S&R

Я теперь на LiveJournal… Так что, если вам понравилось то, что я писала здесь – заходите! Меня там зовут очень просто – ivrona

To those, who have no idea what triffids are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids
   It is a thrilling novel, written in 1951. I was really surprised when found out that it’s so old – the book is about bio-engineering and a really fantastic weapon-evolution!
   It’s a real horror book! Oh, what terrible past-apocalyptic time the writer describes! Actually, he described it so ordinary that I frequently looked to the window to return to the reality by seeing that there are no any terrific plants under my window! And the plot was so believable, that I would never stop to realize that it’s just a sci-fi book. When I had to come out to the City Center – I couldn’t simply concentrate on the target – I was all the time repeating: “No! He’ll survive! He’ll succeed! Won’t he?!”. And when I returned home – I immediately ran to check if he succeeded!
    Actually, I liked that the writer never tried to pitty the humanity – those who survived were real bustards (except for the main character, of course!). And also he always tried to point that it’s the humanity’s fault that there was an apocalypse! Of course, despite all my hopes, those who survived managed to start the civilization almost from 0, instead of die of Pestis! God, it’s so pathetic! Why the hell they started everything again?! Well, of course, they pretend to build a new society which will be peaceful and respectful – with out war and starving (guess, how much times it already happened!). Oh, did he really hope that I will trust him?! The only way to build a real great society is to leave 1000 people on each continent and check them not to make any new humans until anyone of a 1000 dies!
    While seeing those terrible things in the book, I felt really impatient about when it will actually happen.
    You know, actually, sci-fi is working better that all those “oracles”! If you don’t believe me – see Jules Werne “From the Earth to the Moon”, or Ray Bradury’s “Farenheit 451″ – who actually described nowdays, though the book was published in 1953!
     I guess, if there will be any beautiful happening in the sky, I’ll better climb into the air-raid shelter! Besides, if it won’t cause apocalypse – I’ll watch a video of it in the News…

More specifly – I’m not enrolled to the army!!! I wonder, the government finally realized that I present danger to the society, and they decided not to teach me how to use the weapon… Just kidding.
 I waited to be called to the “Army psychiater” for about 3.5 hours – he needed to check if I am really as monomanic and anthropophobic as I thought I am. And while 3.5 hours managed to pass for 3.5 years, I watched people around me and decided that I am actually not sick at all – comparasing to them! Of course, that’s what any crazy human will say – you know, they are like alchoholists – an alchoholist will never say he’s sick – he always says “No, I”mmm nnnot an alccchhol…alccchoholllli…sss…sss…t – I can ssss…ssstop when-ever I wwisssh…sh!”. And so are all the other sick persons… If somebody tells you he is a megaloman – he’s lying! I mean, definitely, he IS a megaloman – but he thinks that you won’t believe him and say “Oh, that’s not true – you ARE tallented, beautiful and smart!”. But you simply don’t know, that that’s exactly what he wants you to tell him – and then he feels that he is not only tallented, beautiful and smart, but also a great pretender! And you can’t imagine, how proud he feels at that very moment! From the other side – the megaloman may say he is a megaloman from another reason – somebody just told that to him and he repeats it to you, but deep in his heart he hopes that you’ll now say “What are you talking about?! Who told you such a stupid thing?! – You’re not a megaloman – you are just tallented, beautiful and smart person!”. As you see, the result is exactly the same…
 What about me – I am just a monomanic, megalomanic, anthropophobic, tallented, beautiful and smart misanthrope. No more, no less. And you had a full right to say that I am contradicting myself – but only until the Israel government proved that I am totally right!
 By the way, “contradicting themselves” is the main misanthrope’s quality – I found it out when read Jean Baptiste Poquelin, dit Molière’s “Misanthrope”!
 After I had all this monologue in my head, the 3.5 hours at last passed and it was my turn – I expected to be tied up by some scary men, then they would connect me to poligraph, and ask me weird questions with a strong floodlight directed into my frightened eyes. But, to the universal disappointment, I found just 2 kind doctors, who looked at me with a moralistic smile and asked perplexedly, while looking for a pen “Do you want to go to the army”. I answered shyly, looking at my nails “Not really…” – “OK. Probably, you have some hobbies… do you have plans to your future?” – “Hm… I am actually an artistic person… I also play piano…”. That was the end of the conversation – I got a small sheet of paper which looked like exempition of the sports lesson, which I recieved every week from the school-nurse (No, she doesn’t have any embryos on her face!).
 And, I guess for the first time in my life, I felt a real euphoria – I mean, for the first time in my life it was caused by something happening in the reality, and not caused by a great book or movie! (Like when I finished “The portrait of Dorian Gray” – I started clapping to Oskar Wilde because it’s the most romantic death for an amoralic murderer – hara-kiri!).
 The most satiric moment in all this scene was that my signature is three russian letters – JBG (guess, whose initials those are… . When I invented it I didn’t know, that a signature must mean MY initials, but I accidently wrote it once in the army, and then decided not to confuse them by changing it… You know, it’s a little dangerous to confuse a government – every time they may decide that you are a spy!
P.S: I only hope, dear reader, that you are not connected to Israel government. Else I’ll have to quote the text written in every comedy-satire program in Israel: “Pay attention, that it’s a comedy-satire program, and it’s target is only to make you laugh – take it easy, we didn’t mean to offend anyone”.

Attention: you mustn’t read this review if haven’t seen this movie yet, and you feel that you wish to see it and to love it.
I have no idea why everybody in the forums or elsewhere is talking only about Agelina Jolie – she’s not THAT curious to look at her corrected face filling the whole screen every third second! James McAvoy was cute – actually the only thing I would give this movie 1 lonely star of 5 – was his perfect acting. The only good moments in the movie were the views of his ordinary life – especially his manager… That beautiful scene when he talked to her and then broke a tooth to his best friend with a keyboard – I’d like to scroll it back again and again. To the universal surprise – this is, in my opinion, the best scene – and also I liked how his friend called him “The Man” every time. If there were no all those moments – I would throw up after 5 mins. Even my mania to kill everyone can’t make me love the scenes of violence called “training”.
What about all the rest… That’s simply a grand absurd. I don’t mind that bullets fly in circles – let’s won’t start discussing about phisycs – finally I’ve done my end-of-school-examine, and I wish I could erase all my knowledge about gravity and stop those headaches because I feel the athmosphere pressing on me! But the final scene when it passes 6 people is too exaggerated – for it would work they all must be at least the same height, and stand still in an ideal circle… Curious: how much circles the bullet drew after Angelina fell? They should show the bullet continue flying in circles – at least it would add any humor to the great stupidity…
The binar code in 13th century? They saw in a binar code the full name of a target to be killed?! And why it never said “AAAAbLSSASDF SDF SRRR”? Why it always said real names? (besides, in 13th century there were much less humans – so it would be much harder for the lathe to guess an excisting name!) And sometimes even nicknames like “Sloan”? And how the hell Wasley Gibson recognized “Sloan” on the textile? Oh, I didn’t know in those 5 weeks he became an expert in ancient binar codes as an addition to perfecting his talent in making bullets fly in circles! Oh, how I expected to see a small Budda-looking child who would say “Wesley, remember the truth – there is no spoon… I mean… gun”. It would be funny if the textile would show “Thomas Smith”. Perhaps there are 50 000 Thomases Smiths in America – even a thousand exploding rats used without any reason in the end of the movie won’t kill them all.
Oh, how sweet the story of the childhood described: when she began the story, I knew how it’s going to look like: of course a poor-looking girl, of course it’s Christmas eve, of course he is freak killer burning a super-moralistic-judge (perhaps, he was the last true judge in the whole America), and of course she must “accidently” show Wesley the scar. Oh, what a deep story – it would make me cry if I wouldn’t laugh already. I liked the sentence “Kill one and MAYBE save a thousand”… But in the movie they rather showed “Kill a thousand and maybe you’ll save the main character who anyway must die someday”. They showed this idea clearly in the scene with the train – perhaps, there was a thousand of people, and they all had no chance – but three killers who wish to kill each other – stayed alive even after flying with the last part of the train for about 60 seconds, and falling into the river where the rest of the train was waiting for them… But no – to my great disappointment, Wesley didn’t even see the rest of the train – he fell straight into a magical bath. By the way, did anyone count how much times they used “My/your father”? – even though the Father was switched in the middle of the story…
Anyway, I’d rather like a sentence “Kill 6 billions, and SURE you’ll save the planet”…

At last I’ve seen the movie in the right mood and in the perfect quality! One of my first posts was about the book, and I hope – this post is not one of the last…
 Of course, they teared away the whole deep metaphoric philosophy of the book – no wonder, Patrick Suskind was so against the filmaking on his book, so it took thousands days and millions dollars to get the rights! (though I think he just wanted to stir them up until they will be ready to pay so much money – he’s very smart, if so…).
 I’ve seen around here (in the Internet) a lot of critiques against the movie, so I don’t need to add anything of that kind. I can only say, how wonderful the movie is! I would give any prises (I have no idea of any other than Oskar…) – to the Director of Photography and the Composer. The music is breath-taking, any shot looks like desktop wallpaper.
 Of course, they’ve simply erased the main point and replaced it with A story of the lost love, but I don’t blame them – the main character in the book was too repulsive and too far from a human-creature (oh, how much I love him!!!), egoistic like a tick, and simply ugly… I think, if the filmakers would present him just as I described him – the career of the main actor would finish right there… It’s like the actor who played Agent Smith – and since then he can’t be imagined like anyone else (if you are Russian, you know what I’m talking about – even Goblin noticed that, if you’re not Russian – cool! I have readers from over the Ocean!!!). Lets return to Jean-Baptiste Grenuille…
 So, I can’t blame the creators of the movie, who chose to make him a little bit handsome…
 Through the whole movie, I couldn’t ever hate Jean-Baptiste! Though he was described like the most terrible person in the whole history, and he simply shouldn’t scream in the beginning (then he would be thrown into the river near fish-market like the 5 others before him…), the Humans around him seemed to me much more disgusting than him! They are much more cruel, and freak, and stupid than him! All he wanted was to finish his job – I’m not sure he realized, that he Killed 25 (in the movie – 13, hugh! They’ve shown him 12 times less cruel than he actually was!) beautiful virgin girls – he needed their smell and that was their own fault that they refused to let him do it without killing them!
 Yet, it’s simply a satire on 18′th Century (like American Psycho, whom I’ve already described below) – they say, there was connection to Hitler, but I don’t want to check if they are right… And if the whole story is a metaphore – I really don’t understand, how people may ask questions like “But how?! That’s impossible for a living creature would have no smell!”… “But how he wasn’t caught though he looks so weird?!”… “But how he smelled Laura who was miles away from him?!”. Oh, maybe those idiots never knew it’s a metaphore? Then someone should explain it to them clear – in Comics – maybe then they’ll get it…
 And of course this movie simply can’t be realized completely until you read the book – of course, there is no way, the movie will be better than the book, but sometimes those are two completely different productions – sometimes the movie is correcting the book’s mistakes, and sometimes the book explains the movie, but they shouldn’t blame the filmakers for the movie was different from the book. Actually, the movie is not supposed to be a simple illustration to the book – it is always something beyond the book. The question is – if this “beyond” is really indispensable to life, or it was just added without any point, by some member of the Cast who thought he is very creative and clever enough to have a right to add anything!

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie/american-psycho/
That was my most lovely moment: “What, is it a raincoat?” – “Yes, it is!!!”. The second great moment was when poor Patric tried to wash his gloves after he touched the Gay (when trying to throttle him) – and his great phrase after he kissed his hand: “Patric?!… Why here?”. No suffer – this is my new most lovely movie – I guess, I’ll see it every time people will make me angry.
What about a more objective opinion… There are some moments similar to “A clock-work orange” – and that’s really frightening, because when it was made it was an AntiUtopia, when American Psycho is a quite real story. Of course, it’s a satire to 80′s and there is a very deep philosophy in it (you can see it clearer in the book). There is even a chance, that all those freak violence accidents are all Patrick’s imagination… I actually have no idea, how it can be called a horror movie! Except for the moment with the Saw – all the other acts of violence were not shown at all, so that the watcher may use all his freak twisted imagination to find out, how a great “cranberry juise” pool which the chinese laundry refused to wash, appeared on the cottons… See, to any watcher it’s quite easy to imagine – and it means, that we may be even freaked than Patrick Bateman! And then you ask me, why do I hate you? To the universal surprise, after all, I am against violence – I prefer the humanity to suicide quietly instead of running after prostitutes with a saw!
So, there is much more dark humor and philosophic satire (something like “the portrait of Dorian Gray” in now-days), than horror. And the monologues sound like music. Besides, Cristian Bale was really good in that role…
Hey! Haven’t you watched it yet?!

Not a long time ago, I was present at the suspension bridge unveiling in Jerusalem. That Eiffel tower was built as long as I remember myself, and now it can be seen from any place in Jerusalem! And one pleasant evening I decided to see its introduction… I live about an hour of unhurried walk from it, and I pass it about almost every day… But somehow I got lost! Somehow I found a place, where that darn tower can’t be seen from, and then I had no idea in which direction I should continue. All my way to the unveiling, I felt as if I’m going to my death penalty, but I believed in a small chance to survive – if I at least don’t meet anyone I know.

 

But, to my great surprise, when I saw the crowd – I stopped being afraid of them (perhaps, I’ve exhausted all my frights-resources while trying to find the place). It all happened on a huge crossroad and it was really hard to believe, that about five hours ago it was all filled with cars and busses, moving around wildly – now the most rush place in Jerusalem looked the most pleasant place ever. This picture reminded me of “The day after tomorrow” – because the people looked so poor, as if they were immigrants – and I expected them to start building their igloos and trying hard to find common language with the forced neighbors.

But when the ceremony started and they all looked at the scene – they looked more like members of some sect…

First the mayor of Jerusalem rose to the scene and started his pathetic speech, he was practicing with his whole family all day long. As if he introduced the first space-ship to Mars, and his son was the captain on that ship. I only listened to the beginning of his conversation: “What would be New York without its bridge, and what would be Paris without its Eiffel tower?.. And now Jerusalem will join this list by showing the world its grand Suspension Bridge. Today is an important day to our history: Jerusalem is going to become one of the most beautiful cities in the world!”. It reminded me Santa Claus’s speech in South Park – that after Iran/ks killed Jesus – to mourn him, Christmas will now become His celebration…

So, I knew that Mayor’s speech was even more idiotic, but I couldn’t really formulate the reason. Until I heard one patriot, who shouted “Jerusalem always was the most beautiful city in the world, and it doesn’t need any futuristic architecture buildings to prove that!” I said “Do you mean, the Old City?..” But no – he meant the whole Jerusalem – perhaps, he included the Malha Kenyon, and the Center Bus Stop? And when the mayor said that there were over 78 twigs in that bridge, I heard everybody around me moving their forefingers pointing on the twigs and whispering in a worried tone something like for(i=1;i=78)… I never heard their conclusion.

Then was prime minister’s speech – he was sitting in the room with a books-shelf behind him (have you ever thought, why all the politics are sitting near that book-shelf? All the photos of all the presidents and prime-ministers in those last 60 years are made in that only room – as if there is only one video-camera there! And it must be already 60 years old…). But I didn’t even try to listen to him because I was trying hard to run away from that darn patriot, who now wished to invite me somewhere.

And then happened the most important moment of the evening: the salute. And immediately I heard hundreds of voices around me whispering or shouting their calculations: “And I’ve heard, they spent 2 million shekels on this ceremony!” “No, it was 2 million dollars!” “Oh, and for teachers’ pay the country has no money?!” “Yeah, that stupid two-month strike influenced my child badly!” “Oh, and my son is smoking!” At that remark I walked ten meter away to find those who think more slowly, so that now they were yet wondering if the calculation was in dollars or in shekels.

Between every expensive episode, there was a voice from the sky introducing each episode. His voice really sounded like the God’s (we’ve heard the god’s voice thousand times in movies!). What about happening on the scene…

Lots of colorful lights and gas, super-artistic abstractive dances introducing us “a new look at the Dance”, accompanied by modern-eastern music (its sound was worse than in the noisy-phones and the music-stores!). And all this mess continued for about an hour. Sometimes at the most wrong moments in the song – salutes appeared. I kept walking away every time I heard a start of conversation about politics – and I found another kind of people: there were those 60+ who remembered how their native Country recovered on its feet… They all had the same pathetic toothless smile – they were sure in their endowment to this project. Then I walked away and found a group of religious teens, sitting on the fence. I looked down and saw two cockroaches running around their feet – and for the first time in my life, I decided they were cute.

I wondered, if in this happiest moment for all the Jerusalem citizens anybody will remember of those captives (I’ve already talked about them earlier!)… And as for proving my thoughts – I saw 10 teens’ feet carrying a huge board among the crowd: “You’re happy and they are dying!” (words, which made everyone who saw them erase his smile immediately!) – when I came closer so I could see the 5 teens themselves, who were hiding behind the big board I found them joking with each other all the time and two of them already couldn’t hold the board properly, ’cause they couldn’t stop shaking with laughter! There was so much deep satiric philosophy in this view, so I even stopped walking all the time and watched them.

With the last salute which from some reason appeared at the opposite side of the crowd, so that it took some seconds till everyone realized in which direction to look, the grand expensive ceremony was over, and they all started moving home.

Now they really looked like immigrants escaping from apocalypse: their faces were so pitifully! I saw loving mothers holding tight their children, with a deep worried look in their eyes (while the father tried to remember where he parked), the old people, looking with defiance at the hurry around them (as if saying “where were you, when the global worming started?”). And of course I saw a small curled child standing in the middle of the road and looking for its mother. And there also was a weird girl with ear-phones, who seemed not to pay attention to anything happening around her, because she was listening to “Everloving” (by Moby) and this music made her feel really high. And of course, that girl was me. And that was the first moment, when I felt happy – because from today I was completely sure, that I have nothing common with them, but it also meant that at last they won’t ever have any influence on me.