When I was a kid, my favorite movie genre was HORROR. I mean yeah, I still loved The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, but my family knew my tastes were somewhat askew when I went crazy over The Nightmare Before Christmas at the age of six. My favorite killer is Michael Myers. I think Jason Vorhees is a pussy. I own the Scream trilogy.

The thing is, somewhere between puberty and adulthood, I have lost a lot of my lust for blood. In fact, some new scary movies actually scare me - and we all know horror movies aren’t made as well as they used to be. (Umm, piss your pants at Nosferatu, anyone?) Now it’s all about blood and guts and stuff, and not actual tension and fright. And apparently, I don’t handle blood and guts so well.

I also don’t seem to handle the supernatural so well. The Exorcism was one of the only older movies that really scared the shit out of me. And then a couple years ago, I went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose by myself (but really, I was surrounded by people in the theater). That movie FREAKED ME THE HELL OUT. That scene when Emily has a seizure or paralysis or whatever the hell it is on the floor of her dorm room, and her eyes are all black and staring straight at the camera - I’m pretty sure I was half-sitting in the lap of the woman next to me at that point.

I’m debating if I want to see the new Saw this weekend. I saw the first three, but not the last one. These movies really disturb me, they’re so gruesome. So what happened to my love of horror movies? I think it’s just the horror genre itself has taken a turn. I still like the “oldies,” from the really old, like Dracula, to the semi-old, like Halloween. But since I was a kid, there’s just been more corn syrup and fake organs, and I’m not really following the trend.

In fact, oddly enough, I am now becoming more attached to family-style movies, Disney and related. I really did join the Disney Movie Club, though not with the intention of remaining a member. Someone gave me $30 to do it, which is how much my first five movies cost including shipping. I had to buy four more movies to fulfill my membership requirement, which was $90 including shipping. So technically, I got nine Disney movies for $10 each - and one of those (Finding Nemo) is one of Josh’s Christmas presents, one is my childhood favorite (The Little Mermaid), and I also got the Santa Clause trilogy to enjoy over Christmas break, snuggled up on the couch with my honey.

I guess I am already developing mom-brain or something. Then again, Beauty and the Beast has NEVER failed to make me cry, no matter how old I was. Maybe I’m just more into the idea now of movies making me feel GOOD rather than all BLOOD BOOBS BOMBS FASTER FASTER CAN’T BREATHE GROSS. Animation helps me find my center.

Bob help me if they ever start making really gross horror animations in the mainstream. I will have nowhere left to turn.

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I spent most of yesterday kicking sadness’s ass. It was a long, hard fight. I cried a lot. Almost, literally, the entire day; I managed to hold back whenever people could see me, since I had to go out into public to dub some audio and video for a color sync I’m working on. I cried on the phone with Josh, but I’m not sure if he could tell. I don’t like it when people around me know I’m crying. I get really red and puffy, so I get embarrassed. I don’t want to be seen. And I especially don’t want to talk about “it,” the reason I’m crying, because I can only cry harder before I even attempt to get any words out.

Oddly enough, I do feel better now. Today is a new day. And, I lightened my work load last night because as I started to sift through footage I was given for a music video, I realized that the producer must’ve been playing a prank on me as the footage was SO INCREDIBLY SHITTY and I e-mailed him, asking him what he wanted me to actually do with it. I was very blunt with what I thought. He replied half a second later (I’m not joking) saying only “No worries, good luck.” So I’m down to three editing projects right now - my own film, the other color sync, and an ongoing series of internet shorts.

There is a movie I didn’t bring with me this semester that I wish I had. See, it’s good to have something you can turn to when you’re feeling really shitty - something you know will help pick you back up. Yesterday, I kept thinking about this movie, Elizabethtown. My current permanent address is Vine Grove, but Elizabethtown is where I grew up. So of course, I was biased to like the movie from the start (it is actually set in my hometown, though they didn’t actually shoot much there). Plus, I like Cameron Crowe.

