Silence of the Lambs

After spending the weekend at a horror writers' conference, I'm in my Las Vegas hotel room watching Silence of the Lambs before going to sleep.

I've seen it at least 20 times, and I'm only 25 minutes into it at this point, but on this viewing I'm struck by the emphasis on how utterly isolated and alone Clarice Starling is.

She has no family, no "significant other," and only one rather casual friend; and she's one of the few women in the FBI academy. She goes alone on all her missions: to interview Hannibal Lecter, to check out the storage area, and to interview the first victim's family. She has no one to emotionally support her, encourage her, or help her.

There's also an emphasis on her Appalachian "rube" background, and her lack of preparedness.

She's alone--and unprepared--in the climactic scene when she confronts the murderer, and is nearly killed as a result.

I'm identifying with her situation after attending the writers' conference

As I struggle--once again--to acquire an agent and sell a book or screenplay, I feel like Clarice Starling: myself also an Appalachian rube and in spite of my academic training, woefully incapable and unprepared to negotiate the tricky landscape of the publishing industry.

Worst of all, like Starling, I have no family and no close friend to help, encourage, or emotionally support me.

I'm not sure what to do, or how to continue.

Like Starling, I feel utterly isolated.

And I just don't think I can go it alone.

I did, however, make some new friends at the conference. We'll see if they stay in touch. . . .

My Wedding Dream (Not My Dream Wedding)

Right out of high school I met a guy that I dated and eventually got engaged to. His name was Keith. He was talk, dark, and handsome. He was from an underprivileged family, but was very "straight" (didn't use drugs, had old-fashioned, family values) and well-mannered.

He also was dumb as a post.

He delighted in belittling me, especially in front of his friends.

I later learned that he cheated on me constantly.

I didn't have a mother, but my best friend's mother adored Keith. She was always buying him things--one time she gave him a TV for his apartment.

Everyone seemed to think Keith was the perfect guy--a great "catch."

After we'd gone together for about a year, he enlisted in the Air Force. When he came home on leave for Christmas, he stayed at our house and we got engaged. He formally and politely asked my father for "my hand" before buying me a beautiful diamond ring. His best friend--Bob, who remained my very good friend until he died last year--went with us to pick it out.

Keith said that now that I was engaged to him and he was away in the Air Force, I wasn't allowed to go out with friends. He said I had to stay home every night, including weekends.

I was 19 and in college.

In letters that he wrote, and when I'd talk to him on the phone, he'd cruelly ridicule everything about me. I had a male friend from childhood who was chubby. Keith referred to him as "that fat slob."

By the following summer--surprise, surprise--we were no longer engaged.

Last night I had a dream in which Keith and I got married.

I'm rapidly forgetting the dream, but the salient features were these:

• We had a traditional, formal church wedding and reception.



• The two bridesmaids were two girls from my high school that in real life I despised.



• I received white bed sheets as wedding gifts.



• I had no say at all in planning the wedding; Keith planned everything.



• There was a really fancy "souvenir program" from the wedding. It was full of quotes from Keith's friends, and references to his friends, and references to sports (I'm not a sports fan). I didn't even know about the program until I saw one after the reception. When I saw it, I felt hurt and excluded and disappointed and powerless.



• No friends or family members of mine were at the wedding or the reception.



• Keith got totally drunk at the reception and passed out.



• While Keith was passed out, I went for a walk and bought ice cream from an outdoor ice-cream vendor.



• While Keith was passed out, I decided I'd made a mistake and would ask for an annulment.



• In the dream, the only way to get an annulment was if the marriage was not consumated, and I knew I had to be very careful not to have sex with Keith.

I was relieved when I awoke and found it was only a dream.

Shakespeare in Love

Last night I watched Shakespeare in Love again.

I didn't see it when it first came out, but I watched it about four years ago when I was working on a screenplay with a similar historical setting.

Anyway, the writing is superb, of course, because Tom Stoppard is a co-author.

Without giving it away, I'll say that the final shipwreck sequence is fabulous.

