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Just so that you know yesterday began part one of my 814 part series of movie-watching: "The New York Times' 1000 Movies to See Before you Die" (minusing what I've already seen thus eliminating the need to see Aardvark: The Movie!)

Today's subject: Alice's Restaurant

This film actually took me by surprise as I had never heard of it before and really had absolutely no expectations. If this is a sign of the quality of the films in the book I'm using, consider my interest piqued. Any plot synopsis simply cannot do the film justice and is actually best left entirely blank given the utter lack of narrative structure except in the most primitive cause-and-effect relationship of events. Primitive, here, is hardly derogatory, as the film's structure quintessentially fits its lackadaisical pacing and the Zeitgeist it presents.  This is a film which not only seems to portray love for its liberated protagonist Arlo but also cares deeply for every character no matter how flawed. Packed with fun, well-developed characters, and humanity, Alice's Restaurant deserves to be seen.

Just finished up watching All Quiet on the Western Front and I can't help but be extremely impressed with its visually striking quality despite its being based upon a book. I suppose this is a positive consequence due to the fact that it was released in 1930; only 3 years after the advent of sound cinema. Thus that which can be shown, is. This is one of the major strengths of the film whether it be in the battle sequences (which have an astounding amount of kinetic movement using what's inside the frame to establish an idea of what's going on outside of the frame) or in the training (with images of the soldiers being forced to put their faces into the mud). There is a degree of controlled spoken moralizing but never to the degree of The Great Dictator's final, somewhat didactic speech. Images such as the final shot move the viewer to understand that while war can be as epic as the movie portrays it as in the trench scenes, in the end, it is the individual that it kills. Lew Ayres' performance as Paul accentuates this point by adding emotional poignancy to the randomness of war and the horror of awaiting death. The movie itself brilliantly embodies this "war is hell" essence much in the same way Apocalypse Now would later on with the Vietnam War, by structuring the film as an epic free form tragedy.

I'm really not going to do it justice in this singular post though that may simply be because I can't do it justice. Considering that I don't have much time on the computer due to taxes, the fact that I didn't write any of it down, and I'm quite fatigued (and somewhat drunk) from the many 2 AM stays at Mary's house, I think I'd be lucky to capture a single iota of the pure elation I've felt all week.

I guess first of all I should start with the least important stuff. You know, which college I'm going to go to. I took a trip down to Binghamton last sunday and, though I had a good deal of trouble staying focused cause a) those presentations are just so utterly similar and b) I had most important things to worry about, I thought the college had some major potential to be my one of choice. Though it's certainly not my absolute favorite school I applied to, it is the best deal. I hate sounding like my dad in this respect but I do want to get my masters and most schools at 40 grand a year, well, aren't exactly conducive to that. I liked it though... They seemed to have an overabundance of food courts. I counted 9 on the entire campus. NINE!?!?

Okay, onto more important things like oh, I dunno, BCDJLNP? Yeah, this week was extraordinarily fun because Mary is teh best and Jeff is awesome. In other words, one thing led to another and the three of us hung out pretty much all week. Some highlights included an amazing repeat of the KFC/Hagop stalking/Best Buy affair with some absolutely amazing video to go along with it, Jeff eating opened up Pokemon gum in Toys R' Us, and me being drunk numerous times. Oh and Mary being teh best. Almost forgot the most important part.

Hate to jump around (I NEVER do that!) but I also wanted to mention the pwsd which we had last tuesday at Mary's. Jeff was the only one who came to my party (at the same time, place, and space as Mary's party). : ( I didn't even come. I went to Mary's. Well, of course I would cause... well, you know. ; ) The first order of business was to give Justin all his wondrous Birthday presents. He absolutely adored all of them... from Bratz: the Video to the pink construction hat, he couldn't have been more elated with each gift. I especially liked the part when Justin threw his perfume at Hagop (certainly not because he didn't like it) and Hagop "accidentally" put it on. XD Then, we discovered the wonders of square dancing... which was interesting for lack of a better term. Merin tended to throw people a bit and astounded people with her vigorous and violent approach to swinging. Hagop seemed to refuse to touch people (one would think it'd go the other way around). Anyway, also, everyone played PPP BBB. Which was... yeah. Hagop stole my title! Though I do suppose having pictures of him wearing a pink construction hat, earrings, and a crown, is consolation enough. Then, Jeff, Mary, and I snuck off and just walked around randomly for a while with Merin, Rosellen and Justin following close behind. Everyone then just upped and left at about 12 with Rosellen. Why doesn't anyone else stay until two am? I mean, it's totally normal to do so, right? Right?

Okay, anyway, so then some other day we also had Matt come over cause... well, it was supposed to be a i<3mgsfparty but the notice was late so it was just the usual trio plus Matt. We helped Sarah out with the Bio at her house (because she was babysitting we couldn't stay at Mary's) she was struggling with first of all though she really did it herself aside from just hints that she needed in terms of formatting her Taxonomic scheme. That's cause Sarah is awesome though.

Onto buying things at Target (pronounced Tar-zzhay ; )) for the prom packs of Justin, Hagop, and Josh. Well, first of all, a bit of backstory about the latter most. At one point we were trying to get Justin to come to the prom but he continually refused. So we calculated that if we could get him a dress he'd gladly accept our invitation because... Justin loves dresses of course! So anyway, how it got to being let's make prom packs for all of them I do not know. Oh and if any random people are reading this... it's okay... we're not evil, just insane. Okay, maybe a bit of both. Anyway, so we bought toe rings, nail decorations, Barbie outfits, and lots more! We're such astoundingly awful people. : D

Plus there was that one wonderful day when Jeff, Mary, and I watched MST3K's Prince of Space which is a Japanese film dubbed in English in which the main protagonist continually shouts "Your weapons are useless against me!" yet the bad guys continue to fire even after the ninth time in which he says it. Gotta love bad movies.

Random but we also got some great video of us playing Dance Dance Revolution at Jeff's house. Jeff is an Irish step dancer or at least was in a past life cause he's just absolutely amazing. I was much more terrible than Mary though she'll wrongly disagree. If one needs video proof I have it... I trip a number of times during each and every song while Mary simply gives up not out of lack of skill at all.

On saturday, Mary and I got together to do the Taxonomy project for Bio including the bound-to-be-entertaining drawings and other stuff too. None of it all that fun but being with Mary in and of itself tends to (and by that I mean always will) be quite fun cause, well, she is teh best. Se amo Mary. So much.


I'm forgetting a lot but that's the best my memory can do...

Nick