'harry potter,' latin and me

in the few weeks before finals when solid food gets replaced with red bull and full nights of sleep get replaced with power naps taken between 3 and 5 a.m., the idea to flee civilization and abandon all responsibilities suddenly seems more appealing than ever. if you're like me, you wish you could go to hogwarts because there, at the very least, you can do magic.

i started reading the harry potter books before i hit middle school; i remember wishing jk rowling would write a sequel to 'harry potter and the sorcerer's stone.' like any other kid, i wished i was a wizard, so of course i knew all the spells and everything better than i knew... whatever it is you're supposed to learn in the 5th grade. what i didn't realize was that all those spells actually mean something. by memorizing all those spells and what they did, i was actually learning a tiny bit of latin.

for example, 'alohamora,' one of the first spells harry learns, unlocks things. 'mora' in latin means 'obstacle,' which is kind of cool. 'colloportus,' the counteraction of 'alohamora,' magically locks a door. the latin word 'porta' means 'gate' or 'door.' the 'accio' spell, which summons items, literally translates in latin to 'to summon.' 'aparecium' causes invisible ink to become visible. 'appareo' in latin means 'to become visible or appear.' the confundus charm, 'confundo,' obviously confuses people, and in latin, literally means 'to confuse or disorient.' the 'expecto patronum' spell creates a patronus, which keeps dementors at bay and comes from the latin, meaning 'i await a protector.' 'expelliarmus,' a favorite disarming spell of harry's, comes from the latin 'expellere,' 'to expel' and 'arma,' meaning 'weapon of war.' the 'lumos' spell, which creates light, comes from 'lumen,' meaning 'light.'

i could go on forever, or at least until i run out of spells.

there are also other things like names derived from latin. professor remus lupin, a werewolf, gets his name from the word meaning 'wolflike.' 'sirius' is latin for 'dog,' and also the name of harry's animagus godfather who turns into a black dog at will. severus snape gets his name from the latin word for 'strict' or 'severe,' which anyone can agree is fitting.

it kind of makes me respect jk rowling even more as an author, actually thinking through all the details in her books so thoroughly. learning about how all these words are derived from latin also gives me just another way to procrastinate, so from the bottom of my heart, jk rowling, i thank you.

007: license to thrill (see what i did there?)

i've always been of the belief that one's life doesn't really start until one has seen their first james bond movie. for me, the awakening, if you will, occurred around age 13, and it's safe to say i've never looked back. the 007 films make up my very most favorite franchise of all time, and yes, that includes 'star wars' and 'indiana jones.'

i'm a ridiculous 007 fan, and am totally okay with being so far removed from normalcy in this area it actually strains credulity. i not only own all the movies but also know the intricacies of each plot line. i can name all the villains, sing all the theme songs and, despite being born over 20 years into the series, offer substantiated opinions on how pop culture throughout the franchise's history has affected the stories.

now, i've probably done a fairly convincing job of portraying myself as a complete nutter, so, why the sudden peak in excitement over britain's most lethal weapon? me and a buddy of mine sectioned off two days this weekend to watch our way through the entire series. it's sort of a last 'hoorah' before we both go into our finals-induced hibernation periods, and it's going to be great. we figured it takes almost two full days to watch through all 22 movies, so we've stocked up on red bull and hot pockets, and we're ready to go.

probably the best thing about bond movies is there are so many great things in them. we have theme songs. we have gadgets. we have bond girls. we have villains, bad-guy organizations, villain sidekicks and super-secret lairs. we have q, m, miss moneypenny and felix leiter. we have bond himself. every single movie has all these elements, except for maybe the hiccup (*cough* disaster *cough*) that was 'on her majesty's secret service.' i could go on for days about all of that, but in my opinion the best part about these movies are the puns and beyond-cheesy innuendo.

it happens more with the brosnan movies, and those are spectacular, but it's almost more satisfying when timothy dalton cracks a smile once in a blue moon. some of the best material comes from the outrageous nature of the bond girl names, some of it shines through when q takes bond through his gadget arsenal. i love bad puns with all my heart, and bond has produced the best of the best over the years.

watching bond movies really gives one an appreciation for the ridiculous pun. it also gives one an appreciation of over-the-top action sequences. i can't conceive of a surface, automobile or location bond hasn't used in some sort of brawl. then again, the impossible display of epic badassery is one of the cornerstones upon which 007 is built.

the cool thing about watching all 22 in such a short time is that we can sit and compare performances. to me, sean connery is the true bond, even though i grew up with pierce brosnan's movies. i might even like brosnan's movies better, but connery made the role what it is, that is until 'diamonds are forever,' which might as well be called 'sean connery should've quit while he was ahead.' actually, the producers observed (astutely) that connery looked too old in 'diamonds are forever,' so they hired roger moore for a younger-looking bond. interestingly enough, roger moore is actually three years older than sean connery.

there's timothy dalton, the super-serious, out-of-place-in-the-80s bond who no one really liked. poor thing's only kind of cool sequence was when he went sliding down a hill atop a cello case, shooting bad guys as he went. daniel craig took a little getting used to, mostly because he's grittier than brosnan and doesn't speak entirely in fantastically bad puns. he's since convinced me, however, that despite his moneypenny-free existence he has a lot to offer. abs, for instance.

so, here's to blofeld and number two, pussy galore and tiffany case, fight scenes underwater and on the moon, uncovering conspiracies and foiling plans of world domination, smooth tuxedos and vodka martinis. shaken, not stirred.

inspirational sports movies: the encyclopedia

the other day, i was flipping through my 15 channels at like 2 a.m. trying to find something to keep me awake long enough to write a 12-page paper about the environment. this was a virtually insurmountable task, considering how i ran out of fresh material around page 4, lost track of how much coffee i'd drunk by page 8 and was blasting AC/DC by page 11. we all know how that goes.

anyway, the movie i ended up watching was 'invincible,' mainly because it was the only thing that wasn't an infomercial or 'cold case.' 'invincible' is this really awful mark wahlberg sports movie about some has-been quarterback who finally gets his shot in the NFL, and it's inspirational to the point of ridiculousness. i thought it's just like pretty much every other inspirational movie ever made, and then i thought about the inspirational movie genre as a whole.

has anyone else ever noticed that the vast majority of these insipid inspirational "we shall overcome" movies deal with sports as a major theme? they're nearly exclusively centered around either sports or cancer, sometimes both. 'field of dreams,' anyone? 'the karate kid,' 'rocky,' 'rudy,' 'ali,' 'miracle,' 'we are marshall,' 'a league of their own,' 'the rookie,' 'air bud,' 'bull durham,' 'hoop dreams...' i could go on. these movies span just about every sport... there's even that movie about the jamaican bobsled team. are there sports movies that don't have an underlying inspirational theme?

even though i really hate those sappy, over-the-top "make your dreams come true" movies, i have learned almost everything i know about sports from watching them. there's always that climactic, pivotal moment toward the end of the movie during the final game where you all of a sudden see like an entire game because they're drawing out the suspense of the plot. of course, there's never any real question as to who's going to win because these movies are wildly predictable, but they have to explain the rules of the game a little bit so that everyone understands how and why the good guys won.

there are the rudimentary things like the rules of hockey, learned from 'miracle.' there's the strategy of baseball, learned from 'angels in the outfield,' 'eight men out,' 'major league,' the list goes on. i know all about soccer, basketball, golf, football and even boxing from these movies. i even know some of the rules of the more obscure sports like rugby (in 'invictus'), bobsledding (in 'cool runnings'), cycling (in 'breaking away'), chess (in 'searching for bobby fischer'), pool (in 'the hustler') and more. it's kind of great, actually.

movies like 'raging bull' always end with a good message, but they're generally depressing tear-jerkers. theoretically, sports don't always have to be depressing. in fact, i'd say most sports are anything but depressing. but even the sports comedies end up being a little heavy on the disingenuous "we can do it" emphasis, what with all the overcoming obstacles and the learning to believe in oneself. not that believing in yourself is bad, but is it too much to ask for more 'caddyshack' and less 'hoosiers?'

on the other hand, i could just go watch espn.

the line between superfluity and functionality

the other day i went karaoke-ing. despite the fact that the reason for this outing was to let a girlfriend of mine sing and dance her boy problems away, i was still all over it because i love karaoke nights. i'm by no means good at it; i can carry a tune well enough, but that doesn't mean i have any talent in the singing department. that's the beauty of it, though. lack of singing talent makes karaoke what it is, which is essentially a room full of drunk, inhibition-less people in a bowling alley bar crooning away while everyone else makes fun of them.

on this particular karaoke outing, my scorned friend was out in big-time "hell hath no fury" mode, with more than a hint of "i'd rather be curled up on the couch watching titanic with a pint of ben & jerry's" heartbreak mode. this combination could mean nothing but, yes, you guessed it, crooning through breakup ballads of the 70s and 80s: the three sheets to the wind edition. from 'endless love' and 'he's got you' to 'every rose has its thorns,' all the way through 'i will survive,' the poor thing ran the gamut of "my heart's been stomped on and now it's on my sleeve" emotions.

anyway, the shameful point of this story is that i know all the words to all these songs. not just the sappy power ballads, but the classic rock, the bad 90s pop, the great 80s dance hits, the oldies but goodies... singing along to the drunken american idol blooper reel made me realize how much random, useless stuff i have bouncing around my head.

for example, before the other night i hadn't heard a backstreet boys song in about a decade, seeing as i've tried my best to forget the boy band phase of my life. but when some preppy barely-21 who could've gone to high school with me got up and, in a fit of nostalgia, started singing 'larger than life,' it was like i was 10 again and knew every lyric.

the thing is, song lyrics really just barely scratch the surface of everything filed away in my memory banks. random trivia from snapple caps, answers to obscure trivial pursuit questions, lines from my favorite movies, pointless anecdotes professors put in their lectures to make them more interesting, it's all there. it's kind of amazing, really, how little of this information is actually useful in any capacity.

so there i am, watching my friend wail away along with diana ross, thinking what i could do if all this entirely superfluous information were replaced with legitimately helpful information. could i be off curing cancer or preventing global warming if i had managed to retain the important stuff? my general policy in high school and throughout most every gen ed class i've taken was to breeze through the day-to-day, cram like hell in the hours before any major tests, and forget it all the minute i didn't need it anymore. it worked like a charm, too.

but what if i couldn't tell you that an autopsy on an animal is called a necropsy, and instead the space in my brain used for stockpiling that tidbit was going toward something credible? kind of an interesting thought.

on the other hand, i don't want to be a brain surgeon or an astronaut. i'm an advertising major, which means the only real skills i need are the ability to bullshit and the ability to persuade people to buy things they don't need, and these two skills are conveniently interlaced. i choose to think that my brain is filtering out all the stuff it knows i won't need and hanging on to anything that might be helpful at some point. sure, it might just be things like party anecdotes, but i've always felt it's better to know a little about a lot than a lot about a little. consequently, i've now convinced myself that it's a good thing that ten years after my boy band phase i can still sit here and spit out the lyrics to 'mmmbop' like it's my job.

and just as a parting note, 'karaoke' is japanese for 'empty orchestra.' i learned that on 'how i met your mother.'

barney stinson, the everyman

the other night, i was having dinner with a friend of mine who had just gotten dumped. those "i really need a girlfriend to talk to" dinners can be a little draining, even though all that's really required is to listen, nod your head and come up with a new insult every few minutes. nevertheless, there i was, playing right along in full-on supportive mode. however, as the night wore on, she kept going on and on about this scumbag and what had happened, and i couldn't help but realize that maybe things weren't quite as she was telling them.

soon it came out that devastated as this girl was, this had actually been a one-night type of deal. of course she regurgitated every word he had said to her, and soon it became clear: my friend had been dealing with a barney stinson. once i formed this conclusion, it was actually more of a struggle not to laugh at her than it usually is to appear to be paying rapt attention. why? because i love 'how i met your mother.'

this guy had convinced carly that he was leaving town the next day because, get this, he had been drafted as starting quarterback for the patriots right out of college and he wanted to savor his last night in chicago. i promise, she bought it hook, line and sinker. when she woke up alone and called the number he gave her, she got the chicago rejection hotline.

once this story had come out in its entirety, it got me thinking that this guy must watch 'how i met your mother,' too. while nodding blankly and randomly hurling degrading yet witty insults in his direction, my mind started to wander. i thought about 'how i met your mother' and how it actually teaches us many lessons about the crazy world of dating. many of these lessons come in the form of barney's theories and rules. as carly talked, i thought about my favorite of barney's theories and rules. i also thought about how many of these rules could be applied to my friend's life and make her less... pathetic might be too strong a word, but it's the one i'm going with.

take the hot/crazy scale. for those who don't watch 'how i met your mother,' the hot/crazy scale allows for a girl to be a certain level of crazy, as long as she's equally hot. there's a line called the vicky mendoza diagonal that delineates the appropriate levels of crazy and hot, but if a girl goes too far past the vicky mendoza diagonal, she reaches the shelly gillespie zone. i'm here to say that the hot/crazy scale also works for dudes. for example, i dated this guy who started out as 'cute target boy,' but as we got to know each other better, he became 'creepy target boy.' this was after i learned that his favorite movie was 'love actually' and that he dropped out of college, lived with his mother, had me in his fave five list halfway through our first conversation and during our first date started making plans for a weekend away. he got crazier and crazier, but no hotter.

then there's the platinum rule. barney explains it like this: "you know how the golden rule says that you should love thy neighbor? well, there's a rule above that called the platinum rule, which says that you should never ever *love* thy neighbor." it says that you shouldn't date someone you're around a lot, and therefore can't escape once you break up. it happened with this guy i worked with at target. he fell for this guy and they actually made a really cute couple until the close quarters started to make them hate each other, and it was awkward for weeks.

the most realistic depiction of the single life on 'how i met your mother,' though, is barney stinson himself. without the barney stinsons of the world, i wouldn't have to spend my saturday night and enough of my paycheck to cover two comfort food meals on watching my perpetually lovelorn friend sniffle and complain about some guy who conned her into a one-night stand. and somehow, i still like 'how i met your mother,' probably because it is realistic, and makes those crappy moments funny.

who needs originality, anyway?

after spending what felt like most of my life trying to create an ad campaign around a particular brand of antacids, i've come to wonder what's so great about originality, anyway. here i am, going through all possible scenarios of an antacid commercial, most of which include the two friends, one who's just eaten something that gives him/her heartburn and one who recommends this fantastic new antacid.

blech. can't we just draw on our vast knowledge of information that's already been seen, debated and eventually accepted? why can't we get away with conventionality?

take quentin tarantino. the man doesn't have an original bone in his body, but everyone's always talking about what an ingenue he is. he takes concepts, music, sometimes entire scenes from other movies. his movies are filled to the brim with references to other movies, and sometimes he even rehashes his own stuff, although most of that happens in the soundtracks.

from 'reservoir dogs' all the way to 'inglourious basterds,' tarantino's body of work reads like an amalgamation of every japanese action film known to man. if nothing else, you have to give him credit for finding the time to actually see all these movies he takes pieces from.

now, i'm not saying this is at all a bad thing. in fact, quite the opposite. he is a freaking genius, because even given all his remaking, rehashing and referencing, he's managed to convince us all of his originality. maybe the thing that cements tarantino's uniqueness is his ability to mash together a smattering of things we've already seen, combining them in a way we haven't. he did take the quintessential world war II movie and then change not just the plot, but the end of the war.

i have tremendous respect for tarantino's epic badassery. his movies are fantastically gory, and his concepts are always entertaining. his skill as a director is undeniable, especially his ability to make the unoriginal seem entirely new. if tarantino can do it, why can't i? find concepts and taglines from old campaigns and reuse them for different products... maybe even the same product, call it a throwback to retro style or something. seems easy enough, right? nope, because somehow there's no way i could pull it off because i'm not an arrogant, mildly creepy, 'heavily influenced' movie director.

all that being said, i'm still an advocate of originality. see, if you sit there and mull over the concept for long enough, creativity will eventually strike. thankfully, in this case, it did, and yours truly managed to knock that stupid antacid commercial out of the park at the eleventh hour, as always. isn't the final product better ten times out of ten if it's something entirely new, something you sat and thought about for however long, making your project something entirely your own and not just a knockoff of someone else's? it's like you feel more accomplished at the end of the day if you had to work for your idea.

take 'death at a funeral.' the original movie, a british black comedy, ranks pretty high on my list of favorite movies. it's laugh-out-loud funny, but at the same time it has elements of understated sarcasm and underplayed hilarity. there's a new version coming out soon, which might as well be the same movie, only made in america.

america most definitely got some things right, things mostly concentrated in the area of food, but as a fan of the original 'death at a funeral,' this movie looks like an unmitigated disaster. it stars chris rock, tracy morgan, martin lawrence et al, and is a line-for-line re-enactment of the original. if it were actually the same movie with different characters, i'm not sure i'd have the same issues with it, but despite the dialogue being nearly identical, the remake takes the perfect blend of comedy and turns it into two hours of over-exaggerated slapstick.

the proverbial problem with remakes is the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality, and it goes the same for originality. while tarantino makes the 'borrowing' system work, i'd much rather sit around my apartment watching bad tv and mulling over the concept until a brilliant idea pops into my head. i love those few minutes after you've just had a stroke of brilliance, but aren't quite sure where to take it, so you think as fast as you can in order to cement your idea before it falls right back out of your head. if anything, it keeps things interesting.

so, to answer my own question: who needs originality? we all do.

in honor of mr. hitchcock

in honor of the fact that i just watched 'north by northwest,' i feel the time has arrived for me to share just how much i love alfred hitchcock. which is a lot, basically.

i'm not by any means an expert on the film industry, but i am an expert on buying lots of films and watching lots of films. i can certainly appreciate all the groundbreaking accomplishments hitchcock made in the world of cinema, and while those groundbreaking accomplishments certainly contribute to why i think he's great, the main reason is that he was a character and a half, and that translated into his movies.

when i say i love his movies, i don't just mean the ones everyone's seen, like 'psycho,' 'vertigo,' 'the birds' and 'north by northwest.' i collect hitchcock dvds like your grandfather collects coins. i'm the kid who can tell you where in each movie you'll find hitchcock's cameo, and i'm a walking encyclopedia on not jut the movies you've seen, but the ones you haven't. i've watched 'psycho' more times than i can count, of course. but i've also seen movies like 'the man who knew too much' and 'strangers on a train' a million times because you can only watch 'rear window' so many times before you start suspecting your neighbors of murdering their wives.

that's one of the main reasons hitchcock's movies are so great. they're so good, you can get invested and involved in these movies in ways you can't with others. the only reason i don't watch 'the birds' day in and day out is that i don't want to develop a pathological fear of pigeons. that being said, i love that if i watch 'the birds' too often, i know i will eventually develop said pathological fear, however irrational it may seem. i watch 'notorious,' wherein cary grant essentially pimps ingrid bergman out to her father's nazi friend so she can be a cia informant, and hitchcock makes it look thrilling and fun. he makes me want to be a secret agent, before my grasp on reality sets in and i realize i would be an abysmal secret agent.

you know what else? he managed to create that signature hitchcockian suspense even within the considerable limits of the censorship laws that existed at that time. it's fascinating that the movies aren't all that scary, per se, but there's enough anticipation to give the audience that exhilarating thrill of psychological suspense. the shower scene in 'psycho' doesn't show much skin or actual stabbing because of the incredibly strict censorship codes, but it's almost better that way. no, not almost. actually.

one sort of morbid reason hitchcock is so awesome is his ability to dream up new and interesting ways to kill people. hitchcock once said, "a murder without gleaming scissors is like asparagus without the hollandaise sauce: tasteless." the gleaming scissors worked in 'dial m for murder,' but throughout all of his movies, hitchcock killed countless people in highly entertaining ways. strangulation with rope or neckties or scarves, drowning in various lakes or rivers, stuffing bodies into trunks, stabbing with knives or scissors or any other sharp object, sawing, hurling down stairs, pecking by birds, locking people in carbon monoxide-filled cars... the list goes on.

watching all these movies makes me want to crawl inside hitchcock's head and see what goes on in his imagination, a la 'being john malkovich.' the great thing about his movies, though, is that watching them sort of gives you a glimpse into that mind. now, i'm off to go watch 'to catch a thief.'

memorization: the convenient intellectual crutch

i'm not a science person. in fact, i've done just about everything in my power to avoid science like the plague because in my objective, highly refined opinion, science is stupid. all throughout high school, i trudged my way through science classes. the only thing that saved me from complete and utter failure was my ability to memorize almost any information and regurgitate it with remarkable precision.

part of what makes the memorizing thing work is putting things into song form. most of the ridiculous songs i came up with to remember all that scientific gibberish were just memorable enough to get me through whatever quiz or exam i had, but not so memorable that i could actually recall it at the end of the semester for finals. that being said, i can recite all the elements in the periodic table because of a song, but not one that i made up. it's because of NCIS.

there was this episode i really loved that happened to contain a song listing all the elements. abby cracked the encrypted hard drive of the victim and found out that the last thing emailed to him was the element song, where tom lehrer sings all the elements in the periodic table within a span of about a minute and a half. it's great.

i watched the episode a zillion times because i loved the plot where one of the witnesses turns out to be one of gibbs' ex-wives, but i also cracked up every time the song came on. eventually, i started to catch on to the song. then, of course, i downloaded it and listened to it because it's awesome. it's been years since i've actually had to know anything about the elements, and the irony of me learning this song years too late isn't at all lost on me, but now i know every element, no periodic table required.

there's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
and iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
and lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
and gold, protactinium and indium and gallium
and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

there's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
and boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
and strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
and bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.

there's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
and phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
and manganese and mercury, molybdinum, magnesium,
dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium
and lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
paladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
and tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
and cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

there's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium
and also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium
and argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
and chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper,
tungsten, tin and sodium.

these are the only ones of which the news has come to harvard,
and there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.

yeah, it's pretty useless information for an advertising major whose lack of ability in the science department has astounded instructors for years. it's a little unsettling to think what things i could be learning and retaining if my head weren't full of information like a list of the periodic table of the elements. it goes to show how a) songs actually do help with memorization and b) even someone like me can sound impressive if they watch enough tv. thank you, NCIS.

an argument for overestimation

when i was little, i wanted to be matilda. the book was one of the first chapter books i ever read, and amidst the immense pride i felt at having completed a 21-chapter book, i wished i could be as smart as this girl.

around a decade later, 'matilda' is still one of my favorite books. maybe it's a little strange, but i've always felt that the amount of wear and tear a book goes through shows how much the owner loves reading it. by that logic, 'matilda' is one of the best-loved books in existence. i've read it so many times my copy is falling apart. it doesn't have a back cover, the front cover is a tiny bit singed from a campfire accident, the whole book is a little warped from water damage, the pages are turning yellow, and most of them have that telltale dog-ear crease in the corner.

anyway, i read it so often mainly because i loved the character and wanted to be like her. she was my age, maybe even younger, and she loved learning, so she was just like me. well, not entirely like me. not only could she move things with her mind, but she could also do complicated math in her head and read books that were more than 21 chapters long. i'm certainly not a telekinetic, and there are very few things i'm more hopeless at than math, but at least i could read.

in an effort to be more like matilda, i started to attempt to read books way beyond my own abilities in the literacy department. she impressed the librarian by reading books by dickens, bronte, austen, wells, hemingway, faulkner, steinbeck, orwell and more, so naturally i tried to read all these authors too. of course i didn't understand a word of any of these books, and i didn't develop a charming relationship with the local librarian.

entirely undiscouraged, i resigned myself to the fact that i'd have to start out a little smaller than matilda. i read the rest of roald dahl's books, but wanted something more. realizing that while i wasn't exactly 'great expectations' material, i could be shooting for something a little more complicated than 'james and the giant peach.'

i'm sure all those bedtime books my parents read to me as a kid played a big part in why i love reading so much. it's 'matilda,' though, that contributed to my consistent overestimation of my own reading abilities growing up, and my current appreciation of classic literature.

as of now, i have read (and actually comprehended) most of the books matilda breezed through when she was in kindergarten. it doesn't matter what i read, though, because i understand why matilda loved books so much. she could escape into another world, learn about other people and experience their stories. my parents aren't narcissistic, neglecting neanderthals like matilda's, so i didn't rely as heavily on the escapism aspect, but i think everyone likes to know they can read a book and experience something else for a while.

everyone has their 'sound of music'

we all have that one movie, tv show or band we started out mocking, and now we love.

it starts out simply enough. you think it's entirely ridiculous, and you make fun of it. you watch or listen with your friends in a purely ironic way, because you're way too cool to actually enjoy it. any praise you give it oozes with sarcasm, but once you've spent some time watching or listening, however sardonically, after a while you realize you've actually started to like it for real. at first you're horrified that you actually like it, and you call it a guilty pleasure, but soon you realize you're actually okay with it.

for me, it's 'the sound of music.' my baby sister and i grew up with 'sound of music,' mainly because our mom and grandma love it so much. we complained and complained when they made us watch it; we thought it was the stupidest thing ever. we giggled along when our dad made fun of it, and after a while we joined in on the playful ridicule. before we knew it, we were watching it just so we could jeer at the corny dialogue and screech along with julie andrews. and i do mean 'screech.'

i don't know when the switch flipped, but now we love it. my sister and i have seen it so many times we could probably run through the entire movie without actually seeing it. we genuinely appreciate the sixties-tastic vibe, julie andrews' four-octave range and thoroughly cheesy dialogue, whereas before we thought it was about as cool as death valley in august. we clearly just didn't understand the magic.

we have a tradition, tess and me. on christmas eve night, we hole up in our basement with a case of red bull and two cans of pringles, and we make and/or wrap all our presents for christmas morning. while we do this, we watch 'sound of music' until we finish with our gifts. this means we could watch maria scuttle back and forth from the abbey to the von trapp mansion several times before we can finally go to sleep.

we don't just watch, either. we provide our own running commentary throughout the entire movie, engaging in meaningful discussions about how much we hate the baroness von schraeder and conversely, how much we love maria. we hypothesize that liesl isn't really anywhere near as innocent as she sounds while singing 'sixteen going on seventeen.' we explain to each other over and over that the answer to a question like 'how do you solve a problem like maria?' is 'marry her off to christopher plummer, of course.' we observe, each time as if it were the first time, that julie andrews probably couldn't hit that crazy high note at the end of the 'doe, a deer' song if she didn't put one hand on top of her head and stick the other arm in the air.

not many people would be up for a tradition like this. in fact, i can count all the people who could put up with our annual christmas eve 'sound of music' party on two fingers: me and tess. you see, as far as baby sisters go, mine is totally boss. she's the one person who understands everything i say, and has exactly the same sense of humor as me. the fact that the christmas eve viewing of 'the sound of music' is probably both of our favorite traditions probably goes a long way to explaining why she's my best friend. it also explains how we can start out in vehement opposition to something, then grow to love it enough to watch it over and over again on christmas eve.

it's not a classic great movie like 'casablanca' or 'north by northwest.' it's not a 'watch it because it's on' movie like 'the fugitive.' it's not a 'so bad it's hilarious' movie like 'plan 9 from outer space.' it's not even a guilty pleasure like 'the davinci code.' it's in a category all on its own, and we all have a movie or band or what have you that we place in this category.

for my former spanish teacher turned co-chaperone on my sister's 8th grade cedar point field trip, it was neil diamond. her and her friends thought he was ridiculous. they went all-out buying t-shirts, attending concerts and buying cds, all in the most ironic sense. the sarcastic 'we love neil diamond!'s turned non-sarcastic, and they started wearing their concert tees in public, not just on laundry day.

for my job-hunting buddy turned moviegoing friend, it was the jonas brothers. at first she thought they were beyond hilarious. she made fun of them with me and joked with me about how we didn't buy for a second that those promise rings were legit. then somehow, as her collection of jonas memorabilia grew, her outlook changed from ridicule to... appreciation. she's 22, it's not normal. but it happens to the best of us.

i'm not too proud to admit i love 'the sound of music.' i can recite the names and ages of all the von trapp children in order. i know all the lyrics to all the songs. if called upon, i could probably even duplicate that dance they do on the patio during the baroness' welcome ball. i'm glad i have my baby sister to watch with me, if only because i'd feel pretty silly and pathetic being this fanatic about such a cheesy movie all on my own.

but that's what it's all about, isn't it? embracing the cheesiness.

when 'his girl friday' says, 'become a journalist...'

in high school, i wanted to be a journalist. why? because of 'his girl friday.'

i watched rosalind russell and cary grant having a ball as they bickered playfully, scurried around the newsroom, chased down leads and did anything they had to do to get the story. honeymoons were interrupted, fiances were stolen away, mothers-in-law were insulted, suspects were hidden, fire departments were called, trains were missed and laws were bent, all in the name of keeping an innocent man from the death penalty with a newspaper article, because clearly the journalists were the only people who had all the answers.

i saw how writing and investigating and finding the truth was in their souls, and i wanted to be like them. i wanted to channel all my passion into my writing, and to talk fast enough with enough clever wit to charm and confuse any opposition. i knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that i was meant to be a journalist. i wanted to bring enlightenment to the people; putting my blood, sweat and tears into fighting evil, one story at a time.

i'm now an advertising major.

'his girl friday' taught me that life is not at all like the movies, especially not 1940's screwball comedies. being a journalism major is nowhere near as fun as it looks. you don't get to write about interesting things like the one piece of information that could set an innocent man free. instead, you write about things like school board meetings and people who dress up their pets for halloween. you don't engage in heated discussions defending your point of view, ultimately convincing all naysayers that yours is the best idea. no, you just spend a lot of time getting yelled at, either by your editor or an angry reader. there isn't much traipsing around town, accusing the guilty and protecting the innocent. in fact, you pretty much just sit in front of a computer making calls, then you occasionally go outside and practically beg someone to talk to you.

when you're watching 'his girl friday,' you don't realize that people actually hate talking to journalists. you don't see how long it takes sources to call back. they don't show you the editor-journalist relationship that doesn't involve witty banter and ex-spouses who are still in love with each other.

to clarify, i've always known i wanted to write, but once i saw how much fun rosalind and cary were having as journalists, i sort of figured that was the only way to write for a living. not true at all. i'm sure i'm not the only one who saw someone in a movie and wanted to be like them, and while it's a little ridiculous, it's also somewhat understandable.

take 'casablanca,' for instance. doesn't it make you want to escape to casablanca, marry humphrey bogart and run a cafe? it's not realistic, and when you really think about it you know you'd never move to casablanca to run a cafe in a million years, but that's the great thing about movies. we can escape into other peoples' lives for a while. you could watch 'goldfinger' and think about how cool it would be to be james bond, but even as you think it, you know you'd probably be the worst secret agent ever.

i am here to tell you from experience that while it's perfectly okay to think about how great your life would be if you were a bank robber or an intergalactic princess or a pie-maker-by-day, crime-fighter-by-night, you should by no means pursue these careers.

maybe more movies should be like 'silence of the lambs,' where at the end you'd rather do almost anything than be a psychiatrist.

ocean's 11 cons, a decryption

i have a near-stratospheric tolerance for repetition when it comes to watching movies, especially movies i like. take 'ocean's 11,' one of my favorite movies. i've seen it so many times i can quote every line, and i still like it. the thing is, with a movie like 'ocean's 11' with a great heist plot, once you've figured out how all the cons worked, you start to figure out all the con man lingo, if you will. at least i do.

toward the beginning of 'ocean's 11,' when george clooney is first trying to convince brad pitt to rob the casino and asks his opinion of how they would pull it off, brad pitt goes, "off the top of my head, i'd say you're looking at a boesky, a jim brown, a miss daisy, two jethros and a leon spinks, not to mention the biggest ella fitzgerald ever." now, i knew the line after watching the movie a few times, but once i knew practically the whole movie and still wasn't sick of it, i started to figure out what it actually means. pathetic? sure, but also a little bit cool.

if you don't know the movie like i do (a fairly probable scenario), you might not be quite as entertained by all this as i am, which is entirely okay, but i'm going to share the knowledge i've amassed anyway.

the boesky: saul playing lymon zherga, the whale who asks benedict to put his jewels, which are actually TNT, in the vault. if you've seen 'wall street,' you'll know about gordon gekko, who was loosely based on ivan boesky, a wall street trader who was involved in a securities fraud. that's where they got the idea of lymon zherga, an uber-rich bankroller with insider information.

the jim brown: the fight between frank catton, who's impersonating a blackjack dealer, and linus caldwell, who's impersonating a representative from the nevada gaming commission, a fight meant to distract benedict so linus could pick benedict's pocket, getting the security codes to the vault. after watching enough espn classic games with my dad, i learned all about jim brown, who many people hail as the greatest football player of all time. the fight between two characters is called a jim brown because it's a physical confrontation, one of the cornerstones upon which the sport of football is built.

the miss daisy: references the swat truck our con men used as their getaway car. 'driving miss daisy' is a movie about a woman who has to get a chauffeur to drive her around. under the guise of the swat truck, george, brad and the gang can escape without a hitch.

the two jethros: refers to the malloy brothers, turk and virgil. the two jethros are the 'hillbilly, gear-headed types" who are hired to look after miss daisy. in the movie, they provide general two-man work like the distraction they pull with the balloons covering the security camera on the casino floor so livingston can get into the video surveillance room.

the leon spinks: the distraction in the form of disrupting the boxing match. there was this episode of ncis once where the director went home to chicago to investigate the death of his boxer friend. in the episode, they mentioned this boxing match where leon spinks beat muhammad ali, and it was a total upset that no one expected. no one expected the power to go out in the middle of the match in the movie, either, and it created absolute chaos, which was great for our con artists.

the ella fitzgerald: the idea to loop a tape of a robbery over benedict's security system, a robbery which had actually been staged the previous night as a distraction while the real robbery takes place. it comes from a commercial for memorex i saw in my ad production class the other week where a recording of ella fitzgerald's voice breaks a glass, then the voice over says, "is it live or is it memorex?" the concept is that benedict doesn't know if the robbery he's seeing is the robbery that's actually happening.

so that's how watching tons of movies and commercials teaches you about references to heist movies. and that's just 'ocean's 11.' i can do '12' and '13,' too, mostly because i pay attention far too closely to the movies and watch far too many movies.

'ocean's 12':
- when danny and rusty take linus to meet with matsui, they pull a 'lost in translation' on linus, which means they're talking in complete gibberish to confuse him.
- when linus finally talks in the meet with matsui, he tries to come up with his own gibberish, but what he says is "oh let the sun beat down my face, with stars to fill my dream. i am a traveler in both time and space to be where i have been." this is actually a lyric to the led zeppelin song, 'kashmir.' in fact, when danny and rusty haul linus out of the meeting, rusty says, "kashmir? is that your idea of a contribution?" i didn't actually put two and two together until i saw 'fast times at ridgemont high' and heard the song in the soundtrack, recognized the lyrics, and looked it up.
- the 'looky-loo with a bundle of joy' con linus, basher and turk pull refers to them bringing in danny's wife, tess, played by julia roberts. they all agree tess looks a lot like julia roberts, and they bring her in to impersonate the celebrity, who happens to be pregnant at the time.

'ocean's 13':
- the 'susan b. anthony' the characters keep referring to is a reference to the susan b. anthony dollar distributed by the us mint in the late '70s. it looked very similar to a regular quarter, so lots of people fed them to slot machines and vending machines, not realizing how much they were worth. in the movie, it's when they rig a slot machine so that the next quarter someone puts in will pay out the jackpot, then leave a quarter lying around so an innocent bystander can get the jackpot without realizing what just happened.
- the 'billy martin' danny offers to al pacino's casino owner character, willy bank, is basically a last chance to reinstate ruben after bank cuts ruben out of their partnership deal, with the idea that if he rejects the billy martin, danny and the rest of ocean's 11 will hit his casino. billy martin was a baseball legend, who later managed the yankees. he was forced to resign because of his drinking problem and his negative attitude, but was reinstated when the yankees fell into a slump later on.

that's it, that's all i know. clearly, i've watched these movies far too many times, but i still keep watching them, because they're still good.

the vocabulary corner

i'm one of those creatures who is genuinely fascinated by languages. it's not just learning new languages, it's discovering new words and phrases in the english language. to me, learning new words is beyond fun. i carry a thesaurus around with me. i have dictionary.com text me the 'word of the day' every day. on the occasion that i hear or read a word i haven't heard before, i freak out. i love it so much.

in honor of the fact that i just watched this really cool documentary called 'wordplay' about the american crossword puzzle tournament and how they make crosswords, i decided it would be fun to make a list of words i've learned recently from books and movies.

