This and that and the other thing...

1. Bitter cold today, and no homeless people on the subway (well outside of the creepy guy trying to get subway passengers to give him a sip of their coffee, which was just odd) or more importantly on the streets. I was relieved that they were off the streets...hopefully someplace nice and warm.

I'm beginning to think that I should carry extra cash and whenever I see a homeless person at lunch, I should go to a fast-food restaurant and buy them a meal. (Except it is hard for me to do that for a couple of reasons 1)I hate fast-food restaurants, 2)I think the food in fast-food restaurants is disgusting and will kill you, 3) does this really help them or is it just another stop-gap measure?)

2. This weeks Grey's Anatomy entitled, fittingly, "The Silence", was a work of art. Best thing I've seen on television in months. And perhaps the best episode I'd seen of Grey's in a long time. It blew me away.

( spoilers )

I'm a sucker for medical serials and procedurals. Probably because I don't know a thing about medicine, hospitals, or working in them. So it fascinates me. Criminal and legal procedurals (with the exception of The Good Wife) on the other hand annoy me and I can't watch them -- because I dabbled in criminal law and know that they are completely unrealistic. I'm guessing if I was a doctor or a nurse, I wouldn't be able to watch medical shows.

3. Batman vs. Superman Movie --- is it wrong that I'm rooting for Superman, and find Bruce Wayne, aka Ben Affleck more attractive than Henry Caville? I'm probably the only person on the planet who does. Also shipping Wonder Woman and Bruce Wayne/Batman hard. (I admit it, I'm a Wonder Woman/Batman shipper. Personally, I prefer Superman with Lois Lane.) Also in the trailer, Affleck and Gail Gadat have chemistry to spare.

Henry Cavill doesn't do a lot for me as an actor. I'm the only person I know on the planet who isn't turned on by him (and is attracted to men). Of course I admittedly go for the tall lean musceled types. Affleck is taller than Cavill by the way. And unlike a lot of folks, I actually like Affleck as an actor. He was very good in the movie about Iran, which took place in the 70s, and the name I can't for the life of me remember. He also directed it. (I don't like his wife or ex-wife, forgotten which, Jennifer Garner, she annoys me - which was my difficulty with Alias. Could not abide the actress. Have the same problem with Madame Secretary - I can't abide Tea Leonie, again amongst the few people on the planet who feel this way, the only others that I know of are my mother and brother, so maybe it's genetic?)

4. Deadpool Movie -- I may rent this, not sure I watch it on the big screen. But it sounds hilarious - it's a move that makes fun of superheroes and superheroe movies. Of course Deadpool also made fun of superhero comics, when it was a comic. It's a Marvel character, enough said.
Marvel has a tendency to comment on itself, and superheroes in general. More so than DC.

And yes, I have a weakness for superheroes...although it is dwindling, I'm starting to burn out on them. Along with comic book movies. Gee, wonder why? Not like there aren't a lot of them or anything?
I mean we really do need more superhero flicks and tv shows, there's a relative shortage. (I need a sarcasm icon.)

5. Book Reviewing You know the problem with writing a scathing review of a book that you despise on social media? You can never forget that you wrote said review. Because every once and awhile you'll get a notification that people liked it. Or a comment on it.

A while back, I wrote a scathing review of a silly chick-lit best seller entitled Me Before You by Jo Jo Moyes. Which is, for reasons I don't want to think about, the beloved darling of many a lady on Good Reads. Not many men though...

Lately, I've gotten several notices that people love my review. I re-read said review, it's detailed.
And actually not that nasty, just bewildered that anyone in their right mind could like the book. Did they read the same one? Are they on something? If the latter, where can I get that? Can't they see how ludicrous the premise is?

The truth of the matter is - we don't read the same book. Ever. Even if we re-read it, it's not the same one we read before. Why? We bring our own baggage to the book. As we change, our interpretation of the book changes. And no one sees a book exactly the same. But you can occasionally come really close to seeing it the same. When that happens...it's magic and hence the likes and comments. And, as someone on Amazon tried to point out to me in a comment, the main character of the book who instantly turned me off, is a character a lot of women relate to -- which is true of Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert as well, another book I can't read without going into rant mode. Which is most likely true. If you hate the protagonist of a book or the character turns you off - you and the book are going to be un-mixy things. It's not necessary to like the character...but strong guttural dislike can ruin the story, particularly if they are the main character and you are in their point of view. It's why I couldn't read Eat, Pray, Love and barely made it through Atonement. I hated the main point of view character. Which in all three cases was the deal-breaker.

As an aside, I'm not sure writers read their work the same after they wrote it. What they thought as they were writing the work, changes each time they edit it. I know it does for me. I'll re-read something -- and think, what the heck was I thinking??? This has resulted in deleted posts. And re-edits. I can never remember what I was thinking. Which is why I try not to re-read what I wrote in the past -- it can be headache inducing, particularly if you are at all critical of yourself and what you write (which I am, aren't most of us?) That's actually why most published writers don't re-read their own work after its been published. Sort of out of their hands by this point. Best to forget about it and move on, unless of course you are writing a series of novels and you have to keep track of what happened when -- then you are basically stuck and have to re-read what you wrote. Or at the very least keep a detailed outline - which does the same thing. You can sort of tell the lazy bums who don't do this. Like I said, headache inducing. But in a way it's also educational -- because you are basically seeing your thoughts frozen in that moment in time. That's what you thought on Friday at midnight on February 12, 2016. It's a funky snapshot of your thoughts. Even if you may think they were insane years after the fact.

Re-reading said review also made me want to edit the hell out of it. Too many typos. I don't edit my work after I write it - I do it during. And often miss stuff. Biggest problem is leaving out words -- my brain moves faster than my fingers, I think. So the fingers don't get the word down before the brain has leapt forward. Typos irritate me. And embarrass me. I don't know why. It's not like other people make typos. Even computers make typos.

Film Review of The Danish Girl and Whoa...Justice Scalia died!

1. WHOA.... Justice Antonin Scalia died at 79 -- to put this in context, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is 82. By the way, they were very close Friends. Poltics doesn't define friendships.

But this is huge. And before Obama leaves office, long before he leaves office. This could change the nature of the Supreme Court. Scalia was one of Ronald Regan's appointees.


2. Just finished watching The Danish Girl - the film based on the book, which in turn was based on the real diaries of Lili Elbe, entitled Man Turned into a Woman. Is it close to the book/real story of Ms. Elbe? According to this article it is. And apparently they went out of their way, to do the story the justice it deserved...as it was written. As seen HERE.

The movie is a beautifully filmed tragic love story, reminds me a lot of the film Carol actually in how it was filmed. The acting was superb, and yes, Eddie Redmayne is pretty in the role of Edward/Lilli and the actress playing his wife, Gerda, quite good. But much like Carol --- I found it difficult to watch in places, difficult to care about the characters, and, ultimately? I did not like the all film. In both cases -- I felt as if the filmmaker showed me the surface, but never dug deep. I also felt, and this is an odd thing to state, but that I was looking through the heterosexual male gaze throughout both films..it was almost as if we were seeing how heterosexual men view women. Or rather romanticize women. How they think women act, react, and deal with each other and men. And more importantly how someone who is treated as a man but identifies as a woman would act. So, as a result, the film felt flat to me --- like looking at a painting by Degas. A pretty painting, but something missing. It's interesting, I didn't figure out that this was my difficulty with Carol until after I saw The Danish Girl - because the two films feel very similar to me in tone, both also look like paintings on the screen.

There's a scene in The Danish Girl that is a perfect example of this -- Edward/Lilli goes to a peep show to watch a woman performing for men, he copies her movements. Movements she does for the male gaze. I remember thinking during this bit - that there is no way a woman would do this, woman don't do that with their bodies unless they are trying to turn on a man for money at his request.
Men tell them to do it. And in fact that's what the woman in the peep show is doing. So why would someone who is transgender go to a peep show and copy movements meant for a heterosexual male gaze?
It felt off.

Carol equally has bits with cameras, where we feel as if the male gaze is evident in the film.

These are two films about female relationships and female characters. The male characters really aren't that prevalent in either. Yet the directors shoot both as if we are looking at the characters through a male perspective. It felt off to me and jarring, in both cases.

Interestingly enough, I didn't realize that was my problem with the film Carol until I saw the Danish Girl. They both have the same problem, the male trying to understand what it is to be a lesbian or for that matter, a man who wants to become a woman. Which by the way is NOT the case with transgender or was even the case with Lilli. As said in the writing...the writing states that clearly, it's the direction that states otherwise. In both cases, hence the feeling of being jarred by the story -- as if the something is off.

Now, it is hard to tell a transgender story, because you can't generalize about transgender. It's not simple. Or clear cut. I've known a wide-range, and everyone is different. But, most transgender are basically individuals who somehow or other feel out of sync with their body. There was a rather good French film on the topic made years ago...entitled Ma Vie En Rose - or My Life in Pink, which is about a child whose family and community views as a boy, but who communicates as being a girl. It too does adopt some female stereotypical fetishes, but not to quite the same extent. Also, it does a good job of commenting on society's intolerance on transgender. In that film, there's a child who is treated as a girl but identifies as a boy. Another film about Transgender that I haven't seen but been told is rather good is Boys Don't Cry - which is the true story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man (an individual who identified as man but everyone saw as female..and became a man) - who is beaten to death.

It's hard for cisgender (those of us who aren't transgender and were lucky enough to be born into a body that reflects our gender identification/personality) to wrap our minds around someone who isn't.
It took me a while. But if you can think of it this way -- we are beings of light energy or spirit, with organic bodies. The body and spirit intertwine as one..if the two don't match, it's discordant, sort of like wearing shoes that don't fit. A more medical/scientific explanation is the wrong hormones...or a hormonal imbalance...but I think the other explanation works better. Science doesn't explain everything -- it's limited, too much reliance on concrete scientific explanations leads to horrible results. You have to be open to the fact that there are just some things that exist outside our ability to understand or explain.

At any rate -- I think the filmmakers tried to do the story justice, but it doesn't work. You can tell that they just can't wrap their minds around Lilli Elbe's character and we never really get her story, instead we get a weird male romanticized and justified view of Lilli and Gerda, that doesn't quite play. Or at least it did not work for this view. Your mileage may vary. (My friend who lent me the film liked it a lot better than I did, she also liked Carol better than I did.)

At any rate, I wouldn't have nominated the film for any awards. Maybe the acting. The acting is rather good. Still thought Steve Jobs was a better film.

3. This is odd, my sink appears to be farting or rather the floor is farting. Not sure what to make of it.

4. I may take a sabbatical from Face Book until the election is over...which is ironic, considering I went on Facebook in 2008 in order to get information on the election. People are just ranting. It's getting annoying. LJ is so much easier to deal with, instead of crazy ranty Americans, we have sane, bewildered, and somewhat amused if a wee bit terrified Europeans - watching the American Election much the way I'd watch a horror flick, with one hand over my eyes, trying not to wince, but unable to look away from the ensuing train wreck.