green_queen | This is one hell of a wordy post

You know the only thing better than Snakes on a Plane? Dean, Sam and Snakes on a Plane. ROFL.

Augh. You know what I hate? Haters. I just got ten posts in a row on my flist pimping a Lost hate place. Also, there's a girl on The Bronze who has been pissing me off for years with her views on homosexuality.

Somebody (far more intelligent and better at presenting his views than the aforementioned person) just brought up the idea that if it's just for financial and other benefits, marriage should be for everybody and not just sexual relationships - "And as a woman in England pointed out, why can't she marry herw daughter to avoid inheritance taxes?"

Of course a large part of the argument for gay marriage is financial - monetary benefits are something everyone can understand, and are especially close to the hearts of conservative/Republican thinkers. However that's only one small part of the whole issue of gay unions.

For one thing, there's the issue of rights when one partner becomes sick or injured. Life partners under the current law are not considered to be family and are therefore given no say in what happens to their partners should they become ill or brain damaged, or otherwise incapable of making their own decisions. They're also usually not recognised as having any rights concerning children that they consider themselves to be parents of.

For another, marriage is a social construct which legitimises a romantic relationship. When two people are romantically connected marriage is a way of committing to each other and showing their pride in the relationship.

Finally, it's not as though heterosexual marriage is always for love. People have always married for reasons other than love - land, money, politics. Limiting marriage to straight people who are supposed to be in love sure hasn't prevented that from happening in the past, so really by this argument marriage in general should be scrapped as a romantic concept.

In denying gay people the right to marry governments are just reinforcing heternormative views, suggesting that gay people are lesser people just because they're attracted to people of the same gender, which is the same as not allowing interracial marriages.

I hope that person doesn't see this as an attack, I just felt like discussing my views.

I know that pretty much all of my political posts are about gay marriage but it's an issue that I feel particularly strongly about. I don't like the Aussie government's views on education or refugees either, but I never feel such a strong anger over those issues, so I never post about them. It's that simple.

Since I've discussed gay marriage so much lately, now seems like the perfect time to share my Maggie Grace pictures with everyone. These are all the invidual Maggie pictures I have on my computer. Yes, all of them - I uploaded them for someone's website but I figured I might as well share with you guys as well. All uploads to SendSpace.

Posed - magazines, photo shoots
2006 Events
2005 Events
Events before that
In character.

Just to give you an indication of why I haven't shared my entire Dom folder yet - that's less than a quarter of the size of my Dom folder. Yes, less than a quarter.

Tonight I saw The Outsiders

This was made in the year that I was born. Cuh-razy. Anyway, two street gangs - the poor Greasers and the rich Socs - have a couple of fights, things get tense, big social commentary on violence among pretty young boys.

I rented this based on the recommendations of my friends list, and let me first say I can definitely see the appeal from a fangirl point of view. Pretty, angsty, slightly slashy boys getting beaten up and waxing philosophical? It's like a fangirl's wet dream. The performances of the young actors are also astounding, in particular the three central characters - C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy, Matt Dillon as Dallas and ESPECIALLY Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid) as Johnny. They are really effective and powerful, even when other factors in the movie let them down.

The thing is, I really didn't think it was that great a film. In fact, I would say it's a mess. I felt like it lacked any sort of trajectory. Why does it begin with the ending? Is it supposed to be an allusion to the cycle of violence and how it doesn't end? Because it doesn't come off that way, it comes off as pretentious, and makes it damn hard to get into the film straight away. Also, anyone notice how the opening is very much like the opening of Apocalypse Now? Coppola is such an overrated director IMHO. The film could also do with a LOT more scenes of characterisation. The one very brief scene we get as an introduction to Ponyboy's family is not enough to really establish the situation he's escaping (I think Rob Lowe, who plays his favourite brother with whom he's apparently incredibly close, gets about ten lines in the whole thing), and a lot of the filler characters are played by good 80's staple actors with nothing to do and nowhere to go. The sympathetic Soc scene felt tacked-on, and a lot of the effects were just irritating. Also, the writing just isn't that good. For one thing it's totally unconvincing without swearing, they seem like kids just playing at being tough, it's completely at odds with their behaviour. For another, a lot of exposition is done with long, talky scenes when it could be much more effectively shown, particularly in a film that's so much about the physicality of the gangs. I know we're seeing it from the point of view of someone who's much more dreamy and literary, but it's still frustrating. Finally, at the end of the film during the rumble, why do Darry and Sodapop completely forget about Ponyboy? I understand that during the fight itself they were distracted, but not looking for him straight afterwards seemed at odds with the characters, Sodapop apparently so close to him and Darry showing particular concern for his safety throughout the film. Then again I suppose the little we saw of them isn't a great indication of how the characters interact under normal circumstances.

There's also too many blatant motifs in the film, some of which are successful and some with less success. I like the connections between trains and Ponyboy's family - his parents were killed when a train hit their car (which we see in a fairly shoddy dream sequence) and his house is right next to the train line. Every dangerous scene is preceded by the sound of a train. The 'staying gold' motif is just frustrating, though - I always hate being told the theme of a movie when I can figure it out just fine on my own.

Anyway, overall I'd only give this about 6 stars out of 10. I appreciate what it's trying to do and especially the stellar young performances, but I found it to be frustrating and messy. Here's hoping I like Rumble Fish better.

ETA: Having read the Memorable Quotes section of IMDb, I'm now somewhat confused - I'm SURE I haven't seen a couple of these scenes. Did I see a different version or something?

6 out of 10

ETA: totally forgot, this was posted today: