I grew up different...

Will & Grace, Friends, Dharma & Greg, and Seinfeld, all of these shows are fantastic sitcoms each of which began its run at some point in the 1990's, and each of which detailed the everyday problems of different groups of friends and/or lovers, all of whom were adults. 

Growing up, apart from playing GameBoy and hating school, I spent the majority of my time watching all these shows, immersing myself into the lives of these inhabitants of TV Land. For a half an hour at a time I befriended and/or fell in love with all these wonderful characters even though I had no true understanding of the situations they found themselves being pulled into, but I wanted to, I wanted to understand so bad, so I did what I could, I started acting like an adult. I figured maybe if I hung around adults more if I payed more attention to their conversations, their reactions, their beliefs, that maybe I'd be able to understand what was going on better. All the exposure into the world of adults led to a change in me, in fact, it led to one of the two biggest changes that occurred in me over the years. 

By the time I was 12, I was beginning to understand life better, I was beginning to understand people better, I was going through a sort of intellectual puberty that wouldnt hit most people I knew for another six or seven years, an intellectual puberty that still hasn't arrived for some 20+ year olds I know today. It was strange because from that point on I started analyzing most people I met in order to better understand people as a whole, in order to, going back to the original story, better understand the problems of all the people I met in my favorite sitcoms.Unfortunately once I finally understood, I also came to understand that these new intellectual and analytical skills I had acquired, basically, for the sole purpose of understanding my favorite sitcoms, were complete and utter overkill, it hit me that these were just sitcoms, just a form of entertainment for those who wanted to escape to a place much like the place they were trying to escape from, except that the new place was a lot funnier. 

Basically what I'm saying is that the pseudo-intellectual, über-critical, cynical, apathetic, understanding, kind-of knowledgeable person I am today is partly due to the need to understand the antics of my "friends": Will, Grace, Jack, Karen, Ross, Joey, Chandler, Phoebe, Monica, Rachel, Dharma, Greag, Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine. Thank you all, though it may seem a bit too strong of a feeling for fictional characters, I love you all, dearly.

-JollyOldDro

The Twilight Movies are so bad they are now killing people...

Police are treating the death of a 23-year-old man at a Wellington cinema last night as unexplained but not suspicious.

The body of the man was found in a movie theatre at the Reading complex on Courtenay Place by a staff member shortly before 8.30pm last night, said police. The theatre had been screening The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

[Continue Reading]

___ Books in a Year Challenge

While I was surfing GoodReads the other day I saw people talking about something called the 50 Books in a Year challenge. I'm not really going to explain the challenge because it's pretty self explanatory but I say that I decided to participate, though I'm going to try for more than 50 books, considering I started two days ago and have already read two books, even though the are a bit on the short side, as I'm writing this I'm actually more than halfway through the third book. The first book I read was Phillip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which, to say the least, was fucking amazing, so I decided to just read, at least, a few more of Dick's stories. The second book I read was "Minority Report" which, although I loved the film, I thought was better than the film. Now I'm on my third book which I'll finish really soon, and I'm reading yet another Dick book, "Paycheck" which, just like "Minority Report", I'm enjoying more than the film. I think I'll read "A Scanner Darkly" next, and then, who knows?

-JollyOldDro

Pigalle SS 2011 Collection

PIGALLE MEN'S COLLECTION SHOW SS11 from Roucreation on Vimeo.

There are a few things I love about this show, the first being that the collection itself is fantastic. Other than the actual collection being great I love most aspects of how everything is presented in the show, specifically the music, the "runway". Both the music and the "runway" remind me of pictures I have seen, of Paris in the 1940's and 1950's, minus the Nazi paraphernalia of course. I think i like this even more after having seen "Les Vacances de M. Hulot" because, even though the film was set in a beach side area, the Pigalle show seems to portray the same time period, a time period which seems a bit more awesome than the present, stylistically speaking though, the 40's and '50s sucked quite a bit for black people.

-JollyOldDro

Harry Potter > Twilight (Rant)

I am a Harry Potter fan, and when I say that I don't just mean a fan of the movies I mean that, since the first book came out in 1998, I have committed myself to the entity that is Harry Potter. So when someone comes along and tries to compare themselves to one of the greatest book series' of all times, saying that it even compares I get a bit flustered. Needless to say I am speaking of the twilight series and its fans the "twi-hards", I just get really hurt and offended when a watered down teen girls' novel, and its subsequent "movies" tries to compare itself to the behemoth that is Harry Potter. So i just have two pieces of information, specific to the film side of both previously mentioned franchises, for people to mull over. First of all, the Harry Potter Film Series has made a combined $5.4 billion, the combined James Bond movies have only made $5 billion. Second of all, according to Rotten Tomatoes the the twilight and Harry Potter films rate as follows:


Harry Potter:

1. Sorcerer's Stone - %78
2. Chamber of Secrets - %82
3. Prisoner of Azkaban -%89
4. Goblet of Fire - %88
5. Order of The Phoenix - %77
6. Half-Blood Prince - %83

twilight:

1. twilight - %50
2. new Moon - %27
3. eclipse - %52

Just sayin'

-JollyOldDro

Tom Ford Fall 2010 Eyewear Collection

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more..."

"Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore..."

"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -

This it is, and nothing more,.."

"Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -

Darkness there, and nothing more..."

Excerpts from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe 

(because thats what these pictures made me think of)

-JollyOldDro

Star Wars V

Currently "Spike TV" is having a "Star Wars" marathon, which they often have, i can't help thinking back to when i was younger, back to when i had watched the original "Star Wars" movies the first few times, and I can't help but feel nostalgic. I'm feeling nostalgic because the  first three "Star Wars" movies, along with Toy Story and a few Abbot and Costello tapes, were among the first movies I ever remember watching. I remember sitting as a kid watching Luke Skywalker, one of the most epic people i knew of at the time, and his mismatched gang fight through hordes of Storm Troopers, making it through unscathed. I don't really have much to say about the films other than that they will always hold a special place in my heart, as they will in most everyones' heart, forever.

-JollyOldDro

A weird dream I had...

I am a knight-in-training at an unnamed, modern, knight training school. I am there on scholarship because though I have excelled in certain fields indicative of someone who was meant to become a great knight I was of lower class so my family could not afford to pay the school’s tuition. At the school I am looked down upon by everyone because of my low class, even though I can keep up with all of them during training and class. One kid in particular hates me especially because I am the son of his father’s servants. He gives me hell. One day while I am studying in an empty room he comes at me with his sword and tries to kill me, in avoiding his swing I leave my cellphone which he then destroys, I am stuck alone without a phone about to be killed. I jump out of the classrooms window, it is a second floor window and I am conveniently saved because I fall straight into the hedges below the windows. I run towards my dorm but get lost in the Jousting training fields, I see the teacher and ask her where the Gloucester House is. She tells me that I have to pass both the Lancaster house and the Worcester House and that I would recognize where was from there. I ran past the first house then past the second, and then saw the Gloucester house I ran in, slowed to a creep and slowly moved towards my room and opened my door, he wasn’t there. I grabbed my sword and walked around the Gloucester house looking for him, I heard his voice, he was outside on the lawn. I walked out door, crept up slowly behind him, put my sword to his neck, he flinched but dared not. He had been beaten. With my sword on his neck I yelled out “RAH, let it be known that I could’ve killed Harry and did not. He unfairly challenged me and could not finish the job, I have evened things out and will not finish the job” then I softly whispered in his ear “you’ve been beaten Harry” he fell to his knees. Later that day I was awarded Harry’s rank and was given all his armor and he received all of mine, apart from a switch of swords, I had been awarded all that was his as well as his honor, he was now an outcast. And then I woke up.


-JollyOldDro

Review: "Les Vacances de M. Hulot"

While reading about one of my favorite directors, Wes Anderson, I saw an article that said that he had been influenced by the cinematic style of Jacques Tati, specifically the films in which he portrays the blundering, pipe-toting “Monsieur Hulot”. Naturally, seeing that one of my cinematic heroes was influenced by the “M. Hulot” movies, I had to watch them, starting with the first one made, “Le Vacances de M. Hulot” (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday).

“Les Vacances de M. Hulot”, which is shot entirely in black and white, contains almost no spoken dialogue, most of the actual speaking that is heard is pretty much all in the background which adds an extra challenge because the film has to rely entirely on the acting to explain what is happening. The film starts out with various scenes in which many of the film’s characters are all taking various modes of transportation to reach the French town where they will all be spending their autumn vacation. The titular character, M. Hulot (Tati), is also seen in these initial scenes, driving through the French countryside in his jalopy and being driven off the road by people in faster, and newer cars, as well as experiencing car trouble. From the second I saw the initial “Hulot” scenes, before even meeting the character, or even seeing him, I got a feeling of how the entire movie would play out, and I got excited, because these scenes revealed to me that the film would be quite a playful one, and it was. 

Through the entire film we get a front seat to watch all the happenings at L’Hôtel de Plage and the surrounding areas of the beach side town of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, witnessing the hilarious interactions M. Hulot has with the people, in the town, as well as witnessing the interesting interactions the have with themselves. 

Apart from M. Hulot, who was played fantastically by Jacques Tati, another one of my favorite characters in this film is the wandering man, played by René Lacourt. I loved the character of the wandering man because he, unlike every other character in the film, witnesses almost everything that happens or is caused by M. Hulot, as opposed to just seeing the aftermath, which is all that the other characters were exposed to. Being the older and quiet man he is, the wandering man, as opposed to revealing to the other characters what is going on, says nothing and just finds entertainment in watching the situations that M. Hulot gets himself into.

As can be deduced from my previous statements I liked this film, it would even be safe to say that I loved it. It is a fantastic and whimsical tale of a funny man, in a more classic sense, and his daily life. Any person who is a fan of Mr. Bean would absolutely love this this film, because the Mr. Bean films were inspired by those of M. Hulot. Anyone that is a fan of a more classic and physical type of comedy reminiscent of the styles of Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, or even Abbot & Costello would also love this movie.

-@JollyOldDro