no images until further notice. my connection is slow, and my will is weak.
*michael clayton
in an effort to write something spoiler-free, i'll just say this; this movie hinges a great deal on a character who's bipolar, and i always have mixed feelings about movies that "use" mental illness because they tend to get it pretty wrong. the worst offenders are those movies with women characters who are total borderlines but we're supposed to believe they're actually just free spirits misunderstood by everyone but the one solid man who can save their broken, wayward she-souls (see: eternal sunshine of the meow meow meow, most of the mid-career movies of drew barrymore or angelina jolie, etc).
it's like when your dude friends tell you, "oh, i met this girl at a bar, she's totally fun and crazy, she danced on a stool like a ballerina and tried to eat a foosball with her eye and then blew me next to a deli atm while making a withdrawal at the same time and i think i'm in love," and you say, "sounds like she's actually crazy and probably dangerous," and dude calls you a boring old person until a week later when said girl has sent him to the hospital for stitches because he was looking the counter girl at pita grill in the eye and he's wondering why all women are so nuts when it's really just the women he likes who happen to actually be nuts.
long story short, writers often use crazy as a cheat that they can bend to do whatever the story demands, having a character do wacky things under the umbrella of bipolar disorder that are actually completely uncharacteristic of the disease. (or, to be slightly more cohesive to the thoughts above, to write off crazy altogether as just being "free spirited," because mental illness is just this mystery made up disease and it's time to quit stalling as you make your journey across the bridge away from xenu etc). so this character has a change of heart as he stops taking his meds, and maybe it's realistic, although it's more likely to me that a manic person'd try to fuck everyone in sight, write the great american novel, and eat the world's best pie instead of find his moral center, but whatever.
so for everyone else who doesn't share my pet peeve, enjoys 70's-y cop/justice movies, and wants to fuck george clooney or loves someone who does, then sure, see this movie. for those who are also wary of crazy on film, "michael clayton" won't really offend. and it won't make you not want to fuck george clooney.
*kate nash "made of bricks"
what is it with me and british music lately? i think it has to do with the fact that this past year has been all about driving and running (more like jogging, or really the "anchorman"-ian yogging, but whatever), two things i never did in nyc, and two things that require a very specific soundtrack. i can take the train listening to "black sheep boy," but can i push my fat ass up a mountain to it? not so much. i can barely stay awake in traffic to the album's second half. but i've listened to "our earthly pleasures" on the trail so many times i could time it to specific curves. and i don't care if kate nash is supposed to be lily allen lite, her record is a lot more fun and i think it's solely responsible for taking my speed from "embarrassing" to "arthritic."
emma's friend barbara hates this record because she thinks kate nash's lyrics are like director's commentary on her boring cute life, like, "i woke up this morning and ate an apple and took the subway and buildings are tall and i like boys la la la." and while those are not real lyrics, "and she was wearing a skirt and he thought she looked nice and yeah she didn't really care about anything else cuz she only wanted him to think that she looked nice and he did," are. but it all redeems itself with the chorus (and this is the same song, "birds"), when the he explains his feelings to the she, both of them being, from i can tell, the world's most adorable chavs; "yeah birds can fly so high and they can shit on your head, yeah they can almost fly into your eye and make you feel so scared, but when you look at them, and you see that they're beautiful, that's how i feel about you." some would puke. moi, even though this is a lower tempo number, i make with the moving of ass.
the more uptempo songs are obviously better movement material, but fun's fun, and fun's a motivator, and that i don't get from all that low tempo integrity shit that's domestically made. so viva kate nash and her stream of consciousness fake-cockney musings. here's to making the transition together from "arthritic" to "possible palsy."
*blackberry whatever
i got a fancypants phone/ass computer (that's the pocket it lives in, i'm not being dirty) because my contract made it cheap to get, and i only bring it up here because i wonder-- does anybody with a phone like this get a genuine ampersand? does anyone else care about the lack of ampersand? 'cause i think i care. the iphone probably has one since it has everything else but verizon it seems, and since no other carrier works in my state of residence (except us cellular, which only works in the woods, essentially) (which is why you've never heard of it), i'm stuck. and i'm forced to use a plus sign, which is ironic, given how negative i've been feeling lately. or really just unmotivated to do anything but sleep + yog. crazy!
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