This, Our Magic World

Picspam: Jamie Chung in "The Hangover Part II"

2011-07-15T19:10:51Z

So, I just watched The Hangover Part II mainly because Jamie Chung is in it, looking flawless as ever. The movie was, imho, better than the first, which I didn't really care for. There were actually non-stereotypical Asians in this one!

Anyway, I capped Jamie's scenes because she's flipping gorgeous. Seriously, even when other people are making weird faces, girl still looks amazing. The caps are kind of crappy because it's from a CAM version, but still. Oh yeah, spoilers, I guess.

Oh noes, Jamie's worried. And yet, she could still be in makeup commercials.

In her first scene, she wears this, like, men's jean shirt and flowy pants, and yet she is still the hottest person in the room.

Is it just me, or does standing next to Ed Helms make her look hotter?

No words.

Girl looks fine even when she's trying to be awkward.

Damn, those eyes, those lips.

Adorbs.

She looks so grown-up.

OMG, seriously, movie, you kill me with this.

So beautiful, even when she's not gaying it up with Vanessa.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

2011-07-08T01:44:18Z

When I was a little girl, I went to a private Christian school. There were no official uniforms, but provocative clothing like tank tops was not allowed. Dancing was not allowed on the property. Our science textbook was titled God’s Great World. Questionable children’s literature was censored with black Sharpie.

In a notably stifling environment, I experimented safely with imagination, drawing and selling pictures of unicorns on the playground for a nickel, until the sixth grade, that is. Two months after I turned twelve, my family began watching and, as we did with all television worth viewing, recording Futurama. It was the proverbial apple in my complacent Garden, a new animated world of strange creatures, weird language, and a gorgeous purple-haired role model. Suddenly, I was hiding TV Guide articles about the show in the back of my school binder, tracing over and coloring in every print ad I could find, and explaining to my best friend the circumstances in which I thought Leela and Fry should fall in love and get married while we played on the teeter-toter. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

I’ve now been watching the show for half of my life, and my adoration remains as strong as ever. Futurama is indelibly a part of my existence. I started writing awful fanfiction almost as soon as the show began, cried when the program was canceled, watched re-runs in bed with my first girlfriend, lined up to buy the movies as soon as they were released and did a victory dance with my sister the day they announced new episodes would be produced. Over the course of the past twelve years, I’ve watched and re-watched each episode countless times, and found it to be one of the most moving and entertaining pieces of art- yes, art- I’ve ever seen. And because we live in an age in which our opinions don’t count unless they’re posted on the internet, here are the top five episodes I’ve loved the best.

five. “Rebirth” – season six, episode one

“My love is stronger than a vast majority of explosions!”

I am one of those people, the ones who are mildly obsessed with the relationship between Fry and Leela, and after her confession of love during Into the Wild Green Yonder, I was practically pissing myself with excitement to see where their story would go in season six. It turns out, a very different place than originally intended, at least according to David X. Cohen. Despite my love of the show and the fact that I took a class on science fiction literature, I’ve never been a huge sci-fi fan. I can recognize the very Philip K. Dick-esque examination into robotic feelings though, a theme the series has often visited in Bender’s journey throughout the series. The question of humanity inherent in androids came up earlier in “I Dated A Robot.” I find both episodes sad in some respects. Both reflect Fry’s ultimate romantic loneliness, and his desperation is mirrored in the robots’ desire for humanity. The writers manage to balance these serious thoughts with gross-out visuals and gleeful abandon, making this fittingly representative of the series’ run.

four. “I Second That Emotion” – season two, episode one

“You think you’re so hot! The only reason you get all the guys is because you dress like a tramp!”

There are a lot of Bender-heavy episodes in the series, but this is the clearest example of his experiences crossing with Leela. The writers don’t often seem to pair them up, and while this episode arguably belongs to him, the literal connection between them is part of the charm. I love that, although the episode focuses on Bender’s lack of empathy, we never doubt his emotions. He’s very much a child, a selfish, attention whore of a child, one who does feel what emotions he has to their extremes. When he’s gleeful, he’s giggling on the couch. When he’s lonely, he’s wishing for a cute cape and party hat. And when he’s angry, he flushes Nibbler down the toilet. On a basic level, poised on the brink of adolescence on my first viewing, I could relate to Bender’s mood swings and the totality of his emotions, even when I thought he was being an asshole. I understood his thoughts. The episode is also fascinating when taking into account what we know about the other characters as the show progresses. Nibbler fluctuates between being an eating, pooping house pet and an incredibly intelligent interplanetary agent, though his love for Leela never changes. We also get a glimpse at Leela’s parents in the sewers. I remember when the episode first aired and my homepage, a long lost Futurama site, featured a screencap of them as its main feature. As fans, we were obsessed with them long before we learned about their affection for their daughter or their Tequila-influenced parenting skills.

three. “The Mutants Are Revolting!” – season six, episode twelve

“Let’s say we go get some sewer coffee, sewer cake, and Safeway ice cream?”

The hundredth episode of the show pleasantly surprised me. I feel like the sixth season has thus far been rather hit-or-miss, but this story really grew on me. Leela is probably my favorite character and it’s always entertaining to see storylines that feature the sewer mutants. In Bender’s Big Score, Fry remarks, “I know she thinks I’m immature, but someday I won’t be.” There’s so much made throughout the series of how much Fry needs to grow before he’s worthy of Leela, but I’d argue that she has some maturing to do as well. At this point, I feel like Fry’s demonstrated his relative adult-ness. This episode feels to me, though, like Leela’s growing up. Although she’s been politically active before, this is the first time she takes up a social cause so completely and competently, and one that affects her on a highly personal level. She, and Fry, become real liberators, and if David X. Cohen’s commentary is to be believed, change the trajectory of the show in terms of mutant rights. On a personal level, our two protagonists feel so well-matched in this episode without it becoming a schmaltzy mess, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I also have to give the producers props for the excellent choice of music. Devo’s guest appearance was a really nice surprise, and the closing scene featuring Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich was well-edited. According to the DVD commentary, Matt Groening recommended the song during the writing process and later, at a tableread, Billy West suggested it as well. The show has such a retro quality and 1960s music always feels perfectly timed. I’ve been mildly obsessed with Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich for a while, and there are several songs I’d fanvid the heck out of if I had any editing skills. “My Woman’s Man,” especially feels so close to Fry’s story in Bender’s Big Score.

+ devo- beautiful world

+ dave dee, dozy, beaky, mick and tich- bend it
+ dave dee, dozy, beaky, mick and tich- nose for trouble
+ dave dee, dozy, beaky, mick and tich- my woman's man

two. “Space Pilot 3000” – season one, episode one

“No one makes fun of my nose.”

I know it’s kind of expected to put the pilot on a best-of list, or even kind of lame because it’s often full of character discrepancies that reveal themselves later in the series’ run, but I honestly believe Futurama’s pilot stands the test of time, partially because it’s so obvious that Matt Groening and David X. Cohen put so much effort into laying out the mythology of the show before they ever animated the pilot, from Nibbler’s shadow in the cryogenics lab to the alien destroyers to Leela’s origins. It’s an episode that deserves to be re-watched after the big reveals as the series progresses. It also manages to be both emotional and irreverently hilarious. Our first glimpses of the year 2999 are pretty fantastic for the uniqueness of the writers’ vision of the future. It both references earlier kitschy imagery and reinvents it. The future is not, as Cohen says, a utopia or a dystopia. It’s a society that can feel at times a little too close to our own, while still feeling foreign. Fry’s exploration of the world mirrors our own, particularly in his remarks about how technology resembles that seen on Star Trek. The future is so entrenched in our own society that it steals from twentieth-century television. Fry’s emotional journey is also really moving- perhaps more so in “The Series Has Landed”- as we watch his changing reactions to the world around him and he is hit by realization about his situation. Overgrown boy that he is, we see that he has some level of ambition, acknowledging that his previous job as a delivery boy was unsatisfactory and he does not want to return. It’s easy to relate to the down-and-out characters in fiction. I love the beginnings of his relationship with Leela here, how he brings out the compassion in her. For the first time, we sense, her beliefs have been challenged by someone, and we see her kinder nature prevail. The moment in which she removes her own career chip is honestly one of the most beautiful of the show, both emotionally and artistically.

one. “The Sting” – season four, episode twelve

“Leela, no! Listen to me! You don’t wanna lie in bed like a vegetable and do nothing the rest of your life. I’ve tried it. Bedsores hurt!”

