Random Confessions

[Ichatdelune]

So for background, I have a facebook account that I made in high school (everything in my alma mater was done via facebook) but haven't used since graduating (aside from using it for instagram and such). Naturally my facebook timeline is filled with and only with my high school alumni, and wow there was a lot of drama within the community while I hadn't logged in, who would've guessed. And now I'm reading the whole thing with something akin to morbid curiosity

 

[elbkup]

https://youtu.be/Fn8MxJx_erk

Good God!! It's the Kentucky Derby.. Covid-19 style!!! (caution: expletive toward the end..)

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I learnt a valuable lesson over the weekend.

No matter how much you may like her as a person, no matter how much you enjoy chatting to her, no matter how much you love having her as a friend, DO NOT take advice on vampire films from a goth.

I have a few friends who are / were goths. And when chatting to one of them recently, I mentioned in passing that I watched all the “Twilight” films when they were being shown on TV a couple of months ago. Suffice to say, she didn’t have a very high opinion of them. Personally, I didn’t think they were too bad. But we did agree about how wooden Robert Pattinson was in them. And she suggested a couple of different films where the vampires had far more character than Edward Cullen.

Well I finally watched one of them on Sunday – “Interview With The Vampire”. Granted, I enjoyed the story. And the vampires did have character. But, I swear I must have had my eyes closed for over an hour’s worth of the two hours that it lasted! I don’t like gory films, and even though it was mild compared to other horror films, it was still far too gory for me.

And I had specifically told her that one of the things that really spoiled the “Twilight” films for me is that a child gets killed in one of them. I don’t like films where children get killed. That’s why I never watched the “Hunger Games” films. And, lo and behold, a child gets killed in “Interview With The Vampire”!

The other two films she suggested (“Bram Stoker's Dracula” and “Byzantium”) are currently only available on Sky Movies, which we don't subscribe to. So, the wait until they appear on some of the channels we do get will give me time to recover from this one.

Even though she tortured me, I still love her!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[TallyT]

Even though she tortured me, I still love her!

CaroLiza_fan

I hear you. I have an embarrassingly low 'squick' factor and no matter how much someone may tell me I'll love this or that film/show/book and swears "it's not too violent" I still have to go and check online for the details, which may 'spoil' the movie but doesn't spoil my last meal!

Though, ironically, a couple of my favourite films by Czech surrealist Svankmajer - I have to warn anyone who is interested that they aren't precisely gory but are very very disturbing. This is since a couple of outright horror fans watched his Alice because I was so enthusiastic, and got totally unsettled by it....

 

[Seren]

Interview with the Vampire is a classic- mostly because I'm always surprised by how young all the actors are in it.

Weirdly enough the freakiest movie I saw recently was Midsommar. Which is bright and sunny the entire time. It was really unnerving for a horror film.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I hear you. I have an embarrassingly low 'squick' factor and no matter how much someone may tell me I'll love this or that film/show/book and swears "it's not too violent" I still have to go and check online for the details, which may 'spoil' the movie but doesn't spoil my last meal!

I can totally relate to what you are saying. I am very squeemish - I can't deal with the sight of blood, and always have to look away. Which is why I don't watch medical dramas.

But, I couldn't read up on films before watching them. It would just totally spoil my enjoyment if I knew what was going to happen.

...says the guy who watched 3 different adaptations of "A Chistmas Carol" back in December, despite knowing the story inside out. (But none of them will ever be as good as the definitive 1992 adaptation by The Muppets!!! )

Interview with the Vampire is a classic- mostly because I'm always surprised by how young all the actors are in it.

Even though I did find it too gory for my taste, I totally agree that it deserves to be described as a classic. It was a great story, and I liked the way it was told. It just could have been doing with being a bit less graphic.

And I couldn't get over how young Kirsten Dunst in particular was! I never realised that she was a child star. I just assumed that she was somebody who became famous when she was in her twenties.

That said, I just looked at her filmography, and realised that I have seen quite a few films that she was in when she was a kid. So, I must just not have known her when I watched them.

Weirdly enough the freakiest movie I saw recently was Midsommar. Which is bright and sunny the entire time. It was really unnerving for a horror film.

For a second there when reading that I thought "wait, has somebody made a film version of 'Midsomer Murders'?" I thought the different spelling was just a typo (I frequently spell it wrong myself).

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Ducky]

Interview with the Vampire is a classic- mostly because I'm always surprised by how young all the actors are in it.

Weirdly enough the freakiest movie I saw recently was Midsommar. Which is bright and sunny the entire time. It was really unnerving for a horror film.

Oh man, I loved Midsommar: totally freaky and unsettling but also kind of peaceful.

 

[hanyuufan5]

Haha, I have a very high tolerance for blood and violence and a proportionally low tolerance for suffering and helplessness. I can watch as long and gory a battle scene as you can throw at me as long as it's fast-paced and the camera doesn't linger and the plot is still progressing, but a 2 minute lead-up to an off-scene execution, where the person knows he's going to die and can do nothing about it, would have me fleeing. Ditto cults. You couldn't pay me enough to watch Midsommar, but I was fine with the last season of Game of Thrones (but only read summaries of the previous seasons).

 

[TallyT]

I can totally relate to what you are saying. I am very squeemish - I can't deal with the sight of blood, and always have to look away. Which is why I don't watch medical dramas.

And it isn't only blood. When I was doing my degree years ago, one of the plays I studied was Macbeth and yes, we watched a film and yes, they had to go and pick the Polanski version didn't they? Okay, maybe it would not be so bad by today's standard, certainly not GOT-level gore, but we weren't used to it then, and I spent a good portion trying to cover both eyes and ears (it helped that being Shakespeare, I knew just when I should cover up in advance) and the lecturer couldn't stop laughing at me...

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I just plugged in a USB memory stick that I was using during the period at the start of the year when I was switching between the old and new computers. I wanted to check what was still on it. And I found the Word Document for an event thread that I wrote 2 months ago, but forgot to post! :

So, I have just posted it:

https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?85717

It's just as well I checked the memory stick now, because if I had left it any longer the 2019-20 season sub-forum might have got archived before I got posting the thread!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[cheerknithanson]

My story is at 44,657 words and is on page 65, about to hit page 66.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I just looked at the Instagram page for a skater from Moscow who I adopted years ago. She has been retired for a good few years now, and I admit that I haven't been checking in on her as often as I used to. So this was the first time that I had visited her page in AGES, and I got a shock:

In her most recent photo, she was wearing the team jacket for a motorbike racing team that is based 5 miles from where I live! :shocked:

Then I scolled down and got an even bigger shock...

...she GOT MARRIED last July!!!

I've got a son-in-law, and I never knew it!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Seren]

I really miss skating. I keep a countdown (countup?) of how many days it's been (71). It's like the countdown of suck. Watching skaters I know all over the country whose rinks have opened up causes very conflicting feelings. On one hand I am happy for them. On another I am really jealous. And thirdly I'm really worried that if things go wrong in those places it could make it take even longer for our rinks to open up. I think the PNW is going to be the last to go back to normal.

Mostly I just really miss skating.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

As you know, I have been watching a lot of classic films recently. And there have been a number of surprises in the names I have been seeing in some of the credits.

I watched the film "Lady Godiva Rides Again" (1951) a few days ago and, whilst I didn't know any of the headline cast, there were some names that went on to be VERY famous amongst the supporting cast:

• Diana Dors, who was soon being billed as the "British Marilyn Monroe".
• Sid James, who would go on to be the star of the "Carry On" series of films.

Even amongst the extras there were names that became very famous:

• Joan Collins, who went on to become what can only be described as a legend of acting.
• Ruth Ellis, who a few years later became the last woman to be executed in the UK.

Have to be honest, although I knew her name because of how she met her end, I didn't know much about Ruth. It was a real surprise to find out that she had appeared in films. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick her out.

---

This morning, I taped another film. After checking if I had got the end of it, I decided to watch those first few minutes of the film following it, "The Second Woman" (1950), that were at the end of the recording. And I saw the following in the opening credits:

Musical Themes: Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky

United Artists pulled off some coup getting Tchaikovsky on board! Especially since he had been dead for nearly 57 years!

(Never seen that particular transliteration of his name before).

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Alex D]

There was a time when I did not think I would see the sun rise again, today that very sun gave me a nice sunburn. :hap93:

 

[el henry]

There was a time when I did not think I would see the sun rise again, today that very sun gave me a nice sunburn. :hap93:

AlexD, so glad that your health has returned, but watch that sun!

 

[Snorlax]

I've always hated running and using the skipping rope. I now use them because Corona kinda "forces" me to. And I may have started to like it, just a tiny, tiny, bit.

 

[CaroLiza_fan]

I just watched "Sesame Street" for the first time in what must be over 20 years. And it was great!!! I couldn't stop smiling!!!

It was a lockdown special where Elmo was having video calls with his friends. Sure, there were new characters that I didn't know (both in terms of muppets and humans), but seeing the old characters like Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, and The Count brought back so many memories.

I was a bit disappointed that there weren't more of the old characters on. It would have been nice to see Oscar, Snuffy and Alice, the Yip Yips, etc. Admittedly, Bert and Ernie and Big Bird were shown during the sing-song at the end, but they weren't actually part of the main show.

That said, having Anne Hathaway on made up for the disappointment!!! (I wonder if I asked nicely would Elmo would give me her phone number...? )

I have to admit, it did seem strange watching "Sesame Street "on the BBC (it was on Channel 4 and Network 2 when I was growing up). But, hey, it hasn't been on any TV channels here for so long, so I'll not complain!

I really hope that this will not just be a one-off, and that kids in the British Isles will again be able to watch and enjoy the show as much as I did when I was a youngster. I learnt so much from "Sesame Street", and I really feel that kids today should have the opportunity to do so too!

CaroLiza_fan

 

[Ichatdelune]

So last night I was feeling drowsy around 11 pm (which is quite astonishing since I usually fall asleep when the sun comes up) and was ready to get my zzzs, but my annoyance of a brother had to use the shower (the bathroom is literally three steps away from my room) and sing at the top of his lungs while doing so. And believe me, my brother absolutely cannot sing. He can't carry a tune for his life. Suffice it to say that I had to take a siesta to make up for that lost sleep.

 

[Ducky]

Ended up watching Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods last night - it's a great film that I can't decide if I need to rewatch to start working on a thesis on how Lee creates anxiety and discomfort because he doesn't use traditional genre conventions to create distance for the viewer from the characters during some really, really violent scenes later on in the film, verses how in these flashback war scenes (and memory sequences) the carnage is at a remove because they follow war movie conventions, of if I never want to watch it again.

Also loved how the actors all play the younger versions of themselves but the flashbacks are shot in such a way that their faces are mostly obscured and it's so frantically paced that you don't notice they are decades older than Chadwick Boseman, whereas the memory sequences all have the actors appear as their present day ages. (yes... I rewatched a few scenes to make sure of that...)

tl;dr: Great film, distressing, very violent and you will need a few tissues on hand, but you may never want to rewatch it again.