My scrap of dirt

First, a gorgeous picspam of the end of Needs by syxstring. Obviously spoiler-y for that episode.

A really cool Chicago Tribune interview of Joss Whedon, mostly about Dollhouse. It goes into a lot of questions that have come up about the show.


...I can't believe I forgot that link in my previous entry. A really great post on racism in pop culture and political correctness. It talks specifically about the movie 300 but there's a lot there that applies way beyond that one movie. I like that it brings up the question of purposefulness, which reminded me of Robert Black's "It's not Homophobia but it Doesn't Make It Right" (unfortunately I've only had time to skim over it).

I have papers to grade and a paper to edit before I leave next week and I have two hours of free time but of course I can't do any of it because I don't have anything with me on campus. I shall thus share a bunch of links.

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A Salon.com Joss interview. In my theory class we've been talking about the Holocaust/Shoah and the banality of evil, or rather the fact that it is very easy for average people to commit atrocities, so this part of the interview really resonated with me.

Q: And it's a similar idea of these mysterious people who seem very normal and slick, but are they ... evil?

A: Yeah. And we get to confront them with the consequences of what they do, and learn more about why they do what they do. Because very few people are entirely evil. I know it's hard to believe that after the last eight years of government in this country, but everybody has two sides, and I believe that not only are people often less or more righteous than they understand, but they often don't know what part of them is actually the good part. And a lot of the things that we prize in America might not actually be useful traits, and a lot of the things we vilify, to me, are not necessarily harmful, and that's something that's been in my work from the start.

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Gorgeous photos by David Strick of the Dollhouse set. Can you believe the show's actually starting tomorrow? We've been talking about it for so long it's hard to believe.

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Dan Savage's entry about his mom's death.I love at the end:
But I'm practical, like Mom, and I'd hate to see perfectly good tickets to a national tour of a hit Broadway musical go to waste. And it occurs to me that there has to be a teenage boy out there—in Chicago or close enough—who likes musicals and has a mother who loves him for the little musical-theater queen that he is. If you know that boy or you are that boy or you were that boy a decade ago or if you're that boy's mother or grandmother, send me an e-mail and I'll arrange to get these tickets to you.

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What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali. It's a little simplistic and idealistic for a lot of reason, but I still like the overall message.

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Speaking of, so I've finally seen Entre les murs (The Class) and it was amazing how much it felt familiar, like home, even though my own high school was nothing like that. I've personally encountered the attitudes we see in the movie from students during workshops a lot, and that's part of why I loved doing it so much, but still. It's not a whole lot of experience. Still, it spoke to me - made me frustrated and happy and it made me laugh while at the same time there's something so sad about it.

I'm going to buy the DVD - there's a lot of stuff in there that I want to pay closer attention to, about French education and the relationship between the teacher and his students, especially. I was surprised that I'd heard people mention the "gay incident" because it's so short and insignificant. The teacher addresses nothing. And I heard 'fag' said at other moments in the movie and no one, certainly not the teacher, picks up on it. So I'd gotten the impression before from other people that homophobia was poked at in the movie but to me it was more striking in terms of what is not done about it.

I'd be curious to read more about it - I know it's a mix of fiction and reality, anyone knows of a link that goes into detail about that?

Before I get started on this little rant, something I did in preparation for my lecture:

Really, heterosexuality manifests itself at school? No. Never, ever.

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UBC FilmSoc is showing the movie this week and I've been hearing about it so we (me + a bunch of friends) went it to see it last night. Three things that I found particularly interesting about the movie (which is about, well, young people - four couples and a threesome - fucking), but I'm going to put that under a cut in case some of you don't want to be "spoiled" for the movie.

( Hétéronormativité, quand tu nous tiens... )

It's 'funny' because I'm pretty sure I'm coming across as very critical; I actually enjoyed the movie a lot and I would absolutely recommend it. But especially since it's so much about sex, sexuality and relationships, it's just impossible for me to sit there and not reflect on the messages that the movie was perpetuating and the way in which the audience through its reactins was reifying very problematic messages about sexuality. What's acceptable, what's "normal", and in contrast, what is funny because it's unexpected/abnormal/unusual.

Pretty much I was sitting there and feeling like I was watching hegemony at work. Our messages change, evolve, but some dominant beliefs don't.

