what women want,

im not bsing you,
i fell for it all except for the last scene--where the spell was broken
(& the inevitable penis size discussion--if only guys are obsessed with penis size, why do only flicks written by chicks have such discussion; in fact penis size and ball kicking are my sole litmus tests for IDing chick flicks)

very self indulgent, non sequitur with spirit of movie;
the injected righteousness was unfair,
wouldve been 4 stars (couldve been 5) but for the last scene, which opened my eyes to the imbalence throughout--2.5 stars

nice: in 2nd to last scene he actually quits..., last scene-
leaves house, says thank you, she says will i see you again, he says soon--nice and open

shouldntve been called "what women want"
but "what women wished they wanted"

the female perhaps shouldve been more developed, slow to accept her interest in him under a facaid of bitch-ness instead of being complete at the beginning & acepting

fmaybe not lose ability, but not need it any more, daoist style (could use it but wont--very tomb raider, and ursula--is there a connection?) instead of "oh well" style

maybe he coulda realized he actually could think like a woman as the movie suggested, that the nike work was actually his! maybe he coulda actually quit his job.
maybe the female lead coulda been saved too (which she was literally at the end, of course not expected to be thankful, just self-righteous).
like the rumours about him were true, but he changed,
maybe the rumours about her coulda been true, but he changed her!

actually, this (and a few previous) posts are written to be remembered, since this is a somewhat permanent place.

my mom just told me and my sister a few stories from her childhood during the cultural revolution. about her pilot uncle (trained in texas), how the red guard beat her cat to death (they hung her up, and then beat it until it was killed--my mom was woken up by the screams of death--then poured industrial herbacide down its throat, and thew it into the bucket of fish pilot uncle was raising and brought worms from the xian moat every day; the old poor family next door felt pity and saved the fish in the other two smaller buckets later). how she and her sister killed her 10 chickens that they loved (raised from chicks) because owning chickens was capitalist. how all their valuables were sealed into the back room by college students, and they didnt go back there for 2 years until her cousin (in the red guard?) visited and told them they were being stupid, and tore down the paper cross seal. how she and her sister at age like 6 thought the old women with a gong chanting "i am a cow ghost snake spirit" were funny, and mimic-ed them in the backyard. how when the red guard came, they actually had nothing but 2 yuan to give. how her communist uncle donated the family courtyard to the communist party, who used it as a high school--high schools being the source of the red guard and the craziness. she said she should make a movie along the lines of "the gods must be crazy".

children of men
funny, i didnt have the "connection" of earlier movies from netflix--perhaps the effect of actually watching movies for a change has worn off, or maybe its because i watched half of it unsucessfully at a loud house party before.
however, i was emotionally moved.
and i loved the acting, the plot, the characters.
so despite not feeling that undescribable connection, since its got everything else, and i continue to like it afterwards, i give it 5 stars

what women want
more on this later,
but i will say, i loved it until the ending, which brought it down from 4 stars to 2 1/2.

hallie and i had a falling out in junior year (or was it sophomore?).
i now realize that the turning point was when i baked two loaves of bread.
my naivete was broken, and i began to see her clearly. perhaps she had changed--no more youthful discussion of ppl's color (she saw every person as a color, once), no more academic discussions at all actually.
the thermometer had broken in the oven during preheating (i left it in); i let the oven cool down, washed it, then baked my bread. i told her about the thermometer as a funny story, then the next day she refused to eat my bread. now of course we should be cautious, but i baked the bread, not her; i know exactly what happened.
actually, she misunderstood and thought the thermometer exploded while the bread was in, but after i clarified, she still wanted me to throw the bread out--such obstinacy (she recognized it in herself, but i never believed her before)!
she also fell out with me when i got a 5 on the Latin AP without putting nearly as much work in it as she did (ie, none vs 2 hrs a night). i think im a humble and non-ostentatious person--else i would be a pretty damn bad taoist!

she is a paradox. such a warm person (i think? maybe just polite), yet such a pre-med.
please note, "pre-med" is a term i use synonymously with grade-grubber, backstabbing, selfish, and harvard type.

i think the moment she fell out with me was when we had a long and extremely academic discussion (the likes of which i havent had since 1st semester junior year) and the guy at the table behind her at the chinese food place piped up "you're both gonna be millionairs, geez". then later walking by the south of the dustbowl i showed her some feng shui--that spaces between the lower fingers means youd never be wealthy--applying to both of us.
we dont dislike each other and are still friends, but neither are we best friends.
we had different world views--hers jewish (without being religiously or even culturally jewish), mine taoist.

note, i can never be a social studies person because i cannot conceive of their idea of a turning point--where the course of history changed direction. to me, history always proceeds straight from what happened before. perhaps this is the difference between a scientist that considers most of social studies mute--and a social studies person who cannot see that behaviorism is empirical tautology.

What if God Were The Sun -- enjoyed on deep level, enjoyed, women's film
Zoolander, 2001 -- connection, enjoyed
Fight Club, 1999 -- grows on me
House of D, 2004 -- connection, grows on me, enjoyed
Trust the Man, 2005 -- connection?, ungrows on me, enjoyed, women's film
The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 2005 -- enjoyed
Little Miss Sunshine, 2006 -- enjoyed, connection?
This Is Spinal Tap, 1984 -- didnt enjoy
Man of the Year, 2006 -- enjoyed, poor ending
The Naked Gun, 1988 -- enjoyed, poor beginning
My Own Private Idaho, 1991 -- mad connection, grows on me, didnt enjoy
Good Will Hunting, 1997 -- mad enjoyed on deep level
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1966 -- nostalgia
Accepted, 2006 -- enjoyed
Thank You for Smoking, 2005 -- enjoyed
The Lake House, 2006 -- enjoyed on deep? level
Borat, 2006 -- somewhat enjoyed

Edward H. Norton scared me in The Illusionist (too gay doctor/psychologist), was great in Fight Club though, hm
River Phoenix, Mr. Wodnick, Ben Stiller (Zoolander) are great

[edit may 27] dont remember "connection" with borat, 2006, it was funny, but i didnt enjoy it (at least not all of it--loved the opening scene though); not much connection with thank you for smoking (i think), but mad enjoyed

just watched zoolander, and the character strongly reminds me of Alex Bores. even his interesting "l" accent--i cant figure out why, since Alex doesnt have this.

i know zoolander is Alex's 2nd favorite movie (it and his 1st both have Duchovny, also my favorite actor, for reasons i cannot fathom as he isnt that good--maybe its the jaw, and nastalgia of a 9th grade crush)

the movie was dear to me, even though i didnt like parts of the middle that slowed down, and the trance was broken.

maybe it was that particular quality that zoolander had,
something that youd think would be described as adorable or cute,
but those words arent even in the right direction.
his attraction is ineffable then.

i had a much stronger deep-level reaction to My Own Private Idaho, even though i didnt like the movie itself much--the acting was bad, the plot was annoying in some ways; but there was something, perhaps river phoenix, something only amplified by his death in real life.

Today I finally watched My Own Private Idaho.
I didn't like it while watching it, and when I was done.
But afterwards I realized how much I love River Phoenix's character.

The movie affected me in a deeper way than any movie I can remember,
but not in a good way.
No epic feeling, no sad-epic (waking up from good dream) feeling,
just a sad/angry one. (I was in such a good mood before too)
Phoenix's death 14 years ago doubled it.
Plus I had just read Another Country, Rufus being another man I loved.
I just saw such inevitability.
I didn't bounce back to normal until The Naked Gun.

Last class at Columbia, at least for a couple years.
Excited about fbking ppl via the group.
A few cute ones, though the cute ones (see below) are listed as straight.
I'm bound to take them by their word, though GAYDAR says otherwise.

GAYDAR is faulty anyway; the only way to know, is to catch them checking someone out. A few may have been, but it may have just been counter-checking, a straight thing.

One grad math student stood out to me before, the 5'10.5" John Baldwin.
Today his loose-ish shirt belied his previously aspied musculature,
but I was still caught by his eyes and face (and ass; narrow enough),
sorta like Kellan Lutz (of Dickinson, ND),
but with a prettier and less european/preppy face, and bluer eyes.
He was flirting with a 6'3" guy with great shape but unspectacular face.
His dad apparently was there too, shaking hands,
less tall, much less pretty, 50s--strange.