Closing 2013: Resolutions Edition

Why good evening,

I'm back from a week at where-I-grew-up home and am most of the way through a very-needed holiday break.

A few days ago I had the immense pleasure of watching "Kundun" (1997) with my mom and stepdad.  The movie tells the story of the current Dalai Lama's childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, concluding with his departure-under-duress from Tibet to India.

There's a scene early in the movie in which the young Kundun is told by a teacher that it is his responsibility to love all living things, every day.  In the midst of a compelling, riveting, and inspiring story, this small moment burned very bright.  What a simultaneously simple and overwhelming task!  What an amazing imperative for all human beings!

I started to think about how I might keep myself in better, more consistent touch with that imperative for the rest of my life, starting with the new year.  Especially as I prepare to get married in 2014, I've been thinking a lot about how I want to greet that milestone.  That is partly because I know taking that step takes me closer to other even more exciting and life-altering milestones (translation: BABIES!!).  

With such beautiful things drawing ever closer, I want to consciously prepare myself to be the best possible person I can be so that I'm in the strongest position to meet their challenges and embrace their joys.  Anticipating these changes has been an opportunity to reflect on the kind of person I want to be and plan for how to more fully become her.

All of this thinking informs many of my resolutions for the coming year.  Before I get to that, though, it seemed like it would be informative to look back on how I did with last year's resolutions.

1. Increase meditative practice.

I was hoping not only to continue meditating, but to increase the length of my meditation sessions and deepen my practice with Buddhist readings and maybe going to community meetings.

Heh.

So: Happily, I have continued my habit of meditating almost every morning.  I have occasionally been able to sit for longer periods, but that is very relatively speaking.  I have done basically zero readings and I have not gone to any sangha meetings.  So I didn't do so hot on this one in 2013.

2. Take more pictures.

This is another mixed one.  I very happily had occasion this year to go on some spectacular trips and see many beautiful things, and during these times I was decent to pretty stellar in taking photographs.  However, I chose this resolution because I missed having photography as a more regular part of my life, instead of something I only indulged in under unusual, vacation-y circumstances.  For a relatively brief time at the beginning of 2013, I was pretty good at working on this resolution by launching my museum challenge in advance of learning of my internship match results.  However, after I matched, I let that habit fall very much by the wayside.

3. SERIOUSLY: Call people more.

In summary: Sigh.

4. Accept and embrace the remainder of the internship process.

It may have been in the eleventh hour, but I must say: I kind of rocked this one.  I continue to be very proud of wrestling my sense of well-being and peace back from the stupid internship process, although I still feel bad that I accidentally freaked my classmates out.

5. Watch SO MANY MOVIES.

Year-in-movies-in-review post pending, but I'm very pleased to report that I was quite successful with this resolution, too.

Okay so I win some and I lose some.  Even though I feel genuinely disappointed that I failed to make progress on my earlier goals, it's useful to be aware of that so I know I probably need to try a different strategy.

For my personal development-y resolutions, I have two somewhat interrelated goals.  The first, as discussed above, is to cultivate a more loving and accepting stance toward all living things, even the ones that fucking piss me off.

One possible drawback of my new access to a vehicle.

The second goal is to try to develop a more positive-focused outlook.  I established a late-midyear resolution targeting this goal in advance of starting internship, and let's be real: I have not done so hot with it.  

I would argue that's in part because this year has really outdone itself, even compared to previous very challenging training years.  But to look at things positively (see how I did that??), that means I am in an optimal position to practice focusing on the positive.  If everything were amazing, I would not have many opportunities to practice.  So hurray for punishingly hard years!!?

Hurrayyyyyyyyy.....

No but seriously.

With those two major goals in mind, here are my first few resolutions for 2014:

1. Start a daily journal of good things that happen.

This is maybe not the most elegant way to induce a positive outlook, but my theory is that by making a point to regularly find good things that happened in a day, even if that day was really terrible, I'll spend more time noticing and appreciating the things that go well and less time focusing on what did not.

2. When someone asks how I'm doing, I will find a positive thing to share with them.*

Because of the way in which I'm wired as a human, when someone asks how I am, I'm more quick to report on the things that don't feel good rather than the things that do.  The thing is, there are always both types of things happening in any given moment.  The things that hurt just often get more air time than the things that don't.  

The asterisk is in this one because there have been and will be days when I need to share the things that hurt because I need support, and when some people ask how I am, that's what they're offering.  However, I think it would be good for me to practice focusing on the things that are going well in the moment and not just by writing them down at the end of the day.  This will ideally have the added benefit of cheering up colleagues and others, and God knows they need it sometimes just as much as I do.

Part of my plan with this resolution is, instead of offering an unconvincing "I'm okay" as my response to inquiries about my emotional status, I want to default to something perhaps silly sounding like, "I'm still breathing!" if I can't think of anything better to say.  Maybe that sounds insanely trite or flippant, but seriously: even in the worst moments ever, that is something to be immensely grateful for and celebratory about.  Sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

3. Start daily mindfulness and lovingkindness practices.

I still have to think through how this might work, but here's a tentative plan: My morning meditations are more Zen-y, focusing only on my breath.  I like that approach, especially in the morning.  It's calm and centering.  I'm thinking I'll save these practices for later in the day, maybe alternating days because there's a limit on how many minutes are in every day and I'm trying to be realistic about how many new things I can do.

Anyway: mindfulness stuff will help me deepen my general meditative practices and are generally good for you (per my forthcoming dissertation, woo!), and lovingkindness practices facilitate better, deeper compassion for the self and for others.  So they are all really good things and I would like to do them.

4. Leave/write myself little reminders that every living thing is doing the best they can in that moment and I must do my best to be accepting and patient even if it drives me FUCKING INSANE.

Per my earlier admission, these reminders will be featured, among some possible other places, in my car.

One more?

Okay one more:

Remaining resolutions:

5. Deepen meditative practices by reading Buddhist things and at least trying one or two sangha meetings to see if they're weird or possibly okay/good.

Yes I pretty much failed to do this last year.  Yes some people define insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  I might have to ban myself from reading any other literature if we get to, say, October and I'm still not doing this shit, but I'm okay with that.

6. Get my finances in order.

In the short-term, graduate school is an utter and complete financial catastrophe.  In the long-term I am clinging to the commonly-held possible delusion that it will seem like the smartest thing ever.

We'll see.  But very happily and luckily, there are things I can do to help get myself into a good place in advance of my blessed, heralded exit from grad school (see also: testing!), and I hope to do them with enough regularity to see some positive results by this time next year.  This is particularly important to me in advance of my wedding.

7. Get better at doing things that make me happy most days.

See also: taking pictures, jeez!!  I also plan to order coloring books and colored pencils, because I heart coloring.  I want to go to museums way more often than I have in the last few months.  I want to keep having fun outings with Fiancé.

Etc.

And finally!

8. Watch ALL THE MOVIES.

Or at least 52!

Okay bedtime.  Enjoy the last day of the year!!

{Heart}

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! 2013 Edition

Darlings,

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I hope you have enjoyed a joyful holiday of delicious things and pleasant family time!

Very unfortunately, this has been kind of a tough month.  I've scheduled my dissertation defense in February, which means kicking my statistical analyses into high gear and significantly cutting into my weekend free time.  At the same time, the length of internship days continued to gradually increase.

The cumulative insult of these stressors has resulted in what very closely resembles a physical manifestation of CIB, meaning that instead of this:

It looks more like this:

...plus losing my voice and feeling generally miserable for over a week, resulting in two missed days of work with little impact on my overall recovery.

It has been immensely tiresome.

Luckily, it seems like this bullshit is finally remitting.

I'm choosing to interpret my brush with CIB as a somewhat over-kill-y reminder of the importance of self-care.  Especially compared to my first month or two of internship and largely due to dissertation crunch time commencing, I have definitely been neglecting my responsibility to maintain a continual roster of fun outside-of-work things.

The tradeoff is that if I finish my dissertation as planned, I will have successfully secured my freedom from the clearly interminable bondage that is graduate school.  This will ensure that in the relatively near future I will have oodles of time for self-care which will only be enhanced by the positive impact on my psyche of knowing this crap has an official expiration date.

So at least there's that.

