Almost complete randomness

[zouzounaki]

First things first: You have to understand that speaking up against the opinionated juggernaught that was my family as the one dissenting voice was a very intimidating prospect, and even though I've got a smart mouth on me, I rarely ever did it when they got on a roll about something. I'd just bite my tongue and think to myself, 'Well, I know different, so there!'

This you must know for my tale of the day that my dad was reading the paper at the table with my mom and my sister. He read a bit about Shia Labeouf's (this was back when Holes came out) agent saying he was going to win an Oscar one day, and he and my sister started to kind of rip that to shreds because they'd never heard of them. And I opened my mouth and to my great surprise, the words, "I wouldn't be surprised!" came out. My mom agreed, having been the only other family member to albeit kind of grudgingly watch Even Stevens with me for the years before Shia became a name.

This doesn't seem remarkable to much of anyone because my family was so sharp and argumentative that I don't think they ever really understood or realized that I had a hard time talking back to them.

To this day I hold that trump card, and my sister freely admits it: I spoke out and he's a big freakin' star now. Plus he's really hot! Oh, he's legal, you dirty minded hags! ;-)



Me: (Watching Disturbia) Oh my god, he [Shia LaBeouf] got hot!
Sister: "Come here little boy. I've got some candy for you!" That's what you sound like.
Me: He's legal! Okay, I have ten years on him, so maybe it's a little Mrs. Robinson-ish. "Just get in the car and I'll give you the candy!" Heh, I'd give him the candy all right!

Me: I want Edgar Wright.
Sis: You want an Edgar Wright? I don't blame you; he's cute.
Me: I want to do terrible, unspeakable things to him. Possibly without his consent.
Sis: Oh, dear!



Good movie. Mostly because Shia's so excellent in it; and Carrie Ann Moss is as kick ass as ever playing suburban mom! Still was left with a bit of dissatisfaction at some of it; it was my sister who said first, "Do you know what a young Spielberg could have done with that material. Or a young Zemeckis or dick Donner?" Too true, mate.

The parts with the girl are some of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in my life. I'm certainly not casting aspersions on the actress as I thought she was cute and charming, but the character, good lord. Okay, if a man who's much larger and older than you busts into your car, takes your keys from the ignition, makes a few uncomfortably suggestive remarks and touches your hair, there's no fucking way you'd be fucking telling your friends that he didn't fucking do anything wrong in the very next fucking scene. In the commentary, they admit that the female audsience reacted so strongly to it and yet they don't realize that the second it cut to the next scene and she's telling them that it was fine and he was right, they lost me and my sister completely and utterly. One of the characters suggests that she must have Stockholm Syndrome (which she, despite her allegedly being so deep and well read, has no idea about), and I think I agree.

And, God, Kale, Shia's character, his speech to her about how he sees the real her, is so damned sweet and romantic and the character of Ashley in no way justifies it! It's like what every girl who hides wants to hear uttered from a boy, and a really cute one in this case, and he's saying it to the shallow popular girl. Yes, personal feelings of my own child and teenagehood cloud my feelings here, but I think it's a primal reaction from many who grew up with a certain type of personality.

Now, I bet you thought I was going to use this to segue into a rant about how the state of females in horror is Godawful, but that's not entirely true! The sis and I have watched quite a few--okay, a whole lot--in the past couple of months and we've seen some really great stuff. Kristen Stewart in The Messangers comes to mind immediately, as does James Wan's amazing character Mary Shaw in Dead Silence (who should, in our estimation, become as famous as a Freddy or Jason or Pinhead, but never will do, sadly), or Amber Valletta's character for that matter! Sarah Michelle Gellar made a splash in the only so-so The Return and, whatever my feelings on the movie itself, Black Christmas assembled a pretty bitching group of young female talent and gave them fairly good, rather atypical roles (and then there's Andrea Martin, who's always superb!)

It seems, actually, that I've been pretty spoiled when it comes to female characters as of late. Though movies are focusing less and less on them, which I'll neither defend nor excuse, I've seen strong actresses emerge in solid roles. Why then, still, am I seeing the guy-oriented movies still clinging to the idea of the geeky guys getting the hot girls, while in girls media, I see more and more girls realizing that that boy next door is really the right one for them (see Instant Star, and hear my scream of rage if the next season opens with Jude facing Jamie.) Whatever happened to Sixteen Candles, where are all the Jake Ryans when you need them?!

I had the pleasure once, a while ago, before the first Spider-Man movie came out and fans were still reacting to the inclusion of Mary Jane over Gwen, reading a fantastic essay about Ms. Watson vs Ms. Stacy, written by a guy, on how the unobtainable girl gets really, really boring once you, well, obtain her. There's nothing there; the depth that you, in your fantasies, assigned to them is vacant, nonexistent. And you realize it's not really love. (Granted, MJ in the first movie stole judiciously from Gwen, so there ya go!)

And that's my rat. Don't know where it was really going but, there it is!



Oh, and Brett Ratner's a jackass. We all know this is true. But his comment in a recent interview laughing at all the unreasonable X-Men fans who actually wanted Rogue to be the star (who stupid are we?! Wanting one fo the most popular characters in the comic's history to be one of the stars! I'm glad he straightened me out or I'd be walking around with these foolish notions!) made him just the biggest asshole on the planet to me.

And of rant.


Peace, Ghani