These are the parts I couldn't squeeze into 140 snappy characters.

Friday night I played video games with my brother via XBOX Live. I have been talking to him a lot a lot lately, which is awesome. His birthday is tomorrow! It's a bit hard to believe; I still so clearly remember when we were wee tots, flying around and watching cartoons...and hitting each other. XD Saturday I went to work and then made some cookies. Not very many, the dough was a bit crumbly - flour fail - but mostly used these baking adventures to hang out with astronauta and our friend John. When Spencer got home from work we all just sat in the kitchen and talked late into the night.

Yesterday was full of love/haz times. After work, I haz a Vanni, and then after that OMG WE HAZ A JEI. XD I enjoyed much freak cheese and camaraderie with Iowa City's semi-prodigal daughter and other friends. ♥ It reminded me of old times, which, when I use it, seems to refer to a time as far back as five or six years or as recently as this summer. Good times. Nay, the best times. I have been in a really good mood the last few weeks, and this weekend my heart basically could've exploded with wow-is-my-beautiful-life-real glee.

Speaking of(!), I wanted to share this short film collab from hitRECord. I really love it; it's something short and strange and might make your heart explode just a little bit too:



I'm great with the beautiful, spontaneous, fast and surreal parts that come up. (Who isn't?) It's this daily livin' thing that I'm struggling to get down. That sounds silly, since I've been living for over two decades, but it's just a bit different now than it's ever been. Things have slowed down considerably from my college days, my summer days, even my awkward autumn days. I actually have time that I need to decide how to use, with no syllabi or holiday sales hours or urgent personal panics to bend to. I have been eating better, putting a bit more effort in starting my days, and talking to folks I love more and more instead of curling up inside myself all the time and feeling stuck in routine and lazybones. Because the truth is, I'm not stuck. I'm really, really not, despite living in post-grad limbo without a Proper Job and other Overrated Stuff. I have all these beautiful people and my favorite things all around me all the time, and I'd really be doing a disservice to myself to focus on anything else.

My next entry will hopefully/probably be a project entry with some stuff I want to work on and some updates on projects I should have been working on, along with various schemes and potentially some collabs that you - yes you! - may be interested in. :)

BTW, don't judge freak cheese until you try it.

I am working on cleaning. It seems that whenever I try to clean things, I make them even more disorganized. o.O Reconfiguration always requires a certain degree of destruction, I suppose. But it is getting a little ridiculous. "That's quite a skill," Spencer said, "to be able to create more of a mess while trying to clean it up." Oof.

For example, my bookcase. This has been a source of grief. My wire bookcase contraption collapsed, spilling comic books and jewelry all over my floor. So, after considering the option of just buying a new one, I finally decided to steal the little black bookcase from the living room. Now there are bits of the wire bookcase all over, and there is a large pile of shoes in the living room, which the bookcase used to hold. So now there are three messes to clean up rather than just the one. Kipple, kipple, kipple. Kipple creates more kipple. It is driving me batty.

Life outside of kipple is more or less the same as always. I go to work, come home; dream of doing pretty things, but really just watch TV or cook. Anna and I have a new biweekly Friday plan, though, since neither of us usually work in the mornings: wake up too early, drink coffee (or mate lattes) at the Java House, and take the bus to the mall, just to look around and wait for clothes to go on sale at Target. We're particularly waiting for some very cute blue raincoats to drop a bit in price. It's a great break from routine. :) I like things like that, like Pie Night or coffee adventures or anything that is sort of spontaneous but sort of on its own strange little friendish schedule.

In other news, I cut myself some bangs this weekend. I like the look, though it does make me look rather young:



It was a very nice weekend, actually. On Saturday I did some nonfail grocery shopping, washed some dishes, and wore a new dress. I also went out with some library folk on Saturday night with interesting results and - bonus! - the weather was bearable during the day! Aah! Sunshine, don't taunt me. I miss you. ♥ You are my everything.

Welp, back to cleaning. Or, err, my attempts. :/ And then to work. Only a month and a half until South by Southwest...

...Consider. me. stoked.

Clem: It might be the hair.

Joel: What might?

Clem: It changes a lot. The color. That's why you might not recognize me. It's called Blue Ruin, the color...Snappy name, huh?

Joel: I like it.

...

Clem: I apply my personality in a paste.

Goals for the day:

a) Do a load of laundry.
b) Organize project schedule.
b) Do not sit on Internet all day.
d) Do NOT sit on Internet all day.
e) Srsly, don't do it. Or I'll chop your fingers off. [says MetaJournal Sarah to Regular Sarah? IDK. There is no fight club.]

At the urging/threatening of astronauta, I finally finished my screenplay that I started last year for school this weekend. Rather, I have finished the first final draft, because it needs editing and about fifteen minutes, which makes this my eighth draft to date.

Eight. Oof. Poor trees.

I am frankly glad I shelved it for so many months; looking at it again was really eye-opening for me. I made some significant changes to it, and will probably make even more before I am really really done with it. It was nice to get the pages out, and I am going to take serious strides in editing this piece until I think it's the best I can make it. I may even start using soultwinsanyway again for revision purposes, but I think it will still be a little while until I feel comfortable doing that again. I have been out of workshops for a long time now, I am sure I've turned all soft and squishy at this point.

Along with accomplishing this much-overdue creative endeavor, I had a lovely weekend overall. I had crepes after work on Saturday and then hamburgers at Short's with Vanessa later on that evening. We planned on grabbing some coffee afterward, but Starbucks has funky hours c/o the university holiday, so we went to Piano Lounge instead. There, we sang along to the songs emanating cheerfully from the keyboard they have housed in a fake piano frame. (They used to have a real piano. The recession has hit everyone, I suppose, even overpriced college bars.) Highlights of the evening were "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Hit Me Baby One More Time."

Yesterday I went out to Monticello with my aunt Wendy to have a post-Christmas get-together with the Hargrave cluster of my family. My aunts Lisa and Wendy (and my uncle Rick, Wendy's husband) were there, as well as my grandmother, all of whom I see somewhat regularly. My great-aunt Nita and my great-uncle Jim hosted, along with their daughter Heather (my second cousin) and her husband and two children (Hannah, 10, and Elijah, 6), whom I don't really see that often. Whew! My family tree, it iz large. ^^;

It was really nice to see them. Lunch was delicious and I got to hang out a bit with - are they my third cousins? - Hannah and Elijah. I used to see Hannah more when she was a baby, and she was probably one of the cutest little kids I had ever seen. She's still really pretty; she is looking much more like a small adult than a little kid these days. It is hard to believe she is in already in fourth grade! Elijah is, y'know, six, so sort of insane and prone to ping off walls, but he calmed down considerably after I got him through two levels of New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii. :D After I got home from the festivities, Colleen and I went over to see Kris & Austin and Kris's visiting friend James. We just hung out and talked for an hour or two. Good times were had by all, it was one of my best Sundays in a long time. ♥

Maybe this week will be a productive one. After such a nice weekend, I am feeling pretty good about it. Besides, I had bacon and blackcurrant tea for breakfast and cleaned the bathroom today. You can't really ask for a much better start than that! ;)

MAH ICONS.

default	oldest	newest
saddest	happiest	angriest
cutest	sexiest	funniest
fave ship	fave fandom	fave animated
best quote	best textless	best "handmade"
use the most	favorite

HOW MANY ICONS DO YOU HAVE: 99
OUT OF HOW MANY AVAILABLE ICONS SPACES: 110
IF YOU COULD BUY SPACE FOR MORE, WOULD YOU: I think 110 is more than enuff. o.O
DO YOUR ICONS MAKE A STATEMENT: Usually. Usually that statement is, "I love [insert media outlet here] regardless of the context of this post."
WHAT FANDOM DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: The X-Files
AND THE SECOND MOST: Pushing Daisies
WHAT SHIP DO YOU HAVE THE MOST ICONS OF: Mulder & Scully
ARE YOUR ICONS MADE MOSTLY BY OTHER PEOPLE: Yes
DO YOU MAKE ICONS: Yes
ARE THEY ANY GOOD: I think so. I still sometimes see my X-Files ones from last summer crop up, so apparently people like them. :D I am also pretty proud of my three 500 Days of Summer icons. ♥
ANIMATED ICONS ARE: Awesome!

I just realized that a lot of my icons are some shade of blue. Huh.

DO THE MEME.
Coding can be found here

Playing at the Bijou Theater February 26 through March 4:



[Click here for the trailer.]

It's Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's all about chance.

...So what are the chances Joseph Gordon-Levitt would ever be my boyfriend? ♥

I haven't done a real entry in a long time. So, here is Sarah's Crazy Winter Update.

Sometime near the beginning of December, I picked up Bioshock. It is pretty much one of the best games I have ever played. I usually don't do FPS because I like 3rd person (more cinematic, less frightening) but I had heard enough good things to go for it. It's really gorgeous as well as terrifically gory and disturbing. The story is great, which is really what I like best about it. You should definitely check it out.

Along with buying an awesome new video game, other nice things seemed to happen to me in December. I saw my friends more often than I had been able to - late night coffee, movies, etc. - and I feel like I got myself into a pretty good mood, even though I was working an insane amount. Dare I say it, after several weeks of general unrest I felt genuine Optimism.

At the end of December, deliapants and I went to Oklahoma for Christmas. It was a good time! I still need to upload my pictures from the trip; Delia and my dad have already put up a ton. I got to spend time with my family, which has been long overdue. They were all really happy to meet Delia as well. I think by the Sunday afternoon we left, they were ready to adopt her. :) We didn't get out as much as we had hoped because of a very un-Oklahoman blizzard that swept through the week we were there, but we still had some laughs and even managed to go out to Pop's before we came back to Iowa. Sweet, sweet soda. Mmm.



It was nice to be at home; as much as I know I will miss Iowa City, I am increasingly looking forward to the end of the summer when I will be living with my parents again. I know most 23-year-olds are hoping to move out of their parents' house by their approaching mid-twenties, but I haven't seen them much in the last five years. And I really wish I could have been with them these past few months.

Plus between my brother and my father's cooking...oh maaan. I am definitely looking forward to a bit more of that. ^_____^

Let's see, what else...I saw Up in the Air and Sherlock Holmes a week or so ago and really liked both. I especially liked Up in the Air, I still find myself thinking about it quite a bit. George Clooney was really amazing as Ryan, a charismatic frequent flyer totally detached from life on the ground. It was especially nice to see it with John and Delia, since Delia had had her first plane trip with me so recently. It was refreshingly nice to fly with someone for once, and on top of that, someone who thinks all the clouds are still pretty. I think I got jaded with the airport tango a long time ago. But, wandering through Dallas International after two gate changes, looking at giant glass installations and eating McDonald's, I remembered that it can be fun.

So far, 2010 has been an interesting year. I am trying to better manage my time but, as usual, don't know where to start. Even though my schedule is consistently inconsistent, I feel like I spend a lot of time flitting about when I know I have a few hours to work on this, or an evening to clean up that. It is something I really want to do better. _coherent and I decided to make Chinese New Year's resolutions. Perhaps after that, my habits will improve. :)

Lots of fun little things have cropped up in these past eleven days of the new year. Last weekend we marathoned a little over half of Evangelion, which sort of destroyed my brain and sort of made it more awesome. I hope to finish it this week, I really like the [slowly and drastically devolving] story. And Rei Ayanami. ♥ Saturday night, your_lake_como and I celebrated Spencermas with Star Trek and Asiago cheese, since our tree is still up and Colleen got snowed out of Omaha on Christmas Eve. Cheers, to many more months of good times.

I think that is all for now. I have really been neglecting LiveJournal these last few weeks. Maybe that should be another resolution. ^^;

My mom's iPod currently looks like this:

Alabama - My Home's in Alabama
Reba McEntire & Vince Gill - The Heart Won't Lie
Dolly Parton - The Coat of Many Colors
Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner's Daughter
Third Day - I've Always Loved You
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
Outkast - Hey Ya
The Doobie Brothers - Black Water
Jefferson Starship - Miracles
The Dodos - Red & Purple
The Apples in Stereo - Same Old Drag
The Shins - Australia
Ingrid Michaelson - The Way I Am
Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes
Steely Dan - Deacon Blues

My dad has $9.25 left to spend on iTunes. Throw your favorite singles at me that might align with this eclectic playlist and I will be sure to pass it along to him. :) I'm not always good at playlisting, I listen to the same things over and over and over.

And no, believe it or not I didn't tell him to buy Gorillaz (though I would have, had I been thinking much about it...). That is one of my dad's favorite bands. That is, in fact, his ringtone. XD My dad is awesome.

humans have such interesting chemistry.

blood, bones, air.

we thrive off thousands of little reactions.

blood, bones, air.

that happen even in our sleep, or in infinitely tiny space.

blood, bones, air.

and we tend to develop our own as well.

blood, bones, air.

salt and cologne and cigarette smoke and soap.

blood, bones, air.

they mingle with our skin and with our brains.

blood, bones, love.

it becomes something different altogether.

blood, bones, love.

we can sense each different person's separate chemistry.

blood, love, love.

and we can even make theirs part of our own.

blood, love, love.

what peculiar body alchemy we possess.

blood, love, love.

what peculiar chemistry we create.

love, love, love.

Hmm, it seems that I owe a few posts. Pre-trip, post-trip, and New Year's Eve. I did get up some new comics at least! There are probably going to be a few more coming this week, I am trying to reconfigure my brain to do more of those more frequently.

I am trying to reconfigure my brain in a lot of ways. I am trying to let go, and hold on; to do some things better, and maybe a few things worse; to do the dishes more often and draw straighter lines; to sit in cold sunshine and keep reading books. You know. The important things.

Today is the first full day of 2010, the Year of the Future. I rang it in with a small group of friends, various cups of soda, and my favorite movie from 2009 (500 Days of Summer). I don't have a robot boyfriend yet, or a flying car, but I have some good friends and a pretty good bike thawing somewhere downtown. All in all, I'd say that's a pretty good start.

Plus I'm going to the movies tonight after work. And I even have money for popcorn. :)

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough - and have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Let your heart be light.

For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, I am still using this as an excuse to tell you that I love you and in a perfect universe I'd get to spend this season with every last one of you.

It is sometimes really hard to find reasons to be joyful, especially around this time of year. People are cold, poor, sick, dying, overworked, sad. But in spite of all this, when little happy things happen out of nowhere, perhaps with no lingering agenda or consequence, I hope you all hold on to them and see them for what they are. Like, a stranger pushing your brother's car out of a snow bank on Christmas Eve. Or getting delightful mittens from a friend. Or hearing your mom laugh in spite of any pains or frustration. Or just being able to sit in good company. That, beyond any video games or shoes or baked goods, is what I hope you have this Christmas.

I hope you always know that there are lots of these things everywhere; sometimes you just have to realize what they are.

♥

If you are feeling a bit generous this year Joe and some of his friends are raising money for Child's Play - the charity that gives games to very sick children to cheer them up - by playing Mario franchise games all weekend long. They're not...um...very good. But hey, it's for the kids, right? (You can also go to the charity website directly if you want to look through wish lists or pick a certain children's hospital.)

Proper updates later, I just wanted to throw that out there since a lot of you are gamers and/or like children (sometimes). :) In my ferreal post at some point this weekend, look forward to: optimism, Bioshock ranting, cackling, and imminent plane trips. Bonus: SOMETIME THIS WEEKEND, COMIC UPDATES FOR SEARCHING FOR STANLEY! LYK A MILLION BILLION COMIC UPDATES!*

*Amount may vary

I miss summer. This got me to thinking about (500) Days of Summer, which is a bit roundabout but to be honest it is *always* on my mind. Here, watch a thing, it will make you smile:

The movie is slated to come out on DVD December 22. I'm definitely going to be picking that one up after Christmas. ♥

Another night, another dream. Anna Friel was teaching me how to dance. That's all(!), nothing horrible or strange or sad or leftover from Cannibal Holocaust or any lonely remains of the day. ♥

Books are great, stupendous, marvelous things. (Of course, no flist in the world knows that better than you guys! XD) In particular, though, I want to talk about Never Let Me Go. ♥ But first, I have somehow forgotten to mention a little book I read roundabouts astronauta's birthday, so here she is:

14. B is for Bad Poetry

It's a book of - gee, you guessed it! - poetry written by Pamela August Russell. I picked it up at Prairie Lights back in November when I was showing off our awesomenitude to Joe. Smarmy little poems too, an example of which is as follows: "She wants / chocolate. / And I have the / knife wounds / To prove it." Very good for a laugh, or a late bus ride home.

So, now we found ourselves onto the meat of the matter...

15. Never Let Me Go

I have come across a problem so many people have come across trying to review, or even vaguely describe, this book: it's a deliberately mysterious story. To mention too much would destroy the experience. The odd, somewhat fragile pieces of a large, dark puzzle become apparent only after serious immersion into the world of Hailsham and its students, so I will attempt to tread carefully.

