Audience Participation: Coworker Education

I consider myself a pop culture buff. I love talking about pop movies and television shows, finding out random bits of knowledge that no one ever needs to truly know. I excel at the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

But I’m not a very good pop culture buff. For an example of a good one, please see RyAn. What I like, I really genuinely like, and what I feel too snobby to watch, I don’t bother with until friends strong arm me into it. See my future entry about Lost.

I am not above imposing my beliefs on others, though. Thus leading to the Great Coworker Movie Education of 2012.

A week or so ago, I discovered that my coworker, who we shall herein refer to as Tiffany, hadn’t seen the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My question, quite naturally, was “Who raised you?!”Further discussion on the topic led to the fact that she had never seen Mommy Dearest. What? No more wire hangers? Tina, bring me the axe? This is insane.

Thus, she is being indoctrinated in the “Bunny will ensure I watch every movie she finds important” club. So far, only TBF and the niece are members.

What she has seen thus far:

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Mommy Dearest

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Clue

Boondock Saints

Mmm.

Future titles will include:

Across the Universe

Donnie Darko

(500) Days of Summer

Party Monster

The Labyrinth

She’s seen quite a few that I consider crucial, Fried Green Tomatoes, Mean Girls, A League of Their Own, Bring it On, Moulin Rouge, The Neverending Story. But I’m not sure I can trust someone who hasn’t seen Mommy Dearest to have seen the important movies.

So I am now taking suggestions for movies that she must see. It is our duty and our responsibility to help the uneducated of the world.

No one's coming back from that

I have not blogged in a very long time.

Understatement? Possible. In my defense, I have three partially written blog posts raring to go, including one for Hunger Games that is yanking at the bit, growling at me for not releasing it to play.

You can thank RyAn for getting me out to play. He pointed me in the direction of Nathan's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, which invites readers to post their favorite shot from the chosen movie. Seeing as how this chosen film was Serenity, it was highly unlikely I wouldn't come out of hibernation to make my voice heard.

I made a rather haughty statement on Twitter that I didn't need to rewatch the movie to pick my favorite shot, I knew it already. As Ry so accurately pointed out, one doesn't need a reason to rewatch the movie. He is naturally right, as I've just popped the DVD in to go to this specific scene to get a good feel while I type this hurriedly, as some of us have work in the morning.

Usually when I do something Ry has done before, he does it better than me. And while I agree that his choice of favorite shots is superb, I have to make a loud angry honking sound at how wrong he is. While he also chose a shot featuring River (or, at least, a part of her), it is nowhere near the best shot of the movie.

I saw Serenity twice in theaters, by the way. It chose a very inconvenient time to come out. September 30, 2005. Inconvenient because Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005, rendering the movie theater in my hometown of Slidell, LA fairly useless. I drove 30 minutes to see this movie. Then another inconvenience, my car being smashed into and being rendered fairly undrivable.

So much of the movie has stayed with me over the years. But more than anything was a single image, one that I even had as a Livejournal icon. Remember when livejournal was cool? I'm old.

I hope that in the short time I've been doing this blog, it's become apparent that I have a very deep affinity for strong female characters. You rarely get stronger than this. The doors opening on a partially lit River Tam, standing over dead Reavers with blood streaked weapons.

The battle scene that precedes it is amazing in its own right. Just the sight of her being dragged away by Reavers as the doors shut is powerful. Then the slow motion-sped up scene of her effortlessly killing the mentally damaged Reavers. Summer Glau's amazing ballet skills have never been put to better use.

The look on her face afterwards says it all. Yes, Jayne is a girl's name. Yes, Mal is latin for bad, and yes, your bible is full of false logistics. Do you have a problem with that? Because nothing in the 'verse can stop me.

And when I said I could kill you with my brain? You should have listened.