Be So Glad

[sisabet]

First things first: piper47 - I did not see your IM until this morning - AIM has been opening and closing itself willy-nilly on me all weekend (more on that later). Yes - VVC deadline is today for ALL vids. The deadline is until Midnight either EST or CST. To be safe? Go with EST. Or just check out the FAQ at vividcon, cause I really do not know what I am talking about.

Things to be grateful for:

I have friends like sockkpuppett and tzikeh and kadymae and mlyn. Lum and tzikeh for hand-holding and geek squad enabling and just general everything this weekend when my computer went KABLOOEY less than 32 hours before the VVC deadline. Kadymae of the gift of Birds of Prey and fangirl squee and M'lyn for the gift of due South Season 4. I have it on very good authority that Fraser gets the shit beaten out of him in Season 4 and I have already identified the potential footage for this by watching vids so I am very excited. I like my Mountie bruised and a bit bloody. Or in church. Ohh - bruised and bloody in church. That would be so freakin' cool.

So - sweetestdrain - let me know when you are ready for S3 and we can then marathon the rest!

My computer bit the big one this weekend. It was an ex-computer. It was pining for the Fjords. Actually - not really - but my OS fucked up but good and there was much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and at one point I had to look into the future and accept that there is a very real possibility that I will not be able to send any vid at all to this year's VVC. And it turns out that I am okay with that. I'm not happy about it, but I don't think that it would impede in my enjoyment of the con at all. Gah - I just want to be there. Actually having a vid is just icing and while I had hoped that my attitude was shifting in this direction - I am glad to have proof that this is my real and deep down feeling.

Luckily - thanks again to Lum and tzikeh, it looks like I will be able to get my premiere vid in on time. So yay! I am really thrilled. My computer works again and I think I have almost all of my data. These are good things.

Due to stress I watched A LOT of movies this weekend:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I liked it well enough, but I had sufficient difficulty in believing in and also sympathizing with the premise and so it never really touched me the way I thought it could. I just... there was a scene with a man in the waiting room and he is holding a trophy and part of me wondered if this was his son's belonging and that movie - I'd like to see that movie.

American Splendor: I forget how much I adore this movie until I watch it again and everytime I am just thwapped upside the head with "OMG, I LOVE this movie!"

Anchorman: I lost it when WF started yelling "I freaking LOVE you!" and I never got it back. Just... Dude - STAY CLASSY!

Seabiscuit: Due to oversaturation of the Lexington market with this movie (everyone I know is like "I was an extra in Seabiscuit! It is the best movie eva!) I avoided this despite being interested in the subject and loving that little Tobey Maguire. I don't know if it was stress or hormones or what but I cried at 3 separate times during this movie and the last time I cried I couldn't even tell you what I was crying about. It is just... That horse had HEART y'all!!! I am a sucker for this - total and complete wimp. I am getting choked up just thinking about it now.

The English Patient: Psych! I didn't really watch this. I've actually never been able to sit thru this entire movie and I was flipping thru HBO and it was in its final minutes so I watched just to see what the hell happened and yeah - I still hate this movie. Like passionately hate. Like I read this story where it is Fraser's turn to pick the movie and he chooses this film and yeah - I can see that. He would. But dude - that is my personal dealbreaker. If someone loved me - really really love me - he would not do that to me, expect me to sit through this movie. I can't imagine... I'd rather sit through the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre with my eyes and ears completely open and my hands tied down and my head stationary so I can't look away (I am terrified of this movie) than sit through The English Patient. I'd rather have the numbing shots at the dentist office deep in the corners of my jaw than sit through that movie. I'd rather be a claims adjuster for the rest of my life than sit through that movie.

Now I am terrified that I will meet someone and fall in love and everything will be perfect and suddenly and without warning this movie will show up and ruin everything.

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

did you hate ondaatje's book as well???

and yeah on the computer..

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Never read it, so I have no opinion on the book. I'm not likely to eventually read the book as the list of books I want to read is already longer than my potential lifetime.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

*g* i know how that feels. i actually have a stack of books i've bought that are waiting to be read...

i'm just a big ondaatje fan, though english patients definitely isn't my favorite one...

