Happiness only real when shared.

"I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

Into the Wild is one of the most interesting films I've seen in a while. It's quite a character driven piece from our protagonist - Chris McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch). Chris graduates college, only to burn identification, give his life saving to charity and travel across country in an adventure that will lead him to living in the pure wild of Alaska. He chooses to do this because he says he wants to get away from society and be apart of nature.

What's interesting about this dynamic is while he tries to do the most unselfish thing - he becomes selfish in doing so. He never tells a sole where he is going, thus affecting his entire family. He meets many friends all of which, worries about his high spirits to Alaska will destroy him. He's a kind person, but he doesn't realize how his alienation effects those who love him and how it will later affect that he needs people.

The core of the film is seen through flashbacks of the different people he meets and makes friends with. With any of them, he could have just stayed with and lived out his life perfectly happy - but after he wears out his welcome, he travels on westward to Alaska to reach his nature.

The film is a celebration of his life, but at the same time through the subtle changes in screenplay, Sean Penn shows how Chris actually condemns himself. He chooses to disown society, but he realizes that society is something that human beings need - not nature. We thrive on each other. There's a certain balance to this film which I love. You can view it two sided. You can see Chris as a free-spirit with the right philosophy of life, or you can see Chris' actions as a mistake and misjudgement of humanity. I love the self-awareness of the movie and the tragedy that it turns out to be. It feels like a beautiful epic journey, but shows the realness of it all.

On the outside, it can be seen as a film about the idealism of nature, but on the inside it's about relationships we share with others as human beings. At times, the movie is frustrating for an audience watching someone make such a mistake because the man character fails to see what life is really about but Sean Penn brings a lot to the table as a filmmaker. It's a brilliant thing to do as a filmmaker to be able to show the dual perspective of two sides to a character and a film.

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw

I love weekends with really good movies. I haven't felt this good in really long time. I mean there's not a lot of things in life that can geniunely cheer you up like a really good movie. Whether or not it's something you've seen a thounsand times before or a new one left to be discovered.

One of the many movies I watched over the weekend was Heathers starring Winona Ryder. I'm a true Winona Ryder fan right down to the end. I love her in the good and be bad. There's something so beautiful and cynical about her. Especially in her teenager years. Very dark. Very opposite of Molly Ringwald only a few years earlier.

Before Mean Girls and before Juno - Heathers had created the perfect teen comedy. It shows the society that high school really is and the one-liners that only great movie dialogue and teenagers can get away with saying. I personally think people need to say "Whats your damage?" more. I want to make it a part of my vocabulary. I love the darkness of it. The humor is so twisted I can't help but feel a littke psychic when laughing. But isn't that what high school is? Psychic? It brings out every person's deepest thoughts of killing in a perfect satire form. Plus, Veronicia Sawyer is just so cool.

" I prayed for the death of Heather Chandler many times and I felt bad everytime I did it but I kept doing it anyway. Now I know you understood everything. Praise Jesus, Hallelujah."

These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame

Someone outside my window is making noises that remind me of when Judge Doom turns into a cartoon during Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Creepy stuff from my childhood. I love that movie now, but I remember being like 3 years old and being so freaked out by that part. Even now, it stuff haunts me a little bit. I can't wait until I have children to scar for life like my parents did to me.

Speaking of movies, I just recently watched Charlie Wilson's War and I was surprised by how good it was. Not necessarily the movie as a whole - it had a bunch of great people working on it, so you know it's gonna be solid. Especially a script by Aaron Sorkin and direction by Mike Nichols. But the man who was Charlie Wilson completely fascinating. I mean, he took a budget from 5 million dollars to 1 billion dollars in less than a decade. I just fell in love with what he did. It's very ironic as well for our times and what he did to bring down the Soviet Union and the current state of Afghanistan. I love movies that make me want to learn. Also, Phillip Seymour Hoffman I could watch in anything. I plan on checking out Charlie Wilson's book when I'm done with school. I really want to read it now.

'There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everybody in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs messed up. and everyone in the village says, "How wonderful." '

Dear Mr(s). President...

I'm a democrat. I thought about for a long time whether or not I wanted to support either Clinton or Obama. I watched dozens of the debates and read the newspaper everyday at one point to catch a glimpse of my future president. Now, I'm rather ashamed to even have put so much hope into this election.

After several months of paying attention I decided on Hillary Clinton. Don't get me wrong, just because I like her doesn't mean I do not like Barack Obama. I most certainly do. I would very happy with either as my president and would support one of the two no matter what. In the last two months the election hasn't been the same on either side. It's really sad. Clinton has turned to negative campaigning because she is trailing from behind. Obama has turned his campaign into rockstar-dome. It's really just become cool to support him and bash Hillary even though at one point, their views weren't far from one another.

People are saying I've had enough of Hillary. Well I feel the same for Obama. It's really been shoved down my throat that he's the CHANGE and the HOPE of America's future. I miss the days when I read about our politicans views and opinions. I haven't heard one word out of either one of them on what they're going to do. Just that they should become President because they're more experienced or because they don't take money from lobbyist. That's all neither here nor there when it comes down to it.

There's a fantastic article in the NY Times I read on the subject. I couldn't agree more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed1.html?ex=1366603200&en=25460e9924d12741&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Go Shorty, it's your birthday...

Today is my Birthday! I turn 20 and I feel like an oldhead. No more being a teenager and getting away with stuff. Now I have to pretend to get away with stuff. Who knows what the future will bring, but I know it will bring me to California because in a month I'll be out west which is a fantastic present if I do say so myself.

I've been really busy lately. Last week I spent a lot of time editing my film project with my partner which I'm really proud of. Friday, I went home for the first time in a while and it felt really great. Jenna and Kristen threw me a little bash and it was a lot of fun just hanging out and laughing. It makes me just really look forward to summer so much. Saturday I got to hang out with my family which doesn't happen a lot. I pretty much saw my whole family as well. I got a lot of fantastic gifts. More books than I'm ever gonna have time to read and a few great movies too. My mom got me a Coach bag, so my vanity rate just went up a point.

Sunday, I went to NYC and hung around there. I saw the musical In The Heights and it was quite good if I do say so myself. I saw the girl who played the main character after the show and told her she was just wonderful :) I'd love to go back to NYC really soon and see another show. I forgot how much fun it can be just walking around the city. Philadelphia doesn't have the same excitement. Maybe because I'm a tourist, but I've been to NYC dozens of times before and my eyes still light up when I see that skyline. I still get a thrill out of standing in the middle of time square. I wonder if I lived there, I'd feel that way every morning.

When Kristen and Jenna asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told them one of them was with Mario Lopez and I actually did (sorta) spend my birthday with him as much as I could.

I was in the Mariott Hotel and I have to say it's one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever been in. It's just amazing. I mean, the structure inside was incredible. I wanna live in it. Next year I wanna hit the rooftop bar.

It's like rain on your wedding day...

Today is considered one of the biggest days on campus. It's called Spring Fling and basically, a big fair of events and music all throughout campus. What it really is, a day where everyone skips classes and gets trashed starting at noon. I was standing on the corner this morning and it was 9:30 and this guy walks by on his way to class stumbling and laughing saying, "I'm not drunk yet" when he clearly was. It's just an interesting thing to see. What the real irony that I love about Spring Fling at Temple is after it's over. It gets so crowded, it takes an extra 20 minutes to get to class because you literally can't get from point A to point B without massive amounts of people in front of you standing around. After it's all over and the music stops and everyone goes home, I was walking through campus, the amount of trash left over is sickly. What's most ironic is that the whole reason Spring Fling actually goes on is to recycle and speak out about the environment. When it's said and done, I've never seen so much trash and dirt before. It's a beautiful thing how we destroy the things we set out to do.

In my Intellectual Heritage II class today, we were reading Gandhi and my teacher asks us how we could apply Gandhi's passive philosophy to modern day and this girl raises her hand and says that we could use it to legalize marijuana by all smoking it so that they would have to legalize it. I really don't know why I bother going sometimes. I'm sure Gandhi would be proud to know that his philosophy of life from India is going to be taken for good use in present day life. Really now! I hang my head in shame as a college student today.

Finally, this seriously scares me:

Film school is a little like Ed Wood and a little like Charlie Chaplin

So I have a lot of stuff coming up and going on in the next month or so. First of all, Saturday I spent the entire day filming my final film project. I can't think of anything more stressful and problem-matic than that. Basically my film class is one big lecture on the million things that can go wrong with the Bolex camera and how to defeat the odds. My whole class is basically making a movie Charlie Chaplin style where you have to produce, edit, direct, star and score everything yourself with 16 mm film. I love the sharp-ness of it, but it's 10x more difficult than video. I pretty much feel like Ed Wood also because we have to edit everything in camera so I'm watching actors mess up takes and having lighting, sound and prop problems and I hear myself going "THAT WAS GREAT!" Since I have only one take with every shot.

