Please open your books to page 32: Terrible remakes of Good Movies

Why oh why...do we need remakes of awesome movies?
Seriously...are we that starved for the original thought? That lazy for the creative integrity?  Why can't we create instead of replicate? AND WHY DOES MY FAT CAT EAT HIS OWN HAIR?
These questions, upon many more are what I fixate on daily, besides relentlessly teasing my students and daydreaming about meeting Paul Giamatti randomly at a pizza joint in downtown New Haven.
"Oh, Mr. Giamatti, you come here too? Often? Well, no I just  happen to be wearing this roller derby jersey with my derby name, Paula G. Imnaughty, on it.. Um, can I sit with you. Oh, yes I like black olives too. My, you're short."

It would go something like that....

Anyhoo, about the remakes.
 I was recently appalled to see a trailer for the remake of Sam Peckinpah's classic Straw Dogs, with James "Cyclops" Marsden in the Dustin Hoffman role. Now, if you really want to know the mind of a bipolar...on a good day my favorite movie is still Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. On a bad day.. I pop in the sinfully delicious tale, Straw Dogs and sink into my couch, with a dark satisfaction. You don't do date nights with Straw Dogs, unless your a film geek at NYU and your date is also a film geek and knows of Peckinpah creative license.  It's not for the lighthearted or your average Twilight fan..

It's hardcore and, yes, I feel hardcore when I watch it, and yes, I feel hardcore gazing at my Straw Dogs movie poster hanging in my woman cave. Sancho Paige does not agree.  But I love the darkness and psychological complexity of the film. The ballsy rape scene that was so controversial because it seems like the female protagonists is actually enjoying her rape....yikes.  It's gutsy, gritty, violent (especially for it's time) and makes you question your own morals, and seriously, it's the only time Dustin Hoffman is ever sexy, cause when he goes ape shit....damn, Mrs. Robinson!
BUT NOW! Now, we're getting a remake with Cyclops, the dopey actress, Kate Boswell with her freakish two tone eyeballs, and Eric the vampire from True Blood (Alexander Sarsgarrd). There's no shock value to this, especially with the torture porn genre so generously spoon fed to us every Halloween. (Saw, Hostel, Rob Zombie). Those types of movies owe a little of be of gratitude to Peckinpah...in the ways of LEAVE WHAT'S GOOD ALONE! Let the classics stay classic.
Speaking of classics....
When I'm having a for-real sick day, my two movies of choice are Jurassic Park and Teen Wolf. Yes,  the Michael J. Fox funky almost to the point of uncomfortable werewolf yarn. (Don't forget Teen Wolf Too (yes Too, not Two) with Jason Bateman!)   Such a perfect nick in the canon of 1980's movies, where high doses of pot, cocaine, and meth, resulted in Hollywood spewing out such gems as Legend, Howard the Duck, and Beastmaster...just to name a few.
The films of the 1980s would make for a very interesting thesis....
Now, Teen Wolf...it's just one of those things from one's particular generation, something once remembered and is laughed over and perhaps viewed for free on netflix while reminiscing about the good old days when Marty McFly didn't suffer from Parkinson's and one wasn't concerned about getting ringworm from a sweaty hairy beast in basketball shorts.... (and honestly, was there hair EVERYWHERE? Like...you know...)


And now thanks to the Twilight generation, MTV has made Teen Wolf into a tv show-feeding off those young hormone riddled girls who think hairy men with sharp teeth and twelve packs are sexy. They are, kinda. The premise is like a Twilight movie, and the fun, sappy, silliness of the original Teen Wolf is stripped away. The morals of "be yourself" one can learn from Teen Wolf (yes, there are lessons! This was the After School Special era afterall!) are vanquished and instead we have this boy who looks uncanny like Jacob from Twilight running around with his pants off and panting for his lady.  Ugh..

What's next? Wizard of Oz staring Kristen Steward as Dorothy? Nicolas Cage as the Lion? (he needs the money)
How about Citizen Kane, deemed the greatest film ever made. (And it is....don't argue, especially you, Star War fans)  Let Judd Apatow take a swing at it.  Maybe they'll make Rosebud a call girl instead of a sled. (Oh my god, you haven't seen it yet??) Seth Rogan can be Kane.....
Or better yet, Paul Giamatti.....then perhaps I have some heavy reconsideration to struggle with.

 On a side note:  For the 1 + 1 readers,  2 new chapters from Cinders and Fathers and Daughters is back up.

As in keeping with my promise and hopeful quest, a new chapter of Cinders is up. (That makes three)
The current characters introduced are as follows: Makalia Adams, Sean Hayer, and Skylar Pruce.

There's a word for people like me....

