Hey, Remember that Movie Bridesmaids that Came Out Like A THOUSAND YEARS AGO?! I finally saw it.

Posted on | April 13, 2012 | 8 Comments

(I was gonna apologize for the shocking length of this movie review but then I realized…this is actually one of the few things I do well, so suck it. WORDS ARE GOOD FOR YOU, MAH BABIES.)

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I have New Movie Watching Reluctance Phobia. Well, “new movie” isn’t factually accurate so much as “new-to-me” movie. While I completely trust the opinions of a select few people, my reaction to someone telling me I HAVE to see this movie is usually, “STOP PRESSURING ME.”

No, I can’t explain this, it’s just another one of my lovely personality foibles. I like to get around to discovering things on my own time. I’m overly cautious of HYPE and I don’t like spending money on movies I end up disliking unless I’m good and liquored up and in the company of Shaun, Lauren, Summer Crew, sisters, or my various other fellow Movie Mockers.

So, Bridesmaids came out…I don’t even know how long ago. Long enough ago that we went through the entire 2012 awards season with me hearing about it and how good it was and I still didn’t see it until last Monday. WHOOPS.

The major downside to New-to-Me-Movie Watching Reluctance Phobia is that by the time I get around to watching the movies that actually ARE good and worth my time, everyone is over them. Been there, done that, quoted them at parties and posted MEMES on Facebook, they don’t want to rehash every scene and plot point with me a 8 months to a year after they saw the movie.

If this has ever happened to you, dear reader, may I suggest starting yourself a nice little blog where you can post about whatever bad OR good movie on your own time, and people can read it or not read it, and comment or not comment, and mock you in the privacy of their own homes if they want.

SO, I SAW BRIDESMAIDS. And I really liked most of it. And I want to talk about it, so ENJOY.

Or, you know, mock me for writing obsessively over a movie that came out a year ago. Whatevs. You do what you want.

Things I Didn’t Like

1. Kristen Wiig has some Shittastic Friends. Listen, maybe I just have different relationships with my best friends than the rest of the world. (Now that I think about it…the last outings with my friends involved Lauren and I reenacting the end of the Return of the King TWICE because the first time I/Sam hauled Lauren/Frodo across Mordor/the kitchen to dump “The Ring” (empty Solo cup) into “Mount Doom” (trash can), we forgot to get Gollum/Becky to jump out and fight us…and…well, OK, one story is enough…you get the point…)

But seriously – it’s established within the first 5 – 10 minutes of the movie that not only has Kristen Wiig suffered a seriously emotional debilitating loss recently through the closing of her bakery and the subsequent break up with her douchebag boyfriend, but also because of that, she has no money. We, the audience who doesn’t live in the same Movie World as the characters, realize this quickly, so I’d hope to God her actual best friend Maya Rudolph realizes this. They were sneaking into the outdoor aerobics class together, for God’s sake, it’s clear Kristen wasn’t in a position to throw money around willy nilly.

So what sort of horrible friend forces her broke-ass friend to buy $800 dresses and fly to Las Vegas for a weekend of hotels, dining out and shopping? YES, I realize it’s Maya Rudolph’s wedding and she doesn’t want to cheapen her wedding preparation experience by catering to her poor friend…but it’s your “BEST” FRIEND. And it’s not a night out with dinner and margaritas and a cover charge to a dance club we’re talking about…it’s an $800(!!!) dress (IS IT MADE OF GOLD? DOES IT SING TO ME?) and a fucking TRIP TO VEGAS. Airfare! Hotel! Booze! Food! Transportation! That is a hell of a lot to ask of a friend who IS financially responsible, much less one going through a rough patch and struggling to even make rent.

I feel like the point of these type of scenarios was to put focus on how much Kristen’s life sucks at the moment, but the whole time I was watching these scenes in which Kristen struggles to bite her tongue and civilly express her monetary concerns without embarrassing herself… it made me think, “What an airhead (at best), selfish asshole (at worst) friend Maya Rudolph is!”

I’ve been in Kristen Wiig’s shoes before – it ain’t fun. Being a bridesmaid is a thankless task most of the time anyway, considering it becomes the one time in your life where your needs aren’t as important as your bride-friend’s. All that is way worse when you have to look like the Bad Friend because your ACTUALLY BAD FRIEND isn’t considering your limitations. No one wants to be the loser friend who can’t join in because of MONEY of all things. No one DOESN’T want to go to Vegas, but if wanting were all it took, I’d be in Vegas covered in glitter and champagne right now. (*sigh* Dreams!)

Situations like this made me question the authenticity of Kristen and Maya’s relationship. I, as an intelligent viewer, realize that I’m supposed to think Kristen and Maya are really great, close friends and have been for a long time, and it’s supposed to be clear that while Rose Bryne is better at party planning, Kristen is the REAL best friend. I get that I’m supposed to get that. But the setup of the “comedic” scenes really just made it seem like Maya Rudolph really was a unaware douchebag, instead of the down-to-earth, goofy, long term friend she was intended to be.

