(no subject)
Parks and Recreation
This episode was mostly highly enjoyable! I say mostly just because I really did not care for the Chris storyline. Him randomly crying over everything just wasn't particularly funny to me, and I don't care enough about him as a character to be invested in his happiness at all? And I didn't care for how it felt like the show was starting to push Ann/Chris all of a sudden again (although I did love when Ann said she wasn't dating Chris because she's dating herself right now).
But the rest was lovely!!!!!!!!! LESLIE AND BEN ARE GOING TO BE A FAMILY AHHHHHHHH. THE QUILT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MIKE AS BEN'S DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE STARE-OFF BETWEEN RON AND BEN'S DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything was just lovely, I can't even. And it was awesome to see Marlene again since I do love her, and I've always loved that the show chose to have her be really supportive to Leslie rather than being a total hard-ass or neglectful or anything like that, you know? I like that they have a great relationship. I don't even know what else to say about this storyline because it was just great. AND LESLIE AND BEN ARE GETTING MARRIED AHHHHHHH. Never going to stop flailing about that.
AND THEN THE RON/TOM STORYLINE!!!!!! I love them teaming up for storylines, and that the Rent-a-Swag (…or whatever it's called, I can't remember now) being a continuing storyline, and even though Entertainment 720 failed spectacularly, Tom's not giving up on pursUing his dreams yet!!!! AND JEAN RALPHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I absolutely adored having him back, he is absolutely ridiculous, and every scene with Ron reacting to Jean Ralphio is golden. AND TOM ACTUALLY CARING ENOUGH TO WORK THROUGH THE NIGHT AND FIRE JEAN RALPHIO, AND THAT BEING WHAT RON NEEDED TO AGREE TO HELP HIM OUT. UGHHHH SO GREAT. AND SO EXCITED TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES FOR TOM!!!!!!!!
Once Upon a Time
I really only have one thing to say, which is: RUBYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Okay, a little more than that.) ugh, I love Ruby. SO HAPPY TO HAVE AN EPISODE FOCUSING ON HER. I just wish she could be permanently a greater part of the show rather than just having 1-2 major episodes a season and the rest of the season having really brief scenes every once and awhile. But I can't complain about that when we got such a wonderful episode for her this past week! She is stunning to me and this episode just reaffirmed my love for her. AND HER FRIENDSHIP WITH BELLE, AWWWWWWW, I'M GLAD THAT CONTINUED WITH THIS EPISODE. I just wish it would've had a slightly larger role. But it was great, as was the past stuff she had with Snow. And I totally got teary at the end when Ruby was going to sacrifice herself because she felt she deserved it because she killed her boyfriend and then her mother (and also definitely teared up when she killed her mother) and David talked to her and she stopped and sat down. ughhhh RUBY. She's my favorite, the end.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Okay, so I don't know if I'm going to post reactions to every episode, but as I am unable to really focus on any actual TV shows at the moment and just want to be rewatching these episodes ad nauseum, I might as well talk about my feelings about the past few!
Episode 61
UGH DARCY WAS SO EXCELLENT HERE. He was very wooden and robotic in episode 60, and I did see some comments that he was a lot better in this episode, but… I think that was on purpose, and it completely works for me. It makes perfect sense to me that he'd be so stiff and awkward in the proposal episode because that's who he is and I'm sure he rehearsed that conversation 100 times before coming to see Lizzie, but here he'd already be a bit looser because, I mean… what does he have to lose at this point? The woman he's in love with has already rejected him, and he's already watched her insult him to the internet at large in about 100 different ways, so I can see how the barriers between them would have been broken down a bit here enough for him to show a little more personality. I love how he's kind of just creeping in the background and then tells her he won't sue her! AND UGH HOW HE SAYS "You called me a robot. And a newsie." I DIE EVERY TIME, I DON'T KNOW WHY THAT'S MY FAVORITE LINE OF THE EPISODE, BUT IT IS!!!!!!! And I love how like… even though Lizzie still hates Darcy and believes she's justified in that, she does clearly feel guilty that he had to watch her insult him to the internet a bunch of times. AND HOW HE'S LIKE "It's fine, I don't care about that." UGHHH YOU GUYS. AND HE'S SUCH A RIDICULOUS AWKWARD HIPSTER, HE WROTE A LETTER TO HER IN CURSIVE AND WAX SEALED IT. WHO EVEN ARE YOU.
AND HE APOLOGIZES. GOD, HE WATCHES ALL THOSE VIDEOS OF HER INSULTING HIM AND HATING HIM BUT HE STILL APOLOGIZES AS HE'S LEAVING IF HE MADE HER VISIT TO COLLINS AND COLLINS AWKWARD OR UNPLEASANT. UGHHHHHH DARCY. AND HOW HE LINGERS IN THE DOORWAY AS HE'S LEAVING LIKE THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE HE WANTS TO SAY. UGH GOD.
Also, stepping aside from Lizzie/Darcy for a second, HOW GREAT WAS CHARLOTTE IN THIS EPISODE. I love her always, of course, but I just particularly loved her telling Lizzie she suspected he was into her (AND POINTING OUT ALL THE SIGNS THAT LIZZIE COMPLETELY MISSED. YEAH, LIZZIE, BING REALLY NEEDED DARCY OF ALL PEOPLE TO BE HIS WINGMAN. BECAUSE THAT'S A JOB DARCY WOULD REALLY EXCEL AT.), and then STANDING UP TO DARCY ABOUT JANE. SO GREAT. THESE FRIENDSHIPS ARE MY FAVORITE!!!!!!!!!!! Also, I wanted Jane to have a bit of an "I told you so," moment to Lizzie about Darcy as well, since I think Jane had Darcy figured out better than pretty much any of them.
Episode 62
THE LETTER!!!!!!!!!!! I'm really glad about how they did this. Like, I guessed we wouldn't get all the details, but I was figuring more that Lizzie would talk about how Wickham twisted what happened between him and Darcy in terms of his dad and the money (or whatever the modern equivalent is going to be) and Lizzie would mention that there was something else but she couldn't talk about it in regards to the Gigi/Wickham part of the story. But it's more interesting this way that she doesn't even mention that Wickham's involved. Obviously she hints at it what with saying it involves someone she used to associate with but will no longer (and I guess since it's one of the major accusations she levels at Darcy, you can guess that it's addressed in the letter), but it's not spelled out, which is great since obviously the audience knows basically what the letter says, but this way the people who are watching her videos still won't know, so the Lydia/Wickham stuff can still happen. I saw some people speculate before this episode that Darcy would mention something about not watching any further videos so she wouldn't feel awkward about making them (or maybe even just because it would be too painful to keep watching them after she rejected him), but there wasn't any of that in the episode, so I am curious if we're supposed to think he's going to keep watching or not. I hope we get some indication one way or another, although I do think (as most people have speculated) that Pemberley is his company and she'll go there to intern and we'll end up getting a lot more of Darcy on the videos, so it won't really matter if he's still watching or not. But who knows, I mean, the show keeps going places I wouldn't have expected, so I'm almost hesitant to really speculate how they're going to handle certain storylines.
Anyways, one thing I really loved is that Lizzie is still mad at Darcy about Bing!!! Not as mad as she was because she does see his point about how quickly Bing dropped their relationship, but she does still blame him for that. And I like that she hasn't totally forgiven him yet because… she doesn't love him yet! I've seen stuff on Tumblr from ep 61 of them together with tags or commentary about her being totally into him or whatever, but… no! Lizzie isn't in love with Darcy yet! She did have the moment in this episode where she's disappointed to hear he won't be at dinner (!!!!!!!!! UGH SO GREAT), but… she's not at the same place he was at! And that's okay! It's good! She still needs to see him at Pemberley to like… see him in a new light and discover more about how prejudiced she is and in that she will fall in love with him, but she's not supposed to be there yet. This isn't a "I hate you but secretly want to jump your bones!!!!" thing; she does actually hate him up to the letter, and even though her feelings start turning around here, it's not an instant thing.
Episode 63
CAROLINE!!!!!!! I didn't really talk about her in my post of random feelings about this show, but I LOVE CAROLINE. I mean, obviously she is manipulative and selfish but ughhh such a wonderfully constructed character and such a wonderful choice to have her pretend to be Lizzie's friend for her own benefit in finding out what's going on with Lizzie/Darcy and driving Jane and Bing apart. Part of me hopes there is some way that they can be actual friends by the end of the series, although I don't know if the show is going to want to change things up enough to go there. But still, I was delighted to see her back so unexpectedly. And I always really enjoy whenever this show decides to change things up from the source material in that way since then it gets me even more anxious to see how things play out because suddenly I'm not really sure what's going to happen!
I've been predicting that Caroline manipulated things at Bing's party so it looked like Jane cheated on Bing because that's the only thing that makes sense with Darcy mentioning Jane's "indiscretion" and Caroline had that tweet about loving it when a plan comes together and everything, and with Lizzie needling Caroline about what happened at Bing's party to make them leave so fast, I feel like we are close to finding out more about what she did there, which I have been waiting for to come out!
Also I'm interested in what's been going on back in L.A. to drive Caroline to go to San Fran out of nowhere, like… obviously she watched the videos and saw what happened with Darcy and Lizzie, but I had kind of thought she would've stopped watching the videos after they went back to L.A. because… she just wouldn't have had any purpose to anymore since she got what she wanted and it's not like she actually CARES about Lizzie's life. idk, I mean, I have this headcanon that she wasn't watching the videos but she saw those tweets from Darcy and knew that Darcy was at Collins & Collins and Darcy wasn't explaining what his tweets meant and then he suddenly came back to L.A. but was probably colder than Caroline than he had been in the past (because at this point he knows that Caroline played a greater role in Bing/Jane breaking up than he realized and also in encouraging Lizzie to hate him), and so at that point she decided to catch up on the videos because she knew both Lizzie and Darcy were there, so maybe Lizzie would mention something about what was going on with him so she could figure out what was going on, and from there she would see everything through the letter and be driven to go to San Fran to see Lizzie and try to manipulate the situation back to her liking again. Although I could be convinced otherwise. BASICALLY THIS IS JUST REALLY INTERESTING BECAUSE IT'S NOT IN THE BOOK SO I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS IS GOING TO PLAY OUT BUT I'M EXCITED.
Anyways, still obsessed with this show and unable to think about anything else and PEMBERLEY SHOULD BE SOON AND I AM GOING TO DIE but before that happens I'm going to enjoy seeing where they're going with Caroline being around!
I saw Argo on Sunday, and I also saw The Master like a month ago but never talked about it, so I guess I should discuss that a little as well:
Argo (2012)
I enjoyed this overall, but… I feel like I'm going to get really sick of all the critical praise and acclaim by the time of the Oscars, and I'm already hoping it doesn't win despite not having seen any of the other films yet which are the probable other major contenders at the moment. I mean, I know it's early for that, the nominations aren't close to being set yet, let alone the winners, but just… everything I read from critics about this was so positive and great, and it's such a crowd-pleaser supposedly, and like… yes, it's good, but… it's incredibly traditional, nothing that hasn't been done before, and there's nothing about it that particularly… excites me about the film, if that makes any sense? Like, I have no problem with traditional stories if they're done well, and this is done well, but I guess I'm just surprised by all the critical acclaim for it just because it is so traditional.
And there are issues I have with it. One of my initial major issues with the film is that Tony Mendez (played by Ben Affleck) is probably biracial (his heritage is not 100% clear from what I read, but it looks like one of his parents is from Spain and the other is Hispanic, I believe? Correct me if I'm wrong) and… Ben Affleck chose to cast himself in his own movie (because I'm sure he's really hurting for lead acting roles????) rather than opening casting and allowing one of the few major, leading roles in a film for a POC to actually go to someone who's not white. ughhhh. Also, apparently the Canadians' role was much greater than the film really depicted. Actually, my mom was reading up after and apparently a lot of what was in the film is not factually based, which… is not shocking, this is not a documentary, but still, greater accuracy would be nice
I also had an issue with the storyline about his son and his wife because… it just made no sense to me? It's not really clear what's going on between him and his wife, they're not divorced but it is implied they're having problems or are separated, but then… he shows up at the end and she hugs him? Even though she has no idea what he's done, so there's no reason for that if they're supposedly separated before this. ALTHOUGH MAYBE THEY WEREN'T SEPARATED, WHO KNOWS. IT MAKES NO SENSE. The stuff with his son was also unnecessary. And apparently that is also a complete fabrication for the movie, which is annoying because… it was unnecessary!!! If you want to add things that are not true to life in a movie that's supposed to be based on real events, at least make sure the stuff you're adding improves the film in some way!!! ughhhh.
I feel like this is really negative about the film, which is not an accurate representation of my feelings because I did like it overall! I'd probably give it a B, which is a totally solid grade! I think I'm just annoyed by all the critical love for it and anticipating that it's going to be a consensus title come Oscar season (like The Descendants in a way, atlhough I definitely disliked that a lot more than I disliked this) when I just don't really see what's that special about it particularly? Oh, and it does feel incredibly self-congratulatory in a lot of ways, like, look how Hollywood and the U.S. government teamed up and saved the day and didn't even brag about it, they let the Canadians take the credit!!!! Yay USA!!!!!!! Also I guess Canada helped a little maybe. I mean, Hollywood loves movies about making movies (actually, normally I'm all over that too, so I guess I can't fault them too much), and this has the added importance of being about saving people's lives and relevance with the Middle East and politics and all that. ugh.
…But I did like it! And as I thought Gone Baby Gone was pretty stupid overall, and I liked The Town but had some major issues with it, and I definitely liked this better than either of those 2, at least I feel like Ben Affleck is improving with each of his movies, so… there's that, I guess? …not that I'm incredibly invested in his directing career, but oh well.
The Master (2012)
I liked this quite a bit, although it's not going to be my favorite film of the year, or probably even in the top 5. But the performances were brilliant, and it was definitely thought-provoking. I often tend to prefer movies that make me feel rather than movies that make me think, though, and this movie didn't really make me feel very much? I also didn't think it was as great as There Will Be Blood, which is the only other film from PTA I've seen but which I really adored, which… isn't entirely a fair comparison, but I couldn't help but compare the 2 films. But I did like it overall, and all 3 main actors need to be nominated, and it was a beautifully shot film. I feel kind of like I did about The Tree of Life last year, although I do think I liked this quite a bit more than TTOL. I'm glad I saw it, in any case.
Real life stuff/work has felt especially busy this past week.
Bulleted-ish because there's a lot of random stuff and maybe this will help me be concise:
-First meeting with the career counselor happened on Wednesday! It was pretty uneventful since it was really just a preliminary meeting with me giving him my college transcript/resume and filling out a couple of assessments, and so he's going to look through that stuff and he gave me a bunch of sheets about like different general areas with specific various careers on each (I mean, for example, psychology is one of them, and careers would obviously be like counselor, social worker, teacher, although typically more specific than that) and I'm supposed to choose 2 main general areas and then mark as many careers within those 2 areas that interest me and then we're going to meet again in December. So yeah, I don't know much yet except that one of the assessments I did already had me thinking about jobs that I hadn't ever thought of before, which… is both good and bad, because I mean, the purpose of this is to figure out what I want to do and so far every career I've come up with for myself there's been something stopping me from really wanting to pursue it, and it's good to know all the options since I imagine my idea of the type of jobs there are is limited, but it's also bad because it's clear to me that my biggest hurdle in figuring out what to do with my life is that I just have way too many interests and am completely indecisive.
-We had this work outing on Saturday to like… I don't know how to describe it, but it was like a pirate dinner show? It's like Medieval Times, although I don't know if people outside of southern CA know what that is. Like, there's this center stage thing where this story with the pirates is going on and the seating is all around the stage in like… long tables, and they come around and ask you what food you want (I mean, you have a choice between only like 2 options, it's not like a real menu or antyhing), and there's some audience participation, and… idk. I mean, the main reason my coworker planned it for us was because she thought it would be fun and there's a bar so people could get really drunk. And… it was fun, I guess? idk, I don't do well with large groups. It's weird because I have no issue with all the people being around at work because that's like a set situation where I know how to act (and also I've had over a year of getting comfortable in my role at work), but it's totally different in a social situation, and there are people at work I don't get along with as well as others which makes stuff like that more awkward. I mean, I hung out with a few coworkers a couple months ago where it was just like 4-5 of us and we were just chatting and eating and it was a lot of fun and I didn't feel awkward, that kind of thing works way better for me.
Really the most fun part was actually that I drove 4 of my coworkers since I was I don't drink and a couple of them wanted to drink and not worry about driving after, and we were just chatting about various things on the way and it was really nice. The actual show was kind of cheesy and silly but enjoyable enough I guess. The weird part was that my coworkers in their 40s who have kids and stuff were the ones to get really drunk and the ones in their 20s just drank a little. Also, my boss and supervisor were trying to set up this one girl with my supervisor's son, which was super awkward because she did not want to be set up, and she was sitting next to me, and my boss came over and was like "We should trade seats!" because my boss was sitting next to the son, and they pretty much forced her to move over there. idk, I felt bad for her. I'm glad I went because I would've felt like I missed out if I hadn't, but I also hope we don't have too many huge social events in the future and stick to the smaller meet-ups.
-Sometimes Annoying Coworker has gone back to really annoying me. She just keeps asking really basic questions that she should know by now after over 2 months of having worked here, and I feel like a lot of it is just… laziness? Like, there are plenty of times where she could figure out something herself if she just looked through the notes in an order, but instead she'll just ask me which takes me away from the work I'm doing, which is super annoying because I've been pretty swamped. And so I was venting to a coworker on IM on Thursday and she was agreeing with me and venting her frustrations with her, and I was like "I'm going to mention it to [our supervisor], but I just haven't had time yet," and my coworker was like, "Oh, you don't have to, she was standing behind me reading your IMs and laughing." And I was like "…whoops." Because, I mean, my supervisor loves me and she has been getting similarly frustrated with this lady and it's not like I said anything bad, I was just complaining about things she's said and done, so it's not like I was worried about getting in trouble or anything, but at the same time, it feels a little… idk the right word, underhanded, I guess? I would've rather told her myself than have her see my IMs at the peak of my frustration since I would've put it a bit nicer. But she understood and took me in to talk to our boss about the issues we've been seeing. So idk, hopefully it'll help, but the thing is… it feels like she just doesn't listen? Because I'm answering the same questions over and over, and I'll even tell her to look through the notes first and she'll be like "What?" and I just won't have time to lead her to figure out the answer herself so I'll just answer.
-The new girl from 2 weeks ago who was sitting next to me is still around, although not sitting next to me anymore since my boss shifted some seats around for whatever reason, which is good because I like her but really couldn't take the smell of cigarettes on her every time she came back from a break/lunch. She's really quiet and I feel like I should be better about trying to welcome her or get to know her since that's how I am too in new situations, but I just haven't had the time or energy yet.
-We have another new girl who started yesterday, but I'm not sure if she's going to last (actually I'm curious to see if she will even still be around today). My supervisor was getting really annoyed by her because like… my supervisor was training her but she has a lot of things to deal with that she would have to address while training her, and she'd tell her that what she was doing was not something that this girl would be dealing with that all, she just needed to get done with it quickly, and so she should just watch and listen and pick up bits and pieces, but the girl kept asking questions about like every single thing she was doing and the process and what was going on, even after my supervisor emphasized a couple times that it wasn't anything she needed to learn the specifics about, she just needed to sit there and watch while my supervisor got through it. And my supervisor really hates it when people don't listen, and she was complaining about it to me during the girl's lunch. I kind of feel like she should get a little more of a chance because she could just be eager to learn and my supervisor kept getting torn away from actually training her due to all the other stuff going on, but at the same time, I can understand someone not listening after being told something repeatedly on their first day to be a bit of a warning sign. So yeah, we'll see if she'll even be brought back today or not.