Benjamin Button

I spent all of yesterday with Rachel, I won't go too in depth about everything we did, but it was a good time. We watched an old favorite of hers, When Harry Met Sally. I thought it was a very good film, very classic and timeless. Anyway, today we saw in theaters The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. On the list of things I think I could do really well if I were only slightly different, besides a defense attorney, an architect, etc., is a movie reviewer. So indulge me for a moment.

Walking in I didn't know what to expect. I saw absolutely no press about it beforehand, no trailers, no commercials, I only knew the basic premise (a man born old and aging backwards, growing younger while everyone else grows older) and thought it might be something I'd enjoy. It was of course a very excellent film. The performances were strong, the cinematography was breath-taking, however I have one basic complaint which keeps it from being a favorite of mine, probably of anybody's.

In this film, the vast range of human emotions, motivations, and experiences possible with a story like this are all buried underneath the technicalities of it all. The entire length of the first act of the film we're being asked to emotionally connect with a CGI puppet. Don't get me wrong, there are certain scenes where he might as well be a real person, the technology is so picture-perfect. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly so consistent as it would have to have been. Regardless, instead of pondering the plight of this child whose been so prematurely deprived of his youth, I was comparing him to Gollum (his croaky frog voice didn't help this at all). Computer graphics will never substitute for a real actor, despite what modern Hollywood might like us to think. At least, not in this context. In a fantasy world like Harry Potter, I can believe that blue house-elf with the giant eyes is really warning Harry about the fate of the magical world. In a completely CGI film like Wall-E, I can believe that adorable tiny robot is saving the planet. In the super-realistic, nostalgic world of the late nineteenth century, a computer avatar sticks out like a freaking whopper of a sore thumb.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief when many scenes later I squinted at our hero and was satisfied that he is now finally being portrayed by a real person. That's when I discovered, to my dismay, that this person was Brad Pitt. Great. Now instead of comparing Benjamin Button to Gollam, I was comparing him to every other role I've seen Brad Pitt play (a danger with any film that uses actors we're all too familiar with). And throughout the rest of the film, I simply couldn't stop myself from obsessively doing the math in regards to his age (okay, he started at eighty, he's now twenty-five, so he should look sixty-five...), again and again as he gradually grew younger/older. I found out later Rachel had the exact same problem. The make-up is very good, and Pitt's acting for the different ages is spot-on, but given the basic premise of the film this fact-checking proved extremely distracting.

You see the flaw? You could have a really heart-felt, engaging story, but all the technicalities both in premise and in execution hide it all beneath the surface. That's what keeps this from being a truly great film. The director and actors all obviously tried so very hard to make ends meet, to make this story make sense, so that the humanity of the story, what makes it so special, ended up getting pulled through the wringer in the process.

It is a runway show of extremely gifted film making, it is not a heart-felt story.

I enjoyed the beauty of the film, I enjoyed the expertise employed, but ultimately it is very forgettable, which is sad, since it could have been so good.

Now, I say all that, but of course there were some human elements to the movie, it had some very good moments, and I did enjoy it quite a bit. This is just an overall impression.

A lot of reviews mention the source from whence it came, F. Scott Fitzgerald's original short story, but only briefly, at least from what I read. What's funny is, I think that's the answer right there. If they hadn't diverged so drastically from their source, instead of another Forrest Gump (the similarities are indeed endless) we could have had something much more important. Fitzgerald's story has many different aspects to it, it starts out a cartoonish farce, but develops into an extremely sad portrayal of an oddly relatable character. Fitzgerald's Benjamin Button, despite his very unusual circumstances, has all the same human flaws and characteristics related to aging that we see in ourselves. I believe Fitzgerald was trying to get us to look at our lives in another way, to see how we give things up and treat the ones we love so foolishly, and only want what we want and are never content where we are.

The movie lost track of this interpretation entirely somewhere along the way. What you see on screen is simply the story of a man with an unfortunate, incurable disease that isolates him from the rest of the world merely because of the way he looks. If he was born say, a leper, or a dwarf, his life would largely have been the same. When he looks old he is otherwise a normal toddler, with a normal toddler's experiences and mind. When he looks young he has the wisdom and experience of an old man. When you really think about it, how much should it actually matter how he looks? If he and everybody else in the movie weren't so wrapped up in his appearance, he could have had a completely normal, mundane life. The concept of the film is still a good one, it is still a very good story to be told (as this theme of the separation between mind and body is an interesting one), but it's not at all the same story as the one F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote.

In the original short story, Benjamin Button was born an old man, literally an old man, a cigar-smoking, encyclopedia-reading old man. As he grows older, or should I say younger, he gets married to a woman who is much younger than he is, and for all intents and purposes she is married to an older man. Then he is younger still, and she grows older, and he finds he wants to go to parties and dance with other young women, even though he's forty. His wife acts her age, on the other hand, and he loses interest in her. He continues growing younger, and decides to go off to college, something he couldn't do earlier when he was older. He starts off a freshman and champion of the university's football team, but as he continues to grow younger by his senior year he is much too small to play, and on top of that his studies seem to be too advanced for him, as his mind is also growing younger. After graduating he moves in with his son, who wants nothing to do with him, and wants his own father to call him "uncle", to save face in front of visitors. Benjamin vainly tries re-joining the military, but of course can't for now he is a small child, and eventually becomes only concerned with the walls of his crib, and his walks in the park, until he can't remember anything at all, and it all fades into darkness.

When we're young we're continually longing to be older, when we're old we're continually longing to be younger. When Benjamin Button is older he in fact quite happy, but as he grows younger, he becomes more and more unhappy as he longs for his age again. He is in effect getting what every elderly person would give everything for, the chance to be young and beautiful, but it ends up costing him everything.

It's a much colder, biting story. Very critical and almost a little hopeless. But it would have made for a much better film, though Hollywood does love it's drippy love stories such as the one it's turned this into. Though it may make less logical sense, like how on earth Benjamin's mother delivered a 5'8" man complete with beard, it makes for a more unique and meaningful story, most importantly one devoid of CGI puppets and make-up more advanced than the stuff adorning Orson Wells in Citizen Kane.

Anyway, looking forward to another week off. Lots to do though, busy busy busy. I'll be sure to keep in touch.

-Dr. M

Post-Xmas

This Christmas was a real surprise. I wasn't expecting very much, but I ended up getting a few of the best gifts I've ever gotten. We woke up pretty late, around eleven, and enjoyed each others company for a little while until Rachel joined us around noon. I hung out with her, we exchanged gifts (got me a lunch kettle, with Spongebob Squarepants on it), it was nice. Then my brother Jeff and his wife Amy joined us (shortly after Rachel had to leave to be with her family), and then we all gave each other our gifts and had a very good day.

I had given Jeff and Amy a list of CDs I wanted earlier in the month, for a Christmas list, figuring they were the most likely to come through in this area. When Amy handed me my gift -six CD-shaped packages all wrapped and tied together- I got that "intestines falling out of your butt" feeling (doesn't anyone else get that?). They got me almost every Beck CD I didn't have (which was everything except The Information)!! Beck has been one of my favorite artists lately, and I'd heard a bunch of these songs before, but now I have them all in CD form. I was expecting to listen to them all at once right in a row... but I never got past Mellow Gold. I put it on, played it, then played it again... I've played it probably five times since yesterday. It's so amazing!! I love every song. It's so fresh, so spontaneous. Anyway, now my expectations are unrealistically high for the rest of the albums which I'll slowly be making my way through in the next few days.

My mom got me the computer chair I wanted, which is awesome. So it ended up being a really great Christmas.