This episode is probably the hardest for me to write about, if only because I think it’s one of the most complex of the series. It’s beautiful and tragic and surreal, and we read it two ways, through the basic narrative outline of Leela’s strange, emotional dreams, and also through the mostly-hidden story of Fry, watching over her while she sleeps. I’d argue that it features similar themes as in “Rebirth” in the inability of one character to exist without the other, and thus conjuring up a replacement, the way Leela imagines Fry in a second layer of dreaming. She makes it overt in this episode just how much she relies on his presence, going so far as to attempt to effectively commit suicide rather than live without him. It’s definitely a darker episode, even if it does have a happy ending. It’s also a reminder of how noble Fry really is. Okay, foolhardy, yes, but he has a great heart. He’s sacrificed himself multiple times for Leela- by my count, three, maybe more- and he dedicates himself to bringing her out of a coma even the doctors say is probably permanent. I think Fry obviously is a very caring individual, in general, but he’s got such a soft spot for Leela. No one could question his devotion to her after this episode (although, later in the run, Leela does reject him for ditching her for Colleen so quickly). It’s really beautiful, and sappy, to see the way his tenderness for her has grown, from the pilot in which he saves her from being frozen a thousand years, to his efforts at the Infosphere, his fidelity here and beyond. It’s such an emotional episode, this story of Fry and Leela reaching each other beyond planes of consciousness, but the writers also manage to work in some great jokes. I’ll never cease to be amused by Bender communicating as the bees or that musical number. Not to mention, as the producers note in the commentary, the sweet ending with a joke about showering tacked on.

And you, gentle reader, thoughts? Things I’ve missed?

I'm with you in Rockland.

2010-10-08T16:03:21Z

Unfortunately, I have to work tonight, otherwise I'd be all over this shit:

HOWL

7 pm, Cinema 21

Introduced by executive producer Gus Van Sant, and discussion/Q&A with James Franco via Skype

That's right, bitches. Franco will be talking to his gay bff and the audience on the big screen. I'm actually really bummed I can't go, seeing as I fucking loved the film when I saw it in June, and I'd love to hear what Franco has to say about it.

If you're in Portland though, it's only eight dollars- seven for students- to hear from both an amazing filmmaker and the actor, and to see a really fabulous movie featuring noneother than Nancy Botwin and Don-motherfucking-Draper in supporting roles.

Also, you know, you might be able to ask James Franco why he's so gay. I know I love him for it. ♥

Our love would be forever and if we died, we'd die together.

2010-05-24T15:39:42Z

You're invited to

TWI-PROM

Tuesday, June 29
Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6
Triple Feature: Twilight, New Moon, & Eclipse
6.30 pm- 2.30 am
Formal dress

Will feature drinking games, Twihard bingo, & dramatic readings of Growing Up Cullen.

Afterparty at my place, byob, glitter included.

Consumption of alcohol, bacon, and garlic bread highly encouraged for this event.

Your wild blue eyes have started to cross like a Picasso painting.

2010-05-12T04:10:40Z

Can we just talk about things that make us happy? Like, really. Let's do that, because I am ridiculously happy today, and shouldn't we, like, share the joy?

We'll see if anyone actually does.

REPLY WITH THREE THINGS THAT ARE MAKING YOU HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

Mine:

+ Having a three-hour conversation with Stephanie from my porn seminar in which we talk about sexual development, Cheney v. Portland, and nice boys.

+ This French book that arrived via interlibrary loan for my Jess Franco paper in said porn seminar, because holy fucking shit, it is the most beautiful, thoughtful rendering of his movies I've ever seen. I need my own copy.

+ Ian sleeping over last night. Just sleeping, but it was so nice and peaceful, and he kissed me at 6.30, when he had to get ready for work.

Cheating, but two more:

+ The Decemberists- On the Bus Mall, my favorite Portland song ever. It's my, I fucking love this city and the memories I have here, like spending entire days at Fox Tower or waiting in line outside the Guild Theater in the bitter cold.

+ The Magnetic Fields- The Nun's Litany, as I only sing along when I feel confident and happy in myself, when I feel totally beautiful.

If you was me, honey, you would do it too.

2010-04-12T09:10:26Z

I realize it's, like, late and shit, but certain actors need to learn a little subtlety. And by learn, I really mean, please don't, because it's so fucking entertaining.

CLARK, FOR SRS.

I MEAN OMFG

YOU'RE IN LOVE AND SHIT.

Gayer than an episode of Greek? Perhaps.

Everything looks better when the sun goes down.

2010-04-02T07:58:49Z

I think Clark Duke and Christopher Mintz-Plasse should stop being fabulous. I literally cried at Clark's RPattz impression here:

The marvel_kickass "semi-anonymous fic exchange" is eating up my composition book and brain. I sort of wish Mark Millar had created a bigger cast of characters though. As much as I love that weird hero worship element of Dave and Chris's relationship, that seems to be the only pairing in the fandom. And dammit, smart-ass best friends like Evan and Marty need to get some play.

I ~~kind of~~ really want something wicked and cheeky where Chris schools Marty on being a superhero. Especially since Marty was kind of an asshole in the comic and I'm fairly sure called Chris a fag at one point.

If I wasn't so happy, I wouldn't be so scared of dying.

2010-03-11T09:33:39Z

Guys, I don't even know right now. I don't even know. Why. It just is.

peaches off a cherry tree
pg, 1466 words
dan byrd/adhir kalyan
Dan fell asleep on the couch one night, page 46 split open on his knee and lit up like a Christmas tree. When you don’t have a lot, you tend to make it count, Adhir thinks.

also:

easy a script. in which everyone's (my) favorite microwave plays a closeted high schooler who pays olive "hester" prenderghast to pretend to have sex with him. IT IS EPIC.

straight-forward interview thing. in which he mentions adhir & tila tequila. unrelated.

super-short, noisy video. in which he talks about his guitar hero addiction.

dan pretends to interview adhir. in which they imitate each other's characters (poorly) and i die of the cute.

Down by the home of bitter tea.

2010-01-12T10:15:25Z

So, guess what popped up during our discussion of Mary Cassatt in art class today?

Naturally, I thought:

I may or may not have written "Donowitz + tea cup = otp" in the margins of my notes.

right next to crazy au food porn.

There's gauze over my eyes, but you're leaving this trail.

2010-01-08T05:41:49Z

we put a pearl in the ground
adult, 3438 words
donny donowitz/rachel fischer, implied donny/smithson utivich
Rachel doesn’t wish it harm, really. She just wants it to be gone, this harsh weight of responsibility that presses through her clothes when she thinks about her altogether sober decisions and how incredibly, brutally unfair it is that she worries about Donny Donowitz’s spunk instead of anything important.
it's kind of canon.

totally referenced grammar_glamour's awesome head-canon.

also, this made my night:

they're in love, bbs.

There are no signs, there are no stars aligned.

2009-12-30T05:51:48Z

First of all, OMG RACHEL WHAT. It's an old photoshoot, but it's kind of insane and amazing. She looks really bored in some pictures, like she "has to take a wet shit" in others, and just crazy dominatrix in others.

Second, MOVIES. Specifically, A Single Man, The Doom Generation, and Broken Embraces. I tried to make it a Penelope Cruz double-feature today, but I could not even bring myself to theater-hop Nine. I have no intention of giving Rob Marshall any of my money either. Maybe I'll piggy-back it with An Education next week.

