Long one

Days ago, I said something about following up with my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I have finally found the motivation to do it. Spoilers abound, because there was a lot of shit from the book left out.

First, let's talk about how I like it when they leave shit from the book out. For example, that whole thing with Tonks and Lupin is so gross, and Tonks spends the book being so pathetic, and ugh. They're still in the movie; they're together in the movie--I imagine because they're two of the three big deaths at the end--but it's not gross. And it's not a bleeding waste of time.

The only important bit of information we pick up from this whole werewolf romance shit is that a person's Patronus can change its shape. This becomes important in relation to Snape some hundreds of pages into the last book. I don't know if they'll, like, make that explicit in the movie, but the shape of Snape's Patronus is the reason Dumbledore trusted him.

As much as I lament the lack of older Weasley brothers in the movies, it is a relief that the whole weirdness with adding Fleur to the family is dropped completely. So is Percy's feud with the family--he was in the last movie, with the Minister, but no one ever talks about it. That's fine by me.

The Ministry of Magic is completely absent from the movie, which I found to be odd, if only because it becomes very important in the next book who is controlling the Ministry. I guess we don't really need to worry about that until the Ministry is in the hands of the Death Eaters, but still, there's this whole back and forth with the Ministry and Harry--now that they believe him, they want him to be their poster boy, and Harry's like, "Fuck you, dillweeds."

The trouble with making these books into movies is that there is so much information packed into the books, readers expect to see at least most of it presented in the movie. We learn so much about Tom Riddle in the book that is nowhere in the movie. What infuriated me most about the movie was its treatment of horcruxes. We get the explanation of what they are from Slughorn's memory, finally, and then Harry's like, "Ack! They could be anything!"

And Dumbledore actually says, "They could be common household objects," or something close to that, and I was like, "No! That was the whole point of your 'lessons' with Harry! To understand the way Voldemort thinks--to know that he would use trophies as horcruxes! Something from each of the Hogwarts founders, for example!" Blarg.

The way the movie ends, Harry has no idea where to find another horcrux. The way the book ends, he knows he is after Voldemort's snake, Helga Hufflepuff's goblet, and something owned by Rowena Ravenclaw or possibly Godric Gryffindor. The diary and the Peverell family crest ring have been destroyed, and Salazar Slytherin's locket is missing, possibly destroyed already. Three known horcruxes/three guessed horcruxes.

One thing I noticed in re-reading the book (spoiler!) is that Harry actually runs into Ravenclaw's diadem when he's hiding the Prince's book in the Room of Requirement. He puts a tiara on a bust of someone near his hiding spot so he can find it again. If only he'd known what it was, eh?

Anyway. One of the things I never really understand is why, when a movie leaves so much of a book out, it finds time to add things in. There is this truly bizarre scene in the middle of the movie where Bellatrix Lestrange just apparates right up to the Burrow, with two other Death Eaters, and sets it on fire. Like, what? The best I can come up with is that it was the movie's way of showing us how deep we are in the shit at this point. Throughout the book, we get news of Hogwarts students' family members being killed, and all the Ministry stuff and the emptiness of Diagon Alley and all that are a pretty good indication, but the movie uses the destruction of the Burrow, I think, to show us that no one is safe anymore. Nothing will ever be the same now.

Something else I find weird is how Lavender and Parvati have only shown up in the movies in relation to the boys. Parvati and Padma have to be in the fourth movie, because they're Ron and Harry's dates to the Yule Ball, and Parvati gets to face the boggart in the third movie, and Neville tell the boys he heard Parvati saying Hermione was bawling in the ladies' in the first movie, but we never even hear of Lavender until this movie, where she must appear because Ron starts going with her and making Hermione jealous. But now Parvati's missing. The books treat them as a pair, basically, so it feels lacking to have one without the other. At one point in the book, Harry and Parvati even briefly--and mostly non-verbally--commiserate over the madness their best friends are entangled in, which I thought was a nice touch.

Now I'm just over-nit-picking, so I guess I'll call it a day. On the whole, I enjoyed this movie a lot, but there's always so much trouble when you try to squash a giant book into 2 and a half hours. That's why I feel like the Narnia movies are such successful adapations--they took something small and expanded it into something wondrous. Anyway. When's the first part of the final installment come out, again?

I guess since it's April Fools, I should have written a post not about books

For a long, long, looooooong time I was of the opinion that a movie could never, ever get a book right. Every time I watched a movie based on a book, I would simply be disappointed. This is largely true: movies always seem to leave out or change parts of the book I enjoy. It's just inevitable, because movies are limited in what they can present. I mean, you try to base a movie on a 1,000 page book, and you get four hours of Vivien Leigh being INTOLERABLE. You know? Sometimes you just gotta cut some stuff.

So I grew up a little and realized that the movie had to find its own way to tell the story of its source novel, and I began to see that some of them can do a good job, even changing things from the source. The Little Women with Winona Ryder is probably the best example of this; there are plenty of things that are different in the movie, but the movie still captures the story, the family bonds, everything. And so I love it. Plus, Winona Ryder is hot when she cuts off all her hair for money for her mother.

Lately, I've started to enjoy some movies better than the books upon which they were based, but this was only because I did not enjoy the books upon which they were based. The Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley, which purists hate, totally slayed me, because it was so fun. Like, the movie demonstrated what I did not get from the book at all, that these five girls were a family who loved each other, who laughed and teased and shared secrets and acted like a modern bunch of sisters might. I liked that a lot, how the movie showed you the affection between the Bennetts and the goofiness of Mr. Bingley, presenting these upper class characters from two hundred years ago as people we could know. These period dramas always present characters as, like, so far removed from the way modern people behave, and that is just not accurate at all. People may have had to put on more ridiculous airs in previous time periods, but everyone has always teased their sisters or gotten nervous around pretty girls, no matter how many undergarments they're forced to wear.

And Jane Austen's writing just did not convey that any of these people really liked each other. That made me sad. Don't tell me I was reading it wrong, either. I know how to read a book, motherfuckers.

Anyway, just a few days ago, I realized that this is why I really liked the Narnia movies: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian showed the Pevensies as a real family, siblings who fight and tease and love each other. That was largely absent in the novels, which were mostly about the plot. I guess you just have to take it on faith that the Pevensies are fond of each other in the books--I mean, there are a few scenes, of course, where you see how close Peter and Lucy are, for instance, but it's just not enough. Mostly, they feel like strangers thrown together on an adventure. In the movies, the kids got to be playful, to act like real kids, and the best part, for me, was that Susan was included. Susan feels much more like part of the family in the movies than she ever did in the books. Even Edmund, who full on betrays them in the first story, gets to belong to the family more fully than Susan.

So, you know, if The Last Battle actually gets made, and the director wants to let Susan into heaven? Totally fine with me.

Half-baked analysis

In all the uproar over the remake of The Neverending Story, I keep seeing people lauding its "message," which is, I guess, "do what you dream," more or less, and that is the cheesiest (and possibly worst) thing about the movie. That's not what the story is about, okay? Remaking the movie and making the themes more compelling and less overt would be a good move. The Neverending Story is not about achieving anything; The Neverending Story doesn't have a moral. The Neverending Story is about using your imagination, for good and ill. What's evil in the novel is not what we would consider evil, not G'mork (although, as a servant of the Nothing, perhaps he would count...) or Xayide, but the Nothing. You can see this in the Childlike Empress; though she is the ruler of Fantastica, she does not condemn evil or praise good--what she fights against is the Nothing, against the thing that is destroying all of Fantastica, good and bad. And the Nothing is taking over Fantastica because people from our world are not using their imaginations--not creating anything. I forget, too, but I believe the Nothing threatens our world as well, because Fantastica is falling.

So while Bastian needs to obtain a kind of belief in himself in order to play his role in this story, that's not the point.

Look, it's been a while since I had to English major out on a book, but if I had to say what the book is really about it, it is about walking the line between imagination and reality. When you live too much in the dismal real world, that world itself suffers for lack of creativity, but if you live too much in a fantasy land, that world also suffers, even while the real world loses you--and you lose yourself. Creation is the theme of this book, filling the Nothing with Something over and over in an infinite number of ways.

It's not about achieving your dreams or whatever damn thing. It's about imagination and how that shapes you and the corner of the world you inhabit.

It shall be told another time! (I hope.)

So, according to the internet, a remake of The Neverending Story is in the works, and really, I am super excited to see how that develops, but also super wary, because the original movie was such a mess.

Anyway, here's what I said a year and a half ago, after I read the book for the first time:

I really wish someone would make this a movie again, like Lord of the Rings style, because it could make a really great film. They could do it in two parts, you know, ending the first one right after Bastian finally saves Fantastica and beginning with his adventures in the forest/desert. But I doubt that Michael Ende's estate will ever let that happen--or that anyone would even want it to happen except for me.

Apparently, I was mostly right about that last thing. The place I found this information was full of maroons bemoaning the fact that this movie was being remade, because it's a childhood classic for them or whatever. And, listen, I understand hanging onto things you loved when you were a kid, but people: The Neverending Story was not a good movie. The plot was a mess; the acting was horrible; the sets were hideous, and it left out all the most interesting parts of the book.

As far as I'm concerned, the remake has nothing but potential. It can tell the story Michael Ende told; it can cast some decent child actors; it can make Fantastica a real place, like they were able to do with Middle Earth and Narnia. They can even make Atreyu green! But there's always a giant suckhole for error when making a movie based upon a novel, and since the first attempt was a fucking failure (I'm sorry--I know I am the only person in America (maybe even literally) who holds this opinion), the second attempt could quite possibly also be a disaster.

But oh man. Please, please, please, I would love to see Fantastica Middle-Earth- and Narnia-style.

A film critic I am not

So when I was a senior at my Catholic high school, we actually got to choose which religion classes we wanted to take. Well, I think we all had to take one semester of some bullshit called "Christian living," but the second semester, we could choose between, like, the banality of evil or Christian themes in film. Guess which one I chose. Seriously, there were like twelve people who didn't take Christian themes in film, and they're all maroons. But anyway, this class was basically a regular film class, because you can find Christian themes anywhere. It was a grand class--I don't think I did any work except present my film (American Beauty), and I got an A.

Anyway, the point of this story was that it was in that class that I first watched Fried Green Tomatoes, and it was right at the time when I was like, "Ohhh, I am, maybe, possibly, gaaaay," and watching Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker together in that movie made me feel all funny. And that food fight, man. So. Gay. So after a few classes of watching the movie, the group who'd chosen it did their presentation or whatever, and I think it was actually our teacher who brought up the, "Are Idgie and Ruth more than friends?" question.

People said no! Can you even believe that? Okay, so yeah, high school students at a Catholic school aren't exactly all up ons the lesbian subtext, but I was still like, "Hello, that food fight?" And come on, Idgie is so gay. Apparently, though, in the movie Idgie is actually Ninny, the old lady Kathy Bates visits in the nursing home? I never got that. That just doesn't make any sense--that old lady is no way Idgie Threadgoode. In the book, Ninny married one of Idgie's brothers, and that's how she knows all about the Threadgoodes. Anyway, that is neither here nor there, really, except I didn't get that from the movie at all.

One of the girls in the presenting group put the debate to bed by saying, "Yo, in the book they're totally more than friends. Idgie's a big dyke, and Ruth falls in love with her." (I am, perhaps, paraphrasing.) And everyone was kinda uncomfortable, the end, I kind of forgot about the movie/book.

I finally read the book last year, and I totally loved it, and the best part for me was how much of a non-issue the whole gay thing was not only to Idgie's family, but to the entire town. My favorite part is when, I think, the mother of the Threadgoode clan matter-of-factly informs all the children that Idgie has a crush on Ruth and not to make fun of her for it. This story takes place in the deepest of the Deep South, in the 1930s, and Idgie never has to hide who she is. As impossible as that seems, it was still nice to see it like that.

Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker are lovely in the film, but the part with Kathy Bates just drives me crazy, which is why I've only actually watched the entire movie once, in my religion class.

A forest grew

Okay. I need to talk about this. Last night, Mike IMed me to tell me that a live-action, feature-length film of Where the Wild Things Are is in production, and he said something like, "This might be pretty cool if they don't eff it up."

Let me tell you, people, Where the Wild Things Are is one of my very favorite books, children's literature or otherwise, and the point of it is its illustrations and its very simple story. Seriously, the book contains about ten full sentences. So I said, "How could they not eff it up?" I immediately figured it would be just like when Jim Carrey and co. shit all over How the Grinch Stole Christmas, bloating the hell out of it so that it would fill up an hour and twenty minutes.

But then I looked at the people involved in this film, and I became utterly conflicted. For one thing, Maurice Sendak is credited as a producer, so he must be involved somehow or other. Then, Spike Jonze is directing, and he co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Eggers. Dave Eggers! That bastard knows how to tell a story. And then! The thing that got me almost on board with this mess: Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara are appearing in this movie. Well, Catherine O'Hara is doing a voice, presumably for a wild thing, and Catherine Keener is credited as Connie, who is maybe Max's mother? I don't know. Either way. Catherine Keener and Catherine O'Hara. Also, Lauren Ambrose and James Gandolfini. What?

There are some good people attached to this film, but then the article said that they'd had to do a bunch of reshoots because test audiences of small children were fleeing the theater in terror, which sounds like a pretty good adaptation of this book to me. I mean, these are some pretty fierce monsters, rolling their terrible eyes and gnashing their terrible teeth until Max tames them with a magic trick. They're scary beasts, but as a kid you're never actually afraid because Max, in his wolf suit, is fearless and totally in control of the wild things. He even sends them to bed without their supper! So it would be interesting if the monsters were actually scary in the film. But obviously, the people making this movie want the small children to like it.

Also, how are they going to render the wild things? They can't CGI Sendak's illustrations. I guess I'm more intrigued than irritated by the idea of a live-action rendering of such perfect illustrations, so that's good. For now.

I don't know what to think. I guess I'll have to wait till October and see for myself.

Seeing things

I just saw an ad for a Heather Locklear Liftetime original movie, and it totally looked like the poster said the title of this film was Flirting with Farty, which, um, what could be awesomer?

Unfortunately, it's Flirting with Forty, and I either need to get more sleep or make that eye doctor appointment right quick.
Oh, excuse me; apparently it's Flirting w/ Forty, which is just ridiculous. Yes, more ridiculous than Flirting with Farty, shut up.

Another book rant! (Same book, though)

Okay, so in my effort to better understand Wicked, I am watching The Wizard of Oz right now, and I have a problem.

In the novel, when Dorothy's house drops on the Wicked Witch of the East, she is greeted by two Munchkins and the Good Witch of the North. The Good Witch of the North* has no idea how Dorothy is to get back to Kansas, so her magical chalkboard (for truth) suggests Dorothy go to the Emerald City to seek the aid of the Wizard. Then she and the Munchkins depart, and Dorothy sets about preparing for her journey. One of the things she does is take the Witch's silver shoes, because hers are kind of worn out and won't last on such a long walk.

*Let me note that this woman is not Glinda. Glinda is the Good Witch of the South, and Dorothy doesn't meet her until she's killed the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the film, the Good Witch of the North meets Dorothy after her crash landing, but this Witch is Glinda. And in the novel it is Glinda who tells Dorothy how to use the magic in the shoes to get back to Kansas, so one would assume that since Glinda meets Dorothy in the film--and in fact, actually gives her the shoes to prevent Triple Dubs from getting them--she already knows that Dorothy can use the shoes to get back to Kansas. And it is Glinda, I believe, who does tell Dorothy how to use the shoes at the end of the film, right? (I haven't finished watching it yet.)

So why does the rest of the movie happen at all?

I could go on about how the Dorothy part of the story of Wicked more closely follows the film than the novel, but I'm not into it right now. Perhaps later.

Triumphant return of the book rant

Here is something I have discovered this week: The Wizard of Oz bites--actually, the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, bites. Also, the titular wizard. But anyway. Let me tell you a long and boring story.

Back in August when I had mono, and all I could do was lie on the couch and bemoan my fate, I decided to while away the hours by reading, since, try as I might, I couldn't sleep. Which is especially brutal when you have mono, and all your body wants is sweet, sweet sleep. I realized that I was out of books to read, and I didn't feel like rereading any of my old standbys, so I turned to one of my few friends who likes to read and asked her what her favorite books are. Apparently, her favorite book is The Lovely Bones, which made me puke (but she somehow made me agree to give it a chance when I was not ill and depressed--will I keep my word?), but the rest of the list seemed pretty okay, so I made my brother drive me to the library, and I checked out three of them.

One of these books was Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which I picked against my better judgment, because I had told myself if I were to ever read this book I would have to do the background reading first. The background reading being, obviously, L. Frank Baum's Oz books. All of them. But at that point in my life I was in no mood to do such extensive background reading (I was really sick, see), so I just checked out Wicked and plowed through it in four days.

Ultimately, I thought the idea was pretty brilliant, telling the Wizard of Oz stories from the point of view of the witches (wicked and otherwise), but the execution as a whole bummed me out. It seemed really cynical, even for me, and I don't think anyone would ever call my disposition sunny, if you know what I'm sayin', but looking back on it, that could have been because I was pretty bummed out about mono effectively ruining the end of my summer. Also I was trying way too hard to find some kind of, like, meaning in it, instead of just reading the damn story. I don't know why I was so hellbent on that--I never do that shit--but... I don't know. I ruined it. And I finished it, and I was like, "Well. Next bitch."

Then this friend of mine ever so kindly sent me a mix CD with not one but two songs from the Wicked musical on it, and I fell so crazily, madly in love that I immediately demanded the rest of the album with all the ferocity of a rabid animal, and this friend of mine ever so kindly obliged, and since then I have been listening to that album all the damn time. Naturally, it made me want to take another look at the book. Naturally, it made me want to actually do the background reading first. And what I have discovered is that I'm pretty sure Gregory Maguire took some stuff from the film version of The Wizard of Oz as well, and now I have to watch that shit again, because I think I basically knew the story of The Wizard of Oz from all the parodies and updates and blah blah--did anyone see that Muppet version with motherfuckin' Ashanti?--and I have no clear recollection of seeing the original film whatsoever. Except I have a vaguely unsettling memory of flying monkeys and dark mountains. Who knows if that's even a real memory.

Anyway, I guess the point of that story was to tell you how I came about deciding to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now let me tell you why it sucked! First of all, none of Dorothy's trials ever last that long or are the least bit suspenseful. An obstacle is presented; she goes oh crap; five seconds later, they're back on the yellow brick road. I couldn't bring myself to give an ass rat's.

Second, let me make a sweeping generalization! It would seem to me that when male authors write a fantasy story with a young female protagonist, they have no idea what do to with her, and she remains the least interesting character in the story. I mean, I think this judgment is at least a little fair, because male authors have no idea what it's like to be an eight-year-old girl. Some you'd think had never even met an eight-year-old girl. Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, L. Frank Baum: their young female protagonists are so boring: Alice just weeps, gets confused, and wants to go hoooome; Lucy Pevensie never has a naughty thought ever in her head--she's good and true and brave, which, you know, are not bad characteristics, and Lucy Pevensie is certainly the most fleshed-out of these characters, but...a little boring.

Now Dorothy, I just do not understand. She's a little girl, and she is good and pure and true, as evidenced by how she wants to help everyone she meets, blaaaaah. The whole time she's in Oz, which seems to be this rather fascinating land, all she can think about is getting back to Kansas, even though Baum made sure to make Kansas sound as unappealing as possible by only using the word gray (over and over and over again) to describe it. Even her aunt and uncle are gray. Why would you want to get back to that shit? Yes, she's in a strange place, and at least Kansas and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are familiar, but she makes friends in Oz right quick.

