A Self Indulgent Rambling Evening at the Oscars

Though I know that they are fluffy and meaningless, The Academy Awards are still an exciting night for me. I love how extraneous and glossy they are, and also love rooting for people and movies I am a huge fan of. Even if it’s a narrow Hollywood view of film, as many people complain, I still think it’s a good show most of the time. Below is a random collection of thoughts as I experienced the Oscars this year…Just because.

5:09: I get home from getting Oscar supplies, some Publix baked goods, cheese and crackers, chicken bites and a lot of champagne. I debate between watching an old Parks and Rec episode on the DVR or the E countdown to the red carpet. I turn on E to try to get in the spirit of things… and immediately begin to feel my brain melt out of my ears. There’s a gay stylist, and some tall woman in a greek goddess-y sort of gown, both of whom I instantly dislike, blathering meaninglessly at the camera. There’s also a british girl with purple hair in a black dress I immediately want except for an irritating arm strap that keeps getting knocked out of place as the british girl jumps all over the place effusively. She’s not so bad, the gay stylist constantly adjusts her arm strap and snorts out of his nose. At first they try to “guess the celebrity” by studying tiny pieces of a snapshot of them from past years. It’s a pointless game but gives the show a bit of structure as after it is done,  it soon devolves into just random squealing over shots of various actresses photoshopped into different designer dresses they might just be wearing tonight.

5:22 Happily I realize that ABC started their coverage at 5;00 and so I begin strategically switching between ABC and E. I also open a bottle of champagne just as Joan Rivers starts shrieking in a homicidal manner on E for some reason I can’t discern.

5:33 On ABC: Sally Field is officially an insane person, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are charming. I would almost hope for Cooper to win if not for the force of nature that is Daniel Day Lewis.

6:08: On E: Seth MacFarlane’s father looks like Colonel Sanders.  I always feel like Ryan Seacrest is in danger of melting at any moment.

6:12: On ABC… I had no Idea Seth MacFarlane was so charming. I’m becoming excited for his hosting.

625: I discover CNN is doing a red carpet show with Piers Morgan! Piers seems at once vaguely irritated and also incredibly excited by the whole production. I don’t like Jessica Chastain’s dress… at least not the color, but Chastain herself seems wonderful, Piers Morgan looks as if he’s about to start making out with her.

6:29 Apparently a Florida service called “New Teeth Now” can help you get new teeth, even if you’ve been told previously this dream could not be obtained. It shows an old man eagerly feasting on a chicken wing. I wonder where these new teeth come from….

6:51 Piers Morgan gets Kerry Washington to talk about politics and bounces on his toes with excitement like a kid. Piers is fantastic he looks so happy and excited and as though he’s about to bound onto the red carpet himself with joy. Such a nice change from Ryan Seacrest’s Mannequin act. I can’t talk about the dresses, I’m just not qualified. All I can do is wrinkle my nose at some and make awed noises at others. Also I note Jennifer Lawrence is a full head taller than everyone else, and wearing what looks like a bridal gown. She’s stunning though.

7:02: Piers Morgan, yelling at Dustin Hoffman: “Dustin! Dustin! What in the hell is happening, he’s grabbing everyone!” Moments later Dustin Hoffman praises Piers on his position on gun control. I love him. I love them both. Sally Field looks like a nun in a red habit. oof.

7:22 On ABC…Kristin Chenoweth has my favorite dress and is amazing… Naomi Watts has my least favorite dress and looks horrid. Liev Schreiber next to her looks as though me might snap at any moment and attack suddenly and without warning.

7:32 Piers is over, it’s only ABC now and I love Joseph Gordon Levitt.  When he says he loves the real movies, and that’s what he loves not all this, he makes a broad gesture around the red carpet… I know exactly what he means.

8:12 Love Sandra Bullock’s dress. George Clooney looks like a homeless person. I want to hang out and get a drink with Adele.

8:17 Kelly Rowland creeps everyone out, Jamie Foxx and his daughter are adorable, his daughter has a fantastic dress that is is the perfect “going to the Oscars with your dad dress”

8:26 The show is about to begin! Queen Latifah looks stunning in white. We say goodbye to ABC On The Red Carpet

8:31 First impressions, Stage looks awesome Seth MacFarlane is cute and disarming but also clearly terrified. He’s hit and miss.