A Single Man is easily one of my favorite movies this year, and my reaction to it was similar to how I felt for Little Ashes and A Serious Man (has there been A Serious, Single Man mash-up? it would be so many shades of win). I found the images clearly very painterly, and I love any film that just kills me with gorgeous framing. Tom Ford wouldn't be expected to do anything less, I suppose, but I still found the imagery of the film incredibly haunting and beautiful. There were many shots that made me cry, simply as individual frames, very similar to the coffee-making shot in A Serious Man. I wish I could be intelligent and coherent about A Single Man, but I just found it to be so genuinely beautiful and affecting. There were so many specific things that I died for- not literally, of course- like the Strunk daughter in the bank, the scorpion in the glass, Charley's pink cigarettes that matched her fingernails, the shot of Jim and George sitting together on the couch.

I need to reread the novel, after bawling pretty hard during the ending while on my break at work on Christmas Eve, and probably post excerpts here. Its effect on me is very similar to how I felt about Brideshead Revisited. After reading it, I felt irrevocably changed, like someone had yanked out my intestines through my eyes and mouth, and that salty inside emptiness, coupled with my brain working overtime, just made me fall in love. Definitely going to have to see the film again soon and not just for bonus! Lee Pace, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Erin Daniels.

One thing that I love- and hate- about films is marketing, and I think that the first step toward me loving a movie is its trailer. I really cannot stop watching A Single Man's trailer. Way to go, Weinsteins:

The critics quotations are really obnoxious, but the music ("Carlos" from the yet-to-be-released soundtrack) and the editing is fabulous. The first time I saw the preview, I teared up.

The trailer reminds me quite a bit of Little Children, with its use of sound effects and isolated images. Both films feature that occasionally bland look to enhance the mood of the main characters as well.

Both films reminded me of Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road too. This whole idea of suburbia and disappointment and domesticity, and the way those ideas relate to one another, is present in all of them, but I think A Single Man is the only one to articulate domestic life as a worthy ideal. As with the first two movies, the Revolutionary Road trailer uses sound and painterly images to great effect. My heart breaks every time I hear Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind," coupled with those shots of April and Frank, separate and together, specifically in the kitchen. The frame where they stand, looking in opposite directions, and the shot of them fucking on the counter are some of my favorites in the film.

The bland crossed with the colorful- and, of course, Julianne Moore- remind me of Savage Grace, which is one of the most beautifully-shot contemporary films I've ever seen. It's not necessarily factually-accurate, but the mood of the movie perfectly matches that menace in the book. And certain shots in the trailer, mainly the ones of Julianne Moore fucking Eddie Redmayne, give me chills every time I see them.

All of those films mentioned, I adore, and they're all based on books I love as well. A Single Man and Revolutionary Road left me a weepy mess at the end, which is always a good sign, I think. I love art that moves me physically, and that's probably why I adored all of those films and books. There's something I love about the guttural response to art, whether that's me on my bed, crying over April Wheeler and George Falconer, or leaning back in my ancient bathtub, exhaling Nat Sherman smoke cooly with Savage Grace perched on my wet knees. To have this intense reaction to art makes me feel validated and alive as a human being, and I honestly think I look prettiest while smoking colored cigarettes outside movie theaters or walking through downtown Portland in the evening with faint mascara tear tracks on my face. That's probably why I loved the experience of watching In the Mood for Love at the Fifth Avenue Cinema so much last month. I cried EVERY DAMN TIME that musical cue played and there was this gorgeous montage of Chow and So's isolation.

But back to CURRENT MOVIES: I was incredibly disappointed with Broken Embraces. It doesn't feel like a Pedro Almodovar film. There's nothing unique about it visually, and the pacing is so off. It felt like he was trying to combine the genres of the telenovela and Hitchcock thriller, and it just felt disjointed. Certain shots were very moving, specifically Penelope Cruz lying on an examining table and the shot of Lluis Homar shuffling down steps with his son, but on the whole, it was far too obvious and derivative. I kept consciously thinking, "This is ripped off of Peeping Tom," and not in the madcap way Tarantino references Westerns and kung fu movies. It would make an interesting companion piece to Inglourious Basterds, if only for a discussion of its love of cinema. Whereas Tarantino has a real human understanding of how film obsession plays out in people's minds though, Almodovar's feels very slapped-together. I kept hoping Melanie Laurent would show up and do a reel change; it's that not-good. I mean, yes, the Twilight-True Blood reference was funny, but, ugh, if you're going to talk about trash cinema, you've got to do it in a way that lets the audience in on the absurdity. The just-plain-bad cinema within Broken Embraces' narrative comes across as sloppy and insincere, unlike in films like Ed Wood and True Romance. It's pretty hackneyed, and Penelope Cruz is not nearly as enchanting as she should be on-screen. The film is also WAY too long. It's around two hours, but it felt like fucking five.

I get paid on Friday- technically, Thursday night- and it's going to be way more than I'm used to, since I worked so many holiday hours, and I think I'm going to need to use the money for DVDs. La liste est:

+ The Last House on the Left: The remake is one of my favorite horror films recently, and the cinematography reminds me a lot of The Virgin Suicides and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which are definitely in my top ten. The trailer wins Best Creepy Use of Music too, tying with Halloween II. "Sweet Child O' Mine" is terrifying, didn't you know?

+ The Doom Generation: I watched it with grammar_glamour last night, and I wasn't sure at first if I hated it or loved it. I'm settling on the latter now though, mostly because the Technicolor, lollipop visuals won me over, and the hedonistic, Repo Man-esque violence and absurdity kills me. Rose McGowan has never looked better. I need icons from this film now. You can actually watch the whole film on Youtube, courtesy of Lionsgate.

+ Brideshead Revisited: Matthew Goode is fast becoming my favorite person in the world, and I love that all of his queer roles are in this post. I might actually watch him in Leap Year, which is a terrifying observation.

+ Watchmen, Ultimate Cut: My opinion of this film has flipped since seeing it in theaters, but I've always loved Zack Snyder's commitment to the original text. I've heard nothing but fabulous things about the long cut, and it sounds like that adoration was really respected in the presentation of the set.

+ Brewster McCloud: One of the best and craziest Robert Altman films ever. I'm so grateful I took the Altman course and got to see the film. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, if only for Shelley Duvall's insane car chase, Sally Kellerman's angel wings, and all the bird shit.

+ The Uninvited: Speaking of beautiful cinematography in horror films, this is easily on the list of my favorite movies, visually. I tend to stay away from remakes of Asian horror movies, but Emily Browning and Elizabeth Banks are so incredible, I gave this one a shot. It's very creepy and atmospheric, and the use of blue on-screen does me in. Certain shots are very reminiscent of other movies, but I feel like they're more tributes than rip-offs, such as the shot of Emily Browning in the bathtub, like Jess Weixler in Teeth.

+ Halloween II: Rob Zombie is one of my favorite contemporary directors. His images are so grotesque and beautiful at the same time, and I really love that he tried to make this film so much grittier than anything else. The violence is pretty hard-to-watch at points, which completely separates it from the slasher genre. I've only seen a cam copy of the film so far, but I was still struck by his use of whites and blues on-screen, especially during Sheri Moon Zombie's scenes. They're easily the most frightening part of the movie, but he basically wins at life for the un-cynical fact of his characters dressing up as Rocky Horror people. The bootleg trailer, which the Weinsteins unwisely rejected, showed up online, and it's much better than the theatrical trailer, and has the best use of a classic song in recent memory, though not as great as Bobby Vinton in the original All the Boys Love Mandy Lane preview:

Oy vey, this post. I love trailers with distinctive sound and pretty pictures though. SHARE SOME WITH ME.

There may well be others, but I still like to pretend.

2009-12-25T03:22:20Z

the perfect heart's length away
557 words
donny donowitz/smithson utivich
post-movie, au. “It’s easier when it’s already been done once,” Donny tells him as he presses Smitty’s back up against the refrigerator, the shape of alphabet magnets spelling backwards words through the fabric of his clothes. “The same thing again, nostalgic and all.”
omg, lee and rachel & happy birthday, look_alive!

Baby, behave or make it work.