Oh, god. I have to tell you about the preface Baum wrote to this story: he says something about how now (the turn of the 20th century) children don't need their fairy tales to teach them a lesson or moral or whatever, so he has presented a fairy tale which will only enchant them. This is the problem with this story: Dorothy doesn't learn anything. She doesn't leave Oz changed one whit. What is the point of telling a story if the main character doesn't change? (This is also why I hated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I just realized.) I'm not saying she needs to learn some kind of moral or life lesson or anything, but her journey through Oz should have affected her somehow. But no. She does all these things, saves the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, helps the Cowardly Lion find his courage, exposes the Wizard for the fraud he is, accidentally kills an evil and powerful woman, and then she just runs on home to Kansas. The end.

And, I mean, maybe the fact that I didn't care about the main character could have been made up with an interesting story, but I already said the story was not interesting. The only halfway interesting part was the story of the golden cap and how it can be used to call the winged monkeys to do the wearer's bidding.

Anyway, despite all this, I want to watch the film and then read Wicked again, because I love the musical soundtrack that much.

Lesbians and language--my two greatest loves

Hey, lesbians, you know that scene in But I'm a Cheerleader when Graham and Megan finally kiss? (By the way, doesn't anyone else think Graham's root should be the fact that her parents named her Graham?) And they're all fighting, because Megan freaked out about seeing Sinead grope Graham, and blah blah, and Graham goes, "You want me to do what I want?" And Megan says, "I could care less!" And then kissing! And it's supposed to be the big romantic climax, right?

Every time I hear her say, "I could care less!" I get taken right out if. I can't even focus on the girlkissing!

It's "couldn't care less," because if you could care less, my friend, that means you at least care a little. But if you can't care less, why then, you simply don't care! Right, Pierre?

Meatballs

No, I Can't Put It in Your Butt

An ode, of sorts, to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler:

Whenever things in my life seem shitty, these betches have always, always been able to make me forget my troubles for at least a few minutes.

Standing up for Hillary Clinton, ripping apart Sarah Palin, making fun of Martians, telling fart jokes, jumping around on one leg, jumping around on one leg and farting, being hot (as above), imitating Cathy from the cartoon Cathy, the existence of the film Mean Girls, making fun of the Bush twins, gayin' it up for their legions of lady fans (as above). I could probably go on, but I will not.

This might be melodramatic or whatever, but I don't know if I could deal with the things I'll have to deal with without these betches to pick me up once in a while. They're hilarious, they're smart, they're beautiful, and there's no one like them. Also, I mean, wouldn't they make the perfect comedic lesbian couple in some movie? Tina, work your magic.

In conclusion... Pit bulls don't have wallets, dang!

Teenage nerds

So. It's no secret that I like books and movies aimed at younger audiences. Netflix knows this. Amazon knows this. So at one point, Amazon recommended a book to me called Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and I was like, whatever. Then I vaguely heard it had been made into a movie, so the next time I was at Barnes & Noble, I picked it up, because I was in the mood for some light YA literature.

And it was good. Like, better than I ever expected, but I have a slight problem. This book is from 2006, and the protagonists are seniors in high school, and nearly all the pop culture references are to things that almost I am too young for. Like, there are copious references to My So-Called Life, which I loved, but I was ten when that show was on, and these little shits would have been, like, six. I know, I know, it got second life on MTV, but the characters seem too young to be this cool.

Also, there was a whole big Sound of Music thing, and that's timeless, and I loved it, and the best part of all, the entire novel was full of gayness, despite the fact that it was a straight love story.

Anyway, I started writing all this because I just saw the trailer, and I get that they had to change some stuff from the book so that we get all the salient back story points. But. But! In the trailer, it's Norah who asks Nick to be her boyfriend for five minutes, and in the book it's Nick who asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. Why did they change that? Why did they make the girl more pathetic? WHY?

I wrote this in June. Why I never posted it I couldn't say.

These days I’ve been wishing I knew how to write a screenplay, because I want to see Annie on My Mind adapted for film. Not that if I could write a screenplay, that would happen, but… I kind of want to try it anyway, because I love to go on and on and on about how the book is better than the movie, blah blah. Like, I know it’s hard to adapt a novel to fit into two hours, and that plotting and pacing and characterization have to be done very differently in a film, and I’m not even that good at writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end, but well. I wanted to try, for some reason, to see if it could be done better. And if this book in particular could be done at all.

If I could adapt Annie on My Mind for a screenplay, then maybe… Somebody else could. Or I could win the lottery and find someone to produce it for me. Someone who knows how to make a movie. I have never, ever been interested in, like, making movies, but I really wish there was a movie about teenage lesbians that doesn’t end in one of them going back to guys and/or one of them killing herself. Mostly, I want the anti-Lost and Delirious.

And then I was trying to think of who I could cast in this film, you know, if I had unlimited resources and any idea about how to make a movie. And I was like, “Blake Lively could be Annie,” because, uh… I have a crush on her. And she could, I think. Annie’s more like Bridget Vreeland than Serena van der Woodsen, so it would work. Even though Annie has long, dark hair, and if this movie were to happen, and someone like Blake Lively were to be cast as Annie, I’d be all, “Annie’s not a blonde!”

I can’t even please myself.

