Eclipse I was in a really sappy mood, so I was thinking about my boyfriend (who lives in Oxford while I'm up at Interlochen...fml) and trying (and sometimes succeeding) to catch snowflakes on my tongue when I slipped in the middle of the street, flailed a bit, and then landed flat on my back...just as a fairly cute boy, who once complimented me by calling me a dead chick, was coming out of a nearby building. Of course he came out just in time to see me pull a Charlie Chaplin.
In the words of my good friend Gavin: "Well, shit...that was graceful." (You have to imagine this being said in a very sarcastic tone or the point is lost.)
Forget it; I started laughing like a total idiot and couldn't get to my feet because I was so busy cracking up over my own klutziness. I'm sure Mr. "Dead Chick" thought I was losing brain cells by the minute, but at that point I didn't care. I just slipped and scrambled around until I managed to stand back up, brushed the snow off my jeans and went on my merry way, still giggling like a teenage Twilight fan (go ahead, make jokes about me saying this after seeing Eclipse, you know you want to).
So this being Interlochen, my evening of pratfalls was far from over: On the way back to my dorm I was hit with no less than SIX snowballs. Count them - SIX. Four of them from friends, one from a sort-of enemy, and one, amusingly enough, actually came from Mr. "Dead Chick," who wasn't actually aiming for me (or so he says), but guess what happened when he hit me with it? That's right, I fell down. Into a pile of snow. And of course I loved it, because I love falling into snow, but he came over and tried to apologize, when HE was hit with a snowball and HE fell over too...And then I got up, tried to pull him up, fell into the snow AGAIN and took him down with me.
Would anyone be shocked if I said the string of falls and snowballs was more fun for me than seeing the actual movie?
You may laugh. You may poke me. (And, if you're my roommate, you may do both at the same time.) But you may not say, ever, that it is a bad thing to be a Snow Geek.
Sledding, anyone?
Okay. So recently I got asked the question, "Why in the f#$% do you like so many violent movies?!" and it made me stop to think...
I'd like to point out here that if you look at the movies I cite as my favorites (Shopgirl; Lords of Dogtown, Dakota Skye, Donnie Darko), you will see that my favorite movies are not really that violent. It is true, however, that there are some "violent" (in quotes because my definition of violence seems different from others') movies that, despite their dark subject matter, I just couldn't help but love.
Just let me clarify: My idea of a "violent" movie is not one where there are brief scattered fight scenes throughout, or one massive fight scene at the end/in the middle. Nor is it when there are fights, but the rest of the movie is as happy and perky as an episode of The Donna Reed Show. I don't really consider fantasy movies in this equation as much either; if you notice, as a culture we sort of accept that those types of films (i.e. Pirates of the Caribbean; the Narnia movies) to be violent. It's not always an exponential equation; the amount of fight scenes in the film does not indicate the violence factor. (If you don't believe me, watch Shanghai Knights and try to see it as anything other than a comedy.)
What I'm talking about when I say "violent movie" is the kind of movie where you go into the movie with the mentality of, "This film is going to kick my ass." I'm talking Requiem For A Dream, Saving Private Ryan, Mysterious Skin, The Dark Knight, Elephant - movies that keep you awake at night, movies that make you ask the question "What if that happened to me?" and cringe thinking of the answer.
What happens is that I will go into a movie thinking, "God, this is going to scare the crap out of me," and come out saying, "Holy fish sticks, that movie was AMAZING." Sleepy Hollow is actually the film that made me want to become a director, I saw that when I was twelve years old and discovered that not all movies needed happy endings (big surprise, right?). Not only that, but it's absolutely beautiful, from the cinematography to the editing and color-correction, and the casting is so genius it's unbelievable. (For those of you who haven't seenSleepy Hollow, allow me to plant this image in your mind: Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon in Harry Potter) as a magistrate. If that's not enough to get your attention, I don't know what is.)