2009-12-17T00:52:09Z

They're kinda blurry, but I took some quick caps of THE INFAMOUS TEACUP SCENE in the "Camera Angel" featurette on the IB DVD.

If you like tea.

I think Donny's fugly sweater is the granddad of Ryan's hipster sweaters. Probably.

Before you kiss me, you should know Papa was a rodeo.

2009-12-09T04:25:16Z

they make me think i shouldn't be here at all
14, 2045 words
planet terror
dakota block/tammy visan
"I'll walk you out," Tammy replies. She presses her palm against the bar and shoves off it, a ship leaving harbor or a rocket blasting off to space, Dakota thinks. Dakota doesn't say anything, just turns on her heel and allows herself to be lead out the door and into the last dying gasp of the afternoon.

I read the signs, I got all my stars aligned.

2009-12-07T07:20:50Z

Nerd alert, as normal.

I'm studying for my Modern Art final tomorrow, and I just, like, really saw Van Gogh's "Le Café de nuit" for the first time.

One of the things that I love about my film class this term is that it challenges me to view films as inherently inspired by paintings and other great works of art. It's impossible for me to think of Fur without thinking about Meret Oppenheimer's "Luncheon in Fur," for the sensual expression of life through fur imposed on the mundane, or to think about Antichrist without thinking about Edvard Munch's "Ashes," for the notions of women being intrinsically connected to the natural world in a powerful, sexual way. I am not going to be able to watch Inglourious Basterds without thinking of Van Gogh, I think. The way he expresses the little restaurant feels so similar to the manner in which Tarantino portrays La Louisiane. The colors are incredibly different, but the tone feels incredibly similar.

My textbook, like Wikipedia, quotes Van Gogh on the piece:

In my picture of the Night Café I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil's furnace, of pale sulphur. And all with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin.

It's like, looking at this picture, I'm suddenly able to see the bar for what it is: this den where, under the guise of drunken happiness, the potential for violence and death is always tangible. I know a lot of people find the scene to be jarring, but to think about Van Gogh's depiction of a place where souls essentially go to die, I feel like that interaction between the Germans and the Allies is so much more meaningful. Tarantino has always played with the notion that harshness can be best expressed in unlikely places, like cheerful, neighborhood haunts and the bathrooms of gimmicky chain restaurants, but the one in Inglourious Basterds just feels like the full expression of that, where every word spoken and every sip of schnapps is a damning moment, like threads that weave into one another before the inevitable actualization of tension and violence. I think Aldo and Hicox get that (Donny, to an extent, but his actual relation to the reality is minimized by his posture when he calls it "the death trap rendezvous" because he's got his feet propped up and his hands behind his head like the lazy security guard in every heist film) and are in complete understanding of what the bar represents, and that's so incredibly chilling to me now. Because La Lousiane and Café de la Gare are the physical embodiment of that surreal dance between life and death. They function as a sort of purgatory, the waiting stop before one is cast into perdition.

I've only ever really seen one other artwork that moved me in such a profound way that I started crying because I felt like, fuck, I just get it. It's so amazing to me to see the tangible transformative power of art, of that moment of really seeing pieces for the first time even if you've physically seen them before and written about them in notebooks, or to feel like you get this mystifying bit of a film finally.

Never tell me that Tarantino is not a purposeful director because, even if he's not even aware of this painting's existence, the role of the La Lousiane scene is about so much more than dazzling us with his fanboy intelligence or the sharpness of his dialogue. Michael Fassbender is going to turn me into a big wreck every time I see him now. If that man does not get the power of the scene to cut right into a person, I resign.

Battered B. J.

2009-12-04T05:49:12Z

So...this started as a weird thing in comments on look_alive's journal, about how Eli Roth and B. J. Novak had (made-up) sex on the set of Inglourious Basterds, and then that went to Omar and B. J. having sex, which seems more likely, and there are tire irons involved. This post is most of what we wrote or texted, along with grammar_glamour, and it includes copious amounts of pictures and accompanying videos.

It's called Battered B. J..

It is definitely NSFW, as there is naked Eli Roth and filthy, filthy talk, and it starts with our "discussion" of Eli and B. J.'s Nylon photoshoot before moving onto Omar and B. J.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to accurately represent Omar Doom, B. J. Novak, or Eli Roth. It is a work of fiction. We love the actors, and we choose to express our affection in silly fangirl ways.

look_alive: That shark is going into his crotch.
pellnell: OM NOM NOM I EAT YOU UP.
look_alive: IS THAT A SHARK IN YOUR PANTS OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?
pellnell: YOU BET IT IS. HEY, LET’S GO EYEFUCK OVER BY THESE TREES.

look_alive: THIS WATERING CAN IS ACTUALLY MY PENIS, GUYS. IT’S A VISUAL METAPHOR FOR MY COCK.
pellnell: B. J., YOU’RE A VISUAL METAPHOR FOR MY COCK.
look_alive YOUR COCK IS SHORT.
pellnell: YEAH, YOURS IS LONGER, STFU. YOU LOVE MY FUCKING POP CAN.
look_alive FLAGPOOOOLE! IT'S NOT THE SIZE IT'S WHAT YOU DO WITH IT.
look_alive SHARKPANTS!
pellnell: DUDE, SHARKPANTS JUST MAKES ME THINK OF THIS AWFUL GERMAN FILM CALLED SHARK: ATTACK IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. SHARK ALARM!

look_alive: I hate that my brain is totally going to the rpf place, with this and like, non-con play in a trailer somewhere. With dirty talk and ropes. The makeup artists get all pissed about having to cover up rope burn all over the place.
pellnell: I can totally picture QT being slightly concerned and like sitting B. J. down to talk to him. UM, SO THE PROP GUY TOLD ME THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE TAKEN THE HANDCUFFS FROM THE LAST SCENE AND I NOTICED THERE ARE SOME WEIRD MARKS ON YOUR ARMS.
look_alive: IKR? And meanwhile Omar is bribing the makeup crew to cover up bite marks.
pellnell: B. J.’s like, I REALLY THINK IT WORKS FOR MY CHARACTER TO HAVE A BLACK EYE HERE.
look_alive: And QT finally holds a round table and is all, ALRIGHT THAT IS IT. CHASTITY BELT TIME, BOYS.
pellnell: When they sneak on-set and break one of the prop sinks because they’re fucking on it, QT’s like, IT WASN’T EVEN FUCKING BOLTED TO THE WALL. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.
look_alive: And the continuity supervisors have a secret tally going of the number of times they have to make them get the leaves out of their hair between shots. OFFICE OLYMPICS BUT WITH LESS OFFICE, MORE WOODS AND DICK.
pellnell: You know I make B. J. Novak insanely hot. He's easy and everybody wants him.
look_alive: I think it is. I think you're right. He's still not my type, but he's so adorable and femme-y and you know Omar is like, waiting outside his trailer with some rope and possibly a tire iron.
pellnell: OMG TIRE IRON-- JIZZ IN MY PANTS. I don't know why that's a sexy image- him with all these fucked-up robber-type weapons- but it is.
look_alive: Yeah, Omar totally waits outside B.J.'s trailer with a tire iron and some rope, and B.J. wakes up in some empty sound stage somewhere, tied to a chair all like DUDE YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS EVERY FUCKING TIME. YOU CAN JUST ASK.
pellnell: I like the idea of B. J. being all, like, easy-going and shit about downplaying Omar's aberrant behavior. WELL, HEY THERE, OMAR, I NOTICED YOU HAD AN ERECTION DURING THAT SCENE. I HAD ONE AS WELL.
look_alive: THERE IS A SHARK IN MY PANTS AND I AM HAPPY TO SEE YOU. And then they get to explain to QT why B.J. has tire-iron-shaped bruises. Omar is like I NEEDED A QUICK SERVICING AND JIFFY LUBE WAS FULL UP. WHAT.
pellnell: I WALKED INTO A DOOR.
look_alive: Guuuuuh I love hate that like, Omar/B.J. kidnap!kink is now an official RPF. WHAT ARE WE DOING?! Whatever it is, it's amazing. LUBE WHAT LUBE?
pellnell: Dude, they were/are totally fucking. You know Omar brings in his music on set and has B. J. listen to it on headphones, and B. J. tries not to say douchey things about it. YEAH, YEAH, THAT'S REALLY COOL, SO COCK NOW?

