The Woman in Black & Changeling



Heather asked me not to quit doing movie reviews. And I can't disappoint because I enjoy writing my movie reviews. So you get a double dose today! I watched The Woman in Black  starring Daniel Radcliffe earlier this week and Changeling starring Angelina Jolie this afternoon.

So first up. The Woman in Black. I'm gonna spoil this one, so if you don't want it spoiled scroll down to the totally unrelated photo and just know that I like the movie until the end and then hated the end. So this movie had two things going for it that made me want to watch it. Number One: Daniel Radcliffe. Number Two: it's a bloodless horror movie. No secret that I'm a Harry Potter fan and love Dan. And also, I like not very gory horror movies. When they're more psychological than blood-and-guts, I enjoy them. So when I saw him say in an interview that there's no blood in this movie, I started looking forward to it.

The movie starts with three young girls playing dolls, then going all spooky, abandoning their dolls. They then proceed to jump out the window. So it sets the tone from the very beginning. Dan plays Arthur Kipps, a young, widowed lawyer with a son, that is sent by his firm to the town where the girls jumped out the window (I can't remember the name) to sort the paperwork of a recently deceased client. He meets Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds), a wealthy man from the town he's visiting, on the train. The townspeople don't want Arthur there and treat him rudely. The innkeeper refuses to put him in the room that had been reserved. The wife steps in and puts him in the attic, which is the room the three girls were playing in when they decided to jump out the window. The local lawyer refuses to help him so Arthur goes to the big, creepy mansion, separated from town by a huge marsh by himself. So as he goes through the papers some weird things begin happening. He sees a woman dressed in black out on the grounds and goes to investigate but can't find her. After returning to town he goes to report it the local sheriff (constable? I dunno) and while there two young boys bring in their sister who drank lye and proceeds to die in Arthur's arms. Sam and his wife invite Arthur to stay with them until he has finished his job and he finds out about the legend of the woman in black.

The rest of the movie moves forward in this fashion. Weird things happen at the mansion, a kid dies, Arthur discovers another little piece of the legend. The movie is really good at setting up the tension. The period costumes and sets are absolutely amazing. The music really sets the tone. And the imagery is really spooky. The woman's there, then she's not. The creepy mud kid's there, then he's not. My mom and I kept jumping out of our skin. So all the way to the very end of the movie is really amazing.

I hated the ending. I like happy endings. I want to believe that people live happily ever after. And even if the door is open for a sequel, I want to see the illusion that the hero is going to live happily ever after. So I was really pissed off at the end of the movie. Arthur and Sam find the body of the woman in black's son and bury him with her body thinking that it's going to break the curse (she kills the town's children in revenge for her son's death). Then they go to the train station. The nanny is bringing Arthur's son to visit and he intends on turning right around and getting back on the train to London. So they're all standing there on the platform, the nanny is buying tickets, Sam and Arthur are saying their goodbyes. Then the kid goes all weirdo, pulls his hand out of Arthur's and somehow ends up on the tracks walking towards an oncoming train. Arthur promptly jumps down. And while the train passes, Sam sees the woman in black on the other platform through the train and then all the kids that she killed. The train goes away and we see Arthur holding the kid, he straightens up, looks around and calls out for Sam. Then the kid looks over and asks who the lady is and Arthur responds that it's his Mummy. They freaking died! That's not a happy ending. Arthur and the kid got run over by the train. Not happy about that ending. It sucked. Oh my god.



Brocken Inaglory via Wikimedia Commons

So okay. Changeling  now. No spoilers. Actually there's not that much for me to say about this one. I really liked it but if I do too much gushing over the parts that I liked, it'll be spoiled. The movie is set in 1920's Los Angeles and is about a mother's struggles to find her missing son and fight the corrupt police department when they bring her another boy and claim that he's her son. But he's not. The movie is amazing. All the actors in the movie are really great. No one really stood out to me and outshone the rest. Each person carried their own character. You know how sometimes a movie will have tons of really great actors and one lousy actor just ruins the whole thing? Or on the flip side, the majority of the actors are mediocre and one actor is just absolutely amazing? Neither of those apply in this case. The costumes are absolutely gorgeous. I'm not a fan of the 1920's silhouette, cause really, who WANTS to wear a sack? But the fabrics and some of the details were amazing. I love the hats that Angelina wears. I also really loved watching the old cars and the trolleys. Best part of period pieces. The whole movie was really, really good. I totally suggest this movie.

