DVD: "Sex and the City 2" Explodes Brains!

The thing about the show Sex and the City was, it was short. Sarah Jessica Parker wears something pretty. Then she notices something that makes her neurotic, cocks her head to the side, and types, “I wonder...” followed by some stupid question about what Women Over Thirty should have permission to feel, and then there's some more nice clothes, a naked butt scene, and a nice brunch where some ladies maybe crack a couple of jokes that People Over Fifty may think are shocking and witty, and then Sarah Jessica Parker figures out the answer to her initial question. (The answer, generally: Women over thirty are allowed to make their own rules! Sometimes it was just: We're all just fucked up, I guess!)

But it was cute, and light, and pretty clothes, and so very, very short, that it worked.

So then they made a movie, and it was too long and the clothes weren't as nice. And then, because of money and nostalgia, they made another movie, and it was way, way too long, and the clothes were almost without exception complete crap!



They forgot to learn their lesson the first time! Or during the six year run of the original series!

I watched the whole thing, though. Because, accidentally, it was amazing! It blew my mind! My mind was so blown that my head started to hurt!

Things that blew my mind in Sex and the City 2:

1) It starts out, all the ladies go to a beautiful wedding inspired by money and nostalgia. It's a wedding for two boys, so everyone makes jokes about how weird and “other” gay guys are – but that's ok, because they all have friends that are gay! But Kristen Davis makes a face, and tells everyone to shut the hell up. For a second, you the audience at home are like, Oops! – but then an actor playing a homosexual steps into frame and makes another gay joke. Never mind! Everyone laughs!

2) At the wedding officiated by Liza Minelli, Liza Minelli sings “Single Ladies!” And she dances really, really well! And her legs are so amazing! That part blew my mind in a great way! I'm going to watch that part again!



3) Everyone is happy! Now what? How about a deus ex machina?! So some girl comes up to Sarah Jessica Parker and says, like a creep, “I've read all your books! I really think I'm you!” Then, without segue, she asks if Sarah Jessica Parker would like the number for her surrogate pregnancy place. What? Why is the girl using a surrogacy place? She's like 25. Is that a thing now for rich people? Why? is that really a thing, or is that a lazy deus ex machina thing? That's so weird! And why did she bring that up? She finally meets her favorite sex columnist in the whole world and that's what she wants to talk about? Wait, is this going to turn into a SWFish thriller? Is she going to steal Sarah Jessica Parker's DNA and put it in a surrogate lady she's trapped in a basement?

No, that is not what is going to happen. What is going to happen is that the movie, much like the show, is going to purport to try to answer a question (What do you do with your life when you decide not to have kids?), but will instead answer an incredible vague question (What should I do when I feel crazy because I'm getting old and what is life all about?) with a generic answer (Make your own rules!).

4) Now all the ladies feel old. So they have brunch, and decide to talk about what keeps them young. It turns out, what keeps them young is jokes from a long time ago. Thighmaster! Vitamins! Spanx!

5) There's a Jude Law nanny joke. That is so old!

6) Cynthia Nixon's husband says, You should quit your job, so Cynthia Nixon quits her job. Which is crazy! Every single Miranda episode of the show was about the fact that that character hates her job but refuses to quit her job. Her mom died and she only took one day off! She broke up with everyone she dated because her terrible job came first! She had a kid and didn't take maternity leave! Her husband cheated on her because she worked too much at the job that made her crazy unhappy! Her only character trait, besides Red Hair, was Hates Her Job but Won't Quit It! But suddenly, she does, and it's fine.

7) Kristen Davis hires a nanny who's like a D-cup and she doesn't wear a bra and she keeps jumping up and down! I know this scene was for people's boyfriends, and to help the lady audience feel as insecure as the lady characters, but it just looked so painful! Stop jumping, D-cup nanny!

8) The lady from Mannequin's boyfriend from the last movie calls while she's masturbating in her office in front of her female secretary, of course. He says he's in Abu Dhabi to shoot a movie poster. And suddenly the movie has nothing left to do with reality. Unless Abu Dhabi is where they keep all the Photoshops.

9) Sarah Jessica Parker's husband buys her an expensive TV for their anniversary and mounts it so that it doesn't pull focus from the room she put so much time in decorating. He says it's so they can watch old romantic movies together. Awww! Wait, oops! That makes Sarah Jessica Parker so mad!

10) Sarah Jessica Parker's husband brings home take-out after work one day. That makes Sarah Jessica Parker so mad! She says, “Wait, you got take-out?” Then she storms out.

11) Sarah Jessica Parker continually refers to the loveseat in their apartment as a couch. It is maybe not technically a loveseat, but it is probably also not technically a couch. It is like at a point equidistant from how long a couch should be and how long a loveseat should be. I got distracted by this for a few minutes.

12) Penelope Cruz shows up at a fancy party. She works in a bank.

This movie makes me sleepy!

13) It turns out, Sarah Jessica Parker still pays rent on her old apartment, even though she now lives in what looks like a 3br/1.5ba. How much money do sex columnists make?

14) Just before bed, Sarah Jessica Parker likes to wear two bras and a negligee to brush her teeth.

15) Some VIP from Abu Dhabi meets the girl from Mannequin for about two seconds and immediately invites her to stay in his mansion with her friends, whom he hasn't met, at a time when he won't be there.

16) The girl from Mannequin shows up in the Middle East wearing a glitter turban and gold harem pants.

17) The girl from Mannequin sees an attractive guy and says, “Lord of the cute!” I forgot how weird the girl from Mannequin was.

18) So all the ladies are in Abu Dhabi, which is in the desert. They all wear the ugliest haute couture they can find to the outdoor market. Then, they're about to ride camels! So they have their servants set up a tent so they can change. Into even fancier dresses. None of which are attractive.



19) The girl from Mannequin sees an attractive guy and says, “Lawrence of my labia!”

There was some other stuff, but by the like thirtieth vaudeville aside from the girl from Mannequin, my head felt fuzzy and I kind of checked out. I snapped back together for the big save:

20) So the girl from Mannequin is going to get everyone killed because a hot flash made her start screaming and throwing condoms at everyone in the market. The people are so mad! But then the good women of Abu Dhabi save the Sex and the City ladies? They say, That's alright! Then everyone bonds over a shared love of Suzanne Sommers's nonsense vitamin cure for aging?

Then it ends! And I take an Ibuprofen and go to sleep.

Powell's is much better than Amazon at guessing what I might like to read in the future

Just sayin'.