So it's an impossible feat where there are 4 different ways there are camera jams and 5 different ways of light leaks. Not to mention the same faulty equipment that D.W Griffith shot with. I have only three rolls of film and I have to wait a week before it even comes back to lab where I'll probably find out that it is COMPLETELY black and I have no footage. Then, even if I have footage, the lighting will be inconsistent, the acting/continutaty off, the framing out of focus and anything else you can think of that could be awful. Thus then, I have to transfer it twice from FILM to DVC to CD. Then I have to completely foley all the sound in myself where I make my friends stomp around while I record footsteps. After doing all that, then I sit for hours with a million corrections of editing to make. THEN, when it's completed with hope I get through all that, I screen it in front of a hundred or more people with them all judging it like the hack that I am and the critics they are. Oh, the magic of movie making. I keep asking myself, WHY THE HELL WOULD ANYONE WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS?

So yeah, the filming part is done, and I'm really praying to the movie gods that it's fine. I have to give much credit to Andy and Linda for acting in it. And also the 6'5''+ football player named Steve whom I pulled out of the hallway and made him act in it randomly when he was supposed to be icying his knee. There's still so much to do, but while it's processing in the lab, I'm working on my other project with my co-directing partner Chrissy. I'm actually really excited for the project we're working on. I spent a few hours editing it and fixing some lighting consistency with her and I think it looks pretty good. There's still the sound to go, but I might have a project from this class that I heaven forbid, actually show other people and be proud to call my own. Overall, at least I'll have something to look back on and say, "yeah, I made this with 16 mm film, what did you do at college bitches!!!"

Love is...

I think love is like a granola bar. You sit down on the couch and you're so hungry but there's nothing to eat but that damn granola bar. You really want a big grand meal, but who knows when something better is going to come along. That granola bar in your purse is all mushed and warm from Monday when you put it in there. It's now Thursday and you figure, you better bite it to substitute what's missing. Something better could come along, but you remember, that granola bar is right there. Nobody ever really wants to eat it, but you got nothing else. Little do you know, that's love.

Birthday Girl

My birthday is coming up next week and my friends asked what I wanted. I gave them quite a lengthy list. This is just a small fraction of what I am expecting:

Nachos
An Elephant
Pink Balloons
Green Streams
Noise Makers
Lucky Charms
Patrick Dempsy pictures
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Percheezi
Mario Lopez
Cotton Candy Machine
Orange Gatorade
Salad with Kraft italian dressing
Sparkling Cider
Funfetti
There must be a performance of Unchained Melody from everyone present
Strings of Kettle corn popcorn
Construction paper change - ALL BROWN
Everyone MUST be wearing orange
Possible Robin Hood theme
A marathon of Bette Davis movies starting with All About Eve and ending with Rosemary's Baby with all thats inbetween.

There is also a special guest list that I'm looking forward to. If anyone can make these things happen, it will be a very special 20th Birthday on my end. Jenna and Kristen, I'm counting on you.

Are you there Margaret, it's me God

This morning I woke up with a sore throat and debated whether or not I wanted to go to my early Biology lecture. Needless to say, the reason I decided to go was because I always have that vision of "what if I miss something important?" enter my head, so I usually never miss a class.

My biology teacher usually lectures for an hour and a half straight and I never have time to write down any of the powerpoint because he talks so fast. Sometimes he'll show us youtube videos of boring cells reproducing or some sort of atom movement. Anyway, today the topic was Genetics and I'm glad as hell I didn't miss this video he showed us.

I don't know what it has to do with Genetics except that Patrick Stewart has a mutated XY chromosome of EPIC DANCE MOVES!

So this is my first blog entry. I just really like writing so I figured I might as well get what I have to say out there in cyberspace. (They still call it cyberspace right?) Basically I'm going to just try to blog about my day or whatever nonsense I hear/see about.

I asked some of my friends to come up with names for my blog and this is what they came up with:

Backfat Backzilla
Bride-zilla Backpack Backfat Backzilla
Backpack Backzilla
Asspack Backzilla
Assback Bride-zilla
Backass Assback Back-zilla
Backfat Assback Bundling Bride-zilla
B-Spot
Fire Crotch (Although I'm pretty sure this is copyrighted Lindsay Lohan)

I think it's safe to say, they like to add "ass", "fat", "backpack" and "zilla" to things. I'm not sure any of those things truly represent who I am, so I went with the safe "Downtown" Brittni Brown name.

Until next time,

Brittni