intertribal | some say we'll see armageddon soon. i certainly hope we will. i could use a vacation from this.

Current Mood: annoyed

Entry tags:

america,
movies

some say we'll see armageddon soon. i certainly hope we will. i could use a vacation from this.

maybe it's because her name sounds like manolo blahniks, the most oft-quoted high-price shoes in chick lit novels modeled after Sex and the City, or maybe it's telling that she can't write grammatically coherent sentences, but manohla dargis is kind of dumb.

"American cinema is in the grip of a kind of moribund academicism, which helps explain why a fastidiously polished film like “No Country for Old Men” can receive such gushing praise from critics. “Southland Tales” isn’t as smooth and tightly tuned as “No Country,” a film I admire with few reservations. Even so, I would rather watch a young filmmaker like Mr. Kelly reach beyond the obvious, push past his and the audience’s comfort zones, than follow the example of the Coens and elegantly art-direct yet one more murder for your viewing pleasure and mine."

I haven't seen either movie. But this reminds me of this last summer's English class, when my liking of the short stories we were reading reached an apex in the 1930s, remained alright in the 1940s and 1950s, and then went downhill very fast. I don't think that what I dislike is experimental, because I actually have a pretty strong stomach for things that get labeled "modern" - modern art, modern dance. I dislike the stuff that is seen as "the future is now", the cool stuff. Richard Kelly is nothing if not cool. Ask any self-labeling "self-aware" high school student. Well, not that they'd recognize his name, but I bet they'd recognize Donnie Darko. Is that an experimental movie? No. Is that an academic movie? No. Is that a genre movie? No. What is it then? Something similar to Garden State. Produced by a "promising young director" (nobody ever mentions Khrjanovsky, but that's okay...) who is "attuned to the youth and times of today". Oh, bullshit. Richard Kelly was a perfect boy, perfect in the sense that he was not only popular (Phi Delta Theta) but intelligent (scholarship to USC), a fan of Kurt Vonnegut (no surprise there) and Holes (once again...). The well-educated pretty-fly-for-a-white-guy, master of the "indie counter-culture" scene. The "product of his generation". Boy, I hate artists like that. Omigod, he really is Zach Braff, who famously makes movies for every decade he lives. In their universe they are the center of gravity, these happy little white American boys who really (really) don't bother looking beyond their own earwax and navel fuzz when they create movies that are supposed to define their "generation", whose idea of profound social commentary is criticizing psychiatrists and self-help talk shows. At least Richard Kelly doesn't act in his own movies and pair himself up with beautiful actresses.

Because the thing is, Donnie Darko did not push my comfort zone (unless you count introducing a demonic life-size bunny) anywhere. It could have. It could have redeemed itself. But then it decided to fall back into the realm of utter predictability, become a suburban fairytale (that's really all it is) and I ended up wondering what the hell my peers were so excited about. Jake Gyllenhaal? Yeah, that had to be it. Don't tell them that, though. They'll just tell you "you don't get it yet... watch it a couple more times, then you'll see." Hold your breath.

If preferring Cormac McCarthy to Kurt Vonnegut makes me a snob, then I'm a snob. I think that really, I'm just uncool. I've never been cool and I'm alright with that. A couple other movies that I think I was supposed to like were Election and Pleasantville. Yeah, they didn't work either. But then, I've never been able to identify with my peer group. Who knows, maybe I'm just "unstuck in time".

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

maybe you just don't identify with the movies/books the same way the people who are recommending them do, don't have the same life experiences to draw on, the same relationships with the characters...

i mean, i kinda like vonnegut (at least sometimes, namely, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater), and i liked pleasantville, but I think the latter at least was because i saw my parents in it. and i don't remember enough of the former to really say. probably 'cause it's anti-capitalist, involves a bastard with a good heart, takes place largely in Indiana, and was different from most things i had read at the time.

