This afternoon I was watching the new Stepford Wives on FX (terrible movie, but...). They have this 'DVD on TV' theme, where they show deleted scenes or trivia and whatnot. During one of these, at the bottom, it said:
Both Bette Midler and Nicole Kindman were born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Now, maybe it's just me, but I'd think that on such a big network, i.e. FX, they could at least spend ten seconds to proofread their information before misspelling the last name of one of the most popular actresses of today. Just sayin'...
3.25.2007
I think I may have just hit a new low point in my life, but only people who are familiar with the area around UCF will understand.
Tonight I went through a Taco Bell drive-thru and placed a standard order. I got home, and saw that they messed up my order pretty bad, so I'm still hungry. I went to the Taco Bell website to look for a complaint form (they give you free stuff), and began filling it out, and of course they ask which store I went to.
So I enter the store number or whatever, the town, state, then either the zipcode or landmark. What, am I visiting a Taco Bell by the Grand Canyon or something? So weird.
But the real sad part is that it was the Taco Bell at the intersection of Alafaya and 50, and you know what the landmark for that shopping plaza is? The Taco Bell. That's "The Taco Bell Plaza." I would've put that, but I didn't want to inflate their egos too much before I tore them back down with my eloquent complaining.
In other news, why is it so much more fun to watch a movie on TV, even when I have it on DVD right next to me. I mean, there's censoring and commercials on TV, yet I let Jerry Maguire keep playing on TBS, with these terrible mom-and-pop commercials. Who knows...
3.24.2007
3.22.2007
The other night I went to Wal Mart to pick up some beer, and naturally I was carded. My birthday is December 20th.
So I hand the lady my ID and she says, "Hey, you were born on the same day as my daughter."
I'm like, "Really? That's cool... though I assume she's a lot younger than me."
"She was born on December 21st," she says.
So I'm thinking, Okay, then why the hell did you say we were born on the same day, you idiot?
There's not really a punch line, other than that lady doesn't understand the 20th and the 21st aren't the same day.
3.20.2007
Ok I know I said I'd be done with Oscar stuff for a long while, but I was thinking about this the other day, and I feel like writing a little bit before I watch 'About a Boy' and go to sleep.
For the 2006 Oscars, the original screenplay catagory, the nominees were:
Crash (winner)
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Match Point
Squid and the Whale, the
Syriana
I recall saying last year (while the race was on) that Crash winning O-Screenplay was a 'gimme.' In hindsight, I would rank these movies as follows:
Match Point
Squid and the Whale, the
Crash
Syriana
Good Night, and Good Luck.
First off, we can knock out Syriana because Stephen Gaghan won in 2001 (for a very well-deserved Traffic), and while that wasn't too recently, it's recent enough for a movie that revolves around a lot of similar themes to win. Plus, I didn't think Syriana was that hot. We can also kick GN&GL because, while that was a great movie, its screenplay wasn't one of its strongest points.
Why did Crash win? Because it was a movie that 'said something' about racism, and it had decent (and undeserved, but let's not go there) Best Picture potential. No doubt Crash was a well-crafted movie, but its writing was simply a string of two-dimensional characters (with the exception of maybe one) threaded together in a way I've seen in plenty of my undergraduate fiction classes. It didn't take any risks, and the fact that is jumped around so much allowed it to avoid any legitimate character depth. However, I will give it the 'grammatically (editorially?) correct' award to it, in the sense that there are no glaring flaws in the screenplay's consistency.
The Squid and the Whale was a fantastic little picture by Noah Baumbach that dealt with divorce and maturity and dealing with puberty. I think I'm a little biased since I'm an English major and there's lots of literature jokes throughout the movie. While a few portions of the movie were not as developed as the rest (I watched it like a year ago, so forgive my lack of examples), at least all the characters had their own struggles, both internal and external. Dealing with a small group of people, and developing them well, is always a much harder task than having a cast of sixty people and hoping they make up for each others' inadequacies. Which leads me to my next point:
Woody Allen should have won his fourth Oscar. I will admit it... I am a Woody Allen fan. And I know he really doesn't care about the Oscars. He didn't even know he won for Annie Hall until he read it in the paper the next morning. But he hasn't won in nearly 20 years, so surely he can win again soon. Anyway--Match Point is a drastic turn for Allen, leaving his faithful New York. This also proves he's a multi-talented filmmaker who can do both drama and comedy, and do them well. I'm going to be overly vague because this is not a movie to spoil. The story shows how everyone has deep flaws and desires they don't want anyone to find out, and how far people will go to get what they want. There are so many lines of quick wit, as well as genius turns in the plot that are impossible to guess, no matter how hard you try, or how 'good' you think you are. And Allen, of course, gets away with all of it, making every character completely believable in this struggle amongst the British upper class, where people sometimes assume life is just too easy. Again, with the small cast of characters, the audience gets a strange sense of familiarity right away, where you think you know what someone will do next, and when they go the other way it's still not surprising. Often on a set, Allen will improvise a lot, saying something to his actors like, "Use the word 'mellon' in some kind of sentence, because I have a joke to tell." I don't know how this movie was filmed, but it seems fairly obvious Match Point was scripted every word of the way, and with that kind of accuracy that is why it was the best original screenplay for 2006 (or, of 2005. Whichever you prefer).
3.18.2007
I really don't watch a lot of TV, but about a year or so ago I was really into this one season of America's Next Top Model. Over Spring Break I saw an episode of Australia's Next Top Model on TV during the early afternoon, and I figured it was a rerun from the beginning of the week, because it said something like, "Be sure to watch the new episode next week on _______ night at ___." I was really getting into it, and I'm usually not one for reality TV.
So I got home yesterday and google Australia's Next Top Model to look up the time since I forgot, and I go to the main website, and none of the girls look familiar. I'm like, 'wtf?'
The next result from the google search is the wikipedia entry, so I go there, and it turns out that the show will be premiering its third season pretty soon, and after looking through some of the names, I figured out I was actually watching the first season of the show. They were all old episodes.
And now of course the show is ruined because I saw who the winner was, but there's good news. The girl I actually liked/wanted to win did win. That's pretty awesome. Though, then again, since I haven't actually heard of her and this happened two years ago, I guess her fame never really took off, so its bittersweet, since we all know how much I care about the modeling industry.
Sweet Edit: Hey, she has a MySpace! (who doesn't?)
3.09.2007
First, and most importantly, appletinis are amazing, and having a few of those should explain any typos in this post. Also, I'm on someone else's laptop and their keyboard, while it has a certain finesse, is oddly paranormal (is that really a word?).
Saw II is terrible.
No but seriously, earlier I had a fiction workshop, and the whole class had a lot of problems with the story. Then, at the end when the author can ask questions, she tried to justify her story, like, "You guys didn't get the metaphor," or, "I hinted at this this way," though no one got it and the whole thing needed a lot of work. News flash: if you need to explain your writing and motifs, it's your fault for crappy writing, not the readers' fault for not getting it. Basic new criticism, ENG 3014, a prereq. for any upper-level class. Sup?
In conclusion, only one more class before spring break. Score!
3.07.2007
Three things of deceasing importance:
Firstly, a lesson for you kids out there. Forget reading stuff for class. Use SparkNotes if you can. On Tuesday I had a quiz on a play by John Osborne, so on Sunday and Monday I spent a few hours reading the whole thing. This is weird for me, since I normally just read the sparknotes and do decent on the quiz. I get to class, feeling good, knowing most of the plot inside out, and I get to class and on the five question quiz, two questions are on tiny things that were mentioned in one sentence in some tiny place in the play. I think I got a 3/5. Such a joke... the one time I bother to read the whole body of work, and I get fucked over in the end. Screw self-enlightenment, I just want a good grade (for now...).
Secondly, last night I watched Cry_Wolf, which is a horror movie released a few years ago. It looked pretty bad, but it had the hot redheaded chick from Dawn of the Dead, so I caught it on a movie channel. I'm not that great at predicting movie endings (and I hate it when people say they 'knew something would happen,' but didn't actually say so during the movie. I also hate people who talk during movies. And people who try to predict endings in general. Actually, I just hate people.), but this ending was obvious from the first half hour, making the last hour pretty terrible. I mean, I'm all about watching rich kids in some private high school fuck with each other, but... sigh. 4/10.
Lastly, Match Point is an amazing movie. V for Vendetta is not.
Comparing a movie legend like Woody Allen to the Wachowski brothers, who had one decent movie, is pretty blasphemous. It's so much easier to have a terribly plot-driven story by two-dimensional characters in some sci-fi world, where the only appeal is just the looming overhead of a iron fisted government future, than to write an extremely ambitious drama with multiple characters with contrasting personalities, and at the same time destroying all predetermined rules of storytelling with an ending that seems unbelievable, yet so realistic. And that's not even counting how predictable V for Vendetta was. Woody Allen's direction is precise, and even a simple shot for a second reveals more about the characters than we get from watching an hour of Natalie Portman being lectured by a protagonist who seems like a poor-man's attempt at a real hero whose only significant achievement is memorizing the whole V section of the dictionary. I could go on, but since I'm lazy, I'll just say look them both up on either MetaCritic or RottenTomatoes and see which did better. V for Vendetta is a terribly mediocore film, probably about a 6.5-7, whereas Match Point is hovering around a steady 8.5.
Man, I'm mad I failed that quiz.
3.05.2007
Very interesting, coincidental follow-up to the previous post:
Apparently the comparison of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe isn't too uncommon. In the preface to a book I checked out for class, titled Forever England; The Life of Rupert Brooke, by Mike Read, it says, "James Dean made a handful of films, where others have made dozens, yet he remains the cult figure of films. Marilyn Monroe could never be considered a great actress [Jon's note; she was coming around towards the end], yet her name is still on everyone's lips over 30 years after her death."
I think this was in the preface because Rupert Brooke died quite young, and the author of the biography goes on to compare him to other people in music and such. I just think it's pretty interesting that I should find this book the day after I make a post like the previous one, even though our comparisons are for very different reasons--his being to put context on a biography of a moderately well-known poet, and mine being to unbiasedly show why James Dean is overrated. Obviously my insight is much more important.
3.04.2007
I know I'm going to get shit for saying this, but here it goes: James Dean is terrible.
Okay, that was a mild exaggeration, but he's far from the iconic, amazing actor that some people think of him as. I will admit, having two Academy Award nominations by the time you're 24 is pretty amazing, but both of his performances were mediocore at best. Here's a quote I like, from IMDb.
Director Elia Kazan did not believe that Dean would have been able to sustain the momentum of his career. He felt that Dean's career, had he lived, would have sputtered out, as he was not well-trained and relied too much on his instincts, as opposed to his idol Marlon Brando, who, contrary to what people believed, had been very well-trained by his acting teacher Stella Adler and relied on that training to create his characters.
It's pretty well-known that Dean idolized Brando (any aspiring actor should, since Marlon Brando is pretty much the best actor ever), and also pretty well-known that he would just do his thing, and not rely on actual talent or direction. Dean had a very momentary, free-flowing style of acting. Dean also had a really screwed up personal life (which I won't go into details about, just wikipedia it), which naturally makes it tought to maintain a professional career. But real-life details aside, my whole point is this: You can't base someone's status as a 'legend' on three performances, and think that if they had lived, they would've been the best thing ever. It's been amazingly good for his career that he died how he did.
Now, let's compare this to Marilyn Monroe (this is a loose comparison, but bear with me [plus I love Marilyn Monroe, but this is unbiased, I assure you]). Marilyn Monroe died when she was 36, and I think a lot of her appeal would be gone had she lived a normal lifespan (let's say she lived to be 70), because she would've taken roles as an older woman, and not been so much the sex symbol she was. The fact that she died so young stuck her in history as a permanent super-star and cultural icon, much like James Dean; however, Marilyn Monroe made about twenty movies, and as her career progressed, she became more involved, eventually owning her own production company, taking acting lessons, and by the end, other than her notorious unreliability (sickness, missing work, etc.), she was growing immensely as an actress, and genuinely wanted to improve her life.
James Dean was not--he was too busy making freakish phone calls to Marlon Brando in the early morning hours, had already reached a career high point (he didn't win any Oscars [and rightfully so]), and the only place for him to go was down.
If you're someone looking for an idol, or just looking for a great actor who has a good career that spanned more than two decent movies, don't be lazy--watch the works of any number of other legendary actors: Marlon Brando, William Holden, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracey, James Stewart, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck... that's a short list, and only males. There's also plenty of females, probably even more than the guys.
Alright, end of rant.
3.03.2007
I was walking to my car this afternoon, and on the passenger side there were four cats just sitting there, staring at my car. And these weren't those cute stray cats that look like they just became homeless. These were the brown, garbage-covered, rabid zombie cats. I walked close to them, and most of them ran off, and at first I thought I must've hit something (or someone) and it was stuck under my car. I looked, and there was another cat under there, and I thought it was dead, but when I walked around to the other side it was gone.
So weird.
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