Cool Cherry Cream

Finally got around to seeing "Vantage Point" tonight. It just occurred to me it was a rather short movie. IMDB tells me it was only ninety minutes long, which is a good length. There was never a part where I thought "well, they could have done without this", and I don't think there was really anything left to add. Nice, concise, to-the-point, quick and dirty action. Car chases, gun shots, ice cream… what more do you need?

I don't remember when this movie came out exactly. Last year? Quite some time ago. I saw bits and pieces of the trailer and thought it looked vaguely interesting, so I tried not to watch anymore of it or hear anything about it. I didn't want to expect anything going in, because there was no way I would like it if I knew what to expect. Do I really have to go over my high expectations complex again? I think it's been covered more than enough times already.

The only thing I really figured out from the previews was that the same story was going to be told from six or so different points of view, like "11:14". And that was a decent movie, so sounds good!

I love reading the "audience comments" threads on IMDB, but just couldn't make it through this one. The majority of the comments were about people groaning and yelling "Jesus Christ!" every time they switched to a different viewpoint. I mean, honestly. I knew nothing about this movie in advance, and yet I still knew that we were going to see the same thing several times over. How is it that these people can walk into this movie expecting something else? Did they just blindly pick a theatre? Honestly!

It was fun to play along, trying to piece together the puzzle, figure out who was behind it by watching Dennis Quaid's expressions. Sure, that got a little old, as did the fact that certain characters (and their nice, crisp suits!) escaped unscathed from gunshots and car crashes while others died a little too easily. But that is how all action movies are, and to expect anything else is ridiculous. When you do find a movie where the bad guy wins, be grateful. The fact that there are so few of such movies is because no one is grateful when that happens. There's no pleasing you people, is there!?

So, yes. Some parts were cheesy. Action movies are cheesy. Romances are cheesy. Bad sci-fi movies are cheesy. A little cheese is good, but if you eat too much of it, it starts to leave a bad taste in your mouth and then you have to go drink a chocolate milk but that means you have to make it so you just grab a fruit punch instead.

I don't recall who I believed to be "in on it" (though I had a fifty-fifty chance with just about everyone), but I can tell you one thing, 'twas not the little girl. I probably said it was Jackie first, but basically forgot about him since he was mostly absent after the first two viewpoints, so I relegated him to a lowly co-star, since usually the people I know in movies only appear for a scene as a cross-dressing dress-maker or a overdosing nun and then are gone. (Here be a spoiler!) In retrospect, I probably should have noticed that he was gone and registered such activity as suspicious.

My habit of watching bad films and MST3K has led me to often commenting aloud during movies. I had much more variation in my comments than did most of your average movie-goers, however. I unfortunately didn't find an appropriate scene where Jack was in disbelief of something, so I just randomly yelled out "WHY DO YOU FIND IT SO HARD TO BELIEVE?!?" (even though, yes yes, he was the one that said it and it doesn't really make sense).

However, I always like to point out numbers. The second viewpoint started with "23 minutes ago" at which I cried "oh my god! 23 is a number!". My brother informed me that 5 is also a number… and that 2 and 3 are… 5!!! I was surprised that he didn't have the whole thing figured out by the first go around, since he's apparently quite an intuitive feller.

(Yarrr, another spoiler from here to the double line break!) At one point, Cuffy (Forest Whitaker, since I don't suppose anyone would know where that nickname comes from) was watching the window with the man in it and said something along the lines of "what is he doing there? he's not supposed to be up there!", which I took as meaning "…he's supposed to be over there" meaning Cuffy was orchestrating the whole thing and he knew the gunman was in the wrong place. A-ha, 'twould have been a clever twist, wouldn't it? Of course, I had to pick the one guy who wasn't in on it. I also decided early on that his wife died. But then he says his kids were with his wife. "They died too. In a car crash" I quickly corrected. But then he had to go and talk to them on the phone. I admit it, I fail.

He had quite a nice camera, but at one point, the way the picture on the screen was moving was just too steady. Especially for being zoomed in. But even if it wasn't, picture screens don't move like that. When you move the camera, the picture moves too. And the super-high tech phone? I totally support technology and acknowledge that is capable of a lot of things. I don't like saying anything is impossible, but at this point in time, I just don't think anything like that could possibly exist.

One part bothered me: the end of the little girl's story. Disappointing! She was stupid enough to be standing there, no tears would've been shed by me if she had been killed. She was old enough to know better, so cry baby cry.

I quite liked the president's viewpoint; how they twisted it and then untwisted it. You think something happened, but then it didn't, but then it actually did, but in a different way than you thought. Pretty cool.

Going back a little here, it just occurred to me how funny it is that when I'm watching sci-fi or action movies I go "oh, come on, it's just a movie. It can be unrealistic. Gravity doesn't apply to actors!" but when I watch romantic movies I go "so fake. How can you watch this? Absolutely dreadful! That would never happen in real life!". You would think it would be the other way around. Must be my woman showing.

So, overall, the ending, ie. who did it (which I'm still kind of confused about, it's one of those movies you watch again and catch a bit more), was satisfying. It was tied up nicely, it was entertaining, all in all, it was good.

And the last little tag bit at the end was nice, cute. A good ending, which most movies don't have. It was an obvious attempt to "make you think", which was at least better than most movie's shitty cop-out endings. I also thought of a joke (too late, as they always seem to be) for the ending: "so, I guess they have to give him back?" (since he was a loan after all! Ba-dum-csssh!).

After my last math test, I was pretty worried for this one. Sure, I actually ended up doing well last time, and all my assignments thus far have been perfect or better, so I've done pretty well in the course so far. Unfortunately, I've now realized that all that work, all day Tuesdays, that I put into finishing the assignments isn't going to make me pass the course. The assignments are only worth 35% of my final mark (only!), the rest is the tests and the exam. I've got to actually understand this stuff, because I can't just copy and paste our examples from class during the exam.

I think I've figured math out, though. Math teachers at least. No matter what he says about you having to know every example (yes, including the horse one… yes, including the domino one… yes, including the one with cases…), he is not going to put the one that no one understood on the test. And he is not going to make up a new type of question where you have to actually think on the test. It's not multiple choice, but it's still memorization.

No matter what your high school teacher that never knew your name and that was grossly uninformed about a certain famous guitarist says, they are not trying to fail you. From what I've seen, first year was a baby year. In high school, they were pretty easy on you, grade nine, grade ten, even grade eleven. But grade twelve, sometimes you did have to actually buckle down and work. And now? Year one? It's like you're back in grade nine again. Open book tests, drop your worst assignment mark… they're letting us off pretty darn easy.

I didn't buy the textbook at the beginning of the year because it was "recommended" and not "required". I ain't spending money on some silly old textbook if I don't have to! Unfortunately, when it came time for the first test, all the assigned practice questions were in the textbook. And so, that for some reason made me think "oh, well I just won't study then!". And come test time, well, my paper looked pretty messy. I have no idea how the TA marked it.

Once again, for this test, I was supposed to do the textbook questions. Instead, I redid all of the example questions we did in class. Unfortunately, I got stuck every time and had to look at the answer, thus not really learning how to do it myself. I went through the questions three or four times, but it still wasn't sticking. I was getting better, but could never get through an entire question without cheating. I knew I wouldn't just magically understand on the test, but it was time to go, no more studying to be had.

And like an episode of "Big Brother", I'm trying to throw a curve ball out of you so you'll be shocked come eviction time; I wouldn't start out saying how bad I did last time if I honestly thought I did bad again! And while I don't know for sure how I did yet, at least one of the questions were identical to an example we'd been given — and yes! I did magically know what to do on the test. I had seen every example before, no tricks, just like the teacher said. It was super easy and I was done in less than half an hour.

I suppose since I'm already gloating about how smart I am, I'll tell you about my linguistics report. Last week during seminar, the TA handed them back at the end of the class as people were leaving. I waited and waited until finally the pile and most of the students were gone. A moment of horror — did I not hand it in? Did she lose it? Oh no!

"Oh, I've got yours right here" she said as she went through another pile that I assumed she had set aside for people who were absent. She handed me my report and quietly told me "it was amazing". And suddenly I understood why, by some strange coincidence, my paper had ended up in the wrong pile.

Needless to say, that was pretty damn cool. For one, it was my very first university paper and it was "amazing"?! (Also "flawless" and "awesome", so sayeth the marking sheet, but I don't want to brag…) And again, I'm not a linguistics major, but somehow I just excel at this class. I excel at everything, of course, but I'm feeling the recognition, here! Getting good marks on papers just makes me happy, after all that I went through those first three years of high school English — I certainly didn't hear a "too superficial" in there anywhere!

I'd love to go on talking about amazing little me, but I must go now, for studying and reports await. I've gotta actually work at it sometimes, you know.

So I'm trying to write my French composition (and study for my math test, and write my linguistics paper, and study for my astronomy test…), but having trouble finding how I would say things like "we're close (to each other)" or "to start a business", since I doubt proche and commencer would, how you say, couper it. I ended up on the WordReference Forums, which are an interesting read. Even if they weren't, I'd still be lurking away, avoiding writing my composition.

I happened upon a thread where someone wanted to know how offensive people found the word "faggot". I know I've written before about "fuck", and I've probably written about things being "so gay" and "retarded" before too, but something occurred to me this time that I don't think I was able to articulate before.

Okay, so obviously "faggot" is in reference to someone who is gay. I understand that it's offensive to be used as an insult. But people are using "faggot" as an insult to everyone, regardless of their gender and sexuality. So rather than considering it an insult against gay people, we're now making it into an insult against everyone, right? There's no reason to have an insult specifically for gay people — why do they deserve that? Let's just make it another "moron" or "asshole" that sums up everyone quite nicely.

Actually, Wikipedia, always a source of entertainment and knowledge, gave me this quote:

The word faggot has also been used in English since the late 16th Century to mean "old or unpleasant woman"

"Faggot" - Wikipedia

Next time I see an old woman, I'm definitely calling her a faggot. I'm taking the word back on behalf of all the little old ladies of the word and using it how it was originally intended to be used!

Now, I could whine on about "oh, it's just a silly little word, it doesn't mean any harm!", but then you could always go and say "alright, bitch, make me a sandwich", and I understand. I don't have a problem if a friend of mine calls me a bitch, because I know she doesn't mean it. But there are certain times, certain people (cough cough, my brother), who can say it in a way that makes you think they actually believe what they're saying; they actually think calling women "bitches" is okay. And obviously, it's not. Similarly, if I tell someone "you're such a fag!" in a certain tone of voice, it means something entirely different than if I said "you fucking faggot!".

And so, if we're now calling everyone fags and bitches and niggers, as I proposed above, and yet it's wrong to call gays, women, and blacks by these names, then it doesn't work.

Say I'm at a party and I do something stupid and everyone starts laughing at me. I'm feeling particularly embarrassed about the situation and angry that people are being so inconsiderate of my feelings. I can't very well yell "you guys are all fags! …except for you, Chuck" and then storm out. That's hardly what I'd call equality.

We haven't quite found the solution yet, but we're getting closer.