December Project – 31 Movies in 31 Days

Since I’ve had other writing assignments to complete for school, I have sort of neglected this thing for a while. And since I came up with a good name, I should not let this blog go to waste.

And that is why I am beginning my December 2008 project, 31 Movies in 31 Days. During the month of December, I plan on watching 31 films that I have not seen before and then writing up something about each of them. Ideally, I would watch one movie a day but my schedule clears up remarkably once the semester ends in a week and half, so I could double up if I needed to.

Why Paul, you must ask, why are you doing such a thing? For a variety of reasons (really only a few). There are a bunch of movies from this past year that I have not seen yet that I want to enjoy before I make a “Best Films of 2008″ list. Also, I have Netflix. Might as well take advantage of that. And finally, and maybe most importantly, I have two DVRs in my house filled with movies that I need to watch if I want to record any more.

So look forward to 31 movie writeups/reviews/commentaries in the next 31 days. And if I fail, like I tend to do with most of my long term “fun” projects, then you should at the very least get a few new blog entries out of it. Of course, I still have no idea who the “you” I was referring to in that last sentence is, but whatever.

EDIT (12.11.08):  Maybe this is a January project…

An Emotional Explosion – Broken Social Scene and Land of Talk at the Vic Theatre 10.09.08

Great show. I had a few reservations going in about seeing Broken Social Scene for the third time in about two months. Mainly that the show at the Metro in August was so powerful and amazing, I wasn’t sure how this could match up. Don’t get me wrong, the show at the Vic the other night was so much fun (Of course, being in the front row at the Vic helped make this an even greater experience on Thursday night…), but there at the Metro in August, there was this crazy energy in the air probably just because it was really late at night.

But the Social Scene delivered once again. When they came out on stage, in my head I dubbed it “Broken Social Scene: fall model” because they were all wearing button down flannel shirts and jackets, as opposed to the fedoras and tank tops that Lollapalooza and its accompanying heat brought. It was a nice, slow build with the initial instrumental jam into Shampoo Suicide, but when that first crescendo hit, I remembered why I love this band so much. It is an emotional explosion. Their songs take all these positive and negative emotions and blast them out from wherever they are hiding. We celebrate the good and the bad. We scream for whatever is inside us. That part of “Ibi Dreams of Pavement” where Kevin Drew counts to three and everyone screams as loud as we can gets me every time. We, as a collective, let everything out of us at that moment. These are no longer are individual hopes and fears, they are everyone’s hopes and fears.

U2

Other than U2, no other band in history (at least to my own knowledge) has actually enjoyed being the “biggest band in the world.” U2 not only embraced this, but also aimed for it. The fact that they succeed is made even stranger when you remember that when U2 first formed, they were trying to sound like Joy Division and other early post-punk bands.

U2 are self-aware. Unfortunately, they often don’t realize it until they have gone too far. The Joshua Tree does a great job of using those roots rock influences, but Rattle and Hum goes too far past that, so they returned a few years later with Achtung Baby, an embrace of electronic music, and to a lesser extent at the time, irony. When they went too far with that sound with Pop, they scaled it back again.

But for me, my introduction to U2 came with “Sweetest Thing” and to a greater extent, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Here was a new album that I thought was great and vital from pretty much the only band that had already been canonized and was still doing anything remotely worthwhile. Since I didn’t know much outside of a few of the really big hits, being able to go back and hear the old albums for the first time is something I’ll never forget. You can hear not just the development of the “U2 sound” throughout, but also the growth of Bono, Edge, Larry, and Adam. Even when the bombast may be too much, or that delay effect on the Edge’s guitar starts to grate, or when Bono starts spending most of his time in the public eye meeting with politicians, I know that if nothing else, these are four guys who believe in themselves and everything they do.

With the release of album’s like The Killers’ Sam’s Town or Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, the point of reference to most critics has been Bruce Springsteen. But to me, these recordings have more in common with mid-period U2. It was held against these albums that they wanted to be sweeping epics, that they try and do too much. These same ideas are what has been fueling the U2 backlash that has been around since probably The Joshua Tree Tour. I don’t know about anyone else, but I want my bands to want to be the biggest and best bands in the world. When they can pull it off, like U2 has, that’s when something really special happens.

Album Pick: Achtung Baby

Track Picks: “Bad”
“Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
“In A Little While”

Wholesome Names For Adult Films

Alien Intruders IV
Back Door Saints 6
Debbie Visits Dallas
Dumpster Skunks Parts 9 + 10
Young, Dump, and Full of Vigor
Saving Private Ryan
W. Mark Felt

An Analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms involving Reader-Response Criticism

by Paul Mikesell

Reader-response criticism involves the reader’s interpretations, responses, and emotional reactions to the text they are reading. This form of literary criticism is only concerned with that reader’s individual interpretation of the text. By using this technique, the reader only concerns themselves with their understanding of the literature because the understanding of the work is the creation of each reader. Every person that reads each work has the potential to react to the work in a different way.

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel, A Farewell to Arms, is an excellent example of a piece of writing that can evoke different responses depending on the beliefs of the reader. Some may see Fredric Henry’s departure from the Italian army as cowardly, while others may think it is the most courageous thing he could have done. I found myself believing that Henry was right in leaving the army and the war that he did not believe in for something he did believe in. His loyalty to Catherine Barkley seems to be much more real than any abstract honor that could possibly be gained through fighting in World War I.

You Should Learn To Play A Musical Instrument

THESIS: You should learn to play a musical instrument.

Introduction:
ATTENTION-GETTER: I play three instruments: piano, guitar, and bass. I’m not amazing at any of these, but I know enough to be able to play some of my favorite songs. I didn’t bring my guitar in, but I would still like to play a song for you. This is “Tangled Up in Blue” by Bob Dylan. Feel free to play along if you know it. That was both fun and stimulating.

THESIS AND PREVIEW: You should learn to play a musical instrument. The reasons include mental and physical benefits and more developed intelligence. Also, it is easy to do, it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money, and it can establish a sense of achievement.

Things I Learned From Reading A Cosmopolitan Magazine While Bored And On Break At Work

1) 32% of guys will forgive a girl who has cheated.

2) You are only masturbating too much if it gets in the way of you doing your job and making money (note: I do not know if they included getting paid to masturbate in these findings).

3) The term “Party Rape.”

4) Blake Livley, of the CW’s Gossip Girl and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 fame, thinks her best feature is her eyelashes.

5) If you are friends with a guy and you would like to know how large his penis is, getting close to him and “accidentally” knocking your hand into his member is perfectly acceptable behavior.

An Excerpt From Something I Am Working On That At This Point In Time Does Not Yet Exist Outside Of My Head

“How honest do you want me to be with you. On a scale of one to ten.”

“Eight.”

“All right. I was kind of expecting you to say ten, so I need a moment to figure out how to lie to you.”

55 Words

For an assignment in my creative writing class in high school, we were instructed to write very short stories that were made up of exactly 55 words. Here are a few of mine.

Save

He sees her struggling. He stands up and blows his whistle as he points to her in the water. His legs push off the chair as he makes his flight into the air. He crashes into the water, a huge wave is created as he swims to save her. It turns out she was faking.

Race

The racers sped around the track, their colors combined into one orangish-red. We thought it would have been a little longer. The fanatics were there, cheering for their favorite like it was their own son. Oh no! One racer curves off towards the side. He’s out of the running, he cramped on the hurdles.

Flight

After sitting for twenty minutes, the plane finally took off down the runway. I felt us aim towards the sky, I was leaning back without reclining in my chair. My ears popped. I released my breath and pushed them back out. We finally leveled out. I glanced out the window as we hit the mountain.

Mirror

She saw everything behind her, the street lights made it all clear. There was something else coming up. She started to slow down. It was another thing she recognized. She thought back for a second about everything in her past. She stepped on the gas. Everything got smaller as she looked through her rearview mirror

Running

The bright lights and sounds made him realize he had to leave. He cut across the sidewalk, burst through some bushes, and tucked and rolled onto someone’s lawn. The footsteps were approaching, he could hear them getting louder and the shadows became larger. He couldn’t run away any more. He had lost in flashlight tag.

Andy

He makes his way out to the jeers of the crowd. He declares he is the real King of Memphis. He makes an open challenge to the audience for a match. The challenger steps through the ropes, but she’s quickly defeated. One. Two. Three. Andy Kaufman remains the Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World.

My Big, Dumb Rock Song

by Paul Mikesell

This is my big, dumb rock song.
Chunky chords and a flying riff,
Nonsense lyrics
That seem to stick.

The old fans scream, “Sell Out”
As my face is splashed on MTV,
Those same fans are still at my shows,
The crowd goes back as far as I can see.

The arenas are booked
And my hair is gelled up.
To get the crowd in my hands
All I need to say is some random stuff

Like, “Hello Boston,”
“Hello California” and “New York”
My face on the Rolling Stone
Can erase my past life as a dork.

We play the intro of the hit
And we hear the crowd roar,
They’ve never ever even heard
The other songs we wrote before.

“La La La La,”
We sing on the hook,
The masses will never realize
That all that this took

Was just ten minutes
To write this big, dumb song,
When you write about girls and parties and cars,
On the radio you can do no wrong.

My indie-cred is show
Until they release the next single,
We’ve weaned the masses
On this stupid jingle.

The next single’s still catchy
Like the Beatles or the Stones,
But a little more raw
Like the Clash or the Ramones.

The difference it comes
By the words in the song,
They mean so much more to mee,
But you’ll still sing along.