TrickyBuddha Studios

I just saw the movie (500) Days of Summer. Good movie. I liked so much about it.

Such as?

(Don’t read if you don’t want to be at all spoiled, Frank Costanza, but everyone who has seen the trailer or read a review or two may safely continue reading.)

• Well, starting at the beginning, “This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story.”
• From there, I like that the movie delves into the topic of relationships that don’t slide neatly into place. “I like you but you don’t like me, but then you give me signs and –” it’s all so fragile. Highs and lows. I believe it. I mean, I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. I watch a typical romantic movie and I don’t get that same feeling. But this isn’t typical. It’s more of an uplifting, artsy flick. See, not all arthouse films that feel real and have meaning are depressing.
• So yeah, I liked that it wasn’t fluffy and neat. I thought it did a good job of being and feeling real. Part of me thinks this is the kind of movie that just might make for a good date movie. Well, depending on the after-movie conversation, haha. Maybe it’d be a bad first-date movie if the couple was unbalanced. Who has hand?!
• And while at first I thought it seemed, ah, stereotypical to have a quirky movie told in non-chronological order, I think it makes sense here since the movie seemed to be a reflection of how we remember things, looking back. First we remember the good, then we remember the bad. Then we’re over it and then we’re in it. We dissect it every which way possible.
• Speaking of technical aspects of the story-telling, I liked the editing. I think the movie was exactly as long as it needed to be. There weren’t a lot of (any?) superfluous scenes. There were no silly interludes because the studio’s focus groups determined that a joke was needed at this moment or that moment. It stayed on target.
• Related, I thought there was some fun, Amélie-style directing throughout. I could go on with examples, but to limit myself to one, there’s a few minutes during the movie where they run a split screen sub-titled Reality and Expectations. Good stuff. Again, who hasn’t been there?
• Oh, I liked the two lead actors. I thought they both filled their roles well. It doesn’t feel like either actor is trying to portray something that isn’t them.
• I liked that the movie didn’t cheat (or, cheat much). There were no extended, zoomed in scenes with tragic music rising in volume to make you feel what the characters or dialogue may not have evoked on their own.
• And I enjoyed the take on love. A little bit romantic, a little bit real… a little bit destiny and fate and love-at-first-sight, and a little bit about how it’s more our interpretations and what we’re looking for and coincidences to which we add meaning. Sometimes you think you have it all figured out and then you don’t.
• I loved the ending. A few minutes before “it, the ending” happened, I started thinking it might happen in a way that might not be good — and it ended that way and… it was good after all. For a split second, I thought I was heading for a bad ending and then just as quickly I realized it was the right ending, the honest ending, the ending that happens a lot of the time in real life. And I love the title. I can’t think of a more perfect title.

I also love that I was able to watch the movie and, after it ended, think about how happy I am to be with Candice. Sometimes, romantic movies have a reverse effect on me where I wonder what I’m doing with my life and why I’m with who I’m with and what it’s all about and so on. Right now, though, I just feel happy.

I haven’t watched SNL in a long, long time — but Candice introduced me to this one and I LOL’d.

Speaking of post-apocalyptic and waking up when the bombs hit (see yesterday’s post), I read a great story in the Bizarro Starter Kit from Jeremy Robert Johnson called Extinction Journals that’s exactly that (waking up when the bombs hit).

In the opening scene, the main character is wearing a suit with cockroaches threaded into it — a suit he built specifically for protection against the story’s just completed nuclear destruction of the world. And the suit is feeding on the President of the United States (who had been wearing a suit made with Twinkies).

Why cockroaches (and Twinkies)? The thought was that if the worst was to happen, you’d want to surround yourself with the stuff that would survive a nuclear war. Both of them survived, at least until the cockroaches ate through the Twinkies to get to the President. Later in the story, the main character meets a woman wearing ants (and nothing else), a man wearing other people’s skin as an outfit, a man wearing Styrofoam, and the manifestation of the concept of the Rapture. It may sound weird (which, as a “bizarro” title, may be stating the obvious), but the story really didn’t come across as weird to me. The idea of wearing a cockroach suit and melding with the little insects really comes off quite naturally within the story. Loved it.

Prior to that, I read a funny-and-sometimes-thought-provoking (horror?) story by CM3 called the Baby Jesus Butt Plug. The story revolves around a world filled with clones, an evil baby, and zombies. And before that I read a few short stories by D. Harlan Wilson. I enjoyed each of them a good bit, but I think the most memorable one, to me, was Hairware, Inc. — where a guy sold facial hair as pets. Right now, I’m reading a story that I find interesting, conceptually, as well as section-by-section, but for whatever reason it’s not doing much for me. It’s called the Greatest Fucking Moment in Sports by Kevin L. Donihe and I’ve been grinding through it while finishing off Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (which I finished last night!). It’s about the world’s best bicycle racer on his last run — and his overwhelming love for bugs.

Anyway, it’s a good collection so far. But right after I got the books I got hooked into a bunch of games and kind of lost focus. The reading has been slow-going in my distracted state but it’s still enjoyable. I’m looking forward to getting back into it and also editing up a story for submission.