look_alive: I BET B.J. SECRETLY COOKS FOR THEM. Like. Supersecretly. Because he's just a little girly like that, idek where that came from but it's happening now, I feel it. Only, it's like, Cup Noodles on a hot plate he hides in his trailer. THAT KIND OF COOKING. And it's absolutely an excuse to get Omar to hang around more. For the penis.
pellnell: Omar just smiles as he eats his half-cooked ramen, all nice, until they actually start taking their clothes off, and then he's like, YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING PAY FOR THAT NASTY HALF-FROZEN HOT POCKET SHIT.
look_alive:...And then B.J. can't decide whether or not it was actually his agenda in the first place to piss off Omar via processed food items.
pellnell:...my mind just went to this dark place where B. J. made intentionally awful food because he wanted to set Omar off, and while they're having sex, one or both of them invoke his battered women jokes.

look_alive: I'm picturing them laughing to hard to actually have sex. And then someone ends up tied with the hot plate cord. Improvisation and all that.
look_alive: I have this image lodged in my head of B. J. and Omar and rope and a tire iron and it keeps sending me into v. unprofessional giggling fits.
pellnell: B. J. would totally hike up his shirt intentionally to flash Omar his bruises from across the set.
look_alive: And making with the sex eyes all over the place while Eli walks by, making gagging noises.
pellnell: But secretly, Eli makes inappropriate cock gestures with his bat unconsciously when he watches them. He loves the tire iron.
look_alive: Yeah, Eli has a special relationship with that bat. And then one nite, B. J. and Omar manage to sneak off with it. Which leads to angry threesome of retribution.
pellnell: It’s totally awkward on set for a week after. QT’s like, DAMMIT ELI, YOU NEED TO LOOK OMAR IN THE EYE. B. J. just laughs to himself.
look_alive: I totally see B. J. topping Eli. IDK why or how it makes sense and if Eli doesn’t get off on violence, then I’m missing something.
pellnell: B. J. has always been a top. Eli seduces him in his trailer, I LOVE YOUR SHITTY FOOD, LITTLE MAN, he says while he licks his teeth and slaps his ass and shit.

look_alive: B. J.’s definitely a biter. The next day, Omar has this knowing grin when he sees Eli sneaking into the makeup tent early with a bloody lip.
pellnell: QT is like, FUCK DID YOU GET INTO A FIGHT WITH THE GUY FROM SAW AGAIN? And Eli just says, NO IT WAS THAT DICK FROM THE OFFICE.
look_alive: While B. J. just watches him with filthy eyes and the next fuck he gets out of Omar involves a lot more snark and heavy rope burn.
pellnell: Omar is so angry, he makes B. J. only play his music in the trailer and Omar totally ties him down on the cheap bed with prop rope and string like in Gulliver.
look_alive: And the whole time they’re fucking, he moans the details of fucking Eli against Omar’s mouth and his neck and the next day there’s another bloody lip on set.
pellnell: The makeup bitches are concerned and start crying because they didn’t know what to do when they’ve all got purple bruises.
look_alive: QT is finally all OKAY INVERVENTION TIME IS NOW and shows up with a lock box for the rope and bat and tire iron.
pellnell: Omar tries to hide his handcuffs in his shirt but B. J. sees him and gives him a funny trouble look.
look_alive: They have to do about 50 takes of the theater bathroom scene ‘cos Eli can’t stop cracking filthy jokes under his breath at Omar, just to watch him squirm.
pellnell: You know B. J.’s done filthy things in his trailer. They totally steal fake guns from set and act out hostage scenarios, B. J. tied to a chair.

look_alive: Pistol whipping and barrel licking. USE YOUR MOUTH ON THE SEMI AUTOMATIC TO SHOW ME WHAT YOU WANT.
pellnell: The next day, Brad is like, UGH WHAT IS THIS SHIT ON HERE? Eli just glowers because he knows it’s Omar’s spunk.
look_alive: Later on, he corners B. J. and gives him a wrapped present of Handi Wipes, all like, AND I THOUGHT MY MIND WENT DISTURBING PLACES GEEZ YOU GUYS.
pellnell: Dude, he probably has weird cleaning fetishes and shit like washing B. J.’s mouth out with soap before and after sex.
look_alive: Like after, B. J. stumbles out of Eli’s trailer, he beelines for Omar like GIVE ME A MINT OR GUM OR ANYTHING, FUCK SOAP.
pellnell: And Omar makes some sick joke like, COCK IN YOUR MOUTH? IT TASTES BETTER THAN YOUR FUCKING COOKING.
look_alive: And B. J.’s like, NO IT’S FUCKING SOAP AND ELI IS A TWATWAFFLE, GIVE ME YOUR TIC-TACS.
pellnell: And then Omar shoves them down his throat and there is lots of breathplay.
look_alive: Breathplay leading to B. J.’s mouth on his neck while he compares and contrasts Omar and Eli just to watch Omar lose it.
pellnell: The next day Omar comes to work pissed and starts wailing on Eli during the premiere scenes and QT says, FUCK IT and like throws a chair.
look_alive: QT is all, YOU TWO ARE A PART OF MY POSSE OF BITCHES BUT ALL I DO IS BRING IN ONE PRETTY BISEXUAL AND THERE’S JIZZ ALL OVER THE PROPS AND MAKEUP IS ALL CRYING.
pellnell: And so the two of them are sullen like Edward Cullen the rest of the day, but B. J. keeps acting like he gets off on the blood on their sleeves.
look_alive: B. J. who isn’t even like in scenes that day, standing off the side and making filthy eyes at them both.

pellnell: What a dirty bisexual slut! He licks that shit off Eli’s fingers at the end of the day like, FUCK, IT TASTES LIKE SEX.
look_alive: Our B. J. is kind of a ho. I love it. And I don’t care how straight Eli is- he’d be hotter than whoa fucking B. J. through a wall.
pellnell: He loves cock- in our heads and IRL- and you know he fantasizes about being fucked into a wall by Eli, and he likes the faux-rape Omar perpetuates.
pellnell: Oh my god, what with B. J.’s giant schlong, Omar and Eli sadly sing Male Prima Donna at home alone.

grammar_glamour: While drinking red wine.
pellnell: And leaning dejectedly over the couch.
grammar_glamour: Eli would only be wearing a bathrobe and a pair of WORLD’S BEST DAD boxers that he got at Target for 50 c in college. Omar would wear a t-shirt. No unders.
look_alive: I bet Eli has a collection of wtf boxers, just ‘cos he can.
pellnell: At one point, he wrote B. J.’s name on his white undies, but he dyed them black when they had a falling out.
look_alive: I can totally see Eli practically destroying his trailer, trying to dye man panties.

pellnell: He furiously breaks out the Rit dye to remove B. J.’s name.
pellnell: Back in drunk land, they just lay there and sing in low drunk voices, YOU’RE A MALE PRIMA DONNA BUT I CAN’T HELP BUT WANT YA, I’M AN INDEPENDENT DIVA BUT I STILL KINDA NEED YA.
grammar_glamour: Oh god, the thought is breaking my heart.
pellnell: Omar finishes the bottle and is like, DUDE LET’S CALL HIM.
pellnell: Eli half-heartedly tries to talk Omar out of calling, IT’S NOT WORTH IT, MAN.
look_alive: B. J. answers and he throws a fucking tantrum ‘cos Omar is shitfaced and Eli keeps giggling and yelling CALL HIM A PENIS and B. J. is all WTF ARE YOU DOING W/ HIM.
grammar_glamour: Like, B. J. is in his hotel room, in a scented bath, reading The Fountainhead, and Omar calls him and is all, YOU ARE A LITTLE BISH, A BISH FOR MAKING ME HOT POCKETS AND THEN FUCKING ELI, and B. J. is like, I THOUGHT MUSLIMS DIDN’T DRINK.
pellnell: There’s like foreign mumbling on B. J.’s end and Eli is listening in on speakerphone and starts yelling, IS JOHN KRASINSKI IN YOUR FUCKING HOTEL ROOM?

look_alive: And B. J. is like, YES AND HE GIVES BETTER HEAD THAN BOTH OF YOU. And then he gets hit in the head with a pillow by the straight guy.
pellnell: But Eli takes it so fucking seriously and is like, LET JIM SUCK YOUR FREAKISHLY LONG COCK THEN! and hangs Omar’s phone up.
look_alive: And Omar just laughs at him and throws the empty bottle at his head.
pellnell: He’s like, DON’T WORRY, ELI, I’VE GOT EXTRA ROPE FOR WHEN WE SEE HIM TOMORROW.
look_alive: Omar has friends at the local hardware store.
pellnell: BACK SO SOON, MR. DOOM? JUST SAW YA TWO DAYS AGO.
look_alive: He’s like, THAT LITTLE BITCH KEEPS PALMING KNIVES AND SAWING THROUGH IT!
pellnell: We have taken Omar to this very dark place.
look_alive: Somehow I think he’d be flattered.

pellnell: You need to watch Glee. I imagine B. J. totally tries to get Eli to watch it, DUDE IT’S GOOD LIKE ELECTION.
look_alive: Now I’m just picturing B. J. and Eli making out and fighting over watching Glee or Hostel.
pellnell: B. J. plays the songs on full blast in the car and says IT’S BETTER THAN MILEY CYRUS.
look_alive: Eli threatens to start bringing out the Hostel props if he doesn’t stfu.
pellnell: Omar is like, YOU’RE RIGHT B. J. BUT I STILL WANT TO BEAT YOUR FUCKING FACE IN.
look_alive: After the filming is done, they all disappear for a week and just tear into one another.
pellnell: It’s totally porntastic when they do, like a bad 80s video approximation of good sex. Lots of moaning and simultaneous orgasms.
look_alive: And lots and lots of bad Bear Jew puns.
pellnell>: And like, FUCK B. J. NOT-SO-LITTLE MAN, Omar unfs.
look_alive: And B. J. just sings to piss him off.

pellnell: Dude, B. J. has memorized the dancing. He’s a triple-threat.
look_alive: A TRIPLE THREAT TO OMAR’S MANHOOD.
pellnell: Eli threatens to post naked pictures of them on Twitter.

look_alive: He totally already posted pictures of B. J. tied to a chair.
pellnell: Omar tries to blackmail him with pictures of his cock but B. J. is not even fazed, like I WANT THOSE MYSPACE BITCHES TO STARE AT MY JUNK.
look_alive: Speaking of cock and B. J., I’m watching the Women’s Appreciation ep of The Office and the penis jokes omg the penis jokes. I’m so in love with Ryan, so in love. And this ep has a TIRE IRON.

pellnell: When he wants to tease Omar, he fake-romantic talks, THAT TIRE IRON WAS A SIGN THAT I’D MEET YOU BABE, he says when he tops.
look_alive: Why on earth is that so hot? Like fake sweet talk wtf. And Omar just starts trying to wrestle out from under him.
pellnell: It just is hot. Eli is listening at the door with a cup, muttering FUCK YOU to himself.
look_alive: He sneaks polaroids thru the trailer window and tacks them up in random places.
pellnell: Omar’s like, NICE ANGLE ON THAT, DUDE, BUT TRY TO GET MORE OF MY DICK AND B. J.’S BRUISES NEXT TIME.
look_alive: Eli is like, DUDE THERE ISN’T ANY MORE OF YOUR DICK! And Omar steals the camera and hits him with it.
pellnell: B. J. just shakes his head and says, GOD I AM SO READY TO GO BACK TO MINDY.

look_alive: Mindy totally thinks it’s hot.
pellnell: She is a secret Doom fangirl.
look_alive: Who fucking isn’t?
look_alive: OH MY GOD RYAN FRAUD HANDCUFFS!

pellnell: Omar Doom wanks to it at home.
look_alive: Fuck so do I…just saying.
pellnell: Yes but you don’t call B. J. during and hang on the line, breathing heavy.
look_alive: B. J. just SIGHS and is all YOU BETTER STAY ON THE LINE TIL YOU COME, FUCKFACE.
pellnell: B. J. texts Eli while this is happening, like, SHARK ALARM! I AM JACKING OFF WITH THAT HUGE DICK YOU LOVE SO MUCH.
look_alive: SHARK ALARM! While Omar thinks about doing lines of coke off B. J.’s stomach through a ten dollar bill.
pellnell: Oops rusty pipes!
look_alive: Omar just tells him to blame it on the tire iron. SHOW ME YOUR BRUISES, BABY.

Holy shit, that took forever to format, bbs.

I took a pen in my own hand and wrote you a hundred tunes.

2009-12-02T07:39:13Z

OMG, you guys, the intense discussions I have with grammar_glamour and look_alive about fandom. There's so much overthinking possibly, and a lot of it is just conjecture based on the existing fanon, but shit, it's always fascinating to try to deconstruct characters and then put them back together.

I think look_alive raised a really good question, which is: do any of the Basterds actually think they're going to make it out alive?

It sounds like we came to the conclusion that Smitty does and Omar does, at least for a while, based on their kneejerk "WTF" reactions to being intimately involved in Operation Kino, though Donny definitely doesn't. He knows he's not going to make it. I want to say I wrote that a while ago, but I can't recall where.

Also, the whole fanon concept of monogamy is really interesting to me, especially the tendency to write Donny/Smitty as something that would be continued after the war. My theory is that both of them would see it as happening, but they would never explicitly talk about it with one another. But Smitty totally rants to Gerold about it occasionally, while Gerold rolls his eyes and tries to process/repress his own feelings.

Donny obviously has his own aspirations about what he's going to do and how he's going to open his own salon, that much has been stated by Eli Roth and B. J. Novak, but in starting on his own, he would need some sort of familial anchor. His persona in Boston is so defined by his blood relations, I think it would be difficult for him to make this independent venture without envisioning at least somebody there, waiting for him. He totally sees Smitty as fitting into the typical wife role, and I don't think he would expect a real sense of autonomy from him. In his view, Smitty's not going to go back to being a journalist; he's going to be a fucking housefrau. Smitty would be helping Donny out in the shop, doing the odds-and-ends sort of things, and then on weekends, they'd go to Sox games, because even if they are falling into the traditional male and female roles, they're still men, and men like baseball.

Smitty would totally view post-war commitment as the natural extension of their relationship. As look_alive put it, he would reach a point where he realized he'd been fucking the same guy for a long time, and it wasn't just out of desperation. I see his monogamy as an extension of that straight-A student persona B. J. Novak describes. It's not his natural state, but if he does it, he's gonna do it all the way. So yes, he would definitely envision a marriage-type relationship afterward, and I don't think he would be opposed to being the wife. The simple act of him joining up is, in canon, a sort of rebellion from the disillusionment of being the abused journalist and realizing that real life isn't the way he'd pictured. For him to go to Boston with Donny and to play the wife role, it's just another form of rebellion against the monotony of what normal guys do after school.

Whereas I think that Smitty would naively view that option as what was going to happen (and be aware of the silliness of it, but also secretly hope for it), Donny would definitely need to hold onto that vision for what it was. Like, if he knows they're not really going to make it, he needs to picture what happens next even more, if only to keep himself going.

I don't know, it's sort of muddled in my head, but I definitely believe it, and it makes me think of this Magnetic Fields song that I used for a ficmix that I totally think applies, especially in terms of our discussion of Donny needing to do something pre-Operation Kino in order to make Smitty despise him, but I think it speaks to the optimistic delusion in general of a life after the war:

I pretended you were Jesus
You were just dying to save me
I stood beneath your window with my ukelele
I made my yard a playground just in case we had a baby

Just, like, FUCK. This song tears me up. First, the Jesus imagery. Oh my god. And the whole concept of romantic delusion, of changing your persona and expectations as a result of a relationship. Plus, Smitty = wife.

