Movie review: Vanilla Sky

I don't really have a lot to say about this movie because it was really really weird and not in a good kind of way. Not even in the Full Metal Jacket kind of way because in this movie I don't think I even really understood the plot that much at all. Even other movies that have been kind of a mindfuck I ended up understanding by the end (think: Dot the i, Dream House, Shutter Island) but this one I just... it left me mostly just thinking wtf. And not in a good way, like I said. Anyways I'm off to read about it so I can find out what the plot was actually supposed to be because I certainly didn't grasp it just from watching the movie. And to think that I anticipated this coming on Netflix today so I could watch it because I thought it would be good. It had Tom Cruise in it is all I can say. 

If you're curious, below is some information on what it was supposed to be about. I don't recommend this movie nor do I recommend Apocalypse Now. Anyways I think I'm off to watch Requiem for a Dream again sometime in the nearish future. 

From Wikipedia: 

According to Cameron Crowe's commentary, there are five different interpretations of the ending:

• "Tech support" is telling the truth: 150 years have passed since Aames killed himself and subsequent events form a lucid dream.
• The entire film is a dream, evidenced by the sticker on Aames' car that reads "2/30/01" (February 30 does not occur in the Gregorian calendar).
• The events following the crash form a dream that occurs while Aames is in a coma.
• The entire film is the plot of the book that Brian is writing.
• The entire film after the crash is a hallucination caused by the drugs that were administered during Aames' reconstructive surgery.

Crowe has noted that the presence of "Vanilla Sky" marks the first lucid dream scene (the morning reunion after the club scene)—all that follows is a dream

Being selective

Again on the topic of the online dating website. My general rule for messaging people is that if they're too old, too boring, too ugly or any combination of the three I won't message them or won't respond to them if they messaged me first. Sadly (or maybe just indifferently) this rules out a large majority of people on the website. But whatever. I think I can afford to be selective. It's not like I'm deathly desperate to find someone to date. And anyways, I don't want the theoretical person that I end up dating to be ugly, or boring, or like 35. Also, I have the feeling that a prospective date might be put off by the fact that I'm quite taken with eyelashes guy's eyelashes and really let's say face in general as well. "If she's so interested in that guy's eyelashes then how can she be interested in me??" is my assumption of a possible thought that might go through a person's head. In any case, like I said before, there is a very large amount of people on the website that I am decidedly NOT interested in. Also, ideally I would date someone who is/looks like they could be a model (and is additionally not boring and not too old). Which does not comprise a lot of people on the online dating website. There, I'm done being shallow (at least in this post). 
Also, I don't know if I would enjoy dating someone who is a computer programmer or a physicist. I think I might not like having the idea that the person is smarter than me and that kind of thing. Even if perhaps that's not true, I think I would have the perception that it is. I think I would enjoy dating someone whose profession is one of the humanities or something. At least that's my guess. Since that is what I tend to prefer. I think it could be interesting to date a sociologist or something like that. Or a linguist. Just a thought. It would be interesting to know (even if not in a dating type of relationship) someone who is like Goren as I think he's a very interesting character. I wonder if I'll ever meet someone like that. 

Suspension of disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is a concept that applies to works of fiction (books, movies, tv shows, short stories). Wikipedia says that it can be defined "a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment." For me, I can suspend my disbelief to enjoy shows like Law and Order, or movies like James Bond (which I think is somewhat higher on the scale of unrealisticness), although I draw the line when it comes to superhero stuff that has been pervading tv and movies in the last few years. It's part of the reason why I won't watch that Netflix show that Vincent D'Onofrio sort of recently was in as the main villain. The other part of the reason is that in the show he is fat and bald and it's unsightly and he looked better 15 years ago. 15 years ago (or even earlier, minus in Full Metal Jacket) he looked rather nice in fact. In any case, I can't suspend my disbelief enough to be able to enjoy fantasy books/movies or superhero things. I think it's kind of part of the reason why Harry Potter never interested me as a kid and to this day I still haven't read the books or seen the movies and honestly have no plans to (can you believe it??). 

I think the premise of detectives trying to solve crimes is much more believable than superheroes doing similar things. Plus, with the whole superhero thing there also is probably the issue of making sure the public thinks there's nothing amiss despite the impossible things that happen regarding the superhero and whatever other fantastical elements are present in the story. In addition, superheroes come with the concept of this supernatural being that's magically able to fix things/solve crimes/etc. And that simply isn't how things work in the real world. There are no superhero beings who are going to come and fix things/prevent terrorism/etc/what have you. On the other hand, detectives/police officers do exist. 

I was however able to enjoy the Twilight series back in middle school or whenever so that seems to contradict some of the things here, but I guess it wasn't too unrealistic or at least it wasn't for me back then. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy the books were I to read them again now, but at the time I did. Plus the cover design is pretty nice and they look good all in a line on my bookshelf. To some degree, scifi/dystopian books can be good but not all of them are. The more classic ones (1984, Fahrenheit 451) I've read I've enjoyed but I wouldn't touch a book like say, the Divergent series. I did read the Hunger Games series (a little before it was cool! And yes I know I'm being snobby here by mentioning that) and enjoyed them but then the deluge of similar books that the success of that series unleashed I have not read any books from. It was a few years ago that I read that series so it's possible that my tastes have changed perhaps in that time. I still never have been a fan of fantasy books/etc and I don't think I'll be one in the future either.  

The thing that compelled me to write this post is that lately my mother has started watching the show called The Flash, which is about a superhero named that who... does superhero stuff basically I guess which is what I've garnered from semi-paying attention to 2 episodes (1.18 and 1.19). From what I gather it's a run of the mill superhero thing and does not interest me for reasons mentioned above. Plus, I don't get how the guy is supposed to hear with that silly looking suit that covers his ears (why do so many superhero suits look so silly and ridiculous? That might be part of why I don't like superhero stuff as well). Also, from what I have seen the writing comes off as not particularly good (read: bad) and the show seems to me to be rather cheesy, which is at least in part because of the bad writing. Some of the dialogue I heard makes me want to cringe. Plus, the format is more cheesy serial drama about a superhero and I'm at least sort of partial to the procedural format or at the very least, a serial drama minus the cheesy superhero stuff. I think maybe I could enjoy the show The Wire (which is supposedly very good) and I did enjoy what I watched of the Scandinavian serial crime drama The Bridge. 

To close, even though I am not super familiar with the nature of the content of The Flash, it seems kind of hypocritical that my mother would enjoy that show when some of the same ideas (bad guys doing bad stuff) are present in Law and Order which she decidedly does not like (on the reasoning that it has violence and crime). But violence and crime (perhaps to a lesser degree; I'm not completely sure about it since I've only just semi-watched about 2 episodes) are also at least sort of involved in the plot of The Flash. I don't really want to watch more of it to determine the exact nature/severity of the violence and crime and therefore the extent of my mother's hypocrisy, but I think the point still stands. 

Song review: Point Blank

I saw a little bit of the lyrics of this song and I was kind of intrigued so I decided to listen to it and look at the full lyrics to it. It is a song by Bruce Springsteen called Point Blank. You can read the lyrics here. Personally, I didn't really like this song. The lyrics aren't particularly bad in and of themselves, but I'm just not really a fan of the way this song sounds - Springsteen's voice isn't my favorite. I don't really know any of the other songs that he's written/sung so there's a possibility that I might like some of his other work better, but this song I just didn't really like all that much. I know he's famous and well regarded but this song was just not my thing. I've heard a couple of his other songs but I don't know them because I never have particularly paid attention to his music. In terms of singers whose voices I do like, I would say that (in no particular order) Matt Bellamy of Muse, Gerard Way (formerly) of My Chemical Romance and Dan of Augustana would be my favorites. Matt has a very interesting voice - pretty much any Muse song will demonstrate this (Hysteria or Citizen Erased, for example). Gerard also has an interesting voice - listen to, for example, MCR's Famous Last Words or Demolition Lovers. I can't choose an Augustana song to recommend because I pretty much like all of them. 

So, sorry to Bruce Springsteen and people who laud his singing ability, I just don't really like it at least based on this one song that I listened to. Although the lyrics aren't bad, so based on this song he's not a bad songwriter, at least. My interpretation of the lyrics is that it's a song about drug addiction, but maybe that's just because I watched Requiem for a Dream the other day and the topic of drug addiction is on my mind. I wonder what other people think that song is about. I also wonder what the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is supposed to mean like I mentioned in a previous post. I did some reading about that which was kind of interesting and gave me at least a little bit of insight into that song but not completely. 

From Wikipedia (looks like I was right!!) : "In its 1978 incarnation, the lyrics dealt with the singer's girlfriend's drug addiction." Apparently the later version of the song had some lyrical changes, but even then I still could see it being about drug addiction. Interestingly enough, as I write this post, I'm listening to another song that also had a previous version which was more explicitly about drugs. 

On morbid subject matters

Maybe the upside (if you could even say there is one) of becoming a drug addict is that there's a small possibility that later you could be on Intervention not as the addict who is getting an intervention, but as the interventionist who is helping people to treat their drug addiction. I realize this is a strange thought. Also, I have been occasionally pondering about the possibility of one day me seeing someone that I know of on that show because they became a drug addict and now their friends and family want them to get help. I think about that. I wonder if that would ever happen. I wonder what it's like to be a drug addict. I guess I'd better watch more episodes of Intervention then. 

On this subject, Intervention is a show of the kind that's morbidly fascinating. Its subject matter is the unfortunate one of drug addiction, which some people do not find appealing to watch about, but I for one, do. In addition I find the various Law and Order shows which are about crimes such as murder and rape to be enjoyable to watch. I think in part it's because the shows are focused on the detectives who are trying to solve the crime and the DAs who are seeking justice and that's a good thing - these people are working to solve crimes and make their (fictional) world a better place. By this theory, shows that have the protagonist as a criminal of some kind should not be appealing but there are a few decently well known shows that are like this - Hannibal, for example, which is about a serial killer who also happens to be a cannibal. Dexter, Breaking Bad, etc. So it begs the question why people enjoy a show like that, because it seems antithetical that you would be rooting for, in a way, a criminal of some kind. I think most would consider cannibalism to be a depraved act. (I also like the word depraved. There's one episode of Law and Order where Goren uses that word when he's talking to a serial killer.) So why would people (I include myself in this, at least a little, because even though I didn't watch a lot of Hannibal, I did watch a small amount of it and thought it was at least somewhat interesting) find a show about something like that to be a show that they'd want to watch? I think it's possible that other people have written about that kind of thing and perhaps even made some theories about it but I'll have to look it up.

My final thought on this subject is that perhaps exposing myself to this kind of content makes me more prepared (as in, less likely to become particularly unnerved, or something like that - to deal with things better, is maybe a better way to put it??) for when unfortunate things happen in the real world. Maybe. It's just a theory that might not be correct. Perhaps others would call it "desensitization." I know there are articles about what playing violent videogames and watching violent tv shows purportedly does to oneself. 

(and boy, I am really pumping out the blog posts today!)

Columbo and Goren

This ties into my previous post, "Among other things, Goren" or alternatively titled "A love letter of sorts about Goren and mechanical pencils". 

When I was looking at the website about the current selection on Netflix and what's coming and going, I noticed that Saving Private Ryan was going at the end of the year which is in mere days. So that's why I had to watch it this morning because I wouldn't be able to for much longer. I think I also saw something that mentioned the series Columbo, which is a 70s crime/mystery show in the vein of Law and Order CI, or rather, perhaps Law and Order is in the vein of Columbo because Law and Order only came around in 2001. I remember reading in the past that my favorite character of Goren was at least somewhat based on the eponymous (Lieutenant) Columbo, among other things. I also see bits of Sherlock (one of my first impressions was doctor House, but nicer - House was also based on Sherlock). In any case, I can see how Goren is similar (but in my opinion, superior) to Columbo. In the first episode (which was I believe about an hour and a half, so longer than your typical current day drama at ~45 minutes) the character is established and he is perceptive and picks up on little things like Goren does and even sniffs a clue (literally - with his nose) of a champagne cork. I'm not sure if the smell test is what let him know it was a champagne cork or if he recognized it by sight and just wanted to make sure. In one Law and Order episode, Goren is unable to decipher what a smell is and Eames says "A smell even you can't identify" somewhat incredulously. In another, he carefully examines ink stains "to see which ones are fresh" and she says "They must love you in the produce section." This is one of the things that Columbo lacks - a partner. He works alone, which I find to be a detriment to the feel of the show probably just because I'm used to the Law and Order shows style where the detectives always have partners and they work closely together. Another contrast is that Columbo seems to be a man of no more than average height, in a strong contrast to Vincent D'Onofrio's Goren who frequently towered over other people at 6'4" including his petite partner (who most always was wearing heeled boots probably in an effort to slightly reduce the height difference). I was quite used to seeing a more vertically imposing figure - Elliot of SVU is over 6 feet tall as well although not quite as tall as Goren. Another thing was the voice - Columbo's voice is very different than Goren's. It's deeper and less soft like Goren's voice is. I don't mean soft as in quiet, but just... soft. Not rough. I wish Vincent would read an audiobook or something. So everything Columbo says very noticeably sounds different than what I'm used to hearing from a similar character. In addition to just the sound of the voice, the delivery of the lines is different - Goren has interesting speech patterns ([in linguistics it's called an idiolect, the way a particular person speaks/uses language] I kind of wonder if it's something that Vincent specifically consciously did for that character or if it's just a natural Vincent thing like the way Mark Ruffalo's voice sounds like his tongue is laying limply in his mouth).  He often has little pauses here and there or slight (intentional??) stutters and he speaks differently depending on the intended effect - maybe he's coaxing someone to confess and getting at them psychologically and he'll speak softly and deliberately, or perhaps he's trying to ruffle someone's feathers and he'll speak more severely with maybe even a bit of a mocking tone. And so on. (you can tell I've watched a lot of him) In the one episode of Columbo his voice pretty much sounded the same in all the times he was talking to people with no particularly noticeable variations. It's possible that in other episodes he'll be in different situations that cause him to speak differently, but from that one episode I did not notice it. In terms of situations he was in, the entire episode consisted of him talking to the suspect and a witness. There were no scenes in a police station at all, and also no interrogation. It was kind of like Criminal Minds in that the episode ended with the suspect's arrest and went no further. I would also call it the Law part of Law and Order with a Criminal Intent flavoring, minus all the police procedure parts (interrogations, working with other people, paperwork, etc). So in that aspect perhaps it's like BBC Sherlock in a way. I haven't watched that in a long time so I might not be remembering the nature of it completely accurately. 
Another thing that I noticed in this first episode is that Columbo (purposefully/intentionally, presumably) seemed to come across as not quite as sharp, which I'm not sure if I liked because it seemed like he did it too convincingly and came across as truly clueless, rather than it being intentional in order to play a suspect into his hands which is what we see Goren doing on multiple occasions. Maybe it's just because that was the first episode and I don't have an acute sense of what the character is supposed to be like the way I do with Goren since I have watched so much of him. 

Among other things, Goren

"Among other things, Goren" or "A love letter of sorts about Goren and Pentel mechanical pencils" (perhaps "ode" would be a better word than "love letter"? But I already used "ode" recently and I wanted to have a different word choice.)

After a long drought, I finally got to watch an old episode of Law and Order. It was lovely. The second (or third, or fourth, etc) time around you can focus on the little details more. And those can be the best part. Goren's left handedness, that one blue mechanical pencil, his nice hands and gestures, all of it. That was just what I needed after the morning's experience of watching Saving Private Ryan. It was a good movie but not in the happy fun kind of way. 

I rewatched the very first episode of the first season. In it, one of the characters (a guest star) looked a lot like one of the characters in Requiem for a Dream but I checked and it wasn't the same actress. I thought it might have been though. In this episode, Goren wears a watch (on his right wrist, since he's left handed [that's what I do as well, otherwise it interferes when you write]) which he doesn't really do past the first few episodes I think. There's also a part when he's interrogating (ah) someone and his sleeves are rolled up, which is unusual for him but a characteristic of Elliot in SVU. Perhaps they were trying to allude to that. I will always wonder (like about the legs) about the props person who procured that blue mechanical pencil (which is a model that I procured for myself as well, just to have the same kind of pencil as Goren used - throughout the entire series)... I wonder if it was a preference of Vincent's because he thought ink pens would smear, being left handed or was it just something that the props department picked up without a second thought - as long as it writes, it works kind of mentality? Regardless, I admire the consistency of him using that same mechanical pencil throughout the series. It's not my personal favorite model, but I do like the side-advance style which is a feature on my personal favorite mechanical pencil, which also happens to be the Pentel brand which is the brand that Goren's blue mechanical pencil is. If you would like to buy either my favorite kind of mechanical pencil (my specific pencil is green and blue and .7 mm lead thickness, sans the removable eraser because I use a larger rectangular eraser) or the one that Goren uses (I wonder what lead thickness he preferred)*, I've linked to the Pentel website. I have also used the same kind of mechanical pencil for at least 3 years (maybe even before that) which is not as long as Goren did but still a decent amount of time and the one that I have used for so long definitely has sentimental value and I would be rather unhappy if I somehow happened to lose it. Thankfully that has not happened yet. This is an inferior poor man's version of Pentel's side advance mechanical pencils. Don't settle for a pencil like that one. 
[While poking around on the Pentel website for the links there, I thought about my favorite writing utensil brands - Pentel for mechanical pencils, Staedtler (it's German) and Sharpie for markers, and if I used colorful gel pens more often, Gelly Roll. I do use writing utensils of other brands but I don't have a particular affinity for them.] 
*according to Pentel's website, they only make the pencil in blue for the .5 mm and .7 mm models, not the .9 mm one. Assuming this is the way it was in the early 2000s, we can deduce that Goren used .5 mm or .7 mm lead because his pencil was blue. Also, according to the website, that is the very first model of side advance mechanical pencil that they made, and a customer review mentions that they used that same pencil way back in 1981. Also, from reading other reviews, it seems like other people too have the same sentimental feelings towards their preferred mechanical pencils.  

It was a pleasant enjoyable experience to watch Goren again and think about all those little things that I like about that character. I think a few nights ago I had a dream which I don't remember a ton about, but I think I was in a parking garage with someone/some people (police officers, I think they might have been? And I was with them) and I was telling them how Goren is my favorite character, and I think perhaps he was even there too, in the garage but at a bit of a distance. I wonder if I'll ever encounter someone similar to that - an intelligent, perceptive, worldly NYPD detective like him. I do wonder. Does someone like that indeed exist in the real world? 

In any case, that's enough fawning for now and I think the proper course of action now is to watch something with James D'Arcy in it so I can fawn over him too. 
I also think I might be good at being a set decorator because I have great attention to detail. 
Also, I have gotten an idea - if in any other tv show or movie I happen to notice that a specific writing utensil is used, I'll try to make note of it. Maybe I will even apply this to other people that I encounter - a record of all the writing utensils I encounter over the course of some amount of time... that actually sounds interesting.