Wow, this guy really doesn’t like Green Day, so much so that he’s written a really, really long essay detailing just how much he can’t stand the band. I think their lyrics are weird and mean nothing to me but their music is fun to jump around to.
Wow, this guy really doesn’t like Green Day, so much so that he’s written a really, really long essay detailing just how much he can’t stand the band. I think their lyrics are weird and mean nothing to me but their music is fun to jump around to.
Can I just say, I thought Emily Blunt was all right before, but now I think she’s absolutely ace? The leads in Sunshine Cleaning were amazing — Amy Adams is actually luminous, even when she plays a maid, Emily Blunt is so versatile as expressive as Norah, and oh my god Alan Arkin rocks so hard.
Watch this film! It’s good.
Rose (Adams) is a single mother who fights to make ends meet by working for a maid service, and she also happens to be having an affair with her high school boyfriend, Mac (Steve Zahn), who’s a local police detective. Norah (Blunt) is Rose’s emo sister, an all-round wastrel who loses her waitressing job because she partied too hard. Alan Arkin plays their dad.
Mac tells Rose that crime scene cleanup crews make a lot of money, and when her son gets into trouble in school again and needs to go private, she decides to go into the business.
I’m not sure if what I have to say next qualifies as any type of spoiler, but you’ve been warned.
Alan Arkin’s clip-on sunnies were movie gold, I tell you. The other amazing male actor was Clifton Collins Jr, who played Winston, owner of a janitorial supplies business who helps Rose out. Ooh, he was in Star Trek.
And Steve Zahn — I thought it might be stretching things a bit to make Mac the high school boyfriend, since he’s well out of his thirties. I’m don’t think they quite pulled it off, but he does look pretty youthful, just not that young. But that’s probably because I first saw him in Reality Bites and I know he’s in his forties.
I’m not sure if Sunshine Cleaning was a comedy or a drama, I guess it’s a dramedy. It had just the right amount of quirk to make it interesting, but not so ‘interesting’ it was incomprehensibly weird.
I liked that the family’s emotional scars were treated with a light touch. The ending was a bit corny but it did leave enough to the imagination.
Is it a coincidence that Alan Arkin’s been in two films I liked with the word ‘sunshine’ in the title? He’s a freaking acting genius.
One of my favourite Bahamian dishes is conch salad. Basically a ceviche (which I really like and Neil isn’t so keen on), I couldn’t get enough of it. Yum.
Neil and I agree on a lot of things, but one big thing we don’t agree on is whether same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt. I’m heartened to read about ‘gayby’ boom children fighting for their parents’ rights.
One person I’m grateful for seeing in the Star Trek movie for the first time: Zachary Quinto. Tasty.
Of course by this I mean the production of infant human beings.
I think there’s a certain amount of oestrogen (or whatever hormone it should be) involved in my feeling a little wistful when I hear about other people being pregnant or seeing babies blissing out in moments of calm — it’s like there’s a twinge in the uterus, which is saying to me, I’m not just hanging out here to chat, you know, you have a biological imperative to try to pass on your genes; what’s taking you so long, I’m withering away here from lack of use.
Neil reckons he feels like he’s expected to want babies (‘some day, not now’) because that’s what people our age are supposed to do. I just want to know what he thinks about the whole concept as an intellectual exercise and I think he thinks I’m sounding him out because I want to talk him into it. But that could just be my hormones jumping to conclusions.
Social pressure doesn’t really get to me in that way I don’t think, but as mentioned, a hella lot of people I know are squeezing out the rugrats this year (or early next). My body is lecturing my reproductive organs with every pregnancy announcement I hear that I’m in my thirties so I’d better get a move on. There’s a lot of twingeing and stomach-knotting happening right here, right now.
Frankly, I’m terrified at the prospect of raising anything more than my chive plant that simply refuses to die. How can I possibly incubate another human being for 40 weeks (I can’t even grow beansprouts)? Labour is hell on earth. Post-partum depression sounds like runny, smelly, farty shite when the loo won’t flush. On top of that I’d be in charge of another person who’d be completely helpless and will stay that way for ages. I like my sleep. Unconditional love for a creature that is likely to love you not quite as much as you do when they’re grown up sounds like a horrible thing to live with. What if, no matter what you do, your kid turns out to be a total dickhead? How is any of this worth it? If I’ve never had that hormonal rush that makes a mother go all gaga over their baby, why should I feel I’d be missing out on anything? Will there be any regret over the choice I do (or refuse to) make?
It’s not that I don’t feel ‘ready’ to have a baby, readiness has bugger all to do with it — I’m just not sure I’m the kind of person who should. I don’t need to be convinced of anything because I’ve yet to work out if I even want to take a position on this.
(The reality is I’ll do nothing and the choice will be made for me. That’s the proactive, decisive, and confident way I roll.)
The Internet is great, isn’t it? I am truly just talking talking talking complete and utter drivel no one else gives a shit about and there’s no shutting me up because I’ve paid for the server space.
These statements alone are reason enough for Economist.com to turn off comments. Jeeeeesus… (RIP to Michael Jackson and all, but stop trying to canonise him already.)