I like the open-endedness of not knowing if Shakespeare is describing the end of his beloved Viola, or the beginning of character he creates based on her. The DVD includes an alternative ending that's much more direct about the fate of Viola, and although I loved seeing it, I think the director made the right choice with the vaguer ending he used.

One of the last lines is this (spoken by Shakespeare as he begins the new play):

"My story starts at sea . . . a perilous voyage to an unknown land . . . a shipwreck . . . the wild waters roar and heave . . . the brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her drowned . . . all save one . . . a lady . . . whose soul is greater than the ocean . . . and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. . . ."

I particularly identify with the last phrase, "a lady . . . whose soul is greater than the ocean . . . and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. . . ."

But I'd be better off if I didn't.

I'd be much better off if I were just a conventional person, a bland and boring person.

Just as Viola would have been better off if she'd been more conventional.

REALLY Funny Website

Check out this website. It features actual photos of shoppers in WalMart and the weird things they wear.

Here's a sample:

Glutton for Punishment

I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this pig picture.

Anyway, I must be a glutton for punishment. I just paid $65 each to enter two screenplays in the Screenwriting Expo contest. I pony up my cash to enter only the contests that really pay big bucks, and this pays the biggest bucks of all: Grand Prize = $20,000 in cash.

The problem is how utterly miserable I'll be if I don't see my name on the winner's list next month. I don't expect to win the grand prize, but I think I'd just about kill to be a semi-finalist.

Please God, please please please!

No Hog, I

I'm losing weight like crazy.

At first I was sort of trying to diet, but now I don't even have to try. I just don't have an appetite. It might be the altitude (4000 feet) I'm at here in Sedona. At a high altitude it takes more calories to do even simple things, like climb a flight of stairs, so you burn more calories, I guess.

Anyway, I'm back down to what I weighed when I was in college. That means I can get on a scale fully clothed and weight less than 120.

Doofuses

Okay, this makes me so crazy I'm posting it in two different versions on both of my blogs. Not that anyone reads this stuff, but here goes:

The people at the UPS store I deal with are idiots.

I'm expecting a large check, which I intend to use to get a cashier's check that I have to come up with in two weeks.

The UPS store in question is supposed to forward my mail to me each week. So all week I've been waiting for the mail and expecting this check.

I called the lady yesterday, and she assured me that she had forwarded my mail to me on August 28 and that I would get it that afternoon.

I didn't.

I called today, and now she says she *thinks* she sent some mail to me on August 28--but she's not sure.

Okay, says moi, what's the tracking number?

Oh, says she, there is no tracking number. I just gave it to the mail carrier.

Now this is a company that makes its living managing people's mail.

And she has no record or even memory of whether she forwarded my mail, and no tracking number.

And in the meantime, where is my check? If the check has been lost, of course I can get it reissued, but that will take a month or more, and meanwhile I have to come up with a cashier's check within the next two weeks.

And get this, when I complained, the guy at the store said, "Well, we forward mail for 40 customers. You can't expect us to keep track of everything."

Uh, yeah, I do expect that. That's what I pay you for!

Thanks a lot, UPS store.

More Top Ten

The Top Ten Things I Hate About Me:

1. I'm too prone to let people and situations upset me or make me feel picked on.


2. My face isn't as symmetrical as I'd like it to be (it should be some consolation that Anna Nicole Smith said the same thing about herself, but it isn't), and I don't look as good as I did when I was younger.


3. My financial situation isn't what I wish it was.


4. I'm too easily intimidated by authority figures.


5. I'm not multi-lingual (I can get along in French okay, and I know some German, but I'd like to be really fluent in at least two other languages).


6. I'm incredibly impatient, even when it's to my own disadvantage.


7. I've never managed to publish a book or get a screenplay produced.


8. I've allowed myself to become very discouraged about #7, above.


9. My gut reaction when asked to do something is to say no.


10. I'm a terrible procrastinator.

Ten Things Most People Don't Know About Me

It's kind of a trend on some of the blogs I read to write 7 or 10 or 22 or however many "things you don't know about me," so I thought I'd try my hand at it.

1. I cry at movies. A lot. And really hard. Sometimes I audibly sob so much that I disturb the people around me. When I went to see a Lassie movie in the 1990s (I owned a collie at the time) I burst into tears as the opening credits began to roll! What an idiot I am! I've also been known to cry during cat food commercials.

2. I think all drugs should be legal, but I hate to even be in the same house with people smoking marijuana, and I don't like to be around other drugs, either. I think they should be legal, because the government programs aren't working and are a waste of time and money, plus, if people want to get high, it's their business. I hate marijuana because it stinks, and people act so goofy when they're on that and other drugs. I know, I'm no fun at all, right? But I think the AfroMan song is hilarious.

3 Okay, here's another sort of political one: I could care less about who marries who. Gay marriage, group marriage, animal marriage, even incest. The whole topic is kind of boring to me. As long as they are consenting adults and there's no abuse going on, I'm clueless about why anyone even cares.

4. I like to watch trashy TV shows in Spanish. I'm trying to learn Spanish, a little bit at a time, and so sometimes I watch these shows on Univision that are, like, the equivalent of the Jerry Springer show. I'd never in a million years watch these things in English, but in Spanish, I find them highly entertaining.

5. I've actually been to Graceland.

6. I hate to tell my age. I once had a shrink refuse to treat me because I didn't want to discuss my age on the first visit. These things require a build-up of trust, don't they?

7. More than anything, I want to be a published novelist and produced screenwriter. And I don't mean published by Piddly-Axx Press or produced by the Stoner-in-His-Basement Film Company. I've put so much of my heart and soul into my writing, and I still can't seem to make it happen.

8. I have a secret Indian (Native American) name that I was given by my half-Indian mother and told to keep a secret forever. I know some tribes call this a "War Name" and say you're supposed to draw upon the name for strength. I've never revealed my secret name to anyone.

9. I sleep with stuffed animals. Every night. If I go on a trip, I'll take a miniature one with me.

10. I don't much like to make lists like this one. So I'll stop now.

Last Night's Dream

[Warning: This is not an upbeat, cheerful, happy entry. If you're looking for that, check out Jorge Garcia's blog.]

My mother died when I was 10. I was devastated, especially because this happened at a time when I was going though horrible "issues" with the kids at school. I grew about four inches in height that year and was suddenly one of the tallest kids in the whole school, towering over all the boys and all but one of the girls. This led to substantial humiliation and rejection. Moreover, Marilyn O., who'd been my best friend since kindergarten, abandoned the newly gawky me for a malicious but cute little girl named Marilyn S.

Anyway, I was ridiculed on a daily basis, both in school and around the neighborhood, but the incident I remember the best took place at my mother's funeral.

It was a hot and sunny August day. I was 10 years old, as mentioned before. I remember being told before the service that I should "be a big girl and try not to cry." I was given some pills to take: Valium or some other sedative.

After my mother's casket was lowered into the ground, the adults put me back in the funeral-home's limo while they stood around the grave and talked.

I sat there by myself in the limo, miserable, lonely, bored, and doped up. The limo had automatic windows, and in my soporific state, I began playing with the one nearest me, pushing the button on the armrest, making it go up and down, up and down, up and down.

I gazed through the window as I played with it, and suddenly I noticed Marilyn O. and Marilyn S. standing not far away from the limo. They were pointing and blatantly making fun of me for playing with the window. There were no adults around to stop them.

So that was my dream last night, reliving that moment at my mother's funeral when I was derided and ridiculed.

Did I Mention . . .

. . . that I had food poisoning last weekend? (That beautiful graphic above is an illustration of the bacteria that can cause food poisoning.)

I am very susceptible to food poisoning, for some reason.

My friend that I had lunch with had the same sushi, the same tempura, the same everything, but he's a member of the Cast-Iron Stomach Club and never got sick.

I know it was that Japanese restaurant, because nothing else I'd had in the previous 36 hours could possibly have made me sick. I mean, a peanut-butter sandwich, or cereal with honey? I don't think so.

Food Poisoning

I've had food poisoning since Saturday. So I've been doing something I haven't done for years--sitting around, goofing off, listening to music.

There's an Internet radio station called Pandora, where you can input a favorite song or singer, and it will pull up that and similar music.

There was a pair of female singers, Hazel and Alice, that I discovered a few years ago. One was, I think, Pete Seeger's sister-in-law or something like that, and the other was a bluegrass singer from by-God-West-Virginia. They're unusual because they're women singing bluegrass. I'm not into country music, and especially not into bluegrass, but their music grabbed me for some reason.

Anyway, I put them into Pandora, and the system is bringing up all these mournful bluegrass songs about lovers dying of tuberculosis, or young men getting killed in the Civil War, or mothers having their babies die, or kids being ridiculed by other kids at school for being poor. And I'm ready to cry and suddenly I understand why I never do this--just sit around and listen to music:

it's frickin' depressing!!!

Who View?

I guess it's just me. I don't get The View.

I don't understand why that show has any audience at all.

I confess I've never watched it. But it seems like every week another cat fight is happening among the harridans, and that fight becomes a featured link on AOL. I've clicked on maybe two occasions (counting today), plus I saw one clip on Leilouta's blog a couple of years ago.

It's a bunch of bubble-headed harpies* shrieking at each other.

Why would anyone watch that?

It reminded me of holiday parties I got dragged to as a kid when the adults would talk politics and drunken Aunt Linda would begin screaming at equally drunken Aunt Celia (names changed).

Or of the ear-piercing voice of witchy old bat and seventh-grade teacher Mrs. Chase (her real name--let her evil deeds be known!) yelling, "None of you deserves to pass!"

Today I got pulled in by the AOL featured story about a discussion on The View of Sarah Palin. (I was hoping to see a good photo of Palin because I want to check out her glasses and get a similar pair). So I clicked.

Same thing.

Harpies.

Bickering.

Shrilly.

All of them bloated and fat.

Their high shrieking voices are worse than fingernails down a chalk board. Why would anyone tune in for that?

I don't get it.

*In late Greek mythology, the harpies are not just ugly shrieking bird-women, they are obnoxious pests who descend on outdoor banquets and crap all over the food.

"Make Money on Blogger!"

I keep seeing this thing that says, "Make Money on Blogger! Put Ads on Your Blog and Become an Instant Millionaire!"--well, not exactly, but you get the point.

It reminds me of the Joel Chandler Harris story where Brer Rabbit tells Brer Bear if he takes the appropriate action, all he has to do is wait for the big, round, silver dollars to pile up right in front of his eyes.

It can't be that easy! I mean, I've got four followers for two blogs, and two of those are the same person. So three people, two of whom are personal friends, are going to buy so much stuff from ads on my blog that I'll be retiring to Cancun in no time? Gee, am I wrong to be skeptical?

Oh, wait, there's the web traffic! Yes, the teeming hordes who are lurking unseen and reading my scintillating blog entries about crawling around the house after breaking my ankle! THEY will buy from the ads on my blogs, and avalanches of wealth will slide my way.

Somehow, I don't think it's a plan for financial success.

But I might add a "Donate via PayPal" button!

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today the movers are coming. Should I be panicking yet?

Naw.

It's kind of like dieting. Every day you tell yourself, today I'll cut back on what I eat, and then you pass Steak n Shake and pull in for a milkshake.

Every day I tell myself, today I'll start packing, and then I get distracted by playing on the Internet in YouTube or whatever, and nothing gets done.

Of course I do have to work, so I guess that's an excuse for a few of my hours each day.

But not for all of them.

The Insanity Continues

I am so-o-o-o busy right now. I only wish that were me above playing games. I have to be out of my house by July 24, and I have no idea how I'm going to accomplish it.

I'm still having some trouble walking due to the effing ankle sprain, so that is slowing me down A LOT.

Plus although I usually work online only, this month I'm working on site, which is a highly convenient one-hour commute (that's sarcasm), so that wastes even more time.

My only entertainment is watching reruns of The Rockford Files on the retro station every night, and for the past two days I haven't even had time to do that. Whah!!!

Mood Swings

Geez, I must be manic depressive or something.

I just noticed that I created two entries, one called "Fun!" and one called "Waxing Morose," within a few hours of each other!

Waxing Morose

I took all references to being a writer out of my profile.

I am nothing more than a technical writer, which is about as much like a real writer as a pig is like a football.

I'm utterly broken hearted over my failure to get any of my four novels or four screenplays accepted. I can't even get an agent. My heart is shattered into a million pieces. I'm a failure.

Fun!

It took me forever to find this online. Anyway, here it is, for the time being (it'll probably get taken down soon!). P.S. It ends rather abruptly. P.P.S. Hope no one takes this personally (you know who you are).

Hair

I found this cool website online where you can upload a photo and put a different hair color and style on your face. Here I am as a brunette.

Write?

Maybe I should take the "I can write" out of my profile.

I entered a TV series pilot script and concept at Slamdance, and found out today I didn't even make the quarterfinalists.

I didn't really expect to win, but some encouragement would have been nice.

Marcus Aurelius

I love reading quotations from Marcus Aurelius (who was, by the way, the father of the evil Commodus played by Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator).

I have lots of favorites. I latch onto a favorite and forget all the others, then reread them all again, find one I'd never noticed before or had noticed and then forgotten, and it becomes a new favorite.

Anyway, here's my new favorite today:

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."

Here's a cute little video I found on YouTube:

SNAFU

Okay, the formatting on this blog is all effed up and I can't figure out how to fix it. I got help from users in a forum and followed their instructions, but I think it's an internal error at blogger because when I try to fix it, I get this weird error message about ". . . can't access . . . blah blah blah blah." It won't even let me start over by picking a new template. Plus it seems stupid to have two blogs, so maybe I'll just abandon this one and put everything in the Turquoise Trailer blog. No one reads this stuff anyway.

"Aqaba Is Over There; It's Only a Matter of Going."

Today I'm thinking about my favorite scene from my favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia.

In case you don't know the plot, it's World War One and Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) is an Englishman helping the Bedouins in the Middle East in their revolt against the Turks, who are allies of the Germans.

After a night of intense thought, Lawrence decides the thing to do is to capture the coastal town of Aqaba. This will enable the British forces to be supplied by sea and it will strengthen the British control over the Suez Canal. The problem is that Aqaba can't be taken by sea because it's heavily armed, and it can't be approached by land without crossing the world's worst desert.

So here's the clip, in which Lawrence proposes his plan (to take Aqaba by land) to one of the Bedouin leaders, Sharif Ali (Omar Sharif).

To me, it's an allegory about having lofty goals and attempting the impossible.

Frustration

Doing this blog can be an exercise in frustation.

First of all, if I add a picture, it always shows up at the top of the post. There's no way to specify where I want it when I upload it. I have to upload it and then move it, which can only be done by going into the "edit html" section, which scares the hell out of me because I don't understand html.

Then, once I move the picture, suddenly the paragraphs all have triple spacing between them. I have to futz around with the spacing in the "compose" function, and if that doesn't work, I have to go back into the dreaded html section and try to make the changes there.

Then, if I manage to get the spacing right, sometimes when I hit "publish post" I get a warning message about how there's something wrong with the html.

And last night, my "about me," "blog archive," "my blog list," and "followers" sections mysteriously moved to the bottom of the blog page and there's no way in hell, it seems, to move them back to the right side where they belong.

Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!

Light Therapy

I'm doing my tanning thing again. First thing every morning all last winter, I used a small sunlamp on my face to eliminate "winter pallor." I never really baked in front of it, but for some reason I used to really look forward to sitting in front of the lamp and listening to Internet radio.

A psychiatrist friend of mine said I was inadvertantly getting giving myself light therapy, which is a treatment for depression.

I stopped the sunlamp thing after I sprained my ankle three weeks ago today, and now I think maybe that's why my mood has been so low.

So this morning, I resumed the sunlamp, which is kind of goofy seeing as how it's mid-June and I can just go sit in the sun, but go figure.

Mood, Part Two

I think I must be depressed. I have absolutely no appetite, which is odd for me, because I typically eat like a horse. (Fortunately, I come from a family of skinny women, so I don't gain weight--I know you hate my guts for this, but I can't help it!)

Anyway, it's all I can do to force down a milkshake every day for the sake of getting some nutrition. Nothing else sounds good to me. I got a box of cookies last week as a gift, and it took me almost a week to finish them. Normally I'd polish them off at one sitting.

And suddenly tonight, I feel like going to bed early, like now, 10 p.m. This is really odd, because I've been known to stay up until 5 a.m. or even 7 a.m.

I thought maybe the appetite thing was due to the ibuprofen I've been taking for my ankle, so I stopped it for a couple of days. But I still didn't feel like eating.

I do think the whole thing revolves around the ankle sprain, which is almost healed. No appetite and excessive sleep are symptoms of depression, but I don't really feel depressed. I mean, I'm not crying or anything.

I think I'm just bored.

Dazed and Confused

This is funny--to me, anyway. I'm keeping two blogs, which doesn't seem like a lot to manage, but I just finished creating a post for this one that belongs in the other one. Duh!

Mood

I wish there was a "my mood today is" function here like they have on MySpace.

Although I think my mood is indescribable. Stressed? Overwhelmed? Tired? Slightly nauseous?

The cartoon above just about says it all.

Lost Dispatches

If you look at my blog list over there on the right, you'll see that I'm following one called Dispatches from the Island.

This is the blog of Jorge Garcia, who plays Hugo, aka Hurley, on the Lost tv series. Most blogs (including this one, probably) are kind of boring, but Jorge has a wry and amusing take on things, so if you want to read a blog other than this one (!), check it out!

David Carradine

Of course, the David Carradine death is awful.

But I don't understand why everyone keeps thinking there must have been someone else in the room just because his wrists were tied behind him.

Every time I hear this on the radio or TV I just think, "Hello? Slip knot!"

I guess everyone is just in denial.

Ankle Update

Well, it's been more than two weeks, and my ankle is almost back to normal. It barely looks swollen, and I'm walking without the cane.

The trouble is, I'm favoring certain muscles or tendons or whatever when I walk on it, so that's throwing off the whole "skeletal-muscular" system.

My ankle doesn't hurt, but after I walk, my whole leg aches, especially on the side of the calf and at the hip joint. I'm sure there's a medical name for this; I call it, "the-hip-bone's-connected-to-the-thigh-bone syndrome."

I am way better, though, so I'm grateful for that!

Mini Movie Reviews

And now, the next two long-awaited movie reviews!

As if anyone actually reads these. But they're fun to write, so here goes:

Taken (zero broomsticks, not even a broom straw!)

I hated this movie! As one who traveled in Europe alone at age 20, I heard numerous tales about the "trade des blanches" or "white slave trade" or abductions of young western women to be sold in North Africa and the Middle East. Of course this stuff does happen, but not with the frequency this film suggests, and most of the stories you hear have the hallmarks of urban legends.

This film's plot is loaded with inconsistencies that you can read about elsewhere on the Internet and that aren't worth going into here. We know what's going to happen before the film starts--the title, duh!--and the movie trudges down that predictable and cliched road until the end. I was bored and fast-forwarded through the last half--something I almost never do once I commit to watching a film. If you want to keep your daughter scared and unwilling to travel and learn about the world, this might be a great cautionary tale. Otherwise, IMHO, it's worthless.

Valkyrie (5 broomsticks)

With this film, couch-jumping episode notwithstanding, Tom Cruise moves completely beyond his pretty-boy image and into the ranks of Hollywood's mature and serious actors. There are no female characters in this film for women to identify with (the wife is a very minor character), and the subject matter is rather dry and, of course, predictable (I wasn't sitting there wondering, "Gee will the plot succeed? Will they really kill Hitler?"). Nevertheless, Valkyrie is compelling, and it maintains suspense until the credits roll at the end.

I love history, and although the WWII era is not one of my favorite periods, I'd gladly rent this DVD a second time, or maybe even buy it. Valkyrie has the perfect balance of historical information, character study, suspense, and action. This is a solid film, and I highly recommend it.

More reviews coming soon!

New Graphic

I just added a new photo at the top of the blog page.

Before this I just had a sexy witch, and the photo was a little more revealing than I would have liked. Not that I'm a prude, but people kept thinking it was me in the photo.

So now I've got the witch without the cleavage, and with art that suggests, to me at least, a border or a choice between sanity and insanity.

I know it's a little sloppy looking, but it's the best I can do with my primitive graphic design resources.

Any comments will be welcomed!

Mean Kitty Update!

Wow! I just read that Cory "Mr. Safety" Williams, the guy who did "The Mean Kitty Song," became a YouTube sensation with that video (which got 20 million hits) and now makes $20,000 a month from YouTube and related activities!

Mean Kitty Video

I could spend all day watching videos on YouTube!

Here's my most recent favorite:

My Mini Movie Reviews

Because of my sprained ankle (which is WAY better today, btw), I've been watching a lot of DVDs, so I thought I'd do some quickie reviews here, in case you're wondering what to rent from NetFlix or the video store.

Because people think "Hepzibah" is a witch's name, I'll use broomsticks as my rating system, 5 broomsticks being the best.

Into the Wild (5 broomsticks)

This is really a super film! I like it so much I've watched it twice already. It's a great character study of the Chris/Alexander protagonist, and an interesting look through his eyes at what he seems to perceive as a materialist, consumerist, status-obsessed world.

I read the book a few years ago when it first came out (it's the only book I've ever recommended to my brother), and the film is absolutely as good as the book, imho. I'm not into nature films or the whole "man in the wilderness" theme, but this film rises above that genre. See it!

Killshot (4 broomsticks)

This is based on my favorite book by my favorite writer, Elmore Leonard. The film was panned a lot on the Internet, but I rented it anyway, preparing to be disappointed--partly because Get Shorty, Out of Site, and Tarantino's Jackie Brown, all based on Elmore Leonard novels, are such great films and such hard acts to follow. In addition, the release was delayed; when it did happen, it was limited; and for the most part, this was a straight-to-DVD movie--not a good sign.

But this film is okay--well, even better than okay. The casting was pretty good, even though the actors aren't my faves: Mickey Roarke as Blackbird and Diane Lane as Carmen. Rosario Dawson as Donna was an interesting choice, because I'd always envisioned Donna as plump and pale, but it worked. In fact, everything about the film works for me. Yeah, I know, it doesn't follow the book perfectly, but watching it is a good way to spend 95 minutes and whatever you pay to rent your movies.

Reviews coming up soon: Valkyrie and Taken.

SEXY!!!!!

I'm moving in about six weeks, so I've been selling things on eBay.

I've got some old vintage greeting cards that I'm trying to sell. I've also got a bunch of old family photos of complete strangers (family friends, I suppose, who have long since passed away), so I'm selling them in the "vintage photo" section, because a lot of collectors like old pictures.

I've found that the way to get a lot of people to look at your eBay listing is to put the word "sexy" in the headline.

I have some photos of ladies in old-fashioned bathing suits--not revealing at all--and so almost as a joke, the first time I listed one I put the word "sexy" in the headline.

(That's not the photo, but it gives you an idea of the kind of photo I'm talking about--not really sexy at all, by modern standards.)

Not only did it sell quickly, but it drew about fifty hits!

Right now I've got a cute little vintage greeting card that's getting no looks at all, while people are falling all over themselves to look at photos of a woman in a bathing cap and old-style swimsuit because I put the word "sexy" in the ad.

So the trick to eBay success is to put the word "sexy" in the ad.

I want to do an experiment selling a plain black cast-iron frying pan, or maybe a wooden spoon, or an old electric fan. I will write the word "SEXY" in capital letters in the headline, and see how many looks it gets!!!