John Woo

I have given this man several chances.

The one movie where he almost convinced me he had talent was The Killer, and that was only after I forced myself to stop taking it seriously and watch it as a comedy.  It went from pretty unbearable to quite enjoyable.

The problem is that that’s the only one of his films that I’ve been able to do it with.

Hard Boiled?  It almost worked the way it wanted to.

Mission Impossible II?  I wanted to vomit.

Face/Off?  I almost fell asleep.

Broken Arrow? I was confused at the inanity.

Windtalkers?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!…oh wait…that was a drama…oh…

Okay, so people will tell me that I’ve obviously heavily dosed on his American stuff which, apparently, gets cut down a lot.  Fine.  You know what else was cut down a lot? The Magnificent Ambersons, and that movie was still good.

John Woo is a hack.

The Age of Innocence

So, a review caught my eye about the movie Prom from Disney.  Written for the Washington Post, the review is not all that kind to the film and rather heavily relies on the idea that the movie is too squeaky clean to be good entertainment (what Ms Chen would say about something like Cinderella I have no idea).

The subject was tackled a little messily but well enough for my tastes here, at Big Hollywood, and I have nothing more to add to that specific discussion for two reasons:

1) I don’t care enough.

2) I care even less about the movie Prom.

What suddenly attracted me to the whole little spat was the fact that I just read The Secret Garden for the first time a few days ago.  And no, I’m not a twelve year old girl, but I do feel a little weird for having read the thing at all.  However, what was so interesting was that The Secret Garden was, apparently, exactly was Ms Chen was describing Prom as:  super clean and without any real regard for reality.  And yet (I can’t speak for Ms Chen), the world seems to consider the little book to be a classic of children’s literature, and I am slightly baffled.

The American Fantasy Monarchy

In my opinion, monarchies are one of the most immoral forms of government.  You have a small class of people who deem themselves greater than anyone else in the land merely because their parents had a certain name and passed it on to them.  Not only is there this sense of entitlement and superiority, but the masses bow to these people and go along with it, effectively giving up their liberties merely for the comfort of having someone tell them what to do.

Seriously, why should Britain pay for your life of leisure? Isn't a military salary good enough?

For those of you who might remember from high school (I read it on my own), but Thomas Paine had some things to say about monarchies at the beginning of his pamphlet Common Sense.  In talking about the nature of a hereditary system, Paine says,

For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Don't mess with...Virginia?

Some harsh words that, if said by an MP in Parliament today, would probably ruffle some feathers.  Yes, there are anti-royalists in the British government today, but words this strong would be deemed a little too much, at least.  And Paine said them more than 230 years ago.

My Sony eReader

So, in the middle of last summer I decided that it would be a good idea to purchase a digital eReader.  Because I’m a Sony snob (dammit, SNE! Will you PLEASE stop sucking!), I refused to look seriously at any other type of readers and shelled out over three hundred dollars for the Daily Edition.

I’ve loved this thing since I got it.

Amazing? Why, yes I am, thank you very much. The reader's not bad either.

You might say I overpaid…and I’d agree.  Especially with the Kindle at, what is it now?, $140?  Yeah, there’s no question that I overpaid for the device itself, but this thing is turning itself worthwhile far quicker than I thought it would.

Already? Seriously?

Okay, I’m busy.  But I’m trying.

I swear, I’m trying.

First off, I finished one of the stories I wrote of earlier.  Its tentative title is “Journey”, but that reminds me too much of music I have no taste for, so I’ll probably change it rather quickly.  It’s going to be the forth in a series of five stories.  Set on the first intergalactic flight between Earth and Alpha Centari, the story tries to portray a small antithesis to what most speculative fiction tends to be: a socialist wetdream.  So, no, there are no sing alongs about the ever knowledgeable elders who rule ever so justly or some idealized and borderline fascist super government that sent them out with only the intent of spreading happiness (cause, yeah, that’s exactly what Il Duce tried to do).

Ach!  Politics!

Alright…I’m turning that off.

And here we go…

So, here I am again.

Last time I did this, it was a bit of a bust.  I was never really that into it and it functioned mainly as a communication tool between me and America…despite the fact that I continued to use my cell phone (which was mistake).

Anyway…things have certainly changed.

Three-ish years ago when I started this…I was directionless and had no real plan, so I moved to Italy to teach English.  That turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I’d happily recommend the idea to anyone (it’s easy, doesn’t require any kind of degree, and you can make a decent living off of it), but it was not for me in the long run.

So now, here I am in Birmingham, Alabama going to Business School?  What?  Those who knew me before I left are incredulous when we play catch up and I tell them about what I’m doing.  When I throw in the fact that I’m applying to, have gotten into, and will be attending a Master’s Program in Statistics, they become even more flabbergasted.  Why?  Well, my English Literature undergrad degree might have something to do with that.

And there is why I am back here.  I don’t have a whole lot of outlets for my creative side anymore.  I have to write business plans and discuss marketing strategies in the midst of lots of uncomplicated math (accounting is just adding and subtracting, don’t you know).  Yet, despite it all, I continue to write.  I finished my first novel while in Italy (more on that in a moment), and am still knee deep into the first draft of my second.  I’ve also begun a small series of short stories partially inspired as a counter to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series (of which I’m almost done with the second book, Foundation and Empire).  I enjoy these things, and if I could pay all of my bills with them, then I’d probably drop this whole business thing….

Wait a second…

That gives me an idea…

Yes, I’ve decided to sell my first novel.  Already it is on Amazon for Kindle.  I decided to bypass the entire dinosaur model of publishing and go straight to the source.  It’s called A Quest through Winter Sleep.

In all honesty, I’d give the book a pretty good rating.  Like a weak three stars.  Decent first novel.

Walker Percy and Sylvia Plath both burned their first novels.  I self publish mine and wait for people to tear me asunder.  How exciting!

Anyway…buy it.  Read it.  Share it.  Tell the world about a fresh new talent.

Or forget about it…whatever.  :)

Returning

I have decided to come back to this blogging thing.

I’ll be back later with a greater outline of things to come, but essentially, I’m going to talk about my writing.

I’m really into politics, but it won’t come up here.

I’m really into film, and I’m going to bring it up (maybe post a review or two), but nothing major.

This is going to become my ground for writing and getting feedback.

 

That is all.

A Funny Thing about Teaching

Well, a funny thing about teaching Italians, specifically.

First, I need to tell you something about the Italian language.  First, look at this, it’s a random article in Italian.  Look at the endings of the vast majority of words.  What do they have in common?  Almost all Italian words end in vowels (with the exception of a few small words like con (with) and some words taken from other languages like computer (same in Italian)).

Now, knowing that, imagine a tiny classroom.  It’s me and one Italian who has been speaking this language where words only end with vowels.  And they are just beginning to learn the English language.  What do you think that sounds like?

The most recent BSG

Oh…my…God…

Okay, this show has never been light and fluffy.  I started watching the new version of Galactica, loved it, and tried to watch some of the old show.  It was unbearable.  I tried again about a year ago and when I saw the crew of Galactica head to a casino planet mere hours after their entire civilization had been destroyed, I turned it off and will never look back.  It’s dishonest about its characters and situations and so cheesy it gives Cheet-O’s a bad name, plus it’s so obviously a cheap Star Wars knock off that I can’t excuse it for anything.

Awesome. Or not.

Well, this new version of Battlestar comes along and feeds on our post 9.11 fears.  People are scared all the time.  The bad guys are complex and terrifying in their monstrosities.  Characters have flaws and will never become the perfect beacons of light that have blighted Star Trek for the last thirty years.  It’s also been dark and willing to talk about subjects that are unpleasant (abortion, euthenasia, and alcohol abuse come to mind) while taking its characters through Hell (the occupation on New Caprica was just brutal).

But now, there is a new level of wow.

Forever

and a day. That’s how long it’s been since I last posted.

I could make excuses (my internet was out, I wasn’t doing anything, and giant bees attacked are all valid reasons), but the solid fact of the matter is that I haven’t written anything here.

What have I been doing?

Well, there was the Christmas potluck at Sara and Jen’s apartment where we had a healthy mixture of dogs in a blanket, chili, mashed potatoes, and pasta on Christmas Eve.  There was New Years where Allison and I were almost destroyed by Italians and their fireworks.  Stuff was exploding mere feet above my head.  Twas a good time.  The locals also seemed to be trying to light a tree on fire through fireworks explosions.  My guess is that they got pretty close but couldn’t quite pull it off, cause that tree is still standing.  This was all in front of the Coliseum where over a million people gathered to usher in the new year.  It was like a giant block party filled with people from every corner of the globe.  We were there for about twenty minutes and left about five minutes after midnight.  Good times.  Good times.

I’ve been writing a good bit, but not nearly as much as I should have been.  I’ve reached Chapter 6 of my rewrite (the second draft is now 124 pages long with another 320 to go in the original draft).  I’m not sure if I’m going to reach my goal of finishing the rewrite by my birthday.  Well, looks like I should hunker down and work, right?

I’m back to work teaching on one side of the city and then on the other about three seconds later.  It’s good, except when I sub for a teacher who quit because she couldn’t deal with the screaming 9 year olds.  I played cop for an hour and ten minutes out of the hour and a half class.  I had to hold the smallest kid up at one point so the others would stop hitting him.  It was chaos and I just feel bad for those who have to do it all the time.  I’m just hoping that I don’t end up having to, although when my normal class does end (the one that I normally have at that time) I have a strong feeling that I’m gonna be right back there.  I can’t wait!

Overall, I love it here.  Rome is a beautiful city (I go to a church every Sunday that has been standing in one form or another for over seventeen hundred years).  I enjoy my job most of the time, and I have enough free time to both enjoy the city and get lost in my own little worlds that I try to put down on paper.

I promise that I will begin writing here more.  It’s a failing on my part, and I will do my best to keep it up.  Shoot me a line if you feel like I haven’t posted enough.  I throw something up.  Maybe about a movie, or about some slice of life here.  I’ll do something.

Until next time…whenever that manages to be…