So I wrote a review for Prometheus for SideWalk Online, where I am a guest writer and movie critic. Go check it out please! http://www.sidewalkonline.com/2012/06/movie-review-prometheus/
Also, since I couldn't embed it on that post for some reason, here's the trailer:
So I recently went back to my home town of Ukiah (located in
smoky Mendocino County [heheh, get it? Cause Mendocino County has a lot of pot
in it…]) for a week and a half. And while it used to be where I live, it is now
a place I vacation at since I’ve been officially living as an independent adult
in Southern California for three years. So I figured why not let Ramblings of a
Cinephile become a travel blog for a day? So this week you’ll get to see what
my home town is like-aren’t you excited? - Actually I just went through my
photographs and I don’t have any pictures of Ukiah…because I lived there for a
long time. However, I do have pictures of Fort Bragg and Lakeport, so instead
I’ll tell you about my day trips to those places!
Fort Bragg
Wednesday June 20, 2012
It’s a day like any other summer day in Ukiah. And by that I
mean it’s as hot as whatever circle of Hell is really hot, which is most of
them. I think. I haven’t read Dante’s Inferno
yet. Anyway it’s a smoltering (a word I just made up by the way) day like any
other so my friends and I decide to go to the cool haven that is the coastal
town of Fort Bragg for the day. We arrive in Fort Bragg around four p.m. after
getting lost on some abandoned logging trails in Brook Trails. Now just passed
Fort Bragg is a coastal beach called Ten Mile Beach.
Ten Mile Beach...from afar
And just passed Ten Mile Beach is a small patch of beach
with the nicest sand I’ve found north of Monterey. My friends and I hung out
there for a while, playing with sticks and sand and stuff. You know - fun, adult stuff.
I don't know those people. I hope they don't mind that
they're on the internet. Cause they're here to stay.
The driftwood graveyard
I peed in that cave.
My friend peeing in his own cave.
Here he is happy about being done.
Sarah peed in this cave.
No one peed in this cave, cause it was kinda wet.
But I thought you guys should get to see all the caves.
I don't know what they are, but they are so cool
Feet.
The logman cometh
We had more fun than you would expect college kids
to have putting that stick in the sand.
"Hey dude wanna go to party?"
"Nope having too much fun putting this stick in the sand"
We ate at McDonald's entirely to order happy meals
and get the Pokemon toy that came with it.
Lakeport
Thursday, June 21, 2012
My sister owes me lunch so I make her buy me food at this awesome pizza place called Main Street Pizza (which I plan to review later this week), which is located in the only good city in one of the worst counties in Northern California: Lake County. Sorry people from Lake County, but you know it’s true. Anyway while we’re there we meet up with our mutual friend with whom we proceed to wander around downtown Lakeport.
One of my favorite places in Lakeport is this huge used bookstore.
That one on the right is it.
And this is the Iguana that lives there.
This is what remained of my pizza when it occurred to me to photograph it for the blog.
This is where Pillsbury Dough Boys are sent when they
become Pillsbury Dough Men. Kinda like Penn State.
OH! (Sorry about that...thought it was better than a Michael Jackson
or Catholic Church joke though.)
Thoughts From These Places
Thinking back on the trip I can’t help but ponder what it is
that makes something like playing in sand or going through thrift stores fun.
Is it the physical activity? The process by which our brain releases endorphins
causing some sort of elation? I think that’s a portion of it. However, I
believe it runs deeper than that. Because it wasn’t the act of shoving a stick
into some sand and creating a weird archway or the joy of eating McDonald’s
hamburgers, because that really isn’t a joy at all and I prefer when my stomach
doesn’t rebel against my body. I enjoyed that time because I was doing it with
good friends. I don’t know if this is a universally acknowledged truth, but I
know for me fun stems from being around people I love and who love me back. Furthermore,
I know one of my friends has been unhappy with her life where she is living now, not
because the area itself is bad (if the pictures make any case at all it is in
fact to the contrary), but because she doesn’t have the people she loves most
with her there. We humans are naturally social creatures I think, and even for
introverts, like myself and probably most of you reading this, human contact, whether
physical or emotional, is important in our enjoyment of this journey we call
life. Cause we all need the human touch.
For post two of the Week-of-Legitimate-Daily-Blog-Posts, or
WOLDBP for short (I know, catchy initialism isn’t it?), I figured I would give
you readers insight into the way my mind works through a writing exercise.
Previous to writing this post I was working on the introduction to an essay for
my Drama class. This following is a stream of consciousness representative of
the things I thought about while writing (please note that not one of my
thoughts are about the paper, a sign summer break has truly started even though
I’m not quite done with school).
