Public Service Announcement-War Movies

Photo credit: From the movie "Flags of Our Fathers"

It is official. I never need to see another war movie. At first I was going to say that I am fed up to the gills with movies that touch on the Vietnam War. But when I thought about it some more, I think all war. Yup. I'm cooked on war movies in general.

It isn't that the violence bothers me per se, but I think it is fair to say that I never want to see "Saving Private Ryan" ever again. That movie upset me. I just think that there are so many films that do it poorly. And I just crave more original stories than those that seem to come out of that genre.

I don't have a specific thing that set me off about this, and I guess I am not really that mad, but I just threw up my hands when I saw that the movie "Across the Universe" veered in that direction. I just didn't get that movie. The music was cool (who doesn't love the Beatles?), but I was just annoyed with the story that they wound around it.

Feh.

So, that's it. I'm over the whole Vietnam Era. Yup.

That is all.

Thrillers that DO!- In Bruges

Just watched "In Bruges" last night, and I really liked it. It is technically classified as a thriller, but the writing on it gave it some real comedic touches. The cast was amazing. I have heretofore not thought much of Colin Farrell as an actor, but he gave a nuanced and even endearing performance as a hit man in hiding after he accidentally kills a child. The script contains a lot of quirks that make the outcome less formulaic and so unique. Great performances and beautiful settings shot on location in Belgium.

For sure, people get shot and there is some graphic violence and language, but I would rank it among the best films of 2008 so far.

Thrillers that Don't-Movie Update

Seriously, ya'll. Some movies just plain suck these days. Since I have been under the weather, I have been hitting the Netflix queue pretty hard and heavy. I have had to give out some low marks lately. Some examples.

Disturbia: Good god. I hope Shia LeBoeuf's presence in the new Indiana Jones movie doesn't stink up the joint like he does in this piece of crap. He can't take all the blame, the writing was pretty dreadful, and I don't even know how it ends because I got fed up and bailed out. Hey Hollywood, while we are on the subject, why don't you quit trying to do new spins on "Rear Window"? Hitchcock got it right the first time. It just isn't going to get better no matter how many hot chicks in bikinis you put in.

Spider Man 3: Oh, spare me the whining. This overwrought emo-fest drove me to relentless heckling in about 10 minutes. Peter Parker is a weenie. Mary Jane Watson should give up acting and try to learn how to be a better waitress and stop weeping, already. The CGI-heavy villains needed more screen time and, I dunno, some motivation to do bad things other than "I'm a tortured soul with not enough love in my life"! Gah. Even with all the stuff that blew up, I just didn't care. I really wanted that whiny Kirsten Dunst and her funky snaggle teeth to plummet 50 stories for once.

Blades of Glory: Someone should just make a big montage of various guys taking shots to the balls and have done. Will Ferrell was great in "Stranger than Fiction", but his recent spate of sports spoofs leave me flat. Whatta goober. Jon Heder was so awesome in "Napoleon Dynamite", I think he very well have jumped the shark on his whole career. Snaps for his beautiful golden locks in this one, but it is still lame.

Best Poem from the first week

No time for love, Doctor Jones

Third row seat, hand in popcorn

Soda stalled halfway to lips in the straw

I glimpse you for the first time

Girl giggles stall as I draw my first womanly breath.

Dusty fedora for warding off poison darts

Sweaty handled bullwhip at the ready

Clutch that golden idol

And run, run right to me.

Too young to have ever dared to taste

The “now and later” sticky lips

Of the boys in my 7^th grade class

But I wanted to do something with you.

Stirring and squirming in my seat

I never noticed that feeling before.

In breathless wonder did I hang

The edge of my seat barely held me.

Later I would crest the wave

And later I would reach the beach

But never like that, there in the dark

Not even with top men working on it.

(c) Stacie Ferrante

2-23-08

Oh Crap, here it comes.

I can't avoid it any longer. "Schindler's List" has made it to the top of my Netflix queue.

I don't really want to see such a heavy movie right now, and haven't been in the mood to see this one, but I feel at this point that it is part of the cultural oeuvre, so after a fashion it is time to take my medicine.

I generally have an interest in Holocaust period films. I really got into ragged sobs over "The Pianist". Maybe it is the Spielberg-ness that scares me. He's pretty hit and miss for me.

Anyway, some movies just have to be seen so that one can take part in popular culture. And lord knows I am all about being a pop culture diva.

Other movies that fit into this category, some I like and some not so much. I have seen all of these in the last two years (some certainly not for the first time, some for the last time ever, thank god):

Day of the Jackal
The French Connection
Last Tango in Paris
Life is Beautiful
Fahrenheit 451
A Hard Day's Night
Midnight Cowboy
Deliverance
Slaughterhouse Five
A Clockwork Orange
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Quadrophenia
On the Waterfront
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harold and Maude
American History X
Fight Club
The Wicker Man (1973 version)
Apocalypse Now

What are yours?

Stacie the Blasphemer

Just in time for the glut of Holiday Cheer (tm), I am feeling contrary. Not that I don't like Christmas; in fact I have found myself increasingly sentimental as my first Christmas with my little girl approaches. But the usual rounds of Christmas-time focus on "family values" really gets my "shan't" motor running.

I especially don't like the groups that come out with hand-wringing pronouncements (at any time of year) about what children need to be shielded from. Pretty much any time someone says to me "Think of the children!", my knee-jerk reaction is to check out whatever taboo thing I am being advised to avoid. Right now all the fuss over the movie "The Golden Compass", based on the book by Phillip Pullman, is causing such a reaction.

Catholic and other Christian groups are crying foul because of some of the books themes, notably an anti-authoritarian attitude in that fictional universe that is being decried as an Anti-Church stand in this one. Critics are saying that exposing children to such ideas are "dangerous". BIG red flag.

Mind you, these books/films are not saying literally, "God is bad and you should disobey him as soon as possible". They criticize the human power structure surrounding and controlling man's access to the divine. Why exactly is it wrong to look critically at that?

Personally, I find that assertions that the innocence of children must be protected at all costs just tend to infantalize the adults. And anyway, I wouldn't be a very good parent if one book could unhinge all of my teaching about right and wrong, regardless of whether the framework for that right and wrong is rooted in religion or not.

It is getting all to common and casual to treat athiests/agnostics/pagans/whatever as some kind of communicable disease. Honestly, if that were true, I would be thumping a bible right now, due to all the well-meaning souls who have tried to instill a sense of piety in me by any means necessary. I have been subjected to some frontier-justice prostheletyzing in my time. It just won't stick. I refuse to humbly submit to my husband/the church/anybody else's idea of what I should do with my inner life.

And as for the children, I would like a little tiny bit of credit for being a grownup who can make choices for my own family. So, will I let "A" read "The Golden Compass"? I'm going to read it myself first and decide based on my own judgment, not what some hysterical bunch of church ladies think. I don't agree with them on anything else, so I doubt I will withhold any books based on their say so.

In any case, "A" is still learning her ABC's, so I'm off the hook for a bit.

And will I see the movie? I might rent it. I heard it was only "just okay" compared to the book. So I will read the book first to prevent ruining it for myself. This approach worked well for the Narnia series. If I had seen that movie first, I doubt I would have read the books. And that would have been a dirty shame.

Stacie of the Lost Ark?

I was mentioning to someone the other day that, even after all these years, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is still my favorite movie of all time. If it is on, I will watch it. I am sorta interested in the fact that they are doing a 4th movie, but the original will always be the best one.

The Reasons:
1. Dr. Jones is one of the most amazing characters ever brought to life. He has that rugged and yet brainy thing that is totally sexy. I was so young when I first saw this movie, but I knew there was something special about him. I felt my first pangs of real sexual longing over this movie. I don't think I knew what I would do to him, but I wanted to do something.
2. Harrison Ford.
3. Non-lame female Lead: Marion could drink you under the table and then punch you in the gob. Not very good at hiding from monkeys, though.
4. Totally gross, face melting ending. Cool!
5. "Asps. Very Dangerous. You go first"

I wonder how many people my age watched that movie and then promptly decided to become archaelologists when they grew up? I wonder how many actually did it? How many grew to have an interest in artifacts and digging in the dirt with a tiny spoon and a soft bristle brush? In other words, rather than dragging from a whip from behind a truck full of Nazis, did the real life of an archaeologist actually stick?

I wonder this as I stare in amazement at the rejection letter from the nursing school I applied to. Me, with my respectably high GPA and work ethic that is fueled by a likely case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Some bullshit about not meeting program requirements? I think one of those requirements is kissing the ass of the incompetent head of Admissions and Records who has at several critical junctures given me bad advice and then denied it later. I may, very possibly, be blackballed and not even know it. Given the national nursing shortage, the fact that nursing schools are turning away students is totally lame.

Assuming of course that I pass my Math 120 final tonight, I will graduate with another AA degree from that ramshackle community college where I wanted to continue on in the nursing program. I might find myself an academic free agent. It might be time to reevaluate my academic plan.

Not that I won't keep trying to get into a nursing program. After all, I do have a scholarship already lined up for it. But if I keep hitting roadblocks like I have been, it may be more trouble than it is worth. I was only doing it because RN money is pretty good. But other things about nursing make that job look like a real pain in the ass.

Not that I am considering archaeology per se, or even swashbuckling adventure in the antiquities market. But I do love Anthroplogy, archaeology's culture-focused cousin. Medical Anthropology in particular fascinates me. So while I am taking next semester off to ponder my choices, I am also going to consider a distance-learning program at a University in Wales. I'm also going to UNR to ask them what majors I might be able to complete in the most expedient amount of time.

All I know is that I am through with the rinky-dink educational settings. I want to do something that really sets my soul on fire. Life is too short to do anything less. As for the money, I am sure I would be able to secure funding if I really need it.

Who knows, maybe someday my spunky, underage driver sidekick might tell me, "No time for love, Doctor Ferrante!"

Is it too soon to start the experiments?

Ok, is 2 1/2 too early to start the programming? Disturbed by A's obsession with all things pink and princessy, I would prefer it if she were more geeky.

So today we watched "Return of the Jedi". I know it is PG, but I was, you know, providing parental guidance.

She was nonplussed, but she didn't ask me to turn it off, like she does when I watch the History channel.

Is it too soon to start these psychological experiments? I think not. She is already starting to pick up little vocal mannerisms from us, why not give her some real pop culture chops to go with it?

I mean, she is too young for the Boy Wizard, but whiny Luke Skywalker must have something going on that she can relate to!