I Heart Adventure, Where's My Story?

NPR - I love you a lot lately. Your coverage of Iran has been riveting, your All Things Considered have been fresh and delightful to listen to, and your afternoon interviews (Sally Field! Woody Allen!) have made me wish my lunchtime break was so much longer. And even better than all of that is this PERFECT letter by Linda Holmes asking Pixar to holla back at the gals who love their films, and would be pumped to see our own adventures and stories projected up there on the big screen.

Of the ten movies you've released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."

And Up...oh, Up has Ellie, who I could have watched forever. Seen only in flashbacks to the main story, Ellie is warm and hilarious, ambitious and fearless, and then gone for most of the movie. She provides the engine for the story, in many ways, but it's an old man and a little boy who actually get to hit the gas.

I finally got to see Up last Friday and wowza! I loved everything about it, from the perfect non clichéd talking animals, to elderly fisticuffs, to the imaginative adventure itself, it was pretty perfect. But, sigh, I agree with Ms. Holmes. It needed more Ellie, or even better, Ellie needs her own film - one where she gets to live on and kick selfish old man ass all the while managing to be fitfully funny. Those moments in the beginning of the film where she was featured as a child where so entertaining and made me laugh the hardest. It reminded me of my younger days creeping around my block, notebook in hand, copying down the private rituals of my unsuspecting neighbors, all the while channeling my hero Harriet the Spy. I held on to every one of Ellie's moments so tightly as I watched it, knowing (from previews/reviews) that I wouldn't get to revel in her (my) young spunkiness for long. So I join Ms. Holmes in asking in a my most affable tone, Pixar? Can you give us some Coralines and save your Collettes? And while you're at it, can she be okay with being single? A lot of us are!

There's Refuge in Corners, All My Posessions in Boxes

Moving sucks for many reasons, for me some of the suckiest highlights are

A) My couch not fitting through the door, thus it was trashed
- and -
B) Comcast's inability to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to fix the friggin' internet which comes and goes from my apartment like the wind

I choose to blame my major behindness in writing on these main factors. Having to write in a camping chair, bed, or atop a rubbermaid container is as easy as trying to tackle the task in a moving car...no impossible, just incrediably uncomfortable and distracting.

So why don't I stop bitching and instead catch you up on the real haps, eh? My thoughts are just as scattered as my possessions these days, as I try to gather and organize both, take a gander at some pop culture things I found fascinating or infruiating in the last few weeks:

Movies:

"17 Again" starring Zac Efron and the adorable Matthew Perry (does me thinking Perry is the cuter of the two age me, or make me ambrosial?) looks like your average, my-life-sucks-at-this-age-why-not-try-another-age-via-unnamed-magic fluff movie. But according to community blogger Lauren on Oh No They Didn't it's rotten with sexist absintence only messages. Efron makes impassioned speeches about girls respecting themselves, and preaches that peeps shouldn't sex it up until they are ready to have that baby. Yikes and ewww! Read full post here.

Everyone is still gaga over Star Trek, as they should be, but in the hussle to call it the greatest prequel/summer movie/Star Trek remake everrrrr are we forgetting the women? Melissa over at Women and Hollywood ponders the insignificance of the three main female characters who can be broken down into little more than wife, mother, and girlfriend. Read full post here.

57 Days until Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince...OMFG...the wait is more painful than the Sectumsempra curse. If you haven't seen the full length preview yet, you must now at the official site here. I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic becuase the last one was so not great, but holy cats, how can I not believe that this looks like the best and most amazing HP yet?! It seems to have everything. I'm surprised how much the preview showed of the end, and gaaaah...drool. I need to stop now.

Television:

Here is a super cute article I found in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about Amy Poehler and the unique quality she brings to all of her characters, "cockeyed optimism," they call it. If you feel bad from time to time about the lack of females in comedy (like I tend to) read this piece and savor this line: "...you always felt in good hands during a Poehler skit; unlike some of the other performers—the men of recent years come to mind—she never seemed sloppy or on the verge of being downright awful." I feel a triumphent leap in my heart when I read it, I hope you do too.

Now use that power you harnessed by reading that last bit and try not to reach into cyber space with the intention of strangling Dirk Benedict after you get a gander at this piece titled "Starbuck: Lost in Castration" he wrote about Battlestar Galactica. Benedict played Starbuck in the orginal series, and he's back now to say a whole handful of pro-sexism shit and if you don't like it than tough, he's a cigar chomping, ass grabing man, and that's the way of the/his world. It's unbearable that such backwards talk is being bantied around about such a progressive and important show. Get a snifter of this: "There was a time – I know I was there – when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result. " Le Sigh.

Rabbit Write discusses the controversial Oprah episode that encouraged mom's to buy their daughters' vibrators in order to teach them about self stimulation. While I agree with Rabbit that actually buying the vibrator for your kid is over steping bodily autonomy boundries, I will argue that there is nothing unatural to using tools to get the job done. She posts, "...it would seem that masturbation would be a natural and personal discovery. Isn’t that precisely what it should be? Quick fixes won’t help your teenagers develop positive relationships with their bodies. The beauty of healthy sex cannot be taught by an orgasm machine." Au contraire, a vibrator or any other sex toy is not an unnatural quick fix, it's part of the whole fix. And of course these kinds of toys can teach healthy sex. Healthy sex comes when one understands their own body and what makes them feel good. It's important to learn about yourself in many different ways. Besides, orgasm machine? Really, that's the word choice we're going with? Vibrators only vibrate, the user is in control of the speed, penetration, weight of touch, where it goes, and how much interaction it has in the masturbation process. It's not like those fetish sites where the girl is sumissive to some bizarre contraption. Let's not be over dramatic here.

Okay, it's good to get some of those out of my system. Now, back to posting things on a more regular basis...

Now There's More Than One Magical Thing Happening the Second Week of July

As if the anticipation of the sixth installment of Harry Potter wasn't already giving me heart palpitations, but OMG , finally finally finally The State is being released on DVD. According to TV Shows on DVD this long overdue release is slated for July 14th (gah! only one day before HP searches for horcruxes!). So now if you missed the sketch comedy show the first time around, and weren't cool enough to buy a few selected episodes on VHS tape, this is your chance to get with it. Do you like Wet Hot American Summer, Stella, and/or Reno 911!? The genius of all of 'em was birthed from The State. Grab your fattest Sharpie and mark your calenders for 7/14/09 so next time I tell you I'm seeing Stella at 6th and I Synagogue you act a little more jealous (I was seriously disapointed when I said I stood a foot from Micheal Showalter and you were like "Who?"). If you can't have Piggy-Shoes that make piggy sounds every time you step down on the heel, than The State DVDs are defintely the next best thing!

Sex, Drugs, and Rupert Grint?

Yes Please.



Sad to say that this doesn't have US distribution yet. To learn a teensy bit more about Cherry Bomb, check out Worst Previews description of the film.

Before "Stuff White People Like" Gets Their Snarky Hands On It...Enjoy This Trailer Made Especially for You

Sometimes life hands you a movie starring John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Cathrine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Jim Gaffigan, Allison Janney, and Maggie Gyllenhaal and it's directed by Sam Mendes and it has animated title cards, and some soft folk music and it's about having no direction in your early 30s. And wow, you love the idea of it, but when it's clearly the hipster movie of the year (move over Juno), you are already dreading:

A) Hating it and having people ask you why constantly
OR
B) Loving it with all with the knowledge that it was totally marketed directly to you

Here ya go...try not to become mildly obsessed with Johnny K's beard, it's only there because they knew you would love it:

She'll Steal Your Eyes and Eat Your Soul: Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Drop Everything and Go See Coraline NOW!

Coraline (released this past weekend) is quite possibly one of the best movies I've ever seen. I recommend you see it immediately, if for no other reason then to shun He's Just Not That Into You. Need some more convincing? Check it out:

1. The lead and title action adventure hero in this story is a spunky, tough, interesting young girl. She likes to get muddy, go exploring, chase after mice, and she doesn't scare easy. Coraline doesn't just let things happen to her, or wander around helpless, nor does she unknowingly and accidentally defeat or narrowly escape the villain. Armed with her wits, determination, strong spirit, and kick ass I-mean-business hat she fights her way out of a bad situation that keeps getting worse, and saves some souls while she's at it.

2. Coraline has a couple of sidekicks that provide some key backup once in awhile, but she has plenty of scenes of autonomous badassery. Sidekicks include a cat who speaks on occasion (so rad!) and a boy who's wimpy, mumbly, and never becomes a love interest (sweet!), though he does come through in the end. I like to think he was inspired by Coraline's tuffness.

3. This movie is absolutely terrifying and equally as beautiful. The original story (by Neil Gaiman) is clever, haunting, and relentless. The stop motion animation makes one long for more films with such art and talent lovingly displayed in them. I would also say that the stop motion is so much a part of the creepiness in this film that it serves as another character. Though many of the images in this film are based on those found in Gaimen's graphic novel, they are their own, cooked up in a new way by the animators, and none of them are anything like you've ever seen or imagined. They have danced in my head for the past few days, and if I never saw this movie again, I doubt the memory of them could ever dim.

4. I did note the terrifying aspect just moments ago, but special attention should be paid to the fact that this movie is really downright scary. I imagine there are some over-stimulated-by-torture-porn cynics who would argue with me, but this story is scary because it's new and there are no conventions to base it on. You can't see what's around the next corner because this movie is not limited by reality or budget (stop animation is amazingly cheaper than computer animation). Just the idea that in your house somewhere there could be a door leading to a more exciting world not totally unlike your own, but by the time you get there you learn your eyes are going to be stolen, button replacements will be sown on, and your soul will get eaten?! That's the scariest plot in the world. Also this movie is really into never letting up. Each time I thought she had escaped, something even more suspenseful, and insane would happen...I was gasping for breath though a lot of this film.

5. You can see it in 3-motherfuckin-D!!! So very cool.

Go see Coraline, but be careful what you wish for!

* photo from Shane Prigmore

Thank the Universe for Peter Travers

Near the top on my "creepy crushes on older men" list right under Joe Biden, is Peter Travers, the hippest, funniest, most thoughtful and analytical movie critic I've ever read. I can always depend on this Rolling Stone reviewer, mostly because we tend to agree, but better than that is that he looks not just at film devices and nuances when he writes, but he often delves into deeper cultural analysis, the way someone writing for a more specialized magazine would.

This weekend, he was the only mainstream critic I could depend on to review the mind numbingly awful "He's Just Not That Into You" as "misogynist" and "women-bashing." Other critics mainly focused on the "young, spoiled, self-involved women in various stages of self-deception," and how their problem is "that they are interested in only (a) the opposite sex, (b) dating and (c) marriage."

The New York Times gets credit for lamenting strong women characters such as those from "Thema and Louise, " and also for noting this is a movie about straight, upper class, white dating packaged to look one size fits all. In the end, though, this review loses it's strength too, as it whimsically describes the films "better" points.

So let's drop the "it's just a movie (review)" mentality and think about how shitty it is that most critics complained the about the stupid, vapid, annoying women in this film, really letting themselves get disgusted at the women themselves. They didn't complain about portrayal of the women characters thanks to the if-it-wasn't-for-stereotypes-we'd-be-jobless screenwriters, or the lack of an imaginative director. I didn't read any bitching about the gull of the original writer of the book this tripe was based on. They're just pissed at these dumb women adding to what I can only assume will be a "yeah I hate women like that" backlash against the film.

Yeah, this movie sucks; it's a tired plot, with unfunny jokes, and it boasts an only mildly likable cast of actors and actresses. But mostly this movie sucks because it was based on an offensive, stereotypical book that sucks, and was made by people who suck (anyone seen Licensed to Wed recently...). It's not because women suck. Some of us like to shop, some like to decorate, some like to date, but all of us have a million other things we're interested in, too. It's not us or our preferences that are annoying and stupid and sucky, it's this worthless film and the equally worthless criticism of this film.