2. Overly Long Scenes. Listen, I love to run a joke to death like the best of us (FAT MOE’S. HE DIED. RIGHT THERE. ON THE PATIO) but Bridesmaids has a horrible case of what Alison and I refer to as Randi Disease. We named it after a friend of ours from middle school, who thought everything that came out of my mouth was HYSTERICALLY FUNNY. And, I mean, I can be humorous, but for every good zinger that comes out of my mouth, a hell of a lot of duds sneak past too. Comedy is a hit-and-miss art form, and not all your attempts are good.So when you actually get a HIT, you want to milk it as long as you can.

Bridesmaids milked some of their OMG ISN’T THIS FUNNY scenes way, way, waaaay too long. The Engagement Party Kristen and Rose Competing Speeches Scene. The Food Poisoning Scene. The Ohmuhgawd How Ridiculous is it that Wilson Phillips is Here Lip Synching Scene. And even the WHOOPS Kristen’s Drugged on a Plane scene – although it was one of my favourites in terms of silly things that make me giggle, it too fits into this category.

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I will completely and whole-heartedly admit I did not watch more than .002 seconds of the Food Poisoning Puke ‘n Poop scene. One of the few perks to New-to-Me-Movie Watching Reluctance Phobia is that by the time I get around to watching movies, I’ve already heard rumour of scenes that will likely crush my soul and make it shrivel up like a salted slug. While I will talk about real people’s real life embarrassing poop, puke, health and sex stories all the live long day, Poop ‘n Puke humor in movies is not my thing. I don’t know why it’s so different in real life versus in TV or movies, but it is.

But let’s assume for a moment that the vast majority of the world DOES (apparently) love Poop ‘n Puke humor – even still, I had my head turned from the screen so long that I started cleaning the room as a way to entertain myself during this never ending scene. Same with all the other scenes I listed above – yeah, they were humorous…and then they stopped being humorous when the punch line was punched over and over and over and over again. We’re not stupid as an audience, we get it. It’s a “funny” scene. Move on. We got a whole movie to do, we can’t waste such huge percentages of time on such slapstick scenes that aren’t contributing to the overall development of the plot.

3. The Characterization of the Outcast/Fatty. This is the anti-fat-shaming person in me, so maybe this didn’t bother other people as much as it bothered me . When seeing previews and hearing people’s opinions of Bridesmaids, I’d express my concern about Melissa McCarthy’s character. “I just get so sick of the look at this Crazy Fatty Who’s So Weird and Gross! Concept,” I’d tell people, and almost every single person assured me, “Oh, it’s not like that at all with her, she’s so awesome!”

Ya’ll bitches done lied to me. I had really great expectations for Melissa McCarthy in this movie, because people insisted she was “the best” character in the film. But I feel like the vast majority of her characterization was par for the course for Hollywood’s Fatties Are Gross and Therefore Have Weird Personalities shtick. Granted, Melissa McCarthy’s character is not the only weirdo in this film. Every character we interact with in this comedy, naturally, has quirks and does weird things that are fitting to their characterization.

But it was clear, despite all the OTHER weirdos, that Melissa McCarthy was the bottom of the totem pole. She was the weirdest, the most socially awkward, the least emotionally redeeming. And while some might argue that a lot of her weirdness was personality-based and not physically, I have two replies. First of all, if her social outcast behavior was solely personality driven, why cast a plus size woman to play her? Skinny-minnies can be batshit weirdos just as much as the curvy ladies. Socially awkwardness annoyingness isn’t the sole property of bigger gals.

Secondly, I feel like a lot of the jokes written for her were at the expense of her appearance and weight. When she’s trying to seduce the Air Marshall en route to Vegas, she’s acting sexual and seductive, which the Air Marshall finds disgusting. And if you’re trying to argue that yet again, it’s personality driven, try envisioning that scene with a hot, skinny bombshell actress. It stops being weird and invasive, and starts being flirty and coy. It’s weird and funny because WHUUUT NO MAN ACTUALLY WANTS TO BE SEDUCED BY A FATTY. THAT WOULD NEVER REALLY HAPPEN.

The worst part of this is that because Melissa McCarthy is set up as the butt of every single joke of every single scene she’s in, it becomes impossible to take her seriously in her one pivotal, important scene. By the time Melissa shows up to snap Kristen out of her Pity Party, we the audience have been mocking her for the past hour. So when she starts berating Kristen into fighting for herself and taking charge of life, we expect it to be another set up for another joke at Melissa’s expense.

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The realization that this is not, in fact, another mocking scene makes it difficult to digest. On top of that besides their initial meeting scene, Melissa and Kristen don’t have a single one-on-one bonding scene until this Come to Jesus and Get Your Shit Together scene. This makes it difficult to take this entire revelation as a serious, moving, moment. Melissa refers to herself as Kristen’s friend, reminds her she’s there for her…but they’ve not hung out alone once. They’ve not had a single positive moment together…so while this scene has the potential to be really moving – if Melissa, who is fabulous, had been written as a realistic goofball instead of caricature – it falls flat because we continue mocking Melissa insisting she’s Kristen’s friend. Because they have no history, and Melissa’s the Established Weirdo, clearly this whole scene is just another big joke, RIGHT?!?! IT HAS TO BE FUNNY, IT CAN’T BE SERIOUS.

Things That Were Kind of Weak and/or Minor That, If Fixed/Altered, Would Have Really Improved the Movie as a Whole (Sidebar: All of these points could basically be boiled down to “2 Conflicting Movie Styles Crammed into One Movie Weakens Either Style from Being Effective as It Could Have Been.)

1. The Title Itself. Calling the movie Bridesmaids, especially when it’s marketed as the female version of The Hangover, sets us up for a movie about a united (although problematic) and unified group pursuing one goal and their capers and complications in pursuit of said goal. While I was pleasantly surprised that this movie had more intellectual meat and heart than that, part of me was frustrated I didn’t get more of what the title led me to believe was going to happen.

This isn’t a movie about bridesmaids and the funny trouble they get into in preparation for their friend’s wedding. This isn’t even a movie about a wedding. This is a movie about the inevitability of hitting a hard spot in your life, and how you deal with getting out of it – whom can you trust, at what point do you realize YOU are the only person who can save yourself? It’s a movie about the fluctuations of love over time, a movie about self-awareness and realization.

The title itself sets up my primary beef with the movie – the fact that it partially wants to be a goofy movie that alternates physical humor with catastrophically ridiculous turns of events…but it also partially wants to be a quiet, self-aware reflection on the realities of adult life, coping and recovery, and the warmth and humor of enduring relationships.

1. The Background Characters & Their Time on Screen. The secondary character bridesmaids – I wanted so much more for you, my babies! Ellie Kemper is fantastic in anything, whether it’s the Office or doing Dance Dares on Ellen, or the World’s Most Awkward BJ parody video. The Blonde Chick Who’s Name I Don’t Know had some great small moments sprinkled in here and there.

And those bitches totally got the shaft overall in this film. So little time is spent on them as individuals that it starts to seem pointless that they have an established personality. Looking at the film as a whole, these two are generally just pawns in a group scene whose sole purpose is to establish and constantly remind the audience of two key facts: Melissa McCarthy is weird and Kristen Wiig’s life sucks. They get their standard introduction in which their shtick is clearly outlined, and they get one scene together on the plane.

Their scene on the plane got me excited, and not just because it was about sexy times gossip. I thought, “Finally! We are going to get to see them be humorously themselves and have more than one standard line that supports their already established gag.” I was excited to see these two characters taken out of the role of supporting the already established conflict and start getting to have some fun being independent, full-fledged characters.

And then I cried, because they got approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds of that, sandwiched in between MELISSA MCCARTHY IS WEIRD and KRISTEN WIIG’S LIFE SUCKS, and then we were right back where we’d been the entire film and they didn’t get a single other moment to explore their selves.

2. Rose Bryne’s Helen. First off, girlfriend needs to gain a few pounds, please? I’m not skinny-shaming, I just think she is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous as a not-starved-looking skinny lady. I mean, have you seen her in Troy? She should look like that ALL of the time, curly-eighties-esque wig and all. She’s like a Pre-Raphaelite goddess. Those eyes! Those cheeks!

But beyond her looks, I was frustrated with the missed opportunities in her limited character development throughout the movie. She has the same problem as Melissa McCarthy, where she is presented in one particular way, with one particular personality trait; over and over and over again, until it becomes impossible to take her seriously in any scene that presents her in a different light.

Rose Bryne is a rich bitch. The audience realizes this from her very first scene, and for the next hour of the movie, no scene in any way even hints that she is anything other than a rich bitch. Her HBIC façade is so strong, and the movie is so set in Kristen’s point-of-view, that she becomesone dimensional.

I was so disappointed that there were even scenes in which a potential humanizing moment could have happened for Rose…and didn’t. When her snotty step-kids come by at the tennis courts and treat her like the awful monster she is (or at least appears to be for 98% of the movie), she’s flippant, unconcerned with their asshattery. If the writers/directors wanted to start the set up showing her as having a sensitive, emotional side, this would have been the perfect moment – the woman who seems like she’s got it all but can’t even connect with her step-kids who clearly loathe her. Pausing to give her a hurt moment could have done wonders for my reaction to her at the end of the movie.

Instead, she is relentlessly painted as the villain to the point where her inevitable turn-around moment doesn’t evoke the warmth it should. Instead of seeing her as a sensitive person with a tough bravado, she comes across as fake, weak, and delusionally paranoid about appearances. So we don’t celebrate her and Kristen coming to a understanding, if not a friendship, because we mistrust it because it seems so fake and unmotivated.

3. Balancing This is Reality versus This is a Movie. As I said above, Bridesmaids tries to be two different movies – the comedic blockbuster and the sensitive character portrait. Trying to make these two vastly different concepts melded into one movie ends up weakening both options to the point where neither succeeds.

We don’t get enough of the secondary characters who could really contribute to committing the movie to a goofy and heartwarming film, so Bridesmaids can’t be wholly a funny movie. The secondary characters we do get a lot of are so one-dimensional that they prevent the movie from stranding firmly as thoughtful film. We don’t actually care about their development from assholes to an sympathetic, human characters…because we’ve spent too much time watching people vomit. So it’s not completely a serious, introspective film either; because we spend a shitton of time with shit jokes. The movie can’t commit to one idea or the other, and so we don’t get enough of what we want, regardless of which way any random audience viewer wants the film to go.

Now That I’ve Complained and Overanalyzed Up a Storm, Here are Things I Loooooved Enough to Put Multiple O’s (ooer) in “Loved.”

1. Kristin Wiig as the Straight Man. The world’s prior experience with Kristen Wiig as an actress is closer to Melissa McCarthy’s character than any other. Her work on SNL is largely goofball, hot mess characters who weird around and then out-weird their previous weird from two minutes ago. Her other film work is largely goofy voice acting for (legit good) films (like How to Train Your Dragon! So unexpectedly good!) or bit parts being a socially awkward person.

Girlfriend STEPS UP TO THE PLATE in Bridesmaids. Within the first 15 minutes, I remarked, “It’s weird to see Kristen Wiig playing the straight man against all the other character’s weirdness…but I like it.” And I still do. Sure, sure, she was damned funny in her funny scenes – combining a great sense of comedic timing with sharp, witty dialogue that seems even better when you remember Kristen herself wrote most of it.

But Kristen Wiig displayed such a sense of mature subtly in all of her scenes – not just the funny ones. She mopes with eloquence, she conveys “emotionally shattered” with just a look and a shrug. She is perfectly hesitant and unsure. She simultaneously manages to embody a character who I not only watch and think, “I know that girl in real life!” but also, “OH GOD, that is so me, I have so been there!” She has ups, she has downs, she has moments where I cheered, “GO, GIRL!” and she has moments where I thought, “Oh, please, please stop shooting yourself in the foot.” In short, against a background of flat, one trick pony characters, Kristen created a character that not only I recognized from real life, but whom I imagine a large portion of the audience could do the same.

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2. Her Relationships and One-on-One Interactions. If I could cut, let’s say, 40% of the group bridesmaids scenes, and then have the bulk of the film be Kristen Wiig’s Annie interacting with the various other characters that make up her support system and her enemies, I would be totally happy with the movie.

Kristen’s relationships with other characters, one-on-one, is the best part of the movie. Her mom is my mom every time I’ve wandered home in a panicked crisis – which is to say, their relationship – in turns grating and gratifying – hits real enough that I believe it, in addition to seeing how this relationship emphasizes Kristen’s feelings of isolation and loneliness.

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Her one-on-one scenes with Maya Rudolph are equally great. These are the scenes that had me believing they had been super close friends since childhood, and were as strong as 30-somethings as they were as 20-somethings. Both of these ladies play off of each other wonderfully, in both their serious and comedic scenes. Honestly, their breakfast/”you need dental work” scene in the first 20 minutes was funnier than half the goofy calamity that followed.

The scenes with Kristen and one or two other characters laid a foundation that made the other unrealistic wildness seems more realistic, or at least more tolerable. In a movie that oscillates between the ridiculous and the lifelike, we needed a groundwork of scenes that act as a center of gravity between the absurdity.

3. OFFICE NATHAN RHODES. YA’LL. YA’LL. YAAAA’LLLLLLLL. (For those of you who hate how I spell “y’all” wrong, did that just BURN YOUR EYEBALLS OUT?) YA’LL. OFFICER RHODES. Can someone wrap him up and put him under my Christmas tree? Wait, I can’t wait that long…and damn it, I just had my birthday and Easter. Someone find me a holiday in the next few weeks where I candemand a fictional character be gift wrapped and delivered to me??

OK, OK, I will try to find better reasons to SQUEE over Chris O’Dowd’s character that aren’t just PRECIOUS and ADORABLE and HIS FAAAACE and HIS VOOOOICE. (But? Sidebar? PRECIOUS and ADORABLE and HIS FAAAACE and HIS VOOOOICE.)

When he first pulled Kristen over and they had their initial meet-cute, I wasn’t sure he was the Love Interest. I HOPED he was the Love Interest, but he was so starkly opposite from traditional Dream Boat Douchebag John Hamm that I thought, surely this can’t be right? In a film filled with an unsettling variety of both caricatures and developed characters, I wasn’t sure how to take this seemingly very realistic, authentically funny character.

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Chris O’Dowd’s Officer Rhodes isn’t a Funny Guy, he’s a funny guy. He’s not a Love Interest, he’s a love interest. He could have very well walked out of my life and into this film. I know this guy (in fact, I know 4-5 of them, Summer Crew guys are pretty wonderful), I’m dating this guy.