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

What would you recommend?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i really loved in the skin of a lion, but then i'm a huge fan of historiographic metafiction. linda hutcheon's work (the politics of postmodernism&the poetics of postmodernism) was really influential on my work..if you don't get excited by marquez and morrison and rushdie, then ondaatje's probably not to your liking...

also, i haven't reread him in a while, so reading him now i might react differntly...or maybe not :-)

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I *do* get excited by Gabriel Garcia Marquez but I have found Rushdie to be nearly inpenetrable (but this was years ago and I was a different person - maybe I am due another go at him?)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

oh, do give midnight's children another try if you like marquez! it might be helpful to have a brush up course in post WWII Indian subcontinent politics, but it's truly a marvelous novel (if a tad slowing down in the last section).

i've only taught it once (and felt well in over my head :-), but i'd love to do it again...now, mind you, ondaatje is not at *that* level, but his poetic style and gorgeously rich language, his very focus on speech, lack thereof, communication and history is in the same neighborhood (or so i'd argue :-)

so...what are the top books on your must read pile? :-) [mine's the line of beauty, but since i have it only in hardback i won't be taking it on my trip...]

[rydra_wong]

Aaaargh, horrible computer stress *shudders*. Many sympathies.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Thank you - hopefully all will be well now!

[luminosity]

The thing about Eternal Sunshine? I loved the way it *looked*, and I loved the lunacy of the receding memories--that was cool. I just thought it was depressing.

I've never been able to sit through all of The English Patient either. I really have to be motivated to watch a movie where sand is a major character. Now, snow? Oh yeah. Natural disasters? Sure. Would Fargo have been as great a movie if it had been shot in Nebraska? No. But sand. Eww. Except for Tank Girl, but it was in the supporting cast in that movie. Of course, sand played a major role in The Conqueror...

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Eternal Sunshine was brilliantly constructed and shot. I mean, I liked it. I did. But I kept missing out on the moments that were there to draw me in further. I was slightly invested in the leads' happiness at the end but really no more than I was invested in Richard Gere and Julia Roberts working things out in "Pretty Woman." I think the movie is somewhat spoiled by me wanting to love it and only liking it. Normally this isn't a problem at all but it feels like a movie I should love and I don't.

And if you were able to sit through The English Patient and told me I was missing out on something really grand and I needed to just persevere and get on with it - I'd try to watch the damn thing.

Movies with Sand:

Pitch Black -- sand is barely in a supporting role, really.

Oh - Blue Lagoon. Now I actually prefer "Return to Blue Lagoon" over the original but this is possibly because my mother would not let me see the original when I was the appropriate age to appreciate it because of the nekkid swimming. RtBL is one of the best worst movies ever made. Pirates!

Lawrence of Arabia: I've not seen it. I hear good things about it. I'm pretty sure I have been in rooms where it was playing as I can close my eyes and concentrate and remember bits from the movie and yet I have never seen it. There was a lot of sand in the bits I remember.

Dune: I haven't watched this since I was a kid. And what is up with my mom not letting me see Blue Lagoon but this instead?? There is no telling how warped I am because of this. Actually all I remember from the movie is the sand and the worms.

Mad Max III: Beyond the Thunderdome: OH - my dad had this taped on the same cassette as Dune! Again with what was my mother thinking? I actually have very fond memories of watching this movie because my father enjoyed it so - finally a film that captures the ferocity of hogs.

Also - it gave us Tina Turner singing "We Don't Need Another Hero" and if ever a song begged to be a Lord King Bad Vid - it is this song.

[basingstoke.livejournal.com]

I had kind of the same reaction to Eternal Sunshine as I did to the Machinist. Beautiful, brilliantly put together, left me completely cold.

Maybe this is a new movement of Chilly Cinema. I don't know. I loved Kate Winslet's hair, though. I miss my green and purple and orange hair.

More On Eternal Sunshine...Spoilers

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

I just - I keep thinking about the people in the waiting room and the older man with the trophy - he is obviously not trying to erase the memories of his former Glory Days, we learn enough to know the procedure is limited to the removal of a specific person, so the logical conclusion is he is erasing his child.

And what could ever happen that you could do that? Did his son die and living with the memories are just too unbearable? Cause actually - the thought of losing the last thing left of a loved one (memories) strikes me as just... I don't know, the idea rips my heart apart. I couldn't imagine parting with them willingly.

So then I think - maybe this is a case of disownment - perhaps the son is now dead to the old man and what is that like? What would it be like to find out your parent erased all traces of your existence from their mind?

And I wanted the movie to go into that more, at least with the Joel character - what is that like? To have memories of knowing this other person and yet you never existed to them? To have learned and developed and shared and not have that reflected back at you and the reason isn't death - the reason is brain damage (and yeah - I kinda used to deal with people and this every single day) that they chose.

And the movie did address some of this and I really was happy that they inferred that removing someone who has affected your personality shaping so intensely leaves you floundering. I liked that Clementine was a mess and that nothing felt right or fit. I liked Joel's reaction when he finally woke up. I just wasn't that invested in them as a couple.

I am still interested in the concept - I just want it explored possibly more deeply than a film could go. I wanted a novel. And I want to know the man with the trophy - I want to know his story.

[askye.livejournal.com]

I didn't make it through The English Patient. I didn't see any chemistry between Ralph Fiennes and what's her name so when they ended up in a passioate embrace it felt really random and stupid. I just stopped watching and never fastforwarded to see the parts with Naveen Andrews.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

It just went on and on and on and there was talking and then this and then that and more of that and it wouldn't stop.

Of course at the end of Moulin Rouge I am the person yelling "Just die already, my ass is numb!" so I have very little patience sometimes.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I am relieved to hear that your computer is back in the land of the living. Gah, it sounds like you had quite a dramatic weekend. :p

Will keep various digits crossed for you as you speed toward the deadline. I have faith in you.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much - I'm doing MUCH better today. Just knowing that I can navigate windows is a relief.

Now all I have to do is convince the ftp program that it wants to work.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

"Now I am terrified that I will meet someone and fall in love and everything will be perfect and suddenly and without warning this movie will show up and ruin everything."

No, no, no. Real terror would be if the movie showed up and you suddenly liked it. cuz you were in love.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

OMG! That will keep me awake and afraid all night!

Now - the last time I was in a relationship, I got all gooey at Jerry Maguire. I think I potentially would have gone that way even without the being in wuv part cause that kid with the glasses was really cute and I have NO resistance to cute/dorky kids and animals. None at all. I'm gonna vid Diefenbaker.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

OK, that just makes me think of:

"C.J.
The movies were bad, Roger, all of them. Even the little kid was bad, but he was a little kid, he had a couple of scenes, big eyeglasses, lisp, he's going to the Golden Globes. You know why the New Coke marketing campaign failed? Because nobody liked New Coke. The movies were bad. If the movies were unknown, I could help you, but they weren't. They were just bad!"

God, I love C.J. Or I used to. If I were still watching now, I might not love her, and I just don't want to know.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

If you were watching now...well, I have no idea. But I made mental peace with continuing to watch the latest season when I decided that it was an AU fanfic season.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Did you get the disks yet? *Crosses fingers* And although it's not my fault, I'm still going to apologize for the Swedish episodes. I think there ended up being something like four in there. I hope it doesn't impede your vid making...but hey, the actual Atlantis Alliance disks are on their way to the shelves this fall. Provided that certain distributors aren't fucktards.

And Seabiscuit chokes me up, too. One of the places it does this is really random, and I blame David McCullough for it. I have this odd weepy reaction to the documentary-like segment where he talks about people getting hope. Other than that weirdness, it's just a beautiful and well-made movie, so I expect a little heartstring-tugging.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

YAY! I'll check the mail. I forget to check the mail all the time - but this week I am checking the mail!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I think the post office said they should be there by Tuesday, but maybe somebody will speed them to you because they know you must have beat-up Fraser omg. *G*

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

OMG! It is like Christmas!!!

[kimera.livejournal.com]

Provided that certain distributors aren't fucktards.

*snort* If there's one thing I've learned thanks to Alliance-Atlantis, it's that "this fall" actually means "next spring".

Not that I'm, like, bitter or anything.

[linzeestyle.livejournal.com]

Seabiscuit was cute! I fell asleep when I saw it for a bit because the chairs were comfy and I was in the middle of finals, but it was cute. I'd probably watch Tobey Maguire read the phonebook though because he is adorable and wee.

And gah, computer issues. They make me quite literally sick -- the computer is like my evil demonic hell-child baby and so when things go wrong I freak out. :sends good vibes:

Linzee

[piper47.livejournal.com]

Thanks... I got almost completely done with my video for submission and I thought I had missed the deadline. Good, means I might get it in on time. Thanks.

Btw, hope the computer is doing okay.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

WORD about the English Patient. The parts with Naveen Andrews are grand, but all of the rest of it is quite odious. It's a snore, and a completely overwrought snore at that. Sounds impossible, but there it is.

I know you are a fantastic vidder [I love your Angel vids!] and I was wondering if you might know a link to a site about capturing video from DVDs. I've done a few google searches but the results don't make a ton of sense offhand. I have Premiere 6.0 and all the Alias DVDs and a decent idea for a vid. I just don't know what's next. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.