Film Suggestions Needed
Please give me suggestions on what film to work on for my final project. It has to be about 20 pages, and with some relevance to film theories (preferably russian blokes I guess.. the harder to pronounce their names, the better..)
Right now, I'm thinking of Run Lola Run (i think i can milk the whole repetition thing dry) or The Usual Suspects (something about narration and truth I think)
It's weird when you watch movies on a regular basis and when you are called upon to come up with something, my mind just freezes blank altogether. So if anyone has any suggestions at all, I'd be eternally grateful...
Thanks!
The Deadlines are Drawing Near
The deadlines for final projects have come in, but I feel that it was only yesterday that i went back to school for the start of a new semester.
The below are like due within 1 week of each other:
I need to submit a 20 page paper on FILM!! oh.my.god.
It has to be a "film theory" paper not a film review. (which i stupidly thought maybe i could just do a review and stick some of the film shite in...) oh god, the Russian blokes again
I need to submit a 15 page paper on Medieval Literature. oh.my.god.
I still havent finished Chaucer and Dante (I'm in the 8th circle of Hell in
Inferno but I suspect I still have a long way to go)!! and there are still Shakespeare to plough through and etc...
You get the point.
The point= i'm so dead.
I had no idea how tired I really am, until I reached home from work today and just crashed after a bath.
It was one of those good deep sleeps where nothing will wake you.
Now I'm up at 3 in the morning, after a friend woke me up by calling just now and asking if I want to play chess online (!?)
I do like chess but not at 2 in the morning!
Food Sins of the day:
-McDonald's Chocolate Fudge Sundae (what the hell was I thinking!!??)
-some of my friend's Chocomint Icecream
-Marks and Spencers' excellent Salt and Vinegar chips. (they are so salty they make your lips smart!)
-Cheese Fries (which werent that nice actually, but the damage has already been done)
=(
a rush of blood to the head
I've got the new COLDPLAY today. I bought it "hot off the shipment" before they even hit the shelves.
Although I've listened to the entire album already online, I was really happy. Someone told me that's cos I'm happy about the
idea of buying a new album, not about the album itself.
Thinking about this, I realise I havent bought an album that I havent already heard (at least some tracks) on the internet, or read about in a review or something for a long time. I kinda miss simply roaming through the cd racks and pick up something i totally do not know about and liking it. I think the last time I did something like this was when i got Yo La Tengo off the racks and i love it! I've got all their stuff now, but that was a couple of years ago now..
Does anyone still roam the racks and simply pick up something to try out, without the slightest idea what they are about (of cos you have to be in the right section; i dont think i will pick up something from a section that i dont even have the affinity for)? I miss the sense of mystery attached to something like that, though I guess more often than not, it tends to be disappointing and you wish that you got something else instead.
I'm actually quite anal about my CDs. You know the white seal at the top of a new CD with the Album Title and Artist? I will tear that out carefully and stick it at the back of the CD jewel case. And I will be quite upset actually if i dont tear it out right or if it's broken. My friends think I'm mad cos they simply rip it off and throw it away. I don't know anyone else who does that, do you?
I'm in the middle of my viewing assignment for film class when I realise I need a distraction of sorts, otherwise i will go mad. I understand the importance of film theory and everything, but to me, film is just so much of a "intuitive" thing that to break it all down and analyse it just defeats the entire point of watching a film.
I also kinda regretted suggesting the movie
Amélie for the week. It's just that i like the movie so much that analysing it to see how it actually works just kills it for me. My assignment requires me to choose a single event in the movie, in my case I've chosen the tin box episode, and analyse its consequences on both plot and character development, with particular reference to a film theory. I watched the movie several times before but to watch and stop and go again is painful! I don't even have a goddamn argument at the moment. What i'm doing is simply recounting the episode of the tin box hoping that somewhere along the way, I'll get an epiphany of sorts and miraculously finish my paper by Friday..
Right now, I'm contemplating whether to skip this whole bloody thing and go downtown to Borders and get the latest Adbusters magazine. According to
furnace, there is a excellent fiction piece by Douglas Coupland. I have to get it! And when my pay comes in for the month, I'm also getting the new Coupland title from
Chapters. Yay!!
I went out for coffee and dinner with some friends at a nice place near town, but not in town. Considering that it's Sunday today, no one in his/her right mind would hang out in town. there are just so many people around!
Since my friend had use of her car ("have car will travel"), I only had to meet her halfway between her house and mine and then we'd go and pick up our other friend. I only brought my phone and wallet out. I immediately regretted it.
For one thing, i forgot my sunglasses and the weather was really horribly bright out. For another, I realise the importance of my 1. discman and 2. book.
Maybe this is because I had to take the public transport most of the time, my bag (a nice
messenger bag from Crumpler that these same friends got me for my bday) is sort of my "survivor bag." It has the following in my bag.. always.
1. my discman
2. cds
3. a book
4. pen
5. small notebook/ some papers
6. palm pilot (more for the games than anything else)
7. cigarettes/lighter
8. sweets/ mints
9. wallet of cos and
10. a bottle of water (i drink so much water, that it's not even funny recounting the no. of toilet trips i have to make)
I was so restless without my bag, and without any music, on my way to meet my friend, though it was only a 10 minute trip and i know i wouldnt have listened to more than maybe 3 songs anyway. it's just that i felt so vulnerable, so naked somehow...
But we had so much fun! We were just spacing out at some cafe, parking our arses there for like 2 hours. Then we had dinner at a really good chinese restaurant, courtesy of my friend (thanks jude!) Now Im SO full!!
*rubbing my growing stomach in satisfaction*
Thanks,
Mike for the quiz.
I watched Trainspotting a long long time ago; I even got it on VHS but as all tapes end up, it's got mouldy. Now I'm starting to hoard a little stash of dough in the hopes of getting a nice DVD player. I must start a list of movies that I will get in DVD format. Suggestions are welcome.
Oh gosh. This strangely reminds me of the time where I just got my discman years back and I spent so much "painful" money to switch my cassettes to CDs. Oh dear, this is going to be expensive!
Which Trainspotting Character Are You?
p.s.: I was undecided between the Diane or Mark Renton character...
Bye Leonard
Thanks for the kind words, guys. To me, I feel weird to have someone (around) my age just pass away like that, but it's even weirder considering that it's been 3 years and we weren't even close anyway, to begin with.
But i guess, with some people, you just
know if you are going to be friends or not. Sometimes you will have the "friends" vibe.
Not that I actually believe in supernatural "auras" or anything, but sometimes you just know. Maybe I'm just wondering what it will be like if we end up as friends...
I wonder if i'm making any sense?
Tomorrow is the death anniversary of an acquaintance i made in school. He was only 2 years older than i am when he passed away 3 years ago. We were mere classmates in the same course; and we barely talked. It was only towards the end of the course that we realise that each of us smokes and therefore we ended up smoking together at the stairwell before/ after class. He is a quiet person but gets very animated when he tries to explain something.
It feels weird because i can't even call him a friend that i once knew. We were just smoking buddies for maybe the last month of the semester. Well. I can still remember what he looks like but i can't remember his voice. I never got the chance to talk much to him so i dont know what kind of person he really is. He seems like a nice guy though.
I just wanted to say "goodbye Leonard."
I'm running for classes now. I was supposed to finish reading
Inferno by Dante for today's lessons and needless to say, I haven't even trudged through a respectable couple of pages at least! I have to try and cram in the train, I guess.
This semester feels different to me somehow. I felt that I have been caught off-guard for some reason. Not prepared at all!
And I have a major presentation next week and it's on a book that is 600 pages long. I'm so going to die.
On a brighter note, I was watching
The End of the Affair for class last night. Ralph Fiennes is HOT! *fans myself*
I had my first "meeting" for dissertations today. What is supposed to happen is that some guy from the Graduate Committee will come in, give us 1000 pages of instructions on what and what not to do for our dissertations. We were supposed to go through deadlines, schedules, workloads etc. All these rubbish and the meeting was compulsory! I was rushing like a mad woman from work (I had to take 2 hours off, just so the guy could finish early!!!), took a cab so that I can be told that I have to do a "good" dissertation? I am of cos pissed like hell.
I had classes this morning and it was horrible just waking up! I was contemplating whether I shouldn't go, cos I haven't finished my readings at all. But i went in the end and tried to do my readings on the train. I guess that's the only good thing about public transport for me: that you can read newspapers/ books/ stuff that you realise you didn't understand and should have done your reseach.... etc.
Class was alright though: it's a film class so we were discussing Hitchcock's
Rebecca and
Psycho. Quite fun. The film theory part however, isn't. All the Russian blokes! and their names! Shkolvsky?... and oops. thats as far as I got in my readings..
I'm thinking about what to post today, and it bothers me because it should never be a problem cos life never runs out of things to say, you know what I mean? So i guess I will just be rather random today, typing whatever comes to my head (rather like automatic writing).
Although nothing much happened today, it's not as if nothing
happened at all. I went to work as usual, even though i'm still coughing like a mad man. It's that kind that hurts your chest and stomach. Anyway, me and some colleagues were waiting at the lift lobby, while i was sucking on a lozenge hoping that the itch in my throat will just go away. It was probably during lunch and there was a ton of people all waiting for the lifts when i started this coughing fit that wouldnt stop and would you believe it, my lozenge just dropped out of my mouth. It was even worse than i thought cos some fuckwit of a guy thought i just coughed out my tooth and asked if i was alright. I was SO embarrassed; i didnt speak a word..
