Operation Tweet Me Back: Part Deux

I'll begin with a semi-relevant but mostly-irrelevant preface: the past few days I've developed a sort of sadness, if you will.  I don't know why I've been feeling so gloomy lately, and yet I know why entirely: I think my life at the very moment is a bit of a toxic cocktail of stress with school and frustration with individuals and a general homesickness - boohoo - but I write this now in the comfort of my home sitting across the couch from my mom and my mood is already two thousand times better.  All that proves is that my residence has become a hotbed for absolute frustration with my situation, but that's neither here nor there; too personal of a topic to explain and too lowbrow of me to even speak further.  Point is, I've found that the general misfortunes of my life have been building upon one another as if like evil bricks constructing an ugly and mean wall of depressed! in my life, and on top of being away from home, I've just become miserable.  I'm glad that I have a weekend at home until Monday morning (save for a trip back to campus for my residence don interview - ahh!) to clear my head before returning to another week of school to soldier through the few academic obstacles I have ahead of me until next week's reading week.  Like I said, I felt an instant happiness even the moment I opened my front door to see my mom standing there ready to bring me back to the bubble, and I have a night out to see The Woman in Black with a friend in a few hours (lord help me) as well as a family function tomorrow so I'm just happy.

Yet, in my stewing of unhappiness this week - a week that included a twenty-four hour stomach flu which exhausted me of all energy I had on Wednesday (I also decided to watch Melancholia that day.  Really beautiful film, but messed up - I've digressed on a digression) - I cooked up another pick-me-up plan I'm going to put in motion for myself.  Round two of my official Twitter mission for a shout-out from a celebrity!  Who?  Hold on for another paragraph or two.

Recall: I've done this before.  And, yes, I was successful - twice.  I've exhausted my feelings on this so I'll gloss over it in just a few sentences, but I was somewhat disappointed with the arrogance I received in response.  Yes, I know, I'm just a nobody who's hounding someone on television for something as trivial as a "hello!" but it's a little disheartening still to be answered with snark, so I'm not overly happy with she-who-must-not-be-named who, I'm sure, will have a highly successful career now that she won't be returning for the second season of AHS and will forever just be the pair of tits on legs.  Good luck, honey.

Otherwise, I've received not one but four whole tweets from comedienne Retta who has a starring role on my favourite TV comedy (and show overall) Parks & Recreation as Donna, the Parks & Rec employee who loves her Mercedes so much and laments about her brother Lavondrias or about the endless line of men she has entertaining "just waiting in the car outside."  She's hilarious, and she's gracious with responding to her fans, so on two occasions I've been responded to for offering (what I thought to be) funny tweets in her direction which have been well received.  Doesn't hurt that she's as funny as Donna in real life.

And so, my Operation Tweet Me Back target is... well, take a guess.

No, I'm not attempting to be the one person out of nineteen million who Lady Gaga will answer one sunny afternoon - hell no.  That's foolish, and honestly, my body is unprepared for what would happen if she ever answered me.  I feel like all of my organs would collapse in unison and my parents will have to hold a funeral for me as soon as possible.  No, instead, I'd love an "X" - and that's what [she] tweets to her fans (often), just "X" for kisses - from Lana Del Rey.

I really like this picture.  I don't really like the words I can't read.

There's no need for me to go over how trivial this is again as I did last time, nor do I have to reiterate how this may be considered creepy on my end, but what can you do.  Yes, I'll fully say that I'm a petty lowly regular Joe that a tweet from Lana Del Rey would give me an infinite amount of smiles to come - like I've said, it's trivial, but I don't care.  That's what I like most about Twitter, I think: the possibility that celebrities have the capacity to type a matter of just one hundred and forty characters to make someone who adores their artistry on top of the world, so as a child of the Internet and as an active Twitter user (and follower of celebrities, ranging from the cast of Parks and Cougar Town and SNL to Mother Monster and Lana Del Rey herself) I might as well capitalize on the possibility that maybe, if I tweet sparingly and as clever as I always do, I might just get that snippet of well wishes to make me gloat about it for who knows how long.  Why Lana?  Flavour of the month.  That makes my fandom for her sound fleeting, but I mean it in the sense that in a time where a lot of the mainstream music is less than thrilling to me - and that Gaga is inbetween albums currently and Born This Way is really stale to me now - she's all I've been listening to for, literally, the past month.  In watching videos of her interacting with fans, I've seen a truly genuine side that makes me melt, so at least I know this time when if I get that response, it wouldn't be riddled with sarcasm.

Anyways, again, this is just lighthearted.  The creepiness of this - I could see it, a bit - only comes out of the fact that I've written this for the purpose of my blog, but I'm good with being a parody of myself for the sake of a good read.  After all, I don't publicize the times I've tweeted Courteney Cox and Busy Phillips or Gaga for the hell of it.  So, again, have a laugh, I don't mind!  That is, after all, the purpose of my blog.  And the moment it's unfunny is the moment I should be removed from existence on this earth.

We'll see!

Matt's Guide to the Creatures of UTM

I promise you, this will be the most ridiculous thing you will ever read.


Arguably, things I hate became one of the more popular posts here, specifically the part about the yeti.  I thought to myself: Well, there are a whole lot of yetis at UTM that aren't even yetis.  Instead, in the woods of Mississauga, there lives a whole hoard of mythical creatures - and by that I mean people that me and my friends have singled out and given nicknames.

• The YETI.  Quickly becoming one of the most popular creatures, we see the Yeti around a lot.
• YAN.  Everyone knows this guy.  No explanation needed.  (pretty much, he's a SUPER awkward guy who is always in every lecture and every tutorial/lab for some reason.. he has absolutely NO social skills, and yeah you can look at me and call me rude, but he constantly hovers around you breathing his stank breath and unwelcomely interjects with the weirdest things)
• The GING.  Yan's main squeeze.  But by that I mean the girl he usually stalks around and awkwardly inserts himself into her conversations much to her displeasure.
• BUCKBEAK.  Originally the creepy guy who stared at one of my friends in his calculus tutorial, I coined the name Buckbeak because one calculus class we were like "let's assign Harry Potter names" (...) and he certainly resembles a hippogriff.  A new revelation is that he added another of my friends on facebook, somehow knowing her full name.
• The RABBIT.  A girl who looks like a rabbit who cut in front of me at the vending machines once.  Bitch.
• PLASTIC MOUSE.  A former roommate of a friend, this girl's face looks fake like a plastic mask while at the same time looking like a rodent.
• SALLY SLUR.  One out of two of Plastic Mouse's minions.  She has a slur.
• DEIDRIKA McWEAVE.  The second of the minions.  Some girl who everyone thinks is hot but she has this limp ugly weave extension.
• The GRIZZLY BEAR.  Some guy in my Science Fiction class who looks like an awkward grizzly bear who constantly talks about the ENDING of each of the books out loud and obnoxiously.  He's spoiled 2/3 for me.
• The CRAZY RUSSIAN GUY.  Another famous one everyone can recognize around campus.  A crazy looking Russian guy who literally runs around campus with a rolly backpack and is always wearing a full on suit.
• STANKFACE.  Not a personal nickname (I'm responsible for most); he's a guy who has a lot of common classes with me and my friends, and one of my friends has a serious problem with his face for some reason.
• The SICKLY GIRL.  A girl who weighs 50 pounds.  I'm sure of it.
• PORKO.  The biggest of them all.  This charmer barrels toward you in the search of food.
• STARBURST GIRL.  Why would you wear neon purple pants, a neon orange shirt, and have a neon purple bag?
• And the greatest of them all.. SNUBBULL.

I hope I'm not forgetting anyone!

By the way, yeah, this can be taken as pretty mean, but more importantly I've meant this as a joke.  It's not like many people read this blog, and of those people I will bet all of my limbs that anyone mentioned doesn't read this, let alone know my name.

Let the Right One Remain an Original

Dear Hollywood,

Was there any real necessity to remake a perfectly good movie released only two years ago, just so that Americans don't have to read subtitles?

Yours truly,
Matt

Based and the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In was a 2008 Swedish film following Oskar, a twelve year old severely bullied at school and who dreams of violently squaring revenge on his tormentors.  He then meets Eli, about twelve herself, who just moved into his apartment complex.  Eli is strange; she smells, she's cold, and she's dressed inappropriately for the weather, barefoot and in a flimsy shirt despite the winter temperatures (yes, she's a vampire).  They began a strange relationship; curiously, Eli's appearance correlates with a sudden murder in Oskar's neighbourhood..

The book on which the movie is based is truly amazing; the amount of subplots and characters interwoven and unknowingly connected unfolds at an accelerated rate with unbelievable suspense.  The movie, of course, omits more unnecessary characters to keep the pace constant, all the while capturing the core of the book - the strange relationship between the young Oskar and the seemingly young Eli - in beautiful visuals.  It's tough for me to pick which I preferred.

Although in Swedish, with subtitles, I found myself forgetting that I was reading nearly ten minutes into the movie - not that it impacted much, as dialogue is sparse throughout the film.  Visually, the movie is absolutely stunning; being a bit of a fan of cinematography in movies I was in heaven with this movie.  Due to an Academy loophole, the movie was unable to be submitted for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, even though Sweden had selected it as its candidate.  Although the movie is centered around vampires with occasional flashes of intense gore, it stands as an incredible film from a cinematic point of view.

Imagine my reaction when learning it was rushed into being remade for North American audiences, due in your theaters on October 1st.

The story has been Americanized.  Oskar is no longer Oskar; Oskar is now Owen.  Eli, changed to Abby - thus effectively eliminating a plot point (I'd say, but I'd spoil too much).  If fact, one of the biggest plots (and twists) of both the book and original movie has been removed, in fears of it being "too intense" for American audiences.

You know, all it comes down to is Americans - or, more correctly, North Americans, including us - are too fucking lazy to even consider watching a movie in a different language with subtitles.  There was no reason to remake this movie aside from that; sure, it's considered to some to be a classic, and classics are as of late being remade; but the movie came out TWO YEARS AGO.  In no way is it outdated; in no way did it need a twenty-first century face lift.  Coupled with the laziness of this generation, the remake is an obvious attempt to keep relevant to the sudden influx of vampire pop culture.

To play my own devil's advocate, the director seems passionate about the source material - both the original and the book - and seems genuinely excited about the film.  The footage in the trailers nearly seems like a carbon copy of the original's imagery, which might be a good thing for the remake, since the original was so beautifully shot.  On the flip side, it could be viewed upon as lazy copying.  Also, the kids playing the two leads are respectable and good actors - Boy from The Road, and Hit Girl from Kick-Ass.

Sure, you can sit there and decide I'm just a stubborn believer against remakes, but that may very well be the case.  I fail to see any reason that such an excellent film needed to be remade.  Distribution to a wider audience isn't a valid reason, as the Blockbuster ten minutes away from my house had three copies of the original.

All I can say is... if Pan's Labyrinth is the next on the list to be remake, there'll be hell to pay.