Joel F

Near Spring - Movies

I got sick this week, threw up a few times, and missed a few classes. I spent my time indoors watching movies. Blood Diamond. The Departed. Close Encounters of a Third Kind. Rear Window. Half Nelson. Little Children. Chinatown.

Blood Diamond

Awesome action movie in Africa. I’d say out of those nominated for best actor I would chose Leo DiCaprio to win for this film. He has a previous nomination and even though his accent sounds really stupid in the preview it is actually pretty cool in the movie. He has a few other African tribal accents and he’s always saying “Eh?” after everything. Plus he made me believe he would kill me in a second if I didn’t help him find his diamond. There are a lot of other famous people in this movie. They fit their roles pretty well and put together some compelling drama. I didn’t have any real problems with it. I think it was my second favorite of the batch.

The Departed

I had already seen The Departed but I decided I had to watch it again so I would have it fresh in my mind during the Oscars. I don’t understand the acclaim of this movie. Its very confusing to me. It’s like you take the story of a Japanese action movie and turn it into an American movie like the recent Ocean’s Eleven, where there are so many stars I like I can’t help but enjoy the feeling of watching the movie even if nothing is really going on. Aside from the movie’s hype, I thought the cops and robbers trying to catch each other were very stupid. Leo DiCaprio’s secret undercover communication device is his cell phone? He texts Martin Sheen when he thinks Jack Nicholson isn’t looking? That’s not very sleek. Jack is crazy and on coke. He screams “This ain’t reality TV!” Is that a serious line? Isn’t this movie supposed to be up for best picture?

Close Encounters of a Third Kind

Good funny Spielberg movie. Aliens are just a bunch of big musical bright lights and the whole adventure is kind of goofy. Africa saw them first and sang toward the heavens. Richard Dreyfuss was a goofball. I wonder why he wanted to go with the aliens. I think it was the music.

Rear Window

Rear Window is rated as the #1 thriller of all time on IMDB. It’s about a photographer with a broken leg and his really hot wife. Jimmy Stewart is bound to a wheelchair the entire film. He spies through his camera at all of the apartments in the neighborhood. He becomes paranoid because he thinks the man in the apartment across the way has murdered his wife. There is one action scene in the movie. It involves a dark room and the murderer slowly walking toward Jimmy Stewart while Jimmy blinds him a few times with his camera's flash.

Half Nelson

Even though Ryan Gosling was a douche on the TV show Flash Forward he has become a good actor. I saw that his new movie got him a nomination for best actor so I watched it. I generally like movies about addicts, but this one was kind of boring. I didn’t feel that much for him. He was a dumbass history teacher and he was stupid to get caught smoking crack in the girls locker-room stall by one of his students. I liked Anthony Mackie. He was a really nice dealer who took care of the neighborhood by selling a lot of crack. It seemed like he only sold the stuff, but he probably smoked it too. Not that much happens.

Little Children

Everyone is a child making up their own fantasies about the world. The movie is about how a town is affected by a pervert who is convicted in the area, played by a guy who looks like Steve Nash. The guy gets hastled a lot so he tries to recouperate by taking a girl out from the singles ads in the paper. The date goes well because the girl is even more pathetic than him. When the night is about to end and its time for him to lean in and get a kiss he pulls out his junk and jerks off. Hilarious. The movie is mostly funny in this way, where every character is completely damaged but easy to laugh at, kind of like a light version of Todd Solondz stuff. For some reason I think Kate Winslet is hot. It might be because I always see her naked.

Chinatown

My dad’s favorite movie. Very cool stuff. Aesthetically delicious. Jack Nicholson is an ace PI, too badass to carry a gun. Lots of cigarette smoking. The hope that changing cities can change the world you live in. “Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Only won one Oscar.

Meanwhile, Moxie is a big fatass.

Go to http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/111/contents.html

This is a link to one of the most amazing things I have found in the universe. It’s an online book. The pages are beautiful. If I stared at it long enough I would lose my mind.

The sound of butterfly wings slapping glass

I've been leaking brain farts online. They burn the nose, so I have held myself accountable in real life, for only fools drift in seas of doubt. My personal shit conked out, so I put up invisible repair signs and remained inactive until I shoveled out all of the questions. People faced me and proceeded as normal and I treated them as if they could not read. I needed reprogramming. I believe my answer can be found in the mind of a child. I've behaved like a dunderhead adult, obsessively searching the soil, growing more confused each day. The child knows all at once and sprints without fear. He is certain, profound without the burden of thought. Someone projected an image of a black background with a tiny yellow dot in the center. What did I see? A black background with a tiny yellow dot in the center. What did the child see? A smashed bug. The top of a light bulb. A booger. The child sees only answers. How might I learn to see with such serenity?

