![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I have cleaned the hell out of my room. Hurray! I cleaned the CLOSET. I even VACUUMED the CLOSET. Woo. Hoo. Go me. I now have no excuse for not using this day to work on writing. Really.
While I was cleaning, I rented four, count them: four, movies that I wanted to see and missed in the theaters. What follows are mini-reviews/thoughts for each:
Pulp Fiction
Yes, I am the only person in the world who had never seen this movie and frankly, it was getting embarassing. I'm happy to say I enjoyed it, though I was always aware of how standard a lot of it has become. The whole violence/pop culture connection is everywhere now. Still I liked it and especially liked John Travolta's character. Quentin Tarantino is...a very very bad actor. Whatever the reverse of charisma is, he's got it. It's probably made worse by the fact that he's acting against John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. It's like having a black hole in the screen next to two supernovas. When he's ordering them around you just expect them to brush him aside like a fly. Bruce Willis was good, though. Makes me remember back when I used to watch Moonlighting and even though I wasn't a big fan of the show I always liked him.
Drumline
Heh. This is the one about the marching bands. It's pretty standard and inoffensive. Every once in a while you had to laugh at how intense it got before you remembered that wait, we're talking about marching band here. I kept having to remind myself the band director was Orlando Bloom. I always expect him to be funny and he was very very serious here. My own marching band career in high school was mercifully short so I didn't have much to relate to there.
Training Day
I'm going to this tribute to Ethan Hawke so I really wanted to see this beforehand. (Not that I'm going to be chatting with Ethan or anything, but still.) I wanted to see it anyway but never got around to it. It was great but took a lot out of you. Training Day was a good title, but it could have alternatively been called Ethan Hawke and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
This was one of those movies where even though Ethan Hawke was the protagonist he was obviously the supporting actor to Denzel Washington's secondary character. I'm so glad he got nominated for it--in an interview he had said that he considered DW's Oscar to be an award for him as well because as the supporting actor it was his job to help him give his lead performance. I thought that was a pretty classy thing to say and that's just what he does in the movie. His character is still a little too underwritten, though, I thought. His only real reason for wanting to work with DW is that he wants to make detective so it makes an already passive role even more passive. It would have been interesting to see a rookie with a little more clear motiviation, like Guy Pearce in LA Confidential.
Denzel Washington, meanwhile, is just frightening. Go Denzel! You spend the whole movie never knowing if he's for real or whether this is just another twist of the snake to get himself out of trouble.
Far From Heaven
I love Douglas Sirk pictures so I had really wanted to see this one. It was so beautiful I really wish I'd been able to see it on the big screen. Actually, as bad as Julianne Moore's life is in the picture I still envied the beautiful place she got to live. I'm so shallow.
I liked the movie, but I found myself preferring the original 50's dramas where all the homosexual subtext was just subtext. That said, Dennis Quaid gave a really good performance. There's one part where he slipped into this little hidden gay bar and my first thought was, "That place looks so cool!" I loved the idea of a hidden bar with these funky green lights that made everything look like another world. But the people inside--ugh. So depressing. It was so creepy with all these men looking like they just loathed themselves and were ashamed of being there. It just made me so sad--I'm lucky enough to live in a place where people can be open about who they are with relatively little trouble. Every gay man I know is proud of who he is, sexually and otherwise. It was just so wrong seeing this kind of homosexual world where there was just no joy and no real connection between people that you could see. Of course this was through the eyes of Dennis Quaid's character. He thought it was shameful and disgusting so it was.
Loved the kids, though. They were like straight from central casting and never seemed quite real with all the, "Hiya Pop's!" etc. I also really liked Julianne Moore's character. She was somebody who had a lot of genuinely good impulses but up until this point had been able to go through her life ever having to test them. She was a totally unlikely hero who was brave only by accident. She was actually compassionate, in her ignorant way, about her husband's situation. I mean, it wasn't her fault he'd presented himself falsely--I'd be mad as hell about that if I was her. As awful as it sounds to us today to hear her suggest he "get help" for his "problem" she was trying to understand and respect her husband on his own terms, it seemed. (And he presented it as an illness himself.) She never called him disgusting or added to the shame he already felt on purpose, even when he told her he was in love with someone else. It was pretty funny seeing her become this beacon of the civil rights movement in her town without realizing it. In the end her husband even had it slightly better in one regard--as difficult as his life was going to be, he was starting a real relationship in the end. She had to say good-bye to her friend. I guess that was what was so sad in this movie overall. Everytime the main character took a step towards some real understanding she'd get shot down without knowing why.
