SB

As you can tell from my other blog, I love movies. I love just about all genres and can enjoy the stupid brainless blockbuster action movies and sappy romcoms as much as the next person, but, for me, what will always, always, always sell me on exactly how much I love of a movie is the characters.

This list, although in no particular order, compiles ten characters I could fall in love with.

10. The Twisted Mess

Alabama from True Romance
(portrayed by Patrcia Arquette)

Alabama is a call-girl on her third job on her fourth day of work when she falls in love with one of her customers who believes they just met by chance. As he fights, kills and does everything he can to try to free her from the horrible situation she got herself into, she never lets up. She loves him, she supports him, she’s completely 100% faithful to him. Maybe I just have some stupid need to want to fix things, but the idea of being able to love her in spite of such glaring flaws as being a whore call girl seems like it would make the relationship more special somehow.

9. The Fairy Tale Girl

Yvaine from Stardust
(portrayed by Claire Danes)

Alright, to be completely honest, my favorite thing about Yvaine is that she glows when she’s happy. Hell, that’s the ONLY real reason the two lead characters ever get together. Do you know how much easier that would make things if all girls physically glowed when you made them that kind of happy? Trying to read girls emotions is like reading the goddamn Rosetta Stone. This would cut out all the “Does she like me, does she hate me?” bullshit. Is she glowing? BAM. There’s your answer.

8. The Rebel

Ana Pascal from Stranger than Fiction
(portrayed by Maggie Gyllenhaal)

Completely contrasting the whole “If she glowed I might know what the hell was going on” idea, it seems like there would be a whole different bonus to having to work so hard to earn the heart of an anarchist. Especially when it turns out that she’s really just as sweet as the cookies she bakes.

7. The Musician

Girl from Once
(portrayed by Marketa Irglova)

I can’t play instruments or sing, but I love listening to both. The idea of a girl that can rock the shit out of both the way Marketa’s character  in Once (simply called “Girl” in the credits) does is something that can make the most average-looking girl beautiful and adorable beyond all reason.

6. The Girl In Need of Rescue

Satine from Moulin Rouge
(portrayed by Nicole Kidman)

And another prostitute makes the list. That probably sounds bad. I’ve never paid for sex nor do I ever ever plan to, but something is oddly appealing to me about being able to overlook such a terrible lifestyle. Maybe it’s some false sense of self-worth that feels like it would come with the territory, but the thought that I could be awesome enough to make them completely ruin their careers sounds like a lasting relationship to me. I’m a fan of sacrifice, and in the case of Satine I wouldn’t even have anything to lose. There’s no weird, dangerous pimp to murder or cocaine to sell. All would be fine and dandy in the world of Caleb while I waited for my beloved Satine to fine a respectable job and abandon everything she previously knew.

5. The Tough Girly Girl

Vesper from Casino Royale
(portrayed by Eva Green)

Tough girls make for great movie characters: Kill Bill’s The Bride, Alien’s Ellen Ripley, Terminator’s Sarah Connor… but they’re all a little TOO tough for my tastes. Vesper has attitude and she’s not gonna take crap from anybody. I like a girl that’ll stand up for herself, probably because I’m an opinionated asshole and I need someone that can take the heat. Vesper wouldn’t back down. However, at the same time, she’s very feminine and girly deep down – something most of the stereotypical tough girls lose along the way.

4. The Bubbly Girl Next Door

Sam from Garden State
(portrayed by Natalie Portman)

Sam is out of her mind. She lies all the time, she cries all the time, she talks all the time – but she’s completely unapologetic about it. It’s that random quirkiness that makes her so unique. She puts her foot in her mouth and says things she shouldn’t say constantly, but I think that’s what would make her so fun to hang out with.

3. The Single Mom

Dorothy Boyd from Jerry Maguire
(portrayed by Renee Zellweger)

This is another one that I’m sure will make me seem a bit odd. It’s not that I’ve ever pursued someone that had a kid (though I do have this weird tendency to shoot for girls that are older than myself). I think it’s the fact that kids are something I definitely want someday (I’ll tentatively say “by 40″ for now), and since modern romantic comedies rarely/almost never touch on the subject of children, the idea of the single mom found in Dorothy Boyd is a fantastic representation of someone that’s ready. Because she’s there.  The way she acts with her kid (who seriously might be one of the cutest kids in movie history), is awesome. I’d want my kids to have a good mom, and that’s something Dorothy is. No guessing. Done deal.

2. The Friend

Sally from When Harry Met Sally
(portrayed by Meg Ryan)

Obviously, friendship is an important part of any relationship, whether it starts at the first date or it starts during a road trip across the country, slowly develops for twelve years THEN blossoms into a relationship somewhat sporadically. Sally’s story was the latter. The way she carries conversations about whatever happens to come up is awesome. I love talking, especially about nothing of remote importance. If Sally can do it for 12 years and keep going that sounds good to me.

1. The Weird Beauty

Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(portrayed by Kate Winslet)

This is kind of a combination of “The Rebel” and “The Bubbly Girl Next Door”; she even has touches of “The Tough Girly Girl”.  Clementine acts like she doesn’t give a shit what other people think, but takes solace in good company to make sure she’s still pretty. Hell, she could partially fill the “Twisted Mess” role in the sense that she can be terribly bi-polar which is a pretty glaring character flaw to overlook; and to top everything off she says in the movie that she wants to be a mother. Topping the topping, she’s also the go-getter in the relationship, completely cutting out the “Does she like me?” bullshit the same way “The Fairy Tale Girl” does. Before writing this I hadn’t realized exactly WHY I loved this movie so much (beyond the brilliant writing and direction), but now I’m pretty sure a huge part of it is that Clementine encompasses pieces of just about everything I find attractive in girls’ personalities.

I’m blaming this on a combination of Hecht, boredom, and boredom (again).

A few months ago Hecht randomly had the idea of rewriting the lyrics to “Part of Your World” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid to be about my DVD addiction. Here’s the best I could do.

If you don’t remember the original song (I haven’t seen the movie for a good 3 or 4 years), here’s the scene on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=55V62xbV9cE

Look at this stuff
Isn’t it neat?
Wouldn’t you think my collection’s complete?
Wouldn’t say I’m the boy
The boy who has everything
Look at that shelf
Unopened stuff
Wouldn’t you say I have more than enough?
Looking around here you think,
Sure, he’s got everything.

I’ve got Spielberg and Star Wars a-plenty
I’ve got Disney and Pixar galore
You want James Bond films?
I’ve got twenty.
But who cares?
No big deal.
I want more.

I wanna have the extended cuts
I wanna have, wanna have the Four-discs
All those movies about… what do you call it?
Oh, war.

Buyin’ full price, you don’t get too far
Sales are required for higher numbers
Strolling around at the… what’s that place again?
Store.

Up on the shelf, Five ninety-nine
And I know it’s worth every dime
Wish they were free, but cheap DVD’s
Are out of this world.*

What would I give if I could live in a Blockbuster?
What would I pay to spend a day just on King Kong?
Betcha Stan Lee would be happy
If I watched X-Men 2 for hours
Maybe Mallrats, or Men in Black
Or Home Alone

I wanna know more than most people know
Ask them some questions, then fight their answers
Like what is this “Full Screen” and why does it… what’s the word?
F*CKING EXIST?

DVD snob?
You betcha, Bob. I’m an asshole ‘bout this kind of stuff.
If it’s full screen.
A tragedy.
Unless it’s damn old.**
.
.
.
*Yes, I am aware nobody has ever used the term “out of this world” that doesn’t own a car lot or narrate a “Silly Songs for Children” cassette tape

**Or 4:3 was its original aspect ratio for other reasons.

The original plans for Halloween night consisted of simply handing out candy to Trick-or-Treaters and finishing up Horrorfest with viewings of Halloween and Halloween 2. When it became depressingly obvious that no children in the entire city deemed our shitty neighborhood worth visiting in hopes of candy, Mike and I opted to go to a party I had been invited to with like one day’s notice. Nick was working on something or other and Chris doesn’t really do parties.

Since dressing up wasn’t originally in the gameplan, we both took literally about 45 minutes and threw something together as best we could.

Mike went for the Werewolf victim/Zombie.

When you take into consideration that this meant he did his own make-up, it’s actually quite impressive. Doing horror make-up with wax on yourself is probably crazy-hard. When we took the make-up class in film school, I had enough trouble getting the wax scars to work on someone else’s face. I wouldn’t even try to do it myself. Add in a bloody shirt, and everything’s good to go.

I decided to ruin an undershirt (of which, I have many) and make a mask to pay homage to one of my favorite new horror movies of the last few years, The Strangers.

I had no idea what I was doing when I started and I ended up ruining two undershirts trying to figure out how the hell this was going to work. Using a suit I’ve worn approximately three times, the costume was complete.

For 45-minute last-second creations, I think we did pretty well for ourselves.

Chris, Hecht, and I all carved Jack-O-Lanterns this year and I now present them to you for a nice little Jack-O-Lantern competition I’ve dubbed “The Jack-Off”. People have a crappy history of actually commenting on these absurd posts, but maybe some of you will surprise me and cast a vote.

Exhibit A: Jack

Exhibit B: The Nick-O-Lantern

Exhibit C: General Custer