There's a fortune inside your head....

And so it begins. Ole Drunk Boy and Lulu will be here shortly and we will depart for Asheville... home of hippies, over-priced beer and, for tonight at least, WILCO! I love a road trip.... I love being with my buddies (especially since we all work A LOT!)... there's nothing more fun than listening to Lulu and Odb bickering the entire way and hearing Dave laugh at them. Sitting in the back with Lulu making fun of the boys. Listening to loud music, stopping in strange places, visiting a Wal-Mart in every town.

THIS IS BEING YOUNG! Driving for three hours to see a show and go drinking in another town. I've loaded up the Beatles and NMH cds, I've packed the camera bag, a t-shirt and some clean undies and I'm ready to be "on the road again."

Hopefully this time it won't be Lulu and I driving around for two hours trying to find the damn venue. Of course that was Charlotte and this is Asheville... Plus we have the boys to handle that. Odb's even hopeful that Dave will let him drive some. I don't see Dave doing that though. Which I approve of because Odb is so not the good driver.

Okay, Lulu's here and everybody is bitching for me to come on. Here's hoping I survive.

Orlando Bloom looks like a rat terrier.

Add some Venetian blinds and you've got a Ridley Scott film.

I am many things. Daughter, sister, lover, friend, state employee and most of all: FILM GEEK EXTRODINAIRE! I've taken filmic elitism to new heights. I can recite every one of Chaplin's films, in filming order with sidenotes on co-stars, production companies and unit directors thrown in for shits and giggles. I have a twenty-minute rant about Quentin Tarantino which includes so much profanity that it makes his films look g-rated. I proudly (and loudly) denounce Steven Spielberg for the Kubrick copying hackneyed schmuck he is... I love movies and I'm sick of the crap they constantly thrust upon us.

Hollywood's complaining that they've been losing money for a few years now. They claim that it's because of Tivo, Digital cable, satellite, the internet etc. etc. Gee, did they never stop to think that maybe we just don't want to pay $10 to see 40 minutes of commercials and a really crappy movie?

I went and saw "Serenity" because I love science fiction (I wish I had a spaceship). It was complete and utter drivel. Here's my brief comment on it from IMDB:

"A legion of obsessed fans have given this movie a high rating and a (hopefully brief) place on the top 200 list. The honest truth is that this movie was, at best, mediocre. Joss Whedon, who generally has a flare for clever dialogue and interesting characters, fell flat on his face with "Serenity".Perhaps part of the problem is that I was not a Firefly fan. Maybe for consistent viewers of the show the characters were well-rounded and deep. Unfortunately, for the non-Firefly viewers the characters were incredibly thin and boring. They were like ink sketches of people, with no depth and no real traits. The ships' captain is painted as a "hard" man (a very John Wayne a la The Cowboys or The Searchers type character) who only looks out for himself and those few he has chosen as crew. And just to drive this point home, he is called Mal, and we're all aware of what that means in Latin I'm sure. Mal is narcissism at it's worst. And his "change" from self-centered, looking out for number one guy to righteous sword of justice and freedom is completely implausible.The other characters, all with cute names like Zoe, Kaylie, River and, my favorite ham-handed choice, strong guy Jane are just as thin and cartoony as Mal. It's hard to care about any of them because they're such generic "shoot 'em up" characters.Obviously the pairing of westerns and science fiction has a long tradition. Star Wars, Heinlein, hell, even the Last Starfighter... Whedon though takes it to an extreme here. It comes off as silly, overwrought and even garish. Characters say ridiculous things which are meant to have a "cowboy" feel. These lines seemed forced and far too obvious. They bog down and stilt an already weak and muddled script. There is also a pervasive "mystic" feel that's hackneyed and overused in this type of film.Perhaps the best overall description is that this film is simply rather juvenile. It's something for teenagers and those with a less mature taste. It seems half-baked. A decent idea never brought to fruition.Basically, if you're a giant sci-fi fan wait for video, it's worth a rental for a few decent space scenes. If you're not a sci-fi junkie, don't bother. Or better yet, rent the Farscape series, especially the two part mini-series, The Peacekeeper Wars. It's vastly superior to Serenity. "

So Serenity was pretty much a waste of money. So I went and saw Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" a few days later to try and rectify the searing eye damage done by the travesty "Serenity". And "Corpse Bride" was good, well, better than "Serenity" anyway. But it was just a rehash of Burton's earlier films and "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Clever dialogue, a cute story and lots of singing... not his most creative work. Oh, and Tim, you might consider some counseling for that weird death fetish you've got... I swear, he's getting as bad as Tarantino and the toes.

So, disappointed yet again, I headed down to the Nickelodeon, our local art house theater to see a flick called "Heights". It had gotten great reviews and good press. I was excited... I was hopeful... I was pissed off by the time we left. As David said, "Rachel, you didn't tell me this was going to be a movie about gay cowboys eating pudding." "Heights" was, at best self-indulgent, ennui drenched masturbation. Pretension in it's worst form. A "little" film about poor angst ridden, sexually confused Manhattanites with good jobs and famous friends. Yeah, you guys have it so tough... plenty of money, pretty face, famous relatives, stilted dialogue... And you know what else is annoying? When characters in a movie like "Heights" have a conversation about what is "real". I can tell you one thing that's not real... this movie. And on top of that the Nickelodeon has the most uncomfortable seats on the planet. So not only was I sour from seeing a stupid movie, but my back was killing.

And finally, to top off a string of terrible films, we have Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven". Oh boy... I don't even really need to discuss this one. It was "Black Hawk Down" with catapults instead of rocket launchers. A mauldlin, laborious, clunky bit of pseudo-history with plenty of Ridley Scott "Smoke & Mirrors" moments. Will someone please explain to this joker that you don't need a shot of light streaming through shutters while smoke wafts past in every movie? And while you're at it... someone should really tell him that you have to actually develop a character if you want people to give a flying fuck when they die.

So, in summation, WILL-SOMEBODY-PLEASE-MAKE-A-DECENT-MOVIE! I'm going to watch "Me, You and Everyone We Know" tonight. And I swear to God if it's sucks I'm never going to watch another film made after 1975 again.

I wish I was a Bene Gesserit.

Where's your stillsuit?

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that

brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me

and through me.

And when it has gone past I

will turn the inner eye to see it's

path.

Where the fear has gone there

will be

nothing.

Only I will remain.

-The Litany Against Fear

"Dune"

Frank Herbert

I like this little litany a lot. I think it sort of sums up the proper attitude towards life. Why be afraid? What's the worst that could happen, death? ennui? maiming? Hell, life's too short to be scared.

The Long and Winding Road

So, haven't posted in awhile... I've been super busy, two jobs, a class, a boyfriend, a dog and writing the great American novel doesn't leave one a lot of time for blogging...

But I'm back. I have an exciting couple of weeks coming up here. David, myself, LuLu and Ole Drunk Boy are heading up to Asheville to (hopefully) see Wilco. If not, well as LuLu put it, "I've got to get out of this town for a few days." And I say, "Amen to that sista..." And then the weekend after Wilco (I like the way that sounds) Dad and I are going to do a little camping. It was initially supposed to be a "Rachel goes into the woods alone and comes to terms with her twenty-fifth birthday thing"... But then it turned into a "Rachel and Dad go into the woods together thing". And that's okay. It'll be cheaper and Dad and I haven't camped together in years. I sometimes think my entire childhood was camping at Edisto or Poinsette with my folks or just with Dad. I was kinda annoyed at first, because I really needed some time alone, but now I've come around. It'll be really good to have a couple of days with Pops. After all, he is my bestest buddy. Besides, sitting around a campfire talking about Kubrick and existentialism while drinking coffee? what's not to like?

See, I turn twenty-five in oh, 12 days. I know, I know... everybody keeps saying, "So?". Well, it's a big deal to me. It's the culmination of something. I haven't figured out what yet... but something. Twenty-five, a quarter of a century. It seems really big to me, ken? I always figured that by twenty-five I'd have a great job with National Geographic or Lonely Planet and be traveling around the world taking pictures of things. Life doesn't always go as you planned. And I'm trying to figure out if I'm sad that I'm not roaming around the globe. It's hard to be bummed when I have a good home, a job I love (it's not National Geographic, but it's Educational Television, which is close), the best boyfriend on the planet and a cute little puppy to love me.

Everyone's growing up. I look at my friends, people I've known for years and I wonder how we all became such different people. Everybody is getting married, having kids, graduating and so on. They all seem like adults. It's uber-Twilight Zone.

Somebody told me when I was younger that twenty-five was when you became an adult. That once you hit twenty-five you would know what you wanted from life, that you would be a person. I had this idea that when my twenty-fifth birthday rolled around I would instantly become an adult. I thought I would feel like an adult. But I don't. Sure, I pay my bills, David and I discuss whether or not getting cable is a good idea and where we should open a bank account. We talk about whether to get another vehicle and adult things of that sort. But I'm not really an adult. I can't wait to go to the fair, I still read comic books and watch cartoons. I love to play video games and watch the Harry Potter movies. I like to play with my toy race cars and I hum the Indiana Jones theme every time I take the dog out to go potty. I go to sleep every night thinking about Star Wars, I quote the Goonies at least once a week. I still have a crush on Johnny Depp. I still think my dad is the smartest man in the whole world. I think fart jokes are funny and I have a Sponge Bob Square Pants Pez Dispenser on my desk next to my Incredibles toy. I sleep with my childhood teddy bear and I think footy pj's are the best thing on the planet. I'm an adult? I think not. I'm still the same Rachel: abrasive, obnoxious, caustic and silly. I'm just a kid who's pretending to be grown up.

Maybe it's like Jeff Tweedy said, "Maybe I'm just a kid, maybe I just don't fit in.."