Tag Archives: cinema

Rip her to shreds

Our attitude problem

Our verdict on Mean Girls: not mean enough! Oh sure, people got hit by buses, this karmic comeuppance only second in cinematic favor to dropping a house on someone. But I think they could have done better. They just needed to consult with Lambchop and me, the petty revenge specialists! I suppose you’ll all just have to wait for our screenplay. It’s Metamorphosis meets Heavyweights. Now we just need to round up Christina Ricci, Rachel Leigh Cook, and Steve Buscemi.

Oh, and how do I know from mean? The premise that Lindsay Lohan’s character was homeschooled all her life is a disturbing parallel to my own academic career. Except my parents weren’t farting around in Africa doing important research, they were living in a trailer in rural Virginia, cultivating conspiracy theories. If I’d had photographs of myself with elephants when I finally begged to enter “normal” school in seventh grade, I might have at least been perceived as exotic. My inner barometer that measures levels of crazy told me that I had to take the plunge into the real world eventually unless I wanted to end up like my parents, but I still wasn’t prepared for the shock.

I floated through the next two years, not particularly liking anyone. My best friend was the one black girl in the school, who pointed out that usually people call each other on the phone after school to gossip and make plans to do things on the weekends. The mind boggled!

In the course of those two years, students and faculty went out of their way to ensure I’d remain on the fringes. I was singled out for not being able to serve a volleyball or do a pull up, and my grades in English classes would be routinely announced by the teacher.  And some helpful compatriot forged and planted a note in my desk, retrieved it, and publicly read a grammatically incorrect paean of young lust towards a popular sort.

When teasing me for a non-existent crush got old, people delighted in pairing me off with the obvious latent homosexual boy. Another time, someone who would go on to be left back a year grunted in frustration when tests were handed back, saying “the only reason you get such good grades is because you’re so fucking ugly you never do anything but study!” While not true, these are things that stick. One sighs, one plots untimely deaths. That kid also eventually moved to Wyoming. I bet he died.

And so meanness begets meanness. By high school, it hit me that I didn’t have to take anyone’s crap. Had I been as hot as Lindsay Lohan, I might have had smoother entry into school. Instead I realized that it was no wonder they wanted to pick on me, I must have looked like Dawn Wiener! I set out on an aggressive campaign of dressing myself more fashionably and applying makeup. It was pure triage: my own mother never applied makeup, save for the occasional half-hearted swipe of frosted pink lipstick. She had allowed me to go off to school with a pony tail on top of my head and a deflated attempt at the then-popular poufy bangs. She saw no problem with shopping at Sears and JC Penney instead of The Gap. Also, as a former nerd, her idea of the way to popularity was “get good grades, and join clubs!” Yes, join a club. Like the debate team. Can you tell I still harbor vast resentment for lack of proper fashion and social knowledge transfer? I finally received a Vogue subscription when I was 14, after much agitation. Screw those off-brand white tennis shoes! I also started exploring my skill with creative tongue lashings, frequently practicing on family.

So that was high school.  I finally had a group of friends that I liked, and the others were afraid to mess with me. And that’s all that matters. The controlled baring of the teeth is a skill for life. So is telling people off so creatively that a crowd gathers and cheers.

In short, if you’re going to homeschool your kids, make sure you either do it all their lives, or make sure they have plenty of outlets for meeting people their own age. And make sure they are hot. I’m just kidding, but I’m sure it helps. As does not dressing them funny.

Kids can be vicious little bastards, but after diving into a tank of full grown sharks, I’d rather gently cut my teeth along with them if I had it to do over again. Sure, school work came easily, which is one thing frequently said in the defense of homeschooling. I was definitely more advanced in terms of reading skills and analyzing situations in an academic context, but in a social context, I was clueless. I spent hours bored as others struggled to grasp painfully simple concepts, but the tables were turned the second the bell rang and people began chatting and laughing. Things equalized by college, but by then I had plenty of mean under my belt and a carapace of ennui.

If I’d started school at the age of five, would things have been easier or harder? Would I have had a childhood full of birthday party attendance and afterschool playdates? Would I have been the one teasing the new kid in seventh grade? Or would they have sensed weakness from the very beginning, and circled like vultures? I know the answer is that my childhood probably wouldn’t have been any more normal, because my parents are simply not normal. They did not hold socialization in high regard, assuming that since my sister and I got along with other adults, by natural extension we’d do just fine with others our age. The mean girls did not get that memo.

Just meeeee for you, and you for meeeee

Things are looking up. I finished the wedding thank you notes that so plagued me. Sample: “Can you believe we haven’t even thrown these at each other yet? I am sure they would hold up admirably even if we did, owing to the high quality.” I resisted the temptation to say “Thank you for contributing to our wedding slush fund. We used your generous check to pay some teamsters to deliver the garden chairs.”

And the book deal, well, snap, that was easy! I should have tried getting one years ago! Lambchop and I are kicking off the writing process with a viewing of Mean Girls. Then we’re getting matching tattoos. I got the idea for the design from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living. You’ll have to buy the book to find out what it is!

-xxoo

The Man Without A Past

I finally got to see Aki Kaurismäki’s last film, and it was just as weird and gripping and lacking in emotional display as you expect from a Finn.

I, too, am erasing my past. Bringing some more of my things back to America. It’s all crap anyway. Closing the door on old relationships. Buying new shoes and planning for an exhibiton in 2005.

Everything is changing and crazy, but it’s ok. It’s about what you expect from your lambchop. Tomorrow I will take some photos of my new work in the gallery. It’s already been purchased, expressly for the 2005 exhibition, Kampf Bilder.

I want hot noodles!

I really hope the Hellboy movie is fun. It’s got Nazis! And, um, Selma Blair. Odd.

***

Spalding Gray, ya bastard. Drowning has never been on my list personally. But I can understand the why. Sorry to hear it. It is hard to reach out from the midst of a black cloud. How do you call someone up and say “It hurts so bad, but I have no good reason. I don’t think I can do it anymore.” Either that person will feel put upon to be burdened thusly, or they will ignore it because it’s uncomfortable, and babble about the shoes they bought on sale. People frequently self-flagellate in the aftermath of a suicide, wondering why the person didn’t just call them up to talk. Sometimes death is preferable to saying another word. It’s not you, it’s them, like any breakup. Or is it? Ugh.

***

The baby shower. I saved the most horrifying thing for last! At one point some of the guests started to fight about who had the best mini van. Someone shut them down by saying “Well, mine rides like a Cadillac.” How can you top that, I dare you.

Then someone asked me what kind of cheese was in the goat cheese, raspberry, and pecan salad. So I told her, and she bellowed into the other room, “SEE, DAWN! I TOLD YOU it was FETA CHEESE!”

The low-carb dieters munched on meat and mayonnaise roll-ups. Many sports-themed outfits were received. And the “gift basket” was in full effect…instead of purchasing something actually useful, the individual fills a laundry basket with random crap from the dollar store. Oh look, novelty giant diaper pins. Frequently the cost will amount to that of one larger, useful item, but some feel quantity makes a better showing.

The worst part was that the whole event was a tacky extravaganza, from the plastic Farmer Baby favor bags to the overly be-ribboned floral arrangements. Yet everyone loved it, and complimented me on my good taste, saying how it “really shone through.” I am a mean, nasty person, because that only made me feel worse. When it’s my turn to be knocked up, I’m going to “elope” for the duration. I’ll just show up one day, bundle in tow. “Oh, this? Yeah, I found it. Someone left it on my car next to a gym flyer.”

-xxoo

Burden

Hulk hurt self bulk shopping. Hulk not lie to you. Ouch.

Also, I am morally outraged because it turns out that Netflix does not stock pornography! What the? I mean I just assumed that they would when I forked over $20. It’s not like it’s a number one hobby or anything, but this is America! If I want to settle in with some microwave popcorn for “Weapons of Ass Destruction,” who is Netflix to turn down my hard-earned unemployment dollars? I wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn’t been looking for “Something About Mary.” This reminded me to always try Keyword: Bukkake. No dice. I am drafting an angry letter right now.

-xxoo

Don’t have a whack attack

So I got a message from a friend the other day, “hey, I saw you in the street today and it looked like you were mumbling obscenities under your breath…” That’s right, cursing and raving is not just for the homeless and the criminally insane anymore! What can I say I am having a bad couple of days. And I am Irish.

But then I was over at my neighborhhod Hess station and LO! If you buy a drink the size of a cruise missile, you get it in a fancypants Starsky and Hutch cup. I am more excited about the release of this movie than a person ought to be. It’s because it bodes well for the realization of my life long dream:

The Dukes of Hazzard: The Movie

Just think about that for a moment, won’t you?

-xo

Romeo and Juliet, they never felt this way I bet

Now I bring you garish tidings of the Valentine’s Day candy retailing season. Vomitola loves you.

In other news, the Golden Globes were on last night! I think some people won some stuff. I was too busy eating my weight in cheese fries at the Outback, like a good American. Or as Mr. H said, “a good Australian.” Lambchop obviously didn’t catch the awards fever either, she was watching Das Boot and brandishing a trident. In the two seconds that I did see, Sofia Coppola accepted an award wearing flat shoes. Kudos.

I hope Nicole Kidman did not win anything for that wretched Cold Mountain. Mr. H has taken to mortifying me in public by repeating that clip where she says “I marry you, I marry you, I marry you,” replete with bad falsetto southern accent. He doesn’t understand why they keep showing that particular clip.

His take: “Is this movie about a retarded hot chick? Jude Law is thinking ‘This hot chick is retarded! I am going to score!'”

I guess it’s no more annoying than when the DeBeers ads are on around the holidays and he feels the need to hoot “I LOVE THIS WOMAN!” in parking lots.

-xxoo

Sooooo Good!

My house is a really great place to watch bad movies. Because we have a fireplace and a lot of ire. Last night offered Ghost Ship, a movie whose only exciting moment occurred in the first five minutes when a roomful of people are halved by a rope and then slide apart like so many wide-eyed steaks. The Movie was aware that it had nothing else, and let us enjoy it again as a flashback later on.

P.S. Julianne Margulies is not Sigourney Weaver. Even in her mondo-sportsbra.

It’s another frostbitey day but I don’t mind. Licketysplit is going to come over and we are going to knit little caps with kitten ears on them. Then we are going to watch Squirm in between slippery mouthfuls of lo mein.

Someone come with me to Lisbon. We’ll eat spicy fish and get low octane New Englander tans and draw pictures of comically oversized genitals in the sand on the beach. We’ll go to a museum. Pretty please?

brain in a jar, that’s the life for me

Whoa people, you don’t want to know what’s been coming out of my head lately. This is the sick that just won’t quit. It’s the time of the year when I start obsessing, thinking I must have HIV, oh why oh why did I ever do those things with all those sailors? Then I realize “ohhhh, I get ragingly ill every single year at this time, and every year I convince myself I have some dreadful auto-immune problem.” I have this sick schedule down. First we start off with a cold in October. Then the first two weeks of December are a total wash with some sort of strep-like thing. Finally, things cap off in January or early february with a bout of bronchitis. Sure, one year I bucked the trend and got pneumonia in November, but really that was just to get out of going to the symphony. I had an assignment to review a performance of some Mahler, and damned if I didn’t end up getting to review Being John Malkovich instead. Make up work, boo yeah. Lower culture, holla back.

Speaking of culture, I read a book. It happens. It was pretty good, even with all the Writing. Middlesex. I am sure Sofia Coppola has already optioned it. I shed a wee tear at the end. One little detail just absolutely killed me. No, I’m not going to tell you what it was. Freaking read it, then maybe we’ll talk. It’s got Detroit, it’s got incest, it’s got hermaphrodites, it’s out in paperback. What’s not to like?

That brain up there really is mine. I used to volunteer for any medical study involving an MRI in college. I love x-ray vision. I’ve been thinking a lot about what a bummer it is to be human meat. I’d totally go for being a brain in a jar, except then I couldn’t play at being attractive on weekends. Although the MRI tech did say I have lovely, perfectly formed ventricles. I have another shot that shows them. They look just like butterflies.

-xxoo