films! oh god, i am a neglectful blogger!

Ack, I'll be honest bloggers: I forgot all about this place. I think this is maybe a good thing? Because I am then theoretically out living life and shit? But no, probably not. I'm just wandering along in the way I do. The last semester, in short, has been wild. Work is productive and wonderful and I'm shooting awesome stuff. Well, I think so anyway. And I've been up to lovely adventures. So life is well.

But what I wanted to mention is that I did follow through on my 100 movies things. I did in fact watch more than 100 movies, a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'd comment on all of them but this is simply not possible. I watched 170 in the end (a film class helps with this, so do short films) and would like to write about some of them but for now I'll simply post the list, starring titles of films I thought were must watch movies. Enjoy


1. The Producers
2. The Darjeeling Limited
3. Frida *
4. The Lives of Others
5. Nirgendwo in Afrika *
6. ואלס עם באשיר‎ - Vals Im Bashir *
7. The Constant Gardner
8. Frost/Nixon
9. Monsters Vs Aliens
10. Snatch
11. Dear John
12. Man on Wire *
13. Buena Vista Social Club *
14. What Remains
15. The Seven Samurai
16. American Gangster
17. Julia
18 Trembling Before G-d
19. Bowling for Columbine
20. The Mahabarata
21. Girlhood
22. Babel *
23. Dead Man Walking
24. Bean
25. The Mutant Chronicles
26. Cinema Paradiso *
27. Brick
28. The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
29. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty *
30. Kavi
31. The New Tennants *
32. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
33. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
34. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
35. Othello
36. Water *
37. The Door
38. Up in the Air
39. The Imaginarum of Doctor Parnasus
40. Breakfast With Scot
41. Tsotsi
42. Adam and Steve
43. On A Clear Day
44. Il Divo
45. Julie and Julia *
46. Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
47. Iron Man 2
48. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
49. The Triplets of Belleville *
50. Angry Harvest
51. El Orfanato
52. Get Your Stuff
53. Antonia's Line *****
54. Tortilla Soup
55. On The Waterfront
56. A Streetcar Named Desire
57. Nine
58. Paris, Je T'aime *
59. Blade Runner
60. Seven Beauties
61. Rebel Without A Cause
62. Three Men And A Cradle
63. You, The Living
64. Los Lunes al Sol
65. Volver
66. Instead of Abracadabra
67. China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
68. Scenes of a Sexual Nature
69. Camila
70. Burma VJ *
71. The Other Side of Sunday
72. Amores Perros
73. Beyond Silence
74. Out of Africa *
75. A Serious Man
76. The Girl Who Played With Fire
77. Ben-Hur
78. The Taste of Others
79. Zus & Zo *
80. Don't Tell
81. Wilde
82. The Cove
83. Victor Victoria *
84. Un Prophet
85. Death on the Nile
86. Murder on the Orient Express *
87. Pink Floyd The Wall
88. Inception
89. Persepolis *
90. The Runaways
91. How To Cook Your Life
92. Latter Days
93. In & Out
94. Scorpio Rising
95. War Photographer
96. 8 1/2 *
97. Hairspray
98. Public Enemies
99. Blow Up
100. Contempt
101. Un Chien Andalou
102. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
103. Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
104. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
105. Cry-Baby
106. Soul Power *
107. The Art of the Steal
108. Memento
109. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
110. Persona
111. The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg
112. Defiance
113. Men Who Stare at Goats
114. Iron Man
115. Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart
116. The Mirror ****
117. A Raisin in the Sun
118. Winter Soldier *
119. Grande Ecole
120. A Jihad for Love
121. Amarcord *
122. Lost in La Mancha
123. Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light
124. Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
125. Once Were Warriors
126. Todo Sobre Mi Madre *****
127. Idiots & Angels *
128. Hoodlum
129. The Rape of Europa *
130. Taste of Cherry *
131. Constantine's Sword
132. Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion
133. Duck Soup
134. Monsoon Wedding *****
135. Ju Dou
136. Sound of Music
137. Hanna-Bi
138. Deliver Us From Evil ****
139. Jesus Camp
140. Hell House
141. Fall From Grace
142. Alice in Wonderland
143. Dark Habits
144. Fallen Angels
145. Casino Royale
146. Despicable Me
147. Black Orpheus
148. Oldboy
149. Che
150. Waiting for Armageddon
151. The Pink Panther 2
152. The Endless Summer
153. The White Ribbon
154. Dogtown and Z-Boys
155. Dear Zachary
156. Happy Together
157. Solaris *****
158. M
159. Bye Bye Brazil
160. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
161. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead
162. Elevator to the Gallows
163. Five Easy Pieces
164. I'm No Angel ****
165. Wings of Desire ****
166. The Big Chill *
167. She Done Him Wrong
168. La Jette *
169. A Christmas Story
170. Tron: Legacy

two hours ten minutes fourteen seconds

I'm doing this 100 movies in a year thing and in the course of watching a billion movies, I've found a few actors that I just am absolutely mad about. You guys, it's not even just really enjoying an actor. It's pretty much an obsession. And it's dangerous.

My first obsession? Tim Roth.

WTF? I don't even know what it is but if he is in a movie I need to see it right this second NOW. He makes me want to see Quentin Tarrentino movies and I hate that guy. So much.

This Tim Roth love has also driven me to turn on the movie Hoodlum. And not just turn it on but sit and watch the entire movie because, you know, Tim Roth might have another scene where he does something awesome. You guys, Hoodlum is one of the worst movies I've seen all year. I kept thinking 'no, this has to get better, everything is so stupid, how can both Tim Roth and Lawrence Fishbourne be involved in a movie this painfully bad?' But the truth is that it never gets any better. It even ends with a repentant Fishbourne outside of a church in the rain crying. It is so bad.

I kept trying to justify scenes. "Well, I guess they're maybe trying to reference The Godfather?" "Maybe Tim Roth was lampooning bad 1920's accents?" "Maybe this movie was like that Airplane movie? Just a spoof on the genre?" Unfortunately, the answer to all these questions is, ah, NO.

From pretty much the first scene of the movie it was clear how bad it was going to be. But Tim Roth stars, so I felt this terrifying compulsion to watch more. And unlike Bedrooms and Hallways, where I pretty much fast forwarded to all the parts with Hugo Weaving, I felt like I had to watch this to get more involved with the plot line. Or something. I really like gangster movies so I though, maybe I'll like this too. And... Tim Roth! I love that guy. How can he be in a bad movie? It'll get better in the next five minutes, right?

WRONG.

And that's how I spent a little more than two hours watching a terrible gangster movie.



Fuck it, I still love Tim Roth.

Submitted for your interest without comment. Hafiz

In a Handful of God

Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.

When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience

That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.

In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the finely tuned
Musicians

Who are acting stoned
For very intelligent and sane reasons

And of course are becoming extremely sweet
And wild.

In a handful of the sky and earth,
In a handful of God,

We cannot count
All the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there
Behind the mysterious veil.

True art reveals there is no void
Or darkness.

There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic
In this luminous, brimming
Playful world.

dwyn: art style

Ohhh, check it out, a drawing of me is up at Veda's blog. Go take a look and then go see the rest of her work. She's awesome! Click here to go see!

day three, and i'm still rambling

Day 3 - How old were you when you knew? What was that like for you?

I don't remember a time when I didn't know I at least wasn't straight. That's not exactly true, childhood was sort of a sexless time. I do remember talking about boys but in retrospect, a lot of that was, well, everyone's doing it, I could too. I came out first in the seventh grade as bisexual, living comfortably with that identity but not really coming out beyond telling two (three?) close friends. Some things happened in the middle and then I realized I was a lesbian when I was a junior in high school. That was a little more of a shock but made signifigantly more sense. A lot of my boy-crazed times when I was younger felt inauthentic and a bit like playacting to me. I could do it but it was boring. I'm sure some may doubt (in fact I know some did, upon coming out as gay, one person remarked that she thought I was more bisexual. A little bit of a surprise to have someone else telling me my proper identity) but talking about boys felt fake. Realizing that this wasn't just a thing I was missing, that it was in fact that I was simply not into cis guys, this was a huge relief. Things made so much more sense. Of course I felt inauthentic talking about boys, this was simply not a part of who I was as a person. Relief!

Most important, I felt whole, safe somehow (though this initial feeling wore off rather quickly due to other shit). Even if being gay sometimes seals one out in the cold, at least I understood who I was and what I wanted. It seemed like my straight friends didn't have to struggle with this heavy issue (though they may have, it just did not seem this way to my eyes at the time), they were not expected to figure out why they were straight, they simply were. Such a wonderful thing to realize that being gay was a part of who I was, no reason needed, I just simply was (and still am!).

day two of my more gay and ranty days

Day 2 - Did you have any experiences as a child that might have foreshadowed your sexuality?

Short answer for this: No. At least I don't think so. Of course I think that in our society, we pretty much assume kids are straight unless they, say, wear dresses while being presumably male or play with trucks while being presumably female. But god forbid you have a little boy who wants to play with makeup and the assumption is right away that he is gay. My friends, this is called gender binary bullshit. Defining people sexuality by what sort of games they played as a child is sort of stupid. Wait, really just completely moronic. If we went by this as the way to tell, I'd be a straight, completely gender-identifying girl. I was all about pink and purple and dresses and all things girly as a child. So no signs of my queerness.

Plus, I would say most kids pre-puberty are not sexual beings, so the issue of being sexually attracted to one gender or another (or simply not being a sexual being at all, since asexuality is a real thing friends!) is sort of stupid anyway. This sort of goes with my policy that we really should assume nothing about a person's sexuality until they explicitly state something. Which means until someone is capable of understanding sexuality and what it means and is old enough to understand themselves as a sexual being, we shouldn't be figuring it out for them. [this is why queer kids have to come out and straight and cis kids don't.] Wevs.

Point is, no, I don't think anything would have foreshadowed my queerness when I was a kid. But mom, if you're reading this, feel free to correct me if I'm missing something

day one of thirty gay gay days

Hey folks! I'm doing one of those 30 day meme things. Found on tumblr (which omg, I am so addicted to, it is ridiculous. So much good lgbtq content. So good), so yes, here's a hope I'll be posting more for at least the next 30 days. Indeed. Also: Everyone should totally participate. Even if you're not queer or genderqueer or wevs. Do it! Then link back here so I can come see what you've got shakin'.

Day 1 - Your sexual orientation or gender identity. Be creative in your definition.

I'm a a big fat lesbian, usually mostly a lady, though it varies. I suppose I'm not totally gay in some ways, I've had huge emotional things for men in the past. But my physical attractions are pretty much always women (though oh my god, I have such a thing for Elijah Wood's eyes. SUCH A THING). To keep it short (and classy): I am dyke (though not remotely dykey. I just love the word!)

Goddamn it, I can't keep anything short (and classy).