I See Monsters

War, What Is It Good For?

Let's talk about Stop-Loss for a second.

I've been looking forward to this movie ever since I first heard of it months ago because I have a gigantic acting crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I think he's a fantastic, exciting young actor and his website is really cool. (And dear Lord help me for calling a twentysomething guy "young." Now get off my lawn!) Also, it's written and directed by Kimberly Pierce, who helmed the very affecting Boys Don't Cry. Exciting, right?

But then the other day the premiere invites came with the movie poster on the front. (Yes, full disclosure, the company I work for produced this movie.) As soon as I saw that, my entire view of what the movie was going to be was pretty much shattered. Well...just look at the poster:

Remind you of anything? Let me refresh your memories:

Then I sought out the trailer out of curiosity. Well...just watch the trailer:

Not only did they steal the poster from Varsity Blues, but Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum also seem to have stolen James Van Der Beek's atrocious accent.

I am very concerned. I'm hoping this is just a case of marketing gone crazy and the movie is actually a little bit subtle and thoughtful because this is not the movie I thought it was going to be, and you know I am still going to see it because of my aforementioned affection for JGL's acting and shirtless Channing Tatum. I don't want to be forced to sit through crap to see actors I like! I mean, I'm already going to be shelling out cash for this travesty in a few weeks to see an actor I love. There's only so much a girl can take.

Quotient Quotables*

Wow, I haven't posted in a while, huh? Sorry about that. I have tons of excuses (I'm too stressed about moving across the country to write, I'm too excited about moving across the country to write, I'm too busy packing all of my shit to write, I'm suddenly bogged down with social commitments because I've learned moving makes you extremely popular and therefore could not write, I was too busy playing Rock Band to write, I was too consumed with catching up on my Tivoed reruns of The O.C. and One Tree Hill on SoapNet to write) but I won't use any of them because they're just lame excuses. I'm lazy. That's why I haven't written.

Self-awareness. I'm working on it.

I have a few things to post about soon, like LL Cool A's amazing new addition to the apartment and the very grownup party Banana and I just hosted, but I think I'll wait on that stuff because I found something much more fun to do. A meme! I saw this little movie meme floating around in several places (first at Candy's blog) and decided I must do it.

Here's how it works:

Look up 15 of your favorite films on IMDb and take a quote from each. List them below. When someone guesses the quote correctly, cross it off the list. NO CHEATING. (Seriously, NO GOOGLING! NO IMDB-ING! It ruins all the fun.)

Leave a comment with your answers and I'll credit you when you get them right. Some of you who know me might have an advantage by knowing my favorite movies, and many of my favorite movies are pretty mainstream. So, I've decided that the more obvious the movie, the more obscure quote I am going to pick. And yes, my favorite movies are relentlessly girlie and many of them are not very good. I don't care, I like them anyway.

*Note: I think my last two are proving a bit too hard so I am going to give hints. See parentheses below.

The Quotes: 15 of My Favorite Films

1. “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”  - Moulin Rouge, as answered by Kate1976
2. “This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that Cellar Door is the most beautiful.” - Donnie Darko, as answered by Fort Knocks
3. “Respect the cock! And tame the cunt! Tame it! Take it on headfirst with the skills that I will teach you at work and say no! You will not control me! No! You will not take my soul! No! You will not win this game!” - Magnolia, as answered by Supermario 85 (1)
4. “You see the salt on this pretzel? Look at the stars. Some people, they say the stars are billions and billions of tons of hot gas. But I think maybe, maybe it's just God's salt. And God's just waiting to eat us.” - Can't Hardly Wait, as answered by The Pickle Stealer
5. “You come to me out of the blue, asking to buy 20 hits. Just so happens that 20 being the magic number at which intent to sell becomes trafficking!” - Go, as answered by Jen
6. “Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.” - The Princess Bride, as answered by Stephanie
7. “Never take it seriously, you never get hurt. Never get hurt, you can always have fun. And if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit all your friends.” - Almost Famous, as answered by Candy
8. “Bottom line is, we're around each other an'... this thing, it grabs hold of us again, at the wrong place, at the wrong time...and we're dead.” - Brokeback Mountain, as answered by Supermario 85 (1)
9. “So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.” - The Notebook, as answered by Kelli
10. “Look at it out here, it's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy!” - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as answered by Krista
11. “Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They're single-serving friends.” - Fight Club, as answered by Stephanie
12. “At home we had a pet skunk. Mama used to call it Justin Matisse. Do you think that's just a coincidence? All day long she would scream, "You stink Justin Matisse!" Then one day she just picked up a club and killed it.” - Hope Floats, as answered by Kelli
13. “Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriend's dog. Even though Poe and I weren't exactly what you'd call simpatico, that's no reason he should've taken two in the chest.” - Wonder Boys, as answered by Jen
14. “Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and they'll say they scraped it from that, who scored it from this, who bought it off so, and after four or five connections the list always ends with The Pin. But I bet you, if you got every rat in town together and said "Show your hands" if any of them've actually seen The Pin, you'd get a crowd of full pockets.” (Hint: this indie film won the Special Jury Prize for "originality of vision" at the 2005 Sundance festival. Also, it stars a former TV sitcom actor who's gone very indie in the past few years in an amazing way, in the process becoming one of my favorite young actors.) - Brick, as answered by Stephanie (and Pablo!)
15. “Do you no good to go poking around under rocks, Justin. Some very nasty things live under rocks, especially in foreign gardens.” (Hint: this film won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 2006. This same actress recently co-starred in a romantic comedy featuring my favorite shirtless man.) - The Constant Gardener, as answered by Kelli