I should start by saying that my dear friend mister_duster lent me this book sometime in the mid-summer months, though I only got a chance to read it during the last two or three weeks because I spent most of the season hacking (ba doom, ching) my way through American Psycho. It was genuinely moving, strangely affecting. I found myself in tears a lot, even at moments that were not sad, just because of the delicate language or the precariousness of a lonely sentence. Kazuo Ishiguro is an amazingly talented writer who explores the ideas of memory and friendship in original, yet authentic terms. I have read many reviews which describe the story as "deceptively simple" and disturbing, and I would have to agree with both.

You are lulled into a world that seems a bit odd, but not too unlike our own; one with schoolchildren being schoolchildren, running around and getting into little cliques or fights or unspoken agreements. It becomes obvious fairly quickly, however, that these schoolchildren are very special, and that their lives will be unlike those of ordinary people. The story centers on three friends: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. Kathy is the narrator, telling their story as she quietly reminisces about her life. She remembers them as children and as adults, negotiating her feelings for them for our clarity as she goes. She has a habit of going off on detailed tangents about classrooms or items, gently dancing around the big questions that she no longer cares too much about, even though we the readers are chomping at the bit to learn more. In short, it is a beautiful, carefully crafted book. Thanks, Sam.

By the way, the movie version of this book actually comes out next year, and I have to admit I am actually rather excited to see what they will do with it!

I realize that although I was exhilarated to flip the pages as I came closer and closer to the conclusion, I was sad to finish it today, because now I feel like I have lost these three new strange friends I have just met. And I realize that maybe this is not a new feeling, that it might even be why I started reading books so slowly to begin with all those years ago - I don't actually like finishing them. :O And I definitely don't like starting new ones immediately, with any degree of serious immersion of course. Hell, that is why Franny and Zooey took me forever and a half to read despite its length! This way I can let the effects of the books settle over me thoroughly, and I can sort of wallow in these people and things that I have grown so close to, go back and jot down all my favorite quotes or expand the worlds in my daydreams. I used to think this was some form of procrastination or just silliness, but I think it is just another example of my penchant for sentimentality, even if they are only memories of fictional friends. XD

In any event, I have to admit that I read this rather quickly, especially for me, and hopefully between this bookish revelation and my love for this last novel, this is the start of a new, voracious approach to reading. :D I want to read The Unconsoled next, another Ishiguro novel, but it is especially long and I know this month is sort of bumpy between work and travel. Anna has lent me her copy of The Time Traveler's Wife (though those fall movie advertisements have put me off it a bit, however unfair that may be) and I still have shadowy plans to someday maybe possibly finish reading the Harry Potter series, though at this point would probably just have to start all over... I also have Revolutionary Road (an even longer novel than The Unconsoled) and some graphic novels on standby.

I am almost completely open at this point, though I don't really want to start any new series, per se. Recommendations for December reading? Anyone?

Last night I had another rambling, vaguely coherent dream that was probably some kind of movie.

My friend Crystal from high school worked at a restaurant and we stopped to eat strange layered desserts there that she thought tasted terrible. She went home or something, all I know is that was her only appearance - thank God - in what happened next.

Another girl and I, just a DreamFriend or someone, watched these two very large sea turtle twins being born, but during the birth their mother died in a completely nonsensical way: its head fell off. Everyone was horrified at the grotesque event unfolding, although nobody knew what to do about it. The baby turtles were both fine, though it was sad to know they wouldn't have a mother. The whole scene was really disturbing, and a group of us sat in a space that was either the woods or the aquarium cafeteria talking about it; it keeps changing when I try to remember it, we were sitting in aluminum chairs at an aluminum table and all but I feel like we were out in the open. Maybe the place had an outdoor cafe.

By this point I had a sense that some slasher movie action was about to happen, although I don't know why or how I knew that. All I knew was that all my DreamFriends looked like they were vaguely from the late 1970s-early 1980s and my perspective kept readjusting between various people and angles.

A guy shows up, who seems a bit clever and troublesome, and sure enough he walks around one side of the table and starts kicking against one of the table legs without saying a word. We all just kind of watch him do this, we are too stunned to do anything else. He suddenly rips the leg off and smashes it into the face of one of our friends, and we take the gory hint and scramble.

There are some parts that don't come together right, now that I am awake; I remember seeing someone else's perspective of running by walls and walls of glassy windows. The colors change a lot, it is nighttime in someone's hiding place while it is daytime in other people's.

My first DreamFriend from the turtle birthing and I ran and hid in some room in the aquarium that was very dark except for a large lit tank sunk into the floor. The killer seemed to have some accomplice, perhaps someone who showed up later or someone from earlier we just didn't notice, and he came into the room where we were. We were crouching in a loft with a little balcony out over the tank, and suddenly one of our cell phones went off. I was absolutely terrified! I turned it off and took the damn thing apart in a panic, but the loonies looking for us somehow didn't notice it had rung.

I don't know how, but I know my DreamFriend died. I know they all did. I escaped, and there was a little jump in time to some point after the whole thing where I had rented out a room in a seaside town that looked an awful lot like the loft we hid in that day. I had visions of my DreamFriend running up the dock to me, and then she would disappear. "I still see her sometimes," I said to no one in particular, "but I know she's not there." I was really sad that my friends were dead, but I was particularly traumatized by her death. In retrospect, I think she might have been my sister in the dream. It would make sense; we looked a lot alike.

The timeline is a bit off here, but cut to the killer's accomplice, who has managed to get to a train station a day or two later to leave some sort of note for his killer friend, perhaps for a rendezvous. A large policeman is looking him over grimly, so the accomplice is smiling broadly and putting different bits of meaningless paper all over the station to throw him off his game. He's about to get on a rusty train heading north, but he doesn't, because he sees me walking down the street...

That's how the dream ends.

I never really try to interpret my own dreams, since they either seem too coherent to be deconstructed or too absurd to put much stock in. But I noticed a few themes in this one: the stunned inaction at both the turtle's death and the initial appearance of a man who wound up trying to kill all of us; a deep sense of loss and memory; concentration vs. distraction. I don't feel like I am just supposed to throw this one away. Then again, it's not something I particularly want to think about too often. I woke up from it very frightened, maybe even half-convinced I was still hiding from this madman, but now I am left with a lingering sense of sadness. So strange.

I wonder how much it will snow today...

I have seen a lot of lists going around lately of the top films of the decade. I decided that I should probably put something together myself, as the '00s are somewhat significant on a personal level because this is the first decade I can confidently say I was fully invested in film culture. I have an aneurysm named Bijou and a way-expensive piece of paper on my bookcase to prove it. ;)

I broke it down into three categories with ten films in each: HomeGrown (mostly American-made/backed), Documentary (American as well as foreign, I'm not going to split too many hairs here), and Global (implied non-American features). I tried to be fairly objective, while at the same time loyal to those films which moved me most. I also tried very hard to weigh the films evenly throughout the decade, so a few more recent films I truly enjoyed and think made some significant impact in filmmaking and storytelling (Children of Men, The Prestige, and Sita Sings the Blues, for example) did not quite make the cut. Also, for the sake of avoiding completely repetitive reviews and language, I did not write blurbs for each film. I may go back and do so throughout the course of the month, or if any of you would like to write one in the comments if you strongly agree, that would be great. :)

They are in no particular order...though it is probably pretty obvious which one is my favorite.

10 Best HomeGrown

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind : Modern, vivid, and impacting, this film plays with reality, love, and memory onscreen the way most of us actually do in our heads: ever-changing and fluid, horrible but beautiful, necessary in spite of massive deconstruction. Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey steal hearts easily as flawed thirtysomethings who fall in and out of love thanks to a machine which erases memories. After his girlfriend impulsively purges her mind of the two years the couple spent together, introverted Joel goes through his entire relationship with the feisty and lovely Clementine during the course of the night in which he tries to erase her...and realizes that even painful memories make us who we are.

The soundtrack alone makes this film one of the best ones of the decade, and the film which will probably continue to be my favorite film of all time. (Just look at my username, guys. Look at it. C'mon.) Beyond the sentimentality of my own memories of watching the film and feeling strangely connected to it, the diverse camerawork, color palette, characters, editing, and tangled storytelling bring the medium to a new level of emotional exploration through film. As a bonus, though David Cross is only present for about three minutes, I fall to hysterics as he tries to build a birdhouse in the middle of the night.



( A Decade of Corn, Labyrinths, and Swedish Vampires )

Life is weird and funny and full and sad and breathtaking.