This mess we're in...

This song is for you. I was going to write more. But, have the song instead.

PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke - This Mess We're In

What I watched today…

Today I’m off. I like days like this, when I have time to just watch something on TV. OF COURSE that I should be doing something else – just like whoever is reading this. I should correct some homework from my students, I should make me some dinner and stuff like that, but I’m really lazy. Just want to stay here on my bed, doing nothing. Man, I’m tired. The only thing that gets me going is the perspective of having two weeks off during the Holidays. Oh, what glory that will be.

I went to USP (the college I attend) on Thursday because it has holding this huge book fair thing. I bought less than I expected – which is good and bad at the same time; however, I still don’t know which of the two options I prefer, seriously. Buying less means I have more money, but less books. Buying more means that I will have more books, less money and time. Oh… One can never be satisfied. So, I was there, talking to D., enjoying the little time I had to do something other than working. I DEEPLY enjoy every moment we spend together. So, we got tired of walking around and decided to smoke outside. We sat under a tree and a light brown type of ant started falling from the branches. It was alright, I mean, the ant falls and you just remove it from your arm, leg, shoulder, nasal cavity, cerebellum or whichever other part it decides to land on. The problem is that one of them bit my neck and now – two hundred days later, I’ve discovered that I’m allergic to it. Like… New bites keep popping everywhere and it’s fucking annoying, to say the least. So, I had some of this allergy syrup I bought and now I’m lazy and sleepy. So, I’ll just watch House and FlashForward.

Some points:

• I think I’m getting tired of House. I love House, the doctor. I love his character, his charm, his lack of patience. I would shag him for sure, that’s a fact. However, I’m getting tired of seeing the same plot over and over. Someone gets sick, House doesn’t want to take the case because he thinks it will not challenge his intellect, then something happens and he sees it’s a matter of life and death. People humiliate each other back and forth, House still loves Cuddy and vice-versa but they just can’t be together otherwise the series would end. House tries many things, including diagnosis and new ways to humiliate people even further, then he is doing something common and BAM, has the wonderful idea about what the patient is dying of. BUT, that doesn’t change the fact that I loved to see Chase punching him in the face. That was fucking awesome.
• I’m getting tired of FlashForward, too. The plot is becoming too complicated and things that cannot happen in real life tend to become really shitty tv series. I just want to see what they are going to do to explain everything that happened. I bet that it will oscillate between Lost and Heroes and will turn up to be a mix of both and will leave fans disappointed everywhere.

Things people should definitely watch:

• Misfits is a British series broadcast by Channel 4. It’s definitely not the best thing on the planet, but it surely is fun. You know, the same superhero bullshit, but it’s British and it’s pretty short. So far it’s been entertaining.
• Paradox is another British series; however, it’s broadcast by BBC One. I guess people are trying to use the same kind of “space-time continuum problem” that people used for FlashForward. Anyway. Just for being British it already means it’s going to be better. It’s pretty interesting so far. And what gets me going in relation to Brit TV series is the accent. Man, there are some people that have really, really strange accents, just like the chav girl from Misfits. What the fuck is that? Pff. Whatever.
• Being Human is the same as the above. And it’s fucking great. Well, the vampire is the cutest thing alive, to say the least. Please, download season one, because season two starts this month. It’s also an interesting series, it’s really good to see people seeing monsters differently, i.e., if I can call them that. There are just freaks trying to live a normal life. After all, aren’t we all? One thing is for sure, if I had to choose between House and Mitchell, I would go for the second one. First, he is a vampire and me loves some love bites and second, he is a freaking vampire, come on. Hahaha… The scene in which he fucks Laurie and the background song is Showbiz (I think) still makes me shiver when I remember it. Oh… Hmm…. Ok. I’m not going to talk about that anymore. Oh, yeah. Being Human, just like Ashes to Ashes has a great soundtrack. Another very good feature of European series in general. Ok. Vampire Diaries also had its moments, especially when they played

White Lies – Death

but that was the only real memorable moment. No, wait. I also loved when that stupid vampire made some acid remarks about Twilight, which will not get a link because it’s a success already and I refuse to give money to a stupid mormon girl that makes werewolves fall in love with babies. Pff. So, in case you want to know what it’s all about, there is a compilation of the songs played in the series right here.

