Post post post

Hello!

I'm posting today from my campus computer lab! Not because my computer is broken or anything dire like that, but because I have a free moment. Whoever said your senior year of college is easy LIED to me! I've been away from the blogosphere for so long because I had a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad 15-page paper to write for my Shakespeare class. It was on Macbeth and Shakespeare's commentary on the Witchcraft Act of 1604, if that doesn't bore anyone to tears. Today was the day to turn it in for revision, and I stayed up until 4 am this morning to finish it . . . . and promptly slept through NOT ONLY my Shakespeare class but the class after that as well. Murphy's law rules my life and God laughs at me.

But anyway, I finally get to post again, which is good because I was starting to get twitchy every time I thought about it.

In personal news (which I so rarely talk about) I went on a great journey to St. Louis to visit my friends from study abroad!! It was so lovely to see them. The weather was spectacular--our friend who's from Boston also came up and she and I had a great time sniffing out where the Starbucks is located on this route they call the Loop! We went to this bar called Blueberry Hill that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone (Chuck Berry plays there once a month!). I wanted to take pictures, but it seems like everyone was a local and I'm still a bit shy about just whipping out my camera whenever I see fit. But the best part of the whole thing, beyond trips to the zoo (where we rather unwillingly learned about the breeding practices of captive Asian Elephants), the famous Arch, etc, was that everything was the same! We weren't just sitting there reminiscing about how wonderful Oxford was and how much we miss it. I mean, we were reminiscing, but mostly we were comparing my Writers of the American Renaissance class to their Melville lectures, talking about books we've read, funny stories about things that have happened to us. We sat in my friend's living room eating home-cooked vegetable biriyani and teasing one another. Realizing that our friendship was real and would last was by far the best part, and I miss them already!

In movie news, it's review time!
I saw The Runaways on Sunday, a film that I've been promoting on here big time! Michael Shannon as band manager Kim Fowley, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. The casting was phenomenal, including the often over looked other girls in the band. Alia Shawkat's performance as "Robin Robins" aka Jackie Fox was blink and you'll miss it, but each moment she's on screen, she fits in perfectly and only accentuates the peice. Scout Taylor-Compton as the foxy Lita Ford was spectacular--it's very brave to play a "bitchy" character as a young actress, particularly in a film that's not your average teen comedy. Stella Maeve gets the most screen time of the lost 3 as drummer Sandie West, the quintessential California girl. She's sweet yet sassy, and for someone I'd only seen in a small role on Gossip Girl, someone to look out for.

Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley makes you want to punch someone. If you don't, you should probably re-evaluate your personality. I'm serious! I mean, that doesn't mean that I didn't like him--his character made me laugh on occasion and I understood why he did some of the things that he did. But his ruthless treatment and promotion of a group of teenage girls and the verbal abuse he flings at Cherie Currie in particular is at times horrifying in its exploitation.

Dakota Fanning has blossomed in this film. She swears, she drinks, she does drugs, she engages in meaningless sex acts . . . . all while managing to bring across a girl that is wounded and lost, trying to stand out from all the rest and fit in with the crowd at the same time. The friendship between Curie and Jett is wonderfully understated. It doesn't morph into this "your friendship saved my soul/Golden Girls" sort of sentimentality but grounds itself in the realism that they become close through a crazy experience and a shared passion. They fight, they hurt each other, and ultimately have to turn their backs on each other because they begin to move in different directions. And this doesn't mean that they'll hate each other for all eternity, it just means that each had to follow her own path.

Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett . . . . she nails it. She has the mannerisms, the voice, the attitude, and all the while infuses it with a femininity that Joan Jett didn't always have. You understood where Jett was coming from, and Stewart really made clear the most important thing: music IS Joan Jett's passion, it's her life (as she states while Cherie leaves the band). It was something she would do anything for, something that she couldn't NOT try to do. I wish I had something that felt like that, sometimes. Overall, excellent film, beautifully shot, made me want to join a rock band. Or at least learn how to play guitar.