Last night Mike and I got Popeyes’ fried chicken and rented Ghost World. It was very good, although it depressed me a bit. I wish I had something more meaningful to say about it. It was that kind of movie, the kind you feel like warrants a discussion or commentary or appreciation. I won’t be a movie reviewer any time soon.

Maybe it says something that it is the first movie I have seen in a long time during which I haven’t fallen asleep.

tags: media consumption, movies

Peter Jennings was my favorite network news anchor, hands down. My family watched ABC World News Tonight during supper at my grandparents’ house for as long as I can remember. I was so sure that I would see him on television for at least one more time after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Peter Jennings couldn’t die of lung cancer. But he did; no one is invincible I guess. It’s sad, and also makes me worry a bit about Katie and some of Mike’s friends who smoke. They aren’t stupid, and it’s their choice. But I don’t want to them to die early, in the middle of a good thing.

I went on an adventure downtown yesterday with Chrissy. We went to Georgetown and window-shopped. I had an exceptionally good hamburger at Johnny Rocket’s.

In the evening I gave Maurie a haircut and we got dinner at Moby Dick’s. We saw “Mad Hot Ballroom”. Very cute, very impressive, very feel good.

tags: friends, media consumption, movies, pensieve

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday with Brittney, Christina and Gali. Well, as it turned out, not actually with them (they all came in too late and I was too timid to keep saving 3 seats once the lights dimmed). I was a little distracted while I was watching it, first because of a really painful stomach ache and then because after I came back from the bathroom I couldn’t find my bag on my seat where I’d left it. (Okay, so maybe I was being naive, but:
1. I had my car keys and wallet in my pockets at the time
2. I really really had to go to the bathroom
3. I had this silly idea everyone at the theatre was a passionate lefty, sharing lots of views in common with me, and that none of these lovely people would steal my precious patchwork knitted bag.)
No one had taken my bag as I discovered at the end of the movie, but it was in the back of my mind the whole time.

In other words, I wasn’t paying full attention to the movie.

But sitll, have some thoughts. Having just read Dude, Where’s my country? while we were in England, and hearing comments from Fred and Katie about it almost every day since we’ve come back, I felt like I knew what to expect. And I did, I wasn’t really surprised at all. It was the Sept 11/Iraq/Bush sucks version of Bowling for Columbine. The voiceovers, music, interviews, pointless activities (the ice cream truck reading of the Patriot Act to congressmen in D.C. reminded me of the Canadian “they don’t lock their doors!” segment of Bowling) were all familiar. You probably couldn’t make a more entertaining or dramatic or funny or accessible documentary about the subject. So in that sense, it was good. But it makes me cringe how Moore present such a blatantly slanted view of the world, and revert to the same inflammatory tactics that people are always accusing right wingnuts of. It seemed like the movie would be a lot more convincing if it was more balanced. I think I’m envisioning something like 60 Minutes where they always at least try to interview and cover all sides of the story even though at the conclusion they may lean towards one.

Blather blather.

tags: media consumption

And so it goes, the last last day of school. Very unreal, I can’t really comprehend that I won’t be going back again for a full day. Every period I kept sort of thinking “there it goes, this is the last ______ class I will ever have.” I have to go back to school next week for two exams and graduation rehearsal and whatnot, and still have homework and studying to do, but it’s pretty much over.

This afternoon I went to see Mean Girls with Mike, Ethan and Matt. It was a pretty good movie and surprsingly not bad at all seeing a Lindsay Lohan vehicle with three guys. After that, though, the day sort of fizzled (I seem to really like using variants of the word “fizzle” lately) out. I took the bus home around 9. It’s weird, I’ve probably spent every Friday and Saturday night for the past 4 years at home online like I am right now except for last few months. And it was always sort of anticlimactic after waiting the whole week for school to finish and having nothing to do at home. But now it’s worse, because I got used to being out of the house during this time and being occupied. Now I have nothing to do, and haven’t just been waiting a whole school week for this day, I’ve been waiting 4 years. Why do people look forward to this?

I had to grin when the bell rang at the end of seventh period and a flood of yells came in from the hallways. But that’s about the extent of my “school is over” happiness. I just feel sort of blank. School is what has defined me for 12 years, who am I kidding…I’m nobody, I don’t know what I like or how to spend time or myself at all.

Oh well, for now I guess there isn’t much to do but take it day by day. Tonight, clean my room and read more of Lies. Tomorrow, drop off two rolls of film at CVS, probably drop by Bethesda Music and maybe take some photos of the place and Fred and Katie. At some point I guess I should write my Invisible Man reflection paper, maybe at this point I’m in a mopey/retrospective enough to relate to the gloomy, nutsy Invisible Man.

And after all my two hours of work yesterday, Katie claims her computer is just as slow as before. So much for my sense of accomplishment.

tags: media consumption

w00t I have had a successful track record in the past few days combating boredom. On Friday just before I felt like I was going to go insane sitting staring at the computer monitor doing nothing, I escaped the doldrums by way of Maddie. I went with her to pick up her brother from school, go to Barnes and Noble’s to get a birthday present for her dad and then watched a Pearl Jam dvd at her house. She convinced me to come see Peter Pan at school with her and Ashleigh, and I let myself be convinced because I really didn’t want to go back home.

Peter Pan wasn’t very good. Maurie is on running crew, and she told us that they had only rehearsed the entire play all the way through about two times before Friday. People stumbled on their lines, some of the set changes were excessively long and props broke. Worst of all, the smoke machine was used two or three times at points during the play and either they were malfunctioning or too much smoke was blown out, because it had the effect of creating a blurry gray wall between the stage and the audience which also made everyone’s eyes water. The flying was awesome, though. Too bad that it seems like it was at the expense of the general quality of the production.

Yesterday I didn’t do anything during the day except for guitar as usual, a chocolate milkshake from Jamba Juice and bird sitting. I remembered that I was supposed to go to Peter Pan with Brittney, who had bought at ticket Friday at school. Oops. My mom also wanted to go with Lisa, mom of my next door neighbor who was one of the mermaids and Jane-Wendy’s-daughter. The second performance was better than the first at least, but it was still frustratingly rusty.

I left at intermission to go see “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” with Mike at Landmark. It was weird, but as weird as I expected it was going to be based on “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich.” Amusing to see Elijah Wood as a wussy cad and not Frodo, and same for Jim Carrey in a serious role.

tags: media consumption

Was expecting another sucky Friday but it turned out pretty well. I left school early for a doctor’s apointment, came home and made a mix cd, and then played DDR with Maurie for half an hour. We decided to go see “Miracle” which was incredibly corny and not half as good as any of the Mighty Ducks movies. Katie called my cell phone during the movie, which doesn’t happen very often. So I went out of the theatre to call her back. She was home from work and wanted to go see a “real” movie at 10. “Miracle” ended around 9:30 so Maurie and I sprinted from the theatre to the parking lot, drove to Katie’s house, picked her up and went back to Bethesda to see “Monster.” It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but that was a good thing. I thought it was really well done and seemed incredibly real compared to “Miracle,” which is funny considering both of them were based on real events.

tags: media consumption