Well, clearly, someone is not willing to be seriously dedicated to keeping up with her blog...shame on me.
For sure.
There is much I wish to touch upon, but the serious itch to continue writing one of my many writing projects is awfully distracting, so a real post will have to wait. BUT! To make up for a five day hiatus, I have published not one...but TWO pieces of TWO of the projects I am currently working on. Huzzah!,
The first is a horror/zombie (yes, zombie, muahaha) project temporarily entitled Fathers & Daughters that I am writing for a friendly encouraging contest my roller derby friend (and one amazing spectacular coach), Major and I are having. We're challenging each other to write a story in the horror genre and meet the due date we have each and every month. Last month was our first and was mildly successful, although, like usual, I got way too excited and just wrote, wrote, wrote. And yes, the spelling, and grammar errors are plentiful! I refuse to do any of that till the second draft. So, if you, dear follower of the tirades, are reading, please pay no mind to those errors, even if they do bug you. Obviously, if such errors are bothering you, I am not doing my job in telling a good story.

I love to write, I simply find it the greatest joy -stress relief-escape-release ever. I could sit and write all day if society (and my moth riddled wallet) would let me. I would close my woman-cave door, light the beach sand scented Yankee Candle and just go at it for hours, developing stories and characters that I never thought could exist. I love creating outlines-where this character is going, what they're doing..what their fate may be.  I have dozens of pictures ripped from magazines to help describe characters. I feel smart and clever when I write. It's such a happy feeling.
I have already written a 365 page young adult novel.  I have let a few people read it and then in a moment of clarity, I chucked the whole thing in the trash and started from scratch. (Inspired much to my lovely friend, Coventry's excellent critiques...throwing it away was a good thing!) Now it's again rising in page number and it's exciting to watch my monster grow.

So, Fathers & Daughters is posted and also two "snippets" of another of my young adult projects, entitled "Cinders".  Each chapter is a different character and their perspective on the post-apocalyptic events occurring around them. So, my hope with this one is to post a new chapter every day. Now I have about 150 pages of this completed, so that gives me plenty of time to continue writing the story without pressure of having a new chapter so quickly...but I would love feedback. Writing is the one art form I love, love, love criticism on. How the hell am I to get better?

Oh, and this totally turned into a post! Huzzah! I win! Panda paw to the roof!

Listening: "Hello Seattle" Owl City
Writing: Untitled Young Adult fiction
Weight Watchers Points left for the day: geeshh....2

Reading is sexy...

Summer is here! Thank the Gods! Goddesses! Rodney King!
I love summer. I love summer nights and now that Sancho Paige and I have a beautiful house "The Louie" and a backyard complete with a firepit, it's going to a most excellent one indeed.
Every summer I try to get through my share of books, compiling my own summer reading list. 
Last summer I was quite ambitious and got through a nice chunk of those I set out to read.

Jill's 2010 Summer reading list....
The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb
Horns - Joe Hill
The Passage- Justin Cronin
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodwin
Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
Difficult Loves - Italo Calvino
City of Ashes - C. Clare
Ball of Fire: Life of Lucille Ball - Stefan Kanfer
The Dead Tossed Waves - Carrie Ryan
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay -Michael Chabon
Directing for the Stage
The Diaries of Adam and Eve - Mark Twain
All My Sons - Arthur Miller
Dark Desire - Christine Feehan
Dark Prince - Christine Feehan
Linger - Maggie Stefiver
The Brief Second Life of Bree Tanner - Stepheine Meyer
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Salomon's Seal - Leigh Bridger
When Venus Fell - Deborah Smith
The Cryptograph - David Mamet
Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gababon
A Great and Terrible Beauty- Libby Bray
One Day - David Nichols
1602- Neil Gaiman
Next- Michael Crietion

Soo....here we are the summer of 2011 and I'm ready to roll! (and always open for suggestions!)

Jill's most excellent, totally awesome, bogus adventure of reading...dude!
The Reapers are the Angels - Alden Bell
On Writing  - Stephen King
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
The Town - Chuck Hogan
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay -Michael Chabon
Difficult Loves - Italo Calvino
The Radleys - Matt Haig
The House of Tomorrow - Peter Boganni
Annabelle - Kathleen Winter
Forever - Maggie Stiefvater
Going Bovine - Libba Bray
Masters of Illusions - Mary Ann Tirone Smith
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Anne of Windy Poplars - L.M. Montgomery
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

I'm sure there will be more....

Plug your ears....

I wish I could sing, that's one thing I would love to acquire as a talent. My friend Tracy is beyond a triple threat when it comes to theater, my buddie Thayer is a quadruple threat cause he can throw Shakespeare into the mix...damn them both. :)  I can't sing...but when you get a few drinks in me...I'm an all out Toni Braxton, complete with the weaves. Watch out world!
Karaoke. A beautiful artform designed for those like myself who can't sing but can hide behind cheesy DJs named Sir MixThis and Vocal HotShot, all while having my fill of Jolly Rancher martinis.
There's really nothing brilliant or funny I can write about Karaoke because we all can imagine some amazing Karaoke experience, on either end, be it the drunken singer or the horrified-embarrassed-for-you audience.
But I did want to share my top five karaoke tunes. Now, the order they are in embodies the number of drinks it takes for me to sing that particular song.

1 drink.)  The Golden Girls theme song. (It's quick, easy, one pitch, and everyone just nods and smiles, while thinking, "Oh, look at the special ed girl up there singing. Very cute. I loved that show. Are they all dead yet?") It's a quick, painless experience, like combing lice out of one's hair.

2 drinks.) Downeastern Alexa by Billy Joel  I have discovered Billy Joel and I share the same vocal range, even though he is a man, and I am not.  And besides, I know how it is to be a bay man, like my father was before.

3 drinks.) Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel.  Can't carry the tune too well, but by this time, three martini's in, I'm not really caring and more concerned with getting people to clap along, and pinching as many asses as I can.

4 drinks.)  Piano Man by Billy Joel.  Oh man, four drinks in and I'm flying high, or merely climbing on top of the tables and crooning my heart out to Jake, the bartender all the while fantasizing that the people are waving their lighters and blackberries and singing along, when in reality they are watching in embarrased fear to see if the big boned girl is going to break that small table she's dancing on.

5 drinks.) Don't Cry for Me Argentina from Evita  I honestly have yet to let my freak flag fly on this one. And for those who know me and my light weighted drinking ways, getting to five drinks for me would be like defeating the Russian from Rocky III. One day, the people will know the truth...that I can rock this, even if I'm on the floor, drunk as a skunk.

Phallic Noses and Sandra Bernhart

I was just driving home from work, (where my friend Tom-Tom, recipient of Teacher of the Year took childlike glee in turning my blog into a well-versed porno...thanks Tom-Tom) and heard a ad for Sandra Bernhard, the popular comedian, coming to CT on her tour and all of the sudden, my heart just stopped...and I froze up, beads of way too early summer heat flowing down my cheeks and my hand gripping the steering wheel in fear.

I had forgotten all about Ms. Bernhard and how, as a young child, I was deathly afraid I would grow up to look like her. 
Random, and awful, I know...but hear me out.  I remember watching Roseanne as girl growing up in Franklin CT, where the peculiar stench of the mushroom farm down the road would have you hallucinating snowstorms in the middle of July, (or if you were the pathetic bookworm like myself and just finished Stephen King's It at the impressionable age of thirteen...you were seeing clowns in your tree house and no, he wasn't going to give you a balloon animal.) Now, Roseanne was a funny and cool lady and I secretly wished that my dad would bring John Goodman home one day with him and say, "Now, Jilly, this is your Uncle John...he's been away all this time, and he's now here to visit. He's brought his tuba." and Uncle John would tell me jokes and his chin fat would wiggle with malicious glee and he'd play his tuba before I went to sleep every night. Ahh, it would have been fantastic!
I liked every family member on Roseanne and I was content with their little lives until....Sandra Bernhard started appearing. I don't even remember what character she played, all I know is that she frightened me and every time she appeared somewhere in the pit of my stomach acid began to churn and the sickly thoughts stretched across my fragile young brain..."You're going to grow up and look just like her!"  The harsh caged bird beak, almost phallic looking nose, it's tip the size and shape of a Christmas bulb. The protruding jawline and sharp cheekbones. Her lips were like two slabs of cardboard, a manic puppet whose words came out with such piss and vinegar. And that voice. I would go to bed sucking on life savers and jolly ranchers, praying my voice would never reach the rust kettle deepness of Bernhard's voice. Now Roseanne could be crude and at times weird, but Sandra as Nancy Bartlett (I just googled that tidbit) was just vulgar and mean. Her beady eyes would glare out from the tube, her face stretched out before me and I would sink back into the couch and just pray...please, please God, I don't want to look like her when I grow up.  How sad a shallow thirteen year old can be when you think about it.

I didn't even consider the facts that Bernhard was at the time an amazing comedian, flexing her funny bone way before Ellen or that poser, Sarah Silverman. She was like a female Lenny Bruce- harsh, crass, and demanding of her audience. She had her own one-woman show that was extremely successful and was in a Martin Scorese film (The King of Comedy). And she was cool, advocating for gay rights and equality during a time where my small-minded self was taping pictures of Jim Carrey to her ceiling and sucking life-savers in the comforts of her cocoon of blankets at night. If only I could have looked past this paranoid silliness of thinking I would end up looking like this woman- this brilliant woman- when I had the genes of Italian bulls and French Canadian geese in my blood. No, I was destined to have my father's stout bull-horn calves, and my mother's wide smile.

I guess I grew out of this fear, or maybe it was because Roseanne went off the air and I didn't have to worry about being plagued by Ms. Bernhard every Wednesday night, and I carried on.
In college I took a modern theatre history class and one day the professor put on a DVD of a one-woman broadway show called "I'm Still Here...Damn it."  The female comic was amazing, awesome, her voice seering through a crowd that ate her up with laughter. She was fearless and gorgeous, her plush lips an violent cherry red, her long brunette hair streaked with blonde highlights and justice. I was entranced.  When I discovered that it was Sandra Bernhard, the fear rolled up for a minute then replaced by shame, and finally awe. Sandra Bernhard was cool. And I ....I was trying to be.

I have a phallic shaped nose, well, at least I think I do. It looks like a penis, a small one, perhaps one of a Swiss banker.It curves down over my mouth, the tip shaped like a small Christmas bulb. It's the one physical trait I'm happy that Sandra and I have in common and I don't mind. It's actually quite pleasing.