I know the movie got some pretty bad reviews. But I like it, not just because of the memories it conjures of my home state, but because of the themes of the film. One of the big ones is this: It’s okay to fail. Everybody fails. Failing sucks. But it’s not the end of your life. If you fail, you have to remember: At least you tried.

And that always makes me feel better. Especially when a lot of the people in my life EXPECT me to fail. Not that I’ve failed in a technical way, recently, but sometimes, I do feel like a failure as a human.

To quote the movie:

“Stick around, and make ‘em wonder why you’re still smilin’.”

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The other day, Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2 were playing back to back on TNT or some other network station. I LOVE these movies. They made me fall in love with Quentin Tarantino. Well, not him, really. He’s pretty weird-looking, and seems very strange in interviews. But I do love his movies, for the most part.

I think Uma Thurman is absolutely amazing in these films. She’s SUCH a good bad-ass! But watching these movies stirred up some old cognitions in my relatively shallow noggin. I used to think Uma Thurman was really, REALLY ugly. I mean, we’re talking like I would want to shield my eyes when she came on the screen because I was afraid she could swallow me whole with that mouth or her nose might stab me in the bellybutton.

But the more movies I saw with her in them, the more my opinion started to change. I mean, look at this picture. This, to me, is a beautiful woman!

Her hair is nice, her eyes are pretty and blue, her lips are shiny and don’t appear disproportionate to her entire body, and her nose looks nice and slender. Maybe not quite a classic beauty; more of a mix between classic and exotic.

The first movie I ever saw with her, though, was The Truth About Cats & Dogs. And I thought she was FUGLY. And she’s supposed to be the model in the movie, next to Janeane Garofalo! (Come on, people. Janeane can look really pretty when she wants to, she just doesn’t give a shit.) And no matter how many times I re-watch that movie, I am still slightly repelled by Uma’s appearance in it.

This is not the only time I have seen this woman look horrendous. It took a long time for me to even allow myself to consider that she could be pretty under certain circumstances. She doesn’t even always look pretty when she’s all made up for the red carpet. Exhibit A:

And really, in the Kill Bill movies, she’s kind of at her ugliest… Bad haircut, usually all dirty and bloody and not made up. And yet, I’m not repulsed by her in these films, because she is SUCH A GOOD BAD-ASS. She just melts into the character and all you can think about his how bad-ass she is. And we all know bad-asses are hot.

I think Uma’s just one of those people that has to be made up just right to really look good. (In which case, the stylists and makeup artists for The Truth About Cats & Dogs should no longer have jobs.) Which is actually kind of comforting. She’s proof that just because you are born to be tall and thin and blonde and exotic-looking doesn’t mean you don’t still have to work at it.

And, to make up for all of the things I’ve said that you think are probably really mean, I will pay her a compliment. I can think of NO OTHER WOMAN that can make Batman’s Poison Ivy so. damn. hot.

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One of the reasons I love watching previews is to quickly read the big green screen that pops up before the preview to tell you what both the movie and it’s preview are rated. Do you ever glance down below the rating’s age recommendation to see the actual reasoning they put behind it? Old people are hilarious! Because the old people that come up with these reasons clearly do not have enough modern language to make these ratings seem anything but completely serious and dangerous.

For example:

• Mean Girls - “some teen partying”
• And, well, I can’t remember any other specifics off the top of my head. But the one for Mean Girls has always stuck in my mind. Other descriptions I find humorous in general include “some sensuality,” “some damage to objects,” “humans injured or killed with small amounts of blood,” “clothed sexual touching,” “unsupervised chat rooms,” and “homosexual themes.”

Because, you know, we all need to warn parents and children about movies with themes! About homosexuality! Because they might rub off on your eyeballs while you watch the movie! OH MY GOD I THINK READING THE RATING HAS MADE ME GAY!

I know a lot of parents are lax and don’t really pay attention to ratings anyway - they just go with their gut, or watch the movie before they let their kids see it. My parents did that with me - I saw boobies in Halloween when I was six years old - and I turned out just fine and non-homicidal. Although, for some reason, I think I’m going to be a little more stringent with what I let my kids watch, at least when it comes to nudity and extreme violence (as in, I don’t think my 4-year-old would be allowed to watch 300). But I’m not so anal about profanity, because they’re going to hear it somewhere anyway, even if it is only from their teachers (or me). And drug use and stuff? They won’t know what’s going on until they’re old enough to have my “DRUGS KILL PEOPLE” motto ingrained in their psyches. So I’d probably let a 4-year-old watch Things We Lost in the Fire, because they’ll focus more on the little kids in the movie than Benicio del Toro coming down off of heroin anyway.

Some parents just take these descriptions and ratings way too seriously. Not letting a child see a Pixar movie because an ant is animated “sexually” or because someone says “hell” is ridiculous. Parents like this, take note: You are only projecting your own fears and failures onto your children. Let them breathe.

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Yesterday was unique.

I had my three-hour orientation for AmericaReads (which I got paid for - $30 for sitting at a desk!). The representatives of the program take this time to tell you important things to keep in mind about your job, such as:

1. Children are the same as us.
2. Children are different from us.
3. Children are complex, like us.
4. Don’t disagree with the teacher in front of the kids, or she may hurl balls of fire at you.
5. The principal doesn’t actually care that you are in his/her school, and just resents you for wasting his/her time.
6. If you’re assigned to a middle school, we apologize.
7. Don’t engage in sexual relationships with any of the students. Oh, or the teachers. Or janitor.

After that was an event the type of which I don’t usually involve myself with. I was perusing Craigs List yesterday morning, as I usually do looking for potential ways to make money, and I came across someone needing a videographer on-the-fly that very night. The ad promised credit, a free movie ticket, and maybe some money. So I answered it, naturally, as I have a hard time avoiding free movie tickets. I guess I was the first (or only) to answer the ad, as this guy gave me the “job” and told me to meet him at the AMC in Times Square at 6:30 last night.

The guy got there more like 7PM, all in a tizzy. His name is Nando. He has a blog, like everyone else in the universe, and is trying to make it popular so he can make money with it, like everyone else. My job last night was to videotape him and his “contest winners” (who were actually his friends persuaded to participate with free movie tickets) so he could make a video for his blog. I mean, I could tell before I went that his blog was by no means popular, as he used a generic Blogger (or something) layout and had about a year gap between postings before August. But I played along, because hey, I got to see The Women for free (which is very good! Although Meg Ryan is terrible… I think her lip injections affected her acting ability). And after the movie and the last bit of videotaping, he gave me an extra $10. So, free movie aside, I basically made $10 for an hour of videotaping, which is pretty sweet to me.

Aside to discuss the movie further: If you are completely fed up with men, go see The Women. Although the movie frequently discusses men close to the characters, there is not a SINGLE MAN shown in the ENTIRE film… well, except for the very end. And that’s not really a man. I didn’t actually realize there were no men until the very end of the movie. And then I realized how refreshing it was. And how much I love Annette Bening. And Candice Bergen. And Bette Midler.

It just caught me off guard that this Nando guy would lie to his “readers” about people actually caring about his contest. I don’t think I’d do something like that. If I’m unpopular, I’m unpopular. I feel no need to make up people that care about my blog. Stuff like that would inevitably come out later if I ever did actually become an internet presence, you know? And that’s just embarrassing.

I have thought about doing little giveaways though; like small Amazon gift cards in exchange for entertaining comments that brighten my day. I couldn’t give away $500 a day like ol’ rollin-in-the-dough Ree, but I could start with something small.

But, is anyone even reading this? Would anyone care enough to comment for the opportunity to get a $5 Amazon gift card? Psht, who am I kidding. I’m writing this for myself.

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