Things That I Love Today: The Little Matchgirl

In attempting to prepare myself to see The Princess and the Frog I once again came across this short film done by The Walt Disney Company from a few years back. To me, it is perplexing to try and understand exactly how traditional animation was being thwarted by CGI, because this is such an absolutely beautiful, touching and powerful piece of storytelling that undoubtedly goes head to head with anything that was released in 3D around the same time. To me, this short film proves that traditional animation will always be as useful as anything else we can come up with.

Also, if you don't tear up when watching this film, you might be a little bit dead inside.

"And we'll just spend the weekend burning rubber."

"Nobody Important/2000's Chick" by Me

Also, check out the Decade in Review article that this is attached to by the all talented Anne Donahue via The Cord. 

Things That I Love Today: Rock n' Roll Christmas

You know something?? I never gave the Christmas movie much credit in regards to it being centered mainly around Christmas. In fact, that was like an after thought to me, because the purpose of the movie was more the experience of making a movie with friends than anything else. Now that I've actually been able to enjoy it for, what has to probably the first time in December since it was originally screened, I long for fa-la-las and mistletoe and Matt in a Santa suit emitting his unbiased love for the irreplaceable Carly MacMillan. 

I honestly had always just watched the movie and deduced that it was... a movie. Not a Christmas movie, but just an entertaining collaboration of creative minds. It was not until yesterday that I fully appreciated the holiday spirit that is attached to it. 

It may be an massively amateur production, and the quality of the filming doesn't really hold up, but the script and acting sure do. Goood timez. 

"Here comes my softer side...and there it goes."

Save for one paper not due until the 21st, I am down to just 3 exams and then I'm out. I'm finished for the semester. How does this thought make me feel you ask?? Not as good as it should. 

Without letting any personal details merge into this post, I will simply state that this entire semester of taking 6 course may in fact have been an entire bust. It's going to come down to the wire before I can tell if that's the case, but I'm pretty confident that I am screwed. Combine this nagging feeling of failure looming at the front of my dome with the knowledge that one year ago today, I had already been finished ALL of my work the equivalent of four days ago (I was out by Dec. 6th last year), and I simply cannot be in that holly jolly Christmas spirit that I so long to be in. I will be finished on the 17th, but not home until the 19th probably, and then factor in all the family Christmas stuff, and then that I won't be around any time after New Year's Eve due to the wedding I have to attend which is out of town and requires 3 days of my time, I am really getting screwed out of some quality break time. 

I can recall a time back in grade 7, when we had an assignment due and it was absolutely mandatory that we hand it in before the end of this certain class period. I can't even tell you what the assignment was, but I got it done, and handed it in. Later in the day, my teacher Mr. Lawrence (we used to call him the "Law" because he was an unbelievable hard ass for little things that didn't matter...we were clever, eh??) called me to his desk and asked me what my excuse was for not handing in my assignment. 

If he had been any other teacher I would have thought he was joking, but I knew he was "no joke" kind of guy, so I told him that I handed it in. He told me that he didn't have it, and with certain quivering in my voice, I reassured him that I did. As if I was a child who had misplaced a toy, he told me to go back and retrace my steps to see if I thought I handed it in, but had really dropped it and forgotten it along the way. I said I didn't think so even though I knew I hadn't, but to humour him, I went along with it, and started to retrace my steps. 

I went back to the computer station I was working at, looked through my folders in my binder and backpack, and I even went so far as to go back to the classroom where I had had an earlier Tech lesson to see if I had left it there.

Nada. 

So I kind of started to panic, because I was going to lose these deserved marks for an assignment I had actually finished on time and handed in. To no avail in my search, I made my way back to my own classroom and went to face my fate when I told Mr. Lawrence that I didn't know what happened to it. As I came back into the room, he was at his desk, holding a piece of paper up to get my attention. I walked over, noticing another guy in the class standing beside him, looking sheepish. 

"Wade, this is your writing, right??" he solemnly asked me. 

I looked at the sheet, and sure enough, that was my paper, which I had assured Mr. Lawrence, the "Law", that I had handed in, only hours earlier. When I looked at the corner of the paper though, where I had signed my name, it had been ripped off, looking as though it was mangled by the dog that I actually didn't own. Then, to the right of the rip, was another name. "Adam M", the boy standing right there looking embarrassed to be alive. I looked up at my teacher, and assured him that this was my writing.

"That's what I thought. Alright Wade, thank you. My apologies for not believing that you handed in your assignment. It seems someone here decided that stealing someone else's assignment was a good idea."

There was just this massive anger in Mr. Lawrence's eyes. I stood there, completely flabbergasted that this dude in my class, a guy that was the epitome of a bad student, decided to steal MY paper and use it for his own, and put me through a pound of stress for no apparent reason. What an idiot. Why would he choose MY paper?? I mean, my writing is so distinct, and unordinary. Of COURSE you were gonna get caught kid!!

Anyway, Mr. Lawrence demanded an apology from Adam to me, and then through out at least 2 weeks of detention to the guy. Even though he said he was sorry, in the "looking down at the ground, ashamed to look up because that might mean eye contact" kind of way, I wanted to punch the guy in the face. Just have Mr. Lawrence go, "Adam, say you're sorry" and then I wind up and clock him before he gets a syllable out of his buck-toothed mouth. That would have been glorious. 

But alas, I couldn't. And it was  a feeling I have had to suppress ever since then. It was one of those moments that you know you can't do anything about, but want to really badly. And that's how I feel all the time now. Like I want to do something about the way things have gone lately, but haven't the power to do so. It's so frustrating.

So, the solution will be for someone to find that kid in my Grade 7 class and let me punch him in the face. Or, maybe, I just go to the local middle school and punch the first kid who looks like him. Makes sense right??

Things That I Love Today: Hockey Night in Montreal

Unless you are a hockey fan, you are not going to find this half as exciting as I did. This season, the Montreal Canadiens are celebrating their 100th season as a team, and in celebration of that, they brought back the greatest alumni from the past to come out and skate for the warm-up before their game on Saturday. Just watch. Listen to that crowd. Listen to that anticipation of what is coming. Listen to that excitement and that 10 minute standing ovation that these guys get. There could have been nothing better in the world than to have been at that game as a Habs fan and watching the greatest collection of All-Stars from your childhood take the ice together. I honestly teared up a bit while watching this. Even as a Leaf fan, you know when to appreciate another team demonstrating excellence in the sport, and to steal a phrase, this moment is absolute hockey bliss. 

"You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best."

I need some sort of motivation. I have inspiration. I have procrastination. But what I really, desperately need to grab out of the air is motivation. 

There seems to be a famine in the motivation department of my life. There is just nothing there. I am well aware that I have to (and I mean HAVE TO) finish two essays before 1 o'clock tomorrow, and yet I cannot seem to start them. I can't. There is no gunpowder in my knickers that is going to get my ass in gear. Instead, I am sitting here, clicking. Compulsively clicking sites that I have been to four dozen times today. There's nothing new on them. But there MIGHT be if I click now!! Or even now!! How about now!?

Trips to the nearby Starbucks helps very little as well. "Oh, I'll just go and grab a coffee and then come back and plow through these." I come back 10 minutes later. "Oh, I can afford to watch an episode of "Scrubs" while I drink this." 22 minutes later: "Oh, I think I'll see if anything has happened on the internet lately." 2 hours later: "Oh, I'm well aware that I have been on this site a billion times today, but now I'm actually reading everything on it!! Oh, click there?? Sure!!"

I've become inebriated with nothingness. That state of comatose where nothing matters in the least and am completely aware of it. An entire weekend full of bullshit and zero productivity. Just putting it off and putting it off. And my wish is that I would beat the shit out of myself after typing all of this out and posting it, but I'm still well aware that after I hit "publish post" I will need to get food in my stomach, because who can work on an empty body?? Then, the food will lead to more procrastination and time will just tick and tock right off the clock and pretty soon, the sun will be rising and I'll be sitting here, wallowing in my own disgusting pity and hatred that I didn't get this shit done and finished. 

Fuck.

Someone, out there in that virtual world (of which I apparently can't get enough of) save me from the abyss. This shit has to get done. And obviously, I am no help to myself. 

P.S. That ended up being a little too dramatic I think... I guess I was testing to make sure my creative pencil still worked. 

P.P.S. It does. 

"...And you stand."

Okay. Remember that "Full House" episode, where DJ comes back from her exchange?? I can't remember where she went or any details like that, but she was away (perhaps this was written to explain what she did over the show's summer hiatus, or something) and she came back with Steve, who made his first appearance on the show. Okay, do you remember this episode?? It basically all took place at the airport where the whole family was waiting for her to arrive. I think Uncle Jesse was doing something involving waiting for a phone call or something. That might have been Joey...

Oh well, whatever. That's not the part that's important. The part that I started thinking about today (well, not today for the first time, but it came BACK to me today) was the part of the episode where Stephanie and Michelle both meet a group of kids, one boy whom Stephanie is smitten with, and then decide that they would like to join them on the plane so the 12-year-old Tanner child could totally "hit that". Anyway, the reasoning that they have for getting on the plane is simple: so Stephanie can get some face time with cute foreign boy and Michelle can be the annoying addition to another group of people for a change. Oh, and the plane is just going to Oakland it seems, which is just across the bay from San Fran (where they live) so why not risk getting on a plane that is traveling a stone's throw away?? Sounds like it will end well, right?? Well, of course, the plane begins to move, and all the dumbass sitcom adults don't believe that the Tanner children aren't part of this giant group of foreign children so they get stuck on the plane. It's okay though, it's just going to Oakland right?? Of course not. Stephanie misunderstood. They are headed to Auckland, New Zealand. The cute foreign boy's accent was just too thick it seems.

So here's what I always think of when that episode pops into my head: besides the fact that the two kids trust strangers and decide to board a bloody plane with a group of random people without checking with their parents, (who, by the way, have no idea that their own kids have left) how stupid does both a) an airline and b) the people running this foreign group of children have to be to not notice that these two girls are not with the large group of people?? There is no explanation behind this. The two girls join the group and walk with them, right on to the plane. No checking of passports, or some sort of roll-call system. You would even have to think that there would be one snot nose kid in this group of children, who was so unbelievably desperate to kiss ass to his higher ups, that he would maybe put up his hand, and in his heavy accent exclaim "Zose Gurlz!! Zey schnook on zee playne!!" But no. There's none of that shit. They walk right on to the plane, with everyone else, and there just HAPPENS to be two seats available, which were not reserved for ANYONE else, and the flight crew is completely unaware of that fact. No, of course not. Incompetence is encouraged on sitcom airlines. If the Tanner children were terrorists (which, would actually have made the entire "Full House" series a little more entertaining) then those Kiwis would pretty much be screwed. 

(Oh, and by the way, in my mind the group of foreign children are always multi-ethnic, as in, there are a lot of different countries represented. Thus, the little German suck-up kid I mentioned earlier.)

Does anyone else remember this/think about stupid shit like this?? Am I alone in every once in a while watching a show where I can't help but say to myself "My ass that would happen" and have the episode be ruined by it?? No, I can't be alone...can I??

Either way, I prefer the watching and criticizing flawed TV Shows to anything else that is taking place in my life right now. I wanted December to change the shittiness that has become 2009, but instead it's falling right in line with every other month, and just continuing the trend. I feel as though I could be offered something great tomorrow, like a movie about my life, but then Id find out that I wouldn't have any say in the matter, and Uwe Boll would direct it. Like having a horse kick a dead horse (because it would be no point, but there would be a bigger emphasis on it because a horse kicks harder than a human does).

"Remember the Magic"

This would have been a "Things That I Love Today" entry, but I am finding it difficult to indulge in anything that I "love" due to some absolutely terrible news in the realm of my schooling, regarding grades and such. Truly tragic.

However, I will say that despite my not being a Sci-Fi lover by any means, this show better get made and it better get made soon. This was created to hopefully spark interest in the pilot, and brother, it looks magnificent.

SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.

"New York, New York is a friend of the traveling kind."

Fuck You December. 

Things That I Love Today: Paper Boy in While You Were Sleeping

So glad I chose to watch While You Were Sleeping instead of doing something productive. I couldn't stop laughing at this part. Unfortunately, the quality of the video is terrible, but it is too great not to show again. Forgot this was ever included in the movie.