Free Life

Went to the movies today. I shouldn't have because payday's next week and there's insurance to still pay. But I went and had a big ol' cry there due to the movie not necessarily because I was/am terribly sad or anything like that. Still, right? Anyway, afterward, I spent another $5 on a coffee and a shortbread raspberry cookie thing because I left a voicemail for my best friend and was still a little shaken. So strange how things affect me. Or not. I think I'm made of metal and then I'm melted.

Honest: for a long time - almost two years now - I've had a terrible idea not everyone I know and don't know would like to hear and that is going of the meds for the extra cash.

Just right now I was thinking, suppose I'd never had to go to the doctor four years ago and I never discovered I'd HIV, where would I be now? I don't know and neither does anyone else because that never happened. But, what if, you know?

I wonder how we got to this point where this is even worth considering. Years ago, if someone mentioned this to me, I'd tell them they were insane, and here I am thinking this. But is it that bad? No, not really. I could use five grand right now and I know lots of us could as well but that isn't going to happen. or, if I did indeed stop the the meds for the money, I think it would be easier to just spend it on something wholly necessary.

The family is in really bad form right now. Not only financially. Not a lot of us are happy. I'd go even a little further into it: I don't think a lot of us are content or satisfied with what's happening, any of it. Who is, really?

So, I'm at the movies and guy in the movie says he just wants it to stop, the disease he has. And that's where I am and I think using the family trials as the reason for it to stop is kind of a cop-out. Isn't it? Is it?

What if I decided to stop treatment, would you hate me, shun me, support me, or say nothing? Is this one of those cry for help things? Do I mean a slow-speed suicide? What is it?

As I've written many times over the last few years, I want it to stop, all these pills every week; the way in which everything my family says around me is tinged with sadness and fear; the way in which whenever I mention being sick all I get is silence; thinking the pretty girl I want to ask out from work will just walk away when I tell her; the way my mother looks at me sometimes. And the way I see myself daily. I just want it all to stop so I can be normal again.

Haven't had a fit like this in a while. I don't really know what normal means.

But, as I said, there's lots of things to take care of for the family. I hate my living situation but without me they can't keep the house nor put food on the table nor even enjoy a smoke every now and then. Silly to even type all that. But it's true. And me, without them, I don't know really where I'd be. So the family must come first. And I'd be no use to them dying in a hospital or dead in the ground.

Way the world works is my life is the only thing I've a say over. That's it.

Way to return to the blog. I should not be allowed to go to the movies unescorted.

Number Five With A Bullet

After erroneously asking someone who their favorite movie director is, and getting in return the, "So, like, what's my favorite movie?" answer, and exchanging a couple of tweets with Corey about it, it made me think of those lists I have, that I believe(d) we all have.

TOP FIVE FILM DIRECTORS

• Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, INSOMNIA, BATMAN BEGINS, THE PRESTIGE, THE DARK KNIGHT)
• Darren Aronofsky (PI, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE FOUNTAIN, THE WRESTLER)
• Michel Gondry (HUMAN NATURE, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, BE KIND REWIND)
• David Fincher (FIGHT CLUB, ALIEN 3, SE7EN, PANIC ROOM, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, ZODIAC (the latter is far better than I think he's given credit for))
• Alfonso Cuaron (GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, CHILDREN OF MEN, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN)

TOP FIVE MOVIES

• Fight Club
• American Psycho
• High Fidelity
• Requiem For A Dream
• Star Wars (1977-1983)

TOP FIVE RECORDS

• Nine Inch Nails, THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
• Tori Amos, BOYS FOR PELE
• Joy Division, HEART AND SOUL (boxed set)
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor, f#a#[infinity]
• Atmosphere, YOU CAN'T IMAGINE HOW MUCH FUN WE'RE HAVING

TOP FIVE BANDS/MUSICIANS

• Joy Division
• Nine Inch Nails
• Atmosphere
• Deftones
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor

TOP FIVE SONGS (click here to listen)

• Joy Division, DIGITAL (curious it was their and Factory Records's first release)
• Nine Inch Nails, GAVE UP (from the BROKEN EP)
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, (I'LL LOVE YOU) UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (from the soundtrack to Wim Wenders's film UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD)
• Kurtis Blow, THE BREAKS
• DJ SHadow, YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN

TOP FIVE WRITERS

• Chuck Palahniuk
• Douglas Coupland
• Bret Easton Ellis
• Grant Morrison
• Warren Ellis

TOP FIVE BOOKS

• Chuck Palahniuk, FIGHT CLUB
• Douglas Coupland, MS. WYOMING
• Bret Easton Ellis, AMERICAN PSYCHO
• Nick Hornby, HIGH FIDELITY
• Alex Garland, THE BEACH

TOP FIVE COMICS

• Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, WATCHMEN
• Grant Morrison & Chris Weston, THE FILTH
• Warren Ellis & D'Israeli, LAZARUS CHURCHYARD
• Warren Ellis & Darrick Robertson, TRANSMETROPOLITAN
• Neil Gaiman et al., THE SANDMAN

I Love You, Bret Easton Ellis

Yesterday, Xeni Jardin tweeted this link. In it, Bret Easton Ellis's feelings on why women aren't necessarily as good film directors as men are sort of criticized. Sort of because, well, where's the support in the criticism? Says the post's writer:

"Where to start? The part where he sounds semi-apologetic about his misogyny and then reclaims it all over again to claim that The Proposal is worse than say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? How about the part where Ellis thinks a director is always responsible for the visual components of a movie, except for when that director is a woman like Sofia Coppola? Or that women don't have a visual sensibility because he thinks only men get one? Or when he says that all female directors are "emotionalist"?

It is tempting to go through one by one, and point out the absurdity of these claims. Then again, in addition to his printed and onscreen oeuvre, this is a man whose previous Tweets have included, "John Mayer in the March Playboy is one of the most interesting, funny and revelatory celebrity interviews I've ever read. He just gets it." In other words, his idea of revelatory is saying things that are deep-seated, prejudicial convention and protesting that everyone can't handle his edgy truth. So he really doesn't care if it's actually true or not."

I for one would've loved to hear the support against Ellis's absurd claims. Really. I'm not overreaching, I think, because a good argument is based on, well, arguing, but I think this little post doesn't do what I thought it might do, which is tear apart Ellis's comments with supporting claims of the writer's position. But there were none. It read to me the same way it sounds like when folk claim they're Mexican but don't know why.

And what about Bret Easton Ellis's comments regarding women as film directors? He says:

"Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn’t a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don’t know."

And, just prior to this, Ellis states:

"There’s something about the medium of film itself that I think requires the male gaze...We’re watching, and we’re aroused by looking, whereas I don’t think women respond that way to films, just because of how they’re built."

Is there any truth to what Ellis says? The knee-jerk reaction is he is wrong, as highlighted in the livejournal post. But as person who enjoys movies and film, I'm finding it very very difficult to disagree. I'd ask everyone, which are your favorite woman-directed movies and I'd wager a lot of us would need a moment or two of thinking to come up with a few. We can each come up with our favorite movies list in seconds, and I'd ask how many of these were made by women directors and I'd guess none.

It's very difficult to come up with a film that I love that features a woman at the helm. AMERICAN PSYCHO is one (of course, being that the source material is also a top three favorite of mine didn't hurt), and my favorite movie of all last year was THE HURT LOCKER. It isn't that I love these films because they were made by women, but because they're fantastic stories told with such fearlessness and with individual aesthetics that it would be hard to point out each films' flaws. But, personally, aside from these, what else do I get? My boyfriend and I were briefly talking last night about this. I read to him the bit where Ellis says that TRANSFORMERS is a better movie than THE PROPOSAL and Corey's reaction was that the TRANSFORMERS is trash and he really liked THE PROPOSAL. I asked whether or not us liking the movies made them any good (I also said that if given the option between the two, despite the terrible amounts of shit TRANSFORMERS is, that's the one I'd chose to watch), which of course lead us to the bigger question of what 'good' is, which to me sounds like what Ellis is saying: is a movie a good movie because a woman made it? If what I get from women directors are romantic comedies that don't really serve any artistic purpose, how can I not think women make bad movies? It's all in the evidence presented by the creators.

But, here's an example. Take THE PUNISHER: here you have a comics character in two movies made within a decade of each other, neither of which is spectacular film making. The first iteration was made by Jonathan Hensleigh and it's absolute trash. It isn't even fun. Everything about this movie makes me retch because it took what has been a good idea for action movies (revenge!) and made it a caricature that no one finds redeeming (he has a story credit as well). Four years later, Lexi Alexander made the second movie, and it's endlessly a much better-made movie that's not only more fun and violent and funny and exciting. Does it mean that the latter movie is better because a woman made it?

Like Ellis, I love the work Sofia Coppola puts out, even MARIE ANTOINETTE. I think her way of making movies each time has a clear vision and therefore genuinely brilliant artistic value. Kathryn Bigelow's STRANGE DAYS is also an incredibly brilliant film (but now a much dated story than I imagined back in the early 1990's). And I've loved all of Floria Sigismondi's music videos (I've zero interest in a movie about The Runaways, incidentally). So, the women who've access to making movies, how come they make such claptrap trash? What happens? It just seems that even just asking the question, or as Ellis did and sharing the opinion, labels you as sexist and misogynist. Okay. Fine. Just show me where the movies are and I too will re-think my opinion.

“…I’m just tired of being wrong all the time just because I’m a guy…I mean, a male chauvinist isn’t born, he’s made, and more and more of them are being made by women…Women are right. You’re wrong. You get used to the idea. You live down to expectations.” - Chuck Palahniuk, CHOKE