And Now Ladies and Gentlemen...

So I obviously have a tendency not to update often, which saddens me. I'll have to work on that.

So, thanks to my TV, my computer and an HDMI cable to connect them, I've started to catch up on TV shows and I've added two to my lineup - FlashForward and Lie to Me.

Regarding FlashForward - the premise is amazing and interesting. However, I'm not sure that they're totally doing the premise justice, which saddens me as I want this show to be my new Lost, as Lost is ending in 2010 and I'm gonna need a replacement show. I feel like there's not enough tension and the writers are revealing their mysteries too quickly. I think back to the first season of Lost, which I think was one of the finest seasons of scripted TV ever, and think about the fact that it was sort of a slow burn, even though they hit the ground running. Viewers were allowed not only to get  involved with the mystery of the island, but also to really get to know and love/hate the characters. We got to understand their motivation for their actions and decisions and it made their responses to the island that much more interesting. Character histories rolled out slowly and evenly and the mysteries did as well. FlashForward isn't doing this. It's not taking it's time. It's not giving us a clear view of the characters or their motivations. When Janis reveals that her flashfoward was of her being pregnant, she also says that she didn't even want a kid. Now, it would have been better for them to show us this later and to actually SHOW us her reluctance to be a mother. They should have taken more time with Demetri's issue of not seeing anything - they didn't have to tell us that someone else didn't see anything and then have that person die in the second episode. TOO SOON. Let that marinate.They could have let Demetri's concern over what he didn't see build up and confirm his theory later in the damn season. And then, to have someone tell him he's gonna be murdered - also in the second episode. WHAT. Let this burn, people. Let it burn. I'm starting to wonder what they're gonna be left with come end of the season as they're throwing it all out at the viewers now. And the main couple - they're not that interesting, to be honest. 

This doesn't mean I don't like the show. I have no idea right now if I do. I want to like it and so I think I lean towards liking it. It's a pleasant enough way to pass sometime. I'll know keep watching, at least til the end of the season (I don't believe in bailing on a show before a season is completed).

I've also started to watch Lie to Me. Now, I don't do particularly well with shows like this - you know, those that have the self contained episode format. To keep me interested in a show, I need to have a show that if you didn't see last week's episode, you're gonna be confused - like, I missed one episode of the first season of Lost and saw two out of order, as I didn't start watching the show until the reruns in December. The whole damn season didn't make sense until I bought the DVD. That's the kind of show I like. Only one of my current favorite shows is of the self contained format - 30 Rock and that's also a comedy, so I'm primarily cracking up the whole time. So. I started watching Lie to Me in the second season, which again, the fact that I'm so not confused even though I missed the whole damn first season so makes this the kind of show I wouldn't normally watch. I basically started watching because I love Tim Roth and a weekly dose of Tim Roth is a great thing to have. So, yeah, that is my entire reason for tuning in. I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. It's interesting, I suppose, but if not for Tim Roth, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be back to see the next season. There's no suspense for me, no "ohmygodigottaseethenextepisodenow!" since it's self contained. I'm also not digging the A/B story format either. I get bored of TV easily and shows that are easy to watch tend to bore me. This is why I don't watch a lot of TV shows - I don't to the NCISs or the CSIs or House, etc and why most of the shows I do watch aren't the most popular -  because they don't make it necessary to follow the show and see every episode to make it all make sense. But, I love Tim Roth and he is pleasing to my eyes, so I'll watch, at least til the end of this season.  

I totally loved Inglorious Basterds.

...That I actually don't suck as a screenwriter and I can, in fact, actually write screenplays.

So that's what I'm doing right now. Plugging away at a pair of screenplays.

Also, I'm going to Berlin in January!

You Are An ISFP

The Artist You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now). You enjoy spending your free time in nature. You are good with animals and children. Simply put, you enjoy beauty in all its forms. You live for the simple pleasures in life. Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs. In love, you are quiet and sweet yet very passionate. You love easily. You have an underlying love for all living things, and it's easy for you to accept someone into your heart. At work, you do best in an unconventional position. You express yourself well and can work with almost anyone. You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer. How you see yourself: Sympathetic, kind, and communicative When other people don't get you, they see you as: Incompetent, insecure, and overly sensitive

So, I just had my first class - Narrative Theory and Practice in Screenwriting. I like it and the professor a lot.

I do have to pitch an idea for a screenplay Thursday. Thursday!

So I’ve moved on to campus and I’m beginning my Master’s degree. It’s exciting, scary and exhilarating all that the same time.

I’m at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. It’s really pretty around here. The campus is gorgeous and Roanoke’s nice. Not a whole lot going on here, but it’s still nice I’ve gotten lost twice already, but nothing too serious.

I’ll be here for about 6 weeks, each summer until I finish. A summer program is perfect for me, since I can work during the year. Or, like another girl is going, work on another Master’s at the same time.

I’m studying Screenwriting and Film Studies, and I’m taking the more academic tract towards a MA instead of a MFA. While I love being in the thick of the industry and I adore the more creative part, I think I’m more suited to academia and I hope to be a professor, eventually. Obviously, I will have to finish my Master’s and then get a PhD.

I’ve met a lot of people in my house/dorm and they all seem really lovely. Today is a lazy day before work and all begins. Orientation is tomorrow and classes begin on Tuesday.

I’m making this place home for a bit and I think I’ll be happy to come back. It’s so quiet here. I actually have time to write. Orientation’s early tomorrow, so I better get a good night of sleep!

When it rains, it absolutely pours.

So, I bought a new computer and was accepted into graduate school. Life is looking up.

Cate Blanchett, Michelle Williams, Angelina  Jolie, Naomi Watts, Scarlett Johansson, Kate Winslet....

Honestly, the list probably goes on and on.

Thinking about this has made me realize that what I find physically attractive in women is very different from what I find physically attractive in men.

Yeah,  I've seen it.  Twice.  And it's cute.  And I totally do not believe it  should have gotten all the praise it has.  I saw  it the second time to figure out what the hell I didn't see the first  time.  And it was like "Oh yeah, still predictable and it still doesn't stay with me."

I  agree with few of the Oscar nominees this year.  And I really can't be arsed to watch it - which is the first time since I was 9 I  won't be watching.

Yesterday, I took my mother and my aunt to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I really liked it - very much in fact.  It was this sweet – but not cloyingly so - sad, magical, lovely, poignant entity. Honestly, I think I wish I could spread it on a piece of bread and eat it. Seriously. Nothing was overwrought, or overdone. Everything was done just so and just enough. I’m not kidding. I wish I could eat the movie. I imagine it would taste heavenly.

I was hoping that I would like it as much as I did; I'd been waiting to see the movie for about two or so years now. And you know, I love, Iove Cate Blanchett something fierce. I'm not a huge fan of Brad Pitt, really, but I quite liked him in the role. There's something completely sweetly bittersweet about the way he played the role and I really, really liked what he did. It's like there was some yearning there, some searching for something that just came out so completely well. It’s the kind of work that makes me excited about whatever the hell else an actor will be doing next. And Cate was amazing, as always. I feel like that pretty much goes without saying. I mean, really, she’s Cate freaking Blanchett. It’s like she never disappoints.  Does she even have another level other than “awesome” ?

( Cut for your friends list's feelings... )

 

Writing this just made me sincerely wish I could get paid for writing my opinions on films. It would make the word such a better place and me a much happier human.

The fact that the "Twilight" series has so many fans makes me honestly despair for humanity.

I have never wanted to kill someone as much as I want to right now.

I fucking hate Henrico county and I wish the whole fucking county would burn in hell.

I'm so pleased by the election results and so depressed about the passing of Prop 8 in California.

It's like this country will make one giant leap forward and then one giant leap backwards.

I can't understand it.

I'm so tickled that our country proved to be a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be by electing an African-American to the Presidency. I truly didn't have enough faith in my fellow Americans. I honestly thought that he might not make it. I find I must eat my words. Of course, racism is still here and will never truly go away, but it is better than it use to be and it gives me a lot of hope that the America my little brother will grow up in will be a significantly better America than the one I grew up in, which was already a significantly better America than my mother grew up in. I'm so pleased that we finally figured out that we'd had enough of the current admininstration and people with ties to it. I'm pleased we figured out that America needs a new direction.

I'm so disheartened by the passing of Prop 8. I cried on election night - I cried because my country suprised me with the man they elected and because the passing of bans on gay marriage made me very sad. I don't understand why its so wrong for two people who are in love and wish to marry to be married. I just don't get it and I never will. I cannot understand what's so awful about people wishing to celebrate their love for one another. I don't understand why people have this vendeta against gay people getting married. I don't see how allowing gay people to marry will affect heterosexual marriages. I'm so annoyed that people keep waving their religion in the air and using that as an excuse to be hateful and to not allow people something so basic. I just fail to understand people.

VA WENT BLUE,  VA WENT BLUE, VA WENT BLUE, VA WENT BLUE!

I  am so fucking proud of my home state.

Back in 2005, when Elizabethtown was released, a critic coined a phrase to describe Kirsten Dunst's character in the film: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a shallowly built character who exists soley to affect change in the male protaganist's life and to make him more carefree. That's her entire role. She has no motivations in the film outside of this and nothing else to do. Kirsten's character in Elizabethtown and Natalie Portman's in Garden State are total Manic Pixie Dream Girls - there is no discussion on this. Everyone agrees. But people have been throwing Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in that mix too. And I - and a lot of others - seriously do not agree.

To be honest, I sort of see Clem as a deconstruction of the MPDG, to be honest. I think she had the potential to be one, and probably would have been one in the hands of a lesser screenwriter. She's obviously a force of nature and just as erratic and insane as the other MPDG. But she doesn't change Joel's life - in fact, it seems as if he wants that - he thought that she would change his life, but she end up not. She even tells him that "too many guys think I'm a concept, that I'm going to complete them or something." She also seems to suffer from serious self-invovelment issues and insecurity that cripples and destroys their relationship. Clem and Joel end the film willing to give it another go because they realize what love is and what the good years of their relationship was like. But it's obvious that there are bad times and they are aware of those bad times and the fact that those bad times can come again. There's no illusion at the end that everything will end all bright and shiny - no one's got rose colored glasses on - and that includes the audiance. Clem also has motivations and a life outside of Joel. Clem seems, at certain points, as if she would be a MPDG, but it becomes apparent by the end that she so totally is not.

So, people, do you agree with me? And what characters from what films would you say is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

I so, so, so miss New York City and all the fantastic liberals I knew there.

I'm back in conservative VA and pulling my hair out. It's so stifling here.

Folks at work were talking about the rumors about Will Smith and his wife having an open marriage - and then saying that it's disgusting and immoral and showcasing the decay or morality.

I fail to see how an open marriage is a failing. It's not something I would do, but, as I said to my co-workers, I just can't get worked up about what goes out behind someone's bedroom door. I said that I didn't think anyone had the right to make assumptions about someone else's marriage, nor did they have the right to assume that they knew what was right and wrong about someone else's marriage.

And of course I got head shaking.

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU.

A Trader Joe's is opening tomorrow in the metro area and the guy I'm kinda into is kinda into me.

Life is good.

My god, you guys.

I just pre-ordered a pair of shoes. They should ship Nov. 14th. A pair of Louboutins. I've always wanted a pair, even as a wee one. I knew some folks with a few pairs and I always really liked the craftsman ship. And I like they way they feel. And the red sole.

Five hundred and ninety-five dollars. Without tax. I did get free shipping though.

That is the most money I have ever spent IN MY LIFE on one item. My tickets to England were a little less expensive - for going and returning.

I'm obviously not buying another thing besides a few birthday gifts until Christmas. Shoot, I'm not going to the movies or out to dinner for the rest of the year.

It doesn't hurt the bank account - that's barely 5 days worth of pay. BUT STILL. I've never spent that much on anything ever before and I sure as hell won't be doing it again any time soon. The shoes are a gift to myself. A "You graduated from college and got a well paying - if not in your field - job" gift.

And Parker won't be getting any more gifts from herself any time soon.

You know, I've always believed you can tell a lot about someone from the perfume they favor.

I'm serious - I think you can tell a lot about someone by knowing the sort of things they like to smell and why they like to smell those things are certain times.

I'm not even a perfume fiend. I just like smelling nice things a lot.
 
I have mini bottles or testers of D&G's "The One", Lancome's "Magnifique", Vikor and Rolf's "Flowerbomb", Marc Jacob's "Daisy" and Lolita Lempicka's "L De Lolita Lempicka". I have large bottles of "Burberry Brit" and Armani  "Code". I'm currently leaning towards a purchase of bottle of  Chanel's "Coco Madamoiselle".

With out a doubt, my all time favorite is Burberry Brit. There's something about that sent that just makes me intensely happy. It's so clean and fresh and refreshing and spicy and nice and calming and inviorating, all at the same time. If it ever goes out of production, I'll just fall to pieces. I already know that if Burberry ever mentions that they're ceasing production on Brit, I'd buy like 20 bottles and ration them out and horde them til the end of time. And I am so not one who hordes.

So, tell me people - what are your signature scents?