A Life in Movies Blogathon

Saturday, April 30, 2011 11:49 AM By Simon

Andy's idea.

Of course, you'd think this'd be easier since I've only got 16 year to cover.
The Day He Arrives

1994: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (duh)
1995: The Usual Suspects
1996: Trainspotting
1997: A Life Less Ordinary (shut up)
1998: Uh. The Truman Show. I guess.
1999: The Iron Giant2000: Barking Dogs Never Bite
2000: The Emperor's New Groove.
2001: Mulholland Drive.
2002: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
2003: Please Teach Me English
2004: The Spongebob Squarepants Movie
2005: Lady Vengeance
2006: Children of Men.
2007: Grindhouse (released as one, so fuck you)
2008: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.
2009: Inglorious Basterds.
2010: The Social Network/Black Swan

Here's the thing

Friday, April 29, 2011 3:57 AM By Simon


About not sleeping a single goddamn second all night before school. It's terrifying.

On a normal sleep schedule, you're groggy in the morning, you're still half asleep. It goes by a second at a time, and all you're thinking about is coffee and making the bus. You don't have energy to think about anything until homeroom.

But being up all night is a completely different shade of madness. You've been lying about, thinking of all the things you didn't do while trying to get to sleep. And then, shit, it's fucking morning, and those thoughts are still clearly in your mind. Yesterday You has spilled over into Today You, causing a paradox that can only end in your complete...something.

On top of homework, you start thinking about all the notes you're going to have to sit through, all the reading and typing and droning and walking that awaits your joyous return.

If you're like me, with a death-defying fear of social interaction, being within enough state of mind that you're well aware where that bus is taking you, it's bloody fucking terrifying. As, uh, I said.

So you take any caffeine-related substance you can find short of cocaine, which you wouldn't be able to find anyway, and you pace around, and you dread your inevitable dozing off that will lead into that dreamless start you get where you feel like you fall, and then you scream and jump awake, and you know everyone's going to be staring at you, because fuck them, stop fucking looking at me you cunts, and you think about this lovely new zit that's on your fucking face, and you forgot the vocab homework, which you won't be able to do at lunch because you'll be working on your stupid research paper that's due today, but you couldn't start until three days ago because she took your source cards, but refused to change the due date. And your French, no, your History homework, you had to do the notes online, remember? Shit, shit, as the minutes go by, you start to remember all the stuff that was due today, Friday, the day teachers always assign everything for some reason, never once considering just how much this accumulates...

Because it does, you know? Teachers give you something on Monday due Friday, and you dread going to school the rest of the week, because that one thing doesn't seem like much, but then, everyday, you get a little bit more, a little bit more, you don't have time to due the first thing because you've got homework due the next day, and on Wednesday you get more shit for Friday, and on Thursday you get the usual, and suddenly it's Thursday night, you ended up with a poster, five worksheets, a collective ten pages of outlining, and three pages of geometry bullshit, this unit being the only one where you can't just write down the formula and be done with it.

You wish you had stronger coffee, not this instant powder shit. You wish you didn't have to get dressed right now. Your back hurts, and suddenly you start throwing up for no good reason, and you start crying for even less of a good reason, and you scream and cry and throw up like an asshole, and everyone discusses, and you give up trying to reason it out, and fuck it, I'm going to sleep.

Good morning!

PS What do we do when we're losing our minds, kids? To the internet!

How terribly I've treated you

12:40 AM By Simon

I mean, really. No reviews for, like...a week or something. Why do you put up with me, dear people? I offer nothing but heartache and poor organization skills.

But I have excuses! Oh, so many! I've been watching both seasons of Black Butler, which is awesome in part because it brought about this:


And one day I'll find a person who loves it as much as me, and we'll talk about it, and then I'll write a thing about it here, but probably not.

I've been prepping for Andy's A Life in Movies blogathon, which you'd think would be easier since I only have to work from 1994. But it's not. It's annoying.

