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So last night I went to go see Ender's Game. While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it's from a standpoint of having no knowledge of the book, or books, it was based on - so I cannot testify to how good the adaptation was. I can however say this. There was a person whom my suite mate and I came across on the walk back that said they did a terrible job condensing the book. While a person on my facebook page, claims they did a fantastic job condensing the book. The former claimed the book to be his "all time favorite," while the latter admits to disliking the author. I would take the first persons qualms with the movie as personal bias, when the term "all time favorite" is used, you step into something with pre-concieved notions of how good something is going to be, and when you don't get what you expected you come out disliking, or hating even, the movie. It's why I don't walk into movies expecting a "proper" adaptation of my favorite books and story-lines. I actually didn't hate this "piece of crap."

I did however hate this literal piece of crap.

I do mean literal, in a figurative sort of way. You may see a movie poster, and there may actually be one there, but all I see is a giant steaming pile of shit. Let's consult Dr. Ian Malcolm.

So back to that Ender's Game movie. I'll admit that the movie had some pacing issues, at least to me, my suite mate didn't catch it. But let's be honest here, he isn't quite the cinephile I am. The plot seemed to advance forward too quickly for me to buy into it, it didn't seem like time was passing all that much, despite the fact that time may have been moving forward a great deal. Being that the movie was set in space, on a space station while all of the characters stay the same age, so it isn't like years, maybe months. I guess I just don't buy that a kid, let alone, anyone is able to rise through military ranks as fast as Ender did, I didn't understand the universe, nor the necessity to do so, especially considering that the enemy posed no immediate threat. There was no reason for Ender to rise through the ranks so quickly

I'm writing this while watching The To Do List. I am tempted to stop writing, so I can focus on the movie, I just started watching it, I love Aubrey Plaza, and it takes place in the summer of '93 when I was 1. The next words I write will be written ninety minutes later.

So, it actually took like three hours. That's the only downside to streaming movies, the loading speed and whether or not you'll have to restart the video is totally random and will occasionally lead to a 103 minute movie taking three to four hours to watch. So I'm watching RollPlay now, I'm like two weeks behind still so that's six grueling hours I have to get through at some point. Anyways. Ender's Game. 

Pacing issues aside, the movie was great. Don't misunderstand me I, in no way, hated the film. I just didn't buy it's seemingly short timeline. There was this whole countdown thing that happened that said like twenty eight days, or something like that. So the whole movie seems to have been about a month or so in time. Maybe like six weeks actually, not the aforementioned months. Also, I wanted more Ben Kingsley, his character was important in the movie universe's lore, yet he has maybe twenty minutes of screen time, if that. Let alone he had the best character, next to Asa Butterfield's (great name) performance as Ender.

Asa is one of my favorite young actors, he was Hugo in Hugo, and Bruno in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The former is such a heart-warmingly great film, the latter such a dark and depressing film. I can't help but admire his talent, he's only fifteen (April 1, 1997). To be honest, the cast from top to bottom was great, in the "larger" roles. "Larger" being in quotes because not many characters had more than twenty lines. Hell, I don't even think Ben Kingsley had more than twenty lines. I'm not talking a Ryan Gosling in Drive sort of thing where not having that many lines is a good thing. I'm talking the film had so many characters and such a short screen time that some of the characters had like ten lines a pop, when they should have had more. I'm just nitpicking now, because this really isn't an issue.

Hailee Steinfeld as always is amazing, despite her not having that big of a role, it actually felt reduced, I can't help but admire what she is able to do in such a "minor" role. I'm also glad that they left out the typical "first kiss" scene, despite both actors being fifteen, the characters didn't seem to be at that point yet, and a kiss would have felt way too forced with the given narrative of the film. Hell, I'm pretty sure Ender and Petra are only supposed to be twelve though. Something I just realized about the Romeo and Juliet remake, the new one with miss Steinfeld, is the age difference between her and Douglas Booth who play's Romeo.

Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth Romeo and Juliet (2013)

He was born in 1992, same year as me. He's at least 21, possibly even 22 - IMDB only gives the year. She's fifteen. That's a six to seven year difference. And given the fact that the film was likely shot last year, she was more than likely 14 at the time, and he 20 or 21. It's just off-putting. I didn't even realize she was that young until just now. Granted, in the play Juliet is only 13, and Romeo isn't given an age, I've always assumed him to be older - 17 or 18, but maybe that's just me, I've seen some people even say early twenties.

Time period wise, it makes sense, but make some liberties with your adaptations. That's the one thing Romeo + Juliet (1996) did right in the casting. they cast actors not necessarily close to the same age, but look the same age - Leonardo DiCaprio (1974), and Claire Danes (1979). Making them 22/23 and 16/17 respectively. It's a bit less of an age gap. But it's not so overt.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes Romeo + Juliet (1996)

I feel like I've turned into an old man. All crotchety about girls being too young for this shit. Look, I don't mind it, I actually liked the remake more than Romeo + Juliet. Claire Dane's is still untouchable, and the only real reason I liked the remake more was Steinfeld and Damien Lewis, not to mention the modern retelling of the 1996 version. Modernizing Shakespeare does not work in the hands of anyone other than Joss Whedon (see Much Ado About Nothing (2013)).

The best Romeo and Juliet, aside from the play (which isn't even that good - yeah, I said it), is still the 1968 version.

Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey Romeo and Juliet (1968)

One thing I will say though, is that Halie Steinfelf and Douglas Booth look surprisingly similar to the two in the '68 adaptation of the film. As a lover of all things Shakespeare, the way the '68 adaptation treated the source material was my preferred method of adaptation, especially for this particular play. However as Whedon has shown us, it is possible to modernize while treating the source material with the respect it deserves. Though my hatred of Romeo + Juliet, may have just been due to my disliking of the play itself, I still consider it one of Shakespeare's weaker works, and I don't understand why it is the one that has gotten seven adaptations, and according to IMDB an eight "video" starring Kel Mitchell apparently, and an upcoming ninth adaptation in 2014, Romeo and Juliet in Harlem. 

This upcoming adaptation apparently modernizes it, and stays true to the language of the play. I wonder if they can stay true to that. The writer, who is also the director Aleta Chappelle, is also retelling Macbeth, in the same year. That however, is entitled Macbett. Macbett, like Romeo and Juliet in Harlem, will star a seemingly entire African American cast, in the traditional "white" roles. Needless, to say, I'm interested in what she is able to do, now I just have to play they waiting game.

Okay, so it's like 11 PM, I just got my Calzone - Three Little Pigs (ham, bacon, and hot dog with american cheese and side of BBQ sauce - it's delicious). So I'm going to eat and wait for Saturday Night Live to start in about twenty minutes. Here, have a video.

A litte while ago, I posted ASDF movie 1-6, ASDF movie 7 was just recently uploaded, enjoy.

Depression.

This one is going to get serious.

Just because it's somewhat of a serious topic doesn't mean I can't add some humor into it. Especially when the humor isn't necessarily appropriate to the situation. Let me preface this blog post by saying that I haven't been clinically diagnosed as depressed. I do have however, through conversations with people who have been diagnosed, have similar symptoms to depression. I wake up days, and cannot will myself out of bed for sometimes hours, I break down and just cry for little to no reason, I hate being around people because I feel that they always pity me - even if they don't, and on some level I know they don't, I still have the feeling that they do - As mentioned in my first "official" post I have self diagnosed myself with "mild-depression." Though others may see it as more severe than I do.

Be warned, this is going to get dark. Quick. So first, unicorns and rainbows!

Jumping right in now. I tried to kill myself twice. Either I succeeded and am now a ghost, or I wasn't very good at it, and thankfully so I guess. I'm sure that's how other people see it, and more or less how I see it now, at least on most days. Today, for whatever reason wasn't a day where I felt this way.

My alarm went off at ten, and I shut it off. and lied in bed awake, until the second one, shut it off at 11:15. When the third one went off at 11:30 and I still hadn't moved my eyes from that spot on the ceiling right above my resting head, I knew this day was going to suck. By 12:15 I decided to roll myself out of my bed and onto my floor where I then managed to pick myself up and pull myself together. I then took a forty minute shower, thirty minutes of which was me crying, over absolutely nothing. Literally nothing. I just burst into tears standing there, and then curled up into a ball in the corner of the shower crying.