I treated you like radium
I treated you like God
You were my glass menagerie
Did you not find that odd?
I dwelt within and went without and broke my virgin flesh

It totally feeds into this idea of Smitty, like, hating Donny eventually, and being incredibly resentful of the concept that he felt he'd been cuckolded in some way, and the notion that Smitty ultimately views himself in this pseudo-innocent light, like he's still that kid who gets hurt in school and Donny's this corrupting influence, even though fanon-Smitty was fucking guys way before he got involved with the Basterds.

Oh, we have thought about this so much, and I am sure there are way more hours to come in which we try to explain why they are the way they are.

You get a great sound out of those.

2009-11-25T06:32:02Z

11 (Untitled) icons
What attracts me to his work is how uncomfortable it makes me feel.

I'm still shaking from the bucket kicks.

This here's a lullaby, it's a song for a little kid to go to sleep by.

2009-11-24T21:52:23Z

10 stingray sam icons
is it gonna be a boy? no it's gonna be a stingray!

I'm your peg leg father, you're my darling daughter.

What would you do if it wasn't me, it was you?

2009-11-21T08:49:44Z

As per usual when I get paid, the first day is full of extravagance. After being unable to sleep well last night- the combination of bad werewolf effects and giant coffees and the heat of romantic passion- I got up for a day of shopping, movies, and work. I started at Cameron's, where I found the most recent issue of Esquire, the July GQ (fuck, gorgeous blue-eyed boys) and J. J. Abrams's Wired. Then, Borders for the Toledo-designed copy of Wuthering Heights and gorgeous Teen Vogue and Nylon photoshoots plus the new GQ (Christoph Waltz in The Raven is to-die-for). Fox Tower for indie film with smuggled-in Flying Elephants Chinese chicken salad and Viso, and then Powell's, for dirty paperbacks. I had to hustle my ass to work after, but it was worth it for the indulgence of new money.

At Fox Tower, I saw the new Coen Brothers film, A Serious Man, and I was blown away by it. First of all, the cinematography and color scheme was phenomenal. Blues and browns have never looked so compelling. Second, it's a quintessential Coen film because it's so full of real life, pushed to extremes and without salvation. I'm sure a lot of people hated the prologue and the ending, but I love that they're consistent with the previous two Coen films in that they completely subvert the audience's expectations. Some annoying old people at the movie today shouted, "What?!" when the end credits started to roll. As pointed out in the New York Times review of the movie, it's not exactly clear what the Coens are trying to say about the nature of God, but I think I'd develop a good idea after a few more viewings. Maybe it's my own experience within my family's community, but I also loved the complete submergence in American Jewish culture. I'm not Jewish myself, but I can relate to being a part of some smaller facet of American society with its own customs and subset of the English language. I don't think you need to be Jewish to understand the Coen Brothers' films; I think you just need to be aware of the sensation of impending doom that's always pervaded Western society.

There's so much to recommend about A Serious Man- the son's honest experiences with marijuana, Richard Kind's Henry Darger-esque descent into mad uncertainty, the yes-and-no investments of the rabbis (including Simon Helberg as the junior rabbi who has an incredible passion for parking lots), the fact that Michael Stuhlbarg gives easily the best performance of the year so far- but the thing that I love the most is the fact that the whole time I watched it, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at just about everything. It's an obvious American retelling of Job, imposing distinctly suburban middle class tribulations onto the biblical story, but the most moving image I found in the film was of Larry Gopnik, having woken up from a nightmare, wandering into the kitchen to prepare his morning coffee, and watching him perform an action he's undoubtedly done millions of times before, but with a new heaviness that's a distinct realization of the way the world is crashing down around him. It's definitely one of the most affecting shots I've ever seen- the deep blue of early morning coming in through the curtains that briefly illuminates the kitchen- and it moved me to tears.

I really hope it gets some love come awards time. It's probably the second best film I've seen this year, and I hope to see it again before it's out of theaters. Seriously, go see it. If you need a comparison to describe it, think of Revolutionary Road, Election, and The Big Bang Theory rolled up together.

You get out of the car so slow, how was I supposed to know?

2009-11-19T09:21:11Z

It's really late and I've got work in the morning, but.

BRB, LAUGHING AT MARY SUES.

This is the best since there was that Repo! self-insert about Graverobber's girlfriend who was named Midnight or something.

I said, please don't insist.

2009-11-18T10:32:30Z

How awesome was seeing IB with aquidis and grammar_glamour tonight?

So awesome.

Also, I'm totally convinced the bartender at Kennedy School loves me. Last week, he gave me free food, and today he purposefully did not charge me for admission. When I sneaked out during the La Lousiane scene to drop off dirty plates and use the restroom, he told me they'll be showing the movie next week too. I wonder if I can corral Derek from my film class into going on Tuesday.

After Julia and I watched I Love You, Beth Cooper together this weekend, I've been on Paul Rust alert. During the first wide shot of the Basterds, I picked him out pretty easily and was like, "Shit, you go, Kagan." I do love that shot though, where the camera pans from Omar to Smitty as they go about scalping and stripping the bodies of shoes. So much of the film is breathtaking to me, and the cuts especially are so important, like the edit from the explosion to the long shot of the woods, so deathly silent. I'm not sure the audience would have gone so quiet if Tarantino didn't choose to cut from the extreme violence to this natural beauty of the trees while it rains, the sky pouring like tears or blood. And every time I see the images of Shosanna and Bridget when confronted by Landa, their faces titled upward, I think of La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc and I seriously get, like, chills.

I was totally meaning to work on my art paper about Jamini Roy, but then this post-film stuff came up, begging for editing:

He flies into New York, surmounting the Atlantic while he sleeps. He’s never conquered so easily. There’s some money in his pocket, bills Aldo stuffed into his hand like an apology, so he splurges on a cab that takes him right to his parents’ door. The building is bigger than he remembers. Tucked onto the city street, it looks like a haunted house now, all chewed up and spit out.

Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche.

2009-11-17T08:08:45Z

I know there are people on my f-list who enjoy horror movies, people who love deep movies, and people who love both, so I feel like I have to ask:

Should I watch Lars von Trier's Antichrist?

These are the things that concern me:

+ I'm writing a two-page essay comparing the cinematography of a film to a famous painting, and I'd really love to contrast Antichrist's shots with Edvard Munch's Ashes.

+ The cinematography is incredibly drool-worthy, but there is the imagery of spontaneously-aborted fetuses, sexual assault, and the infamous clitorectomy.

+ When I watch the trailer, I start hyperventilating and occasionally crying because it unnerves me so much.

+ Michael Phillips says the film pushes it way past the "torture porn" genre and into the most explicit and pornographic violence he's seen on film. Granted, I doubt he's seen Cannibal Holocaust, but still. He watches movies for a living. He's seen a lot.

I feel like I've read enough about the film- and Lars von Trier's ideas about women and sex- that I could write a short paper about how it relates to the painting, but I feel a little shitty doing that. I actually care about this class, and I think a part of me will always be curious if I don't watch Antichrist, though I'm totally scared shitless of seeing the violence. I've thought about just watching the first half, which Phillips said is the best filmmaking of von Trier's career, but I don't even know. Usually, somebody on IMDb will do an extensive run-down of all the violence, so I know when to look away at least, but the film's only been out a short while in indie cinemas, so I don't have that to hide behind.

So, horror and film fans, what should I do?

How should I wear my problem hair, my dirty, no-good problem hair?

2009-11-16T04:58:49Z

I should really be working on either my second Wendy and Lucy essay or procrastinating with my ficmix (Post-Basterds, set in Boston fo sho), but this popped into my head during work today, fueled by knightseri being totally annoyed by my fangirling over Ryan Howard's hipster glasses last night, and would not leave me alone. Pretty much structured like my massive Bear Jew/Little Man post.

