OMG LES MIZ

First of all, you're welcome. Why? Because I've refrained from blogging about the movie Les Miserables until I calmed myself... Mostly. Second of all, I'm finally 102% DONE with college applications, which means my thoughts will be more in one piece than they have been lately.

'Twas the night after Christmas, while children went to bed

that a little blogger decided to watch a movie then instead

While she watched the silver screen, she cried

as everyone in the movie died... (just kidding)

As she left the theater's left wing,

she began to dance and sing:

"DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING 

SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN

IT IS THE MUSIC OF A PEOPLE

WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIN!"

If I ever say I'm going to write poetry again, kindly remind me how terrible I am at it so I can prevent any further embarrassment.

But all jokes and bad poetry aside, when I saw Les Miserables, I was dumbfounded. I hadn't read the book or seen the musical, so I was expecting to be a bit confused. Luckily this was not the case at all! When my dad told me that this would be a little like an opera since everyone sang the entire time, I thought he was kidding. Fortunately, he wasn't. I just have a few words to say to all you haters out there...

Warning: rant ahead

You know that saying?... Oh how does it go. "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it"? It astonishes me every day when on the internet, people think they can hide themselves behind their Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube accounts and just bash on successful and talented people. There's saying insults to that person's face, there's talking behind their back, but throwing insults over the internet is just an awful combination of both of these things. Grow up. Say something nice. Or go back to kindergarten and learn some manners.

End of rant.

All of the actors in this film were AMAZING. I usually measure level of performance (if it's a sad story) on how much I cry, but I stopped thinking about it when I started just... crying the entire time. Literally. The girl next to me (who I won't name) was sobbing so much her chair was shaking by the end. We are some hard-core movie-goers. I'll address only one major critique of the movie and stop there before I rant again: Russell Crowe was a good fit for the part. Yes, his voice was gravelly, but you know what? I liked it. "Oh no, but his singing is so terrible it hurt my ears!!" Since I haven't seen the musical, I personally think it would be weird if Javert had a soft and sing-songy voice, but maybe that's just me. After all, I'm merely a non-expert.

P.S. See the movie if you haven't already. Now. Like, buy the tickets online before you finish reading this sentence. (note to self: don't write any posts about peer pressure or you're a hypocrite)

Craaaazy People

Merry Christmahanukwanza everyone!! I can already hear the distinct melodies of Christmas carols playing... Oh wait, that's the TV downstairs... Oh wait, they've been playing Christmas carols everywhere since before Thanksgiving...

Yesterday, I spent the last hour of the awkward-there-was-no-apocalypse-day sitting in front of the TV. I wasn't even planning on watching any television since I'm technically supposed to be hustling to get all of those college applications in, but I ran downstairs in a hurry when my dad rushed up to the stairs and demanded I come at once. Usually when he does this, it's because I left the water on the stove too long and the house is about to burn down and he needs to remind me once again that unintentionally almost burning the house down is not really a good thing.

I was pretty relieved when I found out that I didn't set anything on fire. Instead, there was just Charlie Rose, interviewing Quentin Tarantino about his new movie Django Unchained. The next hour consisted of Charlie Rose, the ever-jittery Tarantino, and my eyes glued to the screen. I even refused a Klondike so I didn't miss anything that they were saying, and I would make a joke about how it's clearly a sign of the apocalypse, but... (On a completely different topic, I just visited the Klondike website. If you're extremely bored and want to watch ice cream bars being destroyed by wood chippers and baseball bats in slow motion, click on this link: Klondike Craziness)

Quentin Tarantino is the only man I have ever been able to watch being interviewed for an entire hour without being bored. And I just realized right now that there were no ads. Not only is he immensely entertaining to watch because of his boundless energy; he speaks intelligently and articulately. It's probably every interviewer's dream (if they're interested in film) to have a chat with Mr. Tarantino, because if he gets going on a topic, he'll just keep talking about it until he's stopped. With certain people, this can be a bad thing, since topics begin to mush together and certain things are repeated ad nauseam, but everything in this interview was something new and exciting. Perhaps I have a little bit of bias, though, since I always get excited whenever a successful person talks about the hours and hours they spend writing and thinking. Oh. And watch this: Julie Plec Interview

I tried to find a link for you guys, but I guess it's a bit too soon. It'll pop up on YouTube eventually, and when it does, I'll both provide a link and demand that you click on it. Think of it as my Christmas present to you :)

There's screaming coming from the TV downstairs and my family is laughing hysterically... I think I'll go downstairs now. Happy holidays everyone!

Why Shakespeare confuses my brain

So I'm going to assume here that everyone reading this blog knows who I am, but if you don't know me, congratulations for coming across one of the loneliest blogs on the internet, and just read the rest of this post knowing that I might possibly want to major in English if I ever get in to college. Therefore, the title of this post is probably confusing your brain, too.

How can an English major not appreciate and love the works of Shakespeare?? It's a very good question indeed, but one that is entirely answerable (I think). So let me first make a minor correction to the title. This post should actually be called "Why reading Shakespeare confuses my brain." Technically the entire title should also be capitalized, but I'm lazy.

When I first started reading Hamlet, I thought I had lost my marbles, and had to read something else to make sure I hadn't completely forgotten the language of English. It also happened to be at the same time that I thought I had a concussion because of a bump in the head at work, but it turns out I'm just not good at concentrating on things in general. Yes, I appreciate Shakespeare's wondrous ability to play with words and his sense of humor... No, I do not appreciate how hard it is to imagine what's going on in Shakespeare's plays with no visual context. Other than the occasional painting or photograph on the left side of the book, there's nothing but dialogue telling the reader what's really going on. (Also, thank you so much, Folger Shakespeare Library, for showing me what a sword looks like. I would've been completely lost and clueless without your help...) Even reading it in screenplay format would've been easier! An occasional "(sarcastically)" or "(angrily)" would definitely clear up some confusion.

But what's that in the distance? It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a film version of Hamlet, come to save the day! The Royal Shakespeare Company really did a fine job with this one, even if every time anything comes out of Hamlet's mouth, all I can think of is Barty Crouch Jr., and having the same man play Claudius and the Ghost is complicated enough without Professor X in there. Anyway, it's a fantastic production, with weird camera angles (even a security camera perspective once in a while), classy and contemporary costumes, and above all, great acting. Oliver Ford Davies, who plays Polonius, does a fantastic job playing the clueless father who rambles on and on in such an endearingly humorous way.

And see, that's just the point of acting out Shakespeare's plays! I'm no actress, so it's a little hard for me to simply walk around my bedroom floor, reading a paragraph and interpreting it through acting. I usually end up making random hand motions, forget to process the words in my brain, then get frustrated. It's not pretty. There's also the read-it-out-loud-in-class method, but sometimes it's not fun to find out that you're not the worst actor in the room. Awkward...

Do you see now why I dislike reading Shakespeare? Allow me to reiterate: There's a reason why Shakespeare wrote his plays... as plays... They are to be acted, or at least spoken with some dramatic impact. Call me dumb, but I cannot get any of that through my thick skull without some help. I need a little more than a picture of a sword to understand the inner workings of these plays (notice how I didn't call them books?).

I'll run away before I'm trampled by smart people who can read and understand Shakespeare without movies... Meh.