Oh hey, check it out. There’s a spider on my ceiling.
Walking directly towards me. Crap that thing is gonna jump on my head. Oh hey
wait - it’s turning. To the left, it’s still turning to the left. It’s kinda
constantly turning left. And the fan is turning with it. Well it’s probably not
turning with it, but you know…self. Awkwardly talking to myself in my brain.
Still doing it – stop it. So wait, why is the spider turning with the fan? It’s
probably because the spinning shadows are confusing the spider’s sense of
direction, making it think that it has to move in a circle matching the
circular pattern of the shadows.
Well that’s boring. Maybe it’s because the spider is a
humanitarian. Wait spiders can’t be humanitarians cause they’re not human. A
spidertarian? No, an arachnitarian. He’s very concerned with problems in spider
society. He’s probably doing an AIDSwalk. He’s doing laps in order to raise
money to prevent the spread of spider AIDS. He’s like a little humanitarian
spider Charles Jock. Well that’s not fair to Charles Jock, he could be a
humanitarian; I didn’t ask him. I guess he could be some sort of disguised
spider, but that seems unlikely, though he did have really long legs. But
anyway yeah, that’s better than the sciency one.
Jeez, I hate when memes get used in like real life. Memes
are an internet thing and they should stay there. Stupid comedy central using
the Fry thing to advertise for Futurama. Why do I care so much? I feel like it
takes away from the internet community. It detracts from the –
OH SHIT! The spider is gone. Spider Charles Jock is no
longer on the ceiling. GAAAHHGHH! What was that tickling my leg? Oh my gosh it’s
all up in my pants. I should take them off so I can get SCJ off of me. It’s
probably not poisonous but I don’t wanna deal with the big bump that comes with
that thing chewing on my leg. Oh hey it’s gone. I really need to start working
on a blog post for today.
I don’t even know what this commercial is for. What’s a flex
seal? Is that like a gymnastics seal - a seal with amazing reflexive powers? He
can twist and dodge away from all the evil seal clubbers. And at night he dons
a mask and uses his amazing abilities to protect baby seals everywhere from the
constant threat of seal clubbers.
Not this kind of Seal Clubbing
This kind of Seal Clubbing
That’d be a good thing to post about. Maybe I’ll write my
post about the adventures of Flex Seal. Or maybe just the random shit I think
about. Yeah, that last one. It sounds like it’d take less effort. I’m tired.
[RXYUPQY3BUFB] Please ignore the code inside the brackets. It’s
a publicity thing. It’s not important. In fact it isn’t real. It’s all a dream.
So I have two updates for you guys. The first one is that I’m
on vacation from school for a week, and so that I don’t spend the whole time
watching reruns of Friends and old vlogbrothers videos, I’m going to update
ramblingsofacinephile every day. And each posting will be a full legitimate
post, not the random plugs for halfgiant that I’ve been giving you. So I’d
much appreciate it if you give me suggestions for posts in the comments,
because coming up with a new idea every day is hard. The second update is that
despite having already started my journey through Paper Towns as a
review series, I have to cut it short because I wound up reading the rest of
the book in one sitting. As a result I’m just going to write a full review of
the book as my first post of the week. Here is the review:
The Summary:
Paper Towns is a novel written by John Green in three
parts and a prologue. The prologue has been extensively covered here, so
I won’t go into it too much in this review. The first part however is mainly
concerned with a brief nocturnal adventure with our protagonist Quentin
Jacobsen, also referred to as Q, and his neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman. Margo
shows up in Q’s bedroom one night and whisks him away to help her get revenge
against her cheating boyfriend and Margo’s friends who didn’t enlighten her as
to her boyfriend’s licentious actions. This adventure is a fun one that draws
the reader into the lives of these characters and allows us to see Q’s feelings
for Margo develop. And yet, just as we become intrigued with discovering who
Margo has grown up to be, the night is over and Margo leaves town, supposedly
never to be seen again. Thus concludes the first part of the book.
The second part is concerned mostly with Q’s attempts to find
Margo based on a string of loosely connected clues Margo leaves behind for Q to
investigate. This part of the book is mostly comprised of Q’s stream of consciousness
ponderings, which provide insight into the way Q sees the world. Furthermore,
the segment consists of lots of setting development, introducing us to Q’s parents
and showing us the everyday facets of Q’s life. The primary effect of this
setting development is that we the readers get to see what it is that shapes Q
as a human being: the way he sees the world, how he spends his free time, and
what he truly values (which oftentimes is just as selfish as you’d expect from
a teenager: Q often focuses on things that satisfy his own desires far more
than they do his friends’ and hopes to see one of his classmates take off her
clothes). After Q has thoroughly investigated Margo’s clues, and thus the
little bit of her soul Margo allows Q to see, the second segment concludes with
Q discovering where Margo has escaped to and undergoing his own adventure to
find her.
To avoid spoilers I will not go into details on the third
segment of the book. I will just inform you that it is highly entertaining and
I read it straight through from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.
The Spoiler Free Assessment:
Now I was already familiar with John Green before reading
this book via his vlogbrothers youtube channel, which did give me a level of
referential enjoyment you can only get by having watched John Green talk for
several hours. However, I had no clue what to expect upon reading this book, as
I had never seen any of Green’s writing beforehand. That being said I was
extensively surprised at how well written Paper Towns is. It being a
young adult novel, I assumed it would be moderately well written, as it had won
a couple awards, but probably nothing particularly special. But no, Green
manages to consistently impress with his snappy and witty dialogue as well as
his use of internal monologue, on which the novel (particularly the second section)
relies heavily. These two things work together seemingly effortlessly to create
vastly complex characters and relationships between those characters. Q and his
friends feel as if they have been friends for years and Q’s relationship with
Margo seems as if the two are rekindling an old companionship. Furthermore,
Green paints an environment that matches seamlessly with the characters living
in it. Q and his parents’ relationship helps to clarify why Q is the way he is;
the paper quality of Orlando helps to explain Margo’s desperation to leave. Additionally,
all the characters serve some purpose in the novel. No one is useless. Every
character works together to reveal what I believe John Green is trying to say
with this novel. And that is that people are complex. And limiting people to
single facets of understanding endangers that person’s understanding of himself
or herself and works against allowing people to be who they truly are. Q’s
constant inner monologue wondering why Margo is the way she is paints her to be
this supernatural girl beyond human understanding in Q’s mind, when she is in
fact a complex person with feelings and fears and fervor just like Q. Every
aspect of the book works to reveal that every character, even basic archetypes
like ‘school bully’ and ‘popular hot girl’ are far more than the simplistic
shadows they are often portrayed as. A novel in which all the parts work
together so seamlessly to convey a message as powerfully as Paper Towns
does is, in my opinion, the very definition of an excellent novel.
Five stars out of Five
Things to Think About While Reading:
Rather than end with a spoiler-filled nitty gritty section
like I did with my Hunger Games review, I’m going to tie this novel to
two other pieces I couldn’t help but think about while reading Paper Towns.
The first is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which was fresh
in my mind from having to read it for an English class. I couldn’t help but be
constantly reminded of Basil’s understanding of Dorian limiting who Dorian
could be by Q’s limited understanding of Margo. In both cases, that limited
understanding results in creation of an impossibly perfect ideal that leaves no
room for human flaw, effectively dehumanizing the character. And while I
probably can’t go into the comparison too much without writing a whole essay,
it is definitely an interesting comparison to think about while reading this
novel (which I wholeheartedly recommend you do). The other thing Green’s novel
reminded me of, particularly his exploration of the idea that certain people
bring out aspects of other people that wouldn’t otherwise be there, thus
increasing the complexity of said person, is a quote from the book The
Four Loves by C.S. Lewis that basically states that a person brings out
parts of another person’s personality that would not otherwise exist,
suggesting that the specific complexities of human beings is highly dependent
on the way they interact with each other. That was interesting to think about
in conjunction to Green’s book because it deepened the question, “what then
happens when instead of bringing out more complexity we attempt to simplify?”
My Favorite Quote:
“I understand now that I can’t be her and she can’t be me.
Maybe Whitman had a gift I don’t have. But as for me: I must ask the wounded
man where he is hurt, because I cannot become the wounded man. The only wounded
man I can be is me.” –John Green pg 298 of Paper Towns
Ramblings of a Cinephile has just hit 500 views!!!! And it is all thanks to you guys. Thank you so much for making my blog moderately successful. To show my appreciation please enjoy this picture of me sleeping from last year.
There you go. We're even.
Anyway thank you guys so much. As a reward if you have any requests as far as something you want me to write on, write a story about, or make a video of me doing something then I will do that. Leave requests in the comments. I have finished the first part of Paper Towns, and I will get my next step in my journey through Paper Towns uploaded probably by Thursday or Friday since I'm swamped with essays right now.
Please enjoy these gifs of Robert Downey Jr. as a cat
Hello! So I know my blog is Rmablingsofacinephile. Yeah that's right. didn't know you'd been reading my blog name wrong all this time hanh? Or maybe I'm a little dyslexic after typing for the last three hours. Probably that last one. Anyway, though I'm supposed to be a cinephile, I'm really more an all around nerd, and I've been drawing a blank on what to write lately. So I've decided to share my thoughts on John Green's book Paper Towns (which admittedly I'm a little late to be reviewing due to it having been published four years ago [2008 for those of you future readers! {Like anyone is going to read my blog in the future, no one really reads it now |Man that's a lot of brackets in brackets, so many I ran out of different kinds of brackets and had to resort to awkwardly placed lines|}] However I ordered it from Goodwill Books just last week and am extremely excited to read it.) as I read it. Woo! That was a fantastically complicated sentence/thought. Anyway, so I will share a post for every three chapters I read. However, I just checked to see how many chapters there are and the three-chapter-system may become problematic due to the categorization of the later parts of the book. [Edit: Yeah, the three chapter sequences system won't work because I'm reading the book too fast. Instead, I will write a post for each section of the book, there are three, for a grand total of five posts, including this one and the spoiler free review.] We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Please be warned, this will be a spoiler-filled journey through Paper Towns so if you're like me and hate having stuff spoiled for you, don't read these posts, after I have completed the journey through the book, I will post a spoiler-free review of the book as well. Without further ado, let's begin.
I lied. Here's some more ado. I have recently been watching an excessive amount of vlogbrothers videos, a vlogger series that John Green and his brother Hank do together. If you have not yet seen them then go watch them. They're good. And I have provided you a cleverly hidden link to their youtube channel in the third sentence of this paragraph. Anyway, having established that I am reading this book upon becoming familiar with John Green in a new media setting, we can begin our step by step journey through Paper Towns.
Leave any comments in My Pants. Actually don't.
I wont get them there. Leave them in the comments section
Just a reminder...there are spoilers below this sentence - either be prepared or avoid altogether.
The book begins with a prologue that introduces the characters of Quentin, our first-person narrator and protagonist, and Margo, the "miracle" that lives next door to Quentin, or Q as he is referred to in the novel and will be referred to in this blog. After sharing his philosophy that everyone gets one miracle, one incredibly unlikely event that happens to them, Q remarks that living next to Margo is his miracle. This sets up the whole tone of the story, allowing us readers to understand that the events of this novel will be fantastical. And that tone is even further set up through the nine year old Q and Margo happening upon a dead body. As for this section of the story I found myself engaged quite effectively, however I was unsure as to the believability of John Green's provided narration of a nine-year old boy. I found myself thinking, "Really John? A nine year old thinking about the 'circumstances of his [the dead body's] demise?' That's a little advanced. Doncha think?" Then I felt stupid because it was obviously a story being told by Q as an older human being. Upon realizing this, I became aware of how absolutely fantastically John was able to create the mind of a teenage boy and welcome his readers into it. There are thoughts of sex and selfishness and development and concern. It is quite well done.
The first chapter after the prologue is concerned primarily with establishing the setting in which Q lives. We get a sense of his friends, all of whom are independently developed characters and rely in no ways on archetypes, and his school. He and Margo are no longer really friends. He's a band geek, and she's one of the hot popular kids. If I had one complaint at all with the novel thus far, it would be that Green made all of the teenagers witty. Which, though it makes for more interesting reading, is not the most realistic portrayal of teenagers in my experience. Usually they're a little slow and kinda dumb. No offense teenagers who are reading this. You'll get better, I promise. But hey, maybe teenagers are different in New York and Indianapolis.
Chapter 2 introduces us to what appears to be the main plot, but I will wager a guess is going to actually lead into a much more convoluted plot. Margo shows up at Q's house one night dressed in black and wearing black face paint. She requests his help in completing a mysterious 11 part plan since she needs a car and Q has access to one. At this point in the novel, we have not yet been introduced to Q's family, with the notable exception of him contemplating when his parents granted him mostly unlimited access to the family van, which I imagine will serve some thematic purpose concerning authority; though I am basing this entirely on conjecture and have no idea yet since the parents haven't been introduced.
A quick analysis and review of the first three chapters:
Q is highly representative of the nerd collective. He is a virgin who tends to stay where he is comfortable: in the band room. However, the nerd is being whisked off by the interesting hot chick on an adventure unlike anything he's experienced. What is in store for him is yet to be seen, but we can expect it to be the most exciting adventure he has ever encountered, with the exception of his stumbling upon the dead body. Despite this appearing to be a get-out-of-your-comfort-zone-and-enjoy-what-life-has-to-offer anti-introverted nerd story, anyone who is familiar with the vlogbrothers at all knows that John himself is an introverted nerd. So what twists will come to reveal what John Green has to say about life as a teenager is something I look forward to (sorry for ending in a preposition but I've been going back and correcting myself all day and I'd rather stop).
If you choose to read this book, which so far I would definitely recommend, it might help to familiarize yourself with nerdfighteria (the vlogbrother's online community), as the book reading experience is greatly enriched by being able to catch references to the stuff John says in his vlog as well as to a number of things John likely included just because he likes. Paper Towns has so far made me feel really smart since I get so many of Green's allusions. If you watch the videos, you'll get that feeling too.
I am going to end each segment of this series with my favorite quote from that section. Here is this one's:
"In every room, save Radar's, their home was awash in black Santadom-plaster and plastic and marble and clay and wood and resin and cloth. In total, Radar's parents owned more than twelve hundred black Santas of various sorts. As a plaque beside their front door proclaimed, Radar's house was an officially registered Santa Landmark according to the Society for Christmas."
You're turning heads when you walk through the door,
Don't need make-up,
To cover up,
Being the way that you are is enough,
Analysis:
There is girl who suffers from self-esteem
issues. However, Liam asserts this does not mean she doesn’t have value. She can be beautiful by just being
herself. She doesn’t need to change her appearance or personality, as implied
by the verb “are”, a conjugation of “to be,” which implies that the way she
acts or presents herself is enough to be beautiful.
[Bridge]
[Harry]
Everyone else in the room can see it,
Everyone else but you,
Analysis:
Just because she is unaware of her beauty does
not mean that other people do not see her beauty.
[Chorus]
[All]
Baby you light up my world like nobody else,
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
Analysis:
The girl in question is radiantly and uniquely
beautiful. Though she suffers from self-esteem problems she has a certain level
of personality present in her hair flipping. However her shy smiling at the
ground betrays her body image issues and lack of confidence. She is unaware
that she is beautiful.
If only you saw what I can see,
You'll understand why I want you so desperately,
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh oh,
That's what makes you beautiful
The speaker sees a beauty in this girl that she
herself cannot see. And if she could understand what he sees then she would not
have her self-esteem issues. However, her beauty appears to stem from her
humility, implying that this beauty is not entirely physical, though the vagueness
of the line still allows for that.
[Verse 2]
[Zayn]
So c-come on,
You got it wrong,
To prove I'm right,
I put it in a song,
I don't know why,
You're being shy,
And turn away when I look into your eye eye eyes,
Her self-esteem issues are a failure for her to
understand her own beauty. However, this man seems to think that by singing a
thought he makes it true. This is a logical fallacy so intense it brings the
rest of his argument into question. Putting that aside for now though, he ends
this rather week stanza with a declaration of his bafflement at the girl’s
self-esteem issues. Perhaps he is ignorant to societal standards.
[Bridge]
[Harry]
Everyone else in the room can see it,
Everyone else but you,
The repetition of this line calls attention to
the importance of the fact that everyone else is aware of her beauty, even if
the girl is not.
[Chorus]
[All]
Baby you light up my world like nobody else,
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
If only you saw what I can see,
You'll understand why I want you so desperately,
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh oh,
That's what makes you beautiful
See previous chorus analysis.
Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na
Na Na Na Na Na Na [x2]
I believe this sequence serves to fill
up extra time in the song, but may also serve to be a repeated denial of the
girl’s self-esteem issues in the hope that she will begin to see her inherent
beauty.
[Middle 8]
[Harry]
Baby you light up my world like nobody else,
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,
[All]
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
[Chorus]
[All]
Baby you light up my world like nobody else,
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful ([Zayn:] Oh),
If only you saw what I can see,
You'll understand why I want you so desperately ([Harry:] Desperately),
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,
You don't know,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh oh,
You don't know you're beautiful,
Oh oh,
[Harry]
That's what makes you beautiful
Rather than repeat my previous analysis of the last paragraphs, I
will summarize my critique now. Though this song suffers from a few weak
points, such as vague points and the entire stanza sung by Zayn, it has many
strong point and appears to be working to encourage girls to not fear that they
may be being judged as ugly or invaluable and instead to focus on their
inherent beauty, which could well stem from a physical beauty or from an inner
beauty. The overall message and theme of this song is a positive one. Girls, don’t
live your life in constant fear of judgment or being called “ugly.” You are beautiful
whether you know it or not.
In conclusion,I think this song has a pretty decent message, one that girls need to hear more often in a world populated by Usher and LMFAO. Also, though I try my hardest not to enjoy this song, it's too catchy for me not to like it. Here's a link to my favorite covers so far, as well as the original.
