Uuugh more yuckiness this week...I have a dentist's appointment tomorrow, a physical on Thursday, and somewhere in between that I need to get a new car. @_@ My rental had to be returned, so now it's time to hunt for something new, and it has to be done before dad leaves since he's the one in the family who can manage to bargain on price really well.

At least the painting for church yesterday went well! A little nerve-wracking since I had to paint fast, but I managed, and people seemed to really like it. So, I'm glad I agreed to do it.

IN THE MEANWHILE. I have started movie month! Some random thoughts follow, but since there's spoilers (does it really count? IDK) I'll put them behind a cut.


The Lives of Others (Das Leben Der Anderen)
Sheesh, this was kind of a heavy one to start on! Like a lot of German films, this was pretty intense (and also pretty depressing), but that's really not surprising considering it's set in East Germany during the communist era. It's about a government wiretapper who is assigned to monitor a playwright and his lover, and how listening in on their lives affects the wiretapper, which in turns affects what happens to the playwright and his lover, in a big mish-mash of intrigue and interconnectedness.

I've heard people say this has the best cinematography of any film, in the sense that "not a single scene is wasted," and I would say that comes pretty close. While the ending wasn't exactly "happy" (it's hard to have a happy ending when the love interest gets hit by a bus and one of the protagonists is doomed to a life of menial labor), it was at least satisfying in the way that the playwright and the wiretapper sort of shared a moment of understanding through their writing about each other.

So I'm glad I saw it, but DANG it was heavy and not so happy. It's probably not a movie I'd pop in when I feel like relaxing. XD



Close Encounters of the Third Kind
I think my watching was somewhat hampered by the fact that the YouTube copy wasn't very good, but even with a crappy copy the movie was still interesting to watch! Probably the creepiest movie I've ever seen where the aliens are still friendly. Watching it, I could definitely pick up on how a bunch of stuff from X-Files was inspired by this film (particularly the abduction scene) and how a lot of UFO/abduction visuals in general kind of built off of this movie.

I definitely liked a few things...how they used music/lights to communicate with the aliens (looking back...were they mocking that idea in ID4?) and the movement/effects of the UFOs throughout the whole thing. There were a few things that didn't make sense to me...like, WTF was up with those people in red at the end? Were they going to board the ship while other aliens stayed? Was this some kind of intergalactic foreign exchange program? Why didn't the mother freak out more when she finally got her abducted son back? Really who was that French guy? \o_O/

Anyways, it was definitely very Spielbergian (is it just me, or was the UFO mothership playing the Jaws theme at one point?), and it was convincing in terms of an alien movie. All of the other alien movies I can think of (with the exception of E.T., but that's still Spielberg) either have good aliens with a bit of goofiness, or evil aliens with a thriller/scary theme. This is the only story I've seen where it shows that even if the aliens were friendly, their arrival would still be flippin' scary to us humans.


Drawing: Finished that fanart, and some thumbnails

Writing: Treatments

Days until BBS release: 36