My Job ----> You Sad :(

Frued didn't know what women want, and had it generally wrong about what men want. Kurt Vonnegut, in I forget which book, wrote: "I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything. What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn't get so mad at them." Sounds about right!

There's a new paper out from the Hoover Institution that cites several depressing facts about American men and women:

"In 1985, 10 percent of Americans had no discussion partner of any kind; by 2004, that number had increased to 25 percent. In 1985, 15 percent of Americans had only one person to talk to about a life problem, which even optimists call inadequate social support, since it makes a person very vulnerable to losing that lone relationship. By 2004, that number had increased to 20 percent. ... An estimated 20 percent of the population exhibits symptoms of anxiety and depression, and in some states the prevalence of symptoms is closer to 30 percent. An estimated 95 percent of Americans have low self-esteem."

In today's society of individualism and mobility, it becomes difficult to hold onto the ties of an extended family or religious group or to make stable new friend groups. The author believes this trend was exacerbated in the 1950s, when the rise of practiced psychoanalysis signaled the beginning of the organically-social's end:

"The caring industry weakens and may destroy the family by making it superfluous. If people have caring professionals to talk to about their personal problems, they don’t need relatives. They don’t even need authentic friends. Caring professionals may form the peer group of the future. ... As professional caregivers expand their presence in society, lay volunteers inevitably disappear. To make matters worse, some laypeople no longer see it as their role to volunteer, or to even help people in their own circle, thinking instead: “That’s what the professionals are there for."

Dun dun dun!

I'm sure the author, because he got published by ivy Stanford University's fancy Hooper Institution, probably has the figures to back up this fallacy argument. Were people pre-1950 happier and less anxious? Standardized testing isn't generally available for that population, but there must be specific groups, for instance schoolchildren or members of the military, that's happiness levels can be marked against those of a similar contemporary group. Or perhaps the author knows of a study in which a group was subjected to "professional" care-giving for a length of time, and afterward became less able to participate in "volunteer" care-giving. I am suddenly very interested in what studies like these would show! And how they would be designed to ferret out all the other factors involved!

I suspect, however, that the rise of individualism and mobility, especially when paired with new patterns of poverty and free time have done more to raise incidences anxiety and loneliness than have Frued and office couches.

Vonnegut: "Why are so many people getting divorced today? It's because most of us don't have extended families any more. It used to be that when a man and women got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to. ... When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think it's about money or power or sex, not how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they're really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this: You are not enough people!"

Moreover, the rise of counting people's levels of happiness has probably contributed a lot to the present state of affairs. Just as autism levels seemed to suddenly sky-rocket due to our noticing them, so have incidences of unhappiness.

Rather than blaming the care-giving industry for attempting to help, I believe it may be more fruitful to find ways our society can re-establish some kind of more or less "organic"-ish social bonds. For instance, in what spaces can we create free and non-judgmental doings that may draw the lonely and anxious? How can we fund day centers in which people are encouraged to make friends with one another, and how can that even be encouraged? What I'm talking about is, I guess, how can we make the grown-up world more like a college dorm or summer camp? How about if we changed the emphasis from individualized care-giving to group vocational training? How about regular, widely publicized outings of fun-having and bond-strengthening for non-hipsters and for no fee? How about consciousness-raising sort of groups for everyone? How about AA/NA, but without the emphasis on problems?

How do we do this? The only thing I can think, is, we don't do it by abandoning the admittedly commercial bonds people do have. We do it by adding more kickball.

"Inception" of a terrible movie onto my eyeballs

Good idea, Christopher Nolan!

Not very well executed, however!



Is it ever ok for a movie to explain away terrible NONEXISTENT characterization of all of its characters except for maybe one (and that one's boring) by saying the characterization had to be nonexistent for the plot to work? I am trying to think of a time that that happened, and was acceptable.

How about a time when there were all these snowmobiles for SUCH A LONG TIME and the plot completely stalled so we could look at ALL THESE SNOWMOBILES and it was SOOOO BORING but it was ok? IT IS NEVER OK!

Update! I'm right about everything :)

DVD: "Chloe"

Julianne Moore suspects that her husband, Liam Neeson, is cheating on her, because he misses the elaborate surprise birthday party she'd planned for him to go hang out with some girl student of his, who then texted him "thanks for the great time last night!"

So what does Julianne Moore, relatable everywoman, do? She goes out with Liam Neeson the next night to the symphony and a fancy dinner and shoots him questioning, hostile glances. Fair enough! Then she picks a fight with him on the way home. That's what I would do! I would pick a fight about the text message, I mean, and I would bring up Liam Neeson's ethical duties as a professor as well as his disrespectful-to-Julianne Moore behavior, and probably Trust Issues. Julianne Moore, however, picks a fight with him about how he was too nice to the waitress!

To which Liam Neeson replies, "Most people are so rude to service workers, so I try to be extra-friendly to make up for that."

This conflict (because the other conflicts are boring), sets the main theme of the movie (in my head). Which is interesting, because although I've seen indie movies for twentysomethings, and a few documentaries, focus on the Being Nice to the Help issue, fancy soft-porn movies for fortysomethings usually don't. And it's an important issue! So, who will win? The pretty lady who may have the morally superior hand in regards to her marriage, or the smiling old guy who is nice to service workers (ie, the world)? I hope you win, Liam Neeson!

So Julianne Moore, as you do, hires Amanda Seyfried, a sex worker, to tempt her husband to see if he'll try to sleep with her. Amanda Seyfried, for no reason, is like, Ok, Julianne Moore, you're so pretty and I really like you, so, ok! Julianne Moore's like, Why are you just a sex worker? That sounds so gross, and because I am paying you, I guess I am allowed to talk down to you about how you live your life? Amanda Seyfriend: I am definitely not in it for the money, and anyway, sometimes it brings awesome people like you into my life! Julianne Moore: Ew! Bye.



The next day, Liam Neeson tells Julianne Moore he loves her smile, so Julianne Moore decides to call off the whole stupid immature experiment. But Amanda Seyfried wants to keep hanging out, because she likes Julianne Moore's jerkface character, for no reason! So she tells Julianne Moore a long, soft-porn-graphic story about how she did it with Liam Neeson ("He kissed me and I could feel his excitement in his pants"). Julianne Moore's like, Oh no! Our marriage! But wait, all these details are turning me on and also making me feel closer to my husband! But the person in front of me's just a sex-service worker, so I'll just yell at her that I didn't tell you to do that!