So there you go. One ugh movie and one movie that was really great.

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Hmmmm

I have to share this little gem with you. Normally I leave stuff like this on my Pinterest boards, figuring if you want to see what I've pinned you'd follow my boards. But I have to show you this. It made me snort and choke on my coffee. Ow. Got it from Dogs of the Interwebs.

Source: dogsoftheinterwebs.tumblr.com via KC on Pinterest

Ow. Did it again. Shit. This picture is hazardous.

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Recovery

So I've been doing a lot of thinking after my mini-nervous breakdown the other day. I've decided on courses of action for some of the problems plaguing me.

First, blogging. A few of the comments I recieved urged me to write for myself not the reader. And I realized that somewhere in the last few months, I had shifted from writing for myself to worrying about what would entice readers to read. So I'm taking the pressure off myself and am just going to blog about whatever I want to blog about. I started this blog not caring about the number of readers, and since I don't make money from the blog and have no intention of making money from the blog, it doesn't matter how many readers I have. I could have 10,000 or 10. But it really doesn't matter. So I'm going to write whatever I want. If you choose not to read it and unfollow me, I wish you well, no hard feelings. I don't know if I'm going to bring my crafts back to this blog. I had reasons why I seperated the craft blog and while the reasons are not active, they're not dead, just hibernating. So I need to keep thinking on that for a while.

As far as weight loss goes, I'm actively trying to lose weight. But I've decided that I'm going to hold off blogging anything about it for a while. So my efforts are ongoing, I haven't given up hope that some day, in the hopefully near future, the world will see just how smoking hot I really am. But you're just gonna have to wait.

I think for my writing, I'm just going to have to set aside a certain amount of time each day to devote to writing. And just write. If it's shitty, then I'll just have to edit it till it's not shitty. If Jamie and Adam can make a ball of crap shine on Mythbusters, I can make pages of crap shine.

And everything else that's stressing me out will just have to be tackled a small bit at a time. It sucks that things happened and I got set back. But that's life. I just need to suck it up and keep going or I'll never make any progress.

So that's it. Nervous breakdown averted.

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LookieLoo Etiquette

Does anyone know what the LookieLoo etiquette is? Seriously.

This morning about 4:30, we heard what sounded like two gun shots. So we got up and rushed to the windows. There were no cars and nothing out of place in the neighborhood that we could see. We didn't call cops because we couldn't figure out where the shots had come from, each of us had a different opinion. So a few minutes before 5, we all head back to bed.

But then, there's cops in the cul-de-sac across from our house. The activity seems to be based around on particular house but the police also talked to the people from three of the other four houses in the cul-de-sac. Then here comes the paramedic/ladder fire truck. The firemen (may I just say that CSFD has some of the finest firefighters around, YUMMMY) were in and out of the activity house and one of the cops brings out a camera and takes pictures of something that we couldn't see in the street in front of the house. Then an ambulance drives by slowly but never stopped.

Then the HazMat firetruck shows up! The paramedic/ladder truck left and the firemen from the HazMat truck took over. They tested whatever it was in the street and then sprayed it with the neighbor's garden hose. The cop informed the neighbor that "It" had been disposed of. But I never saw either of the cops or any of the firemen pick/scrape/scoop anything up.

So then this brings me back to the question, what's the LookieLoo etiquette in a situation like that? My parents and I watched from windows. The cops and firemen knew we were there because A: they totally saw us and B: my dad and mom both felt the need to narrate the whole ordeal. Loudly. "Look, look, they're spraying something!" But some other neighbors totally stood out in their driveway watching! I would have seen better if I'd gone out to the front yard. But would that have been bad? I know I wouldn't have been in their way but is it socially acceptable to stand in your own yard gaping at the cops and firemen like they're zoo animals?

I dunno. Weigh in. Is it better to LookieLoo from inside the house with an obstructed view or better to LookieLoo from outside with an unobstructed view?

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Has It Really Been 5 Years?

Five years ago today, after an all-night, non-stop reading session, I learned the fates of some of my favorite literary characters. Including the death of one of my very favorites.



Warner Bros. Pictures via MuggleNet.com

J.K. Rowling taught us that sometimes people can redeem themselves. She gave us all a second mother. She even taught us how to play a new sport. And possibly the most important, she taught us that even those that society deems weak can be the hero.



Warner Bros. Pictures via The-Leaky-Cauldron.org

I've loved every step of the journey that J.K. Rowling took us on. Even when she broke my heart.

Warner Bros. Pictures via The-Leaky-Cauldron.org

Thank you J.K. Rowling for introducing us to your wonderful world.

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Maybe There Is Hope

Once in a while, I get in a mood and I start reflecting on the world and the state of humanity. I start questioning just how horrible the world was that God sent a flood to destroy everyone but Noah and his family. Or how rotten the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were that He rained down fire, killing all the residents but Lot and his daughters. Sometimes, on days like today, I think absolutely, we as a human race have bypassed that a million times over.

How could we not have left that level of evil in our dust when a single man walks into a movie theater and kills a dozen people and injures 59 more?

Why is one person allowed to have such a profound affect on the lives of so many other people? And although the people in that theater and their families were the most affected, the effects ripple through all of society. Some movie theaters have armed security guards. Others have banned all patrons from wearing costumes. My most complicated concern when I go to the movies should be whether my nephew will gorge himself on popcorn and make himself sick or not. I shouldn't have to consider how I will exit the theater in the event that a gunman opens fire.

But then I read a story like the one about Jarrell Brooks, who helped a mother and her two children escape the senseless massacre, and realize that the scales are still tipped in Good's favor. There are more people are horrified and confused by what happened than there are people who are finding it a source of comedy. There will always be someone who takes the side of the shooter, and those who twist events such as this to the left or right merely to push their own political agenda. But fortunately, there are also those people who will keep the victims and their families in their thoughts and prayers, sending them comfort and sympathy. I would like to hope that the latter group is the majority.

We should use events like this to remind ourselves that the qualities like kindness and compassion still exist. More people don't do things like this than do. Maybe the human race isn't in such a horrible place after all.

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I Think I'm Having A Nervous Breakdown

My life is very one step forward, fifty steps back right now or so it feels. I had made tons of progress sorting, dehoarding and organizing what was kept. But then the basement drain backed up and all progress was lost. I just starting moving boxes and didn't keep any organization to them at all. So I'm right back at square one. I have to go back through everything to make progress again.

And with weight loss, I'm just stuck. I talked all big. I was starting over, going to give myself a great first month? I can't even give myself a good first week. Of the four days logged so far, I went over my calories three of them. And two of them weren't small overages either. Hundreds of calories. I'm so frustrated with myself. I just want to bash my head into the wall sometimes. I know what I have to do. But I can't get things to click and just do them.

Same thing with blogging. I'm just so lost right now with blogging. Not just this one, but my craft one as well. I've been crocheting, but I haven't touched that blog in a month. I'm feeling very blah about writing for either blog. I can't figure out what you guys want to read. I get comments on my weight loss, the reviews, and my rants. But rarely do the commenters cross over. The ones who comment on weight loss don't comment on anything else. The ones who comment on reviews only comment on reviews. And so on. Is my blog too much of a grab bag? Should I split into seperate blogs? Would you guys prefer that? Seriously, give me some feedback here. Do you guys read everything or do you skip posts unless they're about something you want to read?

I'm also lost when it comes to reading blogs. I find myself doing a lot of skimming (and not much commenting) on my blog reader. Some of the blogs that had been my favorites to read, I find myself wondering why the hell I ever read them in the first place. Or there's one that comes to mind, that I just lost my connection with. I used to love reading their posts, but they've shifted. They don't write as much about what they used to and their new topic just irritates me to no end.

And writing. A few weeks ago, I wrote a short, one-shot. But then it didn't feel like a one-shot. I could see it as the beginning of a longer story, maybe even novel. I can see the characters, I know their stories, but I just can't seem to get myself to write. Every time I open a document to write, the page just sits there. Nothing comes out. I tried writing it old school. With a pen and notebook. Nothing there either. I just cannot get the stories out of my head and onto paper. I've tried putting it to the side and writing just some random one-shot to break the ice. But nothing there either. Can't get anything written.

I really am having a nervous breakdown. Someone call the men with white coats.

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Starting Over Again

If you're a regular visitor, you may have noticed that I didn't post my weekly weigh in. Because I've decided, yet again, to "start over" trying to lose weight. My reasoning behind this was that I owe it to myself to have a really great first month to begin my weight loss, not like the up-and-down month I just had. I reread and did a little bit of tweaking to The Plan, you can read the new version on my Weight Loss page (the page is gone, sorry).

So on Sunday, I weighed myself for the official beginning weigh in.

Weight: 260.6 lbs
Pounds to Goal: 10.6
BMI: 40.9

There you have it. So far, I've done well, I went over my calories on Sunday but was under yesterday. And I'm doing much, much better on water consumption. I had nearly 100 ounces of water yesterday.

Pretty good start.

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Joyful Noise



Finally got around to watching Joyful Noise starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. I didn't get to see the movie in the theaters because the first couple weeks that the movie was showing, it was never at a convenient time to go. Then it was just gone. It was not in the theaters for very long.

So I was just flipping through some of the reviews on Netflix and saw some bad ones. Honestly, I'm not sure where that comes from. I think this movie may have been mismarketed. I got the feeling from the trailers that it was a comedy. But it wasn't. There were some funny parts, all of which had been in the trailers, but the focus of the movie was the relationships between the characters. And this isn't a Dolly Parton movie in the sense that she's the main focus. She's not. This is more Queen Latifah's movie.

I saw one review that talked about how horribly miscast Queen Latifah was as Vi Rose. But I have to tell you, I don't think they watched the same movie I did. I thought she was great as an over-worked, over-stressed mother/choir director. The review also said that the movie switched back and forth between her being a nurse and her being a waitress, again, not the case. Dolly Parton's character remarks that she didn't realize things had gotten so bad that Vi Rose needed to get a second job. If you're going to complain about casting, complain about the legitimate problem of using a man who's nearly 28 to portray a teenager. That irritated me. He did a good job. But come on, there was no younger man who is capable of singing and doing just as well?

Otherwise the movie was great. I liked the story and the characters. And the music was absolutely amazing. The standout songs were definitely "The Man in the Mirror," "Fix Me Jesus," and "From Here to the Moon and Back." The only song I didn't like was the one that the kids' choir sang in the competition. Could have done without that one. Anyways, check it out. The movie is totally worth it.

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Wow

As promised I weighed myself this morning. Honestly, I was suprised.

Weight: 257.9 lbs
Change: 0.9 lb loss
Pounds to Goal: 7.9
BMI: 40.48

I didn't expect to lose weight because again, I didn't do anything. Last week I concentrated on getting ready for a yard sale and having the yard sale. I had weird eating habits last week so I didn't bother trying to track my calories. Back to business this week. After today. The drain in our basement backed up in it's usual twice-yearly fashion this morning. So all I did was weigh myself, I didn't bother exercising or trying to count calories.

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Hi

Hey gang. I'm here, I know I've been a bit of a slacker the last week posting. I was getting ready for a yard sale and then having the yard sale. Postponed my weigh in from Saturday to Monday so I'll blog about that tomorrow. Otherwise, not much going on. Started reading Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I don't have HBO so I haven't seen the show, but it sounds awesome and I loved Peter Dinklage's speech at the Emmys. So I got the book. Last time I read a book this long was Order of the Phoenix. Wish me luck.

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Happy Independence Day!

Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net



Happy Independence Day! To celebrate, I thought I'd write about something near and dear to my own heart: The National Anthem.

