Friday, July 13, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
So, it was like a giant drum circle?
77 BOADRUM
If you weren't there, you're a communist. Because it was awesome, and communists hate awesome.
And here I am being happy about being there.
Sorry guys, it's summertime, and I won't be watching movies for a while. I'll probably be in the park.
If you weren't there, you're a communist. Because it was awesome, and communists hate awesome.
And here I am being happy about being there.Sorry guys, it's summertime, and I won't be watching movies for a while. I'll probably be in the park.
Monday, June 25, 2007
LOCK AND LOLL!
Wild Zero (2000) Tetsuro Takeuchi
So, I keep picking movies to write about that largely speak for themselves. Wild Zero, for those who missed it, was the Rock 'n Roll zombie alien gender-bending guitar-sword-spaceship-slashing epic I had been waiting for my whole life. It's chock full of Guitar Wolf's sloppy, noisy punk antics, complete with excessive hair combing and beer drinking as well as concert footage (R.I.P. Bass Wolf). If you're not already totally convinced that you should run out and rent it right now based on what I just said, ummm....we're not friends anymore.
I could review this movie, instead of listing genres that it could possibly belong to (guitar-sword-spaceship-slashing? Whatever). But it's not that kind of movie. It's way too Rock 'n Roll. Which brings me to what I've really been thinking about.
Rock 'n Roll is NOT over, baby! Rock 'n Roll NEVER DIES!
So can we all just go out sometime this week, buy some cheap beer, put on the Cramps, or the Ramones, or Elvis, Guitar Wolf, or hell, even the Murder City Devils, and remember that anyone with a guitar can be a hero for 5 minutes, and we aren't above loving them for trying. In fact, God Bless the talentless, scrawny boys of the world who first picked up a guitar because they thought it could get them chicks. God Bless them, every one.
So, I keep picking movies to write about that largely speak for themselves. Wild Zero, for those who missed it, was the Rock 'n Roll zombie alien gender-bending guitar-sword-spaceship-slashing epic I had been waiting for my whole life. It's chock full of Guitar Wolf's sloppy, noisy punk antics, complete with excessive hair combing and beer drinking as well as concert footage (R.I.P. Bass Wolf). If you're not already totally convinced that you should run out and rent it right now based on what I just said, ummm....we're not friends anymore.
I could review this movie, instead of listing genres that it could possibly belong to (guitar-sword-spaceship-slashing? Whatever). But it's not that kind of movie. It's way too Rock 'n Roll. Which brings me to what I've really been thinking about.
Rock 'n Roll is NOT over, baby! Rock 'n Roll NEVER DIES!
So can we all just go out sometime this week, buy some cheap beer, put on the Cramps, or the Ramones, or Elvis, Guitar Wolf, or hell, even the Murder City Devils, and remember that anyone with a guitar can be a hero for 5 minutes, and we aren't above loving them for trying. In fact, God Bless the talentless, scrawny boys of the world who first picked up a guitar because they thought it could get them chicks. God Bless them, every one.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
My heart is all aflutter...
Go watch Tears of the Black Tiger RIGHT NOW! I'mna watch it again...
Have I ever mentioned how much I love epically stylized movies saturated with bravado, heroism, and heartache? Yeah. Well it's a lot.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love epically stylized movies saturated with bravado, heroism, and heartache? Yeah. Well it's a lot.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Vent
I'm about to feel sorry for myself. Please ignore me, I just have to throw this out into the void. Because I have nowhere else to release it to.
I'm in a new city (well, 7 months isn't that new, but it's new enough) at a new job. My closest friend is my husband, who is having some problems right now and taking them out on me. My job is very exciting, but as a 23 year old with naught but an undergraduate degree I'm responsible for a million dollar, multi-site R01; and a very ambitious one at that. They finally got me an assistant, but she won't be able to help with any of the development, technical or theoretical, that's giving me a heart attack right now. I've been given an impossible task: to replicate a study and add novel techniques and measures to it without purchasing any of the equipment used in the former study. So I've been laboring away; writing software, modifying hardware, attempting to adjust the functionality of neurophysiologic tools we do have that were designed for completely different purposes. And I'm doing it. And I'm doing it well. But I'm not doing it fast enough for them, we have NIH deadlines and recruitment schedules, hospital administration breathing down our neck...all because when they hired me to do this no one considered that we might need the equipment neccesary to perform the experiment.
On top of that, my husband does not seem to think it's important to pay me back any of the money I've loaned him over the years, and in fact lost his job (and me) because of his problems with alcohol. And I'm flat broke. So I work nights as a phone sex operator on a no taboos line, pays OK. I get up every morning at 7:30, go to the hospital, frantically try to pull off nearly impossible feats of coordinating folks at three different sites in three different states, do my best to not have any bad news for them regarding the development I'm breaking my back over, get yelled at anyway because it wasn't done yesterday, and then get snide little snaps from the psych associate who has decided I'm disorganized and lazy even though she has nothing to do with my project and has never seen my work output. Then I try to clean my house, as well as feed myself and my kitten, before I have to log into the chatline at 7 and then have phone sex with strangers who are allowed to discuss bestiality, pedophilia, rape, and drugs until 11. I'm pretty good at everything but the black and the domination lines, although most of the young girl calls end up being domination anyway. I have no outlet for human contact or support, because I have no family and my husband just lashes out at me and tries to hurt me as much as he can whenever I try to talk to him about his problems, let alone mine. Other friends I have shy away immediately if I even come close to opening up to them; they want to have fun with me, drink sake and talk about movies or hear my crazy stories and dance to the cramps all night long, but not hear me talk about myself. My husband said once, when he was really mad at me, or just hurt because I told him I couldn't be with him anymore unless he stopped drinking, that I was a bitch all the time, and that's why no one cared about me. I've been assured by my friends that this is not the case. However, none of them care enough to listen.
I'm in a new city (well, 7 months isn't that new, but it's new enough) at a new job. My closest friend is my husband, who is having some problems right now and taking them out on me. My job is very exciting, but as a 23 year old with naught but an undergraduate degree I'm responsible for a million dollar, multi-site R01; and a very ambitious one at that. They finally got me an assistant, but she won't be able to help with any of the development, technical or theoretical, that's giving me a heart attack right now. I've been given an impossible task: to replicate a study and add novel techniques and measures to it without purchasing any of the equipment used in the former study. So I've been laboring away; writing software, modifying hardware, attempting to adjust the functionality of neurophysiologic tools we do have that were designed for completely different purposes. And I'm doing it. And I'm doing it well. But I'm not doing it fast enough for them, we have NIH deadlines and recruitment schedules, hospital administration breathing down our neck...all because when they hired me to do this no one considered that we might need the equipment neccesary to perform the experiment.
On top of that, my husband does not seem to think it's important to pay me back any of the money I've loaned him over the years, and in fact lost his job (and me) because of his problems with alcohol. And I'm flat broke. So I work nights as a phone sex operator on a no taboos line, pays OK. I get up every morning at 7:30, go to the hospital, frantically try to pull off nearly impossible feats of coordinating folks at three different sites in three different states, do my best to not have any bad news for them regarding the development I'm breaking my back over, get yelled at anyway because it wasn't done yesterday, and then get snide little snaps from the psych associate who has decided I'm disorganized and lazy even though she has nothing to do with my project and has never seen my work output. Then I try to clean my house, as well as feed myself and my kitten, before I have to log into the chatline at 7 and then have phone sex with strangers who are allowed to discuss bestiality, pedophilia, rape, and drugs until 11. I'm pretty good at everything but the black and the domination lines, although most of the young girl calls end up being domination anyway. I have no outlet for human contact or support, because I have no family and my husband just lashes out at me and tries to hurt me as much as he can whenever I try to talk to him about his problems, let alone mine. Other friends I have shy away immediately if I even come close to opening up to them; they want to have fun with me, drink sake and talk about movies or hear my crazy stories and dance to the cramps all night long, but not hear me talk about myself. My husband said once, when he was really mad at me, or just hurt because I told him I couldn't be with him anymore unless he stopped drinking, that I was a bitch all the time, and that's why no one cared about me. I've been assured by my friends that this is not the case. However, none of them care enough to listen.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Ode to Brigitte Lahaie
When my girlfriends invited me to go see a midnight viewing of Pirates last night, my first thought should have been: "Arrrrrr," followed by brash enthusiasm; but all I could think was 'God, and stare at Keira Knightly for nearly three hours?' Now I know, I know, that the main draw of the movie is Johhny Depp, followed closely by both swash and buckle; but what happened to the days when this kind of crowd-pleasing fluff included some cheesecake? Why even have a female lead if she's going to look like a 12 year old boy?
Now, I believe that the trend towards slim models and actresses has about as little to do with teen eating disorders in America as Metallica has to do with Columbine, or whatever nonsense people spew about that sort of thing. My problem with Keira Knightly and, for that matter, every other plain faced stick figure on the big screen today is not the example they are setting for the youth of America. Their presence in big budget Hollyood productions says something terrifying about America's relationship with women. And I'm not even sure what it is.... but I know it has to be negative. The sexuality exuded by Keira Knightly in the Pirates movies is...non-existent? Completely! And what is a pirate movie, really, except for treasure, violence, and heaving bosoms in hot corsets? (also rum) At least in the era of Russ Meyer, Jayne Mansfield, Brigitte Lahaie, Barbarella, Isabel Sarli, and Reiko Ike, female sexuality was celebrated. Russ Meyer's movies are joyful; filled with bouncy, big breasted, oversexed women who can be badasses too. Brigitte Lahaie and Isabel Sarli shared with us two of the most beautiful naturally occurring human forms in history. Mansfield and Ike are flawed women that we love to love anyway, because of their ability to go to extremes, to touch us where we haven't been touched (giggle)...and, well, you get the idea. In essence, we were at one point getting off on women getting off. And that's hot. So whatever happened to cheesecake? Where is the Brigitte Lahaie of 2007? Jenna Jamison? Seriously? I'd rather take the GRE again than watch her take her clothes off. And what is the Barbarella of recent years...Aeon Flux with motherfucking Charlize Theron? Is that what we've been reduced to? What are all these joyless, sexless hags doing on my screen?
I think that one of the causes of this problem is that there's no joy in filmed sex anymore. Russ Meyer loved tits, and it's his genuine enthusiasm and fetishism, as well as the burlesque-esque writing style and tone he adds to his films, that made them great. Brigitte, Isabel, Jayne, and Reiko were in movies because they had presence and were physically representative of the ideal woman; and not because they were made of plastic and willing to do double penetration. Or, alternately, whatever it is that makes people hire Keira Knightly. It sure as hell isn't talent, or screen presence, or physical attributes. The best thing I can come up with is that as a celebrity, her name is a marketable attribute, and will draw a certain number of viewers. Or something. Really, I just don't know, it's totally beyond me. So what happened in between the late 80's and today that made us stop valuing female sexuality? Why don't we feel comfortable with celebrating joyful, overblown vampiness anymore? Why aren't we actively demanding the return of the sex-kitten?
I just hope Rodriguez's remake of Barbarella will remind America of what we once had, and how silly it is that we don't have it anymore.
Update: Dolly Parton is the shit. Linked is a decent article about why, exploring some of the female sexuality related issues I'd like to have something bright to say about.
P.S.- I got no beef with skinny girls, or androgynous girls, just the role Hollywood MAKES them play in representing female sexuality (although, Shane from the L Word, you rock it Japanese pillow book old school and make that skinny, androgynous look wicked femme positive). Seems to me that typically these girls are made to represent women who do not embrace their own sexuality, which I got beef with. I know it can be a thin line to walk, in between exploitation and celebration when it comes to female sexuality; but especially in a medium where female sexuality is not just the icing but the cake( I'm talking 'bout pirate movies...): somebody's gotta try! And, as is evidenced by the L word, when you put forward genuine representations of female sexuality, it's legit even though it's hot! In fact, it's more legit because it's hot! Whatever, ask Dolly Parton, she's smarter than me.....
Now, I believe that the trend towards slim models and actresses has about as little to do with teen eating disorders in America as Metallica has to do with Columbine, or whatever nonsense people spew about that sort of thing. My problem with Keira Knightly and, for that matter, every other plain faced stick figure on the big screen today is not the example they are setting for the youth of America. Their presence in big budget Hollyood productions says something terrifying about America's relationship with women. And I'm not even sure what it is.... but I know it has to be negative. The sexuality exuded by Keira Knightly in the Pirates movies is...non-existent? Completely! And what is a pirate movie, really, except for treasure, violence, and heaving bosoms in hot corsets? (also rum) At least in the era of Russ Meyer, Jayne Mansfield, Brigitte Lahaie, Barbarella, Isabel Sarli, and Reiko Ike, female sexuality was celebrated. Russ Meyer's movies are joyful; filled with bouncy, big breasted, oversexed women who can be badasses too. Brigitte Lahaie and Isabel Sarli shared with us two of the most beautiful naturally occurring human forms in history. Mansfield and Ike are flawed women that we love to love anyway, because of their ability to go to extremes, to touch us where we haven't been touched (giggle)...and, well, you get the idea. In essence, we were at one point getting off on women getting off. And that's hot. So whatever happened to cheesecake? Where is the Brigitte Lahaie of 2007? Jenna Jamison? Seriously? I'd rather take the GRE again than watch her take her clothes off. And what is the Barbarella of recent years...Aeon Flux with motherfucking Charlize Theron? Is that what we've been reduced to? What are all these joyless, sexless hags doing on my screen?
I think that one of the causes of this problem is that there's no joy in filmed sex anymore. Russ Meyer loved tits, and it's his genuine enthusiasm and fetishism, as well as the burlesque-esque writing style and tone he adds to his films, that made them great. Brigitte, Isabel, Jayne, and Reiko were in movies because they had presence and were physically representative of the ideal woman; and not because they were made of plastic and willing to do double penetration. Or, alternately, whatever it is that makes people hire Keira Knightly. It sure as hell isn't talent, or screen presence, or physical attributes. The best thing I can come up with is that as a celebrity, her name is a marketable attribute, and will draw a certain number of viewers. Or something. Really, I just don't know, it's totally beyond me. So what happened in between the late 80's and today that made us stop valuing female sexuality? Why don't we feel comfortable with celebrating joyful, overblown vampiness anymore? Why aren't we actively demanding the return of the sex-kitten?
I just hope Rodriguez's remake of Barbarella will remind America of what we once had, and how silly it is that we don't have it anymore.
Update: Dolly Parton is the shit. Linked is a decent article about why, exploring some of the female sexuality related issues I'd like to have something bright to say about.
P.S.- I got no beef with skinny girls, or androgynous girls, just the role Hollywood MAKES them play in representing female sexuality (although, Shane from the L Word, you rock it Japanese pillow book old school and make that skinny, androgynous look wicked femme positive). Seems to me that typically these girls are made to represent women who do not embrace their own sexuality, which I got beef with. I know it can be a thin line to walk, in between exploitation and celebration when it comes to female sexuality; but especially in a medium where female sexuality is not just the icing but the cake( I'm talking 'bout pirate movies...): somebody's gotta try! And, as is evidenced by the L word, when you put forward genuine representations of female sexuality, it's legit even though it's hot! In fact, it's more legit because it's hot! Whatever, ask Dolly Parton, she's smarter than me.....
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