Tag Archives: there’s a difference between films and movies

The Best Thing About “Eclipse” (and the Most Annoying)

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 2, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under good times at everyone else's expense, i used to be so cool, my uber-confrontational personality, readin' and writin', there's a difference between films and movies, why i'm better than everyone else
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I was surprised to learn, upon reading them, that though the writing is as awful as I would’ve imagined, the plot of the Twilight series is actually pretty clever. Unlike, say, “Lost”, all of the loose ends eventually tie up, and the things you never thought would matter suddenly do. There are no red herrings nor MacGuffins in them.

Yet they still totally annoy me simply because their author, Stephenie Meyer, has to thank the band Muse in each of them. In all of the novels’ afterwords, right alongside appreciation of her editor and agent, she’ll say things like, “And thanks also to my favourite band, the very aptly named Muse, for providing a saga’s worth of inspiration.” And then I will claw her eyes out.

It’s not even that I don’t like Muse. I actually really liked them in NINETEEN-NINETY-NINE when I was listening to them. But I just can’t handle some kids’-book-writin’, middle-aged Mormon thinking she’s all cool for liking one pop-alt band. It’s like moviestars thinking anyone cares about their political activism. And you know she’s just doing it in some used-to-be-unpopular girl’s attempt to befriend the band she loves.

I went to see Eclipse last night with my friend Ash, though, and aside from a couple of actually-hilarious moments, what I was surprised by most was the soundtrack. It does not suck. In fact, it includes The Bravery, the amazing Ohio band The Black Keys, and my favourite band right now, Band of Horses. And the music is used really well. The first time you see, Jacob, for instance, the camera moves in on his face as a grinding bluesy song starts, and it’s this total moment. How annoying is that?

I can console myself with the fact that I know it wasn’t Stephenie Meyer choosing the music and how it’s used, but I can still continue to hate her for all of her Muse-suck-upping. Mostly because I know I’d do exactly the same thing if I was in her shoes.

Except with a better band.

An Education, and Why I’m Sad to Be a Grownup

Posted by plumpdumpling on January 5, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under i used to be so cool, there's a difference between films and movies
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Maybe it’s inappropriate to start off the new year with ruminations on pedophilia, but while I was in Ohio for Christmas, my best friend, Tracey, and her friend Kim were in the midst of seeing all of this year’s potentially-Oscar-nominated films, and I tagged along to see An Education with them almost as an afterthought. It’s mostly plotless–a sheltered 17-year-old girl loses more than her virginity to an older man when she’s dazzled by his worldliness–and it’s not for everyone, but it was entirely for me.

It was a great story and all, but for days afterward, it was still consuming my thoughts in a way that I didn’t think it should have. I found myself feeling detached from everything I did, because all I wanted to be doing was watching that film again. I finally decided it was because the girl in the film, Jenny, reminded me so much of myself. Growing up in smalltown Ohio, I wasn’t at all interested in most of the boys I went to school with, because I was way too smart for them, and I don’t mean that to sound narcissistic. Even the ones who could hold a conversation with me didn’t seem to appreciate me in the way I thought my awesomeness merited. I didn’t find things much different in college, so I “dated” first a 35-year-old and then a 41-year-old and just didn’t think anything wrong with it. Brains and humor have always made people more attractive to me than classic good looks alone, and men twice my age seemed so thoughtful and funny. They got why I was so interested in literature, and they listened to the right kinds of music, only they knew bands and read books I’d only heard of. They were so serious about politics, unlike the boys at school who were only Republicans because their parents were. And they both lived somewhere other than Ohio, which was really the most important thing.

The sad thing I realized after watching An Education is that the main reason I wanted to date older men no longer applies. Somewhere between 18 and now, I figured out that the guys I thought were so wise back then had really just accumulated the sort of life experience you do when you’ve had a job, had a wife, had some birthdays. They knew bands I’d only heard of because they’d been my age when those bands were making music, just like I know more bands than someone half my age does. My best friends now are just as literate, just as politically-conscious, and just as funny as any of those guys were. In fact, my current boyfriend, who’s only a couple of years older than I am, is smarter and funnier than probably anyone I know. It wasn’t that boys my age were necessarily not good enough for me but just that I hadn’t met the right one. Not that I regret any of it.

My even sadder realization is that I probably already ended my tenure as pedophile bait without even realizing it, and despite being wise enough now to recognize that older isn’t always better, I’m still going to miss the attention. Sure, I can date 80-year-old men for their money in my late 20s, but no one’s going to question that guy’s morals or mental health. If I’m not attractive simply for my ability to get someone arrested for touching me, what do I have to live for? What’s the point of being seen with an old codger if it doesn’t garner him disapproving glares and me worried glances? What’s the point if I’m not being taken advantage of?