So then Amanda Seyfried shows up at Julianne Moore's gynecology office - she is a doctor, and it's a huge corner office with floor to ceiling windows, and windows instead of walls separating the lobby from the exam room, which is exactly where I want to have my next pap smear. Julianne Moore has perhaps confused Amanda Seyfried with a psychopath, because I kind of did for a minute, because of other movies, and so she continues to treat her like a dirty servant. But then suddenly they're having sex? And it is way too graphic?

So Julianne Moore comes home late from the heteronormative lesbian sex scene with all of the nipples, and Liam Neeson's like, Are you having an affair?

Now Julianne Moore's sleeping on the plush leather couch instead of the double-king with pillowtop. She stares out the window - which is also kind of a like a mirror - and thinks about life. She goes to see Amanda Seyfried and says, This business transaction, which is was this was, is over! Amanda Seyfried's like, But I love you! Here are some flowers, and my mother's heirloom comb! I thought we had something special! But look, if you're going to treat me like a servant, then I'll blackmail you like one! Julianne Moore: Shut up, servant!

Julianne Moore has to save her marriage. So she calls up Liam Neeson and meets him at a fancy bar with lots of windows. He orders a coffee, and she says, to him, "I'm drinking cognac." He turns to the waiter and says, like a person, "And a cognac for my wife." NOW SHE'S TOO GOOD TO EVEN TALK TO THE HELP!

Julianne Moore: Let's be honest and save our marriage.
Liam Neeson: I hate getting older, so I avoided my birthday party. I went out and flirted with a student, because that made me feel younger.

Just as Julianne Moore's about to ask him about fucking Amanda Seyfried, Amanda Seyfried walks in. Julianne Moore stares at her. Liam Neeson says, "Who's that?" It is clear that Liam Neeson has not been fucking Amanda Seyfried. Julianne Moore: "Oh shit, I guess I accidentally hired a sex worker to see if you were cheating on me. And then I guess I slept with her, because it made me feel younger?" Liam Neeson: "?"

Although Julianne Moore is a dick to the entire service industry, Liam Neeson loves her or whatever, so they're going to be ok. She will be a dick, and Liam Neeson will be extra-friendly to the waitress/sex worker to make up for that. It's an ok message, I guess. Catharsis, yawn. But there are other loose ends to tie up! What will happen to the sex worker?!

Amanda Seyfried, in a very understandable and not at all cipher-y attempt to win back Julianne Moore, goes to Julianne Moore's house and fucks her son in Julianne Moore's bed. Julianne Moore comes home, finds them asleep in her bed, and yells at them. But Amanda Seyfried has her mother's heirloom comb and goes to stab Julianne Moore in the neck with it. Julianne Moore: What do you want? Amanda Seyfried: I want you to kiss me. Then Amanda Seyfried drop the comb, and Julianne Moore pushes her out the window! And Amanda Seyfried dies!



Next thing you know, it's the funeral son's graduation gala. He stares forlornly toward the window his mother pushed Amanda Seyfried out of while Julianne Moore mingles with her fancy friends, wearing Amanda Seyfried's comb in her fancy up-do.

The mind reels. The 90 minutes, it's Be Nice to the Service Workers! Look out behind you, Julianne Moore! Your lack of kindness is going to get you killed! Then suddenly, it's Don't worry, if you are fancy and pretty enough you can get away with murder.

This is a stupid movie.

DVD: "The Fourth Kind"

"The Fourth Kind" is actually pretty amazing.



At first it feels like a terrible movie... and then you're like, Hey, this is totally entertaining and well-edited! It goes back and forth for a while. Every time I'm super excited for the little sci-fi B-movie to be doing so well for itself, something terrible comes up. Essentially, it's the gold-star A+ paper result of a super-mean teacher's assignment.

It's like, Ok, class, time for the criteria for your final:

1) It has to be about alien abductions.

2) It has to try to invoke the audience's unconscious fear of owls.

3) It must include the foreboding line "Sometimes the things that shake us the most... are the things we seldom see coming."

4) Must have as its protagonist a braid-obsessed Doctor of Psychology paid by the government to root out insomnia in Nome, AK (where it is daylight for 16+ hours four months out of the year). This doctor must be seen flying a plane, owning a 19th century library, and understanding Latin and Greek. This doctor may not, however, believe in psychotropic medications or any kind of talking therapy or be answerable to any ethical board, but must rely exclusively on hypnosis, with absolutely no processing with the client afterward.

5) It has to include a child going spontaneously blind after a trauma s/he did not witness. This child must be played by a terrible child actor who is obviously not blind.

6) Must bring in at some point a wise African scholar who brings up that the ancient Sumerians definitely knew about oxygen masks (because of aliens), juxtaposed with museum images that definitely contradict that idea. Museum images must be obviously fake.

7) Must go further than any other film, ever, to impress explicitly upon its audience that it's non-fiction. Every single scene must include "real" footage as well as "dramatized" footage. In the "real" footage, the protagonist may not be shown wearing a braid.




8) Must show the Doctor of Psychology ("dramatized") arguing that "Eleven million people have seen or know someone who've seen a UFO. Eleven million witnesses - that'd win any court case in the world!"

9) In the climax, when the protagonist is herself hypnotized to help her remember when she'd been abducted by aliens three days prior, she must for no reason suddenly be able to talk to the aliens about things that happened just earlier that day.

10) There must be the suggestion of vaginal probing.

Extra credit: The aliens must turn out to be literally God, which fact cannot be dealt with whatsoever.

Keeping in mind these very tough constraints, "The Fourth Kind" did a great job! It was highly entertaining, with the right amount of plot twists, passable acting, great editing! It was FUN! The best thing about it, though, was the way it continuously (snarkily) undermined the idea that alien abductions are real, while also continuously remarking on how extremely non-fiction its story was.



For instance, it's bookended by footage of the film's actors reminding us, "The More You Know"-style, that the story here is real. Mila Jovonovich lets us know that the FBI have visited Nome 2000 times since the 1960s - more times than the FBI's visited any other town in Alaska! Why are the FBI so interested in Nome? ALIENS! Just after the actors' last appeal to our faith, a series of calls to the FBI UFO Sighting Hotline (which I hope is real) are played. Woman: "There were so many red lights!" Man: "There were no lights!" Woman: "It was shaped like a fedora!" Man: "It was shaped like a circle!" Girl: "My three-year-old brother thinks he saw one!" Just circles of ridiculousness.

Good job, movie!

Bret Easton Ellis: Total Dick

I found out two weeks ago he was doing a reading ten blocks from my house – and on my day off! And for free! I was excited! Although I find his style occasionally grating, and I haven't been able to get through any of his other books, I really liked American Psycho. It was an interesting book! Good satire!

I had a question all picked out. I was interested to find out if he found any of his characters likeable – not sympathetic, not fuckable, likeable. And if not, why does he think he hasn't written such a character? Not the worst question, am I right?

And then he got there, and then he started talking. He seemed sounded kind of nervous and uncomfortable with the packed room, but also confident in himself, which is exactly the correct personality for a writer to have at a reading. Sympathetic, but cool enough that you don't have to feel awful when somebody who went to college inevitably, in a loud, clear voice asks what the hell they think they're doing. So far so good!

Ellis read four pages from his new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, which is a great title that Elvis Costello thought of. Of the seven minutes he spent reading, I spent five mentally whittling down the lengthy description of his protagonist's beautiful-but-empty condo, and mentally deleting the terrible foreshadowy references (the desperate, lonely character suddenly hears the song “Hungry Like the Wolf,” if you know what I mean). But that's ok! It's a hard job, writing books! He already wrote one classic! And he still had fifty-three minutes to bring the interesting!

On with the questions!

It started with a lowball: There are a lot of balconies in your novels. What's that about?

Bret Easton Ellis has no idea. But he loves reading the papers people write about his work, and he's sure someone will answer this question in a paper someday, and he's sure he'll be blown away!

Ok. (Really?)

Can you speak for a moment about “This is not an exit,” the famous last line of American Psycho?

He liked the way it sounded.

Ok. (Whatever.)

And then he said a lot of boring, stupid shit.

What advice do you have for burgeoning writers? Real writers don't need advice. They don't ask questions. They just write. (C-)

What's your favorite movie adaptation of your work? “The only one that worked,” he said, "was The Rules of Attraction.” (F)

What audience does Ellis have in mind, when he's writing? He doesn't write for an audience. He writes the kind of novels he wants to read. If he had a reader in mind, he might as well be working for a PR firm or something. (D)

Why are there so many bisexual characters in his novels? He doesn't think about it. There aren't that many bisexual characters. Sean Bateman is “kinda gay.” Clay, from Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms, isn't bisexual so much as his bisexuality is a literary device furthering the sense of him as rootless. (Haha)

But then he brought out some crazy shit!

A girl who went to college asked him what was up with his weird remark in Movieline about women directors?

Ellis hemmed a little bit. He let us all know that the asker was referring to something he'd said in an interview. He guessed he'd said that women can't be good film directors because "of the way [they] are built." Eesh!

He said he didn't remember really how it'd come up, and that what he'd said had most likely been taken out of context, and that it had become way too big a deal, and that he'd been sort of unfairly vilified for it... And anyway, he'd been in a snotty mood that night, so... But he didn't want to apologize or take it back, at the same time, because he kind of meant it, to an extent.

But, he was revising his opinion! He did really like a couple of women-helmed movies this year – like The Runaways!



(A 16-year-old child, and Joan fucking Jett as just another awkward teenager)

And I think, Bret Easton Ellis is kind of a dick. A stupid dick, who is really stupid.

But then it gets crazier! Lie to the strangers next time, Bret Easton Ellis!

Someone asks, says he heard from a friend that Ellis had been “haunted” after writing American Psycho, by the murderous protagonist, Patrick Bateman. True? (I know, blah-sounding question, right?)

Well, not by the character, but Ellis says he was haunted by the public reaction to the character. He called American Psycho “basically an autobiographical novel.” (!) He said it'd taken him years to be comfortable admitting that in front of an audience (!), but it was the truth. For years, when asked about this misogynistic, batshit horrifying character, he'd said he'd been hanging around a lot of Wall Street guys, and thinking about how their behavior related to what was going on in the larger society, and blah blah blah. But really, he said, the character was based on his own rage and loneliness (you know, while he was doing crystal every night with Jay MacInery and Tama Janowitz). He said he was angry because he was entering the world of adults, and finding out that all the consumer goods he'd been told would fill "the void" (barf), hadn't. He said relationships were hard, and girls seemed shallow.

("What's rarely said in all the furor over this novel is that it's a satire, a hilarious, repulsive, boring, seductive, and deadpan satire... Ellis is, first and last, a moralist. Under cover of his laconic voice, every word in his three novels to date springs from grieving outrage at our spiritual condition" - Henry Bean, Los Angeles Times Book Review. "The novelist's function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and [Ellis]'s done it brilliantly" - Fay Weldon, Washington Post.)

In a flash, I realize, OF COURSE, that Bret Easton Ellis is a total dick. First he writes horrible things that, it turns out, are not metaphors, but are in fact... you know... sexualized torture porn. Which he claimed were metaphors. Which we all bought as metaphors! I did some pointed re-reading:

“[S]he makes a futile dash for the front door, crying out... I'm leaping in front of her, blocking her escape, knocking her unconscious with four blows to the head from the nail gun. I drag her back into the living room, laying her across the floor... and nail three fingers on each hand, at random, to the wood by their tips. This causes her to regain consciousness and she starts screaming. After I've sprayed Mace into her eyes, mouth, into her nostrils, I place a camel-hair coat from Ralph Lauren over her head, which drowns out the screams, sort of. I keep shooting nails into her hands until they're both covered – nails bunched together, twisted over each other in places, making it impossible for her to try and sit up. I have to remove her shoes, which slightly disappoints me, but she's kicking at the floor violently, leaving black scuff marks on the stained white oak. During this period I keep shouting “You bitch” at her and then my voice drops to a raspy whisper and into her ear I drool the line “You fucking cunt.”

Finally, in agony, after I've taken the coat off her face, she starts pleading, or at least tries to, the adrenaline momentarily overpowering the pain. “Patrick oh god stop it please oh god stop hurting me...” ... The fingers I haven't nailed I try to bite off, almost succeeding on her left thumb which I manage to chew all the flesh off of, leaving the bone exposed, and then I Mace her, needlessly, once more ...

I take advantage of her helpless state and, removing my gloves, force her mouth open and with the scissors cut out her tongue, which I pull easily from her mouth and hold in the palm of my hand, warm, and still bleeding, seeming so much smaller than in her mouth, and I throw it against the wall, where it sticks for a moment, leaving a stain, before falling to the floor with a tiny wet slap. Blood gushes out of her mouth and I have to hold her head up so she won't choke. Then I fuck her in the mouth, and after I've ejaculated and pulled out, I Mace her some more (245-246).

When I read it, I remember thinking, RIGHT ON, that's exactly how society treats women! Metaphorically as well as too-often literally! Women as consumer goods to be used! Etc! On re-reading, however, I AM AN IDIOT. But more to the point, Bret Easton Ellis is a total dick. A misogynistic narcissist who writes only for himself and never attempts to grow as a writer-slash-person. He treats his fans like he's too cool to think for a second about what balconies might mean in his novels. (Duh, it's privilege and isolation, dumbass.) His style is BORING. He says terrible things about women. His only good novel's content is base - and not fun base, where lots of different kinds of people die for everyone's enjoyment, or where anyone dies for a really hard-hitting metaphor that increases awareness, but instead for no-good base reasons, where ex-girlfriend characters (and occasionally gay men) die because Bret Easton Ellis hates women and wants to masturbate to their pain.

There was no longer any point to asking my question or getting my book signed, so I left. Thanks for a charming evening, Bret Easton Ellis!

Things I've Been Reading About Mental Health!

Slate just published a review of Milton Rokeach's "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti," and it was not very interesting. The book appears to be a sort of philosophical justification for why a 1950s psychologist thought it might be interesting to put three schizophrenics who each believed they were Jesus into a ward together. That might've been interesting!

Instead, the 1950s psychologist lies about the schizophrenics' interactions with each other in order to make his experiment "meaningful." Then he fucks with the schizophrenics, sending them condescending letters from make-believe people in order to try and get them to stop believing they are Jesus. Then the schizophrenics stop reading the pretend letters and go on believing they are Jesus. Then, apparently, the book is over. Good job, book review! Running out to Powell's right now!

The part of the book that appears to be lies follows early meetings between the schizophrenics. Apparently, they weren't happy that they all shared the same identity.

"You oughta worship me, I'll tell you that!" one of the Christs yelled. "I will not worship you! You're a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!" another snapped back. "No two men are Jesus Christs. … I am the Good Lord!" the third interjected, barely concealing his anger.

This is clearly made-up nonsense directed at a reading audience that, logically enough for the 1950s, had probably never met a schizophrenic. (An audience that could see how Jesus 1 could walk up to Jesus 2 and say, "Hello, my name is Jesus. I like being the only son of God," instead of saying something like, "Mother says to stay away from the parasites. That tornado weapon was glinting?") It is intended to introduce a narrative about how each of us continuously constructs our identities: through logical interaction with our environment.



Its message is similar to Voltaire's story of Simon Morin (also mentioned in the Slate piece): Morin was a Christ-identified schizophrenic condemned to share a "mad-house" with "another fool, who called himself God the Father." Voltaire writes: "Simon Morin was so struck with the folly of his companion, that he acknowledged his own, and appeared for a time to have recovered his senses." So they let Morin out, and then, d'oh!, he remembered he was Jesus again, and then they burned him alive. These narratives emphasize Enlightenment logicality while ridiculing fanaticism, reminding us to ask questions toward finding truth, including the truth of who we are, in order to better ourselves and our society.

Which reminds me: Talking about mental illness is always talking about morality. It's always about "shoulds." What should we believe about this? What should be done about that (in order to uphold these values at the expense of those)?

Just sayin'.

Alvin Greene!

I was seeing this video...



... when I realized that it was the most informative political video ever made. It teaches us so many things! Alvin Greene teaches us so many things! Alvin Greene does, I mean, I mean, yes... a little... just a few things. Bronze booties!



One: Unemployed people accused of felony obscenity who are given $10,000 to file to campaign for Senate seats and then do absolutely no campaigning and yet magically go on to win the primary against an actual politician who isn't mired in scandal or actually very controversial at all and go on live TV to talk about how everyone knows they're a plant Politicians are allowed to do national press in their 1993 FAMILY REUNION T-SHIRTS!!!

Two: People selected to be Republican plants are given lawyers to stand just off camera and loudly whisper answers to interviewers' questions, but are not coached beforehand? About even the most innocuous questions?

Olbermann: What was your campaign like? Did you have a lot of meetings?

Greene: I had quite... I had just a few meetings. Not many.

I really like the fun that many journalists are having with transcribing Greene's interviews!

From the Washington Post:

"I'm the Democratic Party nominee," Greene says in the interview at his father's home on a lonely stretch of rural highway in central South Carolina. "The people have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina."

From Fox News:

"Last weekend was the first, I mean, I had friends and their friends help," Greene said, pausing several seconds. "I mean, I don't want to talk about the campaign. We get caught up in the campaign -- 'How he won?' -- whatever. I worked hard."

From Mother Jones:

[W]hen asked whether there was a specific person or circumstance that precipitated his decision to jump into politics, Greene simply replied: "nothing in particular...it's just, uh, nothing in particular."

Three: Just because you're a powerful political entity capable of winning primary elections by paying the campaign fees for a stooge with an upper-alphabet last name DOES NOT MEAN you are very picky about choosing your stooge!

UPDATE! Uh-oh! Here's Talking Points Memo, to rain on the fun parade:

"I don't believe he's a plant," [South Carolina State Rep. Bakari] Sellers told TPMmuckraker in an interview after his meeting with Greene. "I think he just kind of doesn't know what he's getting into... I don't think there's anything nefarious going on. I think he actually did save his money" ...

Todd Rutherford, another Democratic state representative who met with Greene today alongside Sellers, told TPMmuckraker, "Before I got to my third question, I could tell that something was awry," adding, "I don't know whether everything is OK."

Rutherford, an attorney, said that if Greene were his client, he would move for a mental evaluation. "If there's a joke he doesn't get the joke. If someone paid him to do this, they certainly exploited someone who is vulnerable. It's not even funny, it's just sad."

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? More importantly, WHEN WILL THERE BE MORE VIDEOS?

Kristen Stewart, An Apology

So we saw "Twilight" a while back. It was pretty hilarious. The best, as everyone already knows, is where Kristen Stewart walks into the science classroom and there's a well-placed fan, so her hair's all, AHHH! And she walks to her seat, and her mouth IS ALWAYS OPEN, and Kristen Stewart's gay boyfriend's like, SUPER COLD TO HER EVEN THOUGH SHE IS SOOOO HOTTTT??? And then she keeps her mouth open, because it is ALWAYS OPEN, and then she sort of salivates and moves her tongue around lustily inside her mouth, and lustily up against her teeth, while her tongue glistens inside her mouth, glistens with saliva and lust, and we were like, TOO MUCH MOUTH SCIENCE!

And then I saw that children on the internet had also noticed that Kristen Stewart, who is probably filed under "Rosetta Stone" in Paul Ekman's My Documents, has problems expressing emotion with the parts of her face that are not her open mouth. One internet person, who should have been doing her pre-calc and studying hard for her spring formal, did this, instead:



Which is not nearly as interesting as this, which, presumably, is the work of a separate internet person who has allowed her love of Jesus Christ to lapse in favor of thinking hard about Kristen Stewart:



Indeed, Kristen Stewart does appear to have the ability to close her mouth.

But then, yesterday, I saw "Adventureland." It is the kind of movie that makes forty-five-year-old movie critics say things like, "Yes, you've seen much of it before... But Stewart makes you care anyway. This, folks, is an actress" in response to this:



But then, during the seven minutes I gave a shit about Kristen Stewart and the great Open Mouth: Sexy or Creepy? debate, which occured about halfway through "Adventureland," around the time it was becoming clear that it's not ok to make fun of Kristen Stewart because there is clearly something wrong with her mouth function... and then I accidentally googled "kristen stewart mouth problem?" you know, just to see, and up came this page, at igossip.com.

"Kristen Stewart has a serious problem! *see photos this page

"Here is a photo of Kristen from when she filmed Twilight vs. how she looks now on Eclipse (pic with hat on). At the risk of being mean, something is wrong with Kristen.



"She looks so changed and has gained weight lately. This is highly strange considering that her looks are very important to her career and getting a chance to act in the future. Something is up with her and the warning signs are there.

Is anyone looking out for her?"

It was at this point that I realized, Kristen Stewart's mouth problem was always only subterfuge. Robert Pattinson's hair was always the interesting one.





SO INTERESTING!!! I can't wait to pay actual dollars to see him on the big screen!

DVD: "The Informant!"

Matt Damon's Mark "Corky" Whittaker is a happy, lucky, corporate guy. Colorful ties, tan suits. In his dealings with other people, Whittaker is affable, agreeable, persuasive. In his head, however, there's a running, diarrhetic stream of interesting ice-breakers he never uses; he's too familiar with the way conversations with his Boss, his Co-workers, even his Wife, should conform to really let himself go. (At one point, Whittaker thinks, "Polar bears cover their noses before they pounce on a seal. How do polar bears know their noses are black? Did they look in the water one day, see their reflection and say, ‘Man, I’d be invisible if it wasn’t for that thing'... That's a lot of thinking for a bear".)He's a creative guy, very interested in the details of what's going on around him; these, too, he keeps to himself, to his own eventual detriment.



Soderberg's "The Informant!" views Whittaker as a pathologically splintered individual. It's not until his job forces him to take on a third self, however, that his world begins to tip its axis. The film is the true story of a guy who, for no explicitly discernible reason, decided one day to expose his company's crimes, and then set out to single-handedly gather all of the intelligence needed to do so. Whittaker spied on and taped his bosses and the bosses of several other companies for two and a half years. In that time, he lost his ability to maintain an idea of objective reality.

But the character's reality too closely mirrors "real" reality for others to view him as suffering from "real" mental illness. Because he presents well, appears (for the most part) happy and engaged, and seems to mostly know what he's doing, we buy him as a "regular guy."

It isn't until a third or so of the way into the movie that it becomes clear that Whittaker's completely bonkers. He lies all the time, to everyone he comes into contact with, about everything, even when there's no reason to lie. The anecdote about the magazine story about the polar bear? Think about it for a second. He's lying to himself!

Whittaker's story could've gone tragic, or even tragicomic. But it didn't! It stays true to where its protagonist's at, and is a pretty happy little movie.

Thank you, nice movie! Smiley emoticon here!

Lost: The End

I am very proud of my Fruedian unconscious today, because last night, I had a dream where I figured out how they would tie up all the mysteries of "Lost." There was a narrative arc and everything! In my "Lost" dream, this is what happens:

First, the Muppets finally realized that the statue had been destroyed.



They were mad.



So they all came down to the island, wearing chain-mail. Not scary chain-mail, just Muppet chain-mail. And maybe they had a flag. And they were like, "Hey you guys! You broke our statue! And that was the only thing holding the moon in place!"



So then the moon fell down.



And then the Muppets got out of the spaceship and swam with the dolphins!



And probably sang the moon song:



But with the dolphins!

Because that is the only way to end "Lost" that would not make me really really up-tight about all the time I've wasted trying to make the mysteries add up and watching new mysteries appear and reading about how they're not going to tie up all the loose ends! If you're not going to tie up all the loose ends, just bring in the deus ex Muppets! Then everyone's happy :)

Anthropologie Spring 2010 cataVOMIT

Anthropologie's buyers have, this season, banked on the public's willingness to believe that The 80s Are Tacky Are IN, No Matter What. Welcome to Bizarro (UGLY) world:



Egregious. I mean, lush loveliness! Everyone looks good in this! Especially when summering in the 80s! Wear it with your fanciest 2002 gladiator sandals! To a Save the Rainforest Party As Inspired by "Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest"! Ton Loc, what up! Because: This season... our buyer got IRONICAL. But not ironical in an awesome, Funky Cold Medina kind of way, apparently.

This is their COVER look:



So South American! So political! The perfect cut! Wear it! NOW!



Your choice! Mustard-floral swimwear, or tent-length wonder-dress!

Anthropologie: Officially for old people.

Lost to the Future

So...

So the physicist wunderkind who was somehow involved with dangerous espionage thugs? This physicist says, "If you blow up the island with a hydrogen bomb, then the island will never have existed, and it won't make your plane crash, and you'll be just fine," and everyone's like, "Sounds about right"?

So then everyone works real hard to make sure the hydrogen bomb goes off, with no discussion at all, even a little?



And then the hydrogen bomb goes off, and it turns out that hydrogen bomb explosions, as everyone in the Marshall Islands knows, doesn't actually destroy anything, so much as it creates three alternate universes? In one universe, everything is CGI and the island is under water? In the next, everyone's still stuck on the island? And then there's one where the plane didn't crash, but the island's still there, above water-level?