My brother assembled my computer yesterday, and started working out the software. See, my computer is a little... "special needs". It's hardware made for Windows that's running Mac osx on it. The day after Mac started running on Intel it was hacked and this was made possible, no longer do you have to pay for incredibly over-priced hardware that's completely un-upgradeable in order to have your Mac operating system. I need a Mac computer to run Logic, the music recording program I will soon be upgrading to. But I didn't want to pay a thousand dollars for that stupid huge fugly computer screen with everything built into it, a lot of which I don't need, nor did I want another sardine-can mini mac desktop, which can't run as fast and doesn't have the space I need. So this was the solution.

It requires hacking and general renegadery (don't install any updates -they'll find you!), but as far as I knew going in, as soon as Mac was installed, I would have a normal, stable computer just like anybody else's. So far we've had problems at every turn. Getting Mac onto it to begin with was a chore. Now there are still a lot of kinks that have to be worked out. Every time I want to plug something into a USB port I have to restart the computer. It won't have internet capabilities anytime in the immediate future (so for now, you are still reading what I type from the family computer downstairs). These are things that can and will be fixed, but let me just say I don't have such a great feeling about this. I wanted a stable computer that will last me... so far ol' Frankenstein's Macintosh chilling there on my desk isn't quite cutting it. Dan assures me it will be fine, it will work out... just don't install any updates!!

I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime today I saw a movie with Rachel and her family- Marley and Me, a movie about a dog and the lives of the people who own him. I don't know, I'm not much of an animal person. I mean, let's get real... it is just a dog, there's only so much heart-wrenching drama you can get out of situations surrounding a dog's life. I like dogs fine, but to me, they're animals... animals is animals is animals. They're great companions for lonely or troubled people, me I'll take actual human companionship any day. The movie basically came out and said at the end, "Dogs make you feel good, therefor they are better than people". That kind of message never sits well with me.

Then I had work, which was long and horrible.

I wish I had had more time to spend with just Rachel... but luckily I believe I will be doing plenty of that tee-morrow. So I better get to bed!

Pray for me and Frankenstein's Macintosh.

-Dr. M

'Twas the Night Before... yeah

These past two days it's really started to feel a little more like Christmas. Yesterday was the big party we throw with the *mother says I shouldn't use real name* family. My mother has been friends with Aunt Sue (not a blood relative, but might as well be) since college, and my brother and I and her kids have grown up much closer than I am to any of my real cousins. Her daughters are all grown up, and married with children. We started this tradition of having everyone over for caroling every Christmas season, and yesterday was this year's party. Let's see if I can count all of the kids who were over...

Margie and her husband Joel have five kids, three boys and two girls. Becka has twins, a boy and a girl. Julie has one child. That's eight kids who all crowded into my house yesterday. Aunt Sue's oldest son Paul was on his way but broke down, that would have been another set of twins had he made it. Craziness! So many little kids.

Aunt Sue's two youngest, Andy and Josh (Andy is two years older than me, Josh is four years older than me) were very close to my brother and I through childhood. Andy recently graduated from a culinary arts program and is going to be a chef, and couldn't make it yesterday. Josh works for a security firm in da hood, he's already been shot at and everything. He was over briefly yesterday before leaving with Joel to have coffee with the other married men.

I'm not sure why I'm writing all of this (probably for my sake, just to make sure I remember all of it). Anyway Rachel was over as well, so I enjoyed myself somewhat, despite the noise and confusion. The cat went nuts, for some reason my mother was surprised. Singing Christmas carols is always fun as well.

Today I had work, but then in the evening I joined Rachel's extended family for their annual Christmas Eve party. I enjoy seeing them, they're pretty fun. Much more fun than her immediate family, I'm not sure how that worked out.

So I'm pretty well in the spirit, especially because I got my first gift yesterday in the mail. EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT CAME!!!! Now my brother just has to finish assembling it and hacking the motherboard so it can run Mac. I guess it's safe to say I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, I hope you, whoever you are, wherever you are, are having a very nice holiday season. Happy birthday Jesus, another year older, though I suppose that must not mean much to you.

