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Why I suddenly love both Drew Barrymore and Tammy Faye Bakker:
On The Daily Show last night, Drew declared, "I want to smoke pot, but I can't because I'm too paranoid" (and then dissolved into fits of giggles). To which Jon replied, "Now there's an anti-drug ad campaign I haven't heard."
On the Surreal Life episode last night, Tammy Faye was doing a book signing in SF (I think) with a high concentration of transgendered and gay fans. When someone asked what she would say to parents whose child had just come out to them, Tammy Faye, aka the most famous conservative Christian woman on the planet, said, "You have to love your children unconditionally. If you don't love them unconditionally, you'll miss out on the best years of your life, and the best years of theirs."
I'm paraphrasing a bit in both cases, but you get the idea. Twenty-four hours ago, I had very little interest in either of these women, and now I'm not sure who I love more. Good thing I don't have to decide.
In other news, I also love Netflix. I got my movies a couple days ago and happily blazed through them. First I watched Clue, which was one of the big favourites in my house when I was a kid; I loooooved that movie. Hadn't seen it in years, and I was quite pleased to discover how very cleverly written it is. If you haven't seen it, do. Then I watched Othello, with Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Fishburne, which I've been wanting to see for a year or so now but just haven't gotten hold of it. It was very good, and not just because Kenneth enthusiastically plays up Iago's inherent slashiness. Although that didn't hurt.
And then I watched Bartleby, which I was saving for last. And . . . I don't know. On the one hand, it has Crispin, which gets it extra points right there. Plus there are other good performances, and the story translated into modern times much better than I thought it would (actually, I didn't think it would at all, so I assumed that the movie would be set in the story's period and was surprised by the opening shot of a freeway). On the other hand, the set and the clothes are way too brightly coloured!and shiny! At one point, a character wears a purple top with a bright red skirt. OW. *wipes blood from eyes* And I'm not usually one to notice wardrobe details. Also, the score? While it gets points for using an unusual intrument called a theremin, it immediately loses all of them for being loud and intrusive and just generally not trusting us to figure out on our own how we feel about a scene. ("I GET IT! It's SAD! SHUT UP!!") I hatehatehate scores like that, to the point where it can damn near eclipse all the good things about a movie. Except for when the movie has Crispin, and does a decent job of tackling a difficult project ("Bartleby" is very obtuse and minimalist and I give credit to the screenwriters for giving it such a determined go). So . . . I don't know. I think I'm going to have to read it again. Then watch it again. And then I probably still won't know.
Also, I had a bizarre dream last night. I blame it partly on Bartleby, partly on Drew's Daily Show appearance, and partly on watching The Man Who Knew Too Little. It's a Bill Murray movie about a guy who thinks he's participating in real-time life theatre, when actually he's stumbled upon a complicated plot to blackmail and/or assassinate some ambassadors. He foils the bad guys left and right and the whole time he thinks he's just playing a game. Anyway, my subconscious combined all this to present me with a scenario wherein I (or at any rate, the person I was; I'm rarely myself in dreams) and some unspecified people were in a real-life roleplay, and each of us had control over another character to complement our own characters. Said other characters were apparently guest celebrities; someone else had Drew, I had Crispin. Specifically, I had young, Friday the 13th/BttF-era Crispin. Understand that to say "guest celebrities" isn't entirely accurate; they sort of were the characters and themselves at the same time. It makes sense if you were there. The only actual part of the dream I remember is when a bunch of cops or something burst in (courtesy of TMWKTL) and I put my arm through Crispin's and grabbed his other hand and said something like, "If they see us doing this then they'll know we're not holding any weapons." He seemed to concur. (This comes directly from a scene in the Discworld novel Night Watch, where a character makes sure that his hands are visibly occupied so that no one will think afterward that he was trying to intimidate with weaponry.) Then I took a nap, and when I woke up I found that the other players had dropped Crispin from the game. As those of you who RP will understand, I was quite put out because he was my character to control. The end.
It's so odd - I rarely have dreams that are so derivative or even recognizable as being about something particular, and it's even more rare for me to have celebrity dreams. Or dreams about anyone I actually know, for that matter. I suspect that my subconscious may have taken a hint from my jealousy over![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drworm's Crispin dreams.
So, has been a very good past couple of days. Hooray!
On The Daily Show last night, Drew declared, "I want to smoke pot, but I can't because I'm too paranoid" (and then dissolved into fits of giggles). To which Jon replied, "Now there's an anti-drug ad campaign I haven't heard."
On the Surreal Life episode last night, Tammy Faye was doing a book signing in SF (I think) with a high concentration of transgendered and gay fans. When someone asked what she would say to parents whose child had just come out to them, Tammy Faye, aka the most famous conservative Christian woman on the planet, said, "You have to love your children unconditionally. If you don't love them unconditionally, you'll miss out on the best years of your life, and the best years of theirs."
I'm paraphrasing a bit in both cases, but you get the idea. Twenty-four hours ago, I had very little interest in either of these women, and now I'm not sure who I love more. Good thing I don't have to decide.
In other news, I also love Netflix. I got my movies a couple days ago and happily blazed through them. First I watched Clue, which was one of the big favourites in my house when I was a kid; I loooooved that movie. Hadn't seen it in years, and I was quite pleased to discover how very cleverly written it is. If you haven't seen it, do. Then I watched Othello, with Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Fishburne, which I've been wanting to see for a year or so now but just haven't gotten hold of it. It was very good, and not just because Kenneth enthusiastically plays up Iago's inherent slashiness. Although that didn't hurt.
And then I watched Bartleby, which I was saving for last. And . . . I don't know. On the one hand, it has Crispin, which gets it extra points right there. Plus there are other good performances, and the story translated into modern times much better than I thought it would (actually, I didn't think it would at all, so I assumed that the movie would be set in the story's period and was surprised by the opening shot of a freeway). On the other hand, the set and the clothes are way too brightly coloured!and shiny! At one point, a character wears a purple top with a bright red skirt. OW. *wipes blood from eyes* And I'm not usually one to notice wardrobe details. Also, the score? While it gets points for using an unusual intrument called a theremin, it immediately loses all of them for being loud and intrusive and just generally not trusting us to figure out on our own how we feel about a scene. ("I GET IT! It's SAD! SHUT UP!!") I hatehatehate scores like that, to the point where it can damn near eclipse all the good things about a movie. Except for when the movie has Crispin, and does a decent job of tackling a difficult project ("Bartleby" is very obtuse and minimalist and I give credit to the screenwriters for giving it such a determined go). So . . . I don't know. I think I'm going to have to read it again. Then watch it again. And then I probably still won't know.
Also, I had a bizarre dream last night. I blame it partly on Bartleby, partly on Drew's Daily Show appearance, and partly on watching The Man Who Knew Too Little. It's a Bill Murray movie about a guy who thinks he's participating in real-time life theatre, when actually he's stumbled upon a complicated plot to blackmail and/or assassinate some ambassadors. He foils the bad guys left and right and the whole time he thinks he's just playing a game. Anyway, my subconscious combined all this to present me with a scenario wherein I (or at any rate, the person I was; I'm rarely myself in dreams) and some unspecified people were in a real-life roleplay, and each of us had control over another character to complement our own characters. Said other characters were apparently guest celebrities; someone else had Drew, I had Crispin. Specifically, I had young, Friday the 13th/BttF-era Crispin. Understand that to say "guest celebrities" isn't entirely accurate; they sort of were the characters and themselves at the same time. It makes sense if you were there. The only actual part of the dream I remember is when a bunch of cops or something burst in (courtesy of TMWKTL) and I put my arm through Crispin's and grabbed his other hand and said something like, "If they see us doing this then they'll know we're not holding any weapons." He seemed to concur. (This comes directly from a scene in the Discworld novel Night Watch, where a character makes sure that his hands are visibly occupied so that no one will think afterward that he was trying to intimidate with weaponry.) Then I took a nap, and when I woke up I found that the other players had dropped Crispin from the game. As those of you who RP will understand, I was quite put out because he was my character to control. The end.
It's so odd - I rarely have dreams that are so derivative or even recognizable as being about something particular, and it's even more rare for me to have celebrity dreams. Or dreams about anyone I actually know, for that matter. I suspect that my subconscious may have taken a hint from my jealousy over
drworm's Crispin dreams.So, has been a very good past couple of days. Hooray!
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From:
"Communism is a red herring."
"Now I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife."
You have to see the movie to understand why that line's so damn funny.
From:
no subject
And Bartleby was a movie that I had to warm up to. I actually love all the bright colors and the weird music (I actually had a dream involving a theremin after watching the featurette on the dvd); Melville's story is so low-key and, as you said, "minimalist" and the intrusiveness of some of the costumes and the music is kind of interesting. What can be bothersome are the forced attempts at "comedy." Ugh. I guess I didn't notice the music trying to dictate the scene... I never saw the movie being sad, so much as it was occasionally uncomfortable. It's hard to see Bartleby as a human being, and Crispin plays that up so well (I love the shot of him pressed against the window glass). Have you seen the version made in the '70s?
And I dunno... your dream sounds a lot more cohesive then my last one. That's good. If I inspired that in some small way, I am pleased. :D
From:
no subject
I was thinking at that moment specifically of the scene where the narrator learns that Bartleby's been living at the office. It was quite a pathetic bit, in the original sense of the word, but they had the String Instrument of Sadness going at it mercilessly, so instead of feeling the pathos of the situation I wanted to throw things at the television. Although maybe by that point of the movie I was just getting overly sensitive to the music.
I have not seen the seventies Bartleby, but now I'd like to.
As for "comedy," I've put this movie in the same category as Edward Scissorhands - I can see why it might be considered funny, but I felt guilty whenever I laughed.
From: (Anonymous)
no subject
~Hoedogg
From:
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