Animation
#7 is a little low on the list for Beauty and the Beast, the only animated feature to ever be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. But I think the cultural impact of Belle, the bookworm, as a a heroine might mean something more to a certain group of females than it does to the whole population. I should have done my thesis on this movie.

#4 is The Lion King, which--you'll have to convince me #1 is better than that. It's on my short list of movies that I can watch over and over and over and over, which is good because at camp I often have to.

Okay, #1 is Snow White--I mean, I guess? On historical grounds? The romantic leads are not compelling and the dwarves don't age well for me. I do like singing "Heigh Ho" though. In a mine, in a mine... IN A MINE, IN A MIIIINE!

Fantasy (which is introduced by Sean Astin, lolololol)
#9 is a silent movie called The Thief of Baghdad that apparently only Leonard Maltin has ever heard of. Never mind, because #8 is Groundhog Day!!

#6 is Field of Dreams, which references #7, Harvey. Very neat, AFI. Field of Dreams is quite possibly my favorite sports movie, and since there's also a sports category, this seems like a dubious double-dip. James Earl Jones is talking about "American men" in relation to this film. But, uh, I am a lady and I like this movie too. EASE HIS PAIN, ETC.

Commercial: Kit Kittredge, an American Girl film starring Abigail Breslin. I really really really hope this is good so I can talk someone into seeing it with me, because it has Wallace Shawn and Stanley Tucci in it and, uh, a girl journalist! A cub reporter of the female gender!

#5: Miracle on 34th Street! AAAAAAAAAAAH. Another thesis necessary.

#2 is Fellowship of the Ring--I mean, I guess if you had to pick one. I have never watched another movie so many times in theatres; I think the count reached 11. You could also file this under 'epic.'

Sci-Fi (introduced by Sigourney, appropriately)
Do you know I have never seen Back to the Future (#10)? I need to be killed. Actually I haven't seen the Terminator films either. Terminator 2 is the one that made the list, by the way (#8).

#7: God I love Alien. Ash is a goddamn robot! x1000. My only complaint is that John Hurt needs more lines. (#6 is Blade Runner--well done, Ridley Scott!)

#4 is A Clockwork Orange. Win. The end. Goodnight. As a milk drinker, it speaks to me. (Fact: one of my first, crude LJ icon attempts was Alex, captioned "got moloko?" How embarrassing.)

#2 is Star Wars (or, as Nathan now insists on calling it, A New Hope--yeah, whatever). I mean, Empire? But I guess it makes sense. Nothing beats the first Death Star being destroyed. I always get emotional. What can possibly be #1, then? Oh, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I really like the HAL bits but I won't apologize for not getting most of the rest. Especially the goddamn light show. I don't take enough drugs, clearly.

Sports (woo)
God, Jerry Maguire (#10). Remember when Tom Cruise seemed normal and you might like to date him?

#4: Hoosiers!! God bless Indiana, this is all they have!

Huh, Rocky is only #2. Does that mean Rudy has been left out? I take it Chariots of Fire will be #1. Nope, it's Raging Bull! I call bullshit, not on that being on the list, but on there being no Chariots. Too British for you, AFI?

Westerns (not my strong suit)
I need to see Stagecoach (#9), it looks like my thing. Ha, Butch and Sundance are only #7! God, I love that movie. "Somebody say one-two-three-go!"

God, I'm cold.

#3 is Shane, which I've never actually watched, per se, and yet I've seen enough that my mom and I are always joking about it. Mainly, the little boy looks like a fucking duck. "Shaaaane! Come baaaack!"

John Wayne refuses to thrill me, though I was interested to learn that he was kind of effeminate in real life.

Gangster (introduced by QUENTIN!! Uh, Tarantino)
Little Caesar (#9) might be my favorite movie I have never seen. That guy just looks hilarious. Also hilarious: James Cagney.

Pulp Fiction--another favorite at #7! I feel that the commentators didn't really get into the magic of this one.

#5: Bonnie and Clyde (or, as Gabriel Byrne pronounces it, Bunny and Clyde) is so amazing. I think Faye Dunaway's style in this movie is due for a comeback, though I'm sure the hipsters have already appropriated some of it.

Oh God, they're going to have two Godfathers on this damned list. Separated only by Goodfellas.

Mystery
I'm not sure I would find oxygen tanks creepy if it wasn't for Blue Velvet and Dennis Hopper (#8). Mommy, Mommy! Ew.

Otherwise this list is about three-fourths Hitchcock. I have a huge crush on young Orson Welles, also. HOT. His Jane Eyre is my favorite.

