It’s a bittersweet symphony, this life

 

“You were very much in love with her. And you're still in love with her. But it amused me to make you ashamed of it. You gave up on the first person you ever loved because I threatened your reputation. Don't you get it? You're just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with. And now you've completely blown it with her. I think it's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

So, I assume you've come here to make arrangements. But unfortunately, I don't fuck losers.”

Fifteen years ago, I was a junior in high school. My sister and I decided to go to the movies together. She wanted to see The Rage: Carrie 2. I, being a brand new fan of a television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was dying to see Cruel Intentions.

We saw both.

We both agreed my taste was, at least in the moment, impeccable.

In fifteen years, this movie has never once been bumped from my top five list. I’ve watched it repeatedly, sometimes multiple times in one sitting. After it came out on VHS (yes, I said VHS), I brought it with me to sleepovers and made friends watch and fall in love with these amazing characters.

              

Sebastian, the damaged bad boy you couldn’t help but love. Celeste, who I think we were supposed to root for, but whose torture I could never get enough of. Ronald, the poor shmuck who got caught in the tangled cluster fuck that was Sebastian versus Catherine. The soundtrack, which is flawless.

I cared little for Annette. She was a goody two shoes, better than thou pretentious twit. But the scene where she makes faces in the car and makes Sebastian laugh was a regular rewind scene that always cracked me up.

And there was Catherine.

Catherine Merteuil. Ice princess. All around Queen Bitch. And I loved her desperately. I loved her at her best, and I worshipped her at her worst. I wanted her life. Her ice blue bedroom, her impeccable wardrobe.

That crucifix.

This movie will never get old for me. And if seeing it in theaters fifteen years ago makes me old, I’m good with it.

Peace out.

(Gifs from Fuck Yeah, Cruel Intentions on Tumblr)

What Do You Mean, You Haven’t Seen…

Forgive my extended absence from the blog. I really haven’t got a good excuse. Since my last update, wondrous things have happened, not least of which were The Hunger Games, Avengers, Catching Fire, The Conjuring. I would’ve liked to shriek with joy about Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and grit my teeth in irritation at the annoyance of my Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s wasted voice in Dracula.

But no. I’m a lazy cow, and have let the blog go to waste. Time to wake back up, dust off the cobwebs, and see if I can’t use my brain once more.

I could make an entire blog series titled, “What do you mean, you haven’t seen ____?” I’ve been scolded repeatedly for my lack of television watching when it comes to the Big Fandoms. See my previous entries regarding Lost and Battlestar Galactica (still haven’t seen the final season). The two major ones, naturally, are Doctor Who and Game of Thrones.

The former is fandom the likes of Buffy back in the day (and to an extent, to this day), so I understand the gasps of horror when it’s discovered that I don’t know which Doctor is which, and when I hear companions, I think Inara, not Rose, Donna, or…those other people. My knowledge is shaky at best. The facts I could state before attempting any watching:

1. There’s a big blue box that they travel in. It is called a Tardis.

2. There’s weird mechanical things called Daleks, that say things like “Exterminate”. Also something about tea, though I think that’s a fandom thing, not a show thing.

3. David Tennant is one of the doctors, and he is very pretty.

4. You are not supposed to abbreviate Doctor.

5. Angels are bad.

6. Fans cry and scream a lot.

Number six is kind of a gimme. Every good fandom is prone to crying and screaming.

Christmas of last year, I made a promise to my friends that I would attempt to watch something of Doctor Who. I never gave it a proper shot because from what I’ve gathered, this show has been around since the 60’s, there’s multiple incarnations of the Doctor, multiple season ones, and that is just a level of fandom I am unprepared for.

“Watch Blink,” they said. “You’ll like it,” they said.

An hour’s worth of screaming later, I decided to give it a shot.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 20 Years

Twenty years.

Twenty years ago, I was 10 years old. In fact, I was 10 years and five days old.

I didn’t see the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer until after it came out on cable. I know, it’s a shocker. I’m so up to date on movies, how can this possibly be?

The first time I watched it, I was immediately in love. I loved Buffy. I really loved Pike. I loved Merrick (the first time I loved Donald Sutherland, certainly not the last). I loved Pee Wee the Vampire. There was no bad for me.

And it was the one and only time in her entire career I liked Hilary Swank.

One girl in all the world. Sure, she had to put up with unsightly birth marks, and extremely painful crampy radar, but she was a badass. My love for acrobatics in movies started early, so all of her tumbling and cartwheeling was some of my favorite bits.

And she was funny! I quoted that movie so much, my friends threatened physical violence.

“I have no sense of history?! He wears a brown tie!”

“Does Elvis talk to you? Does he tell you to do things? Do you see spots?”

“We’re immortal, Buffy. We can do anything!” “Oh, yeah? Clap.”

Yeah, I was a very, very big fan of the show.

Which is why, five years later, when the WB announced a television show was going to premiere, based on this movie, my answer was a big, fat, resounding oh hay-ell, no.

It took about two years for me to give it a shot, and realize I was a moron. And in the twelve or so years I’ve been a fan of the television show, I’ve come to realize that the opinion regarding the movie is extreme. Most people hate it. With a firey passion.

I still love it. Unironically, in fact. I acknowledge that Joss hated it, and in comparison with the TV show, it is pretty awful. But it doesn’t stop me from loving the ever holy hell out of it.

I’ve been a fan of Buffy, in one form or the other, for 20 years now.

Yes. I feel awfully old. But it’s a proud old.

Side note: I told my niece we were watching something very important tonight, for the sole reason that as of today, it’s been out 20 years.

As I was putting it in, I said, “This is the movie that started it all.”

“…is that the name of it?”

 

And lastly, here’s a picture of Seth Green from a deleted scene. Dorky vamp FTW.

Guest Blog: Love is All Around

I recently finished a rewatch of all seven seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I love that show. That and Dick Van Dyke were two of my favorite situation comedies on Nick at Nite growing up. I love Mary Tyler Moore, both as Laura Petrie and Mary Richards.

When watching the episodes, I knew I wanted to blog about it. I even started collecting pictures.

But as we all know, I have become The Missing Blogger, and I suck. However. My friend Meltha, who is as smart as she is funny, is also a big fan of the show, and I asked her to write something up for me.

She sweetly obliged. Her thoughtful and intelligent blog post can be found under the cut.

Movie weekend - Based on a True Story

I’m a bit rusty when it comes to blogging.

It’s just been too long since I updated regularly. Sad, considering I saw the two best movies of the year (decade), The Hunger Games and The Avengers in their opening weekends, loved them enough to shriek about them, and yet.

The entries are coming. Probably next year. Le sigh.

But in order to exercise my blogging muscles, let’s have an entry about the movies I’ve watched this weekend. Some newish, one older. I just finished the book Based on a True Story, which takes movies famously based on a true story, and dissects them. It added a rather large amount of movies to my must-see list, including the first one under the cut.

Without meaning to, the following three movies are all based on true (or could-be-true) events. It was an accident, but a happy one.

If nothing else, this entry may reawaken my love to ramble.

Lost

So, I have a list of shows I won’t watch, for one reason or another. Glee, is, as previously mentioned, high on the list. But another has always been Lost.

I don’t really know why I refused to watch it. It just honestly never interested me. Plane crash. Desert island. Okay. Gilligan’s Island without the wacky 60’s vibe?

However, I have a show that I demand people watch. At every available instant, I angrily insist that they are awful people for not watching Leverage. Awful. And stupid.

My friend Meltha is neither awful, nor stupid. And she and I worked out a deal, wherein she would watch my Leverage, if I would watch Lost.

Meltha has been converted, she is an official Grifter. So, that meant it was my turn to fulfill my end of the bargain. My librarian slid the DVD over the counter at me, and I headdesked. She offered to take it back, and I just smacked my hand onto it and said it was fine.

Over the course of the last many months, I’ve watched seasons 1 through 6 of Lost. At first, I intended to write an entry for each season, much like I did with Battlestar Galactica. But considering my lack of blog postings, I figured that wasn’t a good try. And considering that Lost is a very interwoven show, it was probably best to do all of them at once.

As of about 10 minutes ago, I’ve finished Lost. My thoughts below the cut.

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.