I've got to write a ten-paragraph rough draft of my Nikola Tesla paper, which should be awesome, because nikolateslafuckyeah, but I'm faced with the hell-double-dildo of parenthetical citations and turnitin.com, the worst invention by man ever, including that whole socializing thing and Claire's perfume. In short, I've written two-ish paragraphs for thing that's to be submitted at midnight tomorrow, forcing me to print whatever I had out and work on it all tomorrow/today in order to have it done so I may have time to submit it to Wretched Teacher Website From The Devil's Ass, and then I'll have ample time to try and fix all the so-called plagiarism the website has found in my paper, and the odds are against me, because FIVE MILLION PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT THE SAME GODDAMN THING OF COURSE THERE'S GONNA BE SOME REPEAT INFORMATION but of course why should you care, my loves? Enjoy your stupid lives. I'll be here, hoping I don't fail high school and become anything but a Finnish hobo, because Finland doesn't have standardized testing.

I'm also now moved from my comfortable seat, where I could move easily to the door, see the board, and answered to no man about my shoving their long-ass hair off my goddamn desk, I'm now in the kind-of back, can't see a damn thing, can't move out of the particular cluster of desks, and I'm behind a girl so fucking annoying I will die of something related to cutting off her hair, which she flips all the goddamn time, never stops flapping her mouth, FUCK HIGH SCHOOL REALLY JUST FUCK IT.

To reiterate:


But my grandparents are coming for a funeral. I must prepare my room to my mother's liking, to which I reply with slightly modified Ron Weasley speak: "Are they going to be sleeping in my room?"

(That quote was originally "Are they getting married in my room?", and it was much funnier, but fuck you, I have my reasons)

Now let's all have a group prayer that I don't go back in time to get the Death Ray from dear Nikola and kill all them bitches.

Oh, and now I'll be a walking zombie of sleep deprivation and the horrors of caffeine pills. Good fucking night.

The Garden State Menace

Sunday, April 24, 2011 11:45 AM By Simon

Look. Look into that face. That beaming, happy-go-lucky face. That is the face of evil.

That face belongs to Natalie Portman. She is playing Sam. Sam is a terrible little quirkmonster invented by Zach Braff in the midst of one of his troubled-artist daydreams. She is the Menace. She has made our own generation's whiny brooding types lazy. Instead of putting their obnoxious rich-white-guy angst into cold, hard art, they sit around their parent's basements eating Fritos and anti-deppressents, waiting for Sam to come, change there lives with the Shins, and send them on their merry way, booboos kissed and iPods full.

Beware of Sam. She doesn't exist. In fact, no girl of her ilk does. Because most people have better things to do then pull you out of your post-graduate funk.

Fucking Garden State.

3 'Tonight' Musical Sequences

Friday, April 22, 2011 11:09 PM By Simon

In a musical, there'll be a big sing-off. Oh, sure, they'll call it a the climax, the height of action, the emotional payoff, etc, what have you. But well all know it's when the title track is sung, and everyone flings their shirts off, and shit changes all over the place.

But before that, there's a penultimate song. A medley, really. When everyone's suiting up for the big show, singing a new song, or just a reworking of a previous song, all over town. You know. The boner song.

Here's some of those.

West Side Story, 'Tonight'



Well, yeah. The granddaddy of film musicals, West Side Story (probably) popularized this sort of song in movie musicals.

Repo the Genetic Opera, 'At the Opera Tonight'



One of the highlights of an admittedly shitty-ass musical about psycho organ repo men and genetic diseases and dystopian!Paris Hilton's face falling off, this song is predecessor to the, uh, big opera, and was apparently good enough to be the trailer. So there.

South Park, 'La Resistance'



Well, this is just boss, is this. I mean, do I've got to explain it?

Do you, my more patient and verbally talented compadres, have any more creative examples?

Thoughts on Batman: Under the Red Hood

Thursday, April 21, 2011 6:25 PM By Simon

[poster added later because my computer's a stupid fucking whoremongering pimp motherfucker] [asshole]

[Edit: it all turned out okay!]



-Some years after the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, Batman, still racked by guilt, goes up against a new crimelord known only as the Red Hood.

-Holy shit.

-Holy shitballs.

-HOLY OF HOLIES, THE SHITLORD HIMSELF, this shit is awesome. Shit.