I'm totally doing this with TV shows next. I have so many TV quotes burned into my brain, I don't think I would even have to look anything up. Happy guessing!

*Yes, I know this makes no sense.

Is it Weird...

...that I totally want to see Step Up 2 the Streets? Like, non-ironically? Also, is it weird that there is no colon involved in that title? It feels like it needs a colon.

Whatever. I'm going to go see Definitely, Maybe instead and hope Ryan Reynolds takes his shirt off.

If I Were a Monster I Would Push You to the Ground

The one thing I took away from Cloverfield besides a wicked case of nausea and the newly formed fear of living in tall buildings was the awesome music playing at the opening party scene.  Those kids had a great DJ.  Well, some kind soul at Hypeful took the time to identify all of the songs and post a downloadable playlist for us to use at our very own parties!  Hopefully ours turn out better than theirs in the end.  Here's a link, for your downloading pleasure:

Rob's Party Mix from Cloverfield

I had a lot of the tunes already but the mix opens with a great song from Coconut Records, who I'd never heard of before because I am behind the times.  Apparently, this is Jason Schwartzman's new band.  I downloaded their whole album from emusic and it is pretty fun.  Thank you, Rob's Party Mix!

You Can Look at the Menu, But You Just Can't Eat

Anyone who knows me knows I am sort of a sweets fiend.  Cookies, cakes, candy bars, pies, tarts, cobblers, cheesecakes...I love them all.  I try to be good and resist, but it just doesn't feel like a real meal to me unless I eat something sweet for dessert.  Even a mint or gum will do in a pinch, but nothing beats the satisfaction of a sweet baked good to cleanse the palate after a savory meal. 

I'm sure this comes from the family I was raised in.  My mother makes super-delicious desserts, and plenty of them.  In my house the words "what's for dinner?" were never uttered.  It was always, always "what's for dessert?" because it was essential to know what was for dessert in order to plan how much of our dinner we would eat.  You see, we needed to save room for the goodies that were to come at the end of the meal! 

[Sidebar: I brought my college boyfriend home for a weekend with the family.  Knowing he wasn't a huge fan of dessert (which should have been the first sign we weren't going to work out) I warned him that we would have dessert at every meal, even breakfast, but he didn't have to eat it just to be nice.  He sort of laughed at my notion that we ate dessert at every meal until, the next morning at breakfast, my mom pulled out the homemade cinnamon rolls after we were done eating our main meal.  I warned him...]

I seem to have inherited this love of baking from my mother, and there is nothing that makes me smile or calms me down as much as baking something.  It also makes me completely neurotic at times when things don't go perfectly, but you take the good with the bad I suppose.  I don't have a lot of people to share my baked goods with, so I don't bake as often as I would like and sometimes it just KILLS me not to make something when I see a delicious dessert on the Food network or on a blog.  Normally that subsides, but lately I've been assaulted by visions of dessert from other, less germane sources: TV shows and movies.