Real guys don't get fucked, y'know?

Hearing Joss say "sexuality is a spectrum; very few of us are just at one end or the other" in this video kind of just made my night. :D Not a whole lot of presumably straight guys would say that.

In unrelated news, went to see Hallam Foe tonight and that was a really good movie. Jamie Bell is really a great actor.

Another part of IFMagazine's article on Mutant Enemy Day.

And ha! Metaquotes has something on what teachers can do to try and get their students to turn off their phone before coming to class. It's pretty awesome. ^^

Randomly I came across the poster for Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss; I hadn't seen this version before and boy, it's a thousand times better than the one we got in France.



Seeing the poster reminded me of how much I liked the movie, and going on the net looking for pictures made me happy. I really love this one and this one in particular.

It reminded me that I hope they show Ken Loach's latest (It's a free world) around here somewhere. How come I don't have more of his movies on DVD? That's the kind of DVDs I really want to own, so I can share them with people. And depress everyone around me. (I still need to see so much of his filmography, actually...)


Tomorrow should be interesting: we're organizing a Sushi Night with work. We had 20 people signed up on Tuesday, and today when I came in at work, I learned we know have 50 people. o_O

And here it is, your moment of zen :



(This video's from the movie Music & Lyrics.)

Thanks to killmelover for reminding me of this - and I had to share it as well - it's just the best way to have a good laugh. *g*

So like I said, I capped Wedding Wars like crazy yesterday so I could make icon, and ely_jan pointed out I should post the screencaps and she was totally right, so here they are! It's really a Ted screencap orgy because I was looking to icon Sean... so don't try and use this to understand what happens in the movie. But there's a lot of Ted/Sean Maher cuteness underneath the cut!

( Click for massive cap fest! )

OYEZ OYEZ FRIENDSLIST.

Est ce que quelqu'un ici saurait où je peux trouver les chansons du film LE TRIOMPHE DE BABAR? Surtout la première ("Venez venez tous admirer le défilé de la victoire") et celle sur la bureaucratie!!!!!

On est parti en délire gloubiboulga avec bloodyscary et maintenant je veux trop chanter et je peux paaaaas parce que la cassette est à Rennes.

Aidez une âme d'enfant!

Just back from the movies where we saw Thank you for smoking, which was excellent, though not as hilarious as I expected it to be. I'm very disappointed by the trailer they made for An Incovenient Truth and it really doesn't make you want to go, whereas everybody should absolutely go see that movie. It's as good as it should be, anyway.

During the previews/commercials, we saw the most beautiful commercial I've seen in a while. It's for Kenzo's new frangrance, Amour, and it's just beautiful, the photographic quality of it is mind-blowing. So many stills that could be made and exhibited as photographs. The director of that video is called Patrick Guedj, and I'm off to see what else he's done.

Below is the TV spot - the movie theater version is much longer, doesn't feature the couples but three (or four?) different countries, and it's even more amazing because it's longer therefore has more images (duh), but already this gives you a good peep at the feel of it.

The life of David Gale. Very good movie, definitely kept me wondering till the end. Plus, I get a kick out of political movies, so something dealing with the death penalty issue is easily rated high on my list. Ah, I revel in being a total nerd. And a geek, because Kate Winslet with an American accent? Wheeee. I love that woman.

Hilarious video of the week : Kevin Smith talks about the Superman project. That guy, god. He's just so. funny. and he's such a good story-teller. Some of his humor is so much like Joss's, too, I would love to see them together on stage or something. I love the moment where he's imagining the guys at Warner Bros. around the water fountain. Heee.

As you can guess, we've got home safe and well. Leak (we hope) has been taken care of, and it's good to be back on a powerful computer that doesn't take 15 minutes to launch the desktop. *snuggles Harken* But between waking up at 4:30 this morning and driving for over four hours (including two amongst crazy German people who do not know of speed limitations), I will be more than happy to find my way to the bed tonight. ...just remembered the bed needs to be done before any sleep can be had. Ha.

Tomorrow should be crazy busy as well, with nice Indian restaurant at the end of the day to celebrate our 3-year-anniversary with Fan'. Life is so strange sometimes, so fast and so slow at the same time.