Zombies v. Old Lady Genitals

Posted by plumpdumpling on October 21, 2009 – 9:45 am
Filed under there's a difference between films and movies
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I saw Zombieland, and like Adventureland, it was entirely meant to showcase how much better than Michael Cera Jesse Eisenberg is. Kamran was worried it was trying to be Shaun of the Dead, but in most ways–many of them involving the lack of puny British accents–it was better:

1) The rules for staying alive.
2) The slow-motion death scenes.
3) The non-lame love story that actually made me like that chick from Superbad.
4) Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson.
5) But mostly Jesse Eisenberg.

The heavy metal soundtrack was an added plus, as was the hilarious cameo by the superfamous actor, which I don’t want to ruin for you in case you, like me, didn’t know it was coming. Woody Harrelson never made me cringe from bad acting, and Abigail Breslin never made me cringe from teenage acne, but a lot of the zombie killings had me wincing. In a good way.

My friend Jack’s Romanian friends thought the movie was disgusting and were shocked that the rest of us liked it, but this was the same night we saw the woman peeing in the street, so maybe we’ve just been desensitized to these things. Go see it and decide which you think is grosser.

Who Wants an Eraserhead Larva Baby Replica? YOU DO!

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 30, 2009 – 9:20 am
Filed under there's a difference between films and movies
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I was under the impression that I pretty much knew David Lynch. I saw Mulholland Dr. in the theatre twice, watched The Elephant Man in a college class, saw Blue Velvet earlier this year with Kamran, DVRed The Straight Story the other day without even knowing it was a David Lynch film just because I wanted to watch a movie about a farmer, watched Lost Highway with Kamran a couple of years ago when he helped me paint the living room of my apartment bright pink, was forced to see bits of Wild at Heart on TV, and think I might have actually seen every episode of “Twin Peaks” at this point thanks to our cable horror channel, Chiller. So yeah, I thought I knew David Lynch.

But last night, Kamran made me watch Eraserhead. When the opening credits came on, I asked, “Is this in black and white?”, and he said, “Yes, and there’s very little dialogue.” I tried to have an open mind, but I was still veeeeeeeeery skeptical a half an hour in. There was little plot, little scene, no dialogue, and totally unlikeable characters. And then this happened:

And that basically sums up the film. If you’re in any way intrigued by that, rest assured that it only gets weirder. It’s probably my second-favourite David Lynch movie now, and I can’t wait for Kamran to start up his line of Eraserhead action figures so I can give everyone a larva baby for Christmas.

Benjamin Button Should’ve Been Called Benjamin Suckin’ OHHH!

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 28, 2009 – 3:00 pm
Filed under stuff i hate, there's a difference between films and movies
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Netflix delivered The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to Kamran’s apartment a good month ago. I’m the one who put it on our list, yet I’m the one who kept dragging my feet, because three hours of Brad Pitt doesn’t excite me like it does normal women.

I’m trying to catch Kamran up on five seasons of “Lost” so we’ll both be prepared for the final season when it airs in January, so we spent a few hours on Friday night and all morning Saturday watching episodes from season two. Kamran was getting too good at guessing exactly what was going to happen next (seriously, am I the only one who’s taken by surprise by every minute of the show?), so we stopped at one point and decided to finally watch Benjamin Button so we could send it back and stock up on Halloween movies to give us an excuse to eat loads of candy pumpkins.

It sucked. We didn’t care about any of the characters, though they were obviously intended to be intriguing in the way all of the characters in movies like Amélie or Fargo are. And the worst part was that it seemed like Benjamin’s getting younger really had no effect on anything. Aside from kissing a woman for the first time as an old man, any of it could have happened to someone who wasn’t aging backward. And the Hurricane Katrina stuff? CRAP, and obviously not from the Fitzgerald short story.

To be fair, there were two scenes I liked:

1) Benjamin leaves Daisy because he’s growing too young and doesn’t want her to have to take care of both him and their baby. As he’s walking out in the middle of the night, she opens her eyes, and they silently look at each other for a moment before he walks out the door.

2) Daisy’s grown daughter reads postcards written by Benjamin to her. They say totally vague and cheesy one-liners like “do the things you love”, but they still touched me somehow.

I just find it insane that this was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar the year after There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were, especially when there were so many good films that year that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn’t even nominated.

What did I miss in the movie that everyone else saw?