Evelyn Evelyn album, housing conflict, and the first two Disney movies of many.

Whoo! Got my Evelyn Evelyn CD in the mail today. Also started reading Octopus Pie today. (And just finished catching up..) Two good things. Hurrah.

Also, I learned that the first five seasons of Lost are on Hulu. I mean, Hulu sucks here, because the internet sucks, but it's better than that site I was using earlier. Fucken Megavideo, only giving you one and a half episodes a day. Rrgh. Anyways. Now I can watch more Lost. I have yet to be addicted, but that may just be because I've only seen the first one and a half episodes..

(The Evelyn Evelyn album is quite interesting. They really do tell a story. It's weird and pretty and the songs are good, and some of them are fucking awesome.)

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So apparently I might not have a place to live next year. Apparently SVA has sold the 10th Street residence and most of the Ludlow to other schools, or something. Which means people will be shunted over to GW. Which apparently doesn't have enough beds.

I wanted to get a single apartment. My parents vetoed. They don't think it's safe for an eighteen-year-old girl to get an apartment by herself in New York City. Possibly true. But that's me always wanting to move ahead too quickly in life. And always wanting to be alone. They say I can look for a roommate who goes to SVA. Problem: Everyone I know is either dorming or already has people to live with. Problem: I'm not exactly sociable, so while I have friends and pals and classmates and acquaintances, I'm not sure anyone would actually want to share their home with me. Problem: I actually don't really know many people at SVA. I don't have many out-of-class friends. The ones I do have are awesome, but, as is the rest of my entire fucking life, I'm too I-don't-even-know-what to even bring it up.

I don't want to live in Flushing with my grandparents next year. That would be like taking a step backwards. All my life I have been trying to get farther, faster. That's probably one reason why I don't have many friends..

I just want somewhere that's home and not hell. I want to feel comfortable, not to feel like I can't take a step out of my bedroom without being judged. It's been so bad lately - in my head, not actually in real life - that I usually wait until nobody's around to go to the fucking bathroom. I am kind of mentally unstable, World. Please don't put me into situations that make me trap myself in a box like this. Home is supposed to be safe. Around people who make me uptight all the time, I'm not safe. I have several different faces; for working environment, for class environment, for social environment, even around family members. At home I'm supposed to be allowed to be completely myself.

Home is supposed to be safe.

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The mood in here just dropped from high to low in only a few hours. Oh, bad news. How interesting you make my life. (That's not a good thing, bad news. Next time you decide to visit, don't. Fuck off.)

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Anyways. Gonna take my mom's advice and not think about it anymore tonight. Gonna watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, in accordance with my resolution to watch all these Disney animated movies in chronological order. (Since Toy Story and A Bug's Life were made in the included time period and were distributed by Disney, they're in the folder, but I consider them completely different, so I won't be watching them with the Disney movies. I'll have a Pixar movie sequence some time, though.)

Here comes the commentary. Because apparently when I'm watching movies by myself, I can't stay quiet.

I love the sound in these old movies. It has a very dramatic and wistful quality. The voices are classic and charming and just kind of sound old. Snow White's is an old-fashioned notion of sweetness, and has a lilting warble in it; the prince's is nearly operatic, and certainly not something you hear today; the queen's embodies cruelty. And the music interacts with the story and dialogue and visuals in a way that it no longer would do. It weaves throughout the entire movie. It really makes me think of Fantasia; I think that basically shows Walt's original vision.

I know we definitely wouldn't be able to pull off an animation style like this anymore. We live in a fast-paced world that wasn't around in 1937, when Snow White was made. It's hard to explain, but the characters have an almost overly-fluid way of moving and acting. I feel like they wouldn't fit into the shortened patience of modernity. And these orchestral montages, they're just not receiveable as they would have been. I could be wrong. But I feel like there's a formula to animated movies nowadays that is completely different from Snow White's. This is a fairy tale in all aspects, from the story to the dreamlike quality of the characters (barring the silly mainly-for-comic-relief dwarves), and while Disney has been making fairy tale movies again, they're certainly nothing like Snow White or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Tiana in The Princess and the Frog is an independent woman of the American twenties, and Rapunzel in her upcoming movie Tangled - which along with The Princess and the Frog also marks a departure from the traditional nature of the stories and even titles of the Disney fairy tale movies - will apparently be a strong-willed girl who can..grab things with her hair? And blackmails the prince into helping her escape the tower?

Anyways. I love Snow White. But it's definitely not a movie of my generation. If people my age like it, it's because of a nostalgia it instills for something we never had. I think it's almost a novelty.

Interesting how a teenaged girl (if she is that, even) can get a bunch of grown men (well, kind of grown) to act like children. I'm referring to the hand-washing scene. It's kind of a silly notion.

One thing I notice from the old animated classics is that the more 'serious' characters have a certain type of face, and the comical characters have another. Snow White, Cinderella, their princes, and their stepmothers have narrow eyes when they're not angry or surprised, and dainty features. White's dwarves and Cinderelly's animal friends and stepsisters have more caricatured faces, and wide, expressive eyes. These are always the more interesting characters. The perfect people are there to make it dramatic, the silly ones to lighten the mood.

The villains in Disney movies are nearly always their own downfall. Think of Snow White's stepmother. In attempt to rid herself of her only competitor in beauty, she turns herself into an old hag as a disguise. Then..she dies anyways. Gaston, Belle's crass suitor in Beauty and the Beast, is so overcome with anger and jealousy and pride that, when the Beast allows him to leave with his life, he makes a final attempt on the Beast's life and falls to his demise. Aladdin is able to exploit Jafar's power-madness to trap him as a genie in a lamp. And, most recently, the witch doctor of The Princess and the Frog is dragged to the realm of those creepy voodoo spirits only because he made a selfish deal with them. The villain is always greedy or cruel or EEEVVVIIIIILLLLL. That's kind of the reason why I'm so against such a clear division of good and bad in stories. People are people. People have motivations, and nobody is pure anything. Intentions may be corrupted, and views may be skewed. There is no evil.

Okay. The love story of Snow White. The song "Someday My Prince Will Come". I completely agree with Grumpy when he declares it 'mush'. She says that he was romantic, but they didn't even speak directly. They were beautiful people looking into mirrors. It's like Romeo and Juliet. This whole love-at-first-sight thing has always pissed me off.

On happy endings. I know they're crucial, and honestly, I like them as much as everyone else - while they're happening. But, similar to my opinion on the concept of evil, I don't think there should be such a great distinction. Happily-ever-after is kind of lame. Ooh, but I love those treacherous vultures at least.

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Okay, done with the movie. About fairy tale retellings. I am in love with them. Fairy tales were one of my first obsessions - the real ones, the original ones, the different versions from different times and different countries. I was one of those kids who read Grimms' and compared them to Disney. And then when I was a bit older, there were so many different retellings to discover. Snow White and Cinderella and Briar Rose and Rapunzel and that unnamed beauty of the beast's; they were mostly stories about princesses, finding their ways in the world and speaking their minds. So unlike the weak, old-fashioned girls they used to be. I was always drawn to these books because of my close friendship with fairy tales.

My favorite in middle school was Donna Jo Napoli's Zel; my favorite now is the short story by Neil Gaiman, Snow, Glass, Apples. As is by now predictable for me, it's because they tell the villain's side.

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Watching Pinocchio now, because I obviously don't know how to go to bed early when I could be wasting my time watching movies..

This is my first time seeing Pinocchio. I read a book, though..

I love the character of Gepetto. I love everything about him. I love his toy-filled workshop, I love that his walls are filled with amazing clocks and he still has to look at his pocket-watch to tell the time, I love his accent, I love how close he is to his pets, I love the child-like innocence that drives him to make such an earnest wish on a star.

OH LOOK A SEXY SPARKLY FAIRY. (Edward Cullen? Lollers.)

"A conscience is that still, small voice that people won't listen to. That's just the trouble with the world today." Well spoken, Mister Cricket.

"I'm dreamin' in my sleep! Wake me up! Wake me up!" Hee. I like Gepetto.

Whoooa, now Pinocchio's being sexually propositioned by marionettes. Heh, I should've watched this a long time ago.

Gepetto's sadness at the disappearance of Pinocchio is tragic, and I'm not being ironic at all. I love his characterization. He's such a sweet old man.

Jiminy Cricket is a goofy character. (Also, I thought he just said 'Fuck up, son'. Turns out it was 'Buck up', but close enough?)

Pleasure Island sounds like a porno or someplace in Vegas. Maybe a porno in Vegas? When the man said 'I need stupid little boys', I couldn't help myself. (Are those cigars really just cigars?)

"You've buttered your bread. Now sleep in it!"

I love that they say jackass in this movie. It's a Disney movie and they say jackass. There's kids cigar-smoking and beer-drinking, too. That, I suppose, would be the difference between then and now.

Okay, I get that Pinocchio wouldn't need to breathe underwater, but what about Jiminy?

Lol. Seahorses and seadonkeys.

Dude, Gepetto's crying is going to make me cry. Jeez. He's such a good character.

"Father! What'cha crying for?" "'Cause.. you're dead, Pinocchio." "No, no I'm not!" "Yes, yes you are. Now lie down." Oh I love him. xD

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Gepetto is a candidate for most lovable Disney character, I think. Such a sweet old man. Maybe now that I'm going to be watching all these movies, I'll do lists for myself too. Dopey's probably also on that particular list, but I totally adore Gepetto.

What else? Favorite song, probably. That instrumental song in the beginning of Pinocchio makes it. And, uh, actually most of the songs in Oliver and Company; I'm kind of upset I only just now saw that movie.

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Wow I just got tired really suddenly. Time for bed. Good night. (This was a long post.)

Olivia