Movies of 2012: The Dictator (2012)
Thoughts in 10 words or less: Hated it! That’s all.
Lego does Lord of the Rings sets and look at the itty bitty Viggo Mortenson Lego character and the little Helm’s Deep and oh my god, I know my birthday was almost two months ago and Christmas is years away but PLEASE BUY THIS FOR ME.
EASY BREEZY BEAUTIFUL LORAS
“This is the way things are. You can’t change nature.”
“Change is nature. The part that we can influence. And it starts when we decide.”
“Where are you going?”
“With luck, forward.”
Pixar did something of a re-release of some of their most recent films for a Memorial Day Weekend/extended preview of Brave promotion, so I made my parents come with me to see Ratatouille this morning. All Pixar films are incredible (with exception, apparently, of Cars 2 which I never saw, and yes, I even think A Bug’s Life is fantastic), but Ratatouille is by far my favorite because it has always felt like the “artist’s” Pixar film.
At its most basic, I think Ratatouille speaks to an audience of creative types. It’s the story of someone (something, I guess) from humble means who works to become bigger than he is meant to be. It’s about going for it and struggling. It’s about trying and failing but also trying and succeeding. I always get choked up during the final monologue delivered by Peter O’Toole’s fantastic impression of a food critic, Anton Ego, in which he states: “But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends.”
I saw Ratatouille for the first time in theaters when I was 16. Statements like that sounded good but didn’t mean much to me. At a much more pivotal point in my life, it means so much. It’s terrifying to think that in just about a year, I will be at the liberty and judgment of not just a small community of students and professors, but everyone. Trying to make something of being a writer is the scariest thing, and as I head into yet another summer at home, I once again put up armor in the defense of those from high school who always try to make me feel bad for the path I’m pursuing. New does need friends, and while I feel incredible comfortable in the small social scene I’m involved in at school, I can’t help but worry for the future.
That all said, Ratatouille is truly a beautiful film; if you haven’t seen it, I mean, dude, come on. I’m still a diehard Francophile, and its representations of France are respectful, beautiful, and humorous. It’s a film you should not go into with an empty stomach, because I’ve never been hungrier watching people listen to the crackle of animated baguettes. I’m so happy I sat down, nearly five years later, to re-watch it on the big screen, when I felt like I completely appreciate everything it stands for. I dig the story of an underdog (rat). I dig the story of the fierce, feminist, only-woman-in-the-kitchen Colette. I dig the gorgeous soundtrack.
“With luck, forward.” I die. Every time. I love it so.
Thought my life might have peaked with Radcliffe, but this may eclipse it.
Alison Pill and Jay Baruchal are getting married which is so incredible but no one bothered to tell me and I’m actually kind of offended.
Who are you and how did you achieve this from your Myspace account?
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
grace kelly — mika
In one of my classes, we are reading this book that’s from 1880 or something. It’s got a very Victorian and European sort of feel, even though it’s about South Africa (which I guess makes sense—it reads like Jane Eyre but less good). One of the main female characters in it is marrying a dude character called Gregory Rose who is a world-class douchebag. He’s always putting a ton of pressure on her to be obedient, and being that kind of old school patriarchal asshole or whatever. He’s the kind of Mr. Rochester sort of character that a bunch of 20 year old girls can sit around and go, “Yeah, he sucks.” Although I find Mr. Rochester’s blatant douchebaggery more amusing that Gregory Rose’s.
There’s a line in the book where the female character goes, “Love is a service.” We spent a lot of time deconstructing that with the concept of obligation and obedience. In that, yeah, it sucks to feel that way when you are engaged to someone in the late 19th century.
THEN, then then then, this one random asshole in our class raises his hand and goes, “Yeah, but there are all sorts of other things that we are obedient to that no one gets mad about.”
And everyone goes, “What?”
“Like, traffic lights.”
“What?”
“You obey traffic lights. And that makes you a good driver. Which is sort of like a service. And no one gets all worked up about how wrong it is to be obedient to traffic lights the way this class is getting worked up over this dude.”
“But—what.”
“You obey teachers too. Male and female. That’s a service job. And that doesn’t make it patriarchy.”
“What?”
“Traffic lights, I don’t know, you don’t get mad at them. You’re obeying them. You don’t have a choice.”
It was the weirdest and most sanctimonious justification for patriarchy or something that I’ve heard in a long time. I don’t have anything else to say about it other than I thought it was really funny to watch everyone in the class slowly but surely have a nervous breakdown over this guy trying to justify this poor girl having to obey her husband because he’s like traffic lights, dudes.