Speaking of repressed 50's housewives I'm floored by a conversation on one of my mbs today. There are three, count them three, men all earnestly explaining how women are all really meant to spend their time raising their children and not working. They just live in this fantasy world where women are supposed to simply act out this supporting role in the world. When one single mother explained how her husband flaked out and left her, never contributing any child support, and how the fact that she'd continued working was probably the difference between poverty and an okay-life for her children she was just dismissed. Now, I have no problems with women who take time off work to raise their children--my own mother was a stay-at-home mom. But for god's sakes, how can anybody honestly expect a woman to let her entire life depend on the whim of a man? To cut off all her independent means of support and just hope that her husband stays interested enough in their life, children and marriage to support her forever? This is just not a reality nowadays. Frankly, it was only briefly a reality at all! You think those women out on farms in the 1800's were spending their day spending quality time with their children? They were working, of course! So back on my mb, here's this woman who's raised wonderful children who are now in college with little help from her husband and these guys have the nerve to tell her she didn't raise her children at all--somebody else did--because she had the gall to have a job. And yes, those of them with children worked themselves and left their wife to raise the kids but--get this--a husband and wife "are one" so it doesn't count. Yeah, right.
I didn't even reply on this thread. It just seemed like...why should I have to defend myself to three men (varying in age from their 20's to their 50's) and their childish fantasy role of me? I'm usually pretty outspoken about women's issues but here I appear to be called upon to defend the fact that I'm an actual person instead of a paper doll Mommy cut-out. So I just wanted to give a shout-out here to you who are mothers, single or married, as well as to those who are not mothers because you all rock.
Oh, and btw, apparently I'm British!
Jolly good, wot! Anyone for tennis? That'll be ten ponies, guv. You're the epitome of everything that is english. Yey :) Hoist that Union Jack!
While I was cleaning, I rented four, count them: four, movies that I wanted to see and missed in the theaters. What follows are mini-reviews/thoughts for each:
Pulp Fiction
Yes, I am the only person in the world who had never seen this movie and frankly, it was getting embarassing. I'm happy to say I enjoyed it, though I was always aware of how standard a lot of it has become. The whole violence/pop culture connection is everywhere now. Still I liked it and especially liked John Travolta's character. Quentin Tarantino is...a very very bad actor. Whatever the reverse of charisma is, he's got it. It's probably made worse by the fact that he's acting against John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. It's like having a black hole in the screen next to two supernovas. When he's ordering them around you just expect them to brush him aside like a fly. Bruce Willis was good, though. Makes me remember back when I used to watch Moonlighting and even though I wasn't a big fan of the show I always liked him.
Drumline
Heh. This is the one about the marching bands. It's pretty standard and inoffensive. Every once in a while you had to laugh at how intense it got before you remembered that wait, we're talking about marching band here. I kept having to remind myself the band director was Orlando Bloom. I always expect him to be funny and he was very very serious here. My own marching band career in high school was mercifully short so I didn't have much to relate to there.
Training Day
I'm going to this tribute to Ethan Hawke so I really wanted to see this beforehand. (Not that I'm going to be chatting with Ethan or anything, but still.) I wanted to see it anyway but never got around to it. It was great but took a lot out of you. Training Day was a good title, but it could have alternatively been called Ethan Hawke and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
This was one of those movies where even though Ethan Hawke was the protagonist he was obviously the supporting actor to Denzel Washington's secondary character. I'm so glad he got nominated for it--in an interview he had said that he considered DW's Oscar to be an award for him as well because as the supporting actor it was his job to help him give his lead performance. I thought that was a pretty classy thing to say and that's just what he does in the movie. His character is still a little too underwritten, though, I thought. His only real reason for wanting to work with DW is that he wants to make detective so it makes an already passive role even more passive. It would have been interesting to see a rookie with a little more clear motiviation, like Guy Pearce in LA Confidential.
Denzel Washington, meanwhile, is just frightening. Go Denzel! You spend the whole movie never knowing if he's for real or whether this is just another twist of the snake to get himself out of trouble.
Far From Heaven
I love Douglas Sirk pictures so I had really wanted to see this one. It was so beautiful I really wish I'd been able to see it on the big screen. Actually, as bad as Julianne Moore's life is in the picture I still envied the beautiful place she got to live. I'm so shallow.
I liked the movie, but I found myself preferring the original 50's dramas where all the homosexual subtext was just subtext. That said, Dennis Quaid gave a really good performance. There's one part where he slipped into this little hidden gay bar and my first thought was, "That place looks so cool!" I loved the idea of a hidden bar with these funky green lights that made everything look like another world. But the people inside--ugh. So depressing. It was so creepy with all these men looking like they just loathed themselves and were ashamed of being there. It just made me so sad--I'm lucky enough to live in a place where people can be open about who they are with relatively little trouble. Every gay man I know is proud of who he is, sexually and otherwise. It was just so wrong seeing this kind of homosexual world where there was just no joy and no real connection between people that you could see. Of course this was through the eyes of Dennis Quaid's character. He thought it was shameful and disgusting so it was.
Loved the kids, though. They were like straight from central casting and never seemed quite real with all the, "Hiya Pop's!" etc. I also really liked Julianne Moore's character. She was somebody who had a lot of genuinely good impulses but up until this point had been able to go through her life ever having to test them. She was a totally unlikely hero who was brave only by accident. She was actually compassionate, in her ignorant way, about her husband's situation. I mean, it wasn't her fault he'd presented himself falsely--I'd be mad as hell about that if I was her. As awful as it sounds to us today to hear her suggest he "get help" for his "problem" she was trying to understand and respect her husband on his own terms, it seemed. (And he presented it as an illness himself.) She never called him disgusting or added to the shame he already felt on purpose, even when he told her he was in love with someone else. It was pretty funny seeing her become this beacon of the civil rights movement in her town without realizing it. In the end her husband even had it slightly better in one regard--as difficult as his life was going to be, he was starting a real relationship in the end. She had to say good-bye to her friend. I guess that was what was so sad in this movie overall. Everytime the main character took a step towards some real understanding she'd get shot down without knowing why.
Speaking of repressed 50's housewives I'm floored by a conversation on one of my mbs today. There are three, count them three, men all earnestly explaining how women are all really meant to spend their time raising their children and not working. They just live in this fantasy world where women are supposed to simply act out this supporting role in the world. When one single mother explained how her husband flaked out and left her, never contributing any child support, and how the fact that she'd continued working was probably the difference between poverty and an okay-life for her children she was just dismissed. Now, I have no problems with women who take time off work to raise their children--my own mother was a stay-at-home mom. But for god's sakes, how can anybody honestly expect a woman to let her entire life depend on the whim of a man? To cut off all her independent means of support and just hope that her husband stays interested enough in their life, children and marriage to support her forever? This is just not a reality nowadays. Frankly, it was only briefly a reality at all! You think those women out on farms in the 1800's were spending their day spending quality time with their children? They were working, of course! So back on my mb, here's this woman who's raised wonderful children who are now in college with little help from her husband and these guys have the nerve to tell her she didn't raise her children at all--somebody else did--because she had the gall to have a job. And yes, those of them with children worked themselves and left their wife to raise the kids but--get this--a husband and wife "are one" so it doesn't count. Yeah, right.
I didn't even reply on this thread. It just seemed like...why should I have to defend myself to three men (varying in age from their 20's to their 50's) and their childish fantasy role of me? I'm usually pretty outspoken about women's issues but here I appear to be called upon to defend the fact that I'm an actual person instead of a paper doll Mommy cut-out. So I just wanted to give a shout-out here to you who are mothers, single or married, as well as to those who are not mothers because you all rock.
Oh, and btw, apparently I'm British!
Jolly good, wot! Anyone for tennis? That'll be ten ponies, guv. You're the epitome of everything that is english. Yey :) Hoist that Union Jack!
How British are you?
this quiz was made by alanna
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
Ummmm....
As far as the men thing goes...men tend to be assholes, given the opportunity. The ones on your mb sound as though they have been given ample opportunity and grabbed that sucker with both hands.
I think it has to do with fear of losing their winkies.
From:
Re: Ummmm....
From:
Re: Ummmm....
Although some of them cough*tuor*cough migrate into Movies now and then.
From:
Re: Ummmm....
Oh, btw, yes I did VACUUM the CLOSET! Amazing, no? I cleaned it out, really, and there was an inch of dust on the floor so I stuck that sucker in there and cleaned it all up. Yee-ha!
Also today I finally found the Easter Eggs on the FOTR DVD. Yippee!
From:
no subject
...on vacuuming your closet
...on finding the easter eggs
...on spending memorial day with law & order {me too me too -- I started watching @ 11am -- when did you turn on your set? -- are you going to stay tuned for Boomtown?}
...on helping me to get my own livejournal started
From:
no subject
Hi petitesoeur! Hi hi hi! I turned it on around 11 too, I think. I'll definitely watch Boomtown.
I am rushing over to look at your shiny new lj. Btw, I made my appointment with Maryann for around 6 on Friday, after work.
From:
no subject
I suppose this means I am now the last person in the world not to have seen Pulp Fiction. I really should get on that- I haven't seen any of the movies you've mentioned either, but I keep meaning to. I'm the worst at passing up a movie in the theater with the excuse that I will see it on video, but then I never do.
Speaking of repressed 50's housewives I'm floored by a conversation on one of my mbs today. There are three, count them three, men all earnestly explaining how women are all really meant to spend their time raising their children and not working.
Uhg, that kind of opinion just enrages me too much to even be able to argue against it, half the time. I'm a single young woman with no desire to be other wise in the near future, and I come up against that sort of thinking quite often when I voice the opinion that I currently have no desire to get married, which seems to be violating some kind of woman's life purpose according to most. Especially in my immediate family which consists almost entirely of married brothers. I remember when I chose a major in English, a brother remarked something to the effect of: "Well women can afford to do that, because they can just marry a rich man to take care of them and not have to worry about doing anything _practical_ to make money." *fume* Kudos to you for putting up with the idiots on your message board.
This is your random comment of the evening ;-)
From:
no subject
I'm a single young woman with no desire to be other wise in the near future, and I come up against that sort of thinking quite often when I voice the opinion that I currently have no desire to get married, which seems to be violating some kind of woman's life purpose according to most. Especially in my immediate family which consists almost entirely of married brothers.
Isn't that amazing? Sometimes you get it from complete strangers too--I remember this guy who worked at a magazine stand in a bus station trying to get me to get married and have kids. Not only was it bizarre that he thought it was his business or that I should naturally have this desire to be married adn have kids but he seemed to think it was something I could do something about that second. Um, if I met somebody I wanted to marry I suppose I would marry them (if he asked me). It's not something I can just decide on my own!
The thread has become more and more strange. These guys are now embarassing the other men on the board. They've already accused women of all marrying men who make a lot of money. One of them made a reference to losing his job because he had opinions differed from those of his "feminist bosses" and I thought yeah, I can just imagine. I love picturing him having to "lower" himself to working for a woman. Of course he has to pretend there's a feminist conspiracy. I'll bet that's why he started the topic, in fact. He can't say this stuff at work so he does it on the internet!
From:
wot wot anyone for tennis
I only recently watch pulp fiction, so I'm glad i wasn't the last person to see it!!
btw, congrats on being British! There's nout wrong with that lass!! so i'll get the tennis gear and meet you at wimbledon for tea and crumpets!!wot wot.
From:
Re: wot wot anyone for tennis
I'm kind of excited about being British. I'm sick of being American. Enough of that. That's it. I'm officially British now. Pass the crumpets!*
*The only doll I ever had in my life was called Crumpet. She served tea.:-)
From:
Re: wot wot anyone for tennis
Hope those guys have realised they are being plebs and that no one likes sexism anymore, what a bunch of plonkers (for want of a stronger word) anyway guv, best go, have to eat cream tea with mildred before a spot of cricket.