My Version of a “Girls Night”

Saturday night, my friends got a group together to see Inglourious Basterds at the Student Union.*

Then three of us went and ate pastries at a local bakery.

And then me and my friend Katie watched American History X** and did arts and crafts.

THAT’S WHAT A GIRLS NIGHT SHOULD BE BITCHES!

*Okay, I think I liked Inglourious Basterds EVEN MORE now, which I didn’t think was possible. My opinion of it grew since I saw it the first time around anyway, but this time put me over the edge into the land of thinking: Since they’ve opened it up to ten slots for the Best Picture nomination, it could maybe quite possibly be a contender. Which would be a nice change of pace from the depressing, sentimental shit, but whatever, that’s just me.

I think it might also have been the audience I was with this time around, where we’re all college students laughing at the dark humor instead of just going “Ah, the violence and the um… WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!” which still happened. I actually noticed a few people leave the theater after the first time you meet the Basterds. I could say “Oh, I understand,” but geez, I don’t. I’m no longer sensitized to this, apparently. The people who remained were awesome and every time Brad Pitt opened his mouth there were laughs, which was awesome.  So this was the “Dark Humor Ha Ha Ha, I see What You Did THERE, Quentin Tarantino” screening.

** Story of my life. It is always “Hey, let’s what a very violent movie while (fill in the blank).” Usually baking or sewing, this time water color-collage. Also, I don’t think I could do this movie justice with a review, so we’re not going there.  I know that for me this was the second time I had seen it, so I knew when to close my eyes at the hard moments and it was still really powerful.

The Future is Now

I was really prepped for a new Visual Movies post, but this was just too too cool!

http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

Oh man, the future! THE FUTURE!!! I am getting prepped for it man, because it is full of win.

Video from ted.com

And let me just say: imagine using a piece of paper as your laptop or taking a picture with your hands.  That is epic!

Astro Boy, or Review of a Review

Reading my local newspaper’s movie reviews (Raleigh News & Observer), I was a little perturbed to see that the Astro Boy review was mainly about how it was or was not appropriate for children.

Am I too distanced from childhood to determine this? Or too far away from adulthood/parenthood to think this was appropriate?

Okay, I haven’t seen Astro Boy yet, and I probably won’t, but that’s not the point here. I am wondering do we need disclaimers in reviews about children’s movies?

My personal experience as of late with “children’s movies” and little kids is, I saw Coraline in theaters, sitting maybe three seats away from a three year old girl who spent the greater part of the movie crying or whimpering.  Almost all of the print reviews I came across had to mention how inappropriate it was as a film for little kids, which irked me. For film as an art form, the reviewers job is NOT to give age disclaimers. That’s not the reviewer’s job, that is the MPAA’s job. Coraline got a PG rating, and after that it is the parent’s job to read the fine print and determine whether or not their child is ready for the movie.

In the Astro Boy review, I just don’t see why their reasoning for parental caution was necessary. It talked about Dr. Tenma’s original son’s death and some of the violence. But let me think: An important death, featured in the early part of the movie? FINDING NEMO! There are so, sooo many deaths of characters that exist in children’s films, whether it’s on screen or just implied, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Sometimes that becomes a greater part of the plot, THE LION KING.

And this is my same  point that  I gave for Coraline. It’s the parents job to determine these things.  You might think you are helping the parents by listing x or y reasons because they are the ones who will be reading the reviews, but that’s not the  point of a review.

I’ve reached that point where I’m not sure if I’m too distanced from childhood to determine what did freak me out as a kid or whether I’m too far away from parenthood ethics to figure out whether or not I should care.

But maybe it’s the imposed mentality of parents that later influences kids?  I know some people think The Nightmare Before Christmas is too spooky for little kids, but I saw it when I was 3 and loved it.  But then I meet people my age who have never seen that movie or already base it as “Scary” when they were little, even though they’ve never seen it.

I’m entering a weird place.  But this is bugging me!  I don’t think parents or adults realize that kids are resilient.  If something freaks them out, it will rarely haunt them into adulthood, and if it does, then that kid probably needed a shrink even without that movie’s effects.  Yes, parents have the right to determine whether or not a movie is appropriate for their kids, but that is not a film reviewer’s job.

Okay.  Rant over.  (Aren’t you glad I didn’t launch into my alternate, but related rant of “Why do they always think animated movies are just for kids?!”)

October! Which can only Mean Halloween!

I love October. I think it’s my favorite month, since in North Carolina that’s when the autumn weather starts hitting us and the leaves start to change color, but also:

Halloween specials!

I’m such a sucker for these– especially Halloween cartoons and random Halloween movies.

In cartoon terms, you can’t go wrong with the old, 90s-era Nicktoons like Hey Arnold, which I think had a creepy episode every season anyway, but the specific Halloween episode is really nostalgic to me.

I have better memories for the Cartoon Network specials probably, but I also watched that channel a bit more as a kid (helps that CN had anime).

One feature length Halloween movie that I don’t think gets enough cred is The Halloween Tree. It’s an animated version of the Ray Bradbury novel, but it’s very true to the spirit of Halloween, which is a really hard to grasp, whispery ghost of a thing. It reminds me of why Halloween has such a great, creepy atmosphere around it, especially for children.

And of course there’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I’ll probably end up doing a blog post proper about that (sometime in the future…)

I actually don’t have a tradition of watching Horror movies for Halloween. I maybe watched a Friday the 13th sequel one afternoon while I waited to go trick or treating, but I dunno. Maybe I should start?

So yeah: Halloween. Autumn. Generally an awesome season full of awesome, cartoon memories. I would say “Let’s have a Halloween themed month!” but damn, not sure I could swing that. Unless you guys want to be bombarded by the pseudo-spooky movies. Well, let’s try that and see how it goes.

(Also, ABCfamily’s “13 Nights of Halloween” looks more like “13 Nights of Tim Burton”. I am not against this.)

Future Plans

I’m thinking of another Visual Movie coming up, probably from “Brideshead Revisited”. If anyone has any suggestions for future Visual Movie posts, please leave a comment!

I’m considering “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Chocolat,” “The Fall” and “Swing Kids” for other Visual Movie Posts.

Because I’ve Been Listening to Them Instead of Watching Movies

Made of Fail is a ridiculously awesome geek/nerd/dork podcast about almost everything.  Okay, so I zone out when they talk about video games.  I originally heard about them from Cleolinda Jones’s Livejournal and occassionally she guest-hosts.  I would say if you’re starting out with these guys, listen to some of their later stuff before you venture back into their earlier podcasts.

Although No. 4, which is the Superhero recording has really good reviews of The Dark Night and Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.

So I hope you guys have fun with that!  I know I do.

Video Library

Looks like I’ve just discovered UNC’s video library.

My grades might take a turn for the worse, but at least I’ll have plenty of material for this blog.

More 1001 Movie Stuff

So, here’s my baseline: 170 movies that I’ve seen out of the book “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.”

Supposing that I live until I’m 80, that means I’m running behind! 17% of the movies have been seen! More to come (hopefully, soon).

Now, today I watched “Porco Rosso” (lovely) and on Thursday there’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” to look forward too.

91? Ninety-fucking-one? Are you kidding me?!

I would just like to thank the internet.

Yeah, I’m sure other bloggers out there are like “Oh, you got 91 views in one day? Nice job” all sarcastic like and such.

But still. I will glory in my 91 views from today.

Meanwhile, minor movie news: I feel a little Tarantino-y tonight. Gonna finish up “From Dusk til Dawn” and then re-watch “Reservoir Dogs.”

One Last Movie Before

I’m packing up the DVD player tomorrow before I move in to the dorms.

Right now I can’t decide what to watch. I feel guilty because I haven’t watched “Funny Games” yet and I own it, but I also feel like watching my crappy favorite movies that I’m not bringing with me. Like “King Arthur” or “The Musketeer.”

Whichever one it is, I think I shall blog about it. Mostly because my Bookshelf Project for this summer didn’t go so well, so I might as well revive it at the last minute.