Anyway, in the spirit of the recently-passed holiday, I thought I would share a sampling of the things for which I am thankful:

1. Fiancé, who often single-handedly supports me through the many hard days I've faced in this process.

2. Our beautiful city, which offers me stunning views of itself on my nightly drives home and reminds me of how grateful and lucky I am to live somewhere that still takes my breath away.

3. Speaking of which: my fabulous Little Car, which makes what would have been an impossible, awful, miserable 90-minutes-one-way commute an utterly painless ~27 minutes jam-packed with personal space, tailored climate control, and speediness.

4. My parents and family, who are crucial sources of support, love, and guidance.

5. My spectacular friends in and out of graduate school, who bolster me through hard times and who are brilliant and wonderful.

6. Wedding planning, which is a joyful reminder that there is a whole life waiting to happen outside of graduate school.

7. My perfect kittens, who make me feel loved and snuggled.

8. Podcasts and books, which help me stay connected to the gigantic world outside of my one little life (I especially love this one, because history is delicious).

9. Delicious food, holiday-related and otherwise, which is the icing on the cake of life.

10. Meditating, stretching, breathing, and all other practices that root me calmly and lovingly in each precious moment (also this site has an iPhone app is amazing for self-soothing).

And finally, obvi:

11. You, the dear and lovely people who read this ridiculous blog.

Happy Holidays!!

{Heart}

TYSG: Costume Inspiration Edition

Happy Halloween!!

A quick addition to the proud tradition of the Terrible Year Survival Guide: one of my favorite things on the internet EVER.

And also the inspiration for my Halloween costume this year.

Enjoy!

{Heart}

A Halloween Sampler for All Souls

Halloooooooooooooooooooo,

Happy Halloween Eve Eve!!

With the approaching creepfest holiday, I thought it would be fun to review some scary movies I've seen throughout the year to support the cinematically inclined among us in properly celebrating.  The following represent a pretty broad range in the terror-inducing department.  As an added bonus, the list below is comprised of both modern and classic films.

For an added perk, in addition to my typical 1 - 5 rating system, I will include a scary/intense rating system, ranging from 1 - 5 exclamation points (e.g., ! = not at all scary, !!!!! = so scary!).

"The Wicker Man" (2006)

Rating: 1   Scary Rating: !!*

For those of you whose horror tastes favor the horrifically bad, might I suggest this disastrously horrendous film?

To put it in perspective: I watched this with friends and an accompanying Mystery Science Theater 3000 Rifftrax, and it was STILL completely terrible.

It is, of course, meant to be genuinely scary.  But first of all, Nicolas Cage.

Seriously?

Second of all, Nicolas Cage in a bear suit.

Seriously.

I rest my case.

* = Scary rating inflated as a result of the deeply unsettling fact that a large number of people got together and spent time and money making this movie, and it is not clear that they were aware that it was in actuality completely ridiculous.

"The Conjuring" (2013)

Rating: 4   Scary Rating: !!!!

I saw "The Conjuring" when it was released over the summer with a friend and classmate who shares my love of horror movies.

Minor spoiler alert: I didn't realize that the movie was essentially an exorcism/demon possession movie until I saw it.  That was quite a treat, since that happens to be one of my favorite horror sub-genres, because GUYS THEY TOTALLY DO EXORCISMS.  Like in the present.  It's a thing people do.  How crazy is that shit??

Side note: One of my favorite research papers I ever wrote was on the culture-bound syndrome of of Dissociative Trance Disorder, which captures dissociative states experienced primarily by people who think they're possessed.  One of my sources was a scholarly paper whose sample was people exorcised by the Archdiocese of Rome.  It was really spooky and fascinating.

So anyway, the movie was really fun and successfully scary, so I recommend it to anyone looking for an effective but not overwhelmingly scary modern horror movie.

"The Invisible Man" (1933)

Rating: 4   Scary Rating: !!

Fiancé and I carved jack-o'-lanterns a few weeks ago and wanted to watch something scary-but-not-too-scary to set the mood.  This classic was delightful and perfectly suited for this purpose.  It's a great dose of quaint, old-timey movie with excellently over-the-top acting combined with effects that hold up shockingly well given that the movie is 80 years old.  It's still a bit creepy, but more than that, it's incredibly fun.

Bonus: You can stream this movie on Netflix!

"The Summit" (2013)

Rating: 3.5   Scary Rating: !!!

For the documentary lovers among you, "The Summit" might be a great Halloween-y choice.  It details a catastrophic day on which 11 mountaineers died while summiting K2, the second highest mountain on Earth.  The film isn't necessarily meant to be a horror movie, but it nevertheless feels a like an all-too-real ghost story.  Details surrounding the deaths of several climbers still remain a mystery, and many of their bodies were never found.

Bonus: Currently in selected theaters!

"Repulsion" (1965)

Rating: 4   Scary Rating: !!!!!

Very unfortunately, until recently I had taken a months-long hiatus from one of my very favorite and oft-mentioned-on-this-blog museums.  Happily, with the visit of a very dear friend, I had occasion to return for the dual purposes of showing him this cinematic gem and taking in Roman Polanski's second film, "Repulsion."

This is a pretty brilliant horror movie.  It has the deft, unhurried pacing of "The Shining" (1980) or Polanski's other horror masterpiece, "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), and captures one woman's gradual decline into utter madness with chilling believability.  Catherine Deneuve delivers an alarming, masterful, and nauseatingly unforgettable performance.  If you want to see a classic horror movie whose creepiness sticks with you, I recommend this one!

Finally, for the biggest scare of all:

Internship is now totally 55 hours A WEEK.

.............I KNOW.

Silver lining(s): the work is great, my colleagues are great, and with this much to do the weeks sure go by insanely quickly.  Proof that even scary time commitments have their good points.

Thanks for reading scare-lovers!!

{Heart}

Life Imitating Art and Other Adventures in Self-Care

Oh hi!

I'm now a bit over a month into my internship.  It has kept me incredibly busy, and has quickly become a 50-hours-per-week commitment.

Yep.

That being said, I am incredibly relieved to report that so far, it seems awesome.  My colleagues are great, both settings I'm working in are really interesting, and I have some exciting trainings to look forward to.  While the schedule is pretty unforgiving and I'm woefully underpaid, those things are true of any internship.  I therefore feel incredibly grateful and fortunate that the algorithm seems to have acted very much in my favor.

While I have a lot of things to be thankful for and, in an earnest attempt to stay true to my goals for this year, I have been actively reminding myself of all of those things, this schedule is grueling.  Grad school really does have a knack for upping the ante each successive year by pushing the limits of how much work a student can handle, and this year is far from an exception.  As a countermeasure, I have endeavored to engage in active exploits of self-care to avoid Catastrophic Intern Burnout (aka CIB).

Fig 1: CIB in action.  Not pretty.

I thought I might share some of these exploits with you.

Exploit 1: Beach Please

Through a series of unexpected events that worked out in our favor, Fiancé and I were able to steal a little family-and-beach time at the beginning of the month.

I've always felt a strong draw to the ocean and had felt very low on ocean time this summer, so I was so glad to snatch a few more seaside days out of the summer before it ended.

Exploit 2: ALL THE APPLES

To celebrate my birthday earlier this month, Fiancé and I went apple-picking.

After a gorgeous drive north of our fair city, we arrived at a sweet farm teaming with families eager for early Autumn rollicking. 

There were also free wagon rides!!

We picked (most of) a half bushel of yummy, beautifully-colored apples.  We only picked (most of) a half bushel because a half bushel is a lot of apples and there are only two of us and a half bushel is SO MANY.

Full disclosure: Not our apples.

Exploit 3: ALL THE ANIMALS

Finally, as a birthday present, Fiancé procured tickets to a showcase of domestic breeds of dogs and cats.  Very predictably, it was AMAZING.

It was basically like "Best in Show" (2000).

But REAL.

I mean this with 100% love and without even a hint of mockery: this might have been some of the best people-watching I have ever experienced.  

Please note: the bull terrier dog show victory commemorative tattoo.
(Not commemorating the bull terrier pictured.)

There is something extremely delightful about the sub-population of humans who devote so much of their lives not just to animals, but to one very very very particular subtype of a subset of animals.

I am so fascinated by the fact that there are people who will dedicate so much of their lives to that dog.

Or, as the case may be, that cat.

But really, who could resist those little alien faces?

It was the most fun ever.

With the other tasks I have ahead of me this year and many long work weeks to come, I know it might be a challenge to keep up with regular, semi-ambitious activities of self-care.  But sometimes sleeping in isn't enough to fill your energy coffers, and an adventure is truly the needed remedy.

I'm glad to share these experiences with you, and hoping I'll have more to share soon!

{Heart}

Resolutions Quadrux: Pre-Internship Edition

Hi chickadees,

Tomorrow kicks off my final year of graduate training.

After making it this far, I've been pretty stunned at how difficult this path has been.  There isn't an easy way to articulate how challenging earning my doctorate has been without slipping into stupid clichés or hyperbole so grandiose as to be impossible to take seriously.  To say "it's been so much harder than I thought it would be" is accurate but utterly fails to communicate that guys.  Seriously.  I cannot BELIEVE how hard this shit has been.

All that being said, I'm trying to turn to face the future instead of holding onto my exhaustion from the past four years.  It really helped me to set my intentions before learning whether and where I would be going on internship, and so I thought I might try doing the same things before I actually go to my first day of internship tomorrow.

So what are my hopes for internship?

1. Finish my dissertation.

So I can gtfo of this grad school bullshit.  

This will necessitate: 

a) Cessation of my avoidance of statistical analyses 

b) Running my statistical analyses

c) Running them a few more times after I discover I did them wrong in some infuriatingly minor way, e.g., some stupid check box defaults to being unchecked each time you run a new analysis even though you ALWAYS WANT IT CHECKED STUPID STATS PROGRAM WHY DON'T YOU LEARN (see also: what happened with thesis)

d) Writing up the results of my analyses

e) Sending dissertation to committee

f) Do ALL THE EDITS

g) Defend!!!!

h) Win!!!!!!!

I didn't use up the entire alphabet listing all the subcomponents, which means this is clearly doable.

2. Remember that every single experience every day is teaching me something, and that is valuable.

Even if it's how not to be or how not to do things, that still counts as something I'm being taught.  Even if I hate it in the moment.  A lot.  Due to my immense capacity for hatred-in-the-moment, maybe also: 

3. Focus on the fact that this is one year, the last thing ever, and I just need to do it and then things will get exponentially easier from then onward.

Translation: I will hopefully thereafter get paid somewhere reasonably closer to commensurate with my training and experience.  After I get licensed, it will be even more awesome.

4. This will be a good year, especially if I decide it will be.

This is a truth I have definitely not mastered or fully integrated into my brainspace at all, which is why this is probably the most important goal of all (after dissertation--definitely all things AFTER dissertation).  

srsly.

The nature of so much--really probably all--experience is determined by the perspective and attitude one chooses.  There's no truly objective interpretation of reality, and so we as humans inherently have to choose our style of reality interpretation.  I have a pretty strong tendency to over-attend to things that frustrate me or make me sad.  As an added perk, these are often things I have no power to change.  This stance obviously doesn't serve me very well.  I'm hoping to shift that with gentle, persistent practice.

I heard a great anecdote on one of my favorite NPR podcasts the other day, attributed to Native American wisdom.  It was about an old man telling his grandson that he had anger and hate and love and kindness all living inside him, fighting each other all the time.  When his grandson asked which side was winning, the grandfather's answer was, "Whichever side I feed."

I definitely need some practice feeding the happy, positive, grateful side of myself.  There's so much in my life to feed it, if I just remember to do it.

So here's to a good year.  I'll be glad to tell you all about it.

Wish me luck!

{Heart}

Epic Revue: July Installment

Oh hi guys,

My little very-last-ever summer break is drawing to a close.

In some ways I feel quite sad about this fact.  I ended up being busier than I expected to be for much of this break, due both to happy things (best friend's wedding, wedding venue shopping with Fiancé, some much-needed family time) and more-banal-but-still-important things (writing ALL THE TESTING REPORTS).  The break therefore ended up being less restorative than I had hoped.

Honestly, even if I'd spent the entirety of the past six weeks in bed with Netflix eating nothing but frozen Greek yogurt, poffertjes, and seaweed snacks, I know it would probably still feel like this break went by too quickly.

Snackies of champions!

However, in reflecting on how this summer has felt and feeling surprised that I still managed to make myself feel overbooked pretty much all on my own, I've decided to take it all as an important learning experience (please note: NOT a "teachable moment").  I started this break feeling really concerned about my capacity to maintain my own self-care, but even though I knew precisely how badly I needed down time, by mid-July I realized I had essentially scheduled myself to the hilt for the entire month.

After a good amount of wtf-ing at myself, I could obviously acknowledge that a certain amount of OH MY GOD DO ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME is precisely what has gotten me into and through graduate school.  But seriously?  Fuck that.  It is a terrible life practice and makes me sad, stressed out, and tired.  Also, if grad school is any indication of what the future holds, I will clearly spend a lot of my professional life having lots of people make lots of demands on my time.  The sooner I get really good at carving out and guarding do-very-little time for myself, the better.

So luckily, since these realizations materialized mid-break, I slammed on the brakes on the busy and have actually had some days during which I did very little.  And now I know to watch out for my tendency to create my own scheduling-induced claustrophobia, so that's a bonus.

In spite of all this, I'm starting to feel pretty excited about starting internship.  I feel really positive about meeting new colleagues and clients and getting trained in new things.  Also, even though intern stipends are quite meager, I finally officially get paid for being a therapist this year!!  Holy crap guys!!!

Another important thing that happened during this break: I have watched TWENTY MOVIES.

GUYS THAT IS SO MANY MOVIES.

Because that is seriously so many movies that I might kind of lose track, I think this is an excellent opportunity to resurrect the grand revue post format of yore.

In this installment: all the movies I watched in July.

A Fish Called Wanda (3.5)

My memory of this movie is much warmer than the rating, so you may need to take that 3.5 with a score-enhancing grain of salt.  The performances are so much fun to watch.  Kevin Kline is mesmerizingly murderously insane, Michael Palin's subplot is delightfully harebrained, and Jamie Lee Curtis is super fun as a manipulative con artist with a serious weak spot for foreign accents.  And John Cleese... I mean duh.  It certainly feels a bit dated if you're watching it for the first time like I did, but for me that was part of the appeal.

Katy Perry: A Part of Me (4)

Well.  Regular readers obviously know how I feel about this one.  I feel less and less apologetic for my love for this movie each time I find myself defending it.  Which has been happening kind of frequently lately.

The Muppet Movie (4)

The general dearth of Muppets in my childhood is something that Fiancé is gradually resolving, and accounts for my non-5 ratings of Muppet movies (I've gotten some flack for them in the past).  Even without the benefit of nostalgia, I welled up a little bit during the opening Kermit ballad.  It's just so fucking sweet and earnest.

Kumaré (3)

So basically this guy studied religion in college and was interested in gurus and then he decided to pretend to be one and make a documentary about it and then he kind of decided it was time to stop...?  This is about as much planning as I feel was done for this movie.  It has such an amazing setup with a kind of weirdly anticlimactic resolution.  I suppose that's because the director/star didn't anticipate how successful his ruse would be, but I'm annoyed that he failed to think things through more thoroughly so his social experiment could feel more meaningful.

Also as soon as they were like, "So we need a place where there are gullible people.... Oh hey, Arizona!!", I started swearing a lot.  That stung.

Benny and Joon (2)

Young Johnny Depp is super foxy.

Other than that, I found this movie really frustrating.  They keep describing Joon (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) as "mentally ill," which got really annoying because a) that is a completely annoyingly vague thing to say, as "mental illness" captures a huge range of emotional and behavioral difficulties that vary widely in how they manifest and affect people's lives, and b) whatever the fuck Joon has, I don't think it's a real thing.  Being adorably loopy is not a diagnosis.

Also if she is sick enough to warrant police intervention and repeated hospitalization, an illiterate and aimless Buster Keaton wannabe is not likely to be cut out for thoughtfully and effectively caring for someone with serious needs for support and structure.  I'm not saying that these characters don't deserve love and happiness, obviously, but I think suggesting this pairing has any chance of being successful is ridiculous at best and at worst dangerous.  I know I'm being a massive practical buzzkill over what is meant to be a cute off-beat love story, I just can't get past how irresponsible it feels.

Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians (2)

I had higher hopes for this movie.  It's interesting seeing the players' strategies for gleaning cash from casinos and how blithely they talk about getting kicked out of gambling joints, but beyond that the story kind of peters out.  It could have been a great half hour mini-feature.

Rudy (5)

I am not the type to seek out sports movies (especially about football) and I couldn't believe it when we were halfway through the movie and poor Rudy STILL hadn't gotten admitted to Notre Dame, but that beautiful, patient pacing is so much of why I loved this movie.  I wish filmmakers still had the courage to so deeply explore a character and a story.  I enjoyed the shit out of this film.

Restrepo (5)

I'm sure anything I have to say about this movie will have already been more articulately said, but still: it is brave and devastating on a level that just isn't possible in most films.

I think every American citizen must see "Restrepo" so we have a more accurate sense of responsibility for sending soldiers into inconceivable peril--for what?? Some godforsaken valley in Afghanistan we've never heard of??  If there's one thing in this film that turned my stomach, it's the utter lack of name recognition I felt when the men spoke about their posting.  If there's one thing that broke my heart, it was watching a soldier dissociate mid-testimonial.  This is simply critical viewing for any American.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (5)

Ai Weiwei is one of my favorite living artists (second to Andy Goldsworthy), and this documentary about his life and contemporary rebellion against the Chinese government is exhilarating, enthralling, and terrifying.  It is equal parts profile of an immensely influential and versatile artist and peek into the workings of arguably one of the scariest governments currently in existence.

The Fourth Kind (3)

Fiancé and I wanted junk food scifi, and oh man did we get it.  Like "A Fish Called Wanda," I'm now second-guessing my relatively low rating.  I had a great time watching this movie in spite of its possibly painful taking-itself-seriously-ness.  The pseudo documentary footage is pretty chilling, and Milla Jovovich is great.

Oh I love writing these revues!!  First day of internship is only a few days away, but I hope to write a bit more before the end of the month.  As always, we'll see.

Until next time!

{Heart}

"Katy Perry: Part of Me" Actually Really Liked This Movie

Salut,

I'm happy to report that, as promised, I've managed to make pretty awesome progress in regaining my movie-watching stride in the past month.  It is my pleasure to report to you that I have watched TEN WHOLE MOVIES during the month of July.

I would like to thank several things for facilitating this accomplishment:

1. Netflix View Instantly
2. Boyfriend being willing to watch stuff with me (since a willing movie-watching partner is NOT something to be taken for granted)
3. The digusting, humid, oppressive heat visited upon my fair city for the better part of the last four weeks, which discouraged all but the most necessary departures from very near proximity to the window A/C units in my apartment

I am truly pleased with this reversal, and hope to utilize my remaining break time to write about my cinematic exploits at great length.

To kick that off, I want to start by talking about this movie, which as the title of this post reveals I actually really liked:

Yep.  This one.

I know.

Wtf.

Boyfriend and I decided to watch this movie essentially as a joke.  We wanted some light fare that we wouldn't be very invested in.  We basically signed up for an evening of laughing at some dumb pop star's self-indulgent exhibitionism spree.  Then we turned to each other 75% through the movie and, kind of horrified and kind of embarrassed, admitted to each other that we were really enjoying it.

As discussed previously, there's this unexpected and honestly wonderful thing that can happen when you go into a movie-watching experience expecting little or nothing.  As long as you leave your heart a little bit open for it to surprise you, in that frame of mind you can really be swept away by a film.

That is certainly part of what was at work in my enjoyment of "Katy Perry: Part of Me" (2012).  I gave this movie almost no chance of being actually good, and so anything better than not-at-all-good was going to be a welcome turning-of-tables.  The bar was set quite low for this one.

But that's not by any means all there is to it.  "Part of Me" may have benefitted to some extent from that low bar, but honestly, it cleared the bar with a pretty soaring leap.

"How, how???" you might ask.

Well let me tell you, with an orderly list.

