the groundhog day project

Rebecca: "The ocean contains 97% of the world's water and generates over 70% of the Earth's oxygen and replenishes our fresh water through the clouds. If our oceans are failing, then so are we." Just obvious and trite enough as to be passed off as winning. Not profound, though. The camera lingers later on the debate lines from Justin that are supposed to be profound. The thing is, this is a weak ending to an argument. But, all of the debate in Thumbsucker is fairly weak, simplistic to the point of being meaningless. Ashley: "The mark of a secure nation is not that conflicts are resolved quickly, but that conflicts do not arise." Seriously, what does that mean in any practical sense? A nation can only be secure if it has no conflicts ever? Sure, she's likely talking about military conflicts specifically, but the film takes these debate bits out of context and expects them to make sense. Which would be fine, if we were literally just hearing the las...

Thumbsucker does not have the voiceover (and accompanying cutaways) that make Mills' Beginners and 20th Century Women what they are. That necessarily makes the film a little less charming. (I wonder if the original script had that stuff, and Mills didn't have the clout to get away with it yet.) It's good, but it's not as... Yeah, charming was probably the right word. Or maybe the problem is that focusing so much on the teen here means there isn't the more experienced perspective of Beginners or 20th Century Women . Or maybe I just don't buy Keanu Reeves as a dentist.           There is a sort of cutaway, but played more like slightly odd establishing shots. Closeups on name tags, for example. And, maybe it's not fair to judge this film for its focus on the teen. The point of this film seems to be that the adults are just as unsure of things, just as undeveloped, just as incomplete as Justin is. His mother wants to win a date with an actor. H...

The dog gets my favorite line in Beginners . The full subtitle (because, of course, the dog doesn't actually speak) is: "Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens now." I've been there. Felt that drowning sensation, the darkness, and had drastic things happen. (By the way, I'm not actually watching Beginners tonight. My Netflix was having some issues, so I moved on. #FirstWorldProblems) I've been diagnosed with depression, been offered prescriptions for medication to deal with it. Mostly, I've learned to deal with it on my own. I've gotten good at compartmentalizing different parts of my life, and I've learned to take time to do fun things. For example, today I went to the Renaissance Faire with friends with whom I play D&D. I also (in case some future reader hasn't noticed the jump in dates or some past reader is confused) restarted this blog, ostensibly as if nothing had changed. I picked up the ...