Oh well. it seemed like a long enough post for a day that didnt seem too exciting.
But i think that if we go through life everyday without trying to make an effort to make it interesting or worth remembering, that we can record down or something so that we can look back and smile at it, then life will be really frankly, quite sad.
I'm not sure if i can live a life like that.
i've got my new CD Burner today!
i've burned about 2 cds worth of "commuter music" so that i won't spend 20 minutes trying to select what to listen to that day. It was fun trying to think what qualifies, what doesn't. I'm also reminded of Hornby's
High Fidelity when the guy was going on about the numerous rules by which one must abide in order to make a tape. That is, the person must not lose interest after Track One; there shouldn't be 2 tracks by the same artist one after the other, unless you are doing the entire thing in pairs. There must be a theme of couse and pains must be taken to fulfil that theme. oh you get the point.
I was sort of thinking about that, when I was making my selection of songs. But then I suddenly realised that I'm making a CD and not a Tape. The difference therein is that if I come across a track that for some reason i don't fancy at a particular point of time, all i have to do is to press the "next" button. But you can't do that for a tape, cos if you are fast forwarding it, chances are that you will definitely "overshoot" the track. That can be a pain in the arse.
I would imagine that in a tape, the track listing is extremely important. But in a cd, one can either play it linearly or on "shuffle" mode. I don't think that will discount the experience of listening to the CD at all.
i cannot believe this but i fell ill again today.
i think i did not recover properly the last time and now i succumbed once again to the goddamn virus.
The weather has been weird too. One day it's hot like hell and the next, I'll be freezing to death.
I have actually planned to post something about a friend who made me really angry but i decided against it because i dont want her to be stumbling over the site (especially when I think she knows the existence of this site).
I mean it's weird isnt it. I started this because it is effectively going to be an outlet for me to rant, observe, shout, write anything I want. Now it's like I'm censoring myself? But I guess, the reason is that when you put up your thoughts online, there is always the off chance of someone lookign in. And the pressure of having to write to an "imagined" audience may be the cause of the censorship I guess.
the Which van gogh painting are you? quiz by bethany
I love this painting!!
Inspired by
kellyanne's post, I got to thinking about the increasing amount of time we all spend on the Internet. I remember taking a Postmodernism course last semester where we discussed the idea of shopping on the Internet. Sure it's convenient as hell. But shopping on the Internet also robs us of other usually-attendant experiences we have while "physically" shopping for stuff. We miss out on the "textile" experience, meaning that we are not able to further enhance the experience through touch. This makes it difficult if you are shopping for say, maybe clothes or shoes on the Net cos it's important how you feel wearing them. It's like a give-and-take situation, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. Sure I got stuff off the Net, like books and cds, but somehow the idea of grocery shopping is just weird and wrong.
I have a friend who is currently bumming around and he just stays in his room the entire day, with the computer on (always in the middle of a download). He would wake up at maybe 3 in the afternoon, check his email, watch some daytime TV, play a game or 2 on his PSII. This is what he does day in day out, till maybe about 3 in the morning. Sometimes he will take time off to cycle, or go to the beach for a suntan.
The funny thing is that: I asked him if he is free to maybe meet up for a meal or something, cos my school is really near where he's staying. And he said no. He's "busy."
I cannot believe this.
I just had 2 classes for the semester and they are frankly, quite difficult. Especially the second one which deals with Medieval texts like Chaucer, Dante, Augustine and Milton (MILTON!!). See the reading list at the right panel of this page? Chaucer has been there forever! I find it extremely hard to get through the text. It's so descriptive that it's Boring. The guy spends 20 pages describing clothes, behaviour, background of the people travelling along with him. I just know that it's going to be a great paperweight when I'm finished with this course.
It's funny cos I always have "plans" at the beginning of the semester. I'm sure most of us do. I'll tell myself things like "No more slacking around!" or "I will read the goddamn book even if it kills me" or the most ludicrous "I'm going to do secondary readings in the library on Friday nights till the library closes (10 or 11pm)." It's just so funny cos you know that it's not going to happen, period!
But I've come up with a plan to "force" myself to at least revise the day's lessons. Instead of taking notes in nice notebooks for my classes (it's always been a cheap thrill for me trying to select the correct "colour" of the notebook to buy so that it "represents" the course appropriately. Example: Fave colour for Nice class etc.), I've decided to make full use of the recycled paper "borrowed" from my work place (I just lugged a huge stack home haha), and write on those.
I'll then go home and make understandable and "intelligent" notes from these, type it ALL out and print and file in nice coloured (again!) files that I've just bought.
I have just finished fiddling around with a template that I will use for all my classes, and also typed out notes for my first class on Chaucer.
I just wonder how long this will last.
