#DUDE I AM ALREADY FACING A CONSTANT EXISTENTIAL FEAR

[elinaline]

.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

It’s always fun jumping into a movie I know next to nothing about, and this requested review for Wes will be no exception. All I know is that Girls Just Want to Have Fun is an 80s teen romp with the worst photoshopped cover photo I’ve ever seen. It looks like Michael Scott put it together. I know it stars girls, AND I know what those girls want. That’s half your narrative battle right there. So do they achieve the fun they seek? Well...

They do! A lot of weird shit happens along the way, but yeah, fun is had and that’s all that really matters. God, 1985 was a simpler time. I mean, I know everyone was living in constant fear that the Russians were going to invade Kansas and we’d be faced with a neverending nuclear winter, but in the face of all that existential terror you also get movies where the entire pitch is “So there’s this girl (Sarah Jessica Parker) who wants to be a dancer on tv, but her parents don’t want to let her. But she does it anyway! And her partner is chosen for her and, boy, they do not see eye to eye. But then they do! And they have to practice a lot. And then they win the dance contest!” 

You know some studio exec heard that and screamed at his secretary to hold his calls for the day so he could sign the contracts and then do a mountain of blow off them. 

Some thoughts:

It’s so weird to see Sarah Jessica Parker without curly hair! I was never a Sex and the City fan, so my exposure to SJP is purely Hocus Pocus based.

This dance sequence over the credits is incredible. Why do we not have shows anymore that are just a large group of young attractive people dancing in sync? No host, no dialogue, just the power of dance. I was born in the wrong decade. I would have appreciated the shit out of the 80s when I was alive.

Poor Helen Hunt - she must be one of those people who always looked like she was 35, even in high school. Granted, she was 22 when this was filmed and she’s playing a teenager, but still. 

Helen Hunt is wearing dinosaurs in her hair. 80s fashion was on a wavelength that I don’t think any of us living will ever see again.

Omg this rich bitch (Natalie, I guess? She’s not named for at least the first 30 min of the movie) had Claire’s closet from Clueless 10 years before the movie existed! This is already groundbreaking.

NOW SHE HAS A BUG ON HER HAT. A big plastic green grasshopper. This review is mainly going to be about the insane things Lynne (Helen Hunt) wears.

Speaking of - I’m getting big lesbian vibes from Lynne Stone and I am so here for it. The homoerotic tension when she acts like she’s gonna fight the rich bitch? Delicious. The immediate intimate connection she makes with SJP? Practically U-Hauling. 

I love an 80s dance montage, and this movie promises to contain basically nothing but that tied loosely together with some nonsensical dialogue in between. This is gonna be my new favorite movie. 

Ooh Nestle Quik syrup! I forgot about Nestle Quik. 

Favorite line: “There is a time and a place for calypso music, young lady.”

Ohhh I see what this is gonna be - Janey (SJP) is a classically trained dancer and gymnast, and Jeff (Lee Montgomery) is more of a rough and tumble music video kinda guy from the streets. You can tell cause he’s got a motorcycle and a leather jacket. And he wears cutoff sleeves! He’s a white guy in Chicago, who could be more street than that? And they’re butting heads! How will they ever be able to make it work for the big dance contest??

How did Natalie know Janey’s phone number? She specifically said it was unlisted. Unless she remembers it from overhearing it offhand after the dance tryouts...? That’s insane, I can’t even remember what I wore yesterday let alone a 7-digit number someone shouted in a crowd.

Lynne Fashion Alert: Is she wearing a belt made out of bullets? And a Davy Crocket hat. This is galaxy brain lesbian fashion. If the costume designer for this movie didn’t win 10 Oscars...

The music director on the other hand...not sure what is up with all these weird KidzBop covers of excellent songs like “Dancing in the Street” or the titular “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” but if you’re gonna include them, you gotta spring for the originals. This is just sad. 

I’ve never been at a party with an ice sculpture. I think that’s how you know you’re among the rich. 

Whatever happened to Jonathan Silverman? I miss when he was the nebbishy sidekick in every 80s movie. 

Who enters a party by catapulting through the damn window?? Punk does not mean that you no longer know how to use doors, sir! 

Who serves a full roasted turkey at a party? Is this how rich people live? This feels like the equivalent of using Google translate to identify rich people food in another language, then translating it back to English. 

