Keep Pushin', Watson

Sherlock Holmes was rad!

*Possible spoilerishness ahead*

- There were two women of any importance in the film, which sucks but is more than Guy Ritchie usually has. It is unfortunate that they were both such flat stereotypes - the Good Wife and the Sexy Thief Rival/Love Interest. I felt like more could have been done. Mary, especially, had potential, I thought.

- Could someone please direct me to some good Holmes/Watson slash fic? kthx

- The narrative economy wasn't too tight. I get it, Guy, you like boxing. But that scene in the boxing ring wasn't really necessary, now was it? When you have a film where every little detail is supposed to have significance (as Holmes points out to Mary), there should be no flab unless it serves some red herring purpose.

- I don't usually like it when movies set up the sequel with such a groaner of an ending, but I look forward to the continuation of this franchise, so it's fine.

- Actors I would like to see more of: Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood), Kelly Reilly (Mary), Hans Matheson (Lord Coward)

- I would like to see it again at home so I can pause on images from the Book of Spells so I can see whether the Hebrew actually says anything. It didn't look like it, but maybe? The word "tzedek," meaning "justice," appears on an object on Sir Thomas' desk, and the word "shlemut," meaning "completeness," appears under the throne Blackwood sits on when he passes around the goblet.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Blackwood. He was a pretty neat villain, but his goal was pretty dumb. World conquest? Such a tired objective. And his means - a chemical weapon? Really? Kinda weak.

Ponderings

Lately I've been thinking a lot about:
- Fashion
- Art!
- Subcultural aesthetics
- Communities

At some point I may or may not put these thoughts into blog form.

Good Riddance

I know I did a post with some year-end lists last year, but I really dislike year-end lists. I dislike decade-end lists even more.

2009 kind of sucked. A lot. There were lots of good things, but I'd rather not look back at them in a blog post in list format. A list of things I'm looking forward to in 2010 isn't much better than a year-end list, but here goes anyhow:

Movies:
Frozen
The Wolfman
Shutter Island
The Crazies
Kick-Ass
Toy Story 3
Inception

Music:
Contra - Vampire Weekend

Wow, is that it?
What else is there?

UPDATE: How could I forget!? Season 3 of Breaking Bad!

Silver Bells, Silver Screen

Some of my favorite Christmas movies, in no particular order:

Survive Style 5+


Die Hard


Gremlins


Bad Santa


Batman Returns


Brazil


I'll Be Home for Christmas




And just for good measure, the alternate ending to It's A Wonderful Life

Friends Forever, or until further notice

Of all the ridiculous and alarmist articles I've read about Facebook, this one is particularly upsetting. Writing for O, The Oprah Magazine, Tim Jarvis writes:

Increasingly, if you're not plugged into a social network, you feel out of the loop. But as scientists start to study our newfound connectivity, some worry that we're heading for a massive friender-bender.

"It can be exhilarating, at least at first, to connect with long-lost friends," says network science expert Steven Strogatz, Ph.D., a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University.

But the downside, he worries, is growing confusion between our weak ties (people who might be useful in referring us to a good dentist or helping us find a job) and our strong ties (those we're very close to).

"The distinction between genuine friends and acquaintances is becoming blurred. Users are spending time maintaining relationships with people they don't really care about."

First of all, the dude is a professor of applied mathematics. 'Nough said.

But more importantly is this weak/strong tie distinction. Why is it so bad for the line between friends and acquaintances to become blurred? Right now, I don't have a whole lot of close friends in my area who I can hang out with. I'm out in the middle of suburbia. In order to connect to people I can either hop on the T for an hour or I can go online. On Facebook, if I comment on the post of someone who I haven't really seen in a long time, I don't consider it maintaining a relationship with someone I don't really care about. It isn't time wasted. Who knows who I might end up connecting with at a deeper level? What good would it do to burn those bridges?

The article then goes on to talk about how "Heavy reliance on the rapid intake of certain information -- especially in younger, developing minds -- could have consequences on our morality." Oh no! Think of the childrenz! The next generation is going to be completely unfeeling and immoral! So clearly the thing to do to avoid being unfeeling and immoral is to cut ties with people with whom we don't have "strong ties." Yes, mass un-friending is the key to future happiness.

Black, White, Yellow, etc.

This "Characters Unite" spot shows on the USA network during commercial breaks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpVjt2IhvQ

Can you guess what bothers me about it? I'll give you a hint: it's 0:12 seconds in.

How to pick a Halloween costume (if you're a chick)

1. Decide what you want to be.
2. Make it sexy.

Easy!

Here are some examples:

You want to be the great detective Sherlock Holmes:


Now, make it sexy!

Or if you want to be horror monster Freddy Krueger:


Just sex it up!


If you're not sure how risque you want to be, sometimes there's a range:
Normal:

Sexy:


or Slutty:


As long as you're showing some leg and some cleavage, it doesn't really matter what you are.
Are you a sexy clown? Or sexy Wonder Bread?

Nobody really cares!

Of course, you might offend some prudish feminist-types if you sexualize something like a dead body:


or an infant:

But they just don't know how to have fun! Let's go egg their houses!


All images taken from elsewhere on the internet.

Why Film Studies Matters

I've been thinking about grad school. One of the "nice" things about graduating from college into a recession is that I have a lot of time to think about what I *really* want to do. There are lots of things I could do, lots of things I want to do. But after much thought, if I follow my passion I will go to grad school for film studies.

Although I was (am?) an English major, I mostly took film classes. I did the work I am most proud of in those classes. So why wasn't it readily apparent to me that I would want to continue my education in that field?

Well, it's not very practical. When I tell people I want to go to school for film, the response is usually along the lines of, "Oh, you want to make movies?" And then I explain that actually, no, I don't want to make movies. I want to watch movies, and read about movies, and write about movies. "You want to be a reviewer." No. I want to be a theorist. Theory, by definition, is not practical.

Going to grad school for film studies would prepare me for pretty much one career: academia. This was where my passion hit a snag. I didn't think I had any interest in being a professor. And what interest I did have was more about the perks (summer vacation!) than about a desire to teach. So why spend all that time and money studying film if it's not going to get me anywhere? Well, because I love it. But isn't that selfish? Is there any field more self-serving than film theory? Nobody gives a damn! It's all an academic circle-jerk. I want to do something with my life that matters.

But then, as I was trying to articulate my frustration with Zombieland to a friend, it hit me: studying film DOES matter. What I want to do isn't just analyze and write about film - I want to show people why it is important to do so. I want to teach. (It fits! Life makes sense!)

When I look at the body of work I've produced from my years in college, the issues that come to the fore are very real - how gender is codified on screen, what it means to look at a body, the visceral reactions people have to certain images. If you can't sleep at night because you're too spooked from watching El Orfanato, that's real. If you tear up just thinking about Jack Dawson sinking into the freezing Atlantic Ocean, that's real. If a director in Japan and a director in Germany both use horror-comedy to explore queer issues, teasing out why is no less important than unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity. It matters.

Now to put my theory of why I want to go to grad school into practice and go buy a study book for the GRE.

Zombieland wasn't that great.

There. I said it.

I love a good zom-com (that's short for Zombie Comedy), so I wasn't going to pass on seeing Zombieland. I should have.

[Disclaimer: possibler spoilage ahead.]

By my count, Zombieland is the first mainstream US zom-com to come out of the uptrend of zombie movies over the past decade. And it is indeed decidedly mainstream, ie., lackluster. Here are my issues:

- Lack of Conflict
"Zombies are a conflict!" you might say. And you'd be wrong. In any good zombie movie - whether horror or comedy or in between - the zombies are merely a catalyst. The real conflict is between the living. Zombieland didn't have any of that.

- Not That Funny
I can't remember a single good line. Looking through the memorable quotes on imdb, I'm unimpressed.

- Tallahassee
Woody Harrelson's character is problematic. And by that I mean that it's a half-assed characterization. They try and give him some back story and emotional weight, but it falls flat. If you want to see a real zombie-killing badass, take a gander at Guitar Wolf:







Now THAT's a badass.



- US-centric
The opening of the movie says that the United States of America has become the United States of Zombieland. During this voice over, the camera zooms out to show the whole globe. Um, what? If the whole earth is affected, why call it the United States of Zombieland? Why not Planet Zombie?

- Heteronormative
The happy ending is the formation of a nuclear family unit. Yawn.

- Genre Identity Crisis
Any good zom-com recognizes and plays with the conventions of the zombie movie genre. Zombieland recognizes them (to some extent) and doesn't do anything with them. Columbus' zombie survival rules are cute, but more of a nod to the parafilmic zombie fandom than to its predecessors. In terms of self-awareness, Zombieland scores some points for having Bill Murray as himself. But even that seemed out of place. The fact that the poster uses the critical acclaim that it is "the funniest movie since The Hangover" is disappointingly appropriate in that the type of humor was nonspecific to its genre.

I am disappointed in Zombieland. It could have been more, but I'm not surprised that it isn't.

For some *good* zom-coms, check out:
- Wild Zero (2000) - Japanese rock n' roll zombie movie
- Shaun of the Dead (2004) - British zom-rom-com (that's zombie romantic comedy)
- Dance of the Dead (2008) - Indie US teenage zombie movie
- Fido (2006) - Zombie movie meets Douglas Sirk

Post College Blues

It is well documented that the class of 2009 graduated into one of the worst job market in decades. It sucks. It's tough.

But for me, the tireless job-searching isn't the hardest part of being a recent college graduate. The hardest part has nothing to do with the recession. The hardest part is the sudden loneliness.

I have been flung from my academic cocoon into life without a campus. I no longer have my college community of teachers and classmates. My friends are spread out across the country and abroad, each struggling to make their way in grad school, the working world, and other endeavors. Sure, I have a few friends here in Boston. I try to see them as much as possible. But it's too easy to feel disconnected.

A quick Google search for "post college depression" shows that this feeling is common, and not a new phenomenon. Indicators of this phase include inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness, excessive anxiety, loss of identity and lack of direction. Of course, the recession does have an effect. With so few prospects, recent grads have struggle more than previous years of graduates to stay positive.

So what's an unemployed 22-year old living at home to do? Well here's what I'm doing:

- Try to stay focused on my job search.
It's not easy, but I have confidence in my job hunt. I know that I have the skills and the qualities to land a great job. The fact that I'm unemployed is not a failure of my self.

- Get active.
Physical activity helps ameliorate anxiety. I signed up for a kickball team through the World Adult Kickball Association. I had my first game on Sunday. It was a blast.

- Create my space.
Living at home isn't all bad. I don't have to pay rent. But I need to make my own space under my mother's roof. That means cleaning my room. I'm working on it.

- Make friends.
This part is hard. I made some friends while temping at a bookstore. And joining the kickball team is as much for socializing as it is for physical activity - if not more so. I'm also trying to get in touch with old friends, as well as friends of friends.

- Take it easy.
I try not to stress myself out. I allow myself to watch TV for a few hours, even if I feel guilty about it.