not quite artsy, not a blockbuster - just 'lost'

I have plenty of important things to talk about today. But instead, I'm going to rant. I just wasted 102 minutes watching Lost In Translation. Yes, yes, I know the movie is like, 5 years old by now. I just haven't gotten around to watching it until tonight. Got it on On Demand.

I Think I'm The Only Person Who Did Not Like This Movie.
We all remember the comical trailers. We heard the hype and we watched it bring home the awards. So I was expecting a genius and funny, perhaps heartwarming movie with an albeit artistic slant from Ms. Coppola.

I should have known what I was getting into.
I remembered how much I disliked The Virgin Suicides. But, given that TVS was Ms. Coppola's first effort, I applauded her. LIT was only marginally better, and its all b/c of Bill Murray. Truthfully, I don't know why this film was nominated for so many awards, nor, how it won any. I will support my arguement here:

1. In both TVS and LIT, it seems as if too much weight is placed on the film being brilliantly shot, and not enough emphasis placed on the story. The cinematography was beautiful, but shouldn't have to carry the whole film. The editing was razor sharp. But, the direction was comparable to that of a student film. Certain parts of the film felt like it was trying to be weird, just for the sake of being weird.

1A. To go back to the editing - at times I was confused. Throughout the early part of the film especially, Charlotte is shown in near back to back shots wearing different pjs. Either the clips got all mixed up in the computer, or Coppola is trying to suggest that multiple days were passing and the only occurance of note was Charlotte changing her clothes, Or Charlotte really did enjoy changing her tops several times a day.

2. "Trying" is the defining word of this movie. It tries to be mysterious and shy and coy. But the action is painfully slow and the characters aren't developed enough to make the story intriguing.

3. Not only are the characters not given a chance to develop, in some cases the performance feels completely wrong. Charlotte for example is a Yale grad who has been married for 2 years, and is accused of being "snotty" and "mean" by her husband. I believe that the character was meant to be very complex - part vamp, part "lost" child with a bit of cynicism. She is portrayed by Scarlett Johansson who at 19 does the job of playing the innocent, and Could play up the sultry factor, but doesn't quite make it. Also, the performance does not support Charlotte being a Yale grad that studied Psychology. She spends more time giggling and looking partially glazed over. The conflict between her studies and her life only barely peeks through. Furthermore, she never seems to make any profund observations or statements that one would expect from a Philosophy major. Nor snide remarks that would qualify her snob title.

4. Overall, I think the other younger characters where erroneously cast. To me, the actors look like they would have been better off in American Pie Part 4. Too young and not believable as up and coming high profilers.

5. Bill Murray makes the movie, and could have made it better if he did more 'Bill Murray'. Occasionally, he was his witty, endearing and funny self, interspersed with expertly played indifference. But there was so much more room for him.

6. I read that the script was very sparse and the film was largly improvised.
Really?!? I couldn't tell...

7. This film wins the top prize in the "Worst Foleyed" and "Worst ADR" categories. My goodness. even on a small tv screen there is SO MUCH that doesn't line up. I can't imagine how hideous it looked on the large screen. Two specific places of horror are in the arcade when a kid is playing a video game by drumming..the ratio of sticks to "pow" is pathetic. And, when Bob and Charlotte are lying on his bed talking, the room tone suddenly disappears, and of course the dialogue doesn't match up.

8. Can we say "Anti-Climactic?" A 5th grader could have guessed the plot twists, if you could call them that. As for the 'big climax' - we are thrown a couple of weak-ass curve balls that sort of miss the catcher and instead haphazardly bounce out of bounds. At the one shining moment where we could have seen the brilliant manifestation of this transcendental nether-love, we get the hug. But for the kiss - the camera is awkwardly tight on, and off to the back/side of Bob's ear/cheek. Did Coppola not want us to see the kiss? If so, there would have been better angles with a more demure perspective. But she knew the kiss is what we wanted, so it seems that her answer was to compromise.

9. Oooh but what did Bob whisper in Charlotte's ear?? The lingering question could have produced an answer as earth shattering as "Rosebud" or Larua Palmer's admission that her father killed her. But no, the whisper is inaudible and the closed captionining confirms that fact. Admittedly, we WANT to know what Bob is saying. I've suggested to Dave the we extract the audio and attempt to isolate the dialogue by filtering out the background noises. But Dave doesn't think it will work. A quick internet search produces guesses from other viewers...

But in my opinion...I think Bill Murray improvised, and the crew lost the production audio. So he made something up for the ADR track. OR, perhaps in his improvisation he never said anything at all. And in either case - Coppola thought to herself "Hey! This can be kind of cool, and Weird...I like it!"

This is why I spend $3.95 for On Demand instead of $10 at the movie theater.

Do you have a movie that you'd like to see me tear to shreds? Post a comment or send me an email.

My New Addiction: Dipping Body Parts In Hot Wax

SPOILER MATERIAL: If you are a greasy sleezeball looking for a scandalous glimpse of something kinky - Immediately hit the 'back' button on your AOL window and go turn on Cinemax After Dark.

Yes folks, I'm talking about wax. Paraffin wax, and it's my new obsession.

We all love to be pampered now and then. I've personally never set foot into a spa. My budget just doesn't permit. Now, I bet you're saying to yourself, "My gosh, all of the beauty, and it's all natural?!" No, not exactly 'natural.' Just, not performed on me professionally.

I've learned how to give myself home facials and how to properly exfoliate. I shape my own eyebrows, whiten my own teeth. Up until recently, I cut my own hair. The one service I do wish I could receive from a professional is regular massages. But I've never had a problem being able to talk my friends into helping me out. (By the way, any takers?)

And although I have received pro manicures and pedicures, for the most part, I perform the tasks myself. One reason is that I get funny looks when I tell them the nails on my right hand need to be long and I need no nails on my left hand.

Bring In The Wax
I'm absolutely obsessive about my hands. I wear gloves religiously, even well into the summer if its cool. And I'm always slathering on pure shea butter. Nevertheless, they get beat up, cut up, banged up and worn out from the keyboards, but more so from the guitars.

My mother acquired this nifty device called a Paraffin Wax Bath She loved it, but decided she needed the space for her ever-spawning Mickey Mouse collectibles, and passed it on to me.

The device is a plastic tub. You place a brick of wax in it, plug it in, and Voila! You have a re-invented Medieval Torture Bath.

Now, the problem here is that I don't like hot things.
I don't like hot weather. I don't like hot temperature foods. And I don't particularly enjoy dunking fragile body into a 120f vat of foaming jacuzzi water. I can't explain it precisely, it's def one of my mental quirks. If I am to dig into a steaming bowl of soup for example (well, first of all, I let it cool to "just above harboring bacteria" temperature)I imagine it scalding my esophageal tract, disintergrating the gentle vili and burning away my intestinal tissue like a nuclear mushroom cloud over the New Mexico Desert. okay, not so much....

But the lure of smoother, silkier, more lustrious hands made me persevere

As my mother instructed - you dunk your hand, let the extra wax drip off and harden and itty bit, then repeat a few more times before bagging up your hand like a piece of leftover turkey.

I look at the vat of wax, which has taken on a clear ocean blue hue. Ah, the ocean, calm and serene. It looks so beautiful and oddly hypnotic. Surely, the water is safe! I gingerly and tentatively approach the innocent looking liquid....and YEHAW IT's HOT! Hot as if I plunged my hand into a boiling pot of spaghetti! BUT WAIT, it's really not THAT bad, I'm just being a baby. On subsequent dunks, it feels less terrorsome due to the thickening layers of wax.

By the time my hand had enough layers to look like it could illuminate a small room, I followed the instructions to place it in a plastic baggy thing (all of this came with the kit) and then in an insulated mitten that I think they stole from a Pluto costume at Disney World.

And Then Euphoria!
After repeating the procedure w/ the other hand, and help from Dave, I began to relax and enjoy the sensuous warmth. It was so therapeutic! I was in heaven!

When the wax had cooled and hardened, it was time to awake my hands from their blissful sleeping bags. I imagined that I would need a chisel to break apart the hardened wax, but my hands slipped right out - leaving a really neat complete cast of my hand in its entirety, nails and skin impressions and all. For a moment, I thought 'Hey, I could go work for Industrial Light and Magic' Then I remembered that I was neither intelligent, nor creative enough.

Back to my hands = they feel luxuriously sensuous! So soft and smooth. Little cracks seemed to have been erased. Cuticle revitalised. Nails shiny. And my callouses may actually need to be reformed so I don't bleed on the guitar strings. Overall, the results from just one use totally exceeded my expectations. And, the soothing, warming feeling is so relaxing too.

Now I'm a paraffin wax junky.
My habit is steadily increasing and soon I will need to buy more wax. Then I got the idea to do some research. On the web, I found sources that claim people use wax dipping as a form of physical therapy - to treat muscle and joint pain. We all know that everything on the internet is true... but I could see how regular dips *could* offer at least a little temporary comfort. And apparently, people dip everything - feet, elbows, (obvious choices) and even facials and whole body treatments. How do they dip a whole body? I think that may get a little uncomfortable.

Like A Human Fondue
As we speak, I have my feet nestled snuggly in the oven roaster bags. The sumptuous wax working over tired joints and doing, er, whatever it does to make the dry skin soft and smooth. I can't wait to reveal my new softer tootsies.

And I've come to this conclusion:

Heaven must be regular full body dips in paraffin wax

Moving on.

The dust has settled and now it's on to another day. The old familiar routines remind me that time, and life hurries on.

My deadline is swiftly approaching.
It's raining.
The rabbit is chewing on the Auralex in the studio.
The house is still a rancid mess.

Ah, the cold comfort of normalcy.


For those who wisely refrained from speaking to me yesterday - I will summarise the day's Good, Sucky and Obnoxious events:


1. Losing a very lucrative gig: How-Am-I-Going-To-Pay-The-Rent Sucky.

2. Taking the extra time to give myself a home spa experience: Relaxingly Good.

3. Venti Starbucks Dark Roast: Bouncing Off The Ceiling Good.

4. Simon in his penultimate Idol appearence of the season: TIE = Obnoxiously Sexy Good and Tuesdays-In-The-Off-Season-Are-Going-To-Be-Boring Sucky.

5. Learning that 'Tony Almeida' Carlos Bernado's contract has not been renewed for the next season of 24 and obviously, 'Stephen Saunders' Paul Blackthorn is out too: Who Will Provide Next Season's Eye Candy Obnoxious.

somewhere between sickness and sadness.

there are just 2 redeeming factors that are saving me from personal annihilation tonight.

1. Simon
2. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies.

That is all. I will return to my ditch now.

I got nothing

I don't have any useful opinions or comments to make tonight. So I'll just complain.

After I begrudgingly got in bed last night, I couldn't fall asleep. So at 3:30a I got up and wasted time on the internet until 5a when I had to start getting ready. Tried to nap this afternoon - "ooh no you don't," said the lawnmower. So I've been up for about 36 hours so far. I managed to smile through singing two masses this morning, existing on water, a baggy of carrots and the last drops of andrenaline left in my body.

Since I've been so overtired, I've experienced some strange goings-on. Delusions, hallucinations, anxiety, wicked slow reaction times. And I quite literally feel "wiped-out."

The scary thing is that I don't feel ready for sleep yet. great. I suspect that I will begin to feel incredibly sleepy right around 6:30a when I should start getting ready for my 9:00a meeting.

Mission Accomplished.

Today I could have been at the Kiss 108 concert, and tonight I could have been tearing it up at the VIP afterparty. But due to prior engagements, my day went something like this:

Wake-up, drive, sing, drive, curl hair, paste on false eyelashes, drive, sing, drive, straighten hair, re-glue eyelashes, drive, sing, drive. aw crap I forgot to eat. make quick food, chug martini.

Now I can get 4 hours of sleep before: wake-up, drive, sing (sight reading ack!) drive, you get the picture.

But, besides all the running around - my whole day / evening was incredible! There are few greater thrills than seeing a crowd of happy people. Sometimes singing along to the lyrics they'll never forget. Sometimes w/ the glimmer of a tear in the eye b/c the song brought back a distant memory. Always smiling.

It makes my existense worthwhile.

Shopper's High

sigh...my world is suddenly a happier place.

at least for the time being, anyway.

Ladies and gentleman...

Congrats to Stoney Catcherye for proving himself worthy by answering the Questions 3 on my FAQ from earlier this week. I'm pretty sure he looked up the answers to #3 on the internet, but he did the legwork, so it counts. Details of our date are still TBD but so far the only detail that has been confirmed is a bathub full of Strawberry Daquaries.

Now For Some Bad News.
Yesterday, one of the tv shows that I write for was canceled. This is not good for me. But its even worse for the other team members that had to be laid off. It was also my favourite of the shows. How do I deal w/ the stress and sadness and feelings of panic??

I go shopping of course!

Something about shopping is sickeningly therapeutic. It's the physical filling of a figuritve, physical or otherwise perceived void. Beyond the act of acquiring something new - shopping also serves to give the hungry customer a little pat on the back, a mini-ego stroke. "You're good enough to deserve these nice new things!"

Sadly, tonight's procursion excursion is not going to be all fun and games. For one thing, it's a Friday night and the last place that I usually want to be on a Friday night is in a mall. And secondly, I HAVE to buy a warm weather suit, perferably in a pretty easy-wearing pastel hue. As we've established, shopping for the sake of shopping is fun. But shopping w/ a purpose can be downright horrific.

Nonetheless,I'm looking forward to coming home w/ lots of pretty packages and feeling that familiar pat-on-the-back satisfaction.

sick? yes I know, just a little.

you're kidding right?

Okay this is obnoxiuos. How many times did I get that stupid FWD about not buying gas today.

People, honestly - not buying gas for one day is not going to make the least bit of an impact! If you don't buy it today, you'll buy it tomorrow. The gas stations don't care. They'll sell their "stockpile" to you tomorrow.

Here's an analogy. My dept runs daily TPS reports that are distributed to all employees and need to be reviewed on a daily basis. Today, we have the day off, nobody is using paper to print out reports. But tomorrow, when everybody comes back we will need paper to print the reports from both the previous day and the current day. Day off did not affect the paper supply.

If you want to make a difference, our society has to lower our overall consumption of gas. That means car pooling or taking public transportation. or biking. or telecommuting(like moi.) even on a semi-regular basis, it will make a significant difference.

So, we can conclude that if my dept decided to distribute one copy of a TPS report to 5 employees and make them share it = we would use less paper. Or, if we combined all of the daily numbers into one weekly TPS total = we would use less paper. Or, if TPS reports were circulated electronically = we would use no paper! OR, if we trashed the whole TPS reporting system, quit our jobs and moved to an island - the only paper we would use would be to wipe our bums.


As an additional aside:
I would personally not take any advice from the same medium that tries to sell ME viagra and assures me that Bill Gates wants to give me a free vacation to Disney World and if I don't forward a cutesy obnoxious love poem to everybody I know - I will be cursed with bad luck for 11 years, turn into a dog and have snake eggs hatch in my gums.

Sign-off

VO: "This concludes my regular broadcasting schedule. Thank you for tuning in and have a pleasant day."

cue the National Anthem.

colour bars.

fade to black.

***

Wake me up when it's time for American Idol.

FAQ this.

Well we’re off to a jolly rolicking start. It’s nice to see that my friends share my passion for overly trite and useless blather.

The rest of you may have some burning questions in your eager little minds. And so, I have created a brief...

FAQ

You already have a webpage. Why do I need to remember another url for you?

I would like my webpage to be used for only professional purposes. Yes, I know there is nothing there right now. Why should I use up all of that valuable space anyway? Perhaps someday I will link the two.


What is ‘Paphia?’

Back when we were one of the first AOL subscribers and thumbing our noses at the Prodigy folks, I wanted to pick a really unique screen name. Not a bunch of numbers or other prattle. At the time, I was going through a “exploring history’s religions” phase and whipped out my Robert Grave’s mythology books.

‘Paphia’ is the name of a complex goddess worshipped by the people of Paphos, Cyprus during ancient times. In other areas of the Greek world, she was known by dozens of names, including the most well known – Aphrodite. According to ancient references, her dominion covers sexuality and sensual pleasure, as well as fertility and ferocity. Incidentally, if you know me, this association is quite ironic indeed.

But the name sounded pretty and obscure. I like it.


Where do you work? What are some of your hobbies? What kind of music do you like? Do you have siblings?

If you don’t know – I’m not telling you. But you can probably figure out some more in-depth info via future postings.


You’re hot. Will you go out with me?

Most likely not. But I may consider it if you answer these questions three:

A. In your opinion, what are the five most influential recording artists or songwriters in the history of music?

B. How would you rank the following issues in order of importance? animal rights, civil rights, global commerce, historical preservation, personal financial gain, technological advancement.

C. What are the three main types of subatomic particles? And what is the mass and electrical charge of each?

Got a question? Post a comment. Or send me an email. I may respond.

the (un)usual?

2:00p est. Good morning. Coffe. Parsley and kale for Squeek. A can of ground up meat by-products for Scuba Steve. This stuff is absolutely vile. emails. voicemails. snail mails. Eh - I'll get around to returning messages eventually.

DESTINATION 'CYBERSPACE'
Since I'm always so on top of the latest technology, today I thought "Hey what about those new fangled web logging programs?" I think alot. I sometimes have opinions. But I need room in my head to store architectural definitions. Precious brain cells are necessary for coming up w/ colourful but meaningless ways to describe houses.

What should I do w/ all of my random ramblings? Enter blogspot.com Yes! The skies open up and the choirs in my head strike up a jubilant refrain. Cosmic bodies slowly move into alignment. Peace in all of its forms is...okay, okay so its not that monumental of an event.

But perhaps, this trendy little innovation will allow me to stay closer to those that care. Afterall, I share very few waking hours with the majority of the working world. They can log on - read about my boring day, or my obnoxiuos musings and feel good for not wasting their time on calling me.

"it's like I'm talking to someone - but I don't have to listen to them talk back"

If only I could turn my blog into a kewl accessory. like if I could carry it around in a blog-holder-belt-clip.

TODAY'S PREDICTION
Dave will want to create a blog.