-Okay. So. Now that that's over.

-The plot. The violence. The acting. The animation. The music. The fucking coloring. All of it is geniusbrilliantperfect. Yo.

-Or, um...sorry this couldn't be anymore detailed. I watched this, like, two weeks ago.

-But still. The Joker.

Things to keep my mind occupied while my computer and my TV and my poor, teenaged life go all screwy

6:19 PM By Simon

-Community

-Trying to write reviews (you don't mind if they don't come with pictures, right? Tough shit.

-Um.

-Scott Pilgrim!

-Memories of Endless Nights.

-Um.

-Learning Esperanto/French/Korean/Russian/whatever the fuck else.

-Hm.

Thoughts on Hanna

Sunday, April 17, 2011 6:31 PM By Simon

-Saoirse (pronounced like Sersha, evidentally) Ronan is the title character, a girl raised in the wilderness by her ex-CIA father (Eric Bana) to kill Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett), his corrupt handler.

-Ronan is an international treasure that must be used widely, lest we put all the crappy child actors out of work, the poor dears. Here, she manages to be cold, amazed, delighted, terrified, confused, and, uh, probably a bunch of other things. With eyebrows that blend into her forehead, a German accent that's nearly human, wide, focused eyes, and a weirdly androgynous face, she's kind of an alien, walking around Morocco in a daze. Plus a bunch of specific scenes I won't spoil.

-Bana's around. His fight scenes are the best. Kind of only there in the beginning and the end.

-Cate Blanchett is a combination of barely concealed crazy, a cross-country US accent, and monstrous teeth, in a not-particularly-pleasant mix. It's not as good as it sounds. Except when she speaks German, her Southern accent is exaggerated delightfully.

-Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng lead a British family on vacation who Hanna takes refuge with, experiencing something like normalcy for the first time. While not necessarily the best bit, it's maybe...charming, her interactions with the chattering daughter Sophie (Jessica Barden) especially amusing, creeping into sweetly genuine.

-Tom Hollander is one creepy-ass motherfucker.

-Okay. Movie itself. I find it hard to pick at a plot as long as it keeps me entertained. Which it did. So I won't.

-The score by the Chemical Brothers is different from most action scores, electronic and booming and mad, kind of adding to the fairy-tale-on-something feel, making the action sequences especially fluid.

-The ending reminded my sister of Antichrist. Make of this what you will.

Thoughts on Single White Female

6:20 PM By Simon

-Jennifer Jason Leigh is Bridget Fonda's doppleganger roommate who's also crazy, in case you haven't been present in the Western world for twenty-something years, you asshole.

-Well...this is this...

-I wasn't bored, but I really have nothing special to say about this. Quasi-Euro-trash, plenty of JJL nudity, etc.

-I liked Bridget Fonda more as an aging stoner chick in Jackie Brown. This is on purpose, probably, but she's just so...80/90s female protaganist, y'know? Sophisticated and metropolitan and she says shit like 'making love', and it just bugs the shit out of me. Jennifer Jason Leigh, meanwhile, is demented and off her shit and magnificent.

-Steven Webber, whatever his name is, is such a douche.

Cool things that happen sometimes

Friday, April 15, 2011 8:43 PM By Simon

(not this, I just like this)

-Falling asleep with your iPod on "Killers-Mr.Brightside" and waking up with it on "Kimberly" by Patty Smith.

-Walking into the only class you have where the teacher actually enforces the 'no hoods or hats' policy to find there's a sub who could give a shit.

-What's more, it's an Irish sub.

-What's more more, you're watching the bad-accented jackassery of Tom Cruise in Gone and Away.

-Closing supermarkets at the very last week, where there's nothing left but Polish candy bars and anime-themed bouncing balls I used to worship as a youngin, pure caffeine pills going for a buck a pop.

-Having the knee-jerk compulsion, while in these dying stores, to wander around the emptiest regions and hum "Sunny Afternoon" in a lazy sort of mourning for a place you don't remember ever not being around.