1. The concert footage is gorgeous.

The movie covers Perry's world-wide concert tour, and the performances are shot beautifully.  As you might expect for any top-selling pop star, the production values for her concerts look very no-expense-spared, and the result is pretty spectacular.

2. The concerts look super fun.

Okay yes, they also look really silly, but silly can totally = fun!  I hadn't totally appreciated this before seeing the movie, but bringing to life the wacky neon-colored confectionary world from Perry's music videos seems like another, perhaps less appropriate (or maybe more like inappropriate in a different way), Disneyland.  And Disneyland is awesome.

You can tell that I'm seriously a convert because I really am saying something this cliché:
3. Perry really seems to care about her fans.

We see Perry making time to greet a selection of her fans at each concert stop.  I'm not sure how typical this is, but it's still really sweet.

What's truly special, though, is that at each concert, fans who come dressed up are invited to join her in the performance of one of her songs.  The people onstage with her look so overjoyed it's hard not to be touched.

This is one of a few parts of the movie that really sold it for me.  Full disclosure, though: this is in part because one of the best things that ever EVER happened to me was being asked to dance onstage with one of my favorite bands.  Dressed as Santa Claus.  In Paris.

You can totally see me if you look for a ponytail and an industrial-sized flashlight.

It was an experience that still fills me with gratitude for the random generosity of the Universe and for humans who don't have to be extra wonderful, but are.  Also Wayne Coyne hugged me, and it was like best thing ever to the millionth power.  So if Katy Perry is doing stuff like that for her fans, seriously, she's pretty great.

4. You get to see Katy Perry as a semi-normal person.

Perry looks like a surprisingly average person when she isn't swimming in makeup, hyper-pigmented hair, and dresses with spinning peppermints on her boobs.  She is obviously anything but average given that she is a megastar, and how she looks when she isn't prepped for a performance perhaps shouldn't make so much of a difference in how I think or feel about her.  But if I'm honest, seeing her in civilian mode made her seem so much more accessible and endearing than her caked-on glitter and eye shadow alter ego, and it made me like her more.

I suppose in part, because there is such a difference between how she looks when she's "in character" and when she isn't, I respected her for showing herself how she actually is.  There are certainly some performers who seem to prefer to stay hidden behind their own artifice.  She didn't have to show us anything other than her performing persona, but she did.

Spoiler alert:
5. And then she cries.

So here's what really did it for me: the filming of the movie coincided with the dissolution of Perry's marriage to Russell Brand.  This personal crisis reaches a climax as Perry is about to perform in Brazil for the largest audience of her tour.

We see her curled in a ball sobbing backstage.  We see her assistants try as gently as possible to get her into makeup and costume without breaking her into ever smaller pieces.  Then we see her virtually carried to the little platform on which she will rise up through the stage to make her entrance, hear the roaring crowd eagerly awaiting her, and watch her struggle to pull herself together.  Then, she finally manages to freeze a blinding smile on her face, lock into a mannequin-like pose with her microphone poised, and she is lifted into the light.  And it breaks my fucking heart.

I'm sure a chorus of the world's tiniest violins plays for fantastically wealthy and famous people like Katy Perry, but screw that.  In spite of the bizarre context of this particular person's painful moment, it is nevertheless profoundly and universally human.  Everyone has had moments in which devastation and heartache had to be squished down beneath a veneer of "Everything's fine!!!!"  It's a terrible kind of pain, and it's sad to see anyone going through it.  So what if they're a silly pop star.

Then there's a pretty obvious caveat, of which Boyfriend and I were keenly aware even as it happened: we were being royally manipulated.  The movie opens and closes with video confessionals by Katy Perry fans who gush about how the artist changed their lives and gave them the courage to be who they really are.  Several of her assistants also claim to be her close friends and confidants, and carry on about how wonderful and fun she is.  This movie is pretty freaking excited about itself and definitely exaggerates the importance of its subject.  Of course it's going to be strongly pro-Perry, but it's hard not to gag on that a bit.

So I gave the movie a 4, and I stand by it.  It still feels weird admitting it, but part of me totally loves Katy Perry now.

More movies forthcoming!

{Heart}







Ps: Btw, this happened:

So I guess instead of "Boyfriend," I should start referring to him as "Fiancé."

:D