It's standard to learn in school that a lawyer named Francis Scott Key wrote the word,s and they were put to the music of some English song. But somehow, a large number of people still don't understand the song and how it came to be. I've heard so many people say that it's about the Revolutionary War. But it's not. It was written September 14, 1814 about the British attack on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.

Francis Scott Key and John Stuart Skinner were on a President-approved mission to swap prisoners with the British aboard the HMS Tonnat. While there, they overheard some plans to attack the American Fort McHenry (This is probably not a very proud moment in Brit history, I'm assuming). To prevent Key and Skinner from revealing their plans, the Brits held them captive until after the attack on September 13. Since Key and Skinner were on a ship eight miles from shore, their only indication of how the battle was going, was to watch the American flag flying above the fort. If the British took the fort, they would have lowered the flag and raised their own. The battle lasted into the night, it was raining by the way, and the two men were able to see the Stars and Stripes still flying above the fort from the light of the rockets and shells. But when the battle was over they had no way of knowing which flag was flying. So they had to wait until morning.

I want you to just take a moment and imagine yourself in their position.

You have to watch an attack on an American fort that you knew was going to happen, but couldn't do anything to stop because you're a prisoner. You're too far away to know what's actively happening but you know that as long as you can see the American flag, the Americans may not be winning the battle but at least they're holding off the British. Night falls. It's raining. You're on a ship so it's probably pitching in the waves. The Americans have held off this long. Can they last through the night? You can still see the American flag whenever shells or rockets explode. But then, everything just stops. The only sounds you hear is the rain against the deck, the waves crashing against the hull. No more shells. No more rockets. The cloud-cover blocks out all moonlight. Which flag is flying?

That night had such an effect on Key that after seeing the American flag flying on the morning of the 14th, he began writing a poem on the back of a letter that was in his pocket. After completing the poem, he titled it "Defence of Fort McHenry." It was put the tune of "The Anacreonitic Song" by John Stafford Smith. Renamed "The Star Spangled Banner," the song became popular and was officially made the national anthem of the United States on March 3, 1931 (maybe that's why I always tear up when I hear it, maybe I just always knew I'd been born on the anniversary...).

Which then brings me to the fact that people complain about the song now. I don't get it. I like our National Anthem. The complaint that I hear most often about the song is that it's violent and blood-thirsty. That makes me wonder if the people complaining know the history of the song and have actually read the lyrics. I thought I'd go through the lyrics here.

O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
This sets the time frame: Dawn.

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
Key's getting artsy-fartsy with his wording but the important things to note is that the flag was flying above the fort the evening before and it's in the middle of a battle. Oh, and the flag looked pretty damned awesome.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
The light from the rockets and bombs was bright enough for Key to see that the American flag was still flying.

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
It might be prettied up with a really great description about America, but this question sums up the whole song. Was the fort still American or had the British captured it?

The whole poem is one big question about who won the battle. I can see how when they're isolated some of the lyrics could give the impression of violence. But when you read the lyrics with the punctuation it becomes clear that this isn't a violent song. It's hopeful. Key wrote about the hope that he had carried with him that the fort hadn't fallen to the British. The flag was the only way he could know what the outcome was.

I think part of the problem with people understanding the lyrics comes from the way it's sung. When a singer doesn't phrase the song properly, it makes it more confusing if someone doesn't know the lyrics exactly. Plus, when the song is played too slow, it sounds like a funeral dirge. I found some 1918 sheet music and the tempo noted was Andante Moderato which is about 115 to 120 beats per minute. I suggest going here and setting the metronome for 115 bpm, that will give you an idea as to how fast the song is really supposed to be sung. There's a lot of volume changes within the song, but the only other notation that would change the speed of the song is a fermata (hold) over the note when you sing the word wave. But then the song is supposed to go right back to the original tempo. There's not even a ritardando (slow down) during the last phrase, which is how so many people sing it.

So there you have it. A lesson about "The Star Spangled Banner." Go, sing it loud and proud (and properly please) today and every other day.

P.S. That weirdo flag up there with 15 stripes? That's what the flag flying over Fort McHenry that night looked like.

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