The OG Prima Donna

Cap by potthead.

You know, every time I think I hit rock bottom at my job, the floor opens up, like at a carnival ride. I'm gonna retrace my steps. College, four-year degree, student loans, business school, alone in a beet field. I... there's a step missing. "Hey, mom." "Hey, Ryan. How's that five-year plan coming?" "Oh, it's great. Today, I knelt down in cow manure and I got abandoned in a beet field." "Oh, that's cool." "Yeah, that's really cool. I'm learning a lot. I'm really glad I took this full-time job."

-- Season three, episode five "Initiation"

My feelings on the most recent episode of The Office have ranged from being really upset about the sitcomization of Dwight, Pam, and Ryan, to having Kelly Kapoor-level freak outs over Ryan's attempts to reinvent himself, like his photography. And while I'm still not sure the writers have really stepped it up as far as fully expressing his character breakdown, I'm incredibly attached to him as a person, and I feel the need to deconstruct why he is the way he is.

While I think it's been clear for a while that Ryan Howard is a very callous person, that's been much more overt since season four. The experience of becoming "the youngest VP in the company's history" sort of cemented him as a shallow and mostly careless individual, and since the end of that period, he's become so much more childlike in his thoughtlessness, which is, I think, an expression of him finally changing from a boy into a man, to be totally cheesy.

As author Larry Doyle said, the whole teenager-coming-of-age thing was a construct of the 1950s, and in the past decade or so, we've definitely seen more in terms of men being unable to grow up until their thirties or later. Just look at all of Judd Apatow's films, or Christopher Noxon's book Rejuvenile. I'm not sure one person can accurately gauge where this long period of arrested development ("Hey, that's the name of the show!") began within a societal context- a reaction to the Vietnam war, maybe?- but it's pretty apparent that, for now, it's here to stay. Within the context of The Office, I don't think we've seen Ryan as a "child" until season five. Certainly, Michael likes to describe as some young ingenue in the earlier seasons, but at that point Ryan appears to be pretty well-immersed in his goals of pursuing the grown-up ideal. He's gotten his MBA, he's working the office job, he's making an effort to be promoted. On-screen, he is an adult. Season four is obviously when he's begun to crack though, buckling under the weight of his own responsibilities, and, after several months on the job, he's developed a drug habit, is going out and getting into fights, and, most notably, has begun to cut all the corners in the workplace.

And then, at the end of the season, he's knocked down to the same place he was before: temping at a mid-range, failing paper supply company. He's doing the mind-numbing, menial work again but he's lost even his notoriety as Michael's golden child. His erstwhile girlfriend- who he had at least formerly had for the purpose of having her- is dating someone else. He's back at home, living with his mother. In that situation, how does he react to being pushed down, all the way to the bottom? In a decidedly immature fashion, detailing those he hopes to harm once he's back on top, not giving a damn about his job, and eventually, when the pressure of not being on top becomes too much for him, he takes Kelly's money and runs away to Fort Lauderdale under the guise of Thailand. Presumably, when the money runs out, he comes back to Scranton, tail between his legs, and ends up working in a bowling alley as the shoe bitch. Even at that stage, his apparent total fall from grace, he still works hard to keep up appearances though, dying his hair blonde and maintaining that he was abroad. He jumps at the first opportunity to be more though, joining the Michael Scott Paper Company briefly, only to find himself adrift again, when he cannot (as before) justify his existence as a paper salesman. And once again, he becomes the temp, living within the office walls, without anything other than a flimsy emotional pretext to tie him to his work situation.

Same shit, different day.

But the real issue I have with the writers is Ryan's attempt to become a hipster this season, and how it relates to what he's already gone through as a character, with the fedora and the black-and-white photography and the unnecessary glasses (which are supposedly based on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character in (500) Days of Summer). The thing is that Ryan Howard is a man adrift. He's become season two Jim Halpert, but with more "artistic" inclinations and thoughtlessness. He doesn't seem to give a shit about his job and he's using his co-workers for money again. Without his business school dreams or his title to define him, he's lost, and he needs to eke out his identity once more.

I don't want to read too much into Subtle Sexuality's lyrics, but I'm going to, because I think they are pretty demonstrative of Ryan's opinion of himself:

They call me Mr. Understood 'cos no one understands me
But when I spit rhymes, everybody buys my CD

Knowing that there's not a whole lot to go on this season, I think Ryan, in his need to identify himself, likes to imagine himself as being misunderstood, a sort of juvenile notion popular mostly among high schoolers and college students (as a college student, I like to think I would know). He needs to believe that he's a soul no one gets because it staves off the notion of himself as a typical person. Watching him lately, I can't help but think of something a film professor once said in my class, quoting one of her old professors, "Oh, you haven't realized you're average yet." Ryan's floundering and experimenting with his hipster persona because the struggle does not allow him to accept the fact that he's going nowhere, that he is- and is going to be- one of the sad old fuckers in his office. And, as the latter line of the song suggests, to differentiate himself through his hipster pursuits, he gets attention. If he's got the pretext of creating great art, he can talk to the dully oblivious girl in reception. If he's deliberately mysterious, he can get everyone wondering about him. The point is to place himself there, to draw attention to himself specifically as the outsider in a way that validates his opinion of himself. I'm not sure that it's easier or harder to struggle against inevitable conclusions, but there's something to be said for the act of struggling, and Ryan's definitely tapped into that.

I think it's also significant that his most notable image produced as an artist is a piece about "exposure in the workplace." Yes, it's a silly and easy way to be sexually provocative, but it's also worth examining for the purposes of puzzling out Ryan's perceptions of himself. There's a lot made about the difference between "naked" and "nude" in art, and the image definitely falls into the former category. There's no pretext for Kelly's nakedness aside from Ryan's own desire to make "deep" art, and, even then, it's presented in a purposefully unidealized manner. This is not Venus of Urbino, this is Olympia, with decidedly less care given to its presentation and while I sort of hate myself for comparing fake Office art to Manet. The fact that Kelly is naked though and given the description of the piece, it's hard not to read Ryan's own experiences and his identity into the picture's significance. He is the naked one in this scenario. His dirty laundry has been aired to the entire office. There's no question of who he is in his coworkers' minds, but he still has to believe that no one is really seeing him, as a person. While the nakedness of his transgressions is still there, his real identity is hidden.

Even as Ryan is accepting in this way of his role within the office, by turning it into art, he still feels a need to present himself as something more, which is why he has to reinvent himself. He's not just Ryan Howard, Fire Guy, the one who cost Dunder-Mifflin hundreds of thousands of dollars. He's Ryan Howard, hipster artist, who wears intentionally boring sweaters and inexplicable spectacles, and even though this doesn't make him any more accessible to the people he spends all his time with, it does identify him as something better, perhaps somebody above his office existence and that's infinitely preferable to being at rock-bottom.

God, that came out so much more pretentious than I'd hoped and probably less clear. I'm still leaning more toward being annoyed at the writers for not conveying this sort of thing well-enough, which is honestly just a bunch of bullshit conjecture, but whatever. I'm all for finding depth where there is none. Why can't all my term papers be about relating The Office to modern art though? There's only so much I can say about Cades, but I could talk your ear off about B. J. Novak's on-screen personas.

BTW- I'm hard at work on my thesis, which is all about his character in Knocked Up.

Kidding, I think.

I used to roll the dice, see the fear in my enemy's eyes.

2009-11-12T07:32:49Z

Took a break from writing pre-movie stuff to read short fic, including an awesome Donward Cullen one that featured Smithson Swan prostrate at his feet, and HOLY SHIT.

This is amazing.

It's Aldo/Smitty directly post-movie, and the motivations are admittedly kinda rocky, but it's kind of awesome that a) it's from Landa's POV, and b) it's one of those "Donny/Smitty is canon, bitches" stories. I find it intensely amusing that so much of fandom considers it a given that they were fucking, even when slashing Smitty/Stiglitz.

FIC REC. That's all.