In addition I'm starting to find myself more drawn to movies WITHOUT those cliche happy endings (and if anyone has seen Requiem For A Dream, you will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about), so finding "edgier" movies has become a bit of a mission for me. My still-to-see list is currently topped by Black Swan - I swear, the SECOND that hits theaters I WILL BE THERE.
But, honestly, I don't like "violent" movies so much as I like movies that make me THINK. This would be the reason why I loved Donnie Darko, because it made me THINK (admittedly, it often made me think, 'What the f#$% is going on,' but still, it WAS thought-provoking). If a movie is well-done, I will watch it and enjoy it. However, I refuse under any circumstances to watch slasher movies (Sleepy Hollow does NOT count as a slasher movie!), and I hatehateHATE most horror movies.
Example: In October I saw a film called - don't make the same mistake I did and judge it by its title - Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Sounds like a fun, wacky little b-movie delight, doesn't it? Sounds like something Ed Wood would make and delusively think that it was scary, right? Sounds like a "horror" film straight out of the fifties, yeah? Well, think again. It was freaking TERRIFYING.
Since this movie was for all intents and purposes pathetic, I feel no guilt about spoiling it. Basically, a small town is ravaged by - what else? - clown-like aliens from outer space. They travel in a big top-shaped spaceship, encase their victims in cotton candy, shoot at the townspeople with popcorn ammo, and use puppet shows and whimsy to lure in their prey. Doesn't this all sound like a cute, nostalgic Ed Wood parody? News flash: It's not. The "klowns" (why kan't they spell the damn words korrektly?) are terrifying. I'd post a picture of one, but I'd have nightmares every time I read my own blog.
Keep in mind that I have been creeped out by clowns since I was little. I refused to go to carnivals as a kid because I was so afraid I'd run into one. I had a similar issue with full-costumed characters (as in, the ones you see at Disneyland). So put them together - full-costumed actors in creepy clown guise - and that equals undiluted nightmare. I should have taken the hint and gotten the hell out of there when I saw the first "klown". But I didn't. I thought, "Well, of course they have to make them LOOK creepy, but I bet these monsters will turn out to be bumbling idiots."
Here's where I made my crucial mistake: I thought that something with such a ridiculous title as "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" would be a whimsical b-movie from the fifties. Instead I got a campy piece of terror from the eighties. The first part of the movie SCREAMED 1980s culture; I half-expected MJ to pop out and sing "Thriller." (In fact, I would've welcomed it.) And once I got over the surprise of it being three decades later than I expected, I thought it was going to be a classically goofy 80s teen film. So I watched it.
Did I mention "big freakin' mistake?"
You know how in most 50s sci-fi films, no one really dies? People get kidnapped, body-snatched, possessed, enslaved, in rare cases tortured - but everyone's all right in the end. Well, that's what I initially thought was going on here. I just laughed at the cotton candy guns. "Ha ha, alien clowns kidnapping people with cotton candy - that's genius!" But when the people in the movie are hit with the cotton candy guns, they're actually DYING. I didn't get that until we actually saw a "klown" EAT SOMEONE who had been encased in the "cotton candy" by sucking out their bodily fluids with a crazy straw. At which point I thought, "Screw it, I've had enough."
BUT I DIDN'T LEAVE!!! Being me, I HAD to know how it ended. Well, guess what? It doesn't have a happy ending. In a 50s sci-fi film, or anything from the Hays Production Code era, the people encased in cotton candy would've been released when the alien ship was destroyed. Spoiler alert: THEY WEREN'T SAVED IN THIS MOVIE. In fact, the ending alludes to the fact that even though the ship and theoretically the aliens inside it have been destroyed, the aliens are still...alive? ?!?!?! Beat me gently with a chainsaw, as Mishka would say.
Now to prove that I'm not a complete baby ("OMG she's scared of CLOWN ALIENS? REALLY?! God, what a wimp!"), I'll tell you about a movie I saw later that night: Let the Right One Inby Tomas Alfredson.
Two words: Freaking. Beautiful.
What happens is that I will go into a movie thinking, "God, this is going to scare the crap out of me," and come out saying, "Holy fish sticks, that movie was AMAZING." Sleepy Hollow is actually the film that made me want to become a director, I saw that when I was twelve years old and discovered that not all movies needed happy endings (big surprise, right?). Not only that, but it's absolutely beautiful, from the cinematography to the editing and color-correction, and the casting is so genius it's unbelievable. (For those of you who haven't seenSleepy Hollow, allow me to plant this image in your mind: Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon in Harry Potter) as a magistrate. If that's not enough to get your attention, I don't know what is.)
In addition I'm starting to find myself more drawn to movies WITHOUT those cliche happy endings (and if anyone has seen Requiem For A Dream, you will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about), so finding "edgier" movies has become a bit of a mission for me. My still-to-see list is currently topped by Black Swan - I swear, the SECOND that hits theaters I WILL BE THERE.
But, honestly, I don't like "violent" movies so much as I like movies that make me THINK. This would be the reason why I loved Donnie Darko, because it made me THINK (admittedly, it often made me think, 'What the f#$% is going on,' but still, it WAS thought-provoking). If a movie is well-done, I will watch it and enjoy it. However, I refuse under any circumstances to watch slasher movies (Sleepy Hollow does NOT count as a slasher movie!), and I hatehateHATE most horror movies.
Example: In October I saw a film called - don't make the same mistake I did and judge it by its title - Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Sounds like a fun, wacky little b-movie delight, doesn't it? Sounds like something Ed Wood would make and delusively think that it was scary, right? Sounds like a "horror" film straight out of the fifties, yeah? Well, think again. It was freaking TERRIFYING.
Since this movie was for all intents and purposes pathetic, I feel no guilt about spoiling it. Basically, a small town is ravaged by - what else? - clown-like aliens from outer space. They travel in a big top-shaped spaceship, encase their victims in cotton candy, shoot at the townspeople with popcorn ammo, and use puppet shows and whimsy to lure in their prey. Doesn't this all sound like a cute, nostalgic Ed Wood parody? News flash: It's not. The "klowns" (why kan't they spell the damn words korrektly?) are terrifying. I'd post a picture of one, but I'd have nightmares every time I read my own blog.
Keep in mind that I have been creeped out by clowns since I was little. I refused to go to carnivals as a kid because I was so afraid I'd run into one. I had a similar issue with full-costumed characters (as in, the ones you see at Disneyland). So put them together - full-costumed actors in creepy clown guise - and that equals undiluted nightmare. I should have taken the hint and gotten the hell out of there when I saw the first "klown". But I didn't. I thought, "Well, of course they have to make them LOOK creepy, but I bet these monsters will turn out to be bumbling idiots."
Here's where I made my crucial mistake: I thought that something with such a ridiculous title as "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" would be a whimsical b-movie from the fifties. Instead I got a campy piece of terror from the eighties. The first part of the movie SCREAMED 1980s culture; I half-expected MJ to pop out and sing "Thriller." (In fact, I would've welcomed it.) And once I got over the surprise of it being three decades later than I expected, I thought it was going to be a classically goofy 80s teen film. So I watched it.
Did I mention "big freakin' mistake?"
You know how in most 50s sci-fi films, no one really dies? People get kidnapped, body-snatched, possessed, enslaved, in rare cases tortured - but everyone's all right in the end. Well, that's what I initially thought was going on here. I just laughed at the cotton candy guns. "Ha ha, alien clowns kidnapping people with cotton candy - that's genius!" But when the people in the movie are hit with the cotton candy guns, they're actually DYING. I didn't get that until we actually saw a "klown" EAT SOMEONE who had been encased in the "cotton candy" by sucking out their bodily fluids with a crazy straw. At which point I thought, "Screw it, I've had enough."
BUT I DIDN'T LEAVE!!! Being me, I HAD to know how it ended. Well, guess what? It doesn't have a happy ending. In a 50s sci-fi film, or anything from the Hays Production Code era, the people encased in cotton candy would've been released when the alien ship was destroyed. Spoiler alert: THEY WEREN'T SAVED IN THIS MOVIE. In fact, the ending alludes to the fact that even though the ship and theoretically the aliens inside it have been destroyed, the aliens are still...alive? ?!?!?! Beat me gently with a chainsaw, as Mishka would say.
Now to prove that I'm not a complete baby ("OMG she's scared of CLOWN ALIENS? REALLY?! God, what a wimp!"), I'll tell you about a movie I saw later that night: Let the Right One Inby Tomas Alfredson.
Two words: Freaking. Beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICp4g9p_rgo <--Trailer
Initially I was unsure about seeing this movie. Having been told, "It's a horror movie, it'll scare you, but you really should watch this!" I went in there expecting Sleepy Hollow, a.k.a. a blood-fest complete with dismemberment, scary vampire-eyes, and (knowing ahead of time about the acid disfigurement) a Harvey Two-Face lookalike killing people to feed his pet vampire. After seeing a worse horror film (Killer Klowns, in case no one got the memo) earlier in the day, my expectations were low. To begin with, I only went at the urging of one of the hall counselors from my dorm, and because I didn't want to be alone in my room after having the s-words scared out of me by the Killer Klowns.
So imagine my surprise when, halfway into the movie, I realized, "Oh my God, I have to show this to my parents next time we see each other." My parents and I are constantly trading movie recommendations, watching movies and new TV shows together, and discussing movies, TV, and other media whenever we have the opportunity. Our mutual favorite is independent cinema, as evidenced by earlier blog posts in which I discussed the tons of epic indie films I've seen with my parents.
Well, this film reminded me of the movies I watch with my parents. It wasn't funny likeInterstate 60 or wacky like Finding Blyss. It was more like Killer Diller - sweet, sad, at times unrealistic (hell, it was a freakin' vampire movie, come on!), full of stuff that will make people go nuts and scream, "PEDOPHILIA! CHILD PORN! SEX! POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS! NOOOOO!" (well, okay, that wasn't in Killer Diller, there was other, extremely minor controversy there, but you get the idea), but if a person actually pays attention it's really very easy to see that this movie is anything but sexually charged.
Aesthetically, Let the Right One In is amazing: The casting is flawless, the lighting and sets are beautiful, the cinematography is stunning, the story brought tears to my eyes, and the direction...well, forget it, if I can coax half as amazing a performance out of an actor once in my career as a director, I'll consider myself successful. I had no idea who any of the people in the movie or on the crew were before I saw this, but I sure as hell know them now. I've made it a personal goal to see everything that Tomas Alfredson has ever made, and I've added Lina Leandersson to my list of actors and actresses that I'm dying to work with.
I can't describe this movie. You just have to freaking see it. I'm not even going to gush about my favorite scenes; I don't want to spoil anything. All I can say is, I will never, ever see the American version of this film. They've just released one, and I've been told that it's great, but I'm never going to watch it. I don't care if they remade it shot-for-shot and just used American actors and locations, it can't even come close to being as amazing as the original film.
So...watch it. Just do it. You won't regret it, I promise. Even if you're the type of person who cringed at the death scenes in Sweeney Todd, this movie won't scare you. You see blood. There are implications. You see a vamp victim hanging upside down from a tree. But there is no way that this can terrify anyone. More likely it will make you cry.
Here's what all of this comes down to: Never, EVER make the mistake of judging the tone of a movie based on a title or a recommendation. What's terrifying to one person might be downright amusing to another; for instance, most of my fellow moviegoers found the big-top spaceship and biting popcorn hilarious; I found it disturbing. Alternately, this works for good movies, like Let the Right One In - I went in there bracing myself for "horror" and instead saw what I am now asserting is the best film I've ever seen. The point is, don't think you know what a movie's about before you've seen it. Yes, even if you've read the Wikipedia summary - I did that while trying to decide if I wanted to see Let the Right One In, and it didn't even remotely prepare me for the actual movie. I do wish, however, that I had read the Killer Klown summary beforehand - I might've spared myself endless misery.
So imagine my surprise when, halfway into the movie, I realized, "Oh my God, I have to show this to my parents next time we see each other." My parents and I are constantly trading movie recommendations, watching movies and new TV shows together, and discussing movies, TV, and other media whenever we have the opportunity. Our mutual favorite is independent cinema, as evidenced by earlier blog posts in which I discussed the tons of epic indie films I've seen with my parents.
Well, this film reminded me of the movies I watch with my parents. It wasn't funny likeInterstate 60 or wacky like Finding Blyss. It was more like Killer Diller - sweet, sad, at times unrealistic (hell, it was a freakin' vampire movie, come on!), full of stuff that will make people go nuts and scream, "PEDOPHILIA! CHILD PORN! SEX! POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS! NOOOOO!" (well, okay, that wasn't in Killer Diller, there was other, extremely minor controversy there, but you get the idea), but if a person actually pays attention it's really very easy to see that this movie is anything but sexually charged.
Aesthetically, Let the Right One In is amazing: The casting is flawless, the lighting and sets are beautiful, the cinematography is stunning, the story brought tears to my eyes, and the direction...well, forget it, if I can coax half as amazing a performance out of an actor once in my career as a director, I'll consider myself successful. I had no idea who any of the people in the movie or on the crew were before I saw this, but I sure as hell know them now. I've made it a personal goal to see everything that Tomas Alfredson has ever made, and I've added Lina Leandersson to my list of actors and actresses that I'm dying to work with.
I can't describe this movie. You just have to freaking see it. I'm not even going to gush about my favorite scenes; I don't want to spoil anything. All I can say is, I will never, ever see the American version of this film. They've just released one, and I've been told that it's great, but I'm never going to watch it. I don't care if they remade it shot-for-shot and just used American actors and locations, it can't even come close to being as amazing as the original film.
So...watch it. Just do it. You won't regret it, I promise. Even if you're the type of person who cringed at the death scenes in Sweeney Todd, this movie won't scare you. You see blood. There are implications. You see a vamp victim hanging upside down from a tree. But there is no way that this can terrify anyone. More likely it will make you cry.
Here's what all of this comes down to: Never, EVER make the mistake of judging the tone of a movie based on a title or a recommendation. What's terrifying to one person might be downright amusing to another; for instance, most of my fellow moviegoers found the big-top spaceship and biting popcorn hilarious; I found it disturbing. Alternately, this works for good movies, like Let the Right One In - I went in there bracing myself for "horror" and instead saw what I am now asserting is the best film I've ever seen. The point is, don't think you know what a movie's about before you've seen it. Yes, even if you've read the Wikipedia summary - I did that while trying to decide if I wanted to see Let the Right One In, and it didn't even remotely prepare me for the actual movie. I do wish, however, that I had read the Killer Klown summary beforehand - I might've spared myself endless misery.
STOLEN DIALOGUE
"Stop the violence...that does NOT mean 'Make out in my lobby!'"
Person one: I'll never get any work done if I hang out over here with you and...the Creature in the Yellow Lanyard.
Person two: Couldn't have said it better.
Person one: You know what, we should take this [director's chair] on our sets.
Person two: So we can look as pretentious as possible?
"My major is full of dipsticks and looney tunes."
"I can't think straight knowing that someone actually got laid in the edit suites!"
"I don't mean to insinuate anything, but you kind of suck."
Person one: This is going to be amazing. It's going to be epic dipped in awesomesauce.
Person two: Uh...yes, that!
"If I have to get involved, heads will roll...and I don't mean yours."
"Wait...I think that emoticon means I'm kicking my own ass..."
Person one: Remember when I whacked him last year?
Person two: Ha ha, that was hardly "whacking" him, darling.
Person one: Well what would you call it, Miss Thesaurus?
Person two: Hmm...maybe "patting angrily with no great effect?"
[In physics class, we are given the following question:
Humans are:
a) walking batteries
b) walking capacitors
c) walking currents
d) all of the above
e) none of the above]
Student: I said "none of the above" because all of those things are sold at Radio Shack and humans are not sold at Radio Shack, humans are mammals."
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