Movies that I watched today that kinda sucked and kinda didn’t:

Ink is a strange movie that could have been much better. It’s all about the relationship between father and daughter and all that weepy crap, but the images are alright and the idea about the storytellers and the incubus are pretty nice. As I said, it could have been much better if it had a decent director and if the story didn’t have as many holes. But, it’s pretty watchable.

Hurt is a bit too much like The Good Son, but in a totally different context. The same, but different. Instead of a boy, it’s a girl, the eldest of the daughters of Alisson Dubois in Medium. Hmm… Too lazy to look up her name, so, deal with it. Oh, it also has Desmond from Lost. The bad thing about the movie is that nobody knows how to act. The good think is that it’s only one hour and a half long. The best part is *SPOILER* the face the girl makes when she dies. That’s just priceless. The rest is the rest and I don’t recommend it, but in case you’re doing nothing and want to watch something, you’re not going to die because of it.

El Maquinista is a very good movie, that, unfortunatly, has Christian Bale. Man, I just hate the way he speaks. But the movie is very well constructed, with lovely photography and atmosphere and reserves a very good plot twist for the end. Like, it didn’t make my head explode, but it was pretty good. I don’t actually remember how I felt about it the first time I watched it, but I am sure it was way more surprised than this one. I just didn’t remember what the movie was about anymore and managed to remember the whole thing half way through, which is not good, especially when you want to see the whole thing. Pff. But, if you haven’t watched it already, please do so.

My sister watched this movie the other day and I definitely want to watch it. Now I’ll just have to wait until it opens in Brazil or until I can find it online. Looks pretty interesting, and, better yet, it involves Tchekov. Ha. Lovely.

I really do hope this movie does not ruin my childhood memories. I’ll not go into what I think about remakes, but people must respect the memory of others. Come on, I used to watch this movie every time it was on TV. I remember the noises the metal owl makes, I remember everything. Oh, please, god. Please don’t make the remake ruin everything I still feel for Clash of the Titans. Pretty please?

Last, but not least, I confess that I still have hope for Legion, after all, I’m a sucker for movies involving angels. Especially when they want to destroy the Earth. But then again, The Prophecy I, II and III were alright (of course, they had Christopher Walken, ha!), while IV and V were really terrible. Reeeeeeeeally terrible. And then there was Gabriel, that was kinda nice and kinda sucked, but I actually think it sucked more than it was nice, because I just can’t remember any of it, i.e., except for some bits and pieces that are scattered in my brain. Some scenes, nothing more than that.

I was going to write more, but, instead, I’ll watch the second episode of Paradox (please see comment above). Ta-da for now. Thursday will arrive with letters and personal posts, not this movie crap.

Oh… and the perspective of having two weeks off… hmmm… makes my toes curl. XD

Things I watched last week... (like, two months ago...)

This post started to be written more than a month ago. Only now is that I had time to finish writing it, so, sorry for the scatterbrainedness.

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For lack of time and things to say, here are more movies I watched during the last few days. I have a ton more and soon they will be here, unless, of course, there is something more interesting to talk about.

On a brief note, I'm quite happy, because most cats that were awaiting adoption here at home have already been adopted. Now there are only three left.

The Portal -- I have just discovered that this is such an underground movie that there is no trailer available on the internet. Oh well. But the movie is interesting -- if you keep in mind the low budget and all. Two guys are on their way to a gig and their car breaks down. They find a motel and suddenly strange things start happening. It has all the black magic thing going on, but it's a different take on it. Given that I haven't been able to find good movies to watch nowadays, I've been watching every single one I come across with an open mind. And this one is pretty watchable. I've watched worst ones.

There are days in which I browse torrent sites aimlessly, like searching for the most recent releases. On one of those days I came across Hit and Run. Hmm... It's basically the same premise: girl is drunk, gets out of party, drives, hits something, thinks it was nothing and then she gets her ass kicked by something from beyond, or by a living dead thing, by a guy without legs, or by a half-ground animal of some sort. Hmmm... So, thinking about this, I watched it, enjoyed it a little and totally forgot about the end. I remember her in the body shop all covered in blood and after that... it's a blur. But then again, I guess I watched this like... a month or two ago. And some horror movies just don't stick to my memory.

Someone recommended this movie and I decided to give it a try. The Hills Run Red is a nice movie because you just can't see it coming. You don't know where the story is going, you think it's going to be another Blair Witch Project and suddenly, it is and it's not. And the end was good, because it was not the typical Hollywood ending. All in all, very watchable. See, I said. Nowadays I have been so disappointed in movies that things I would say were great in the past now are just "watchable". Ha. Alessandra, the top-notch movie critic. Pff.

And now my dear zombies.

Zombies, Zombies, Zombies is DEFINITELY one of the worst movies I have ever seen. And, think about it, in terms of zombie, I can say I've watched a lot of stuff. This movie actually landed on my computer due to my idle hands. You know what happens to people with Idle Hands, don't you? (And, as far as I remember, it was kinda good... I guess I wasn't as disappointed as I have been nowadays back then...). So, here I was, doing nothing when I had the wonderful idea of downloading most everything I could find with the word ZOMBIE in the title. The reason why I hate this movie is that it's a worsened version of Zombie Strippers, which is funny and brings people like Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund. Pff. A rip off and it's not even worth your time, to tell you the truth. Compare the trailers. Actually, I don't know which came out first, but I can affirm that the second one is far superior.

Skeleton Crew is a Finnish movie that supports itself on the same premise: there is something supernatural going on and it will affect everyone in the place. However, I thought it was very different and even appealing at times. I mean, it’s the same premise, someone goes crazy and people start dying, but I thought the location and the visual of the movie were alright. Pretty watchable, however not astounding.

The Echo is an interesting movie. It also has all the ghost thing going on, but I thought it was pretty watchable, too.

Only now have I discovered that it is a remake of Sigaw, same story and same director (!), so I’ve been thinking about giving it a try.

The comments on the last two movies are really lame because I can’t really remember them anymore. Pff. Sorry about that. I had completely forgotten about this post and now that I’ve returned to it, pff, no memory whatsoever of the movies I had watched.

Zombie Walk 2009

I will definitely not have time to translate all the captions I used for my posting in Portuguese. However, I'll leave the pictures, they speak for themselves.

Awesome Zombie Walk. More than a thousand zombies roaming downtown. And I even had to explain to some passers by what the fuck we were doing. Lotsa fun. It's definitely good to meet friends wearing zombie garb. XD And I find the fact that the Brazilian Zombie Walk takes place on Memorial Day to be extremely funny. XD That's definitely poetic justice.

Hmm... I think I need to go on a diet. I look like a fucking fat zombie. Pff. Oh, humanity. hahahaha...

On books, again…

Oh, I just can’t help it. Today I went out searching for Absolute Sandman vol. 2 because I realized it was out of print and unavailable through Amazon. Luckily enough, I remembered that one of the bookstores near my house had it. And there it was. Now the other three volumes are on the way. Yay, I’m a happy camper.

Now, as soon as they arrive, I’ll put them on my shelf and I’ll use these to hold them: Sandman book ends, because when it comes to Sandman, I’m a maniac. I have from watches, to t-shirts to everything else limited imaginable.

Went to the comic book fair/fest/whatever and bought Fell, vol. 1 -- Feral City and thought it was pretty good. Not Vertigoish, but good anyway.

Why don’t they have like… a collected Hellblazer thingie? But, anyway, if anyone wants to get me all of them as a gift, I would gladly accept. Ha. pff. So pathetic.

But, John Constantine = god. And I have all issues in my computer, but it’s not the same as having the comic books themselves. I think I have a fetish for paper.

Waiting for Zombieland to finish downloading.

 

Ta-da.

Almost a tweet...

Just to say that I'm terribly happy and that the weekend couldn't have been better. Went to a comic book fest and bought some comics and got two Moleskines and another notebook as presents from friends that went abroad. Yay for me. :)

Don't have time or patience to talk to people. Don't have time or patience to write. Don't have anything. Now it's daylight savings time and I'm still kinda jet lagged, if such expression can be used in this context.

Ta-da. More on Friday.

Movies of the week...

Well, I've been watching a lot of movies, as you can see. Ha.

Orphan -- Esther is a very cute girl, waiting for adoption. Couple arrives, falls in love with kid, takes kid home and all hell breaks lose. For me, it reminded me a lot of The Good Son, with Macaulay Culkin. In a way or another, it's a reasonable movie, to be watched on a Sunday afternoon, like I did today.

I hadn't seen a good horror movie in a long time. So, have fun with Drag me to Hell. Sam Raimi kicks some serious ass and when you think the movie is over, it's not.

Grace is the typical run-of-the-mill movie that could have been so much better, you know? It starts off with an interesting plot, which includes a zombie/vampire baby. Ok, I'm all for the undead. But then again, it loses itself and the acting is terrible. I mean, the baby is the best actor in the movie. Ha. Imagine this baby, years from now, saying to his/her husband/wife: "Yeah, my mom wanted me to be an actor(ress) and so she started taking me to all castings available nearby our old house. The first role I got, when I was seven months old, was of a zombie". Ha! Wish it had been my baby. XD

I Sell the Dead is a funny movie -- can't really comment on how nice it is, because I haven't finished watching it. Actually I have been making me watch shitty stuff before I actually finish this one -- and don't ask me why. So far it was nice, funny and well developed. And it has everything a movie needs to be good: Merry and Hellboy. And I looooooooooooooooove Hellboy.

There are other movies on queue. I'll post about them whenever I finish watching them. Ta-da.

On everything that’s been happening nowadays…

Oh, the joys of having kitties in my house. And the good thing about offering a temporary home for cats is that you can have a lot of variety and you don’t necessarily have to keep them – unless you grow really attached to them, just like what happened with some of the cats that are mine nowadays. My mother told me that there was a girl near my house giving away some kitties and I brought them all home. Two white kitties and one that is almost like the zombie kitteh in the picture. They are really young, like, almost 45 days old. Now I’ll have to bathe, medicate and feed them, but – oh, the joys of having kitties in my house! Yay! I also have another three that are awaiting adoption. One is black and white, the other is black and the other is tabby kinda yellowish, but he was really abused, lost an eye and the other is really bad. Let’s see how it goes.

Tonight, fortunately, I’ll meet my friends for drinks and I’ll be able to unwind a bit.

I’m reading Avalovara again. And I cannot describe what this book does to me.

I’m almost done with the arrangements related to the trip I’m taking to Europe, which is wonderful. I cannot wait until I’m on the plane. I need some free time – urgently.

House S06E01-02 was amazing.

Now I’m going to study. Ta-da.

What do you hide? What is it that you don’t want me to see? Are you afraid of the mysteries you keep inside yourself or of your lack of substance? I try and try to look at you and to see something beyond what I see from afar. What is it? I’ve tried – and I’ll keep on trying – to make you material, to make you less… air and shadows. But there is something that lurks in the corners and never allows me to see the real you. Only what I picture you to be. And, in a hidden corner of my mind, I still dread the fact that I’ll wait for you and you will never appear. That I’ll sit on the bed, on the chairs, on the sofa, that I’ll walk around this anticipated flat and I’ll never find you.