This was me, in the shower, if I had clothes on, and darker hair. And, you know, if I was David Tennant.

Confessions time. I have self harmed before - I've told people I haven't but that's a lie. Sorry to people I lied to about this, but I feel I need to actually set the record straight once and for all. I have two scars from direct self infliction on my right arm, they aren't long, no more than an inch each. The cross tattoo I have, covers them both up to the point where they are practically non-existent. they were never deep or good enough to leave a super visible scar. It's like any other minor cut scar any other person may get. It just kind of fades into your skin tone and nobody thinks anything is up. The reason nobody knows is because I was a sneaky little bastard, and managed to hide it well. LONG SLEEVES.

So that's out there now. Anybody who reads this will now know more about me than my own family and my closest friends. I have literally told no one about the self harm. I've avoided it, and denied it, but truth be told, I didn't do for attention. That is the one thing I hate about cutting. The negative "they're doing it for attention" connotation. A few weeks back we were watching Thirteen (if you haven't seen it, watch it, it's a great film about women coming to age in the lower class) for my Women in Film class, and the scenes where the main character self harms comes up, and someone mentions that she was doing it because she wasn't getting enough attention from her mother. Nobody groaned, or immediately objected. I was fucking shocked. I've never been so put off by how little people know about why people self harm.

It's not attention seeking, or it nearly never is. It's about being able to actually feel something. Depression makes you so numb to the world most days, that cutting just allows you to feel. Masochists also self harm, but they do it for an entirely different reason that I won't bother getting into. Pleasure, they get off on it; there I went into it, you happy?

So today has been rough. It's the first day where I've broken down in tears for no reason (Derek did it to me some number of weeks ago - that was the last "real" time I cried) in roughly three years. But the last time I cried on a personal level was when a friend of mine died. But I didn't cry for some time after it happened. In fact, it wasn't until I had gotten the memorial tattoo on the inside of my arm, he finished working on it, and I cried right there in the shop. The artist waited and gave me a consoling hug, and let me wait for a little while before I returned to the lobby where my friend who drove me there was waiting. It took about five or so minutes for it to not look like I had been crying - my face gets blotchy and my eyes go all bloodshot, it's very easy to tell if I've been crying - The artist was very supportive. He does amazing work by the way. Billy the Kid, at Amazing Grace Body Arts in Geneva, go, give that man some work.

The memorial piece. The RC Cola logo, with Birth & Death dates and "Never Forgotten"

The outside of the half sleeve, the last verse of William Blake's "The Tyger" and a Tiger. You can also see like half of my face... ladies.

I've been doing a lot of self reflexive writing in my poetry class. Working of pieces that are close and personal to me. I wrote a scrambled poem today - as if my day wasn't already hard enough - that drove me to tears. It was a scramble of Bob Hicok's "Cutting Edge." It's about him noticing his dog has gotten old, and that soon she will die and the poem is sort of his way for preparing. I couldn't possibly bring myself to change what the poem was about, and I kept a lot of the images the same. But by God, my version broke me down. 

Just me, sitting in my room, hunched over my laptop keyboard, bawling over the beautiful poem about an old dog, and a man about to be in mourning. Why do I subject myself to this stuff, I just write things, and then I cry. I lie down, curl up in a ball, and cry.

I haven't ever been driven to tears by anything other than my poetry. But this one broke me. I'm not broken easily, it takes things like Derek, which is the saddest show on the planet - Available on Netflix (shameless promotions!) - to break me. Sure I've cried over my writing before, but never hysterically. My poem almost made me not want to get a puppy, a husky puppy to be exact, when I get my own place. Almost. Because you know, it made me realize that puppy, that I will love with all my heart, will die, and will turn me into a sobbing broken mess of a man no longer able to function in society ever again. 

I'm also glad nobody heard me cry this morning. So you know, this didn't happen:

Except you know, a guy instead of Emma Stone. A guy. I feel like Emma Stone would console me though, then we would fall in love, get married, and make beautiful children together. I can dream Harold! (if you didn't get that last bit, watch the video at the end)

And I didn't have to explain that I was crying for no absolute reason. Crying because I wrote a terribly sad poem about a dog that is about to die is a bit more reasonable than crying because you happened to be awake and taking a shower. The second one isn't even a reason to be crying, and yet, I was.

