Enter The Room

I have a few things to write up so may be able to fit in more than one post today. But first things first.

If you haven't seen the emotional, visual and lyrical masterwerk that is Tommy Wiseau's The Room, get on it right now. Plot is immaterial (/non-existent), as instead the story overridingly resonates with the agony of the Hamlet-like Johnny, played by Wiseau, and his Beckett-esque struggle with his cruel fiance Lisa, all set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of their small but luxurious apartment (I would say the claustrophobia is mainly due to the limited budget, resulting in the tiniest sets you've ever seen). Well, anyway, I won't spoil any potential viewers the mind-altering experience of watching it, but I have compiled some guidelines, based on rigorously close watching, studying, and expansion of the Tommy Wiseau Techinque, in order that we might grapple with the genius and possibly bring his irreproachable methodology into our own work, stilted and flawed though we are in comparison. Hopefully as I continue my explorations more will emerge. I think I could get a pretty comprehensive list out of it.
Edit: While researching this post I found another with further excellent commentary - When Good Robots Go Bad

Tommy Wiseau's Guide to Writing, Producing, Directing, and Starring in a Film.

• So that your audience will relate to them easily, give your main characters names that are short, simple and familiar: Johnny, Mark, Lisa ... Denny.

• Never break the fourth wall by looking towards the camera. If you are particularly struggling with this, the best technique is to never fully open your eyes.

• Why try and put into words what can be expressed magnificently through a more subtle expression of feeling, such as a walrus-like croon or some drawn out, throaty moaning?

• Sex scenes are necessary but can be arduous and embarrassing for ingenues and younger actors. Feel free to subtly recycle footage so that excess shooting is not needed.
  

• It's important to tackle serious issues within your script, such as drugs and cancer. To encourage the audience to autonomously consider these difficult topics long after the film is over, it also helps to never provide catharsis or mention them again.

• Slow jam.
  

YES YES YES YES

Video chat rooms at Ustream

Goodness Knows

My friend introduced me to the wonderful website spEak You're bRanes, which goes some way as an antidote to the Daily Mail (and of course The Guardian itself). It includes the wonderful comment generator:
The Twat-o-Tron

Also this weeks' philosophical debate is: Does music have an extraneous quality which transcends all other art forms? I think yes but I'm going to try and pursue other people's opinions throughout the week.

It's the little things

Oh thank the lord someone else wrote this, because now it doesn't look like I'm complaining:
That super cute quirky girl from that movie
Seriously, if I have to deal with one more of these characters I'm going to start shooting girls who wear knee-high socks and any kind of faintly retro headgear on sight. I get tired enough of the debate surrounding the word 'cool' without wondering if I have to be 'quirky' too. She is as much of a pain in the arse as the rest of us, just aloof to boot.

In other news, I have found, well, either further evidence of how mal-adjusted I am, or a wonderful way to deal with rejection. I have to point out, this is where it all gets a tad personal, but only insofar as I wonder if anyone (who isn't me and the friend who I came up with this alongside) would find it at all funny. In essence, another friend of mine (and I would like to stress, we are still friends) recently explained that we would never become an item because I "just hadn't bowled him over". After a few distraught discussions with others it became apparent to me that honesty was not entirely the best policy at that moment, and this particular phrasing was an understandable onslaught to my self-esteem. Don't worry though, because after I foolishly and tearfully watched Breakfast at Tiffany's alone (hence the collision of a hatred of magical man-magnet quirky girls and romantic, happy endings), it gave birth to:

THE "*NAME DELETED TO THINLY MAINTAIN DIPLOMACY* RUINS FILMS" GAME

"Where will I go? What will I do?"
"Frankly my dear, you just haven't bowled me over."

Skyline of city explodes
"Martha... you just haven't bowled me over."
Where is My Mind starts playing

and the current favourite:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... They just didn't bowl me over"

Maybe I'm bitter - but I did find it hilarious.

Light to Write

I'm so excited about this, I think it's an incredibly brilliant idea:

Coachwerks Space for Writing

I've been doing a lot of writing lately but I'm unsure if it's publishable. Some edited phrases might pop up now and again. I am, as may have become clear over the past few days, exploring matters of the heart.
In other news, I've been making loads of soups. Had a bash at leek and potato last week and did carrot and coriander yesterday, which was rapidly devoured by me and two friends. Still, feeding three people on about £2 worth of veg, not bad eh? Not sure what next week's soup will be: I'm eschewing the baking as it's too expensive at present. At least, I'm waiting for someone's birthday til I bake again.

Also, hey, it's my first feature!!!!
Star Wars Bands

Hopeful New Year

I should not be allowed to blog whilst in such a maudlin mood. And also, my goodness, 2010 is flying by already. I'm going to try and do a minimum of one entry a week, depending what I get up to.

Anyway, here is some more cheerful stuff, hooray!
I was loaned (lent? leaned?) a copy of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. I haven't been crashed into the earth by a book in such a long time. It's one of the most stunning things I've ever read and I'm beyond greatful to the person who lent it to me. (You're a hero, Tom!) That said, I'd recommend it to anybody with any kind of heart or mind. The complete raw rendition of a love affair, a love affair that never truly happened, floods effortlessly between the metaphysical agony of the woman's feelings and the physical reality she is trapped in, first watching the woman who is actually married to her lover, remembering the times when she and her lover were together, enduring the trials of going home and the court case for her adultery, and finally living, alone, shamed and pregnant, in a kind of exile from her love. If you've read and enjoyed (you better had) The Scarlet Letter then this is going to be for you.
The unedurable ecstacy of being in love, the despair and the joy, the ridiculous struggle between the reality of living and the desire to sink wholly into a void of emotion: it's all a bit wow. I won't try to equal the language here, because I've never read such a powerful encompassing of the way the heart can take over the entire world. Thoughts and impulses and feelings I didn't think could be expressed with the vulgarity of words on a page and she bloody did it. I wouldn't say I've loved that way, but I recognise the beginnings of it in my own experience, and it has value far beyond what personal knowledge you may have locked in your head. I implore you, read this book.

Ignoring the New Year

It's amazing how evocative scent is. I used a shower gel that an ex had given me way back in the first year of uni. It was an incredibly gorgeous, expensive one, so I used it sparingly, and then for a long while stopped using it because I was worried about what that scent would do to me again. This was, of course, much much time after a long, slow, painful breakup.

And I actually found the same brand in an outlet shop for ridiculously cheap the other day and got some more, and the moisturiser as well. And I dont know, I shouldn't have used it the day I did. I was sick with fear anyway. Trying to know what to do with my heart. Its little broken pieces. I cant seem to protect it, I am compulsively unable to give myself the distance it so badly needs. The plaster cast would be built of a wall between a friend and me. It would hurt so much more, and so much less, at once.
And I couldn't help thinking if I partly couldn't sleep because that moisturiser, that smell, was the smell on my skin in my first year of uni when i was with Jonny, regret of my entire life. Half-forgotten and irrelevant and still somehow, a Voldemort-like presence. I hate any one of my friends who mentions him, but skirts him, in that hedgey way as if I'm still not over it. Yet I can feel the confusion if I say his name, divulge a memory. The feeling of 'If you've moved on, Nicole, why are you bringing him up?' Well, he was heavily involved in two years of my life. It would be unhealthy never to talk about him, despite the lack of influence he had over who I am and what I really am, despite the years I spent doing everything romantic or fun with other people because he was so absent.
I cant deny, he's the reason behind so much deep pain that has yet to go away. The reason I'm full of mistrust, the reason I think that whenever someone seems at all distant towards me I fall into despair/freak out.
So was it the scent, or is it the knowledge that the deeper wounds he gave me are still hurting today through the influence of other people?