Commercial: Not so hot? The Love Guru. Are they using Verne Troyer so much in the TV spots in order to fool the populace into thinking it's going to be enjoyable like Austin Powers? Because to me it looks like a minstrel show.

This has been going on for two hours. I'm going to get the cookie dough.

They got Roman Polanski to comment on Chinatown. For a felon the guy gets around.

Romantic Comedies (oh, GODDDD)
#1 had better be When Harry Met Sally because it's the only one I can watch (and it amazes me every time that Meg Ryan doesn't drive me nuts in it). I'm a traitor to my sex.

Okay, #9 is Harold and Maude. This list is endearing itself to me.

When Harry Met Sally is only FUCKING SIX! Bullshit. They had better all have Katharine Hepburn in them from here on out. And we always have to talk about the faked orgasm. I prefer the Oklahoma! karaoke myself, or Billy making a woman meow.

And the next one is The Philadelphia Story! I'm pretty good.

Okay, #2 is Annie Hall, which I never think of as a romantic comedy, but fair enough. This is high in my personal top ten. I think it is perfect in every respect.

Courtroom Drama!
Meryl Streep does a pretty decent Australian accent. Interestingly, she says "The dingo took my baby!" rather than ate.

Ah, A Few Good Men. I read an article on Huffington Post today comparing Jack Nicolson and Tom Cruise to John McCain and Barack Obama. I think the gist was that Barack should goad McCain into losing it and calling him a twerp on national television.

(I'm still counting on To Kill a Mockingbird and 12 Angry Men and we're already on #3--Kramer vs. Kramer. Which, by the way, is kind of sexist.)

#2--12 Angry Men! Henry Fonda is so gorgeous...and virtuous. AND #1 IS TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD I'M SO AWESOME. I also love Gregory Peck. There's a cat or a laptop or something named Atticus in my future. My favorite part of that movie, which the AFI has shown, is when the guy tells Scout to stand up because her father's passing. I always cry like a douche.

EPIC.
#8: Saving Private Ryan. An epic? I don't know if I count war movies as epics in my official typology, but it looks like the AFI does--#7 is All Quiet on the Western Front. God, they better not put something like Glory on this list. I kind of loathe Glory, except for Morgan Freeman and the spectacle that is Cary Elwes.

#6: Titanic. I have one of the most complicated relationships ever with this film. There were parts I wanted to like. I think maybe I could have without Leo DiCaprio. I don't know. At least it made Kate Winslet.

Spartacus always makes me think of Clueless. I'm a bad person? (Him! The guy not saying he's Spartacus! He's Spartacus!)

Scarlett saying she'll never be hungry again always makes me cry, like every time. And #1 is Lawrence of Arabia, of course. Peter O'Toole is another looker. And oh, that diction.

I'm a little embarrassed for presuming that any of you are sufficiently kindred-spirit-y with me to find this reminder useful, but the latest AFI 100 thing is on tonight at 8 on CBS. The ten best movies in ten different categories (one of them is 'courtroom drama'--swoon). I am always missing these and totally rueing the day--they don't seem to rerun them and I don't think they put them out on DVD. So, that's my plan for tonight. You can now hurl rotting vegetables at the nerd.

Speaking of undocumented nerditude, I recently saw Iron Man for the third time. So far I've managed to stay away from SATC; I told my mom I would go with her if she wanted, bravely, but I think she's being self-sacrificing and waiting for it to come to cable.

We were up at Cedar Point for the weekend and it was fun and exhausting. I got some color. (I love that phrase.)

One week till Illinois and camp and all things great and good. I hope. I'm nervous, as I am every year. I really want a fun time, the opposite of last year, and I hope that going back in and of itself constitutes an act of bravery and will thus earn me a good summer.

Here I am in my new bathing suit, a Land's End number in a green color called "agave," watching MSNBC and feeling gutted about Tim Russert.

MSNBC is my channel and I often thought of Matthews, Olbermann and Russert as being my news trinity. I mean, I love Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow and basically everyone who isn't Pat Buchanan, but those three are just perfect in their own ways. This is upsetting just on a political junkie level--the election won't be the same without him. Add in the personal aspect and all these people who actually knew him--Keith looks kind of red-nosed under the makeup--and it's awful.

Goodbye, Tim.

Here I am, watching MSNBC, as I have been for the last seven hours (not an exaggeration). All day I have been watching the delegates trickle in for Obama, and now I am watching him speak as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and I have to say that it's all feeling wonderful right now. I know tomorrow Hillary (who said in her vastly offensive speech that she doesn't want to make "any decisions" yet, even though she just lost) will make me want to pull my goddamn hair out once again with her attempts to become the "inevitable" veep candidate. But right now, I'm so proud of Barack. It's historic, and fuck is it well deserved.

For the first time in my life, I'm familiar with the winning word in the National Spelling Bee--"guerdon."  Thanks, Love's Labour's Lost.

Also, Sixteen Candles was on TV tonight. I haven't seen it for ages. After a while, I had to get out the frozen cookie dough. That movie brings out all that is feminine in this prematurely withered husk.

Right now I'm watching Recount on HBO and, uh, crying intermittently. This has got to be the most depressing political episode in recent history. Even when Gore is up, you know it won't last. However, Denis Leary is hot.

A few things:

I have a job interview tomorrow in New Bedford for a job that I have recently realized that I really want--not just because I'm sick of job searching, but because I would enjoy it, I think. I have to get up very early. Needless to say, I cannot sleep.

I think I got dive bombed by a mosquito at some point.

My mother is incredible. Just for the record.

Not sure I want to graduate just yet.

I handed in my last undergraduate paper this morning at about 9:32 a.m.  It was for DC. It was about the Hollywood blacklist. It was about a day late, but hopefully that won't be a problem and I'll be set to graduate on the 25th. After I turned it in, I walked back to Abbey and slept for five and a half hours.

My defense was yesterday afternoon. I was almost paralysed with nerves beforehand until I walked in the room and realized that my entire committee was made up of people I love and trust. Good choices, me. (Especially BQ--every so often he would pontificate or even tell an anecdote about himself, and I would get a break. Love him.) It was really fun--there were some curveballs, especially from Hartley, but nothing I couldn't deal with. All they could tell me is that I passed. Suspense!

Tonight I'm eating Mexican food with my old first-year seminar class and Hartley, and then I'm going to watch The History Boys (for the first of what promises to be several viewings between now and commencement) and fall asleep in a pool of my own joy.

This week, if I can just write three papers and take two finals, and make it to all the last-week-of-classes picnics, dinners and drinkfests one has to appear at, and successfully defend my thesis, and deal with pressing job search concerns, and remember Mother's Day, and not cry to excess--

Well, then it will be over. It will be over, and I can relax and sleep and get my hair cut and clean my room--things I've been meaning to do since February.

Already I miss my thesis, I think. I stood in the Dickens section of the stacks today and just kind of...touched the books for a minute, and wished I could write more about that and less about Chinese poetry.

You see, the truth is...

I AM IRON MAN.

Thesis stats:

Length: 115 pages double-spaced (with official margins)
Works cited: 4 of those pages
Which means I printed today: 345 pages on the CDC's dime
Title I finally settled on: Suffering, Self-Creation and Survival: The Victimized Child in the Novels of Charles Dickens
Turned in at: 1:55 pm (approx.)
My defense: May 9, 3 pm, starring me, a Republican, a southerner with a white mane of hair, and a dean
I am: sleepy, awesome
Why?: My conclusion is basically about Matilda by Roald Dahl

Positive things about my thesis:

1. It's keeping my mind off the Primary Season that Wouldn't End. Mostly. I had two arguments with Hillary supporters last week that got semi-heated. One of them was with an nontraditional student, aka "old lady."

2. By Golly, it is long!

3. Every so often there is a good point, like a mollusc within the sea of derivative academic-talk.

4. I have an unspoken permission slip to talk about it with pretty much anyone who gives me an opening. Like at a job interview I did this week, even.

5. It's almost over. So close. And yet so far.

Well, another birthday--22. I think this year went by faster than any year previous; it feels like I was just in England turning 21. As I recall, my celebration involved watching Fracture and eating paella. This year was also, by any standard of measurement, hard. Hard and sometimes good.

Thesis submission is May 2 and I finally started believing, as of two days ago, that I would get to submit. It's a strange feeling. In many ways, I feel really exuberant because I'm happy with my work and proud I've come this far. On the other hand, every time I open a Word document and start revising I am filled with hatred. I think it's because this project has really been in the works for a year now, and I'm ready to given Dickensian children a break. For real.

The newspaper and I have been having an ambivalent relationship as of late. I think it's because--well, I know I did a lot to help it. I wasn't the sole savior, but I went to the mat for the things I thought were important. But now, with one issue left after today's gets distributed (with the redesign--aah it's phenomenal), I feel a bit sad that all our efforts didn't change much about our perception on campus. People still talk about what a joke the News is, even though it's finally a publication I would be interested in reading even if I didn't work for it. I guess that's not unexpected, but I'm pretty sure that if this was a movie, I would have been hoisted onto the shoulders of the cheering student body by this point.

