Crítica de película: Pieles

Esta película está disponible en Netflix ahora. Hoy en la noche, la vi por la segunda vez. Es una película en español, entonces quería criticarla en español también. Pienso que no la critiqué la primera vez, o la critiqué en inglés. Ha pasado... unos años desde escribí mucho en español, pero voy a hacer mi esfuerzo mejor (con la ayuda de wordreference.com).

Pensé que entendí, por lo menos, 85% de esta película. Vi con los subtítulos en español. He la visto una vez antes. Se llama "Pieles," que significa "Skins" en inglés. Trata de unos personajes con diferentes deformidades del cuerpo. Una mujer no tenia ojos y llevaba diamantes rosas en su cara para reemplazar los ojos. Trabaja como prostituta. Otra mujer era enano.

Unos otros personajes: el hombre con quemaduras serias en su cuerpo y cara. Él salía con una mujer con una deformidad facial: un lado de su cara pendía. Esta mujer tiene otro enamorado también, pero ella no le ama a él; ella piensa que solamente su física le interesa a él. 

La mujer con su culo en la cara y sus labios/su boca en su culo... su padre era muy protector de ella y no le permitía salir de la casa. Él tenia mucho miedo de personas malas en el mundo y pensaba que ellos habrían hecho [condicional perfecto] daño a su hija.

El chico con desorden de identidad de la integridad corporal: no quería tener sus piernas; quería cortarlas y ser un siren -- sin piernas. Su madre no le comprendía. Se echó en la calle donde estuvo atropellado por un auto, cortando sus piernas y matándole.   

Muchos de los personajes se cruzaba con las tramas de los otros personajes.

Me encantaron la cinematografía y los colores de la película. Los colores principales eran rosa y púrpura/lavanda -- colores pasteles. Eran tan bonitos. La ropa de las personajes, los muebles de las casas y los exteriores todos son en colores de rosa y violeta. 

También me gustaron el aspecto surrealista de la tema de esta película.

Ver las películas extranjeras me hace sentir muy sofisticada... quiero ver más películas extranjeras.

Tv review: You (Netflix)

I saw an ad for the second season of this show and I watched the trailer. It being a Netflix trailer, it did a great job of not actually conveying much about what the show is actually about. So I had to do further research.

"You" is a thriller-y show about a guy who's... who has some violent/murderous/dark tendencies but also happens to be quite handsome and charming when necessary. Just like any good serial killer... I surmised that this show might end up including a murder element.

Since I'm always looking at people and thinking they look like other people, the actor who plays the main character (who is quite good looking, wow!) looks like a combination of John Mayer and Hugh Dancy. And/or he looks sort of like Ted Bundy, or rather, Zac Efron's recent portrayal of Ted Bundy... Coincidentally, in retrospect, I think he also looks like some guy in one of my classes who I never spoke to (alas! And he seemed decently intelligent too... [this is why I'm going to be an old maid...]). 

I've only watched the first episode now, but I'll probably watch further until I get tired of the show, perhaps. It seems captivating enough for me to keep watching. I still haven't gotten to watching the season one finale of Ozark, much less start on season two...

It does have a bit of a scripted feel to it, in that there are elements of it that seem quite predictable, and some of the characters don't seem to have much depth, but it was still an enjoyable watch. There's heavy monologuing via voiceover by the main character, which is sort of an interesting element; I can't really think of any other shows I've seen that feature that. Grey's Anatomy or Station 19 might be the closest, but the VO monologues in those shows serve as bookends to the episodes, not peppered in throughout.

The main character is rather judgmental and cynical and misanthropic -- the misanthropy is very House-esque, I thought. Since I also can be judgmental and cynical at times, I can relate to the guy being like that. He also has stalkerish tendencies, as do I (to some extent: I love people-watching and occasionally give in to doing very mildly stalkerish things, but nothing on the level of sneaking into someone's house and looking through their stuff).

Anyways, I still have the rest of the first season to watch at some point and there's going to be a second season coming out later this week. Such timing! But so far, this show seems decently watchable. 

Postsecret review 16

It's been awhile since I've done one of these, but I looked at the current secrets and they seem rather interesting, so here are my comments!

"Sometimes, when I'm extremely bored (like I was at this wedding), I like to imagine that I've already reached the end of my life and there I begged God for just a few more hours. He agreed. And sent me here. It makes a big difference." [over a photo from a wedding] This is an interesting/unusual idea and mildly quaint too...

"I don't care how smart, educated or successful you are: if you're an adult obsessed with Disney I think you're creepy." I can more or less agree with this, although I'm not sure I'd personally use the word creepy to describe it... juvenile is a more accurate term, to me.

"I have devoted my life helping others... But no matter how many lives I save, I cannot forget the faces of those I couldn't. Some memories never fade..." [with a ballpoint pen sketch of a firefighter's helmet marked "Killeen FD Firefighter 292" and the word "PTSD"] Grim.

"I don't like telling people to call the suicide hotline because when I needed them they were busy." Also grim.

"I used to put people in jail for drugs, and then go in the bathroom to do my drugs." What a twist!

"I have never told my husband, I had a child before we got togeter" [sic] Ooh, secrets... also coincidentally, related to some recent reading I did.

"Actually I wasn't on a business trip. I was in the psych ward." Also twisty.

"This is what I fantasize about. I'm a guy." [over a photo of a romantic wedding scene with bride and groom kissing in front of a church] That's cute and even somewhat sweet.

"Alcohol has now officially taken over my life." Also grim... I hope I don't become an alcoholic or a drug addict. I kind of wonder how one becomes an alcoholic... many people are able to drink without it becoming a problem, but for those who it is a problem for, why is that so? How does it happen?

"I don't think people truly appreciate what troops do for us until someone in their life becomes a part of it all." I suppose I can understand this. However, I happened to read something recently about the military committing atrocities in the Middle East, so that's one of the things they do (or at least, have done), under the guise of protecting freedom... I think we should abolish the military.

"At our nation's capitol [sic], in our national history museum all of the souvenirs are made in a different country!" This is an interesting observation. I'm not really sure if it counts as a secret, but still, interesting observation. I also wonder if it's completely factual. Perhaps the statement is an exaggeration and there are some souvenirs for sale that are made in the US... next time I'm there, I'll try to remember and check. Obligatory mention that I don't appreciate security theater but I'll have to remember to leave my scissors at home if I decide to go to the national history museum...

"I'm starting to think these nut-jobs might actually be onto something" [over a brochure {?} that says "Attend Scientology Sunday Service"] That's something else! I do wonder how one comes to believe that the Scientologists might actually be onto something....

"I wish I were fat so I could be a Torrid model. I think they're gorgeous." [over a photo of what presumably is a Torrid model] Well, this is different... 

Book review: Run Away by Harlan Coben

I was looking at the books in Costco when I happened upon this one and decided to take a peek at it. It had a rather gripping writing style, so I started reading it and was able to finish it in one afternoon/evening -- over the span of maybe 4-ish hours of reading time. It was a pretty zippy read.

The premise of Run Away is that a man's daughter has gone missing and he wants to find her. She happens to be a drug addict. There are lots of twisty plot twists in this novel, which keep the suspense dialed up. I found them to be well-placed and not too unbelievable. 

It was set very contemporarily; lots of instances of particularly modern technology and culture/issues. Stuff that people living 2019 would be familiar with. That was interesting, as I don't think I've really read any other books (recently, at least) that have been set in a time period so up-to-the-moment.

It had hints of Prisoners, the Millenium trilogy and Netflix's show Ozark, even. Prisoners for the family/mystery of child's disappearance element, Ozark for the happy/somewhat wealthy [ie definitely upper middle class, if not more] family disrupted by unfortunate events/getting involved with something shady, and Millenium trilogy because of the mystery/thriller genre.

It reminded me of Millenium,** but flashier (more dramatic, I suppose, and the writing style itself as well), if you will. Millenium was more of a slow burn and more measured in style (although still quite good!). Stieg Larsson's writing style had more of a focus on various background context information and minute details. The writing style also had a bit more of a terse tone.* 

If you like twisty suspenseful stuff with a dose of murder and mystery that involves particularly contemporary issues in its plot, this would probably be an enjoyable read. It's not high literature, but it's probably at least a step or so above romance novels...

At the end, there was a short acknowledgment section where the author thanked a series of people for donating to charities, and in return he used their names for characters in the book. I found that somewhat interesting, since I don't think I've read any acknowledgments that mention something like that before. I personally could not write a fictional book and use the names of people I actually know or even know of. I'd think too much about the actual person with the name I used for a character while writing the book. I would need characters to be as blank of slates as possible, so they can't have names that I already have strong impressions/associations of because they're names of people I know (of). I also wouldn't use names of people I actually know personally, unless I was purposefully including/writing a (probably relatively minor) character based on them.

There was a particular plot element that led me to wonder about a theoretical scenario, which I don't want to reveal too casually here. Spoilers to follow: //If you had a kid, yet never saw the kid grow up (and therefore did not know what exactly they looked like), would you be able to recognize them if you happened to randomly see them in public somewhere when they were grown? Suppose you know who the other parent is and what they (in this case, father, but I suppose it could go the other way too) looked like as well. Generally speaking, people tend to have a decently strong familial resemblance to others they're biologically related to. Look at the Kennedy family or really most other families out there. Siblings tend to resemble each other and children tend to resemble their parents at least to some degree. Therefore, I'd think that someone might possibly be able to recognize a theoretical long lost child, but who knows... I tried looking up about this kind of thing, but didn't quite find what I had hoped. In any case, it's certainly an interesting thing to ponder.***

**digression/tangent: I've read a few other mystery/thriller/crime novels by Scandinavian authors in hopes I'd find one on par with Stieg Larsson's work, but I never really did. Not that the ones I read were horribly bad, they just weren't Millenium trilogy levels of spectacular.

***additional tangent: I also have wondered in the past about how common it is for someone to move back into a home they lived in previously. Not in the sense of moving back in with one's parents, but living in a given home, moving somewhere else, then eventually ending up moving back to the original home after it's had a period of having different residents than the original person mentioned initially. I looked up about this before and did manage to find one case where a family had regretted selling their home, and then was able to buy it back and move back into it maybe a year (not terribly long) after they had initially sold it. [further tangent: there's a line in Smile Like You Mean It that's vaguely related to this concept]

*I had to go look up the difference between tone and voice. Voice is more akin to a given person's idiolect -- phrases or quirks of their writing or speech. Words they tend to use or don't use. Their pattern(s) of writing or speech, basically. Voice can vary depending on the context -- I have a particular voice I write this blog in, yet I have a different, more buttoned-up voice if I'm writing a News Article.

Tone is more of something like... angry. Or happy. Lighthearted. Sarcastic. Sad. Enthusiastic. Appreciative. Formal. And so on. It has more to do with how writing/speech comes across to others.
Further reading from Grammarly's blog: Tone vs. Voice and more specifically on Tone

author's note: although I'm aware that AP Style instructs that titles of compositions are in quotation marks, I didn't feel like using those conventions here.

Movie review: Taxi Driver

Another (famous) movie I can add to my list of having watched. Conveniently, it's currently on Netflix. For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night (sort of, 4:30 a.m.) and couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided I'd try to find something to watch. Taxi Driver seemed like it could potentially be an interesting watch and it's also famous, so I figured I should watch it since it feels like one's supposed to have familiarity with famous movies like such. (I also want to watch American Psycho, but I kind of am waiting until I read the book first...)

Anyways, it was an interesting movie. Netflix rated it as a 92% match, whatever that's supposed to mean. I suppose they were rather correct though; I did like the movie. I hadn't realized that Martin Scorsese's directing career extended all the way back to 1976. I have liked some of his other work, such as The Departed and Shutter Island (he also directed The Wolf of Wall Street, which I also should watch at some point... and which also features Leonardo DiCaprio).

The movie is set in the 70s, presumably contemporarily to when it was released. The 70s aesthetic and fashions you can see in the movie were interesting to me and it makes me want to go to the thrift store and buy some 70s clothes... although perhaps I could cobble together an outfit out of some stuff I already have.

I liked the cinematography; it was nice and measured, particularly the various scenes of the nighttime taxi driving. Visually, I liked the movie. (I can't quite think of movies where I distinctly disliked the cinematography -- maybe No Country For Old Men, but I just generally hated that movie overall, not specifically due to the cinematography).

In tandem with the cinematography, I also liked the soundtrack/score -- again, it had a measured/meditative feel to it and contributed to the atmosphere of the movie.

Obviously watching this movie in 2019 is a bit of a trip; there are various outdated things that we don't do/have anymore. Typewriters, payphones, having to go to a record store when someone tells you about a song... I wonder if a present-day remake or movie with a similar premise would be able to have the same effect as Taxi Driver. I guess in a present-day version, the eponymous taxi driver would probably drive for a ride-hail app... Taxi Driver was contemporary to the time it was released, so obviously the sense of outdatedness I get watching it now, decades later, was not present for people who saw it back then. And maybe I shouldn't say outdatedness; that has a bit of a negative connotation yet I don't mean it in a negative way. Maybe retro is a more fitting term.

I thought that maybe this movie might have some kind of funky twist at the end, but it didn't. Still, it was an interesting and worthwhile watch. It was also a bit more tame, in a way, than some other movies I've seen. I thought that maybe it might be a bit more suspenseful and thrilling and/or have more action or something, although it didn't. Not that this was a bad thing; it was just a somewhat calmer movie than I thought it might be. 

I guess what I mean is that I thought it might have more conflict, or rather, more drawn-out conflict/conflict that was less subdued. Subdued is a good word to describe it I think. This movie wasn't an emotional or action rollercoaster as some others are, movies that are really intense. Most of the conflict in this movie happened in succinct bursts, with very quick falling action phases.

I was not really familiar with this movie at all before watching it; I read a brief blurb about it to give me an idea of the premise, but otherwise I just knew that it's apparently a famous movie. I think at some point I might've read that it's supposed to be a commentary on American society in the post-Vietnam era, although I don't remember the details.

I think it's interesting to view media and consider how or what it reflects about the time period it was made in. What is it portraying, and how does it portray said subject. The tv shows and movies that are being produced today or within the last few years are a reflection of our current era.

I got the feeling that Robert De Niro, in this film, looks like someone, but I can't figure out who. I know that I'd watched another movie in the past that he was also in (albeit older) so that's why he could look vaguely familiar, but I'm not quite sure that's it... I'm always thinking that people look like other people, so this shouldn't be too surprising. (edit: he also apparently was in The Deer Hunter, which I've seen a portion of)   

It was in the same vein as various other movies I like: the other Martin Scorsese films I mentioned above, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Prisoners, even Requiem for a Dream, etc. I seem to like movies that are darker/grittier thematically. If it fits in the genre psychological thriller, it's probably my thing. I'm not really sure where I got my taste in movies; I watch stuff that my mother would have absolutely no interest in.

Come to think of it, this movie also reminded me a bit of Nightcrawler (which Jake Gyllenhaal is in). So I went to go look up and see if Nightcrawler was influenced by Taxi Driver, and it seems like it was -- the poster strongly alludes to Taxi Driver's poster:

TV show review: Portlandia

A few weeks ago I started watching this show. It is a semi-abstract/surreal comedy series, featuring two actors/comedians who play a wide assortment of different characters. I'm nearly at the end and I haven't gotten sick of it yet, so I think I can be confident in calling this a Good Show.

The premise is that it takes place in Portland and is (at times) a satire of the culture there. It's... difficult to convey the nature of the show in words. I think it's the kind of thing that you really have to watch in order to grasp.

It might not be for everyone, but I've liked it. It's a nice mindless watch; a bit more offbeat/quirky than Parks and Rec or the American Office. (weaknesses: eczema) It's been quite awhile since I watched either version of The Office, although to my recollection, the UK version has a drier sense of humor. The American version is... not terrible, but definitely overrated. (it's a good thing Russia doesn't exist anymore)

So far, the best episodes of Portlandia I remember have been:
Spyke Drives
Nina's Birthday
No-Fo-O-Fo-Bridge
Pull-Out King
Getting Away
The Story of Toni and Candace
Healthcare
Pickathon
Lance is Smart

ETA: Amore and Rose Route. Open Relationship specifically for the gleefully surreal and dark "Snails" sketch. That's got to be one of my favorites.

Anyways, Portlandia + Arrested Development pretty much comprise the entirety of my comedy consumption these days. Occasionally I might watch one of the later-night shows -- I think Seth Meyers is somewhat superior to the others I've watched in the past. He reminds me the most of Jon Stewart's Daily Show.

ETA Dec. 24: Alrighty, I've finished Portlandia (for the most part -- I skipped a few episodes here and there if they seemed boring, but I might go back and watch them later). Overall it's a decent show, but sometimes it's hit or miss. There are definitely episodes/sketches that stand out as better than the others. Some/many are forgettable. It is not like Arrested Development in which *all* of the episodes (well, that I've seen. Haven't watched the appended newer seasons) are good.

Product review: Teflon bone folder or folding bone

I ordered this thing on Amazon because I needed to order a second item in order to qualify for free shipping. After about two days of tortured dithering and indecision about what second item I should buy, I remembered that perhaps I could use an actual folding bone. So that's how I ended up with this thing.

The product: "Mr HobNob Teflon Bone Folder" (this is *not* an affiliate link, so I don't care whether or not you decide to also purchase one of these for yourself) Apparently my Amazon account doesn't meet the qualifications to leave a review, so... here's my review. Also, I figured I could be more long-winded here.

3 stars.

What is a folding bone?
A folding bone is used for various papercrafts; in my case, I use one for origami. It saves my fingernails from getting torn up due to pressing down folds. Apparently, folding bones can also be used for cardmaking.

Before acquiring this actual folding bone, I'd just use my fingernails or a makeshift folding bone that was a repurposed milk jug handle punchout. You can find these sometimes scattered on the floor/shelves of a dairy case at the grocery store or Costco; that's where I've collected mine. They are small pieces of plastic about the size of a thumb.

So how do you like the actual folding bone?
I tried this out briefly and it's functional, although heavier than I expected or was used to (the milk jug punchouts are quite lightweight). The material and therefore folding edge seems to be kind of soft and after making only a few folds, it was shredding a little. I worry that it'll get a lot more shredded/worn if I use it frequently.

It is 6.75 inches long, .75 inches wide and about 3/8 in. thick. It's relatively hefty and definitely has a weighty feel to it, but it's not necessarily too heavy. When it came, it had a few small marks on it and I had expected that it'd be completely new and fresh-looking. The marks don't affect performance and are just an aesthetic concern.

Suppposedly the benefit of a teflon folding bone is that it won't leave marks on paper, but I never really cared about that. It might be interesting to try folding bones made from other materials.

I would probably give this thing 3 stars; it works as intended, although I wish the edge wouldn't shred even after just using it briefly. I decided that if I didn't like this that much for use as an actual folding bone, I could always just use it as a hair stick, which is what I'm doing now.

As a folding bone, due to the shredding/wearing issue, it might be closer to 2 stars, but for my hair, I like it a lot, so as a hair stick, 5 stars.