Who’d be Liza? For a while, I was toying with the idea of Anna Popplewell, because, uh, I had just seen Prince Caspian, and she’s beautiful, and she seems to be able to capture this quiet, soulful thing that I think works for Liza. Plus, I’m short on actors who could play teenagers. The only teenaged show I watch is Gossip Girl—thus, Blake Lively. And as much as I want to see Blair and Serena fall in love, Leighton Meester’s not Liza, so.

The thing about this, though, is that Anna Popplewell and Blake Lively don’t mesh in my head. Someone needs to be recast. I think Blake’s the one who’s not really a good fit and is only in here because I want to see her kiss a girl.

All right, lesbians. I think one of you has read Annie on My Mind (and whoever else is here, not reading Annie on My Mind, should read it, even the one non-lesbian. I’ll let you borrow it!). Who would you pick to play Annie and Liza in my fantasy film? And where can I pick up actors young enough to play teenagers? Blake’s twenty-one, and Anna’s…nineteen? So they’re pretty much perfect as far as Hollywood ages go. Probably, if this were a real movie, the best thing to do would be send a casting director out to senior classes and find two unknowns, but since this is a fantasy movie, I have to fantasy cast famous people.

The only character I’m, like, totally solid on is Chad, Liza’s little brother, who I think should totally be played by Connor Paolo, tiny gay Eric from Gossip Girl. He’s great at being the little brother, and Chad’s a great little brother, who loves his sister even though the gay thing totally throws him.

The adults I can’t be bothered to think up, even the two other lesbians, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson. But I have to cast Liza’s best friend Sally and her boyfriend Walt. Sally’s basically an idiot, and Walt’s kind of a good guy, but kind of a frat guy. I don’t know.

Sadly, my favorite lesbians, Bridget McManus and Jill Bennett, are way too old to be the teenagers but way too young to be the older lesbian couple. There’s not a single out actor the right age to play a teenaged lesbian, is there? I’d like to throw Jodie Foster in there, as Ms. Widmer, Liza’s gay English teacher. How about that?

Do you know what I recently found out? Nancy Garden, the author of this novel, married her high school sweetheart. Legally and everything, because at the back of the book it says she lives in Massachusetts. That’s sweet. So, in my head, that means Liza and Annie last forever, too. Though I imagine Nancy and her lady might really be Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson. Whatever.

The book takes place in, I dunno, the late seventies, probably, because it was published in 1982, and I think I read somewhere that it took a while for a publisher to accept it—or Nancy Garden published it herself because no one wanted it, but I might be making that up. Anyway, the homophobia is really strong because of the time period, but the sad thing is, twenty-five years later, the reactions of Liza’s family and classmates and headmistress do not seem out of place. Neither do Liza and Annie’s fears of being all gay in public.

Sigh. It is hard to be gay.

Allison just suggested that Ellen Page could be in my fantasy movie, and I wholeheartedly agree. I think she’d be Liza. Who could be Annie, then? This is hard. I am clearly not cut out to be in pictures.

We'll see who's a Genius

So Apple is allegedly releasing new iPods next Tuesday, as well as launching iTunes 8 which will have some interesting new features. The iPods that look like they're being updated are the nano and the touch, which does me no good, unless the iPod touch magically gets a 160GB hard drive. Then I might do something stupid, because I've been in a bad mood all month, and something new and shiny could probably cheer me up for at least a day.

Stupid disease.

Anyway, the thing I'm interested in this time, since the iPod classics look to be staying the same, is a new rumored feature in iTunes called Genius, which can apparently generate playlists from your library of songs that just, like, go perfectly together. I am eager to see how well this works because few people have a more eclectic music collection than I. These recommendation generator things always fail to impress me, because while I seem to share big chunks of my taste in music (and books) with a bunch of other people, it never really matches up. I wonder what it'll do with my collection. I love making playlists--I don't think Genius will be better at it than me. Twice, I made a 350-song playlist for a roadtrip, and they were both super awesome, if rather similar. I'd like to see an automated program make a playlist that'll take me out of the country and back! Boo-yah!

In lieu of purchasing a 160GB iPod touch that doesn't exist, I just bought season one of Gossip Girl on iTunes. (I almost bought the first season of Doug, but I decided Gossip Girl would keep me more occupied.) More economical anyway, if not as shiny. (Hee, one of the early episodes is called "Bad News Blair.")

In other geek news, I've been using my (interminable) convalescent period to rip my DVDs to my iMac, and I totally just ran out of room on the hard drive, and I am not even anywhere near halfway done. I've only just begun the Cs in movies, and the tv shows I haven't been doing in any particular order (for shame!), but they're not halfway done either. I do have a shiny external hard drive that I've only been using to back up my non-media files, so I'll start copying new media files there, but I think I'll run out of room on that long before the halfway point, too. I should have gotten the 500GB iMac, but that shit is expensive, yo.

Anyway, I wanted to do this because of Apple's Front Row application that lets you access your media library with a remote control, so I could just lie in bed and watch whatever movie or tv show I wanted without having to get up and put in a DVD. I know that sounds like the epitome of sloth (and perhaps it is), but something about having your entire media library instantly accessible is just so appealing. Then! I could invest in an AppleTV, and I could watch all my movies on the big widescreen tv without having to bother to go downstairs and get the DVD. It would be super awesome for something like a Pirates or Harry Potter marathon. Or, like, a Gossip Girl or Top Model or Futurama marathon.

The only thing I don't like about Front Row is that you can't make video playlists, so you can't just watch all the episodes of one season of a tv show without individually selecting each episode. It's a small thing, I suppose, but it's kind of annoying when the episodes are half-hour ones.

Oh! The other thing about Front Row that bugs the crap out of me is that it doesn't order tv shows by season, or episodes by number. It orders them by how recently you added them to your library. Why doesn't it just mimic the iTunes library? Everything in there is anal-retentively arranged. Because that's how I roll.

The first week of mono, I went on a book reading tear, by which I mean I read two books in one week, but ever since then I've read like 40 pages of Memoirs of a Geisha. I'm so tired, y'all. Too tired to read. And that is a bad sign.

My mom talks a lot during movies

I saw the pants movie with my mom today, which is about all the excitement I can handle in one day, and it was exactly what I expected it would be, cheesy fluff featuring four pretty, pretty ladies. Amber Tamblyn is the best when she's being funny; Alexis Bledel will never be anything but Rory Gilmore (but she's pretty, so I don't care); America Ferrera is the hottest; and Gossip Girl starts on Monday, so Blake Lively is my current favorite. Goodness, she's so beautiful. And! They left out the Bridget messes around with a married man part of her storyline, so that was a big plus for the movie as far as I was concerned. Plus, the hot foreign lady they got to play her archaeological mentor was hot. And foreign. Two thumbs up. Oh my! And it was Blythe Danner as her grandma. I was like, "Hey, that lady looks like Blythe Danner." I'm a genius.

The movie tried to squish all three of the sequels into one thing, more or less, and I remember almost nothing from books two and three, and I read the fourth book in May, and that's a little shaky, but on the whole, I think it did a pretty admirable job. Not like the books are that great--but I still remember being all, "Well, that's not how it happened in the book" during the movie. I can't help it--it's a complusion. Though, I have no idea what I was thinking that in reference to.

A League of Their Own

Did Dottie drop the ball on purpose? Discuss.

When forming your opinion (or backing it up or whatever), here are two points in the movie I believe are important to keep in mind:
1. At the very beginning, old lady Dottie tells her older grandson to go easy on his little brother and tells the younger to murdalize (as my little brothers would say) his older brother while they're playing basketball.
2. Somewhere in the middle of the film we see Dottie make the exact same play: she covers the plate; the runner bowls her over, and she hangs onto the ball.

What do we make of these things? I think it's pretty significant, too, that Dottie has the ball in her bare hand; it doesn't get knocked out of her glove by the impact--her hand opens, and it rolls out. That at least looks an awful lot like losing on purpose, but there is the nagging fact that she would be letting down an entire team of women she's obviously fond of after coming back for the last game of the World Series. She came back, so the game and the team must have been important to her.

But. Is her baby sister more important?

I still don't know what I've decided. Anyone have an opinion?

I have the film taste of an eight- to ten-year-old

With the release of Wall-E last weekend, it seems that everyone is making a list of their favorite Pixar movies. So. Here’s mine.

9. Cars
This movie is, like, almost exclusively for pre-school aged boys. (I’m all for gender equality and stuff, but I have never met a four-year-old girl obsessed with machines. They must exist, though, right? Anyway.) It’s cute and all, and it’s Pixar, so it is good, but it’s just not the best.

8. A Bug’s Life
This is the only Pixar movie I don’t own, and I’ve only seen it once, so you’d think it wouldn’t be better than Cars, but… I like movies about living things better than machines. Uh, generally. Plus, the cast of voice actors in this movie is awesome.

7. Ratatouille
Okay, I bought this without even seeing it once—I don’t know how Mike and I missed it in theaters—and it was totally worth it. The only thing is that I fell asleep in the middle, which was more a reflection on my hectic lifestyle than it was on the movie. That just means I haven’t given Ratatouille the chance to rocket up the list yet, because it is seriously sweet and hilarious. And it’s about a rat who is a gourmet cook! It’s charming. Plus, the main human character’s name is Linguini. Like, for real.

6. Toy Story 2
Everyone says the sequel is better than the original, so maybe I haven’t given the sequel a fair chance, but… It’s good—I may have even cried—but the original Toy Story still bests it for me. Still, Sarah McLachlan singing “When She Loved Me”—I’d have to be made of stone not to be moved by that. I think I should watch this one again, probably.

5. Toy Story
Okay, for years I used to wonder what my toys would do while I was at school—or away on vacation—and this movie just brought my imagination to life in the most perfect way. And when I was ten or whatever, it was hilarious. And I still love the aliens in that claw machine at the pizza place. Toy Story was brilliant. Brilliant, I say, and it still holds up for me.

4. Wall-E
Right, so this is the movie about machines I liked better than a movie about living things. You guys. It is so sweet and so funny, and oh my god. I spent the whole movie wanting to grab Mike’s hand, but I didn’t because we’re not in love in that way. So. Sweet. And the animation is mind-blowing. I am definitely going to see this one again in theaters.

3. The Incredibles
Oh my god, this movie. When it was released in theaters, I had very little interest in it, so I didn’t see it until we were in Texas in 2005 when it was on the Pay-Per-View channels, and I think we watched it almost every night, because there was nothing else on, and I never got tired of it. And, yo. I know everyone says this, but I. Love. Edna. Also, Holly Hunter is hot even when you can’t see her.

2. Monsters, Inc.
This was another Pixar movie I didn’t see until long after it was out of theaters, and I don’t know why, because it slayed me. Billy Crystal and Jennifer Tilly are generally intolerable, but they were some of the best things about this movie. It’s just brilliant and all heart-warming, and I love the Abominable Snowman.

1. Finding Nemo
If you know me, and you know my favorite classically animated Disney movie is The Little Mermaid, you shouldn’t be surprised that Finding Nemo is my favorite Pixar film. I love anything that takes place in the ocean. Love it. Plus, Finding Nemo is far and away the funniest of Pixar’s offerings, and it features Ellen Degeneres’s best performance ever, as Dory, the forgetful, golden-hearted fish. As an added bonus, Allison Janney plays a starfish. I don’t think Pixar will ever top this one.

Oh! Plus, the animated short before Wall-E, featuring an adorable bunny rabbit, is probably my favorite short of Pixar’s. I would go see Wall-E again just for that.

So. Anyone wanna weigh in? Am I the only one out there who’s seen all of Pixar’s movies?

Imaginary girlfriend #3

Tina FeyWhat else can I say about Tina Fey? She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s hilarious, and she's a total nerd. Plus she wears glasses. Oh! Ms. Jill Bennett said it best: she has that “the reluctant sex symbol, girl next door demeanor that lesbians worldwide find utterly irresistible.”

From “Weekend Update” to Mean Girls to 30 Rock to the above sketch with Amy Poehler on her last season of SNL, everything Tina Fey has ever done has made me laugh out loud over and over and over again. Baby Mama was at its best when it was clear she and Amy Poehler were improvising.
Hot, hilarious, glasses. That’s all I want in a woman. There was this one rant she did on "Update" that I transcribed, I thought it was so hilarious. I will never be able to find a videoclip of it again, because NBC is being stupid about which SNL sketches they make available, but she was talking about Hugh Hefner's harem of blondes, and oh, it killed me. "Wherever two or more whores are gathered, there's always a Tina." Self-deprecating too! No wonder the lesbians can't resist her. Plus, the bi-curious shoes. How can we forget the bi-curious shoes?

I don’t go for blondes

Every time (every time) I bring up the fact that I find a lady who happens to have blonde hair attractive, I say something along the lines of “She’s so hot, even though I don’t go for blondes.” And then I realized that I have said that enough times that I probably do go for blondes. So I have made a list! Of hot blondes. They do exist.

Blake Lively
I didn’t realize how smokin’ hot she is until Gossip Girl, because she was the new girl in the Pants movie—I was already sweet on America, Alexis, and Amber. Also, I hated Bridget’s storyline. But Serena van der Woodsen: hot.

Brooke Smith
All right, I realize that Dr. Hahn is not to everyone’s taste—she’s even a little bit funny-lookin’—but oh my. I don’t know. She’s enough to make me swoon. Maybe cuz she’s mean. I like that sometimes in a lady.

Katherine Heigl
Obviously, the girl who made me gay, all the way back at the end of my sophomore year of high school. Izzie can eat it, but, oh, Isabel Evans will always have a special place in my heart. “Yeah. Like listening to a CD is the problem.”

Rachael Harris
Like a blonde version of Tina Fey (but not as hot or funny or smart), half of her appeal comes directly from the glasses.

Sarah Warn
Queen of the lesbians, founder and editor-in-chief of AfterEllen.com, Sarah is smart, funny, and totally adorable. I love her.

Any hot blondes I forgot? Feel free to chime in, the three of you.

I'd fuck me

This episode of Grey’s that I am watching right now features that song “Lotion” by the Greenskeepers—the episode with the quintuplets, the episode where Alex bangs the syph nurse again because he couldn’t get it up with Izzie, and she sees them. Anyway. This is mildly creeping me out because I learned last night that the "it" in "it rubs the lotion on its skin" is effin’ Brooke Smith. This episode takes place long before we even hear of Dr. Hahn, but still. Eeesh. Plus, that song is creepy anyway. It’s also long before we hear of Dr. Torres. This season is so long!

Oh! And then George actually says to Meredith that she’s sleeping with so many guys if she carries on this way, she’ll end up “in a hole in some guy’s basement being ordered to put the lotion on its skin or else you’ll get the hose again” just as that lyric comes up in the song again. This is George’s second Silence of the Lambs reference this season. Something tells me that someone at Grey’s has a thing for that movie. And they hired Catherine to play a heart surgeon. It’s weirding me out, I’m sorry!

If you’d like to come with me on my journey of being creeped out, have a gander at this:


Sorry if I scarred you. I have now scarred myself.