About half way through The Quiet American, like, I would guess, about the part where Michael Cain and Brendan Fraser are holed up in a bunker with a war happening all around them and Brendan is telling Mike that he wants to marry Mike's girlfriend; it was sometime around then that I started to feel a whole lot better about my life. I may feel completely stressed out and anxious about the fact that I haven't gotten any thesis-work done at all in the past two days and that unless I get a job tomorrow I won't be able to pay rent in April, but this is nothing compared to what others face, daily. There is nobody handing me a gun so that I can shoot myself in the head in the event that I am captured while I sleep. On the whole I've got a pretty sweet deal, you know?

Watching all these horrible things happening on the screen, I could feel the tension evaporating from my body. I realized that this movie was acting as a kind of therapy for me; shaking me out of my rut and allowing me to see the world that exists beyond the confines of my life. I have been craving this for quite some time, without realizing just exactly what it was that I was feeling so dissatisfied about.

Maybe I should read something by Graham Greene. A Passage to India just isn't working for me. I need something more subtle. More curt. Something engaging, but which at the same time allows for contemplation. The Quiet American had this beautiful subtlety about it which I loved. I love those moments when you suddenly begin to understand what is going on, and flash back to all those previous moments which you thought were odd, or a bit off, or actually thougth nothing at all about, but which you now realize were clues to something bigger. Like how surprised I was at the ease with which Brendan Fraser wrestled away the gun and took charge of that situation. It didn't seem to fit with his character at all. That should have been a major clue, but I just chalked it up to adrenalin.

I love when things fall into place in a surprising way. I love being told a good story.

I was telling Dan the other day that while watching Mona Lisa Smile at one point I imagined that it was actually a time-travel movie, and current Julia Roberts went back in time to the 1950's and tried to teach women about feminism. You didn't have to change one word of the script, and it actually makes Julia Roberts' acting more believable.

Then Dan and I figured out how fantastic the script would have been if Julia Stiles was Julia Roberts' mom, and she found out that her mother skipped law school to have her, and she has to decide whether to give her mom financial freedom and let her be a trailblazing feminist, or to let her mom go through with the family, so that she can be born.

Genius!

wasn't the second opening act the worst band ever in the world? like, no exaggeration at all. i am considering sending them some hate mail because someone needs to set the record straight on the fact that they can't sing for shit and their music sucks too. there is no need for them. whatsoever.