Wait. I won something! Every year on Christmas Eve my dad's side of the family holds a drawing for the winner of the super bowl. With the fifth selection, I chose Peyton Manning. Pay dirt!

This proves there are ways I can accurately predict the future. However, this happened before I had all my confused loneliness freakouts.

According to the media, this Wednesday is Valentine's Day. Does this mean anything to anyone? For me, Valentine's Day used to mean I would get a nice message on myspace. A lot of you bloggers have significant others, so do ya'll have some tradition or obligation to fulfill for vday? Or do you get to hold it down like me and JChan and bypass the smorgasbord of candies and kisses?

One thing is for sure. I've been spending my hours on the courts and have elevated my abilities. Two days from now I will summon the spirit of Achilles and hold his battlefield-strength with me for forty minutes while I ravage Pink Taco with a modern day Valentine's Day Massacre.

Take it Easy

Anybody remember the huge red guy with pilot-fighter glasses named Ben Reiss of WHS 2004? I have a professor this semester named Ben Reiss. Professor Reiss teaches an American Lit class and right now we are reading Emerson and Thoreau. When studied these guys generate some cool thoughts, so cool I talked in class yesterday for the first time all semester. I said something about Thoreau not wanting us to be humans of inheritance. We shouldn't be born only to live our fathers' lives and die our fathers' deaths. We should look within ourselves to find the driving spirit that determines the meaning of our own lives. But sometimes when I am having trouble communicating with my spirit, I act as I think my father would. He's a kind guy; he just sent me an article about an NYC cab driver tracking down a woman who had left 31 diamond rings in the backseat of his taxi, after receiving a 30 cent tip from her. He wants me to be honest. In my life plan I am about to embark to a crossroads called career building. I must first pick the shape of the blocks I intend to build my career with. I've received advice from the elders, and from their legends told I move to seek the answer to a question: Is law school a path that leads to kindness or happiness? Can a kind spirit survive within me if I become the law? If not, should I accept the payment of law and rid myself of debt, perhaps melding a happier spirit? These questions seem troublesome, answerable only by the spirits. But am I right to fear the chance my spirit will float into law only to be close-pinned to its letters?

Didn't Bill Hayes read Emerson and then move into a one room hut somewhere? He had a picture of it on his desk, what was the story behind that? Do you think I need to make a similar escape to find my answers?

Game 1

Emory's intramural basketball season has officially begun. My team's first game was last night against a team of unspectacular freshmen. I've been working hard on my game since this time last year, and have played from about 4 to 6pm nearly every day for the last few weeks. Here are my awesome new basketball shoes I got for cheap ($70!) They give me great support as I dish and dash and own the court.

Too bad for me most of the members of my team, The BF Ballers (the debate teams' basketball team), graduated last year. Only three return from last years squad, two who were given almost no playing time. I played about five minutes a game and scored only 1 point in all of last season. With uncertainty about who I would be playing with, I went to the gym by myself the night before the game and practiced. I wondered if I would get hurt the night before my season started. I jumped into a game of 3 on 3 with my inner basketball animal fired up. During the second game I caught a pass from the opposing team in the face. The hit broke a spring in my glasses and gashed my eye.

After my first class on Wednesday I went to Lens Crafters and bought a strap for my spectacles. I needed them to stay on my face so I could grab rebounds after colliding with bodies under the hoop and flinging them out of my way. With the game at 7:15, I showed up at the gym at about 6 and practiced free throws in an upstairs court. I met the other two members of my team on the main court downstairs about twenty minutes later. After a bunch of no-shows, we each went through our cell phones begging anyone with two legs to stand on the court with us so we would be eligible to play. None of my designated ringer buddies would play, but by game time we found a few non-basketball-playing dudes to join our team and met the 5 person requirement.

As for the game, we lost 28-40. I played 40 minutes, scored 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. With no team work or any form of game plan we sucked ass. I played well in the first half, but in the second I missed a lot of easy shots. My legs were tired because we didn't have any subs. I only went to the line once and missed both free throws. I can make free throws in practice but I have always sucked in games. There is something about having a real scoreboard and people to officiate the game that make the game a tougher mental challenge. When I play in pick up games I can push people around enough to feel like I am king of the court, but in an official game there is an audience, the potential for fouls and no-fouls to change the momentum of the game, and an elevated level of trash talking as part of individual competitive vendettas. I want to know I can be there mentally, where when I am fouled I will be good for two free shots.

Next week is a bye week, which gives the Ballers two weeks to assemble a winning team. We need to win at least two of the next few games to have a shot at the playoffs. Our opponents are Pink Taco and two frat teams. Until I succeed I will be on the edge of victory.