These sweet assaults are coming from three distinct places:

1. This weekend LL Cool A and I went to see the fabulous Lars and the Real Girl.  (I mean FABULOUS.)  It takes place in a nondescript Midwestern setting that feels a lot like Minnesota or Wisconsin and all of the little details of living in a town like that were perfectly realized, right down to the strawberry Jello salad someone brought to a potluck.  As soon as I saw that Jello salad I immediately craved it and the memories of all of the Jello salads I've eaten over the years came rushing back to me.  I don't even like Jello that much!  Probably because it's not a dessert.  Jello is a side dish, don't let anyone tell you differently -- anyone who eats Jello for dessert is missing out on actual dessert.  Still, Jello is sweet and man do I want some crappy Jello salad.
2. I rented the also fabulous Waitress from Netflix and man, does that movie make you want to bake a pie.  It is a cornucopia of awesome pies.  Enough pies to fulfill even the most ardent pie fetishist.  Pie porn, if you will.  I really, really want "Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having An Affair Pie."  (Smashed blackberries and raspberries in a chocolate crust, and I am drooling just thinking about it.)  The best part of Waitress is not the pies, however, but the awesome cover of Howard Jones's "No One is to Blame" that plays over a key scene.
3. Pushing Daisies.   It's like an hour of pie love, direct in your living room each week.   The restaurant is shaped like a pie, for heaven's sake.  Cup pies with honey baked in the crust?  Apple pie with cheese baked into the crust?  Yes, please.

I suppose the way to get this sweet assault out of my system is to start doing some baking again.  Don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep with a variety of goodies, ring the bell, drop the treats and run like hell so I don't have to hear all of you L.A. skinnies saying "I don't know, I really shouldn't keep them at my house!"  It's the holidays!  You're supposed to gain 10 pounds.

Right?

I Hope the Smoking Man's In This One

Finally!  Finally, finally, finally!  The X Files movie sequel is actually happening!  I've been waiting for this forever!  The X Files is one of my favorite television shows of all time and the start of my journey with the supernatural on television.  Although I gave it up once both Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny left the show, I always hoped they'd make another movie.  And now it's happening!  Awesome.

I guess I better get off my ass and finally watch the last two seasons now.  In fact, I think I'd better watch all nine seasons again, because I think I subconsciously blocked everything about the mythology of the show from my brain.  That shit was HARD, y'all.

See you on July 25, 2008, Mulder.  You sexy devil you.

Just Like the Movies, We Play Out Our Last Scene

A fun meme stolen from the lovely Catherine.

AFI's top 100 movies.  Bold the ones you have seen.  Strike out the ones you couldn't finish.  * the ones you have seen more than once.

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
6. Gone with the Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)* - I know it's manipulative, but when I see the red coat?  I die a little inside each time.
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939) *
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977) *
14. Psycho (1960) *
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
16. 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968)
17. The Graduate (1967)*
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) *
21. Chinatown (1974) - Saw it in film class in college, and it changed the way I watch movies.  Absolutely incredible.  Strangely, I haven't seen it since.
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
24. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982) *
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) *
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)*
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound of Music (1965) *
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47.A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)*
51. West Side Story (1961)* - Pretty much the best thing ever.
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North by Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)*
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) *
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)*
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) *
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) *
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)*
77. All the President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997) *
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)* - The first "serious" black and white movie I remember seeing as a kid.  Loved it then, love it now.
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)*
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)*
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)*
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)*
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

I've seen more of these than I thought.  I don't have any strike outs, which I think says more about my stubbornness than my actual enjoyment of all the films I have seen.  I'll watch all the way to the end even if I hate it.  Also, I'm pretty sure I've seen either The Gold Rush or Modern Times in my college film class because we watched some Chaplin, but I honestly cannot recall which one so I left them both blank.

I do have a bit of a problem with this list, though, because I think it reveres older titles a bit too much and leaves out some great movies of the past 20 years.  Hopefully in the next decade a few more will make it on there.  Still, there are many things on the list I want to see and about 15 of them were already on my Netflix queue.  What did I ever do before Netflix?

Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered

I just finished watching The Hotel New Hampshire.

That is the weirdest movie ever.

I can't decide if it is horrible, or horribly brilliant.

(Seriously, have you people seen this movie?  It is insane.)

Uh, Wha?

Since I have been unemployed, my normally neglected Netflix account is getting a serious workout.  I am usually on top of it, shuffling the movies I want to watch RIGHT NOW to the front of the pack.  This week, however, I forgot to do that so Netflix just sent me the next three movies on my list.  I opened them up today, and what are they?

Night Shift, Eddie and the Cruisers, and The Hotel New Hampshire.

How random is that?  I can't even remember why I put the first two on the list.  (I know why The Hotel New Hampshire is on there -- incest is fun!)  Inevitably, I must have read in some magazine that these were someone's favorite movies or something, and put them on the list.  Like two years ago. 

I really need to do some trimming down of the old Netflix list, it seems.  ASAP.

Brokeback My Heart

I'm not going to go crazy talking about this, lest I annoy you all...but Brokeback Mountain was robbed.

ROBBED.

(Wow, that post title was horrible.  Sorry.)