During one of his scenes, I exclaimed, “If his character were a real life person, I WOULD MARRY THE SHIT OUT OF HIM.” Shaun gave me A Look until I explained, “I mean, because he reminds me of you!” And he does! He’s that charming, funny, supportive guy that walks in a sweeps you of your feet in real life, and he’s presented in a very real way. This is not a Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise or a Leonardo Dicaprio that you know in a million, billion years would never romantically give you the time of day. This is a character whose awkward charm and sensitive vulnerability make the audience fall in love with him even as Kristen Wiig does.

(blah blah source but seriously, I’m almost hyperventilating from his FAAAAACE)

I have no idea if the actor Chris O’Dowd is actually this charming in life – for all I know, he could be a raging douchebag, but regardless, he convinced me during the movie, and that’s the most you can ask of any character, but especially a love match. He is good the way Matthew Macfadyen in Pride and Prejudice is good, the way Sean Bean in Game of Thrones is good. It’s impossible not to fall in love with them because they are so genuine.

4. The Overall Intent of the Movie. Despite my various complaints above, I will totally admit Bridesmaids isn’t just your average humorous chick flick. It’s not just a comedy about bitches preparing for a wedding, like, OMG BRIDEZILLA LOL, how funny are bustles and bouquets?!?! AMITRITE?!

This isn’t Bride Wars. Despite a few flat secondary characters, these are real people. The audience feels compassion and sympathy AS WELL as contempt and frustration with almost all the major characters. That’s a rare thing. Most of the time, you’ve got the clear cut bad guy, the clear cut bad guy, the love interest, the guiding hand, and each character snaps into place like a puzzle.

To me, being unsure of exactly who the bad guy was and who the good guy was is a sign of successful film. I’d be filled with condescending irritation at Maya Rudolph one moment, andthen feel desperately sorry for her the next. I’d cheer Kristen Wiig in one scene and then turn away and refuse to watch her ruin a relationship in the next.

(I’m not kidding. The Morning After, when emotionally confused Kristen shuts down Office Rhoads, I turned away and announced, “I CAN’T WATCH. WHYYYYY.”)

In life, we rarely totally hate or totally love someone. Our relationships fluctuate as life does – and this is something the majority of the key players in Bridesmaids mastered.

CONCLUSION: Don’t be perturbed by the fact that there is far more screen space devoted to I DIDN’T LIKE THIS, rather than I LOVED THIS. I really did enjoythis movie – there was a fair amount of less than successful moments and I’m maybe not as wild about it as other people, but what was good was really, really good. I honestly think the main reason I fixated so much on the weak points is because the strong points were SO genuine and emotional, and I hated the fact that there were some anvils dragging that awesomeness down.

If, for some bizarre reason, you are even less timely with your film selections than I am, and still haven’t seen Bridesmaids, I heartly recommend it. Just look away during the Poop ‘n Puke scene (you’ll know when it’s coming) because, well, honestly, who wants to see that?

In closing:

THIS. UNDER MY TREE. CHRISTMAS MORNING. SOMEONE GET ON THAT. Please, thank you, bye, etc.

This Post Makes Me Sound Like a Raging Psychopath.

Posted on | April 4, 2012 | 4 Comments

I didn’t really wanna talk about my Stomach Issues, because talking about Stomach Issues inevitably veers off into the Land of Too Much Information. (Have you visited? It’s lovely in fall.) And while I personally have NO LINE and don’t care a bit if friends talk to me in detail about their bodily functions, sex lives, or bad choices…(seriously, there is very little that you can say to me that will shock or disgust me, I’ve had people tell me a particular factoid and then apologize for TMI and I’m like, “No, go on! What color was it?!?!”)…other people do not share that Open Book type lifestyle. So, let’s just be succinct and say I’ve been having some serious Stomach Issues that made it necessary for me to go have my gallbladder checked out, and also, ouch.

After suffering for a couple weeks, I visited the doctor, and one of the things she wanted me to do was have a gallbladder ultrasound so we could either treat that or at least rule it out. This seemed like a pretty straight forward course of events, and, indeed, the ultrasound part of it was very straight forward. I didn’t get to eat or drink after midnight on Sunday and the only annoying part was how parched I was Sunday morning. I showed up at the hospital at 8 AM on Monday, got signed in and then was led off to a dark room by a quirky ultrasound technician named Steph. The ultrasound went exactly as I expected it to…I reclined on a padded table in the dim room, was covered up with a sheet, lathered up with goo, and she took pictures of my innards for five or ten minutes. Quick, easy, exactly as I expected.

Steph the Technician had said, “If we don’t see any gall stones, you have to do one more test, OK?” OK? Sure, fine, the ultrasound was very routine and normal, so what’s one more test? Does it keep me away from work for a little longer? Sure, I’m game!

Now, since I actually had this procedure, I’ve learned from a fair few people that this is a REAL THING that PEOPLE DO, and that at least three people I know have had this done relatively recently, so it’s not like this is a phantom procedure that no one I’ve ever heard of has ever had done. But at the time…it seemed that way.

They set the stage for the predictable EmmySuh mental break down by leaving me in a literally closet sized waiting room deep in the bowels (HA IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE YOU KNOW GALLBLADDER/BOWELS AHAHAHAJDKS) of the hospital, all by myself, for a half hour. I was briefly joined by a lady who told me all about her COPD and had hair that looked like wet spaghetti noodles.

Then I was alone again. And it seemed like a hellishly long time to be in what honestly looked like a storage closet…I kept worrying that whoever had forgotten about me, or maybe I had misunderstood Steph and was actually supposed to do something else.

By the time the Quiet Man (I never learned his name, so let’s go with this…) actually came to get me, I was convinced I had been abandoned and was just wasting time in the hospital…but I was too afraid to leave, in case I was wrong. So, the Quiet Man took me off to yet another dark room in another random corridor and sat me down in a chair…where he informed me this test would take an hour and a half…and that he’d be injected me with radioactive medicine…and this is where my brains started to go, “Ummmm, PARDON?!”

Given that I didn’t even know the name of the test, and didn’t even know I was getting it before thirty minutes ago, I was kinda weirded out but at the same time, I am in no way a medical professional, so I tend to assume they know what they’re doing. I didn’t make a fuss. I let him put an IV in my arm, and I let him inject me with a radioactive tracer. The majority of the room was devoted to a contraption that looked like it’d been stolen of the set of a particularly bad science-fiction themed movie selection on Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

The Quiet Man had me lay down (I WOULD HAVE WORN PANTS, HAD I KNOWN) on a…table(??) in the middle fo the room. I say table, but it looked more like a diving board that curved a little bit. I had a pillow under my head, and the Quiet Man (who was so sweet and polite and quiet) gave me a big cushion to go under my knees. He also got me a warmed blanket to keep me warm as I lay there for an hour and a half. Let me just take this moment to profess my love for hospital warmed blankets. I’ve not had many stays in the hospital, thank goodness, but ohhh God, these things are THE BEST.

Then he gave me a big loop of thick, strong, yellow fabric. “For your arms,” he informed me. Yes, the diving board table was too narrow for anyone to rest their arms anywhere, so some genius invented a loop of cloth so you could put your arms in the loop, stretch it across your body and they rest in a sling sort of situation. Unfortunately, given that I was lying prone, propped up on various cushion on a hard table, I just felt like I was in a straight jacket.

Then the walls started moving.

That was not the radioactive tracer talking, honest to goodness, bits of machinery that I had thought were part of the walls, or, at the very least, attached to them, started moving smoothly, of their own accord, across the room and towards me. “SPACE ALIENS,” was what my brain was doing at the moment. Then “SPACE ALIENS STEALING MY SOUL?!” as the machinery came closer and closer and closer…until I was trapped under a mess of X-ray boards, monitors, swiveling arms, and blinking screens.

From the neck up, I was free, but from the tits down, there was a piece of machinery 6-12 inches away. CLAUSTRAPHOBIA. It’s not one of my biggest fears, but it rears its head from time to time.

“Just close your eyes, Em,” I told myself, “He said it’d take at least an hour, maybe longer, just close your eyes, do your deep breathing, take a little nap. It’s fine. IT’S FINE, SPACE ALIENS.”

I thought I would sleep…but I was wrong, at first. Another one of my OCD Paranoia fears is falling asleep in an “unsafe” or “not secure” location. I worry about people walking in on me, people messing with the innocent asleep person, kidnapping the innocent asleep person, etc.

So the first 20 minutes or so, I kept trying to relax and fall asleep…but would hear someone walking by outside the close doors and snap my eyes open to defend myself from my imagined attacker. It didn’t help that the Quiet Man was busy earning his moniker. Again, he was SO kind and polite, and really wanted to make sure I was comfortable and OK…but he was like a silent stealth Snape-Ninja. He’d apparently walk up to check on me, I would in NO WAY hear him approach…and he’d suddenly ask softly, “Are you doing all right?” and I would JUMP in alarm.

This went on for a bit, he ran out to check on something else, then injected me with the second medicine (the first is like an ink to flow through your digestive tract, the second makes your gallbladder contract so they can see how it works) and retreated to his little office watchroom. And this is when I actually did start to fall asleep…which did not help matters as I expected.

For starters, the diving board table was so narrow, that I’d drift off to sleep, shift a tiny bit…and feel OPEN AIR. My asleep brain would assume OH NO FALLING and I’d jerk awake, jolted. This happened 2-3 times before I got used to it.

Once I was able to fall into a deeper sleep, my Odd Sleep Behavior started in. Ask anyone who’s ever shared a bed, a cot, or even a room with me while I was sleeping and they will inform you I routinely cry, talk, and laugh in my sleep. Oh yes.

I’d be trying to just breathe and meditate in my sling-straight-jacket-diving-board-bed, but the dark room and the warm blanket and the soft hum of the machines would lull me into sleep. And I’d start dreaming…and in my dream, something funny would happen and I’d start giggling…then I’d WAKE MYSELF UP LAUGHING in real life, in a dark room all by myself, strapped to a table, injected with radioactive medicines.

Suddenly, I went from the problem of not being able to fall asleep to not being able to stay awake even though I wanted to. I’d lie there, try and focus on a story, a movie, meditation, my plans for the day…and every damn time, I’d drift off to sleep, only to wake up a few moments later mumbling, “No, put it away, John!” into my straight jacket sling.

The last fifteen minutes were the worst. I was over the silliness of the whole thing, I was over the Surprise Naptime, I was DEFINITELY over not being able to move. At this point, I’d been on the table for an hour, and I just wanted OUT and FREEDOM. I drifted off to sleep one last time, and instead of being woken up by the sound of my own laughter echoing off the empty room, I was woken up by one of the machines shrieking BEEP BEEP BEEP HEY YA’LL I’M DONE BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Quiet Man ninja’d into the room, and the space machines retreated back to their homes on the wall. I climbed awkwardly out of my sling and off the table. He took out my IV and sent me on my way. I felt like we should have hugged it out or at least commented on my sleep-talking…but he seemed pretty satisfied with how everything had gone down, so I toddered off in search of the liquid and food I could now ingest.

Again, since I expressed my bewilderment on my various social media, I’ve learned that this is, in fact, a real medical procedure, and not a back-alley-sally brainwashing technique. But at the time, it seemed less like a way to help me find the source of my issues, and more like a torture procedure during the Korean War. “Heh, heh, let’s strap her down to a tiny table, inject her with weird drugs, cover her in machine, and let her have weird dreams…THEN we’ll see if she’ll tell us the location of the troops!!”

We don’t hear the results for a few days…so…I’ll keep ya posted!

My Triumphant Return to Blogging In Which I Discuss Why Titanic 3D is The Best Thing to Happen to Me Since…well…Beauty and the Beast 3D.

Posted on | March 29, 2012 | 4 Comments

Preface: You know that post bloggers write after a month or two of unexpected hiatus where they disappear from writing for a while and then randomly reappear, then try and explain why? Let’s just pretend this tiny paragraph is that blog post, mmkay? I’d get into the details, but it’s all WAH DEPRESSED then HOSHIT SPRING YAY then STOMACH ISSUES then I’M NOT FUN ANYMORE then WAIT MAYBE I AM. So, let’s just skip it. Hi. Here I am. The end!

What better way to return to blogging than talking about an iconic movie from our childhoods? The other day at work, a coworker and I were talking about how Titanic is coming back to theatres in 3D. My immediate, effusive reaction was, “OH MY GOD, I KNOOOOW, I AM SO EXCITED.”

And then she was like, “Please stop yelling, you shattered my eardrums and now my brain is bleeding.” But THEN she said, “Wow, Emily, I’m really surprised that you would want to go see that…”

Yes, yes, yes, she (like most people I interact with) quickly learned that I am very, very, very picky about my entertainment. For all that I rave about the stuff that I love, prospective new entertainment has to run a violent gauntlet of suspicion before it actually gets on the Stuff I Love List.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Stuff I Love List is comprised of two different types – there’s the stuff I legitimately love and respect and can give you a ten page list of why I think it’s of quality (Sarah Jarosz, White Oleander, Wes Anderson movies, Mumford and Sons, Hyperbole and a Half, etc.)….or there’s the opposite end of the spectrum: stuff that is so silly, irreverent, ridiculous, immature or goofy that I can’t help but love how much goofy, silly, mocking fun it gives me (Animals Talking in All Caps tumblr, Sims legacies, Angry Beavers, Disney, ALL THE CARTOONS EVER).

Titanic is in the latter category. I fully acknowledge and accept that it is not an actually GOOD movie, I know that it is not a genius film. Gotcha. We’re all on the same page here.

BUT. It is TITANIC which means I WILL be going to see it in movie theatres in 3D and here’s a few reasons why:

1. It’s TITANIC. In THREE DEE. All the special effects that seemed impressive in 1997 are now going to be THREE DIMENSIONAL and HYSTERICAL.

2. One of my favourite movie shots of ALL TIME (yes, I went there) – when Rose gets out of the car and tilts her GIGANTIC FUCKING HAT up so she can see the GIANT FUCKING SHIP and we can see her GORGEOUS FUCKING FACE.

3. Jack’s stereotypically Italian BFF buddy. I mean, seriously, did the actor playing him (HELL NO, I’m not gonna look that shit up) just watch a Chef Bouyardee commercial from 1982 and based his Italian accent on that? Someone explain this to me. I keep expecting him to be like, “I love-uh duh spa-ghett-I and duh motzarrrrrella! Ciao! Grazi! When the moon hits your-uh eye-uh like a big-uh pizza pie-uh, we go to America!”

4. Billy Zane being a douche. Show me a movie where Billy Zane does NOT play a douche and I will show you a goddamn LIAR. (I just tried to look up Billy Zane’s IMDB to prove my point or at least be aware of what people would try and cite to argue with me but then my phone was slow loading it and I realized I didn’t actually care that much about Billy Zane’s level of douchebaggery outside of Titanic.)

5. OHHH GOD, the dresses. The dresses! This is one of the best period-piece costume dress-ogling movies out there, second maybe to Marie Antionette. The beady one (WHY WOULD YOU THROW THAT INTO THE OCEAN, ROSE) or the greeny one or the blue flimsy one she runs through the boiler room in or the OTHER BEADY ONE. Also, HATS.

6. Young Leonardo DiCaprio. I just wanna snuggle him and pinch his cheeks and say, “Wait until you grow up and star in the Departed and Inception and THEN we can talk about all the various ways I want to dream-sex you.”

7. Young Kate Winslett. I just wanna gush about how lovely curvy and not-starved she is, starring as the leading lady in a Blockbuster, record-money-making movie. We need more of that. Also, I will say, “Wait until you grow up and star in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Finding Neverland and THEN we can talk about all the various ways I want to dream-sex you.”

8. Now I can’t stop thinking about a Kate Winslett-Leo Dicaprio threesome. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re welcome for me planting the idea in your head.

9. That time I had maybe been drinking and couldn’t decide whether I wanted to watch Black Swan or Titanic so I ended up watching Titanic like it was Black Swan, and became obsessed with the idea that Rose was some manipulative, rich bitch who used her DRAMATIC, aristocratic-oppression water works to trick people into doing what she wants. WATCH OUT, Jack, at first, she’s just using you to get back at her uptight, classist mother…but then when disaster strikes, she’s just using you to SAVE HER ASS. Yeah. All that needs to happen again. IN THEATRES. IN 3D.

10. THE HAND. (Don’t PRETEND like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Stop playing coy, we all know what THE HAND means, and THE HAND is great.)

11. What I commonly refer to as “The Irish Scene,” which is probably not factually accurate nor culturally inclusive. Maybe I should say The Various Personages of Various Heritage Who All Reside in Third Class Throw Down in a Pub-Style Mosh Pit…scene, but that seems over long. Let’s go back to The Irish Scenes, because, um, HELLO, FIDDLES AND CLOGGING. The Irish Scene is the best scene in the movie. DON’T ARGUE WITH ME. I’ve already mentioned the Fiddles and Clogging, but there’s also Beer Drinking! And even a Fancy Rich Girl Drinking a Beer, WHAAAAT, and Ruffians Start a Fight but then Jack’s like, “No, dawg, we all cool here, calm down, I gotta dance with this Fancy Rich Girl!” And then, “You’re still my best girl, Clara!” Or whatever her name is. Also – the relevé en pointe-you-think-you’re-tough bit. Also, the couples spinning in circles and the chain of dancers weaving through the beer drinkers and…OK, clearly, I could go on for a long while. You get it. This is the best scene in the movie.

12. Here’s another great Drinking and Watching Titanic Story – yes, I have more than one – back in the day (the day being junior year of college), my mom was out of town for a week or so and my college buddies and I came in on the weekend to hang out in a HOUSE instead of a DORM, WHAAAT. And I don’t really remember how this came about but we started watching Titanic and creating a Titanic drinking game. It started out “innocent,” – take a drink every time they mention the Heart of the Ocean, take a drink every time they talk about how fucking poor Jack is…but then quickly slide into ridiculousness such as take a drink every time Billy Zane’s a douchebag which got us so drunk that the final rule was DRINK EVERY TIME YOU SEE THE OCEAN AKA CONSTANTLY. I highly recommend this drinking game. IN THEATRES. IN 3D.

13. I normally only watch Titanic through the actual iceberg striking scene, then stop…because I struggle with anxiety disorders and two hours of watching people struggle to survive against the inevitability of them freezing to death in the middle of the ocean is TOO STRESSFUL for me, but I might make an exception for TITANIC IN THEATRES 3D just so I can yell, “THERE IS TOTALLY ENOUGH ROOM FOR TWO PEOPLE ON THAT DOOR, YOU COLD-HEARTED, MANIPULATIVE SKANKFACE. MAN UP AND SCOOT OVER.” at the appropriate moment. Followed by “YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER LET GO THEN YOU SHOVED HIM OFF THE DOOR, ROSE.”

14. And the greatest thing about Titanic is to remember your little nine year old self too scared to sit through the ending and all the death and destruction and DROWNING CHILDREN so it takes you, like, four tries to make it through the whole movie. (Or maybe that was just me.) And then be silly-sappy pleased with your 25 year old self sipping on vodka-laced-Sprite and chomping on popcorn mixed with Buncha Crunch, giggling and sniggering at Kate Winslett’s titties in 3D, just as you giggled nervously at her titties in 2D when you were nine.