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now I think she has space shuttles in her hair.

Wow we got a real 1-2 punch of sexual harassment in this club. Who wrote this Tune in Tokyo gag and was like “You know what would be hilarious? If this shitty little nerd convinced this girl to raise her arms so he can just grab her boobs full on, front and center. And then she gets upset and runs away. God I’m good at this *snorts another line*”

Lynne Fashion Alert: Now it’s two globes (like, two Earths) with crab claws on them? This is a choice that I don’t understand, but I think I may just not be seeing what it is clearly. I am digging her mirror sunglasses though. 

I know Janey is smart but when did she learn how to hotwire a security system? It’s not like Google or Youtube existed, and I doubt there was a library book about how to dismantle that specific system. MYTH BUSTED.

Oh god oh no I’m so gay for these Dixon sisters from Kansas City, these two gorgeous black women in tuxes and spandex leotards. They 100% should have won this dance contest. 

Why did guys stop wearing crop tops? Can we bring back slutty quarterback as a fashion trend for dudes? Seriously, the costume design here is everything. 

I really love Jeff and his little family - his sister and his dad are so proud of him and supportive. You never see that in dance narratives featuring guys. I like the reversal here of gendered expectations.

Did I Cry? No, but my heart was warmed at various moments. 

Honestly, why can’t more narrative arcs in movies be solved via dance battle? 

Lynne Fashion Alert: She’s now dressed as...Cleopatra? Wait why the fuck is there a horse here? 

Oh that’s it that’s the end! Man, you can’t be mad at a tight 90 min film like this - it gets in, it gets out, bing bang boom you’re done with enough time to read before bed. 

Is this a cinematic masterpiece? No. But is it good clean fun? Absolutely. Barring the brief [obligatory 80s] sexual harassment scene, there’s very little to be upset with here. Kids wanna dance, they’re told they can’t dance, they dance anyway! It’s the power of dance! You’re either into it or you’re not, but if you’re not, I ask that you search your heart and try to find one teeny tiny sliver of joy inside it. You’re gonna need to feed that joy if you wanna make it through 2021, and watching this movie is a darn good place to start. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

The Zodiac Whumper - The Second Night

Another more filler piece to give context and lead up to Gemini! I’m tired while editing this so excuse any errors haha Continued from here. If you’re new, start here!

Tag list (ask to be added or removed): @whumpallday, @stxck-fxck, @thatsthewhump, @unsung-sympathy, @terriblethrillssss, @insanitywishes, @woodenhoneybee, @whale-whumps 

Content Warnings: Mention of creepy/intimate whumper and existing injuries

The night was restless. Shifting and tapping and quiet voices filled the space, nobody willing to sleep. 

Aries was dizzy from sustained pain they could hardly even feel anymore. The cramps in their muscles were painful at this point, twitching and spasming against restraints that wouldn’t let them move without further damage. The water Zoran poured down their throat hours before did nothing to quench their thirst, and only made their clawing hunger harder to ignore. 

But Zoran had insisted, “I can’t feed you anything until we get that barbed wire out of your mouth, now can I?” and at the perfectly logical suggestion of actually taking it out they only shook their head and walked away saying, “Patience is a virtue, Aries.”

Taurus awoke groggily for his meal, but refused Zoran’s offer to feed him the same way and resigned himself to eating spoonfuls of lukewarm oatmeal in relative discomfort. It wasn’t all that bad, really. He had to chew minimally to avoid aggravating the still bleeding cuts on his cheek, and that really did hurt, but the real torment came when he laid back down to sleep. “Laid down” being a relative term, considering there was no way to do that without extreme pain. 

Every movement stretched the injuries on his back, his sides, his front, his arms, and everything hurt so bad. The night filled with his whimpers and moans: attempts at easing his exhaustion that only resulted in further pain.

Nervous tapping filtered from Gemini’s cell, the ticking of a clock that counted seconds for eternity. Counting down to the coming morning, when she feared she may tap no more. 

“Who’s making that sound?” Cancer whispered, straining to figure out if it was coming from the cage next to him or one further down. 

“Oh, sorry, that’s me. Valerie, Val for short. Am I disturbing you? I didn’t even realize I was fidgeting.”

“Oh, no! You’re fine I just- I guess you’re nervous, yeah? With what they did to Rory today… Jesus.” Cancer ducked his head, leaning against the wall. 

“That’s obviously what they want, you know?” Gemini said, wringing her hands, “It’s all a damn show. They want us to be scared of them, so they show their claws.”

“...and are you?” His voice shook. 

“What?”

“Are you scared of them? Of tomorrow?” For a moment, Gemini didn’t say anything. The tapping started again. Then,

“Yeah,” her voice cracked and she swallowed hard, “I just watched a man get whipped half to death. How could I not be?”

“Then at least I’m not the only one. I get how you feel, Val. I can’t stop seeing the blood, and their eyes, and wondering what’s going to happen to me when it’s my turn. It’s terrifying.” 

“Don’t- I don’t want to think about that, Carter. Please. I just want to get out of here.”

“As if. I bet we’d sooner die than escape. And I might end up being ‘Cancer’ by the end of this anyway, so might as well start calling me that now. Way to go for them naming me after that awful disease.” Cancer laid down on his side to have a more comfortable existential crisis.

“You do know these are Zodiac signs, right?” 

“They’re what?” Gemini raised her eyebrows at that, almost forgetting Cancer couldn’t see her.

“You really don’t know? They’re based off of when you were born and are supposed to describe anyone with those birth dates…”

While she whispered and rambled on about the nuances of Zodiac signs, Cancer really didn’t pay attention. He was more happy to have taken her attention, as well as his own, off of what was to come. Next door, Leo was having an animated conversation with Virgo’s shadow, whose cage was aligned on the corner with theirs. 

“Come on, dude, what’s up? Want to talk?” They didn’t get a response except for the chinking of metal on metal. “Can I get a name? Pronouns? Come on, you gotta give me something to work with here. What’re you doing over there anyway?”

“Please, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m busy,” Virgo responded, voice in a breathy whisper.

“But what with is what I’m asking. Anything I can help with? There’s nothing to do here except, you know, wait to get hurt. Maybe I’ll ask for a coloring book or something when they come back.” More silence. Leo looked away from their cage instead, focusing on the “Scorpio” sign directly across the way. “Okay, fine. Alex! You want to talk for a bit?”

“Leave me alone, Kit.” He curled away from them, voice thick with what Leo liked to assume was emotion.

“Alright, got it, yeesh. Is anyone around here actually up for a chat?”

Sagittarius schooled her expression when they looked at her, trying not to make it evident that she was talking to Capricorn. Leo was nice, but she’d had enough trouble just picking up a conversation herself.

“I have a bad feeling about them,” he said, deep voice carrying only to her under the light conversation around the room. 

“What do you mean, Ethan?” Sagittarius eyed Leo out of the corner of her eye.

“I mean that Kit’s too confident. Alex, too. You wear your heart on your sleeve like that and it’s bound to get crushed, yeah?”

“That your act then?” she said, louder, “Quiet and complacent so they don’t target you?”

“Shut it; they’re probably listening somehow. It’s not an act, but you’d be wise to put one on yourself.” Capricorn commented with a condescending sneer.

“We’ll see about that.”

Coming back around to the front corner, Pisces curled around their knees in the front corner of their cage.

“I’m, just… I’m supposed to be last, right? And I can’t watch everyone go through this. It’s horrific and so, so wrong to do this to people. This happens in fiction, and that’s alright I guess, but this is too real. I almost wish I could just get my ‘turn’ over with, but I’m so scared. It’s exhausting. Don’t you feel like that, too?”

“Hm,” Aquarius grunted, back still facing them. He took a deep breath, fiddling with the fidget cube he still had, resting in the words for a few seconds before putting together a response. “Don’t wish that on yourself, Pisces. Just because other people are suffering doesn’t mean you need to throw yourself in harm’s way. Only more people getting hurt, then.”

“Don’t call me that; I literally told you my name already. And not to be a downer, but we’re all getting hurt anyway. What’s the difference?”

“...not necessarily. I can guarantee at least half of the people in here are plotting some sort of escape plan. Some of them will undoubtedly be worthless, but it’s not hopeless. We may live through this yet.” Aquarius stared at his lap, playing with the fidget cube he’d managed to keep secret from his captor until that point.

“Staying alive isn’t the hard part. I don’t believe that they’d kill us. The hard part is getting out unscathed.”

“Touché,” he shrugged, moving to lay down in the cramped cage, “We’ll see how it goes, huh?”