-Dr. M

Scrapbooks and Choirs

Yesterday I finished my project for the English class gift exchange that took place today. I decorated the cover of a scrap book.



I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though it was very rushed. I enjoy making these kinds of collages, it is the one area of visual art I'm interested in seriously exploring, so expect more of this sometime.

The girl I gave it to seemed to like it. From the exchange I recieved two t-shirts, one that says "Tim Da Man" and another that says "Jus Be Cool" [sic] with my last name on the back. Possibly the most random, most awesome gifts I've ever received, I plan on wearing them often. I have no idea what the girl who gave them to me's original intentions were, maybe she was slightly inebriated at the time, but regardless they were the best things she could have given me. She asked my girlfriend when she was visiting about my favorite color, to which Rachel replied "earthy colors" (which is true), and somehow this girl took that to mean an awkward, faded lime-green color which couldn't possibly match anything in anybody's wardrobe. Only adding to the awesomeness.

Actually, on second thought, her card said she wanted to give me a gift "as cool and unique" as I am. These gifts sure are unique, but... seriously... "Tim Da Man"? I'm not sure what she's trying to say.

Anyway, today we had our last chamber choir performance in conjunction with these gals:



Sweet Adelines, Reading Pagoda chapter. I love these girls. They perform barbershop-style a capella numbers, looking just as perky and happy to still be alive as you could possibly want. Swaying, smiling, choreographed poses, the whole bit. Their singing is well-rehearsed, if not, well, hey they're old. They asked us to perform with them tonight in a barn. A semi-heated barn with a flame thrower. Well, it wasn't a flame thrower, but it kind of looked like one, it was this awesome old-fashioned space heater that spewed tiny licks of flames. And god bless it, as this was the most ungodly freezing, bitter night there ever was ever.

I had a pretty good time. Tomorrow is the last day of school before break, and guess how many total classes I plan on attending. I wouldn't even go if my mother wasn't making me. Oh well.

And now a special bonus:
Here's a list of everything I'm excited about right at this moment.
-Getting into (and getting a scholarship to) UArts
-Getting my new computer
-Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest our English department is starting to prepare for (more on that later)
-Getting started on an electronic composition I'm making for an electronic composition competition (yah yah yah), which I just started writing the kick-ass main melody for today

That's about it. I'm definitely not excited about having to work over break, though I am very excited about spending more time with Rachel.

So long for now.

-Dr. M

Two Scoops

In everybody's life, there are high points, and there are low points. And then there are points so unbelievably to one extreme or the other that they end up being really hard to describe.

Last night we finally resolved the issue of my computer, another credit card opened up and my parents were able to purchase it for me. The parts should be arriving in a few days, and then it will be assembled (by my brother), and then hopefully I'll have a new working computer with which to do... everything. I almost have a hard time believing it... my computer... in the mail... surreal, really. I'm very excited.

In other, I suppose more important news, we got a rather large envelope from the University of the Arts today that said not only am I excepted, but am being offered a $9,500 merit scholarship (per year) to go there.

Sure clears that up, doesn't it?! The next four years of my life seem to have suddenly opened up, the cloud of fog has thinned and I can see at least a little bit in front of me. Hopefully the scholarship means cash won't be a problem, and I can go there, succeed, learn my trade, and go on to be a career composer.

Keep tuning in to see how that all works out.

-Dr. M

Rachel's Home!!

So, Rachel came home yesterday, or actually two days ago. Yesterday was the first I saw her. We hung out in school, I didn't have a lot of classes to go to. I was thrilled to see her for the first time in two weeks, even though she said she was "disappointed in my appearance". She can't believe she's the only one who notices when I don't shave. Anyway, she seemed really excited to get caught up with all her old teachers. It was an awkward kind of day, trying to find places in school we could hang out, her talking to teachers while I just sort of stood there. Rachel puts on this whole other persona sometimes around people, especially people she likes whom she hasn't seen for a while. It's kind of like the point-smile-"How'ya doin'???" persona. I feel so weird being around her when she's like that. It's hard to describe... overly friendly, I guess. She's never reacted like that when seeing me, thank God. I think it may even be some kind of defense mechanism for her, for people she's almost but not quite comfortable around.

Anyway, I didn't get to see her today because of the freezing rain, and she was feeling a little sick to begin with. It was disappointing because I had the entire evening free (except that we'd have to have dinner at my house, it being my brother's birthday and all). Really, I'm just very relieved to have her here, and not at college. I'm a very jealous boyfriend, it's true. I get a little worked up at the thought of her being in that dorm... in such close quarters... around all those guys... I mean, duh her roommate's a girl, but they could at least have separated the floor into two sections by gender, not be totally random about it.

I'm sorry, I'm officially in rant-mode, you may want to skip this next paragraph.

I know in college kids are supposed to be so "enlightened" and everything... leave their parents' ways behind, forge a path of their own. That's why college doesn't exactly breed conservatism. But still, even in the enlightened, liberalized world of college, how realistic is it to have dorms so co-ed? The bathroom situation, I mean specifically. In the adult world, women and men don't go parading down the same hallways in nothing but their bath towels, it just doesn't happen. Seems to me like it's completely stripping you of your privacy, and in fact very unnatural. If college is supposed to be preparing you for adulthood, why not give you a taste of what adulthood is really like? Let every room have its own bathroom, and if practicality won't allow for it, why not allow normal gender separations to take place, as mandated by the rest of society? Fortunately, UArts dorms are suite-style, with every suite having its own kitchen and bathroom, and none of the individual suites are co-ed, so hopefully I'll never find myself in this situation. Not that I couldn't handle it, or I'd be too shy, or whatever, it's just something I find very irresponsible and just plain weird, on the part of the college, and I wouldn't want to be subjected to it. I'm really thinking more for the girls' sake than the guys'... you know men.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way. As I was saying, I am a pretty jealous boyfriend. She talked about a guy who's kind of her friend there in Philly, whose a couple doors down from her, and I couldn't help feeling a little jealous. It's not as if I think she's going to leave me and run off with him, it's just that hey, I'm the one who loves her, why is he the one who gets to spend all his time with her? Not that she's really spending that much time with him... ah well, I never said my feelings were rational. This is one of the many things I don't particularly like about myself, but at least I know that after this year I'll probably get to spend all sorts of time with her, and the year after that I may even have the privilege of calling her my house-mate (apartment-mate, whatever (also probably one of about three or four apartment-mates)).

So, as per my original point, I'm glad she's home. I love her very much and hope I get to spend all day with her tomorrow.

-Dr. M

To Sleep, Perchance to Oversleep

I wish I could do today and yesterday all over again. Yesterday I ended up staying up until four in the morning. Don't ask me why. As it turns out school had a two hour delay, as I'd hoped. I used that as my excuse to not wake up in the morning. When my eyelids finally fluttered open, it was four fifteen. In the afternoon. I was actually in danger of oversleeping, not for school, but for work. For my job which starts at five in the freaking evening. I don't know why I slept so late, I never have before. I normally don't need twelve hours of sleep to function. If I hadn't had work tonight, I probably would have just stayed in bed all day, said "Fuck the world, it can wait until tomorrow."

Sleep for some reason has been a constant struggle for me this year. It's never been quite as much a problem as it has in the last three months. I'm showing up late for school constantly, I can never get to bed when I want to. It's a habit that's proven pretty hard to break.

So December 17, 2008 basically didn't exist for me. It was wiped off the calendar of my brain. I'm going to try to make something of the night, though. There's a gift exchange in English class going on, I think (hope) next week. We have to make something, it can't be store bought, and I think I'm going to start that tonight. I'm actually pretty excited about it. I'll be sure to post a picture when it's done.

Good night.

-Dr. M