Nine (2009) – Rob Marshall

This film was certainly a treat. Having seen neither Fellini’s 8 ½ nor the Broadway musical, Nine, I went to the theater with a fresh pair of eyes, and was not disappointed.



Nine has its flaws—it’s too long, it’s not enough either musical or straight movie, it lacks focus—but there’s something about this collection of performances that drew me in and, even after 2 hours and 20 minutes, had me begging for more. These individual performances are the heart of the film. Each woman in the star-studded cast has one, perhaps two, beautiful moments of song and dance before again fading again into the background of the plot. The one exception is Marion Cotillard’s Luisa Contini. Cotillard outshines the rest of the cast as Guido’s shunned wife, bringing a life to the character that none of the other actors manage.

As far as the musical numbers go, they certainly please. They may not quite feel right in the rest of the film, but individually they shine—quite literally in the case of Kate Hudson’s Cinema Italiano. The best number by far is Be Italian performed by Fergie (Stacy Ferguson) as Saraghina—the prostitute that taught young Guido about sex. Fergie demands attention with her stunning vocals and stage presence.



In short, if you don’t leave the theater in love with the film, at least you’ll leave craving more of Marshall’s killer song and dance routines.

Summer's End

My summer is quickly coming to a close, and looking back I realize that I really haven’t accomplished everything I wanted to, but I don’t feel too terrible about it. On my list of accomplishments is learning how to drive a standard car, which is sort of a miracle for me. Okay, so I’m still not great at it, but I can get from one place to another without annoying other drivers (as long as I don’t stop on a hill, that is). I’ve also managed to procure a job for the fall semester, which is terribly important considering my study abroad plans in the spring. Other than that, I can’t say that I did too much other than read, write a little, and watch a lot of tv and a bunch of movies. I certainly didn’t write as much as a)I wanted to or b) I should have considering I want to be a writer for a living and if I don’t practice I won’t get better or even really develop a style that isn’t rambly where I make up words because I like the way they sound…
Anyway, what I did this summer instead of developing skills to advance my career aspirations or working to earn money is watch a lot of YouTube videos. I know that this sounds kind of lame. I mean, what kind of self-respecting girl watches YouTube all summer? Well, this one did, and it was enlightening. This is because I didn’t spend my time watching viral videos of kittens in baskets or something of the like, but instead watching vlogs and original music. It really gave me hope for the future of the arts. I mean, here is this venue on which thousands of aspiring artists are recording music or creating short films, or collaboratively making up a person who can become “real” via the internet (just google Paige Railstone).
Honestly, YouTube is waving and shouting “Look here! The arts aren’t dead!!” They’re simply morphing with new technologies and media of expression. Sure for every John and Hank Green there are a million cat videos, but hey—that’s true of any medium. So, in short, keep an eye on the YouTube community, it’s going places fast!

The Times They Are a-Changin'

So, I didn’t ever really write a birthday post, but turning 20 is sort of a weird experience. It’s not any real benchmark age here in the US. It marks the end of “the teenage years,” but brings with it no perks—nothing seems to change. But leaving teenager-hood (I feel like there’s a better word than that. Adolescence would probably be better, no?) is a little intimidating; I mean, I’ve been alive for two whole decades! I don’t think that this hit me really hard until I watched home videos from my eleventh birthday party and realized how close that seemed, even though it’s been half my lifetime since then. I got this flash of how swiftly time passes, and it shook me. In two years time I’ll be graduating college. Graduating! I should not be allowed to be a real adult yet. I am still wholly in the dark about what I might do with myself once I leave school. I toyed with the idea of graduate school there for a bit, just to avoid the real world, but I don’t think it’s for me. That may change, but for now a mere two years separate me and the “real world,” and somehow I don’t think that “author” is a reasonable straight out of school profession (that is to say, for someone who is unpublished and hasn’t finished any novels or even very many short stories as of yet). So looking out into the future is a scary thing right now, as I am much too comfortable in my current place in the world and don’t really want to ponder where I might go next (or should need to go next).
That’s really it for now. I leave you with a strange old but young feeling, but perhaps that’s because I refuse to ever “grow up.”

Harry Potter Success!

Harry Potter success! Okay, the success was about 5 days ago, but it is success nonetheless. Perhaps now I will watch all of the movies again before Wednesday when Half-Blood Prince comes out. Then again, maybe I’ll just watch Order of the Phoenix and be done with it. I’ve seen all the others more times than is good for me already.

Rereading all of the books, however, I found to be extremely rewarding. I hadn’t read the first two since middle school, and it’s amazing what you can pick up when you’re a) older and b) know the end of the story and can see all of the lovely foreshadowing. That’s another thing that I noticed as I worked my way through the series all in one go—the complexity of the whole project. I am floored by just how perfectly everything fits together. And now, as an “adult” who has attempted to write fiction, I can truly appreciate the ridiculous amount of planning and forethought that went into the seven novels. It also reassures me that my (yet to be actually written) novel hiding in ever so many scribbles in notebooks may come to fruition one day and be all the better for the years of planning and researching and notes. (At least this is what I tell myself when I get frustrated and want to chuck the whole thing before I even start writing it)

A side effect of all this Harry Potter reading is reliving the first time I read the books. THIS brought back many memories of a 10 year-old girl who wanted more than anything to get a letter from Hogwarts herself. No joke. If you were a Harry Potter fan back in the day, you remember that feeling. I mean, I was just the right age. A little young at first, but then I was always about the same age as Harry, and I think that really helped me connect with the books and understand Harry and his friends just a little more than the adult world. Take Order of the Phoenix. A fellow 15 year-old knows exactly why Harry overreacts to everything, why he’s generally a jerk to everyone he encounters—it’s because he’s 15. That’s how everyone acts (or wants to act) at 15. Reading it now I realize exactly how moody Harry is (it’s not a flaw, it’s just an accurate characterization of a teenager under stress), but when I read it the first time I agreed with what Harry did (most of the time) and thought that he was acting just how I would in his situation. Okay, that was a rambly tangent (yes I know rambly isn’t a word, but I’ll use it if I like) and I apologize. I’m saving the rest of this tangent for a later post, to which it connects more directly and less tangentially.

Anyway, perspective is an interesting thing, and being taken on a tour of my own childhood was not something I was expecting when I set out on this reading adventure, but lo and behold, I opened the book and there was my guide with a large gold badge pinned on his shirt displaying his name: “Harry Potter – Tour Guide of Your Childhood.” While I analyzed our young heroes, watching them grow into their adult selves so much faster than they should have, I also had the opportunity to analyze young me. This was a gift I was not expecting, and I want to thank JK Rowling not only for entertaining me in my youth, but also for teaching me to look for the wonderful things in my life and treasure them and giving me a chance to myself for once. Not who I want to be or who I’m afraid to be, but simply who I am and how I got here.

On the Subject of Summer Projects

I began the summer with an epic list of things I wanted to accomplish in the few months I had to essays to write or required reading. Perhaps I was too ambitious. Perhaps(and more likely)I got lazy, because summer does that to me. Either way, I started a good many of these projects and have accomplished very little in them all.

Not the least of these projects is this blog. I'll be better about posting(I hope)in the coming weeks. Writing everyday, be it prose, poetry, fiction or non-fiction, is so very important to me, and yet I seem to get lazy about it far too easily. In short, if I want to write for a living I'd better get a grip and hit the keyboard more often.

Second to blogging is vlogging. I started vlogging recently, and I am not very good at keeping up with it. Even if I'm a little lax on how many videos I post, I feel like it's been really good for me to get myself out there and try to come out of my shell a little bit.

I have about a million reading projects that have gone the way of the blogging as well. I started Little Dorrit, but got distracted. I started Ulysses, and read one chapter (mind you, I took good notes, so I can just pick up where I left off)but I really need to get on that. I promised myself that I would make it through that book this summer, and I will prevail!! Also, I decided to reread all of the Harry Potter books. In a row. That's actually the reading project I've stuck to the best. I'm on The Goblet of Fire. Unfortunately, I've been on The Goblet of Fire for like a week now. (I DO have an excuse for this weekend, though. I was at the lake, and I didn't want my copy to be subjected to lake water and sand. I did read all of A Room With a View, however, and LOVED it!)But I'm back on the Harry Potter reading wagon, so hopefully in the next week I can finish off the series again :) On the successes list is my Georgette Heyer reading. I've read quite a bit of Georgette Heyer this summer.

I'm really writing all of this down in order to remind myself everything I wish to accomplish in the next month and a half.

I WILL be seeing you here again soon! Promise.

Join the Street Team!

An Open (though occasionally tangential) Letter to the Nerdfighters

Watching the Vlogbrothers on YouTube has done a lot for me. John and Hank’s videos have proved to me that I am nowhere near alone. Sometimes when I watch a movie I love or listen to a CD with my dad he’ll look at me and tell me that I need to “be a little more mainstream.” (I think that was a rather strong reaction to In Bruges but I guess I billed it as a black comedy (which it IS, but I think the comedy is enough to balance the violence and sadness, while apparently my dad was left more disturbed than amused)) Anyway, the Brothers Green introduced me to the Nerdfighters, for which I will never cease to be grateful. Now, at my school all of my friends are nerdfighters—though they don’t all know the term. (I go to a small private school where there are 3 kinds of people. 1)Nerdfighters with scholarships 2)Nerdfighters with scholarships who pretend to be “the popular kids” in order to fit in with the 3)popular people who aren’t terribly interested school, but their parents can pay for tuition without a scholarship or are prestigious alumni with a lot of pull in the admissions office) So, at school, I don’t feel alone. But when I return home for the summer or, heaven forbid, go out into the “real” world, I used feel like I was part of some hugely nerdy minority. But not anymore. Now I know that there are tens of thousands of Nerdfighters out there who are (each in their own way) just like me.

John’s videos have been especially important to me because I aspire, like John, to make a living writing books. There’s something about watching an author whom you admire go through everyday life. There’s John Green, the author of books I adore, and he’s a normal person. He’s a nerd like I am. Watching him go through the writing process makes my goals seem attainable, not just some castles in the air. Because “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Authors are people too?”

In short, thank you John, Hank, and all the Nerdfighters for never forgetting to be awesome.

Ramblings Indeed

I've had a few blogs in other places, but I'm really going to try to keep this one up.
I'll probably ramble quite a bit (because I'm ridiculously good at it) and hopefully I'll get around to posting some of my writing and maybe some photography.
I'm making it my goal this summer to follow through with a lot of things that I've started. So here goes nothing!