All I've read of Vonnegut was Slaughterhouse-Five. It had such a good title that I was really looking forward to it, and it just completely disappointed me. First off it's sympathetic to the bombing of Dresden because the Nazis are evil (i guess). Second it's self-insertion and the little time-traveling thing just reads like the wet dream of a guy in a midlife crisis.

But yeah, I'm sure that is why... identification with characters. I identify with really random characters and very rarely is it the main character (anymore).

yeah, i never made it through slaughterhouse-five. i've started it twice, i think. i am slightly vindicated by all the people who think that god bless you, mr. rosewater is underrated and actually one of vonnegut's better books. though that doesn't prove anything. still, i'm sure i could critique it if i remembered more. it's simplistic, and i don't think it really gets that far from self-insertion. but, no time travel.

that's good, as I think I have problems with time travel.

Slaughterhouse-Five, Donnie Darko... the Cell Saga... etc. I mean, I like Futurama, but that's just futuristic. Oh yeah, Dr. Who and Torchwood. Don't like them. Involve time travel.

I understand that self-insertion is hard to resist/avoid because I of all people am so guilty of it (and try so effing hard to stop, to apparently little avail), but I know that it is REALLY BAD (thanks in part to you, haha). Which is why I now write about men.

"but if a novel should project a view of life by means of character, this book is not being merchandised in the proper category. Random meditations, si, Fiction, no. This should certainly not deter Mr. Vonnegut. "

it was from a review of Mr. Rosewater

i didn't like garden state at all, though, and I haven't seen/read the rest. sometimes i'm a snob, sometimes not. maybe i just have white Midwestern middle (?) class taste well-defended by a bunch of pretensions otherwise.

but yeah, the quote does sound dumb, and from what i know of it, i hate sex & the city, though every girl i know seems to love it.

also, it's not like pleasantville was life-changing or anything, just liked it at the time.

Yay, another person that didn't like Garden State. Actually, more people than I thought originally don't like Garden State.

Sex & the City is crap. It's like, all lies, and is extremely superficial and shallow. It's not New York at all, they're all way too rich and way too materialistic, several of them shouldn't even be friends with each other, and the career woman ends up pregnant and married to a douchebag. Carrie Bradshaw also has really annoying voiceovers. All girls you know like it? Really? Even at Reed?

I think I'm a snob with some things and not with others, but regardless what it really "feels like" is just movies, agendas, directors, actors, etc. that rub me the wrong way and those that don't.

It's Keri's "guilty pleasure." And Pooja and Manako like it... basically, there are a lot of people here who are fashionably feminists... it took me awhile to get used to that, west coast hippies and hipsters being the popular kids. it changes much less than you'd think. it's mostly form, little substance.

Tara's probably the only one here whose opinions on feminism I actually value. Or maybe Steve. No one else seems to think critically except the fucking Pamphlette. Sorry, we just had this thing in the Quest, where some guy wrote in and complained about all the stupid feminist stuff lately saying we should care more about real feminist issues, and yeah, it was kind of ignorant, possibly racist, but the backlash against him was ridiculous. And frankly, I agree that the so-called feminist articles and complaints lately have been totally stupid. The Quest is our newspaper, btw, and the Pamphlette is this one-page satire newspaper.

It's just...if you have what *looks* like it's the good liberal viewpoint, you're socially acceptable, but if you don't, you're ostracized just like in a small town. You can't even have a civil discussion. It's despicable.

fashionably feminist... I like that. I know EXACTLY what you mean and it bothers me a lot. I see that S&tC is quite fashionably feminist, but it is so... rahgurrahgurr. It's probably the reason I don't like calling myself a feminist (but when my mother hears that I don't call myself a feminist she seems sad, because feminism means something else to her, having grown up in the '60s-'70s). Although to be fair listening to Hole has put me back in the mood (so to speak).

It reminds me of this one episode on Law & Order where this socialite woman was suspected of burning down her ex-husband's apartment (and killing a little girl) because he hadn't paid her alimony, and she got a feminist lawyer who turned it into a feminist issue, and Connie (the assistant D.A., I really like her) was like, well, too bad for the little girl she killed, she'll never have a chance to BECOME a woman. Anyhow I know what you mean, the fake feminism issues vs. real issues.

Here's a real issue for feminists that I learned about this term: mandatory sterilization of women (usually under terrible health conditions and causing lasting damage) in India to avoid over-population.

"It's just...if you have what *looks* like it's the good liberal viewpoint, you're socially acceptable, but if you don't, you're ostracized just like in a small town. You can't even have a civil discussion. It's despicable." That's terrible. We have a bit of that too, but feminism is not strong at Columbia and there are a lot of chauvinists here (old money, all that). So basically Barnard girls watch Sex & the City, Columbia boys crack jokes about feminists and lesbians. It's GREAT. We have the sort of socially acceptable vs. ostracizing thing with history, race, ethnicity (as you can tell by my previous posts, probably), to some extent with class.

p.s. The Spectator is our "real" paper, and we have two fake ones, The Fed (which is mean-spirited) and The Blue & White, which is actually the one I like best and is very cynical but not quite mean, and posts things like documents left open on Word in student computing labs.

rarely do I feel the need to call myself anything. i think i consider myself a feminist, as defined on my own terms, though...

it's not even that people aren't paying attention to real issues that bothers me (though in a newspaper, it kind of does), but that they can't even see what's right in front of their face, can't be honest with themselves about whatever trivial issues they do take up, or about what they really believe...sigh. and that as usual, people insist on blaming others in such a way that they take the position of the victim (and the moral highground) which doesn't do anyone any good. i.e. men do this TO ME because i'm a woman and have no power of my own to stop them or say anything back but prefer to denounce them in public because it makes me popular. things like "finds other women attractive," or "makes jokes that threaten my sense of propriety" are suddenly crimes against women, it's ridiculous

i am sorry for the state of columbia, too, in this regard...especially old money.

Sample from Pamphlette parody of Quest drama:

"Opinions! Viewpoints! Judgments!"

"I Heart Opinions" (Mary Beth Sampson)

"I think that opinions are what elevate the West above the East. Without opinions, we might as well be mining for diamonds in Africa or working in a sweatshop in Taiwan." "Opinions are to facts as dollars are to nickels: They're worth 20 times more and are much easier to swallow. Nobody has ever once been convinced by a fact."

"I Hate Opinions" (Irving Jolinski)

"In fact, all opinions are inherently racist;--that's why I'm anti-opinion. In my opinion--wait a minute, I don't have opinions about opinions, I have facts about opinions. FACT: Opinions by NATURE set up a West/East duality propagated by somniferous blowhards pontificating on the origins of inner adjustment and acceptance of the "other" and also they SUCK. FACT: Guess who else had opinions? That's right. HITLER. FACT: Mary Beth is extremely unattractive; there's nothing less flattering about a woman than a slew of opinions stuffing her bra."

"I Have No Opinion" (Jaime Robertson)
"What the hell is going on here people? Listen, I personally have no opinion about opinions, but I think we are bound by the Honor Principle to provide an environment where students can express their viewpoints on such matters without risking ridicule. So fuck you, Mary Beth and Irving. Let's find the middle ground here. Students should clearly be allowed to have opinions but should not express them unless they are about opinions. Until we all work out our opinions about opinions, plain 'ol opinions simply aren't grounded and should be banned. We're simply not yet ready or mature enough to have opinions about real things." "And until we are, regular opinions are like hair ties that are too small for your hair and only go around the ponytail twice instead of three or four times like you'd like them to. Maybe someday society will be ready to express its opinions, and I'll let you know when that time comes. Until then, however, we just can't be sure if those opinions could ever be useful or even just not obnoxious!"

oh, are all the newspapers online? that's spiffy. our newspaper hardly deserves the name and also is not online. the pamphlette only started this year. it basically pokes fun at reedies in interesting and often thought-provoking ways...and has just silly things, like blank sudoku or coupons for free things at various places on campus (that some people apparently try to use).

and what i mean about what goes on with the women is that they won't just have civil discussion with the men like equals, they make it a moral issue behind their back. like:

Man: Well, that's because you're a two-faced little cunt.
Woman: *gives stony stare, leaves, pouts awhile, and if he doesn't return with gifts, tells all her friends who then collectively pout at him until he can't have any non-passive-aggressive or straightforwardly cold interactions with anyone on campus, but he'll still get laid, which is all that matters anyway*

OR

Man: *makes potentially sexist joke*
Woman: *writes article in quest about how sexist jokes should be BANNED because joking is OFFENSIVE and threatens the lives of women everywhere*
Reed population: *feels uncomfortable approaching the man and generally avoids him, because to associate with him is to be sexist and frowned upon*

of course, this doesn't apply to everyone on campus, but far more people than it should.

well... columbia has a humungous budget... and a pretty strong inclination towards journalism.

I understand what you mean. I do get somewhat annoyed with sexist jokes, but not that much and certainly not to the point of making an "issue" out of it, and at any rate, one of my favorite quotes from movies is "You are a magnificent cunt" by the mayor (I think) of NY to Jodie Foster in Inside Man, and she smiles and says, "Thank you."

yeah, that's a good quote

And it's like MacKinnon trying to ban pornography because it's "inherently" debasing toward women. It's targeting the symptoms, not the problem, and misidentifies the symptom as well. Besides which, in this case, it was a poster that could have been interpreted in more than one way, and people chose to make it a feminist issue as opposed to deciding that it wasn't serious or didn't have any power over women, which I don't think it really did.

rmmmm, yeah. (don't know what you're talking about with the MacKinnon thing... trying to look it up) that reminds me of feminists who hate Sam Peckinpah because his movies have a lot of rape.

of course I'm generally of the non-banning nature... like, to be honest, I wouldn't ban anything if it were up to me.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MACONL.html

I think at one point she attempts to argue that pornography is a sign directed at men's penises and so they cannot think and then go out and rape women. It's pretty amazing.

sweet (about not banning things)

Also, Judith Butler (most famous for Gender Trouble) wrote a very good, if overly technical, criticism of MacKinnon's argument in Excitable Speech. I really like her, theoretically if not stylistically.

not that that's the only option...i mean, if it is offensive, you can provide an argument for why or come up with something clever or even think about what it would have meant had it been a man on the poster...but whatever you do, don't tell people to stop them selves in advance from doing things that others might consider offensive. i know they mean well, but that's just plain stupid.

yup, I completely agree.

By the way, I really love that we have these conversations on LJ. Like, I have become increasingly distant from most of my high school friends, but I feel increasingly closer to you, which is awesome. I was telling my mom about it actually, how I gravitate to different people depending on what I'm trying to be, etc., and I find that I gravitate to you when i'm being most honest about who I am (and generally doing well psychologically, even if it may not look like that all the time).

So do I. And I think it's awesome too. And that is quite possibly the best compliment I've ever received. If not, definitely in the top three or so. Thank you.

I don't know if I gravitate to people much in general...in any case, I'm never entirely comfortable with them if I can't be honest about who I am around them, and that's precisely why I'm more comfortable around you than pretty much everyone else.

:) well, it has been, what, almost ten years now.

in any case, talking with you on LJ tonight really cheered me up

huzzah!

honestly, though...i like most things. like steve, i am "easily impressed." sorry, that's tara's insult to him, but i kind of agree. upon further reflection, i might not say they're revolutionary or genius or good art or whatnot, but initially i feel inspired.

I like most things too. That's why I spend so much time on things that I don't like, because it's so rare, and I usually dislike them really viscerally.

(deleted comment)

there are some movies she recommends that I would probably also recommend, but she seems kind of "pop-y", and maybe all this can be explained by her being based in L.A.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

some say we'll see armageddon soon. i certainly hope we will. i could use a vacation from this.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

redo

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject