Sometimes I Wonder…

…Why nice people, like really nice people, can continually get fucked over in life, while someone like me, who is less than nice a lot of times, who can be an asshole some of the time, who can be really mean on occasion, continually catches a break.

I can’t help but feel guilty, that somehow my success was dependent upon their failure.  I know, in this world, that doesn’t make sense, but cosmically?  I still feel guilty.

It’s not fair.  And it’s very difficult to change the nature of the circumstances in order to help them.

But I guess I could bake them a cake or something.

Where The Wild Things Aren’t

Oh, what a disappointing movie you were.  So misguided.  So angry.  So shallow.  So misleading…

It started off great with all the childhood things: imagination, playtime, lack of friends, of people who understand you.  I was with it when it existed in the real world.

Sadly, it’s when Max travels to his imagination that the film completely screws up.  The Wild Things are heard before they are seen.  There is one destroying everything, but we don’t know why.  The others are very melancholy about his destruction of their homes.  And then there’s one who doesn’t talk at all.  I like him.  Because there’s still mysteriousness there.

Max shows up and they all greet him kind of melancholy-ially.  They sort of want to eat him but we don’t know if they’re being sarcastic or serious, or if we should be frightened by them or not, because Max doesn’t know, and I don’t even think the Wild Things know.

They make Max their king after a sequence of dialogue that makes less than zero sense, in terms of who these creatures are and why any of this should seem coherent.

Then they dance around, jump on another, destroy trees, build a fort, etc.  But it wasn’t exciting, because nobody seemed to know why they were doing it.  When I was a kid I built a fort to keep the enemy soldiers at bay.  I hid because there were aliens chasing me.  Max tells them to make a fort and they just do it.  It’s weird and slave-like and off-putting.  Then Max’s favorite (?) Wild Thing, James Gandolfini, who just sounds like Tony Soprano as an emotionally retarded man-child, gets angry because…well we’re not entirely sure why, maybe because he sort of likes this one Wild Thing who befriends some owls that can’t talk?  Yeah, didn’t make sense to me either.  Anyway, he rips another one’s arm off and there is another melancholy speech and even the one whose arm gets ripped off doesn’t care much.

In the end Max leaves because he misses his mom.  Before he leaves, he goes up to the Wild Thing who hasn’t spoken a word the entire movie, my favorite one.  Then he speaks.  And sounds RETARDED.  That moment crushed any chance I had of coming away with a positive opinion.

Ultimately, the movie is an emotionally hollow, occasionally beautiful looking, and misguided attempt at adapting a very short story to a feature length film format.  There is no plot, only vague, character-driven dialogue about throwing mud at each other and building forts.  I did that stuff when I was a kid, but I had reasons for it, even if they weren’t rooted in the real world, I still cared about why I threw that dirt and why I built that fort.   It didn’t seem like Spike Jonez or David Eggers had a clue why anything happened.  What’s worse is, it feels like they intended for that result.  ”Why should we explain anything since child hood doesn’t need to be explained I LOVE GIANT FURRY ANIMALZ LOLZ!!1! “

I commend his reliance on real costumes, and Max’s performance, in terms of what he was given, was good.  But the buzz-word “hand-crafted scenery” has been flying around a lot.  It looks okay.  But it wears out its welcome long before Max leaves.  And there are just so many times where one can think “LET’S HAVE THE SUN RIGHT IN THE LENS FOR THIS SHOT TOO!!!” before it gets old.

I’m just left with questions.  Like, why were there only these six Wild Things, and why was there a random animal named Robert or Ralph or some shit?  Why didn’t they introduce a threat to this world, like why didn’t they have Max befriend and rule these nice Wild Things, but they NEED a king to help defend them against evil Wild Things that live in the forest?  Or why didn’t Max and the Wild Things help each other learn some values about life, about family, about something, anything!

What a shame to have such visuals, emotional resonance and investment wasted on such a hollow story and on such hollow characters.

It’s a shame this wasn’t made in like…1991…and Steven Spielberg or Robert Zemeckis didn’t direct it.

Fail, Spike.  Fail.

In Los Angeles

I’ve been living in Los Angeles for one month and one day, today.  Today is the worst day.  I’ve been applying for jobs this entire month.  Only to receive no responses, or rejections.  I’ve got one gig that will take about a day, and pay me 200 dollars.  That could buy me food for a month.

I’m going to have to get a job I’ll hate.  Except I don’t even know where to look.

Today is horrible.  The phrase “waste of life” comes to mind.  I should be doing laundry, shit I forgot about that.  I’m not even doing that.  Fail.

I have no idea what to do today.  Yesterday I had a plan.  The month before I had a plan.  I don’t know where that plan went.  I’ll probably remember it tomorrow.  But right now I’m lost.

This sucks.

However, this morning I got a birthday present from my girlfriend.  The Calvin and Hobbes Collection.  I love her.  She’s awesome.  And I can’t believe she puts up with me enough to buy me something like that.

The end.

just thinking.

I’m going to miss the Willow Grove Mall.  And miss Jenkintown.  I’m going to miss being able to drive past my old playground if I’m out and about.  I’m going to miss my family.  My whole family.

I’ll miss talking to Dad about how we used to go to the arcade every week.

I won’t miss Mom telling me to make my bed everyday.
But I’ll miss the way my clothes smell when she does my laundry.

33 days

I’m leaving for Los Angeles in 32 days. [I fail at keeping track of time]

I need every one of them to get ready.  Not just to pack.  But to say goodbye to a bunch of people.  Some I might never see again.

In the meantime, this song kind of sums up my mental state:

digital v. film

I think I was a freshmen still in college.  I openly declared “DIGITAL IS THE BEST.  FILM BLOWS.”  Man, I was an idiot back then.

It took 3 1/2 years for me to fully realize it’s the story you want to tell that matters, and as long as your own visual approach, through shot size, angle, and movement, meshes well with the story, your source format needn’t matter.

Having things out of focus allows the viewer to instead pay attention to what is in focus.  A face.  A car.  A piece of paper.  A rack focus is a beautiful moment where the movie subtley controls the viewers thoughts, and says “watch this…okay…now watch this.”

You can achieve this effect with both digital and film.  It’s simply a matter of manipulating a tool.

Being able to see things in minimal light is awesome.  It’s awesome looking (when done correctly).  It’s awesome for the crew, as it allows for minimal set up.  And it can be awesome for the story if the story demands gritty realism.  This can really only best be achieved by shooting digitally.

Having a wide range of color, saturation and exposure creates an image more natural to us, since it is how we see.  It can also create beautiful pictures.  This can be achieved only by film in many circumstances, as more specialized lighting and equipment would be necessary to create this look with a digital source.

When you see film projected, you sit in the dark for 40% of the movie.  Your brain fills in that darkness with the last frame you saw.  I think that’s cool.  Your eyes think its cool too, since that’s 40% less strain in the dark looking at something bright for them.

When you see a digitally projected film, your eyes work the entire time, and your brain doesn’t have as much fun since it’s not filling in the black space.  Then again, you don’t ever see a speck of dust, or hair, or scratches.  You don’t have to worry about a digital tape or disc burning up from the projector bulb, and if something breaks or goes wrong, it’s a hundred times easier to just turn everything back on and rewind it to the last spot you were at.

But I guess I just really like grain.  And dust.  And scratches.  I do prefer to listen to vinyl records after all.

There are these two movies, both recent, one of which I happen to enjoy very much and the other that left me feeling cold and bored.  Both are slow-paced and have a lot of characters.  They are both period dramas set in a time before there was such a thing as a digital camera or camcorder or really, before there was a digital anything.  Both were shot digitally.  Both were shot digitally because the director of each has an affinity for the digital source and its ability to allow long takes, multiple takes, freedom of movement and somewhat worry-free and less costly application.

Except one is gritty, grainy, hand held and has the appearance of a cheaper, production with name actors.  Some sequences shot at night look very cool, but some other sequences look like a home video.

The other one is very steady, graceful, planned, more assured and precise.  Sequences shot at night look very cool.  Other sequences shot in bright light also look very cool.

One of these movies was shot with the intention of creating a “look” that stayed true to its digital video source, with somewhat of a disregard for its more classic subject matter.  The other was shot with the intention of keeping the cinematography in line with the story, digital or otherwise.

Guess which movie is better.

However, if the lesser of the two movies had been shot the in exact same way and style, but on film instead of video, I wouldn’t feel the need to discuss this at all.

Interesting.

you’d have been killed, too.

“I want to come with you to Alderaan.  There’s nothing for me here, now.  I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.”

it’s green. go. MFer.

I seriously don’t understand how people can suck so much at driving a car.  It’s one of the easiest things to do once you learn how to do it.  You pay attention to the traffic around you, keep up with traffic around you and/or do the speed limit, go when the light turns green, yield when making a left, and stop when it turns red.  You pay attention to the road.  After all, you’re driving a 3 ton weapon.

And I feel like recently people have gotten worse.  They don’t actually, ya know, GO when the light turns green, they pull halfway into the intersection and try to muscle their way through a left turn, they think their car is a bubble and nothing around them matters as long as they get where they’re going.

A note about cell phones.  Yes, I’ve used a cell phone while driving in the car.  Usually only in an emergency, or if I’m in on a quiet, residential street.  And my conversations usually last about 20 seconds or less and deal with things like “what time are you getting there?” or “where are we meeting?”  I don’t talk about my day or tell you my life story.  I don’t yap away while doing 50 down a busy 4 lane road, or chit-chat while making lefts and rights with one hand on the wheel, dragging my ass and peppering the brake pedal.  It wouldn’t bother me one bit if they were illegal across the country, and I think they should be.  The most important thing you should be doing is paying attention to the road, and when you’re talking about your boyfriend or how much work blew or whether or not you’re going to lose the account to somebody else, you’re not anymore.

FUCK.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE GODDAMN ROAD AND FUCKING DRIVE.

ASSHOLES.

wonder…

…Is the reason I love Up so much.  There’s so much in that movie I had never seen before.  It dazzled me.

There’s a scene early on when the house takes off attached to balloons and there’s a shot of a little girl watching from her window in wonder.  Then there’s a shot of a grown man stopping dead in his tracks and watching the house float away, the same expression.

When people who’ve been on this planet for forty years are just as amazed as a five year old by the same thing they see, when it happens to the audience just like it happens to the characters, that’s magic.

That’s why I go to the movies.

getting old.

I took off my seatbelt today when I got home from work, and instead of wooshing back into place like it always does, it sagged over my shoulder, slowly moved down to the seat, and, after I helped it out, slowly wound itself back up into place.

This made me irrationally sad.  After all, it’s just a seatbelt.  But it means my car is getting old.

This is all to say, I have strange relationships with inanimate objects.  I talk to them a lot, I give them names (but if you asked me in person if I did that I would lie and say I don’t because it’s stupid), I get angry at them. I treat them like they were people.  I give my car inspirational speeches when it’s low on gas or repremand it when the transmission sticks.

And I have a lot of stuff.  A lot of stuff.  And so much of it I won’t be able to take with me when I leave.  It’ll either get thrown out, packed up in a box, given to someone else, or it may just sit around this house.  For a long time.  Collecting dust.

Getting old.