Anyways, it's 12:37, I have class in like... ten hours... so I should stop writing this, so I can catch up on some shows and get some sleep. And hopefully I won't wake up tomorrow a slobbering mess. Thanks for reading about my mess of a day. Enjoy the video.

Mid Semester Break, Also Known As: Game Time

Hey, you there, with the eyes.

Yes you, the one reading this, you know who you are. You know what time it is? No, it's not Adventure Time. It's Game Time. It's officially Mid-Semester break, and since I just finished my essay for Film Western literally 25 minutes ago (it is now 8:40), and The Legend of Korra  is on, all I have to do before I can play los video juegos (Spanglish on yo asses) is watch the rest of Korra and all 42 minutes of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. 

Tomorrow, Pokemon X comes out, and I found out earlier that the usual 3 PM shuttle to Walmart on Saturdays does not exist during Mid-Semester break. So it's another hour and a half round trip to Gamestop for me in the AM. I am so thankful that I won't have to do this trek to Gamestop for the rest of the semester, unless I decide to get the new Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS, and I'm not sure if I will, at least not day one. What? You think I'm kidding? Look at me.

Do I look like I'm kidding? Do I look like someone who enjoys four mile walks just to pick up a game? No. No one likes doing that. NO ONE. Especially lil' ol' me, who likes nothing. That was a lie, I like things. I'm sorry I lied to you, here, have a cookie. Sorry, he got to it first. He always seems to do that.

So I've been trying to beat Pokemon Black 2 before X comes out --- Oh shit, Korra has amnesia. Why are these children's shows so damn good. They're better than a lot of other crap out there on television. This is coming from a guy that watches almost everything television has to offer. You know, aside from the no good worthless schlock. 

I don't have a prejudice over what can be good television, anything can be good television. Anything. And I mean it. They just have to try. Take the new show The Millers for example. With that cast, the sky was the limit. I figured the show couldn't possibly be anything less than good. But the writing, the sheer horridness of the writing, words cannot describe just how bad the writing is. I don't know how it hasn't been cancelled yet. Maybe it got better, maybe episode two wasn't as terrible as episode one. But when episode one makes you want to cry because you actually know you could have written a better episode of television in your sleep, you don't even want to find out how good episode two turned out. That being said, the only two new shows that have been cancelled so far, are We Are Men and Lucky 7. 

The former I quite enjoyed, while admittedly the latter didn't find it's standing yet, and had the worst possible ratings a show on ABC could have had. We Are Men, despite having rather poor critical acclaim, and poor ratings, was not that bad of a show. I honestly don't know how it didn't do better, considering Tony Shaloub was in it. But now I'll never know how the show will end. I hate when a show gets cancelled just a few episodes in, because they don't even have the capability of finishing a season for the million or so who actually liked (or just watched) the show. I need to know how it was going to end. Why are shows cancelled so Early? I want to know why, tell me why. TELL ME!

In other news. My list of movies, its still at 106. If you missed the drop from 107, it was Prisoners, I saw Prisoners, it was good. I recommend it. A lot. It was fantastic. Go Watch it. If you want to know how good it was in three words, ask Dr. House.

Sometime later tonight I'm going to watch Much Ado About Nothing and The Croods. The latter to shut my suitemate up who keeps telling me I have to watch it. You know who you are, you can stop telling me to watch it now. Seriously. Stop.

In case you also missed it from my previous post. I mentioned a little project that my Advanced Poetry class was doing involving a typewriter, my jaw, and dropping said jaw.

Here you see the thirty pound beast in its natural habitat. The Dr. Pepper can runs away in awe of the typewriter's majesty. If you recall, the assignment calls for the students to write a long, linked poem, in the style of Japanese Renku. We were given seven rules (they are labeled rules, but they are really guidelines), which I will list below verbatim.

Rule #1: There are no rules. Write what you want, in any style, any voice, any manner, but do keep in mind that you're (we're) writing a poem, not a long, thing block of fractured prose.

Rule #2: In the spirit of Ammons, the shape of the poem (the lay and play of lines) will be dictated by the width of the paper (3 1/8 inches). As a group working together, we should be "listening to" eachother, but no one should feel limited by another person's poetic trajectory.

Rule #3: Like improvised music, your lines should be written "on the spot," and not "pre-written." The poem must be typed, and no words or phrases can be erased. Think by typing. Type by thinking. Follow the clackety keys.

Rule #4: The typewriter may not be kept by anyone for longer than one week. It must be returned to class on the Monday after you took it away. The exception is that you may pass the typewriter off to another member of the class during the week if you work out the logistics (but please let me know). Also, you might want to organize a group "type-in" where several people get together to work (this, in the more traditional spirit of Renku). Finally, if you'd like to drop off the typewriter early to me, feel free to do so, I will then contact someone else about picking it up.

Rule #5: Just as Basho, considered the master of haiku (and a great practitioner of Renku poems), had many disciples working with him, you should consider Ammons' Tape your masterwork: think about the way he works with the limitations of the paper roll, how his use of the poetic line makes the paper's width both inevitable and invisible. If you get stuck, turn to Ammons. Let him be your guide.

Rule #6: You may write as much as you like (there's plenty of "scroll" to go round). Please date the start of each new section. When you're done with your section, please type your initials, not your full name. The paper roll is rather delicate, so take care that the paper is not torn. Roll up the poem when you're finished with your section. But of course everyone can and should read what's been written.

Rule #7: Write like you mean it. Go wild.

So those are the rules. There are not that many of them, and they are pretty basic. But yeah, I had the thing from Wednesday after I wrote my blog post. I had no idea I was actually going to be the one to take it Wednesday, and then took I it back on Thursday. This was the email I sent out to let the class know it was in the English Department Office - Our drop off/pick up zone. "Attention Alpha Team, the eagle has returned to its nest, intercept at your own risk." 

So the other day my ex told me to go read a recent Tumblr post of hers. I hadn't been on Tumblr in ages, ages being weeks, and I don't really plan on going back to Tumblr. I just don't get it. It doesn't appeal to me. Any way, the post was basically her taking the blame for our relationship ending. As we both suffer from depression, it's practically impossible for either of us not to think it's anyone's fault but our own. So really, I respect that she is saying it's her fault, but come on, I mean, I'm the man right, it's never the woman's fault. Am I right ladies... heh... hehe... heh... God I'm so terribly awkward. But yeah, relationships man.

I don't understand them, they kind of freak me out, and I don't think that is normal. People typically aspire to be in a relationship, and so do I. But gah am I terrified to start a relationship, to be in one just... I can't even think about it. The way the last one I was in went, I'm afraid of what it would be like with anyone else. Literally. She understood me and the way I was before we started the relationship, she knows I'm terrible with communication, and most people aren't. So when I think about getting into another relationship with someone, or whatever. I just think, okay, when I don't tell them that I have free time, or whatever I don't say, it's just going to end the relationship before it can really begin because that's how pathetic my life is.

Who knows, maybe by the time I'm 30 I'll have worked through all this bullshit and I'll be able to properly communicate everything to everyone. Hell, the only reason I'm able to do it here, is because my writing is the only way I can express my emotions and what-not. Seriously, and the only reason that is is because I'm writing this while nobody else is reading it. If I know somebody is able to read this as I write it - which come to think of it, someone probably is - I wouldn't be able to write it. That's how hopelessly hopeless I am. For reals.

I'm not that awkward with conversations though. I can talk to anyone about anything really, as long as I know the subject. But I can't start a conversation with people I barely know. If they instigate, sure, I'm able to talk to them. If they don't, I'll be damned if a word is ever spoken between us. I'm the same way in class too. As a creative writing major, I'm in a lot of workshop classes, which are basically submit your work to the class, and then discuss the positives and negatives. I can write everything that is good and bad about their work with great ease, but I have trouble speaking up unless called upon. It's just the way I am wired. I can't help it, and it has negatively affected my grade in every workshop class I have been in. Here's Emma Stone using a Shake Weight: 

That's how we move on here, we post pictures of attractive celebrities using Shake Weights. God I love her. Back off Spiderman, she's mine now.

True, I can't really compete with that. You win this round Spiderman.

So. I have to go watch Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and Much Ado About Nothing. So here, have this amazing video: