Philip Glass, why are you so brilliant? His scores for Koyaanisqatsi and Carl Laemmle's Dracula are just incredibly... I feel "epic" has a connotation that undercuts the genius of his work. Glorious? The arpeggiated "Philip Glass chord progression," even if it is hackneyed to some extent, resonates with me every time I hear it. This brings me to another point: minimalism, specifically Glass' style. While he claims he's more of a classicist now than a minimalist, I disagree quite strongly. Just the fact that I'm even able to use the term "Philip Glass chord progression" indicates a certain level of repetition within his musical structures (see "Pruit Igoe & Prophecies" and the beginning of "The End of Dracula," below). I suppose that triumph of academia/technique over musical creativity is forgivable considering his tutelage under Nadia Boulanger, but I admit hearing the same arpeggiated chords time and time again in his works, no matter how scintillating, is a bit tiresome. Still! He is one of my absolute favorite composers.

(Also, can you see how excited I am to take music classes in college?)



"Pruit Igoe & Prophecies"



"The End of Dracula"

This song has been stuck in my head for several days:



For all my attempts to be tragically hip and reject mainstream culture, I really do like Pixie Lott. In my mind, she's a bit like an amalgam of Duffy and Lady Gaga, if that makes any sense.

OKAYYY. So I was perusing Simon Pegg's twitter, and what did I find but a saga of Hot Fuzz fanfic between him, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright!

Some choice excerpts:

Am off out now. Good night all. Hands up who still wants a HOT FUZZ sequel.
- Edgar Wright (Is "FUCK, YEAH!" an option?)

@simonpegg @nickjfrost Danny and Angel grinned as they tackled the shoplifter. There was no reason to hold him down so long. Or was there..?
- Edgar Wright

All power to the slashers I say. I'm deeply flattered that anyone would take mine and @edgarwight's balls and run with them.
- Simon Pegg

@simonpegg "That's a lovely big truncheon." said Danny. (sound of slide whistle.) the end.
- Nick Frost

And thus slash is canonized:

Me and @simonpegg once wrote some Nicholas Angel and Danny Butterman slash fiction. It was called HOT FUZZ...(applause)
- Edgar Wright

I quite like the new Doctor Who logo! Though it's obvious someone is having a little too much fun with the lens flare effect, it's simple and and much classier than the old "flying turd."

(Can be found at the official site, by the way.)

(This is from my phone, so excuse the shitty quality.)

This week has been hellish, to say the least. Whoever said senior year was a breeze - screw you! I don't think I've gone to bed earlier than 2 A.M. in the past three weeks.

My classes this year are, I must admit, rather disappointing; I mean, you know there's a problem when I vastly prefer AP Calc to AP Lit! AP Music Theory is by far the most engaging class I have and it's made me consider a minor in music (perhaps musicology or something similar), which I've certainly never thought about before.

In related news, I have finalized my college plans (with a great deal of trepidation, of course), and well... I'm applying early decision to Columbia and regular decision to Barnard, Vassar, Swarthmore, UPenn and Rutgers. Crossing my fingers!

Story of my life.

So I went back-to-school shopping today and ( this is what I bought. )

As you can see, I am making every effort possible to procrastinate on my summer AP homework.

So, Inglourious Basterds. I had decidedly low expectations, but Tarantino surprised me once again and I will admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I were to write some ~profound cinematic criticism, I'd have a much lower opinion of the film, but really... I haven't been this entertained in a theatre in quite a while. And you guys, seriously, if Christoph Waltz doesn't win 394059305 Oscars for his role, HEADS WILL ROLL. He was fucking brilliant. Mélanie Laurent was rather good, certainly not as amazing as I'd been led to believe, but I really enjoyed the performances of Diane Kruger (who was exquisite, by the way) and Michael Fassbender. So yes, I sincerely recommend this.

EDIT: Okay, I was thinking a lot about this, and I would like to qualify my review of Basterds. I appreciated it on a very superficial level, but I think Tarantino is a sick guy, seriously. His films don't quite descend into nihilism, but they lack a very important underlying morality, which is essential since he is such a proponent of mindless, gratuitous violence. While I think it's acceptable to take certain liberties with WWII/the Holocaust in fictionalizing, it's callous for Tarantino to treat it so lightly and play out some kind of savage revenge fantasy against the Nazis.

Also, I would just like to say - David Bowie's "Life on Mars" is probably one of the greatest songs ever written. I've heard about twenty covers of it, but they're all staggeringly inferior; even Bowie's own concert renditions don't come close. I suppose his voice couldn't handle the original key so he lowered it in later performances, but that first yearning B♭4 of the (quite glorious) chorus is so integral to the song's sound... I won't even start on the epic orchestral swell at the end!

I just received my schedule in the mail, and... ugh. I know, stupid me, I signed up for these classes last spring, but senioritis is already gearing up!

Period 1: Adv. French Lit (I am still annoyed that College Board canceled AP French Lit, by the way)
Period 2: AP English Lit & Comp
Period 3: Phys. Ed. (aka the bane of my existence)
Period 4: AP Music Theory
Period 5: Wind Ensemble
Period 6: Lunch
Period 7: Business Law/Intro to Accounting (wtf, switching out of these)
Period 8: AP Calc
Period 9: AP Gov/Pol

I would ideally love to TA for Concert Band or my APUSH teacher, but we shall see.

After (literally) years of meaning to, I've finally started watching Life on Mars and holy shit, it is superb! Really one of the best shows I've ever seen, from the BRILLIANT performances by John Simm (my future husband, by the way) and Philip Glenister, to the absolutely gripping drama, to the delightful moments of levity between the team, to the way Manchester in 1973 is captured just so, to the excellent soundtrack (you can never go wrong with a little Bowie). I do like to spoil myself so I know what happens (it all seemed kind of inevitable anyway) and I have mixed feelings on the subject, but ultimately I think I prefer the ending the writers chose. Highly recommended!

Life can be delightfully coincidental sometimes.

Suffering from ennui, I decided to cook my own dinner tonight (for the first time in god knows how long), sifting through the thick cookbooks with a layer of dust in my attic but ultimately settling for "The Best (No Kidding) Buttermilk Pancakes." Surprise! -- they were not half-bad considering most of my culinary endeavors turn to dust. Seriously, in the kitchen I'm probably interchangeable with a five-year-old.

Then I went to see Julie & Julia.

To digress for a moment, I watched a show today called My Life in Food that featured a middle-aged runner, Tim, whose diet consists of solely natural foods; for example, on one particular run he ate sweet grass growing alongside the road instead of bringing along a granola bar or what have you. I'm sorry, but no. I don't care if my life span is extended by five years or I can run a few miles more each day. The magic, if you'll excuse the mawkishness, of taking that first bite of a food you really love is a feeling incomparable to most.

Anyway, back to Julie & Julia, which was utterly charming! Meryl Streep is just... my god. In the words of A.O. Scott, she has exhausted every single superlative that exists. Perfection! The chemistry between her and Stanley Tucci was remarkable.

One of the great things about the film, I've come to realize, was its minimization -- and, dare I say, repudiation -- of romance and the Hollywood stereotype of male necessity. Sure, their husbands were supportive, but in the end Julie and Julia's achievements were theirs alone.

Maybe it's the latent feminist in me, but this film really... empowered me, I suppose you could say. I mean, here was Julie, a disgruntled government drone with literary aspirations, who made something (a pretty big something!) out of nothing. And how to even start on Julia? To call her one of the most influential figures of the 20th century would not be far-fetched, and to think it all started on a mere whim... So can we call "get up off your ass and do something" a message? Yeah, I think so. Maybe I won't cook my way through a 700-page book or change the world, but I can do something that someone out there, even if it's a single person, will appreciate. I don't know what it is yet, but I think I shall relish the opportunity when it comes.

Shows to see this season:

• Hamlet (Broadway; opens October 6)
• A Steady Rain (Broadway; opens September 29)
• Ragtime (Broadway; opens November 15)
• A Little Night Music (Broadway; opens December ?)
• As You Like It (BAM; opens January 2010)
• The Tempest (BAM; opens February 2010)

I am doubly excited about the last two since they star Stephen Dillane, a seriously brilliant and underrated actor.

I am really quite bored at the moment, so I said to myself, "Why not .gif spam?"

Thus:

( 38 .gifs, about 50% Doctor Who. )

Things that have amused me recently:

• Hilariously vitriolic review of The Power Glove, a Nintendo controller accessory from the 80s

• My First Dictionary (amazing)

• The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings , worth it for the brilliant commentary

• Is This the Stupidest Person Ever? (speaks for itself)

• Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version, a revision by Vanity Fair staff

• Freakout's Gourmet Race, which is the most bizarre yet hilarious thing I've ever seen
(the original 'Greatest Freakout Ever' if you haven't seen it)

I have returned! The program at Georgetown was so fucking amazing; I miss it already! The lectures were pretty much brilliant, and omfg, Chuck Hagel taught one of them! Though many of our political views are probably not in harmony, I respect him quite a lot.

The other principal component of the week was a simulation of a U.S. Senate election for one of the Virginia seats, and students were divided into little factions of Democrats, Republicans, Democratic Campaign Committee, Republican Campaign Committee, MSNBC, Fox News, and the Washington Post. I'm honestly the last person to ever vote Republican, but the Democratic candidate was such a fucking idiot, oh my god. She didn't understand any of her policies and evidently was incapable of speaking English at least a little coherently. The Repub was a fantastic orator and quite comfortable in speaking about his policies, and since it wasn't a real election, I was forced to choose him.

Though I've always found politics fascinating, I've never really considered it a viable career option before this. I could definitely see myself going to Georgetown, interning on the Hill, going to work there after graduation, etc. etc. My heart will always belong to American history, but who knows!


Anyway.

In regard to the trailer for David Tennant's last special released at Comic Con today:

OH
MY
GOD.

SO EXCITED!

That is all.

HIATUS:
7/16 - 7/26

I'll be taking a summer course at Georgetown.

And happy birthday to everyone on my f-list who is celebrating it (flowerings, mmejavert, and anotherplay, I believe) next week!

So, HBP! I went in with a considerable amount of skepticism, but I ended up really liking it! It was loads better than the pieces of crap that were the fourth and fifth films, anyway.

Good:
• Alan Rickman. I mean, I'd pay him to have sex with me.
• Tom Felton, surprisingly enough. I think he's the best actor of all the kids.
• The art direction. Two of the most visually impressive scenes were Snape kneeling over the wounded Draco (beautiful image) and the flames encircling Dumbledore (what a bamf).
• Emma Watson because she's gorgeous.
• DanRad during the Felix Felicis scenes, omfg.
• Jim Broadbent, who made Slughorn interestingly sympathetic.
• The kids who played young Tom Riddle (especially Frank Dillane since his dad is brilliant).

Bad:
• TOO MUCH ROMANCE. I last read the book four years ago, so I don't remember all that much, but really. GTFO.
• Whoever played Lavender Brown since I was absolutely sick of her after the first ten minutes.
• The awful anti-climactic ending! WTF. The Death Eater team was so casual after Dumbledore's death and caused no mayhem whatsoever.
• The lack of a funeral for Dumbledore.

I saw Public Enemies today, and it has earned a 6/10 rating from me. I'm too lazy to write a nice coherent review, so:

Cons:
• Filming in hi-def digital - I don't really need to see everyone's pores!
• The "shaky cam" effect used
• Christian Bale's ATROCIOUS accent and often wooden acting
• Elliot Goldenthal's melodramatic, bombastic score
• Marion Cotillard attempting and (failing epically) to hide her accent
• Marion Cotillard's crappy stylist who made her hair look like a fucking rat's nest
• No character development/fleshing-out
• No context for/explanation of Dillinger's status as a folk hero

Pros:
• Stephen Lang's performance as Agent Winstead
• Johnny Depp's ageless face
• Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover! So entertaining!
• Absolutely gorgeous art direction
• The old-school jazz

This missed being a really terrific film by that much, but I honestly can't put my finger on why. As an art movie, I loved it, but there was simply no dramatic substance. I see why Michael Mann directed and wrote it the way he did, but a movie is fiction, not fact - that role belongs to a documentary. As I walked out of the theatre, I realized that I didn't give a shit about a single character, even Dillinger. If you're going to make the movie less about the characters and more about "the bigger picture" or whatever, fine, but it was not the case here. Mann could've easily made a movie about the era itself, why Dillinger was so revered, etc. etc., but that was only hinted at. Manohla Dargis of the Times praised it for being a "new kind of gangster story to fit the times, one that makes room for greater ambivalence, and lawmen and outlaws who are closer to one another in temperament and deed." Well, no, that ambivalence has been addressed in movies before, even in Mann's own Heat. Anyway, I will shut up now. Interesting movie, not without its flaws, but worth the price regardless. See it as a costume drama, it's most pleasing that way.