- aleatory: accidental, impromptu, random, spontaneous, unintentional
- ataraxia: aplomb, assurance, composure, imperturbability, steadiness
- axiomatic: understood, aphoristic, indubitable, presupposed, proverbial
- ecru: beige, cream, light brown, neutral, tan
- eschew: avoid, cease, forego, spurn, withhold
- gambol: caper, cavort, frolic, leap, play
- hornswoggle: swindle, bamboozle, cheat, deceive, trick
- infundibuliform: shaped like a funnel
- obfuscation: bafflement, befuddlement, confusion, discombobulation, stupefaction
- perspicacious: observant, perceptive, astute, discerning, sagacious
- portentous: exciting, foreboding, apocalyptic, impending, premonitory
- quondam: former, bygone, erstwhile, one-time, preceding
- quotidian: ordinary, commonplace, everyday, trivial, useful
- usurp: encroach, commandeer, displace, preempt, seize
- verisimilitude: authenticity, credibility, genuineness, plausibility, reality

there you have it: 15 words you may or may not have known already that i've learned because when i read or hear a word i don't know, i have a compulsion to look it up.

why i am consistently disappointed by indiana jones and the temple of doom

i recently just re-watched all the 'indiana jones' movies for the umpteenth time, mainly just to have something on in the background while tackling a huge pile of homework. i wondered vaguely why i had seen 'raiders of the lost ark' so many more times than the rest of the movies until i was about 15 minutes into 'temple of doom.' i've seen 'raiders' a zillion times because it's my favorite, but i've only seen 'temple of doom' a handful of times because it's awful. i had forgotten just how awful it was until i found myself trying to refrain from fast-forwarding through the entire movie.

before i talk about why it's a failure of a standalone film, i first have to address the cinematic elephant in the room whenever one watches 'temple of doom:' it's not 'raiders of the lost ark.' spielberg and lucas really had something with 'raiders,' obviously. it warranted a sequel, even just at the beginnings of the blockbuster era when hollywood hadn't really figured out just what a gold mine sequels are.

now, the indiana jones series has a clear and entirely functional formula: take one part harrison ford and one part harrison ford's shirtless torso. add some universally appealing object wanted by two parties: indiana jones and the bad guys, preferably led by a creepy foreign henchman. introduce a hot girl into the mix, going heavy on the 'damsel in distress' element. garnish with a few quotable lines, end with a bang and bam! you've got four movies.

'raiders of the lost ark' made this formula shine. it had the ark of the covenant. it had multiple bad guys; bellach, indy's french nemesis, and the asian dude who burned the coveted headpiece into his hand and had me thoroughly skeeved out during the entire movie. it had karen allen, the daughter of indy's old teacher who had the alcohol tolerance of an irish steel worker but still managed to get captured consistently. it had quotes like "why'd it have to be snakes?" and "it's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." it ended with the good guys winning and the bad guys dying, and everyone loved it.

'temple of doom' followed this formula to a t, so why wasn't it anywhere near as good? harrison ford was shirtless more often than not, there was that disgusting face-painted guy of whichever indigenous tribe that was meant to be, there was that stone everyone wanted, it even had kate capshaw, who made most damsels in distress look like xena: warrior princess. it had that cute little kid who said things like "he's not crazy, he's nuts!" all ended happily after a ridiculous bridge stunt, so why does everyone not love it?

i have two theories. one of them is that 'temple of doom' followed the formula well enough, but all the elements were half-assed on their own. once they were all put together into one great formula, all we got was epic half-assery, if you'll pardon the oxymoron. think about it: there was never one really well-defined bad guy for us to focus our energy on despising. the relic everyone wanted was a glorified rock, and- actually, it wasn't really glorified at all, it was just a rock. who wants to cheer on indiana jones as he participates in a creepy ritual, escapes through a rock mine run by children and risks getting eaten by crocodiles, all to reclaim a rock? then there's the matter of the girl, who took 'damsel in distress' a little too far, sniveling and whining her way into indy's heart. adherence to the formula? check. quality adherence? not so much.

my other theory about why 'temple of doom' seems terrible relies on the idea of expectation. 'raiders' was a truly great movie, so i was expecting spielberg and lucas to do it again. it wasn't an unreasonable expectation, given these two cinematic greats; i mean, look at the first three 'star wars' movies. alas, 'temple of doom' didn't deliver on my hopes of what it could have been. without this expectation, i might feel differently. if i had seen 'temple of doom' first, i might have liked it enough, then been positively blown away by 'radiers of the lost ark.'

i'm sure there's an element of the first theory in the mix, and i hate to give too much credit to the expectation theory (what if 'raiders' was only good because no one expected anything of it?) but we can take the 'expectation' theory to the next level with indiana's third installment, 'the last crusade.' it certainly wasn't on par with 'raiders,' but 'the last crusade' is a decent movie in its own right. it has a quest for the holy grail, double-agent nazis and best of all, sean connery. it has all that "don't call me 'junior'" stuff, and it shows us how indy got his start. the best part about this movie, though, is it's not 'temple of doom.'

then, of course, we have 'kingdom of the crystal skull,' which could have been pretty awesome, if the entire movie-going public hadn't been expecting it to be more awesome than it actually was. with advancement of special effects technology, the return of karen allen, the casting of shia labeouf and a substantial amount of the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" effect, loyal audiences expected way too much and were consequently disappointed. people who hadn't seen any of the other movies (read: the 15 and under demographic, the 'living under a rock' demographic) liked it enough because as a standalone movie, it was actually okay.

it's the expectation factor. that's why i am consistently disappointed by 'indiana jones and the temple of doom.'

medical shows and me

i've been watching a lot of medical tv shows lately, and it has started me thinking about two things:
1) i've amassed quite a collection of medical vocabulary and dialogue
2) i've become impressively desensitized to things like blood and guts

before i start, i should really stress just how many of these hospital shows i've seen and consequently become addicted to. the medical show genre in and of itself is a fairly compelling one to me, and most of them are similar enough to each other that when you find yourself engrossed in one, it's pretty easy to get pulled into another.

for me, it started out simply enough. there was an 'er' marathon on tv not too long ago, and of course i tuned in, mostly because i find it easier to concentrate for long periods of time when there's some sort of noise in the background. anyway, i realized how long it had been since i had seen the show, and i instantly remembered how much i loved it when it was on. when the marathon was finished, i decided i was not finished watching people get cut open, get treated for crazy diseases or die in impressive accidents. naturally, i popped 'grey's anatomy' into my dvd player, and the rest is history. i went through 'er,' 'grey's,' 'private practice,' 'house,' 'scrubs,' even those now-cancelled shows like 'doogie howser' and 'northern exposure.' i knew it was bad when i started really scraping the bottom of the barrel with 'mercy' and 'trauma.'

this brings me to thing 1. watching all these shows, i have become far more conversant in medical vocabulary than is natural for an advertising major such as myself.

i know all the acronyms and shortened words like AMA (against medical advice), CBC (complete blood count), DNR (do not resuscitate), NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit), GCS (Glascow Coma Score), PVC (Premature Ventricular Contraction), SVT (Supra Ventricular Tachychardia), V-Fib (Ventricular Fibrillation), and so much more. but then again, most people know these things.

through continued viewership, i have learned what it is the doctors are actually doing when they perform things like angioplasties (inserting a catheter with a balloon tip to open up an artery), intubations (inserting a tube down a patient's throat to help them breathe), crikes (cutting open the throat, putting a tube directly in the throat when intubation won't work), lavages (basically washing out an organ to get rid of bacteria), pericardiosenteses (inserting a syringe into the pericardium to drain any fluid that has collected there) thoracotomies (opening the chest to get directly to the heart in order to massage it back to life if the patient is in asytole, or flatlining).

i can comprehend what a doctor means when they diagnose a patient with most things, such as cystic fibrosis, edema, encephalopathy, hyperkalemia, nephropathy... all sorts of things. i know the symptoms for the more common diseases and conditions, i know what most commonly-used drugs are for, and i know what most medical instruments do. i know i'm not actually a doctor, but i think it's more intriguing to watch hospital shows when i know what the characters are talking about.

given that i'm so engrossed by all these shows, i guess thing 2 comes as no surprise. my blood and guts tolerance level is pretty stratospheric. not only can i handle lots of the explicit medical stuff, i'm genuinely disappointed when i feel a show could have been more gratuitous with the organs spilling out of bodies and blood spattering all over the place.

the only thing, by way of explanation, that i can really equate this idea to is a coffee drinker who drinks so much coffee that after a while 3 spoonfuls of grounds doesn't provide much of a caffeine jolt anymore, so they start adding 5 spoonfuls of grounds. it's like most shows are that pot of coffee with 3 spoonfuls of coffee grounds, but i've watched so much of it that in order to be really shocked, i need the 5-spoonful show.

i'm sure a lot of this has come from violent movies, too. the average person is exposed to a crazy amount of violence on tv and film, but those of us who actually seek out the 'zombielands' and the 'texas chainsaw massacres' of cinema operate on a whole different level. watching 'kill bill: vol. 1' with a friend of mine whose preferred genre of entertainment generally involves a 'boy meets girl, boy loses girl, hilarity ensues, girl forgives boy' plot line, i realized not everyone is like me.

intense hospital shows definitely share the credit in differentiating the quentin tarantinos from the hannah montanas of the world, and that might be part of the reason i love them so much.

how 'lost' has ruined me

i, like millions of americans, can't get through a week without watching 'lost.' i'm so deeply addicted, i never really stop theorizing, and i can tie almost any conversation somehow back to the show. everyone i know who starts watching it has sort of the same reaction i did in the beginning: torn between exhilaration because it's such a great show and the realization that from now on, nothing else will really compare.

us 'lost' fans could actually more aptly be described as lunatics. we know all about the ridiculous mythology behind the show and can offer multiple theories as to what the hell is going on. during the show's hiatus, we watch our way through the whole series, again. in the five or so minutes immediately after a new episode has aired, all that occupies our minds is how we're going to make it from 9 p.m. on wednesday all the way to 8 p.m. the following wednesday. like i said, lunatics.

what is it about this show? it probably has something to do with all those unknown questions and answers. each episode, they answer just enough questions to keep us all from spontaneously exploding due to thinking too hard, while at the same time posing a slew of new questions sure to keep us all puzzling for however long they want to keep us hanging. it could be that the writers seem to be unaware that cliffhangers are not, in fact, the only conceivable manner in which to end an episode.

my theory is that 'lost' is so complex and confusing and thoroughly compelling, it actually teaches us lessons and almost imperceptibly changes our outlooks. while we all agonize over the things we don't know, we don't really realize all that we do know because of the show. here, then, are a few things, deep or shallow, constructive or otherwise, that i have learned from watching 'lost.'

- there will always exist a dichotomy between science and faith. if the exploits of jack shepard and john locke have taught us anything, people will always argue about this issue, and nobody will ever find the definitive correct answer.

- never trust anyone. this might be more detrimental than constructive. i say this because after trusting and then getting burned by henry gale/benjamin linus, charles widmore and various bit characters like that guy who turned kate in to pay his mortgage, i became pretty paranoid about trusting just about everyone, especially those who are all mysterious, like richard and juliet. i'm needlessly suspicious, to the point where i'm glad my life is nowhere near as complicated as this show, because if i had to work this hard deciding who to trust in my own life, i'd probably be an agoraphobic hermit living under a rock somewhere.

- if you're a fugitive on the lam, always pay in cash and use aliases. all the cop-dodging tips i've picked up from kate's story line wouldn't ever help in my actual life, because i don't plan on killing my father and setting my house on fire, but it is kind of entertaining to know some of these things. i know how long it takes for a phone trace to work, i know how to forge a passport (theoretically), and i know that i would never commit a crime, mainly because i would be a terrible fugitive.

- there is always another way to look at the situation. i learned this mostly after a large majority of my 'oh my god how could it be any other way' theories didn't even come close to panning out. the creative thinking i've had to apply to all my 'lost' theories has actually come in handy in real-life scenarios, though. if i'm stuck on a problem, i can do a better job of stepping outside the situation and dreaming up a different way to approach it. as a result, i honestly think i've become more creative. also, my 'lost' theories have been getting steadily more far-fetched as i learn that the writers always come up with the one scenario i never imagined.

so there it is, good people. even though 'lost' has indubitably ruined me for other shows, especially dramas, i love being ruined. i love the convoluted plot lines, i know the intricacies of the characters and the mythology, and i can't get enough of any of it. while i will admit that it is fairly indecipherable for newer viewers, those like me love it not only because of what we haven't figured out yet, but also because of what we've learned from it.

a rumination on the adapted screenplay

i have a theory. generally speaking, the movie is never quite as good as the book. actually, i should amend my theory and say that a movie can never really reach the standard set by the book, unless you haven't read the book.

being an individual who reads a lot of books and sees a lot of movies, i can say fairly definitively that an adapted film, however poor the quality of the adaptation, appears better if you haven't read the source material.

take 'into the wild.' it's a heartwarming story with breathtaking scenery, and no one seemed to be able to say a bad thing about it. no one except me, that is. i had already read the book, and while admittedly i was on the fence about it, i couldn't believe how disappointed i was in the movie. i could see how people enjoyed it, but knowing what it could have been like, i couldn't stop thinking about what an awful adaptation it was. 'the devil wears prada' was the same way. i'm secure enough to admit that i really liked the book, and i guess the movie was fine, but there was just something missing. lost in translation, maybe. no wonder j.d. salinger wouldn't let anyone adapt his books into movies. i can't imagine how strongly i'd feel about 'the catcher in the rye,' my favorite book, being brought to the big screen in a way any other than how i imagine it.

of course, on the other end of the spectrum for me was 'the lord of the rings' series. i saw the movies when they came out, but i hadn't read tolkien's books. despite the one of my friends who had read the books telling me i was missing things, i still loved the epic story line and the fantastical characters. i wanted a horse like shadowfax, i could recite the inscription on the one ring and i was confident that i could find my way around middle earth, but when i tried to read the books, i got lost. even though the movies are all 2+ hours, they had cut a lot of the plot out. i was trying to follow the plot of the movie while reading the book, even though i had already lost interest because i knew what would happen. i guess the idea there is that once you've seen the movie, it's hard to go back and read the book, knowing the ending when you start. i do still love the movies, even though readers of the books assure me they're nowhere near as satisfying.

another unsatisfying experience? seeing people pick up a truly phenomenal book like 'harry potter,' simply because the movie is popular. i'm sure this is how my friend felt about me and 'the lord of the rings,' but it bothers me when people want to jump on the bandwagon just for the sake of being on it, not because they like the material. these are the people who do what i did with tolkien's books; they read the first 50 pages, lose interest, and then pretend they're just as knowledgeable and devoted to the series as those of us who have been around since day one. maybe i'm just a snob, but i feel like this whole idea cheapens the experiences of people like my little sister, who honestly loves the series, and was trick-or-treating dressed as draco malfoy long before most of these people had even heard of him.

all right, off my soap box, and on to...

... those special cases, like 'the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy." i saw the movie before i read the book, and thought it was fantastic. the characters were interesting, the plot was charmingly far-fetched but accessible, and it starred that guy from the british version of 'the office.' what's not to love? as it turns out, the only people i knew who had also loved it were the same people who hadn't read douglas adams' book. those who had read the book had all the same complaints i had about 'into the wild' and 'the devil wears prada,' and insisted that if i liked the movie, the book would blow me away. well, blow me away it did. even considering that the ending was already spoiled, i was so thoroughly engrossed, i read the rest of the books in the series as fast as i could. once i ran out of books, i figured i'd go back and watch the movie, and before i knew it, my opinion had changed. now, i'm one of those people who can't watch the movie without wishing i was reading the book instead.

the moral of the story? whether or not you've read the book, i feel fairly confident in saying that it's better than the movie. sure, our perceptions of a film may be different based on whether or not we've read the source material, but that doesn't change the quality of either. as much as i love movies, sometimes it's hard to beat your own imagination.

a kind of funny thing...

while this anecdote doesn't exactly offer anything significant, it is kind of interesting... at least to me.

first, we have 'ferris bueller's day off.' remember how principal rooney guesses (correctly) that ferris has skipped school, so he goes around to all the places he assumes a high school kid would go to play hooky? so rooney walks into an arcade, sees someone who, from behind, looks remarkably like a 1986-era matthew broderick, then says "les jeux sont faits. translation: game is up. your ass is mine!" at which point a lady who also looks remarkably like a 1986-era matthew broderick turns around and spits her drink in his face. awesome.

then, we have 'casablanca,' arguably one of the best movies of all time. there's this scene in rick's cafe, in the casino, and you can hear the man at the roulette table say "les jeux sont faits." and bam! from 'ferris bueller's day off,' of all movies, you know that he's saying "game is up," which can mean either "your ass is mine" or "we can all start playing roulette now."

now, wasn't that kind of cool?

an exploration of the epic soundtrack

so i lost my keys yesterday. this wouldn't be such a big deal to me if all i cared about was the hollywood video card on my key ring, but without my keys i can't get into my building, let alone my apartment. faced with potential homelessness, i can't even tell you how far video rentals were from my mind.

anyway, i told you this story so i could raise a point about movie soundtracks. in movies, whenever something monumental happens, a really great soundtrack seems to multiply it into something epic. take '500 days of summer,' for example, in that sene where joseph gordon-levitt has just slept with zooey deschanel for the first time. we're all already happy for him, but when hall & oates' 'you make my dreams' starts playing, i'm willing to admit that i go from being happy for him to feeling downright exultant. why? because the song is an absolutely perfect way to amplify the situation.

another perfect example? in sergio leone's 'the good, the bad and the ugly,' ennio morricone transforms a film that would otherwise be mostly about the desert into one of the best films ever made. toward the end, clint eastwood, lee van cleef and eli wallach are standing in the middle of a cemetery in a mexican standoff. the camera starts on a wide shot of the three of them, then switches to close-ups of each man, going around in a circle, getting tighter and tighter until all you can see is their eyes. this scene might be just a time-filler in any other movie, but the score holds your attention and somehow guides your focus to every little eye twitch and finger movement. i'm sure real mexican standoffs are nowhere near this exhilarating.

moments like that in movies are totally great, but i'm here to assure you that it doesn't work like that in real life. i can say with 115% certainty that when i realized i didn't have my keys, the last thing i wanted was music playing in the background, amplifying the situation. maybe it would be a different story if it were something more exciting that had happened to me. i might even change my mind if ever there were an absolutely game-changing scene in a movie where the lead character lost his keys and through a rousing montage set to a stirring soundtrack, he was able to soldier bravely on to eventually... find them.

until a scene like that actually occurs, i will not expect music to in any way ameliorate the crappy situations in my own life, but i will continue to immensely enjoy all those extraordinarily scored scenes out there that can... scenes like that one in 'the sound of music' where julie andrews sings about having confidence in order to summon the courage to face her duties as a governess. by the time the song is over, she has boosted my own confidence level to the point where i feel like i could conquer any challenge, like getting into my apartment.

the holy grail, a compilation.

the davinci code, indiana jones and the last crusade, monty python and the holy grail... what do these movies have in common?

one is a mostly crappy adaptation of a pretty good book made crappy by, among other things, the total miscasting of tom hanks as the lead; one is a fairly mediocre third installment of a really great movie redeemed only by the presence of sean connery; and one is a masterpiece of british comedy with a permanent place in my awesome movies hall of fame.

the one thing tying all these films together is the central theme of the holy grail. i love these movies, because the search for the elusive grail always makes for a plot rife with delicious historical inaccuracy. if you believe these movies, which were incidentally the first three grail-related movies that came to mind, the holy grail could come in one of three forms: an ornate and poorly animated golden cup, a plain wooden carpenter's goblet, or audrey tatou as a direct descendant of christ.

given this fairly obvious discrepancy between the films' ideas of where to find the holy grail, i feel like this would be a good time to point out that we can't take movies in general too seriously, we can just mock them for the aforementioned delicious historical inaccuracy. i mean, has anyone seen 'the league of extraordinary gentlemen?' it doesn't get any worse than that in the realistic representation of the past department. but i digress.

watching the davinci code, i've learned a lot about grail mythology- or, should i say, grail mythology as told by dan brown. i can now hold a somewhat intelligent conversation about things like the council of nicea, the symbols of the masculine and the feminine... even several underground societies that may or may not exist.

the ironic thing to me is that while the davinci code clearly goes deep into grail mythology, it's movies like indiana jones and monty python that show the more classic interpretations of the holy grail itself. all i know about the holy grail from watching indiana jones is that if you read the bible carefully enough you can construct a map that will lead you to a cave where there are a bunch of grails guarded by a really old dude, and you'll be letting sean connery die unless you pick the correct grail.

now, one of the situations i make a point to avoid involves being in control of whether or not the greatest james bond ever lives or dies. in the spirit of leaving indiana jones to handle james bond's fate, i choose monty python to guide my expectations of the holy grail. through the process of elimination, i choose to wholeheartedly believe that the grail is in a cave somewhere guarded not by a really old dude, but by an inquisitive man on a rickety bridge, a killer rabbit and the knights who say 'ni.'

bring on the shrubberies, the holy hand grenades and the swallows, both african and european. in my opinion monty python may not impart much wisdom, but it's definitely the most entertaining of the holy grail-centric movies out there.

how to hotwire a car

ah, the first tidbit. it came to mind first because i was watching 24 last night, and realized just how many times jack bauer has had to hotwire a car to get out of one bad situation after another. consequently, i now have a theoretical knowledge of how to start a car, no key required. keys are for weaklings.

how to hotwire a car in three easy steps, or how i learned from ctu agent jack bauer:
step one: use your elbow to break the driver's side window so you can unlock the door from the inside
step two: yank out the panel underneath the steering wheel, exposing all those wires
step three: find the red wire and the yellow wire, twist them together like twist-ties
now the car should be running.

not that i've had the chance to test this knowledge, because i don't have a car and my buddies won't let me try on theirs, go figure. but there it is, now you know.

to give you a general idea...

hello, world!

considering this is my first post of my first blog, i'm going to go ahead and assume that the millions of blog subscribers out there are all hanging on my every word, demanding an explanation as to the nature of this particular blog. who am i to disappoint?

good question. i'm adel johnson, an advertising student at columbia college in chicago. i was that ironic kid in high school who skated by on the minimum amount of effort possible and still managed all a's, but at the same time cared about my grades, perhaps at a level disproportionate to the amount of effort i expended. as a result, disappointment isn't really my thing, so i'll just get to the point.

i grew up reading great books, all the way from the kids' books to the more serious classic literature. i love reading, not only because of the fantastic stories, but also because of everything i can learn from reading a book. same goes for watching movies and television. i'd say i watch way more movies and tv than the average person, and combined my sometimes overactive imagination and memory, i've amassed quite a collection of information, references and trivia.

think of everything we glean from books, movies and tv. learning new words, collecting random pieces of useless trivia, even storing away random life lessons learned from our favorite characters and classic story lines.

this brings me to the subject of the blog.

in my somewhat insignificant yet respectable 20 years on earth, i've gathered a decidedly significant amount of information from books, movies and television. i will be writing to you about how everything i know, i've learned from these media. i'm sure everyone in cyberspace is simply brimming with anticipation and dying to know what it is i have to say, so here it is:

this is, collectively, what i have learned from books, movies and tv.