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: