C-C-C-Courage

Last night, actually, it was around midnight, so maybe it's be closer to this morning... anyway, around 12 I discovered something about myself; I am really stupid when it comes to my writing. Stupid, or brave.

So last night (it was last night at that point) I was writing my senior project independent task book (Above and Beyond, All About Death) and when I got so tired that my eyes started to cross... well, I'd like to tell you that I logged off the computer and went straight to the shower, but really, I read this awesome story on FictionPress called My Toaster Thinks I'm Crazy first. So after I finished reading about the Shakespeare-obsessed Abruzzi brothers' (Mecrutio, Benvolio, and Romeo's) antics, I hopped in the shower, and then went for my PJ's in my room. (Oh, two things I forgot to mention, my mom had already been asleep for like two hours [Her: Don't stay up too late. Me: I'm going to be right now.] and my door was closed as well as locked, I'm paranoid, okay?)

Now as I'm towel-drying my hair, and I hear people moving stuff around, heavy footsteps, that kind of thing. It always sounds like it's coming from my kitchen, but I live on the second story of an apartment building, so it's really my neighbors moving about their houses. Now biggie. BUT, as I'm pulling on my socks, something raps hard on the door... as if someone or something was trying to get in.

Yeah, holy crap, right?

My cat and I both stare at the door, terrified. Okay, I try to calm myself, if it's robbers, then won't they just be sorely disappointed. My cat, typewriter, and stuffed Nala are already in here with me. They can't get in, right? I'll just call the police... And then I remember that my phone's charging in the other room. My phone, my beautiful phone that I won in a review-writing contest in sophomore year, the phone that still gives me pleasure to tell people about.

The footsteps and movement are audible again and my cat hides under my bed. You know what? They can keep my phone, my contract's expiring March 1st anyway...

And then I remember my laptop. Now, I'm not that materialistic of a person, but if there's one thing I hold dear, it's my laptop. Why? Because it holds everything I've ever written, every character and plot, every work in progress, every typo I've ever made is on that laptop. And no goddamned robber is going to steal my plot holes, not if i have anything to say about it.

Now, being a girl raised by a single mother, I'm not very interested in sports. If you know me personally, you'll know that I'm not very strong, and if you had to bet on whether or not I owned any sports equipment, you'd probably go with not. So I guess I don't have to tell you that I don't own a baseball bat, every American's favorite means of protection from intruders (with the exclusion of the great state of Texas who tend to favor firearms). What I did have, however, was a strange childhood. And when I was ten, my cousin and I went through a sort of Rambo stage together, and the result was a forgotten pile of toy guns and one green and orange wooden rifle from Knott's Berry Farm hidden behind my dresser. I wasn't expecting to fool anyone with the rifle, even in the darkness the fact that it was a toy would be painfully obvious to all but a blind thief. The toy was, however, on the hefty, solid side, and I figured I could knock somebody out with its butt.

Thinking only of all the writing that could be lost to me, I opened the door, wielding the gun over my head, ready to strike. (It occurs to me now that I should have been worried about the academic projects saved to the hard drive, seeing as I'd been working on one chapter for the better part of six hours that same day. That might even be a good excuse for me to be killed over, but alas, I was thinking of the short story I'd written on Tuesday that no one had seen yet.)

As you might've already guessed, there were no robbers. The sounds in my kitchen had, in fact, been my neighbors. My entire home was utterly empty. The loud push on my door? The books at the very top of the hallway bookcase had fallen over and into my door, producing the sound.

So yeah, I felt like a total idiot for thinking that robbers had somehow crept into my house, (I check every lock and window like an OCD case every night) but at least I learned something about myself. I learned that I am, despite all previous notions, a dedicated writer. And yeah, maybe I don't spend my every waking second committing to my work, editing and plotting, but I'd face off a robber with only weak arms and a toy rifle for my manuscript, who else can say the same?

(Oh, and the toy rifle? It now occupies the space next to my bed, just in case I need to take care of any real burglars one day.)

The Dream Team?

So I just realized that I'm supposed to be writing weekly for this school citizenship grade... Oopsie!

I've kind of been a little wary about blogging on me-related topics, such as my life and/or friends, because it just makes the whole blog thing that much more personal, thus making the fact that no one bothers to read it thrice as sad. Hence the whole review thing of the past two weeks.

However, this week I really do have some news for allllll of my adorable non-existent readers out there, pertaining to one of my very best friends, Christina. So it's been Christina's dream for the past almost-year to attend this awesome school, Franklin, that specifies in political communication and other subjects very like that which I, myself, find utterly dull, but dear Christina finds endlessly interesting. What's the huge deal about Franklin? It's in SWITZERLAND! (Cue Moulin Rouge flashbacks of Toulouse yelling, "It'th thet in Thwitherland! Exotic Thwitherland!")

Oh, also, she's totally been accepted.

Haha, yeah, she's been accepted into her dream school! I'm so very proud of her! (I'm not even a little surprised, no sir, had complete faith in her the entire time :D)

Anyway, I guess this really heaps on the pressure for me to get into Harvard, now we've both gotta be dream school acceptees!

The Wolfman

Are movie reviews all I'm good at? I don't know, but... The Wolfman, the movie for which I've been waiting a good four years, due to it's massive preproduction time and it's release date being moved up a grand total of three times, the intendedly epic remake of the 1941 Universal Pictures Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi CLASSIC Horror film- was lamesauce.

Why? The ones and twos of my more or less faithful reader(s) may demand in lamentful cries. I will tell you.

Despite the fact that the setting and costumes of the picture relfect the Victorian period, the aging griminess of the time, the clever implementation of a historically existent character, Detective Aberline of the infamous Jack the Ripper case, and the fleshing out of the originally smaller scale picture and characters of the 1941 classic, The Wolfman fails at one particulary important aspect of all memorable films- plot. Joe Johnson, director of the attrocity, seems to be more interested in getting an early nineteen hundreds quality to the film, never holding a scene for longer than a minute, causing a "Flicker Effect," that leaves the audience with a feeling of extreme disorientation as well as a severe headache.

Though the original characters of the film, the Talbot family and the female lead, Gwen Whelan, have been given deeper, admittedly interesting back stories, the film failed to fully delve into anyone or thing in perticular, transforming any potentially i then their prior nteresting character developments into aggresively pointless white noise. The film, which falls officially under the category of Horror, succeeds only at being horrible, the only thing frightening about it being Anthony Hopkins less-than-admirable performance as Sir John Talbot. Every twist and turn featured is spoiled by an extreme lack of suspense, so that the audience doesn't so much gasp at a surprise as nod to themselves with pursed lips, wishing the characters secrets hadn't been so painfully obvious.

The silver lining of this dark cloud? Benecio Del Toro's disgustingly spectacular transformations. Each full moon pays homage to previous beastly classics such as American Werewolf in London, limbs cracking , realization creeping across the wolfman's face so very slowly that the audience is forced to wince and look away. Unfortunately, these few scenes aren't enough to save The Wolfman from thrashing itself to tiny, bite-sized pieces.

The Word of the Day

Debauchery.

As in, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes’ Dorian Gray, probably only loosely based Oscar Wilde’s singular fabulous novel, taught me the definition of the word debauchery. And I don’t mean that in the way it may sound. LoL, this blog is so wrong.

Okay, restart. Since my life is so utterly dull and I’ve nothing to talk about… I’ve found my new favorite movie and I know its positively atrocious since it’s not really a true adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and maybe Ben Barnes isn’t the best actor to ever hit town, and, okay, maybe I am just watching it for the complete and total hot factor of *Prince Caspian* seducing everyone and anyone he comes into contact with throughout the film… but what the heck, it’s review time.

Dorian Gray has shortened the title of the original novel, added plot and characters, and changed a few things around. And while the novel (read by yours truly eons ago- freshman year) left everything to the imagination, Wilde’s wild and much frowned upon in its time plot was left mostly to subtext; the movie seems to have come at things a little differently. Dorian Gray has ripped what was better left unsaid one hundred years ago out of the book’s many pages and thrown it onto the big screen, illuminating the faces of the audience (I can only assume) with images of pure impurity.

Ben Barnes’ portrayal of the title character, the eternally young Gray, is truly exemplary. One can see his transformation from man to monster as he begins the film as an innocent, beautiful youth and slips into the cold, calculating role of a heartless immortal with apparent ease. The corruption and decay in Gray’s character is no longer merely visible in his infamous portrait, but in his callous eyes, eyes that seem to have seen far too much for one so young, so beautiful, and so heart-breakingly innocent.