I'm On Fire, And Now I Think I'm Ready
Aug. 4th, 2006 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkingsoupOkay, why has no one done an AMV of the FMA movie to the Three Dog Night song "Shambala?" It works too well for there to be no AMV to it.
Guh. My mom's in Maine so there's no adult around to help me control Ben. He actually took her Acura out once, the fucker. She doesn't even want us looking at the Acura, and she sure as hell would never let Ben drive it--she barely lets me drive it! Damn him.
Oh! Doctor called today. Blood work is fine. So that's good.
My muse really doesn't want to work with me. I want to write Mot so I can get back into the groove with it, but aside from not entirely knowing where to go now, and from all the discouragement of "XOMG over 100K words!" and "You're doing too much in one thing!" and all the little goodies I'm getting for Spirits (the codename for the Kaiyss/Jae/North/Rain and bat-girl has a name now: Skye!), Penta and random ideas...um, where was this sentence going? In any case, the muse is looking at all these other things and not at Mot-Mot-MOT as a whole, which I want to work on.
So. Today is a writing day. No anime, no movies, nothing. Writing. Yes.
Oh! Quickly: here's a movie review for y'all.
Cabaret
Yes! I finally saw it! This is the original "clean-cut penniless English type meets the sexed-up free spirit" movie. Inspiration for my beloved Moulin Rouge, I think.
Well, let me just say that this movie is awesome. You remember how I reacted to Grizzly Man how I totally fell in love with Timothy Treadwell's character? Same reaction to Sally Bowles. She's amazing. She's like Johnny Depp in the PotC movies, she just steals the show and makes everything work. There's nothing cliche about her. She's...just...awesome.
First let me explain the movie. It takes place in early-30's Germany, just as the Nazi's are gaining power and the world is starting to change. Anyway, for those of you good at history, you know that this period in Germany was...well, comparable to the Roaring Twenties, the Sixties, and the Sexual Revolution of the 70's and 80's (before AIDS). Flamboyance, debauchery, you get the idea. You have this guy, Brian, an English teacher from England, who comes along and ends up renting an apartment across from Sally Bowles--the lead at a nearby cabaret.
I suppose you could say the movie is a musical, but it actually works. That whole "characters break into song as they walk down the streets" is all good and fine, but it can get tiring. In Cabaret there's plenty of singing, but almost all of it takes place in the cabaret, and the few songs outside of it have releavance to the movie and the times.
The movie is so well put together. In terms of editing and general...flow of the movie (there's gotta be a proper term for it) you've got incredible camera work and editing. The Master of Ceremonies at the cabaret, who never actually has a name, kind of ties everything together. He acts as kind of a transition from one scene to the next, usually singing or leading the cabaret girls in dance. And you'll have this display of flamboyancy and carefree...ness...juxtaposed (hey, I got to use the word juxtaposed!) with scenes of the Nazi's slowly getting their feet in the door.
One of the most wonderfully done scenes in the movie is when Brian, Sally and this other character, Max, are at this kind of festival type thing, and suddenly out of nowhere this teenager gets up and starts singing a nationistic song. And the camera pans down and you realize, holy shit, it's Hitler Youth. And he's singing and all these people are getting into it, jumping up and singing with him, and all these shots of people's faces. And this one old guy stays sitting and doesn't sing along, and you can tell by the look on his face that he knows what's going on. It's an amazingly well done scene.
So you have all this going on, while in the cabaret things are never serious, things are always just fun and games. And because of the editing you can actually see it--no one has to come out and tell you flat out that people go to the cabaret to forget about what's going on outside. You get that feeling without anyone having to say it.
Oh, and, did I mention Sally Bowles is just awesome? At one point she's carrying on this long conversation with Brian and a split second later she asks, "Have you ever slept with a dwarf?" It's like--awesome--and made even more awesome by the fact that Brian doesn't miss a beat and answers, "Once, but it didn't turn out to be a lasting relationship." They have incredible chemistry, and Sally is just such a character. Like Timothy Treadwell I know I'm going to have to use her somewhere.
So--all around, it's a fricking wonderful movie. As in, I'm considering buying it.
Score: 9.5 out of 10
Guh. My mom's in Maine so there's no adult around to help me control Ben. He actually took her Acura out once, the fucker. She doesn't even want us looking at the Acura, and she sure as hell would never let Ben drive it--she barely lets me drive it! Damn him.
Oh! Doctor called today. Blood work is fine. So that's good.
My muse really doesn't want to work with me. I want to write Mot so I can get back into the groove with it, but aside from not entirely knowing where to go now, and from all the discouragement of "XOMG over 100K words!" and "You're doing too much in one thing!" and all the little goodies I'm getting for Spirits (the codename for the Kaiyss/Jae/North/Rain and bat-girl has a name now: Skye!), Penta and random ideas...um, where was this sentence going? In any case, the muse is looking at all these other things and not at Mot-Mot-MOT as a whole, which I want to work on.
So. Today is a writing day. No anime, no movies, nothing. Writing. Yes.
Oh! Quickly: here's a movie review for y'all.
Cabaret
Yes! I finally saw it! This is the original "clean-cut penniless English type meets the sexed-up free spirit" movie. Inspiration for my beloved Moulin Rouge, I think.
Well, let me just say that this movie is awesome. You remember how I reacted to Grizzly Man how I totally fell in love with Timothy Treadwell's character? Same reaction to Sally Bowles. She's amazing. She's like Johnny Depp in the PotC movies, she just steals the show and makes everything work. There's nothing cliche about her. She's...just...awesome.
First let me explain the movie. It takes place in early-30's Germany, just as the Nazi's are gaining power and the world is starting to change. Anyway, for those of you good at history, you know that this period in Germany was...well, comparable to the Roaring Twenties, the Sixties, and the Sexual Revolution of the 70's and 80's (before AIDS). Flamboyance, debauchery, you get the idea. You have this guy, Brian, an English teacher from England, who comes along and ends up renting an apartment across from Sally Bowles--the lead at a nearby cabaret.
I suppose you could say the movie is a musical, but it actually works. That whole "characters break into song as they walk down the streets" is all good and fine, but it can get tiring. In Cabaret there's plenty of singing, but almost all of it takes place in the cabaret, and the few songs outside of it have releavance to the movie and the times.
The movie is so well put together. In terms of editing and general...flow of the movie (there's gotta be a proper term for it) you've got incredible camera work and editing. The Master of Ceremonies at the cabaret, who never actually has a name, kind of ties everything together. He acts as kind of a transition from one scene to the next, usually singing or leading the cabaret girls in dance. And you'll have this display of flamboyancy and carefree...ness...juxtaposed (hey, I got to use the word juxtaposed!) with scenes of the Nazi's slowly getting their feet in the door.
One of the most wonderfully done scenes in the movie is when Brian, Sally and this other character, Max, are at this kind of festival type thing, and suddenly out of nowhere this teenager gets up and starts singing a nationistic song. And the camera pans down and you realize, holy shit, it's Hitler Youth. And he's singing and all these people are getting into it, jumping up and singing with him, and all these shots of people's faces. And this one old guy stays sitting and doesn't sing along, and you can tell by the look on his face that he knows what's going on. It's an amazingly well done scene.
So you have all this going on, while in the cabaret things are never serious, things are always just fun and games. And because of the editing you can actually see it--no one has to come out and tell you flat out that people go to the cabaret to forget about what's going on outside. You get that feeling without anyone having to say it.
Oh, and, did I mention Sally Bowles is just awesome? At one point she's carrying on this long conversation with Brian and a split second later she asks, "Have you ever slept with a dwarf?" It's like--awesome--and made even more awesome by the fact that Brian doesn't miss a beat and answers, "Once, but it didn't turn out to be a lasting relationship." They have incredible chemistry, and Sally is just such a character. Like Timothy Treadwell I know I'm going to have to use her somewhere.
So--all around, it's a fricking wonderful movie. As in, I'm considering buying it.
Score: 9.5 out of 10
