Movie Review (with extra parentheses)!

So my Ferret and I were browsing the secondhand stores for movies (since The Fantastic Mr. Fox isn't out in our town yet), and we found a Stan Lee cartoon in the Anime section called Mosaic. I don't expect much out of Stan, but this was... ugh. Ferret perhaps has lower expectations than mine, because she liked it.

It's about a girl who wants to be an actress (of course) who lives with her obsessive Interpol agent dad (of course) in a New York townhouse (of course). She's blond (of course) and cute and perky (of course) and likes to inexplicably dance around in her skimpy pajamas before bed (of course) and gets her powers in a freak accident (this is Stan Lee, so of course).

I'ma make like the Count from Sesame Street here: "Seven! Seven trite tropes! Ah-ah-ah!" And that's just so far.

I won't even go into the inherent sexism, truly awful dialogue (maybe it works better on a comic book page), made-for-tv animation, and 1-dimensional characters.

Hell, I won't touch the 'heroine foils would-be rapists' scene that all superheroine movies apparently must include by law.

Ferret pointed out that I had chosen the movie in the first place. I replied that the basic premise- chameleon girl kicks ass- was kinda cool, but to win my praise requires at least some originality and technique. They put more effort into the box design than the damn movie.

I mean, good start. Girl superhero, great. So... couldn't they make her plain, an aspiring doctor, or at least brunette? Could they give Storm some company and make her a POC? Could they at least make the animation and voice work good enough (Fail, Anna Paquin) to make her a good actress? Painful. And hearing Stan yammer on about how girls can relate to this girl- cause she's pretty and fun!- made me less disposed to be impressed by it from the beginning. Having a vagina does not automatically mean you relate. You could have given her some kind of depth.

Afterward, we watched Aeon Flux. It may make an apt comparison to say that I found it to be intelligent, subversive, refreshing movie-manna for my cerebellum after the previous brain-numbing animated excretion.

So, uh, listen Stan. Dude, you're not even trying. Please to retire with your pile of money and just go sign autographs at ComicCons from now on, okay?

Please?

And Stay Out!

So I am feeling cranky today. Having had a week of period-induced mood swings and being banned from the computer after I read the news on Shakesville and broke down sobbing, I was looking forward to some Halloween fun. And there was some fun- I got to tie-dye my underwear, and be a really cute Velma! (These two facts really aren't related.)

Ferret and I were looking forward to going to the Halloween party at Local Gay Bar, checking out costumes, having a drink, and watching the drag show. One of the performers is a friend of ours, and we always like seeing her work. Unfortunately, it turned out to be not so fun. It was so crowded the Fire Marshal would have fainted, and so full of cigarette smoke our eyes started to water as soon as we stepped in. But we were determined to have a good time. There were some great costumes, good performance, plus we paid the cover charge, dammit! I was hoping to stick it out to see the costume contest, but we finally gave up and headed out. As we fought our way out, we heard the emcee say, "How many lesbians we got up in here?" [cheer] "Now how many gay boys?" [cheer] "And where are the straight people?" [really loud cheer].

Yup. The straight people outnumbered the queers in the one gay bar in town. And maybe it's my hormones, but that really bugged me. I try, I really do, to be inclusive. And I want everyone to get along. And I feel kind of... mean saying this, but:

Dear Straight People: EVERY OTHER BAR IN TOWN is for you. But hey, thanks a bunch for crowding me and my partner out of the one club we feel comfortable in because you want a cheap thrill on Halloween. Hey, you know what? The drag performers don't just do this on Halloween. They do it all the time. It's their thing. You can come see it even when you aren't in a costume. You can come see it even if you're sober. Yeah. But you'd know that, if you weren't all jerks. By the way, fuck you.

See? That's mean, right? But it's how I feel. There're never that many straight people there on a regular night, and there definitely isn't that level of binge-drunk stupidity.

Maybe if it hadn't been so crowded as to be the opposite of fun I wouldn't be bitching so much. Maybe. Maybe if there was that kind of crowd, with that percentage of non-queers, all the time, it would be different. Maybe I wouldn't feel like my community was made into a tourist attraction for one night. Maybe I wouldn't feel like my space had been taken over and appropriated. Maybe if there was more of a visible gay community, I wouldn't feel like this place is really all we have. Maybe if, I reiterate, every other bar in town wasn't a "regular" (meaning "for straight people" bar), this wouldn't be a big deal for me. Maybe.

Great. I feel angry, and I feel like an exclusionary bigot at the same time.

Oh well, next weekend it'll be back to normal.

Happy Halloween.

(By the way, if I go into the grocery store tonight and hear a bunch of cross-wearing preppies talking excitedly about their "Sam-hane night ritual", you'll see me on the news. I'll be the one in handcuffs.)

I really have no patience with anyone, do I?

Like A Bad Horror Movie

So, we have ladybugs! Did you know that they swarm? Did you know that one ladybug is significantly less intimidating than fifty? Now you know! And now I am sleeping in the living room! Yeah, as a Wiccan, I revere nature. I even like nature. But we get along better if nature stays outside. I feel like I am in a low-budget horror movie, called something like "The 5th Plague".

So I thought I would analyze the song "Dizz Knee Land" by Dada, because I love that song. And because I need something to keep me from FREAKING OUT.

It's catchy, harmonic pop and the lyrics feature the male lead singing about all the random things that he's done or had happen to him, and then he says, "now I'm going to Disneyland".

"I just robbed a grocery store, /now I'm going to Disneyland

I just flipped off President George /I'm going to Disneyland!"

The song is about the fact that no one ever really knows how their day is going to go, or what they're really going to do next. We think we've got everything planned, and the next thing you know, you're drunk and cuffed in the back of a cop car outside a liquor store in Pasadena because you randomly fired a gun you don't even own. None of us ever really know the answer to the phrase "So, what are you going to do now?"

Me, I haven't got a fuckin' clue. I'm aiming for "Try not to wake up with insects up my nose", but you never know.

Hell, we might as well all go to Disneyland.

Tales of Child-Lemur Smartassery

When I was but a young Lemur, just rebelling against a world that didn't understand me, I decided not to say the pledge. Was forced to anyway, by locksteppin' teachers. So I came up with an alternative version. Hey, I said the pledge! You didn't say it had to be your pledge.

"I pledge allegiance to my ass;

and the united states of bullcrap.

And to the republic, of eggs and ham;

one nation, under Bob;

invisible, liver free, with jetpacks for all!"

If you have a rebellious child, you might teach hir this, as an example of civil disobedience. And then you might want to have a recording device ready so you can easily podcast the principal's reaction when zie calls you that same morning.

It's probably really hard to raise a socially conscious kid. Glad I can help!