It's getting really beautiful, the weather, but almost too hot. And until May 2--really, the 10th, after I finish my other three papers and two exams (!)--I won't have time to lie in the grass.

Hi guys. Just ducking in to post my new favorite video OF ALL TIIIIME.



Enjoy.

Also, I don't think I mentioned that next month I am going to see THE MOTHERFUCKING KIDS IN THE HALL live in Cleveland and if there's a possible way for me to be more excited, I don't know it.

Today was strange--meetings and workshops and positivity and negativity and, finally, enchiladas. I went out for Mexican and, among other things, ate tamales that were flat-out pathetic compared to Angel's mom's, which I once ate by the score in her kitchen, with lemonade and a halfed avocado. I love eating, and that is one of my favorite eating memories.

I really want to go to England in June, but I'm worried about whether it's actually affordable for me to do it or whether I want it to be so badly that I am reconfiguring the facts in my head. If the second scenario was the case, my mom would have a natural obligation to tell me so, but she is being pretty encouraging. Flights at the moment are outrageous, so I'd have to wait for them to decrease, feeling nervous, unable to make plans--it'd be easier just not to go, to stay home and send cover letters to people who don't want to hire me. Well. We'll see. I wish I was rich.

Finally, I find there are a few things I am strangely, oddly protective of--like Kenneth Branagh and four-hour Hamlet. I always say people should watch it, but actually I think I would rather people didn't watch it at all if they wouldn't like it, or would find it boring, or would laugh at it (more than I good-naturedly do)--I guess because I feel like it's aimed square at me if it goes too far, because it's a movie that pretty much changed my life, and I'm a tool. Yeah, this happened. It's okay, it just made me realize why it's a movie I almost always watch in utter seclusion.

I have to get coffee with Jenny tomorrow to discuss thesis stuff and I'm nervous. Part of me really begrudges a night with friends when there's thesis to be done, which is mildly fucked.

So, it's April, which I've never been much inclined to call the cruellest month, because it's when I was born, almost 22 years ago (christ). But this year, it is. It really, really is.

I'm at that point of writing a thesis where I've done too much to feel comfortable with saying "life's too short" and quitting, but there's still so much to do that I feel a surge of hatred every time I think of the damned thing. I've never had to think about certain themes for so long, until they begin to fester in the crevices of my brain. Good practice for grad school. It needs SO much work. And meanwhile, there are other classes that want me to write papers for them and to keep "attending class" and it's all just so unreasonable.

Nor have I ever had to think so much about how I write. My style has always saved me, covered up my poor preparation. Well, now I have to rewrite the whole thing so it looks like I knew what I was doing before I sat down over various weekends and typed furiously until I had 60 pages total. Don't get me wrong: it's really great to be called on my tricks. That's one of the big reasons I want to submit--so I can finally hand in something polished rather than half-assed. It feels like polishing a turd, but turdiness is in the eye of the beholder (?).

And I want to defend. But mainly I want the relief of handing it in and saying, "That happened. I did it."

But sometimes, oh God, the green mile is so long.

--

And another thing. As usual, American Idol is MY ONLY SOLACE. (Seriously, when I got lonely in England, Melinda Doolittle was all I had.)

There is a contestant this year who I love, because he's not the Idol type but clearly has recording potential, so much so that I realized a couple of his studio-recorded songs for the show were actually worth purchase on the iTunes (no fooling), and I just want him to stick around and keep the show from devolving into cheesy-ass Archuletadom.

Anyway, he (Jason Castro) did that trendy version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow tonight (with his motherfucking ukelele, naturally). The best part in the video is the crowd, who usually do something predictable like dance or sway their arms or shriek when someone sings louder or whatever.

Here, they just stand stock-still and listen.

Crying at the moment, for what would have once been a very improbable thing: the Torchwood season finale. When did this show stop being cheese-o-rama and start being compelling?

( spoilers )

Some of my friends are posting a poem every day in honor of National Poetry Month.  Don't worry--I am not going to imitate their noble effort, which is easy because there are few poets that really light my fire. But one of them is closeted Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, he that redeems that semi-dreadful pile called "Victorian poetry." Zoe posted my favorite "terrible sonnet" today ("Carrion Comfort"), and I am going to post another in response. Enjoy. Actual life update eventually maybe.


MY own heart let me have more have pity on; let 
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, 
Charitable; not live this tormented mind 
With this tormented mind tormenting yet. 
  I cast for comfort I can no more get        
By groping round my comfortless, than blind 
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find 
Thirst ’s all-in-all in all a world of wet. 
 
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise 
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile        
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size 
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile 
’s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies 
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile.