Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

flicks

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I feel like… i don’t know, Third Rock From the Sun? Do you remember at the very beginning of the show when the four of them didn’t understand anything at all? … Taking coats at parties, kissing, slapping, cheerleaders, and breasts? Lately when i go back and look at the archives i just feel like a visitor in the shape of me trying to emulate the behavior i’m supposed to be representing. Is that circular enough for you? The change happened somewhere around when co-op began, because you can tell the difference between the computer being a constant companion and just something to stare at in-between doing things. And then i started doing a few things and talking about them, instead of just talking about not doing anything. And now i do things all the time and have nothing to talk about afterwards.

What’s so interesting about my life, really? Obviously i do things… last night i went to the movies, i can talk about that. I walked to the movie theatre, which is three blocks from my house. In the lobby Laurel was waiting for me (along with her roommate and Jeff (as if i went on a date with Laurel and didn’t mention it (obviously i only mention Laurel because you know who she is at this point))). She asked if i had gotten my haircut and i responded “Not for almost a month.” We saw Monsters INC, which involved a lot of giggling. Afterwards i bought some sushi and talked about X-Men with Erika, who was reading Carrie.

So, there’s two main theories of journaling that i can discern. The one is that obviously my night was pretty freakin’ boring when it comes to reading about it, so i should either talk about something else or learn to do more interesting things. The other is that it doesn’t matter what i’m doing, just so long as i put my own spin on it people will care about reading. I’m not sure which of the two i subscribe to, but my first journaling connection online was the ever-present Gus, who resides wholly in the second school of thought. Gus basically just writes one post a day, each and every single day, and he weaves it all together so that you’re not only interested in what he has to say, but you honestly want to know what he’s doing with himself. Frankly, Gus is one of the only people who employs this technique who i enjoy, the others being Alison and Meg, though they use their narrative voice a little more pervasively.



The way last year had been going for me, i just merrily trolled along with my own script of things to say and would talk about parties and things if and when i went to them because they were typically unusual and exciting. But, at this point, going to a party is like “wow, another party. i wonder who’ll hook up tonight?”, and afterwards i’m always tearing out my hair thinking “how can i tell an interesting story about that lapdance…?” So, now i have a daily existence and i suppose my big question is whether i’m supposed to talk about it, or me, or some other nebulous thing — because back in the day i was talking about my life, but it was a lack of a life, so it was just me talk about me.

Wow, now i’m dizzy. Tell you what… you sit and stare at the screen for an hour thinking about what i’ll write next, and i’ll go get some ice cream. Cool? Cool.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/11/6976582/

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I have this thing for cheesy kid movies where the dorky boy wins over the heart of the popular girl and the respect of his parents and/or peers. Or, rather, i did have a thing for those movies, and now i just have a thing for staying up past 2am to watch them on SuperStation.

The movies always surprise me with their ability to keep the remote out of my hands… this jaded anti-pop anti-teey-bop consumer who barely even gets out to indy flicks once a year stays rooted to the spot. At some point last summer i was home and idly flipping past HBO and i spotted Jamie Lee Curtis and i stopped to see what movie she was in, because i always stop for Jamie Lee, and that’s where the newest chapter of this tale began.

The movie is House Arrest, and the concept is simple: parents are headed for divorce, and so the kids lock them in the basement to work it out. Other kids from school bring their own problem parents into the picture, and hilarity ensues.

The movie is formulaic at best, and that’s probably the reason i like it so much. It is aimed at kids… boys who do not feel in control of anything. It is aimed at the rejects who got thrown into trashcans who would love to garner the respect of the school bully. It is aimed at the ones who pined after the pretty silent girl but never thought to treat her like an everyday person (even though it wouldn’t have gotten them anywhere). And, most cruely, it is aimed at the children of parents hopelessly mired in divorce, separations, and endlessly bickering and remarriage.

So, yes, for those of you following closely, i am the target audience of this movie, and it waylays me hopelessly on my living room floor lying on my stomach with my feet up in the air with full knowledge that Jamie Lee will make up with her husband, and that Jennifer Love Hewit will fall for the simple hero of the film and that the bully winds up being a big softy after all. I fall for it every time, hook line and sinker.

I’m not sure that i really want anything that the movie is offering, but in a way it represents some alternate universe from mine where i had romance hard-coded into my neurons instead of the pop music representation of it. Of course, having nowhere to learn romance from, all i had to turn to was pop culture to educate me. It’s like when in High Fidelity we’re told that “The unhappiest people i know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don’t know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but i do know that they’ve been listening to the sad songs longer than they’ve been living the unhappy lives.” We’re posed the question of what comes first: the music, films, and culture … or the misery?

I say it all depends.

Some people learn happy endings from their own family and friends, and some people learn them from television and music and movies, and when it comes down to the crux of the matter those of us “who like pop music the most” are expecting a different kind of resolve. We are looking for tidy tied up packages that are easy to fit our minds around, and not uneasy reconcilations and marriages built to last despite rocky foundations. We simply haven’t encountered the concept; hollywood deals wholesale in reconciled parents, and in first kisses in front of the entire cafeteria, and in happy resolved endings. House Arrest is aimed at me because i am trained to appreciate tidy happy endings, and because i want to be able to expect them in my own life even though i know they are as likely as gold records on my wall.

Do i wish that i had a happy two parent home, or that i had good giggly friends who i could idly play football with in the yard, or someone to surreptitiously kiss when we thought parents weren’t all watching? To me it’s apples and oranges, because my life wouldn’t resemble my life if i had any of those things intact. I once just lived a solitary existence resisting advances, and it wasn’t the best thing to do. I have the urge to take meticulous mental notes during these movies so i can apply the things i’ve learned against my life should i ever find myself trapped in a time warp and able to replay my adolescence from where i last saved the game.

In reality, i suppose i am saving up happy endings like the points on the back of a G.I.Joe box, hoping that someday i can put them all in an envelope and send them away for some sort of happiness in return. Here’s for hoping i don’t have to watch House Arrest too many more times to redeem my limited edition prize.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5316575/

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So, last night i saw Final Fantasy with some friends. Actually, with three couples. Have you ever been to a totally full movie theatre with three couples and you all by your lonesome? It’s fun, you ought to try it some time, especially if you’re emotionally masochistic. But, anyway, i’ve known all about the FF movie since it first went into production, and i suppose the whole time i was assuming it would be glossy and plastic-coated like a Pixar movie from Disney, with a few scattered long shots of spectacular views mixed in. However, i was wrong.

Visually Final Fantasy was as stunning and vivid as any science fiction movie i’ve ever seen, and everything looked real. The characters were slightly glossy at mid-distances, but tight shots revealed stray strands of hair, beads of sweat, and even pores. I lost track somewhere along the way of how long the film was in production, but i am of the opinion that it’s the most important achievement in film computer graphics to this date in it’s cohesive integration of realistic graphics, digital camera work, and amazing shots that could never be achieved with real actors.

The Spirits Within didn’t have a darn thing to do with any of the FF games and it really didn’t bother me all that much; sci-fi sells at theatres right now but magic is still dicey business (although, after the response i saw the the LotR trailer that could be due for a change). While i’m of the opinion that the movie was just banking on Square’s big franchise just for the name (and, did anyone else notice that the “Square Pictures” logo was cast again a rectangle?), i think that the post-apocalyptic setting, the spirits set adrift, and the skepticism of the human government tied it to the theme of games. However, there was a definite lack of toe to toe fighting the yielded any kind of results, and there really wasn’t much of a “party” of characters so much as there was a group of extras like those who usually die at the beginning of games (as in FF6).

The amazing thing about the movie was that it was sci-fi for an attentive audience… slow in development but engaging in every scene – with a little science but not so much that your suspense of disbelief was challenged. On the downside, the plot of the movie tried to explain more than it had to as it neared its end and as a result it could have used some tightening (just like all of the American games to date, ). However, it wasn’t so horrible that i would single out any one aspect of it that wasn’t effective. Small challenges in the plot did undermine later aspects of the story, including: a lack of explanation of Aki & Grey’s relationship prior to the film, a very generalized look at “spirits” that seem contrived only because Aki was the first one, and an ending that couldn’t decide when to stop killing off options for the characters so that it could resolve. However, the movie successfully avoided the worst and most trite sci-fi gimmicks, which left the audience with some unpredictable results.

Despite my mostly glowing review, and the fact that i am definitely seeing the movie a second time, i got the sense that the vast majority of the audience was wholly underwhelmed by the film. Action flick fans will be sorely disappointed by this plot-heavy flick, and too many fans were expecting eye candy in the vein of giant explosions and characters with multiple heads and arms – but this wasn’t a George Lucas film so we were treated to some quality visuals that weren’t all money shots. However, while exiting the theate i heard the following: “Yeah, The Spirits Within. Cause, The Phantom Menace was already taken. Didn’t some of those phantoms sorta look like Jar Jar?” To each his own, i suppose… i’d take this film over Episode 1 any day. Twice.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4537718/

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(logged via lyd:) Have you been to Cloudmakers.org? In my inestimably humble opinions, it is by far the best and most innovative use of the web ever, for anything… or, more accurately, is is the result of that innovation (and it only took me two whole hours of reading the same html document to come to this conclusion). Cloudmakers it the group that monitors the web-integrated real-time story that ties in to the new Spielberg flick (originally Kubric) movie AI, except this story takes place nearly a century after the movie and seems to include only one or two of the same characters. And, even more thrilling and chilling, the game has integrated into real-life with actual rallies that dispersed clues… so that if people didn’t attend the game would have stalled out. With a month left still until the movie is released, the mystery seems to be still far from its end. Meanwhile, the game features a full cast of characters, hundreds of dynamic pages of html, (long distance) phone numbers with actual messages to hear, email responders that continuously talk back, fax numbers to obtain information from, and nearly impossible puzzles that integrate information from all of the above sources and more. At a recent panel about the movie there were business cards for an special effects director who shares a name with the first character introduced into the game, and the back of the business cards contained a clue that wasn’t released in the web aspect for a few more day. The game itself occasionally refers to Cloudmakers as a multi-person problem solving scheme that equates to group AI, and occasionally links fan sites as in-game news. Also, if you’re the first person to solve a puzzle you can occasionally effect the game environment, as one person got to write a faked autopsy for one of the primary players in the puzzle.

The game itself is a bit too involved for me, but following it is nothing but a delight and joy. Second to journalism (or stardom), i’d love to be employed to design stuff like this, whether it be storyboarding or web designing. In the meantime, i can just hope that the movie is half as good as what has been conjured up to accompany it.

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I hate Woody Allen movies, honestly, i do. I think Woody’s just a boring insipid geek who directs well but can’t act. Of course, i base this on his older movies, since Matt’s friend Amy seems to have a penchant for showing up at our apartment with pre-1990 Woody Allen movies. Right now we’re watching Bananas, which makes so little sense that i’m only really paying attention to the soundtrack (this insane mix of mariachi music and… um… ragtime swing). It’s funny, because now Allen is known for rambling intellectual films, but his old movies seem to have more in common with Mel Brooks or even Naked Gun movies. It’s odd. I hardly know how to judge the old stuff. So… i’ve just decided to hate it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2979483/