8:35 Did anyone predict WIlliam Shatner suddenly taking front stage center at the Oscars? It’s at once hilarious and upsetting…? I am totally unsure about how I feel about this but I think it’s really funny when MacFarlane starts saying “boobs” so much. Oh god… I’m turning into a 20 something male. Apparently Jennifer Lawrence feels similarly.

8:42 Why do I think Seth MacFarlane with sock puppets and William Shatner is so hilarious? OK all I can say about Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe dancing soft shoe with Seth MacFarlane is EEEEEH! Best Opener in years! I am reduced to a squealing mess.

8:50: Best Supporting Actor, Octavia Spencer’s dress is gorgeous and flattering. I want one in emerald. I’m pulling for either Christoph Waltz or Tommy Lee Jones. Guessing it will be Deniro or Jones. AND Holy shit it’s Waltz! I did not see that coming, I figured since he’d won for Basterds he wouldn’t bring it home, but he deserves it and his speech is so smart and humble.

8:59 Best animated feature… Melissa McCarthy looks like she’s wearing a table cloth, which is upsetting to me. Brave wins. I’m not shocked and the guy is in a kilt which is cute. I haven’t seen much of the other nominees but I do really like Brave so I’m pleased.

9:07 Cinematography goes to Life of Pi… is this a sign of things to come? I kind of hope not though I haven’t seen it. Also the cinematographer looks like a man eating albino rat with really long hair. That’s probably mean but he kind of scares me. And Life of Pi takes it for visual effects too. What does this mean? Maybe they’re giving it something now and nothing later, or maybe it’s setting a trend… we’ll just have to see.

9:19 Someone named Peter Swords King is nominated for best makeup for the Hobbit. I want him to win just for his name but Les Mis wins instead, which I’m fine with. I just can’t get invested in these costume make up things. Oh my goodness though the ladies who win for it look like crazy women. Pink leggings? What?

9:37 I’m touched by the best documentary short winners, who introduce a sobbing young lady as an artist who was homeless just a year ago. She’s an artist, the winner says, and you all are artists, and we need to appreciate our artists. Tears are coming to my eyes.

9:51 Amour wins best foreign language film. Does this mean it won’t win best picture? Probably but that’s no shock. Michael Hanekhe seems a little lost. My roommate explains to me what the movie “No” is about and I find myself intrigued. I’d like to see it. As I’m solemnly pondering the chilieans plight of voting NO in fear of their lives, John Travolta saunters up and introduces a huge musical number with Catherine Zeta Jones opening. The music number is really fun, I’m surprised how emotional it makes me. Jennifer Hudson looks beautiful.

10:14 I’m glad that Les Mis wins for sound mixing, Ted is not winning me over and I’m wondering what the people there are seeing as at home we’re treated to a giant CGI teddy bear. Are they seeing the same thing on screens themselves? Or is Seth MacFarlane standing there doing the Ted voice? I kind of hope for the latter though I suspect the former.  I don’t understand what Mark Wahlberg means when he says there is a tie. I’m confused. Apparently they can give two Oscars out without compunction because Skyfall gets one after Zero Dark Thirty. I have no idea what’s going on except that guys should not have long gross hair when accepting academy awards

10:20 I guess I’m dumb  but I didn’t realize that Chrisopher Plummer was Von Trapp in the Sound of Music. I am pulling for Anne Hathaway for best supporting actress but this night is so weird, I don’t know anything anymore. BUT maybe I do because Hathaway wins! Wahoooooo I’m happy. She clearly deserves it and I’ve liked her for a long time. She rattles off names like a crazy person clearly hoping not to forget anyone. She also very sweetly gives an uncondescending shout out to any females in dire straits and selling their bodies hoping that it will be a fate soon “only found in stories” This is a feat to say non ironically, considering where she is standing and what she is wearing but she pulls it off miraculously

10:30 Maybe it’s the champagne but I’m finding myself genuinely charmed by this entire production. The college kids onstage who won an award for their movies is such a nice touch, and MacFarlane poking fun at it an even better one, lightening things up.

10:35 Jennifer Lawrence looks charmingly frightened introducing Adele. The song is great and I wholeheartedly hope it wins. I think it’s easier to look confident when you have such a beautiful voice. I wouldn’t know what that’s like.

10:48 Daniel Radcliffe is so cool. If only K Stew would move her face more it would be easier to like her. Yay! Lincoln’s first and hopefully not only win.

10:57 And Clooney has the Dead People of the Night honors, the In Memoriam bit always makes me tear up, even if I barely know who the people are. Everyone always looks so glamorous and remarkable. It makes me want to move out to LA and camp out on Movie sets.

11:12 Renee Zellweger is looking particularly skinny and squinty. Life of Pi wins another award. I don’t know why I’m so averse to this movie. Something about it just irritates me and rubs me the wrong way. Nora Jones comes out to sing the Ted song, rather awkwardly, before being spirited away again. I’m really hoping for Adele for this category. AND She wins! Which is exciting. Adele practically bursts into tears as she approaches the mike, which I find immediately endearing. She was weirdly one of the people I really wanted to win, along with Waltz and Hathaway. I’m pleasantly surprised but suspicious that there are disappointments ahead.

11:21 Am I a weirdo because I want a Dodge Dart II? … Don’t answer that.

11:24 Adapted Screenplay: Rooting for Silver Linings or Lincoln, but Argo gets it. Not terribly upset but a little resigned to it as a sign of things to come. The guy accepting it seems completely frantic and sweaty but hey, he’s a writer, I would look similar I think.

11:26 When I was 8 I thought I could marry Dustin Hoffman. Best Original Screenplay now. Hoping for Tarantino but doubting he’d win. BUT he does! His first after Pulp Fiction. For the second time tonight I am astonished. Tarantino is such a weirdo. He looks like he should be wearing a Bolo tie. He’s a great writer though and I’m stunned and happy. More stunned as he praises the writers this year and waves the oscar around like a brick about to bludgeon the skinny models trying to lead him away. Apparently they don’t dare play the Jaws music for him, and more ads roll in as he wanders off.

11:34 Best Director goes to Ang Lee for Life of Pi. Everyone seems very excited and Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite movies ever, so I’m trying not to be disappointed.

11:40 I know I shouldn’t be mean to K Stew since enough people criticize her all the time but she looks like an extra in the Walking Dead.

11:41 Leading Actress I haven’t even seen Zero Dark Thirty and I wouldn’t mind if Jessica Chastain won but I’m rooting overall for Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence wins! Hooray! And she falls going up the stairs which just makes me like her more, and gets her a standing ovation. But she’s all grace as she gets to the microphone. Bradley Cooper’s grin is great.

11:45 Meryl Streep waltzes in. Her dress is pretty amazing– she looks like a glittery battle ship… which she sort of is. Daniel Day Lewis better get best actor, that’s all I can say about that. Though Cooper surprised me and if it wasn’t for Lewis I would be rooting for him, Denzel Washington looks as though he knows he won’t win it, and Daniel Day Lewis clinches it without Streep bothering to open the envelope. The omnipotent female Oscar voice announces that Lewis is the only actor ever to win best actor three times. He gets a standing ovation and is hilarious and disarming. He gives credit to Kushner, Spielberg, Lincoln and dedicates it to his mother, you can’t help but love the guy.

11:52 HOLY SHIT Michelle Obama is presenting Best Picture. Her dress is gorgeous. What is going on? I love this. I love her bangs.  Jack Nicholson is having fun. More and More I’m rooting for Lincoln or Django. BUT it’s Argo, which I thought it would be. I’m not upset though. I t’s a good movie and Ben Affleck is a good director. He also  is adorable and very sweet in his speech. As with this whole show, it’s impossible not to like him.

12:02 Kristen Chenoweth and Seth MacFarlane are a blast to watch. The best Oscars in years in my opinion.

Beautiful Creatures, the Movie, and Romantic Gestures

Valentine’s day is always problematic. If you say you don’t care about you look like a liar, if you say it’s all about Hallmark cards you sound bitter, if you say you love it you look like a fool. There’s really no way to win the Valentine’s day battle, though I would say receiving beer and going to trivia at a sports bar, as I did this year, came pretty close.

Going to see Beautiful Creatures alone on Valentine’s Day would have been undeniably sad, so I saved it for this week. I have to admit I was pretty excited, my expectations were low and it had great actors I loved.

I wasn’t expecting a thoughtful exploration of first high school love and going against the status quo, as the source material didn’t provide that, but surprisingly that’s what the movie went for, even trodding (sort of spoiler maybe?) into Eternal Sunshine territory towards the end.

I was kind of caught off guard by how genuinely charming this movie is. The acting is great, I was super impressed with Alice Englert as Lena. The actress lit up a character who, on the page, seemed whiny and flat. Alden Ehrenreich is not my type but he was pretty charming, and his chemistry with Englert was really good, if not downright sparking. Viola Davis looks as though she wanted more of a way into this movie, but she’s amazing as always. AND Jeremy Irons somehow gives his best performance in years (despite a questionable southern accent).

Emma Thompson I have mixed feelings about. While it’s pure pleasure to see her southern drawling it up and ranting about Jesus’ will, she also has some monolauges that are… questionable… at best. To be fair I don’t know what any actress could have done with the ticks and craziness required of her character, and Thompson definitely goes for it. Sometimes though it seems like she’s trying to out do her ex husband’s Hamlet… which is not achievable, at least not in a Beautiful Creatures setting.

The thing is, while I was impressed by this movie, it’s still not that great. But it has the potential to be. I feel like there’s a half hour of footage somewhere that could make it a really great little film, but it got frantically edited out and that has a jarring and head scratching effect. The editing is not great. It feels as though someone panicked and lopped large swaths of narrative out, and while the movie scrambles to make up for it, it doesn’t quite get there. Both Emily Rossum, as Ridley, and Thomas Mann as Link are ill served by the haphazard and choppy turn the movie takes around its middle. Which is frustrating because there are so many really great touches to this movie, I was surprised at how well written the script was, at how strong a character Lena was, at how boldly it lampooned small minded Jesus crazy southerners…all this I found especially surprising, considering this came from writer/director Richard LaGravenese, the man behind PS, I Love You… a movie I found reprehensible. This was by far a better film.

Filmspotting did top five romantic gestures in film for the ever troublesome V holiday previously mentioned. I dismissed it at first but then reconsidered. I do love movie romantic gestures, and I shouldn’t avoid making a list just because it’s near Valentine’s Day, I tell myself. So here we go:

5. The ending of Donnie Darko. I don’t pretend to know exactly what this movie means, and I won’t claim I love every minute of it, but one thing I took away for sure was that Jake Gyllenhaal’s character made an ultimate sacrifice for Jena Malone’s and I think that truth shines out sweet from the movie. The action he takes is for love and its purity, for me anyhow, transcends any other narrative confusion or incoherent strangeness it may posses.

4. When Dustin Hoffman comes and screams at Elaine in the church in The Graduate. OK I’m stealing this from Adam on Filmspotting but I loved this scene as a kid. I sort of wanted to marry Dustin Hoffman, so seeing him, so sweaty and frantic, storming a church and “rescuing” Elaine, whether it’s ill advised or not, is thrilling.

3. Beast giving Belle the library in Disney’s The Beauty and the Beast. I have always wanted a room of wall to wall books, and when Beast gives his to Belle, I swoon. I’ll stop with that or I’ll get too mushy, something I’m trying to avoid.

2. Martin Blank saving Debi and her father in Grosse Pointe Blank. For a long time, this movie was in my top 5. Cusack plays a hit man who is sent to Grosse Pointe for a job, convieniently at the same time as his ten year high school reunion. Once there, he realizes he’s still in love with his high school sweetheart, Debi played by Minnie Driver, and starts to have a sort of existential crisis about his life. In the end he realizes the man he was sent to kill is actually Debi’s father, and so he races to their mansion to defend them in an extremely destructive shoot out, during which he proposes to her. Just recounting this is making me remember how much I love this movie. That moment though, when he finds out who his target is, he makes a descion to throw his old life away and rush to hopefully rescue a new one, I found very romantic.

1. Edward proposing to Elinor at the end of Sense and Sensibility. I am very much a Jane Austen lover… which might be weird considering my general aversion to gooey romance or girly things… but Austen is never “gooey”, but instead just heart felt. The end of Sense and Sensibility is where I lose all pretense of non girliness, swooning as Hugh Grant begins to stammer to Emma Thompson that his “heart is, and always will be, yours.”

On that sappy note, I retreat unapologetic.

80s Movies Are (Mostly) Fun!

I ‘ve been  having sort of a sleepy robotic day,  listening to the end of a Sarah Dessen book. She writes YA books for girls in a boiler plate style that’s really not too interesting but that I find deeply enjoyable.  After Outlander, which is really pretty violent and disturbing despite being pretty awesome, I needed something comforting so I flipped back through my audiobook library to Whatever Happened to Goodbye. A newer Sarah Dessen book. In straightforward and relatable terms Dessen crafts engaging stories about girls, usually 17, coming to terms with rough spots in their lives and finding new friendships and reconciling with old ones or family, and usually scoring a sweet, intelligent, sensitive boy in the process. There’s pretty much always a happy ending, though not necessarily a picture perfect one, and they’re just a fun listen. There’s not much to be analyzed in them though, they’re pretty honest about what they are and fairly mindless, though certainly proficient, in their pacing and plotting.

It was nice to listen to and be momentarily absorbed into a 17 year old world way better than the one I populated, with waaaay nicer people in it. When it was over though, I was delighted to find a new Filmspotting SVU, like an unexpected present!, was on my ipod. Even more fun, the theme was 80s movies, with a larger review of Top Gun. Listening to Allison and Matt talking about these movies put me in a past further away than 17, more like 7. I’ll disclose that I was born in 1985, and I was a pretty sensitive kid. I got spooked easily then, just as I do still now (my boyfriend can attest to this as recently as a few weeks ago, when a mere movie preview about exorcising a Jewish box demon from a possessed little girl reduced me to a shaking mess). So in any case, I missed out on a lot of movies that people my age saw when they were pretty young. Still, naturally, I did end up seeing plenty non Disney/not really little kids’ movies. Thinking back, a lot of the “adult movies” I watched when I was young were actually movies released in the ’70s or even earlier. John Wayne movies, Star Wars, Dr. Zhivago, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Graduate… (Yes I loved The Graduate as a fairly young kid. A portent of my weirdness to come) I remember being furious with my parents when they wouldn’t let me stay up late to finish watching, of all things, The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston… I really enjoyed those sweeping and epic Technicolor old Hollywood type movies that most kids would have been bored to tears by. I wanted storytelling on a grand scope with a good heart and lots of plot and didn’t mind sitting through 3 hours of Russian melodrama to get it.   It’s funny to think about… I think I’m less patient with movies now at 27 than I was at 10, certainly I cringe at the idea of another viewing of Dr. Zhivago, though that is a movie I have great affection for. I also liked that these movies were set in such different circumstances from my own. A lot of those 80s movies just hit too close to home, why did I want to watch a bunch of kids run around suburbia when I was living in a swampy one myself? If in my free time I was pretending to be a knight with a trash can lid as a shield, bashing my brothers over the head with child sized plastic golf club and demanding they call me “M’Lady” then I certainly didn’t want to watch a movie with no magic, or not set in England or the old West or anywhere else far far away.

But as I said, there were a few that slipped through. Most of them meet  “far far away” criteria, though not all. There are plenty of movies I discovered as a teenager or an adult that I won’t include here. Better off Dead, Say Anything,  Sixteen Candles, even The Princess Bride  I saw when I was older and really enjoyed, but I can’t say they’re really truly “80s” movies for me, more like movies I discovered when I had shaken off the 80s. Below are five movies I saw when I was a kid, all released in the 80s, all I’m certain you’ve heard of. Since you probably already know the plots even, I’ll just go ahead and give my specific experiences with them here. Each movie was a memorable experience for me, in one way or another anyhow.

Dirty Dancing (1987) This movie was my very own sex education class. To be sure, I knew what sex was and that it resulted in babies at this point, but I didn’t really understand what the big deal about it was until watching this movie. My impression: It seemed to be hot and messy and made a lot of people upset and screamy and have to have abortions. Yes, this movie had the charming side effect of educating me about abortions, albeit in a rather muddled and terrifying way. Also Patrick Swayze was just flat out not my type. Rather than swooning when he came on the screen I thought he was sort of meat headed and irritating. The idea of sex, already confusing and troubling, was even more disconcerting when connected to Swayze. (I would later feel much more comfortable with it connected to John Cusack, much more my speed). The first time I saw this movie my Mom fast forwarded through the “sex” scene, but it just made it stand out MORE to me and seem even more troubling, like it was something to hastily sweep under the rug. I loathed dance class so the dancing scenes did nothing for me, overall, this movie was just not a big hit with me. Later, as a senior in high school, my otherwise beloved english teacher caved into a bunch of girl’s insistence on seeing it as a special “treat” after our AP exam was over. I grumbled, but was in the minority. So I put up with two hours of hormonal but sheltered teenage girls shrieking every time Swayze came onscreen. I have to say it was one of the worst movie watching experiences I have ever had. I can’t say when exactly I saw it again… several years later. Maybe over a college summer break… but all of a sudden, for the first time ever, I enjoyed it. I knew the songs! I knew the story! Perhaps most importantly, sex wasn’t scary anymore…  Though this will never be my favorite movie, I found that it was actually something I’d somehow developed affection for over the years. It felt like growing up.

Willow (1988) This is still one of my favorite movies. One of the first real hardcore fantasy films I ever saw, I was sucked right in. Val Kilmer is hilarious, the story is a lot of fun, and the ending is downright charming with a soaring cheesy 80s soundtrack. Honestly, I can’t think of anything bad to say about this movie. I love it.

The Karate Kid (1984) Not being a huge sports movie type this is an exception in that from the first I fell in love. While it’s attractive to kids’ because of its simple outsider story, cool karate fight scenes, and jazzy training montages what I really connected to was Daniel’s relationship with Mr. Miyagi, who I thought was pretty much the coolest old guy ever. There’s one scene in particular, where Daniel comes in to train like usual, and Miyagi is instead dressed formally in Military attire, completely smashed. Up until then they’d had a very straightforward Master and Student relationship, but this scene shakes it up a bit. Daniel learns that Miyagi’s family actually died in a Japanese internment camp while Miyagi was in fact fighting in WWII for the USA. Daniel ends up putting Mr. Miyagi to bed, comforting him as he cries. This is a really touching, memorable scene and not one I think you would find in kids’ movies today (Pixar perhaps being the exception). It led me ask a lot of questions about Japanese internment camps of my parents and I remember being furious on behalf of those held in them. The injustice and cruelty of it that I had been taught (so far) in school America was above. I felt betrayed and let down by my entire country, but really it’s for the better to learn these things early… certainly I would soon learn a multitude of horrors about my own country, and it made the ending of The Karate Kid all that much more satisfying anyhow.  Wipe on. Wipe off.

Top Gun (1986) Like Dirty Dancing, I wasn’t a huge fan of this movie until I saw it more recently. First of all, my father demanded that we all be completely silent during the flying scenes… which I found incredibly boring and was exactly when I thought it best to start up conversation and ask lots of questions (This is an annoying habit I still possess. As soon as action starts on the screen, I lose interest and bring up whatever is on my mind that I feel is more weighty and interesting… Give me long scenes of dialogue any day I say). In any case, I was bored by the planes and all the military nonsense. I just wanted no part of that. And then Goose dies… Well. For a long time after that I would demand up front before viewing any movie whether any of the characters die. That will ruin the movie, it was explained to me over and over, we can’t tell you that. It did not stop me from frantically and repeatedly asking during viewing “Does he die now? Is he about to die? Will he die now?”. Goose’s death seemed like such a betrayal. You have this fun, easy going movie and suddenly WHAM, one of the best characters is just dead… just like that. And not even for a good reason! It’s a stupid pointless meaningless and accidental death. It was alarming to me in the extreme and made me distrustful of cinema as a whole for awhile. What I did like about this movie, though, was Tom Cruise.  I still like Tom Cruise, despite what he may be like personally, I think I’ll always be taken with him as an actor. More my type than Swayze, after seeing this movie, I was officially a fan of Tom Cruise.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) So far, though I found relatable things about all the aforementioned movies, they were still  pretty escapist  and full of foreign experiences. Ferris Bueller though, was pretty familiar. While upon seeing it I was instantly deeply in love with Matthew Broderick, it was Cameron who I immediately identified with. I loved watching this movie as a kid, I loved the way Ferris talked right to the camera, I loved how witty and friendly and smart he was, most of all I loved how above everything he was, how he didn’t let things bother him. Ferris Bueller was everything I wished I could be, transcendant of any school click, loved by everyone, with creative and intelligent ideas… capable of what was essentially magic.  For a long time, this was in fact my favorite movie. Now though, it’s sort of painful to watch. I am not like Ferris Bueller. I was never like Ferris Bueller. I will never be like Ferris Bueller. I knew this all along of course, but for some reason when I was little and saw this movie, I thought maybe there was a chance, or even just that the fact that people like that existed was a wonderful enough thing. Deep down though, I knew I was like Cameron. I’ve been Cameron all along. This is one I don’t re-watch much now, I’ve just seen it so many times, and I feel like I’ve sent that car flying off that cliff, somewhere, somehow at some point, it went crashing down and I moved on. I still get super excited whenever I see Alan Ruck in a role though (Check out Ghost Town, which is a good movie starring Ricky Gervais) it’s as though it’s confirmation that Cameron too has transcended all the bullshit Ferris so easily bypassed, and is now manifesting quietly out there in the world, as happy as he can be.

And that’s all for this Friday. I’m tired, and have had bad news and a bad few weeks. I feel like travelling, like a long long vacation, but I won’t get one until the summer. I hope to go to Oregon, to drink good beer and see some mountains, but I suppose we’ll see what happens.

Take Away Twilight, Give Her Outlander Instead

I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile and exactly what points I wanted to make in it. I’ll start from the beginning. Clearly I am a sucker for YA literature, in particular YA fantasy/sci fi literature, I’ve mentioned this before I believe. One series I never appreciated or understood was the Twilight series. Now I will come clean immediately and say I have not read these books. I was turned off by the premise (vampires aren’t usually my thing) and I also happened to read parts of these books. After experiencing prose which I considered excruciating on every level imaginable, not to mention a dull and infuriating female protagonist, I did not further investigate the series. When all hell broke loose over them I did reacquaint myself with the books via the first few movies and by reading a few more chapters here and there.Needless to say listless, uncharismatic K-stew, mime-like constipated Robert Pattinson, and the horrible screenwriting featured in the movie did not in the least win me over.

BUT all that aside, after watching the first movie and reading several passages of the books something else was bothering me. I know there’s been much discussed and written over the drawbacks of Bella as a female role model (i.e. she’s a horrible one), so I won’t go into it much here, but let’s just say I found her extremely lacking. It didn’t help that at the time I was also caught up in The Hunger Games, and Katniss wouldn’t have hesitated to smack Bella in the face until she could muster some sort of reasonable opinion.

I can understand this whole romance vampire appeal. I was  a 12 – 15 year old girl once too. You want someone who desperately loves you, who can protect you and understand you, but at the same time sex is scary, and at this point you’re learning that boys really really want to have sex. So in Twilight this problem is “solved”, since Edward can’t have sex with Bella… I can see why it’s attractive to teenage girls, a soul mate who will love you unconditionally, but who at the same time won’t pressure you into sleeping with him. Add in the fact he’s a shiny vampire (which, I just want to note here that a glittering buff dude would NOT be a plus for me, but I’m weird) and you can see why people go bonkers over it. EXCEPT the thing is, they can’t have sex until they’re MARRIED which in my opinion is not realistic sex education. AND then, here comes the kicker, if they do have sex HE COULD KILL HER. Not really reassuring to a teenage girl who is probably already apprehensive about the whole thing. “Ok, be totally submissive and passive in my life, wait until marriage, and then possibly be mauled to death on my honeymoon night by a blood hungry beast”. What a fantastic message.

I could go on, but I don’t really want to because I didn’t set out to talk about Twilight, I set out to talk about the book I’m almost done listening to: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This book just celebrated its 20th anniversary and Audible has been insistently telling me I would like it, so I went ahead and took the plunge. “Have you read this?” I asked my roommate as I was starting it. She had, and sort of swooned “I did like it. But I was at that age.” “What age?” I ask. “You know…” she sighs”All that romance”.

Being only ten minutes into the book I didn’t quite know what she meant, but it doesn’t take long to become apparent. Outlander begins in Scotland in 1945, following a couple– Claire and Frank Randall– on their second honeymoon in the Highlands.  World War II has just ended, and the two have spent 6 years apart over the course of the fighting, and so they are naturally a bit estranged. Claire was a nurse at various combat hospitals and Frank is more secretive about his role in the war, but the two seem mostly eager to move on with their lives and are trying desperately to have a baby. The characters are immediately likable. Claire is a bit brash for 1945 and is clearly an intelligent woman who wants to have a say in how things are. This fast becomes problematic as the book changes settings. Claire passes through a large standing stone out in the highlands and finds herself transported to the year 1774, and immediately must face the challenge of trying to survive in a completely alien world, while still hoping to some day get back to her own.

The history is great. Being Scottish descended myself I’ve been lapping up the time and setting and all the various accoutrements. The writing is engaging and full of spark, the book is read sympathetically by Davina Porter.  In short, it’s enjoyable.

Now about this whole woman role model for young girls thing… Claire herself is fantastic. She’s an extremely strong and heroic character, and her bravery and unflinching determination to survive in her new setting is completely believable, both through her voice and also because we know her past experiences as a nurse in WWII must have been horrific. Anyone who lived through that, we know, wouldn’t be flinching about bandaging up gun shot wounds or spending uncomfortable nights on floors. She’s smart, pragmatic and for the most part stubbornly self sufficient. She has a hard time accepting help and protection from the Highlander men she ends up entangled with, even though on a practical level she knows it’s necessary.

So as a strong female character, Claire certainly kicks Bella’s ass. However there are a few problems.

Gabaldon does not flinch from portraying 1745 as full of brutal, very rapey men. Most of the time Claire is ignored entirely while the men folk are making plans. There is one scene where an oath taking occurs in a castle, and the ladies of the castle are sequestered onto a locked balcony to watch the proceedings. As the ceremony goes on the men become more and more drunk and rowdy. Eventually the oath taking ends and the ladies begin to leave the balcony. At this point the housekeeper, another strong female figure, turns sharply to all the young women. She warns them to go to their rooms immediately and lock the doors, because there is no protection for them tonight with all these men in such a state.

It’s a startling scene, and one that rings of truth. It’s a reminder just how fragile a woman’s position is in this world.

But then there are “rapey” scenes that are glossed over a bit, at least, Claire doesn’t seem too disturbed at being nearly raped on several occasions. Some of them even come off as jokey which is a bit troubling. However in keeping with the historical setting this is certainly not an unreasonable portrayal, and though Claire may not seem completely undone by these attempts, she fights back and stands up for herself at every turn, which is great to see.

And then we come to the heart, quite literally, of this book, which is the love story. Through various circumstances (slight spoiler ahead)  Claire ends up marrying James Fraser, a Highlander sort-of-outlaw-lordling, for her own protection. Though the marriage is one of necessity, it’s pretty clear we’re headed into full blown bodice ripper territory. And it doesn’t disappoint on that level. There’s a lot of sex. Lots of sex. Usually it’s healthy, consensual, loving and fun sex, which personally I think is great for a teenage girl to read about. Certainly far better than creepy ABSTINENCE UNTIL MARRIAGE AND THEN I WILL DESTROY YOU sex. Let’s face it, your 14 year old knows what sex is (if she doesn’t she damn well should) so reading about it between two people who care about each other, one of them a strong woman who has won her partner’s respect as well as love, can do nothing but good. There’s also the factor that Claire is actually already married- to Frank in 1945. Technically she’s being unfaithful to him, but in her position she could never explain or make anyone in 1745 understand. It adds another layer to the romance, and tension… will she have to choose? *Swoon*

I would love for this to be a ringing endorsement with no caveats but the fact is it really is 1745 in the Highlands. At one point when Claire disobeys her husband he beats her brutally with his belt as punishment. While Claire protests this and tries to maintain her dignity, it’s still rather disturbing.  There’s a lot of talk about “Possessing” each other, which is a bit troubling but I suppose fits into that whole sappy romance idea. Jamie is handsome, kind, intelligent and willing to die for Claire to protect her. These are traits that would certainly be appealing to any 14 year old  girl. And I must admit they’re appealing to me too.

I don’t usually read romance stories with such a critical eye, I think it’s just because I’ve been considering this book in relation to the Twilight Saga, as it were.  By now I’ve certainly been drawn into Claire and Jamie’s romance, problematic though it may be at times. It’s still interesting and nuanced and… errr… romantic. They are people brought up in two completely different realities, and it’s fun to see them come together and develop real friendship and love.

There’s also political issues among clans, suspected witchcraft, evil British garrison commanders, and plenty of burly Scottish men bashing each other with big heavy swords. It’s a long book, and a lot happens in it. One aspect I really enjoyed is how little the author reveals about  Jamie’s back story. The slow way pieces of information are revealed both make the reader re-evaluate past scenes, and feel like they’re getting to know Jamie along with Claire. It’s a really nice effect, and perfectly executed.

So if you’re kid wants to read Twilight, maybe suggest this instead, or at least in addition to. Yes it suggests that some men want to rape women… but newsflash… some men do. Yes it has sex in it but newsflash… your teenage girl has probably read much worse. Isn’t it better to read about sex between two strong, well developed characters who possess mutual respect, than vapid husks of character traits moping about wondering when one will need to eat a baby out of his 18 year old wife’s belly? So um yeah, I would say Outlander and others like it, all the way.

Also there are lots of horses in it too. Extra Bonus!