And then, in the everything's-the-same universe on the island, Sayid's bleeding, and Jacob, who's dead, appears to Hurley, and gives him a guitar case, and tells him to bring Sayid to a special temple? And Hurley waits for like an hour for another friend to die and get buried, and then tells everyone about the Jacob thing? And everyone's like, "Right on"? And the medical doctor doesn't even try any CPR or anything, or even check Sayid out, until they've gotten him to the magical temple? Which they've never seen before? Because the Smoke Monster kept them from exploring the island? Wait, have they even checked its periphery? Because, remember from "Gilligan's Island," when they forgot to check the periphery, and it turned out they were really on Hawaii the whole time?


(Possibly Hawaii)

And then, in the temple, they meet some Chinese guy with a long beard who does bonsai and martial arts and relies on a magic hourglass, because that's what's up with all people of Asian descent?

And then Hurley gives the temple guy the guitar case, and it turns out it holds an ankh symbol, like in "Logan's Run," as in, "SANCTUARY"? Inside the guitar case is the symbol for sanctuary?



And the temple guy breaks the ankh and finds an ancient-looking scroll that tells him to help Sayid live? And then he drowns Sayid?

And then John Locke turns into the Smoke Monster or Man in Black (Johnny Cash?), and there are too many metaphors to make sense? And my head hurts from all of the attempting to make this show make sense?

And then, in the alternate reality at LAX, an entry-level customer service personnel lets Jack know that they've lost his dad's coffin, and they don't know when it's coming in, because they don't know "exactly" where it is?

And then Jack, a medical doctor, asks stranger John Locke why he's paralyzed, and it's irreversible, and the MD says "Nothing's irreversible"? And then they exchange names and Jack the doctor's all, "Nice to meet you"??? Oh shit! We're going to need a bigger CUSTOMER SERVICE OVERHAUL and BESIDSE MANNER and also HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION!!! (This guy's whole life, nobody's ever like, "Oh yeah, Locke, right, 'Some thoughts concerning education,' right on, heh heh, I bet you get that all the time"? Dude's name is JOHN LOCKE!)

And then, back in the other alternate reality, Jack the doctor is about to beat up some people with his mad academic doctor skills - namely his FISTS - when Sayid wakes back up, like hours later? And then



I fucking HATE this show.

DVD: "The Matrix"

“The Matrix” is the WORST. I finally got around to seeing it and, well, WTF? “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” was so much better than this.



But I'm trying to be more positive in life. So here are my favorite things about "The Matrix."

My favorite’s all the scenes where Lawrence Fishburn says things. Great voice!

My second favorite’s the scene where the baby British Krishna’s all, “There is no spoon.” Which concept Keanu immediately gets, it's way obvious, no duh. However, when it’s important, like when the train’s coming at him, he decides to forget that rule, and has to run away. Five minutes later, he’s all, “Wait, now it’s REALLY important,” so he remembers that rule – but the rule completely bores him, he’s so over that rule, YAWN, no fun to be had here!



Smile!

My third favorite’s where he’s never used any of his muscles but pretty quickly becomes JCVD. Only without being awesome.

My fourth favorite’s how there’s all these “Wizard of Oz” and “Alice in Wonderland” references, yet a) it doesn’t all turn out to be a dream, and b) it turns out Keanu really does need his ruby red phone call, and couldn’t go home all along. I love when dumb people make unstable references.

My fifth favorite’s how all the evil Ray Ban drones are all, “You’re guilty of every computer crime known to man.” In the future do they wait until you’ve done all of the crimes? Or were they just waiting for him to be contacted by Lawrence Fishburn so they could be all like, “What was it like working with Brando?” If the latter’s the case, why not treat him like he’s really important, and keep an eye on him so he can’t get the computer alien out of his stomach five minutes later? And then the evil guys turn out to be robots? Robots who get angry – and bear their British teeth – and then they get scared, and run away? Why would robots get angry or run away? Robots who can go through trains and come out unscathed, I mean – regular robots who cry and have relationships in the 1950s, I understand why they’d run away – cos they’re secretly metaphors for the Cold War.

My sixth favorite’s how at the end Carrie Ann Moss goes to kiss him back to life and it’s like, Whoa, it’s like a reverse/ultra-meta Sleeping Beauty... except just like that story, it’s the boy who does all the adventures and saves the day while the girl is all nurturing and barely kills anyone and wears a leather bustier because that’s comfortable?

My seventh favorite’s how we know the world has somehow shifted at the end because Keanu has adapted really good posture in the final scene. Seriously. Re-watch it, if only for the POSTURE MAGIC. (One of two scenes heavy on the shitty metal music? Because in the future shitty metal music from ten years ago becomes awesome? Because the Matrix makes us stupid. Right on, meta-style.)

My eighth favorite’s the leather and sunglasses, because, well, that’s pretty fucking goofy. Also the terrible underground leather clubs where cool kids come to party. That scene was the best.

My ninth favorite's the fact that people write theses on this movie and Baudrillard, and this movie and Foucault, and this movie at ALL. Because the philosophy’s so subtle, and insightful, and really needs extrapolation. “Get it, right, it’s like we’re ALL constRUED!”

My tenth favorite's that it's over. Yay, over!

Pursuit o' Happiness

I was reading Rob Harvilla's Village Voice piece on the inscrutability of Phoenix's lyrics:

I am still happily incapable of extracting a single coherent lyrical thought from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Thomas Mars might as well actually be singing in French... The fuck is a meteor tower, and why is it overrated? How do you tease someone with underage? "The octagon logo had to rip it up"? And, seriously, jugulate?

...and I realized, all the songs that make me happiest are completely independent of their lyrics. (However, all the best sad or angry songs are strongly tied to their lyrical content.)



You ever listen to the actual words to "Hey Yeah"? Me neither, til I accidentally did a couple of weeks ago. Before the insane part everybody remembers ("Lend me some sugar! I am your neighbor!" and "Shake it like a Polaroid picture!"), it's pretty fucking dark.

My baby don't mess around
because she loves me so
and this I know for sure.
But does she really wanna
but can't stand to see me
walk out the door.
Don't try to fight the feelin'
because the thought alone is killing me right now.
Thank god for mom and dad
for sticking too together
'Cause we don't know how.

You think you've got it.
Oh, you think you've got it.
But got it just don't get it
Til there's nothing at all.
We get together.
Oh, we get together.
But separate's always better
when there's feelings involved.
If what they say is "Nothing is forever"
then what makes love the exception?
So why are we so in denial
when we know we're not happy here?

Y'all don't want me here you just wanna dance.

Extra hugs for Andre 300 stat!!!

At the extra-jubilant end of the song, Andre 3000 asks the boys what's cool, and then asks the girls to shake it, completely up-ending the earlier earnestness of the song; he knows we'd like to not hear about his pain, but would rather listen to echoes of masculine bravado and feminine sexuality. Which is pretty fucking sad.

Evidence B in the happy-music-isn't-happy debate: Of Montreal's "For Our Elegant Caste":

Our bodies became what has been him so really turned off -
became a freaky permutation -
something like voltron.
Then I was wrapped in discourse with the magazine reader.
The mutual conclusion was I'm not worth knowing
cause I'm probably dead.
So I'm exposed but no solution
La la la la!

The fuck is that about?

Who cares, long as it makes me dance a little while I'm walking to the breakfast place with the really good spinach eggs?

DVD: "Jennifer's Body"

Ok, so Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried are "biffs," with Claire's necklaces to prove it? And some evil rock band comes and (spoiler?) tries to sacrifice Megan Fox for money, but then it turns out Megan Fox isn't a virgin so the demon they're calling gets to live inside her body? Which pretty much makes her a vampire who needs to kill people to suck up their blood so she can function and go to the spring formal and all?



And when Amanda Seyfried figures it all out, Megan Fox comes over to her house and makes out with her? And Amanda Seyfried's all like, cool, let's make out, with lots of close-ups of our tongues, because apparently I am a lesbian? And then all of a sudden, Seyfried's like, Whoa, "what's going on?" And Fox is all like, "I was reverse-sacrificed, so now I have to suck blood, etc"? And then Seyfried goes over to her boyfriend's house, and has sex with him, whilst Fox lies in wait for Seyfried's emo friend, who shows up and then Fox seduces/eats his stomach? And then Seyfried dumps her boyfriend? And then Fox eats Seyfried's boyfriend? And then Seyfried's all, "You were never a very good friend"? And then Seyfried puts a stake through Megan Fox's chest, and Fox is all like, "My tit?" And Seyfried is all like, "No, your heart"? Because girls get confused about the meaningfulness of anatomy? Because anatomy is destiny? And then Fox (and the demon) dies, and then Seyfried goes to a mental health hospital/jail, and then she escapes, and then she kills the evil rock band? And this is supposed to be awesome and insightful and feminist?

It is not awesome. Except for the part where the evil rock band sings "867-5309" right before they begin stabbing Jennifer's Body. That part is hilarious!!!

LOST!!!

So it's out of focus, coming towards you slowly, gradually coming into focus... and then maybe it speeds up, coming towards you, because it's only in focus for a split second before it goes out of focus again, and then it's gone.



GENIUS!!!

I cannot WAIT for it to be aliens or otherwise sloppily resolved!!! Because, what could go wrong when you decide to blow up the past in order to save the future, because, the butterfly effect? (I hope Charlie comes back and his mariachi band is the most powerful army in Norway!)

Best. Show. Ever.

DVDs I saw last weekish

"Paranormal Activity." It's in the grand tradition of "Cabin Fever," "Blair Witch Project," and that one where there's sharks but the people keep arguing until the shark gets them and then you are happy. Yay, everyone is dead! But why not show the bloodbath? I WANT MORE BLOODBATH! Or just SOME! That was a very anti-climactic ending!

"Paranormal Activity" is also in the grand tradition of the Neckline Dictates Character truism/directorial laziness. For girls, I mean. In this movie, the girl, Katie, only wears scoop-neck sleevless tops with medium-width straps.



In this way we know that she's fun and naive and sexy-but-not-slutty (one inch less strap-width and we'd have a whole different picture). Katie, with her wife-beaters and boxer shorts and "my toenail polish is chipped, don't take pictures of my feet today" with her childish, submissive accent, even when she's arguing, and her readiness to just drop the argument, and her needing to be possessed by a demon before she can stand up to her stupid boyfriend and break his stupid fucking camera - she reminds me of a certain kind of girl I knew in college. Girls who didn't really express themselves very much, but knew what kinds of things they wanted to wear. Girls who really wanted to be The Girlfriend, and went tanning, and slept in their make-up, and had really boring boyfriends with really nice biceps, and everybody was nice to one another - unless some girl showed up looking slutty.

Every lady neckline tells a story. It's like in "Gossip Girl," where all the different girls have their own special decolletage. Have you noticed?

This is Blair:




This is Serena:



This is Vanessa:



Blair, in this way, constantly reminds us of her need to be in control, and her vulnerability is especially poignant when she does button down, or, you know, do a strip tease at her true love's burlesque parlor that he owns.

Serena, on the other hand, her whole moral dilemma, which she constantly bumps up against, is that although she is "hot," deep down she is really a "good girl." Difficult conundrum time! In the second season, she meets a guy who wants to have an open relationship, and she tells Blair she's cool with that, "you know I always wished I could live in the 60s." No-nonsense Blair is like, "You love the idea of sandals and peasant tops, but at heart you're a prude just like me." Blair ends up being right. In another episode, a super-cool model lady tells Serena she's too fun and hot to be held back by Blair's needs and moralizing, so Serena hits the town... only to discover that, at base, she is a homebody. A homebody whose glamorous neckline will forever get in her way of being the terrible, stilted character she really is.

Vanessa is a wanna-be boho whose dangly jewlery hide the most tedious neckline ever. So there's that.

I saw another movie recently, because it had Michael Cera in it. It was so boring, we had to rent it twice.



"Paper Heart" is all about whether its protagonist, Charlene, will ever believe in semantics. In this film, she barely speaks to the guy she likes, and mopes around various cities thinking about "love" and speaking to outtakes from the documentary portions of "When Harry Met Sally." Charlene's character wears high, sloppy necklines. She says, "I want to be his girlfriend, but I don't want to be The Girlfriend... I am one of the guys!"

Which makes sense. Why would you want to be a Girl, or hang out with any girls (Charlene exclusively hangs out with "dudes"), or wear shirts with detectable necklines, or even call yourself a Girl, if all the media kept telling you that girls are like Katie and Blair, and girl moralism is all coded in what you wear, and You Will Be Judged, and you'd better not veer off the path of Normal Girl Stuff, or else you'll end up in an Edith Wharton book, or sleeping with the junior senator of Serenatown.

Safer to be an expressionless "one of the guys" with no visible emotions, being terribly, terribly precious in your affluent creativity.

Whatever. I'm just saying: