Childhood just got a little less cuddly

Last weekend, I went to New York state with my parents and brother to go Christmas shopping at the outlets and while my brother and I were enjoying the pool at our hotel, we took a walk down Nostalgia Lane, and it made me realize that sets my childhood apart from a lot of other people I know.

When my brother and I were little (me a lot littler than him since he’s seven years older), our parents did not care what we watched. And I mean, did not care one bit. Their motto was that if we were old enough to turn on the channel or put in the movie, we were old enough to watch it. And in their mind, there was absolutely no distinction between an animated film and a cartoon. As a result, I have never seen Barney, Sesame Street, or Blue’s Clues. Even as a child I had good sense enough to watch something else.

Also as a result, I have an interesting collection of films that characterize my childhood. This is a list that I would like to share since it’s surprising to me that number of people who have never seen, or heard of, any of these films. And you really should watch them if you have not.

!) The Flight of Dragons
In a world where humanity is turning to logic over magic, Carolinus the green wizard decides to build a shield around the magical world to preserve it for all eternity. Ommendon the red wizard and Carolinus’ brother (and appropriately voiced by James Earl Jones) stands in his way, so Carolinus must call for a quest to steal Ommendon’s red crown and the source of his power. The quest is led by a man named Peter Dickinson (who is also the author of the book that the film is based on, and voiced by the late John Ritter), who is the first man to come from both worlds or science and magic. He is joined on his quest by a dragon, a knight, a forest elf, an undead world, and an archer in a series of delightful and horrific episodes that he must endure throughout his journey to face Ommendon.

(Peter Dicksons' first encounter with a dragon.)

2) The Last Unicorn
Alright, so I know a lot of people who are familiar with this film, but it is more than worth mentioning for those of you who are not. This is the tale of a unicorn who hears a rumor that a great bull had rounded up all the other unicorns and shepherded them into the sea, and she is the last. This leads her to leave the comfort of her forest and embark on a quest to find and rescue the others. Accompanied by a wizard who inadvertently turns her into a human and a forest thief’s wife who has lost all hope in the world, she must save the others before the bull entraps her too.

(The unicorns running from the red bull.)

3) Wizards
Similar to Flight of the Dragons in that it tackles a similar magic vs. technology theme, this is a tale set in a post-apocalyptic world where a wizard named Avatar must save the world from his evil twin brother, Blackwolf, who likes to confuse his enemies in battle by projecting films of Adolf Hitler speeches. Avatar is also joined by a promiscuous elf queen, a vengeful and short-tempered elf soldier, and an assassin named Peace who is struggling to break free of Blackwolf’s mental conditioning. This is definitely one of the more adult films that I watched as a child, and the message is much more powerful than I was able to handle as a child, but now that I’m older I have a much greater appreciation of the film I enjoyed so much as a child.

(The assassin, Peace.)

4) Watership Down
I’m going to assume that everyone has seen, read, or heard of this film. I think it’s safe to say that this is a movie that traumatized everyone’s childhood, but in case I’m wrong, I will say this: it’s about bunnies dying. Bunnies drowning, bunnies getting shot, dead dead bunnies. And there really isn’t anything else to say about it.

(Yes, this was the necessary photo.)

5) Dot and the Bunny
A mix of animation and live action footage (much to the vein of Wizards only far less disturbing in nature), this chronicles the tale of young Dot on her adventure through the Australian outback. Dot makes a promise to a mother kangaroo to find her lost joey, and an orphaned rabbit overhears this and pretends to be a kangaroo in order to get a mother. This is a much less violent and adult-content film than the others, but it does have a bittersweet quality to it: Dot can’t stand the bunny and tries to abandon it at every turn, and the rabbit is all alone having no parents or family of its own.

(Sorry this picture sucks, there wasn't a lot out there!)

So, as you can tell, I was pretty into quests as a child. I was also into obscure films that you can’t get on dvd now (but are well worth busting out the vhs player for), and that I probably shouldn’t have been watching as a child. Maybe it explains a fair amount about the person that I ended up becoming. Or maybe not. You decide.

Whatever you do, check these films out if you haven’t already seen them.

Who knew comics could be funny?

The other day, one of my friends, who I never ever see, came over and instead of wasting our money of bad alcohol and junk food, we decided to stay in and watch movies in my tiny, cold apartment. Initially I wasn't too excited with the idea, but then he pulled out this little "movie" (and I use the term loosely since it was hand-drawn comics and only forty minutes long, but I don't know a better word to call it), and I found myself laughing and agreeing with what it was saying immensely.

This little gem that he showed me was a collection of Levi Yilmaz comics, which are called Tales of Mere Existence, put onto a DVD and sold as an accompaniment to his book, Sunny Side Down, which I regret to say that I have not read, but plan to in the future. I also plan to buy the accompanying DVD because seeing it once was just not enough for me to capture all the humor, especially since I was watching it with a friend who I haven't seen in a while and wanted to talk to (which is never a good thing to do while watching movies).

It was a simple movie. That was possibly the best thing about it. It didn't try to make itself something that it wasn't with a lot of ritz and glitz. It was just a guy drawing simple little pictures as he told a story, and it was a bunch of these little stories strung together under the theme of "existence" and what it means for him to exist. There was the tale of getting ready in the morning, deciding on a job, his relationship with his father, and this one, my personal favorite, the decision to take your shoes off in bed:



This isn't the type of thing that I normally watch. I read Calvin and Hobbes in the paper when I was little and I'm pretty fanatical about Batman, but I wouldn't say that I'm a comic fanatic. I don't follow any comics now even though I stumbleupon them all the time, and I certainly don't know anything about comics in the way that I know about books. So, to me, this was a pretty obscure find and I was pretty excited about it.

Hope you enjoyed the clip!

The Social Network: the good, the bad, and the downright despicable

It has taken me a long time to write this review because it has taken me a long time to decide if I liked it. I'm not even sure now, and it's been about three weeks since I saw it. I think it was a good movie. I can see why a lot of people would like it. I think it's going to be nominated for a bunch of things, and probably win a bunch more. It was well-made and entertaining, but I'm not sure that I liked it.

I love Facebook. Don't get me wrong, Facebook helps me to waste a lot of time that would be better spent doing homework or thinking about what I'll do in six months when I graduate or doing anything productive, really. So I'm grateful to Mark Zuckerberg for creating Facebook because I really enjoy it. Do I want to watch a movie about it? That's debatable.

Here's my problem with the film. Mark Zuckerberg was a jerk. His friend, Eduardo, was a tool. And I don't know anyone who can bring themselves to care about Justin Timberlake, regardless of what he's doing. There wasn't anyone in the film that I cared anything about. I was glad he got sued. I was glad that he ended up paying a bunch of people money. I thought he deserved it. I was only hoping that someone would sue Justin Timberlake too, and him, not the character he played.

I felt bad for the girlfriend. Not only did she have to deal with him being an asshole while they were together, but then she had to deal with him being an even bigger asshole after she got up the good sense to dump him. No one should have to read about themselves on the Internet. I'll admit that I've thought about posting unflattering things about my exes online before (in high school when I was much less mature and had much more time on my hands), but I haven't because that is just cruel. I really believe that break ups are personal and private things and should only be discussed between the two people who are breaking up with each other, so I could feel for her when she had to read about her bra size on the Internet because no one deserves that.

What I liked about it was that it didn't apologize. Mark Zuckerberg wasn't portrayed in any sort of positive light, and his character didn't make any apologies or justifications for his actions. He never admitted that anything he did was wrong. He even said to the Winklevoss twins in the film, "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook." The lawsuits just seemed like a minor inconvenience to him. He ignored the proceedings and simply moved forward with Facebook. I can respect that. A motto that I've lived by for a long time now is: no apologies, no regrets (respectfully borrowed (read: stolen) from popular Showtime series, Queer as Folk), and he certainly fits the bill.

Now that I've taken the time to write about it, I think I liked it. I've certainly spent a lot of time talking about it, so that must mean something. If I hadn't really liked it, I wouldn't have thought about it again after leaving the theater. And it made me cry I was so mad, and I hate crying. So, that's worth something.

All and all, I say, go see for yourself.

One from the vaults

In keeping with my promise to myself to keep up with posting on this blog, I supply you with something I found while searching through the folders on my computer. It still doesn't have a title. Enjoy!

***

I bring Lorna to the place where they do the abortions. After it's all over, the doctor lets me go into the back to get her. They don't tell me that she wants her baby back. She's laying on the bed crying, begging for them to put it back.

I crawl onto the bed with her even though they tell me not to. I grab her and pull her into my arms just like my mother used to me when I was a little girl and I was upset. "They can't," I tell her, but she doesn't understand.

"Please, Sara, you have to tell them. They won't listen. I want Molly back," she sobs, clinging to me.

"Molly's not coming back," I whisper, and this, she seems to understand.

Her sobbing intensifies until she runs out of the gusto to keep going and the tears run out. Everything is red. Everything is puffy. I help her up from the bed and slip her coat over her shoulders. The nurse smiles warmly, all-knowing, a smile she's given to hundreds of sluts before us.

"It's okay, honey," she whispers, patting Lorna on the shoulder. Lorna nods and begins crying again, silently this time.

"I made a horrible mistake," she tells the nurse, leaning into her. The nurse holds her up. She turns to me, "He would have made a great dad, you know. Blane Owen is a god."

"Honey," I say, unsure if I should, "his name is Blitz."

She's so surprised that she stops crying again. I don't know what else to say to her, so I just lead her out to the car and drive her home. She sits in the passenger seat whispering "Blitz" over and over again to herself. I don't say anything. She gets out of the car in front of her parents house and starts to walk away without closing the door. I put the car in park and get out to close the door. She's just standing at the end of her driveway.

"Are you sure it's Blitz?" she asks me, blood shot eyes bearing into my fragile skin.

"Yes," I nod, "He is my boyfriend after all."

She nods and disappears up the driveway. I stand there waiting for her to come back, but she doesn't. I'm supposed to meet Blitz for lunch, but I might have changed my mind about him. I don't think I can forgive him for this. I take a deep breath and close the passenger door.

I show up anyway.

He's looking cool in his Wayfarers and designer jeans. He's gotten a haircut since I last saw him; only a half inch of sandy hair remains on his fuzzy head. His tan is fading with the end of summer and he needs to whiten his teeth from the coffee stains. He reminds me that school is starting soon and Lorna won't be my roommate anymore. She won't even be there.

I sit down across from him, folding and unfolding my menu again and again to calm my nerves. He's chain smoking and blowing all the smoke into my face.

"She didn't want to do it," I say.

"Who didn't?"

"Lorna. What did you say to make her do it?"

He shrugs, "The truth."

"Which is?"

"That I fucked her because I'm in love with you. I had to get your attention somehow."

"She thought your name was Blane."

He shrugs again, "It was just one night, Sara. You don't need to get worked up over it. I took care of it."

"By having me drive her?"

"You wanted to."

"I wanted to only because you wouldn't."

"I'm not her fucking boyfriend, why would I drive her?"

I shrug and say, "It would have been the gentlemanly thing to do."

"No," he replies, "The gentlemanly thing would have been not to stick my dick in her in the first place."

"Yes," I agree.

The waiter comes over and takes our order. He's cute, a little on the thin side (thinner than Blitz which is concerning), but he has piercing blue eyes which I love and a deep swimmer's tan. I smile at him and Blitz notices.

"If I could take it back, I would," he says.

“I want to get married after graduation,” I find myself saying even though I had never thought about it before. A part of me likes the way the words sounds coming out from my mouth, but there's another part of me, a large part, that reminds me that it's Blitz I'm talking to.

“And?”

“I could be in love with you. But I’m not sure I would know it if I were.”

“Would you let me fuck you any time I wanted?”

“Yeah," I say and he smiles, ready to propose so I add, quickly, "but I wouldn’t let you fuck anyone else. No more of my roommates. No more of my friends. No one besides me.”

He hesitates, lights up another cigarette and considers it before breaking out into a smile, "Alright. Let's do it."

I hear his words, but I also hear the truth behind them. If I think I'm going to marry him, I'm just as fucked as Molly.

Rocky Horror Glee Disaster

I know that a million people will probably review this episode of Glee and I'm even afraid that some of them may have liked it, but in keeping with what I said earlier, I am going to start writing about things that interest me. And while Glee's torturing of one of my favorite childhood favorites may not classify as "interesting" to me, it does qualify under the category of things that fire me up. Because I was a big fan of Glee before tonight, and now I must admit, that I don't think I'm ever going to watch it again. A big of an over-reaction on my part? Perhaps. But everything is black and white, hot and cold in my world.

God bless my mother because if she hadn't been texting me during the show, I would have shut it off after the first thirty seconds, and I would have missed the horror that was the rest of the episode. Even though I complained bitterly and asked my mother to gag me when Uncle Jesse from Full House started butchering Meatloaf's work, I'm kind of glad that I muscled my way through the episode. Because their rendition of "Time Warp" was that horrendous.

Here's my problem with the episode: it was clearly made for people who had already seen Rocky Horror. They make countless references to how inappropriate it is for students to perform the musical without going into any detail as to why, and they talk about the nature of the midnight shows in a familiar way that would only make sense to someone who had either gone to one, or heard about one prior to the episode. Even the characters in the musicals and their roles aren't addressed. That being said, if you are going to make an episode about a popular musical and gear it towards the audience that always loves that popular musical, why would you steer so far from the classic? Frank-N-Furter is played by a girl? Rocky Horror is wearing a shirt?

My biggest problem with the episode, and with Glee as a whole in fact, is that all the songs sound the same. Exactly the same. You have Rachel singing lead and Finn attempting to sing alongside her. And all the songs in Rocky Horror don't sound the same, so it was disappointing that you couldn't tell one from the other in the episode.

Maybe I'm just being nostalgic. Maybe it's really the absence of Tim Curry that's pissing me off. But the episode was bad. Really bad. Beyond bad. And also, other words that you could say that mean the same thing as bad. It ruined Rocky Horror, and furthermore, it ruined Glee.

You missed the mark, my friends, and I'm not sure I can give you the second chance to see if you make it back on track. Sorry. Better luck ruining another hit next time.