I left you once, but so did you. Will I ever find you again?

Do I really want to?

On common things…

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A woman normally knows she has left puberty once she becomes addicted to shoes. It is definitely some sort of rite of passage, some weird blooming of hormones or of whatever you may call it. As far as I remember, I am pretty sure that I was not affected by it until I started living in the US, and, back then, I think I was already twenty-something, let’s say that adolescence was supposed to have ended before. So, one day I just started buying shoes like crazy, then I started understanding what women talk about oh so often. And this addiction left me with tons of pairs of shoes that are left stacked in my closet and that I will probably never get to wear. I have all kinds of shoes, even fetish shoes, those with really, really, really high heels, which will not allow you to stand for more than two seconds. Then I have pink silk stilettos, tons of black mary janes, d’orsay pumps, you name it, I have it. And they are really fun to look at, but, at the same time, unwearable due to my profession. Let’s say that when you’re a private teacher and have to walk a lot during the day – commuting to classes – that you just want to wear what is comfortable, i.e., sneakers.

That said, let’s say that sneakers have probably been the only type of shoes I’ve purchased ever since I’ve come back to Brazil. No, I mean, I know I’ve bought some others, but not as many and as often as I used to do in the US. Back then the addiction was uncontrollable and irresistible. I guess that now my addiction has shifted towards books once more. I say once more because before I started buying tons of shoes, I used to buy books. And lots of them. I think that almost half the books I have were purchased while I lived in the US. And now that I’ve decided to drop out of college for a year, I’ve realized that I’ll have time enough to start reading like a maniac once more.

Yesterday I went to the mall and just went crazy. Well, last month I had already purchased a lot of books, just because I wanted to. I was still studying, teaching and translating, but somehow I had managed to always keep a book in my backpack, so that I could read while I was on the bus or on the subway. Now that I’m going to start spending more time at home, I’ll surely have time to stop neglecting a lot of titles I have here and that have been waiting in line for a while. Before the shopping spree at the mall, I had already bought six books on Amazon, three for me and three for Mr. Someone. There are the ones I’m going to receive next week (hopefully):

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: I’ve been meaning to buy this book for a while. I will read/watch anything that has to do with zombies, so I just had to know how Mr. Darcy would deal with the undead. And, speaking of which, I have never seen so many copies of Pride and Prejudice together. Yesterday I went to the bookstore and there were so many different covers and in such a number that I was amazed. It was almost as if I had been surrounded by the Jane Austen curse.
• The Sound and the Fury: well, one of my best friends tells me it is really hard to read, especially due to the shifting and to the various narrators. Let’s see how it goes. I don’t plan on reading it any time soon, anyway.
• A Little Larger than the Entire Universe: just because I had to read Fernando Pessoa in English to know how it translates.

And, yeah. I started writing this post a long, long time ago. Probably around the 20-somethingth of August. Now it’s mid-September. Anyway, that does not change the fact that I bought new books and that I still have to read them. Another fifteen from the day in which I started writing this. Thinking it over, I thought I would have more time available to – just do stuff, you know? But this week I’ve realized that I don’t and that I won’t. What I know is that I need to find a way to organize my schedule so that can have more time to do nothing, absolutely nothing. Or maybe write, or read or watch a movie every now and then. What I can say is that this week was exhausting and that I’m on the verge of going mad or of dropping off dead somewhere, out of the blue, due to system malfunction.

I need to talk about the book club and the other things, about my trip that approaches – thankfully, VACATION!!!!!

But for now I’ll just list what I’ve bought during the last few weeks:

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being: I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long time. I have the movie and actually have never watched it. Anyway. Let’s see how long it’s going to take me.
• Dom Casmurro: I’ve already read this book tons of times in Portuguese. But, given that Machado de Assis is a hell of a writer, I wanted to see how it is in English. And also because I  have some subtitling to do and all lines are from this book. Saving myself some work.
• The Great Gatsby: I’ve already read Tender is the Night and thought it was rather enjoyable. The kind of book I need for when I am about to read something that is going to demand a lot of intellectual effort from my brain. Just to unclog the synapses.
• Neverwhere: I bought the Portuguese version a while back, started reading it and thought it was very bad and boring. Therefore, I decided that maybe the English text would be better. Let’s see how it’s going to be.
• Smoke and Mirrors: I love Neil Gaiman, so I have compulsively been buying all his works.
• M is for Magic: please see the comment above.
• Plexus: I used to like Henry way more in the past. Nowadays I guess my taste in reading has changed a bit. However, in a way or another, I just can’t dismiss him just like that. I have this book in Portuguese, in a very nice hardcover edition and all, but I wanted it in English. Go figure.
• Nexus: please see comment above.
• Naked Lunch: started reading it one or two days after I bought it. Then I remembered why I never finished reading The Western Lands. I think it’s a bit too scatterbrained for my taste. And, of course, there is the language barrier. I have to stop every few seconds to discover what the fuck those slangs mean. Pff. I have never felt so stupid in my life. At the same time that I ponder going back to the store and exchanging it for something else, I think it’s a challenge. I just don’t know if I’ll have enough patience. I’ll tell you that.
• To Kill a Mockingbird: don’t know why I bought it, but I did. There is some lost piece of information in my head that tells me I should definitely read this book.
• Avalovara: the most beautiful book in the universe. I’ve owned a copy, which I gave to my sister. I bought one for a friend and another for another dear friend and ended up with none. I have two copies of the translation here, but it’s not the same thing. Since my sister started reading it and actually liked it, I decided to buy it again so what we would read it together and comment. That’s that. I’m on page 120-something.
• Of Human Bondage: I read this book for the first time maybe twenty years ago, when I was still in college. I had these fantastic classes on Sociology and I just went crazy with the things the professor was teaching us. Suddenly I felt like I needed to hear Phillip’s words once more.
• Moby Dick: it’s a classic, it was really cheap and I had never really read it. So I thought, why not?
• Slaughterhouse-five: I was going to order it from Amazon, then decided it was going to get too expensive. Came across it on the bookstore and decided to buy it.
• Crazy Cock: I’ve already read this book in Portuguese, but I had to read it again in English, just to know. However much my feelings regarding Miller’s writings have changed, I just can’t really let it go.
• Black Spring: please see comment above.
• On the Road: I’ve read this book before, a long time ago, when I fell in love with someone I met on the internet. Way back then. I bought it, read it and made comments on the margins and sent to him. My sister has this book with her and we’re going to read it together. I’m not much of a Kerouac fan, but I kind of enjoyed it.
• Letters to a Young Poet: everybody has already told me so much about Rilke. It was time to give it a try and it was very nice, short and sharp.
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter: I bought and read it in Portuguese and thought it was very bad. I realized that the translation was in fact very bad – some things didn’t make sense and others I could understand because I speak English. I’ll buy the original to see if it’s better, but I definitely think that this is a clear case in which the TV series is much better. Much much better. The Ice Truck Killer was the man, I’ll tell you that. In the book… He’s just… nameless and faceless. Pff.
• Hopscotch: bought it in Portuguese, of course. I’ll only buy something that has been written in Spanish in either Spanish or Portuguese. Of course, I can buy it in English in case it hasn’t been published here or for morbid curiosity. Spanish and Portuguese are similar in many ways, so I think the translations flow better. It’s a very crazy book, by a very good writer. That’s all I can say. Another book I’m going to read with my sister.
• Sleepwalking Land: lovely book. Mia Couto is a wonderful writer.

I’m tired. There are more books that I’ve bought, but I feel too damn lazy to list them all. Right now I realize that I went totally crazy when I bought so many books. Pff.

Ta-da.