-Staying up late because it's spring break, bitches. Now, normal people would go on vacation, or go to parties, or drink, or, have the Sexytimes, I have exactly five friends, all of whom are doing something, no social ambition or desire to crash any such party, and am I the only one who just likes soda better than piss-warm beer? Seriously?

-Going to movies on weekdays at two o'clock, when the theatre is empty and you can lie down on the steps and play chess if you well wanted to.

-Having brilliant, yet hopelessly depressing, observations, but by the time you're in a position to write them down, you've forgotten them. So now you remember the brilliant part, but not the sad part.

-Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?.

-Finishing the Martian Chronicles and really feeling what it must've been like for people of the forties to read this, and how hilariously far away 1998 seemed.

-Disney musicals.

-No matter how ugly I get (which is a lot), my hair is kind of boss when I get up the patience to do anything with it.

-The idea of spending the entire week watching the longest movies on my Netflix queue.

-Except, shit, I have so many reviews to shit out.

-Nostalgia for All That and the Amanda Show, both of which ended right around the time Nickelodeon went from funny sketch comedy and delightfully weird cartoons to laugh-tracked sitcoms starring brightly colored wish fulfillment and loud shenanagins involving various puddings. They were also funnier than SNL half the time.

-Growing anticipation for upcoming Young Justice episodes.

-The defense that I'm not a comic book nerd, I'm a Batman-and-family nerd, and a Sandman nerd, and sometimes a manga nerd.

-Exhaustian.

-The observation that if the entire school had done the Day of Silence, I could've brought a camera and pretended it was a silent movie.

-But I didn't, because I don't talk much anyway. And all the most annoying people didn't either, because they can't shut their craws for five minutes anyway.

Thoughts on After.Life

Thursday, April 14, 2011 5:13 PM By Simon

-Christina Ricci is a young schoolteacher who, after an argument with her boyfriend (Justin Long), gets into a car accident and ends up on the slab of a local mortician (Liam Neeson) who may or may not be a serial killer.

-This was...interesting. I mean, the main character, Anna, was just a raging jackass. It wasn't Ricci's fault, Anna is just so damn unlikeable, prone to histrionics and hissy fits. Paul, the boyfriend, reeks vaguely of douchebag in a way I can't really describe right now (as I forgot how). Curiously, the only somewhat sympathetic main character is Neeson's character, who you end up really hoping is actually what he says he is, a man with a gifted, cursed gift-curse who tends to snap at Anna (and, depending on how you look at it, other dead folk) when they complain of their status, saying "You people act as if it's my fault you died," as if he's genuinely weary. That is, of course, up for debate.

-The ending is confusing and ambiguous and annoying. Points about the deadness of the living are given and nailed in again and again, over and over in increasingly cloying ways.

-Lots of gratuitous Ricci nudity for you goth-fanboys.

To remind myself

Monday, April 11, 2011 7:12 PM By Simon

Here's the Reel Insight podcast, this week being Cate Blanchett themes, and I'll never remember unless I stick it on here. Enjoy, my lovely patrons.

Cast that Bitch: The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman

Sunday, April 10, 2011 9:22 PM By Simon

So, here's the thing. While I was trying to narrow down some options for that 'Cartoons that shaped my childhood' thing I do on occasion (sidebar coming soon! Maybe. Probably not) (I'm down to Static Shock, Kids Next Door, and Batman Beyond), and also trying to formulate reviews for the shitload of movies I've watched lately (After.Life, the Fifth Element, Single White Female, Batman: Under the Red Hood, what have you...), I suddenly was all, holy shit!, there are so many ways I could be procrastinating right now!. And so I decided to momentarily steal concepts from the LAMB and Film Intel, among others, probably, that I can't think of right now, and do this.

Which will most likely not be a regular feature, because what is around here? But it's something to.

So, I'll give you a quick rundown of the characters of the Sandman comic book series, but not the synopsis, because there really isn't much of a broad plotline that could be explained without going into all kinds of mythology and...junk...

But, here we go, the seven entities known as the Endless, as they've always existed in this universe and always will. They are siblings, and their respective dynamics with each other are rather important in the series.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Dream: Goes by many names, most often Morpheus. He is the title character to an extent, pretty close to the main character. He is the personification of dreams, and presides over (what else) the Dreaming, where all your dreams take place. He is a tall, thin man, youngish, in appearence, but like all the Endless, his appearence changes based on who's looking (for instance, he'll appear as a bald black man in ancient Africa, as a cat to, uh, cats). He's very stoic, among the most responsible of the family when it comes to his duties. He's flawed in terms of personality, very proud and vindictive, even cruel, but is slowly changing his ways, though he doesn't yet realize it. This is, in part, due to a seventy year imprisonment by a cult aiming for his older sister Death. He most often has wild black hair, but can vary in styles depending on the time period, strange, shadowed-in eyes, is very pale and gaunt. He usually wears a robe fashioned into vague flame-shapes. When alone, or among family, he'll wear jeans and a black shirt.

Death: Second eldest of them, personification of, uh, death, she is best classified as a perky goth, appearing early-to-mid 20s. Pale with black hair, is ackowledged by both gods and mortals to be the best looking of, uh, anyone. Always wears a silver ankh around her neck, and, y'know, whatever goths wear. She is perky (but not obnoxiously so), friendly, and is (if this helps) called 'Cool Big Sis' on TV Tropes (it probably doesn't). She is among the only people who will, unprovoked, call Dream out on his Wangsty shit. She most often interacts with Dream in the series, but is shown to be protective of Delirium (as everyone seems to be). Kind of the breakout character, so be careful of the hypothetical nerd rage that will be unleashed should you cast anyone of CW ilk.

Delirium: The youngest of the Endless, appearing as a young teenager, maybe 14, though there's probably some wiggle room, one blue eye, one green, constantly changing appearence. She's a barely-to-never lucid, innocent (in a way), scattered, easily distracted, prone to long tangents of ranting nonsense, but upon further inspection, make complete sense in the context of the conversation. She used to be Delight, but an unexplained event changed her.

Desire: Appears as a young, completely androgynous person, something like Annie Lennox, Bowie, and Duran Duran. Is in casual war with Dream, though they used to be close. So says Wikipedia, knower of all: "Desire is described as being of medium height, smelling faintly of summer peaches. Desire casts two shadows, one black and sharp, the other translucent and wavering. Desire's smiles are brief and sharp. Its skin is 'pale as smoke,' and its eyes are 'tawny and sharp as yellow wine.'" It is the cruelest of them all, it likes to carelessly meddle in the affairs of It's siblings, causing the rift with Dream, mostly due to the fickle, self-centered ways of the emotion itself.

Despair: Desire's twin, she appears squat, flabby, pale-skinned, and naked, with black hair and pointed teeth. Wears a hooked ring with which she scars herself. Though she often conspires with her twin, she appears more connected with the other Endless, most notably in missing Destruction and having some fondness for Delirium. Doesn't talk much.

Destiny: The oldest of the Endless, appearing much like the Grim Reaper, always in a brown robe, with an old face peaking out. Reads from a large book, known sometimes as a Cosmic Log, chained to his wrist. Blind, calm, detached, and he can't read aloud from the book, as this would cause a world-collapsing paradox (I just thought you'd like to know that...). Tall.

Destruction: Burly, red-haired, and bearded. A couple centuries ago, he abandoned his duties as Destruction and went to wander the Universe, though he didn't cease his control over it, he just doesn't preside over his realm, it's all very complicated. He is constantly trying to learn about his existence and gain control of it. He is very close to Delirium, who eventually goes on a quest to track him down (accompanied, reluctantly, but Dream). Doesn't appear much in the continuous story until later, though he does appear in flashbacks.

Other characters, if you're familiar with them (there are so many) can be cast as well, if you want. So, uh, if you got nothing better to do...go ahead...

Thoughts on Jackie Brown

Friday, April 8, 2011 5:35 PM By Simon

-A drug bust at an airport leads to a convoluted triple-crossing heist, with badass flight attendant Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) at its center.

-Samuel L. Jackson sports the worst facial/hair in existence. Prove me wrong, bitches.

-Robert Forrester, meanwhile, is kind of awesome as Jackie's bondsman and eventual partner in crime. But he should say 'Da Bears' more often.

-Bridget Fonda was cool once. We all forget in the wake of that shit Nikita remake, but she's a good actress. Falls victim to Tarantino's foot fetish, but we all move on, we do.

-Speaking of which. Like any of the legends he gets in his movies, Tarantino follows Grier around with a slack-jawed gaze that suggests

What I hate about high school

Thursday, April 7, 2011 6:32 PM By Simon

(this picture isn't related, but I've been trying to clear out my documents. Plus, Anna Calvi looks fucking angry)

Okay, I know I don't usually assault you all with the woes of my youth, and I assure you, it won't happen again. But for now, let's all just grit our teeth and bear through it.

-Knowing that, no matter how smart/dumb, cool/uncool, annoying, fun, not fun, funny, serious, whatever you are, as a Lady Person, in the eyes of them Menfolk, you'll forever be reduced to ugly, hot, prude, slut. Which is why we wander in packs. They've shot our self esteem to the point where we have no confidence in anything we say unless we have a dozen of our closest friends providing backup chorus.

-Guys are bigger bitches than girls. They make no secret of talking about you, because as the opposing gender, it's considered light-hearted teasing. Which is stupid.

-The halls reek of farts and crappy Claire's perfume.

-The girls' locker room is largely unattended, because, again, us Gentleladies must have impeccable hygiene. Except not at all, in fact, it's worse, because you have the added bonus of the aforementioned perfumes and those bitches who dump their tampons in the toilet and make a run for it.

-They don't want us to learn, they want us to take tests, and pass tests, so they can all get their Christmas bonuses. Like, this year, there's an experimental Biology exam that, if everyone fails it, won't be continued next year, but, oh shit, it'll still count for the majority of our grade. Because The Higher Ups suck like that.

-Terribly boring/shrill teachers who don't particularly know anything outside the textbook, assign you three pages of homework a night, not actually know the answers themselves the next day, just have you write it on the board.

-Being forced to watch boring/depressing/crappy movies about various revolutions in History.

-There's an entire elective dedicated to genocide studies.

-They still only teach the Big Four Euro/latin languages--Spanish, French, Italian, and German--plus Latin as an elective. Well, in my school anyway. What my question is, since they also obsessively stress business savvy and office dronery, wouldn't it make more sense to be learning Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, languages that are an actual presence in today's economic/political spectrum? Spanish I understand (in fact, it's default language for K-8, until they changed it right when I was leaving the middle school, now I think the elementary school cut the program, and the middle school is divided into the four per marking period, but anyway), Italian is useless to me, as I don't particularly like Italian movies (or, at least, the ones that I've seen, it's not a general rule, but I've got to stop interrupting myself, don't I?), French, I'm taking, but since I'll probably never go to France unless it's as a teacher (there's a program that if you volunteer as a high school English, you can take as many University courses as you want for free, and as for places like Haiti, I doubt I'll be of much use there even if I was fluent, thanks, Cracked), and if I learned German, some of my more bitter extended relatives would cut off contact (my aunt on Germans: "I wouldn't let one of those people into my house". She might've changed her views since then, but still, I'm not rebellious enough to find out). Wow, that's a lot of talk on languages.

-They encourage you to read, but not now, dear. Because I have all this free time after school, y'know, in between piles of homework and tests, to sit down and concentrate on a book. It's either during school, or at three in the morning.

-Cafeteria food.

-Ridiculous cafeteria food prices.

-They sell soda (real stuff, not the shit store brands) are sold, but in a locked frig reserved for teachers.

-Terrible coffee.

-Kids who keep stomping on water bottles until they explode. On the plus side, my one friends keeps pretending she's been shot.

-Those people who bitch and moan about how much they hate school, then bum around there until eight.

-Bitches who, god help me, this is the only way I can describe them, are preppy, stuck-up, privileged and, uh, I said bitchy, so that's it. Right. Who whine all day about what injustice is wrought on them.

-Guys who think they're the great World's Fair shit.

-The Peers.

-The Faculty.

-Group projects.

-Research papers.

-Handwritten notes that have to be scrawled down in Real Time, making them void later when you go to study and find you can't read the Cavechicken Hieroglyphics that are wastng valuable notebook space.

-The fact that, despite you self-promises you'll at least try to be sociable or whatever, you can't help but come off as an asshole out of performance anxiety. Or stage fright. Whatever you wanna call it.

-That I've been doing this for, like, twenty minutes, and still haven't started my homework.

-The fact that I don't get what's going to be on my test tomorrow, but find my teacher so annoying I don't want to ask for extra help.

-Knowing that, if I'm not in any classes with my set of four friends and/or five-or-something friendly acquantinces, I'll be doomed to glowering in the corner, because it took every ounce of patience and nerves I have (not a lot) to make the ones I have now. And even then, most of them were my sister's friends first. See? I need a motherfucking segue.

-Waking up at 6:30 because, in order to avoid traffic, my bus has to show up ten minutes earlier. Also, that We of the Teenaged have to go to school at seven in the morning, while our n00b K-8 counterparts get to go at a lofty 9:30. Because, never mind we're the ones with the big, stressful, life-determining tests and extra curricular activities and stuff to do, the little ones, those shrieking balls of adrenaline and Pixie Sticks who are notorious for not going to sleep, are apparently delicate little snowflakes that can't handle dawn-time travel. Leave that to the older ones.

-The constant, nagging fear that some asshole will show up with a machine gun and kill me before I ever get to see the light of day.

-That everyone else speaks another language. There's a shitload of Polish kids, Indian kids, Taiwanese kids, couple of Russian kids, Spanish kids, and here I am, barely conversational in French. Even my douchebag cousin from fucking Florida speaks Hebrew.

-That, instead of something useful in gym, like self-defense of Nunchucks 101, we learn volleyball and yoga and stupid shit like that.

-Even if I were the best damn driver this side of the Mason-Dixon line, I could still get killed by some dick in my class who can't read a Smirnoff label.

-Jersey Shore after-talks, because hey, let's embrace MTV-created stereotypes, guys, that'll solve everything. Half those shits are from New York, anyway.

-Crap music.

See? That wasn't so painful! Well, it was. I probably lost most of you twenty bullets up.

Last night I thought of a paradox

5:45 PM By Simon

But I was half-asleep, and didn't write it down. Now I forget what it was, only that I really, really liked it.

Here's some picture:












Thoughts on Tank Girl

Monday, April 4, 2011 7:48 PM By Simon

-Because I will not have that 90s-zig-zag cover in this domain, no sir.

-It's...loud. Rather obnoxious. Especially Lori Petty, who here is shrill and grating. Naomi Watts fairs better as Jet Girl. Malcolm McDowell sprinkles on some pepper and digs the fuck in.

-Booga...goddammit...

Here's a song for your impending Sunday

Saturday, April 2, 2011 8:02 PM By Simon

This is where a review of Patch Adams should be

3:10 PM By Simon

In accordance with Silly Hats Only (and, uh, others) annual White Elephant blogathon. And I was supposed to post yesterday. But I didn't. Because I suck, but above all, Blogger sucks.

And, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen...

Patch Adams sucks.

It sucks in a way only a 90s Robin Williams feel-good comedy can suck. It's that special kind of suck that has to involve cancerous children and doctors who, as well-meaning and fun as they are, have no business being doctors, seeing as how they know jack shit about curing people with anything but the power of laughter.

Fuck Patch Adams.

Thoughts on Insidious

Friday, April 1, 2011 4:34 PM By Simon

-A couple (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson) and their kids are haunted by some fuck-scary shit.

-Please note: I am literally just coming back from the theatre, having seen this with my particularly excitable friend. This tends to make things twice as scary. Note. Also, I am, for once, unsullied by other reviews.

-HOLY SHIT FUCKER FUCK IS THIS MOVIE AWESOME. Sometimes it's lame on purpose, sometimes by accident, and sometimes it's just stupid (but in the best way) but when it comes down to it, it's downright terrifying. The music--some might say an overreliance of, but fuck that, it was perfect, guys.

-And Barbara Hershey shows up like a boss.

-Go see this shit.