“Yeah…”

The night was restless. Even when the noise settled, sleep wouldn’t come with the constant apprehension tugging them awake. Morning wouldn’t come because night refused to end. And that was both blissful and exhausting in its own right.

Next part

[gaberoothekangaroo]

this is kinda going to be long.

my dad gets so fucking worked up about things and it fucking drives me bonkers because hes just being an ass about it. like we were watching transformers on tv and it had some extra interviews and it talked about the differences of opinion between shia and michael bay on how to do a scene. so my dad is spouting off about how ‘directors are lazy and complacent and they need to learn from others successes’ and on and on and on. and im like ???? there are like only a handful of series that go from one movie to the next??? and so we got into it. like i explained to him that this is a recent thing in the past ten years to have movies that all link up to one another that tell a whole story, rather than having a story that has a beginning middle and end and then adding on a sequel. cause lets be real most sequels suck cause theyre trying to recaputre the glory of the first movie and they dont live up to it.

so hes just fuckin goin off about how this that and the other. and i point out to him that the marvels movies started out as flops. like iron man was pretty good, then two just was in the toilet. well it was the first of its kind. they closed the doors on the first movie. it was a little hard to try to reopen things they had already closed. so they learned and the third movie was pretty good. then we have all the other movies in the franchise that build off each other. yeah they make mistakes, but these guys have all learned and built off each other. 

NOPE. hes like hauling off about laziness and they need to look at other peoples successes and failures on working in series. and im like ?????? asshole, do you not realize there are not that many series out there???? and so we just keep fighting over it and it gets to the point where im like ‘dude, its a fucking novel that theyre taking from a script and turning it into a visualization. you have a problem with their lack of continuity or their characterization, thats where your problems lie, not with the producer’

so then hes just like freaking out hardcore and hes like ‘movies and books are different’ and im like how? how could they possibly be different? world building, characters, a plot, a beginning middle and end. like how are they different aside from the fact one is visual and one is text based? and he just cant see that theyre literally the same thing. and so he keeps freaking out.

and im like ‘if i were to write a book on xyz, i wouldnt go look at the other successful authors that wrote something similar. thats fucking stupid.’ and hes like ‘thats not what i was saying’. um yes it is. if youre talking about looking at something and trying to base it off its predecessors successes and failures, then...wouldnt you have to...idk find something that was actually similar before you can make comparisons???

idfk. he had an issue with the fact that michael bay is a jackass and wanted ‘to do things his way’ and wasnt going to let shia do something he wanted to do. yeah okay creative differences, still made a fairly okay movie. not the actors fault that theres four of these stupid movies. but he was raging hardcore over the fact that the director was ‘lazy and complacent’. so what is his laziness? is there some sort of standard hes following? what is his complacency? like i? dont? understand???

the complacency youre talking about is he wanted a fucking paycheck. the first one was successful and he probably won awards and there was acclaim. so whats stopping him from trying to make a second? a third? he has the characters. he somewhat has the world. its not his own idea, no, because hes taking from an already fairly successful source. but hes moulding the characters to his needs and purposes. same thing with his screenwriter.

i have more anger directed towards the screenwriter than the producer because if the script/characters suck, its on them. they wrote the fuckin thing. if you dont know how to worldbuild or write a cohesive character outside of a single individual film, thats on you and your creativity, not the producer. but nope, he couldnt see it that way. and he kept yelling about how i was putting words in his mouth and this that or the other. like jesus fucking christ man.

im so fucking over how he cant see another point of view. he does this shit with everything. like i need to move fucking far away again. i cannot do this shit. it drives me near up the wall.

he gets so mad that im ‘so literal’ ‘all the goddamned time’. okay well...im not yelling every five seconds that the english language is being destroyed and cant accept change. ‘i was taught all the rules and exceptions’. bullshit. if you were, youd speak worse than a goddamned textbook. you wouldnt sound human. you wouldnt fit in to your social environment. you would be stiff. yet whenever you hear a new word, jesus lord almighty the world is coming down around your ears. its bad when others say it, but you dont mind when we do it. righto.

he makes me so mad. he just doesnt want to look outside his viewpoint. as understanding as he is, he doesnt want to learn. he says he likes learning, but he doesnt actually. if it goes away from what he was taught or something hes stood by for forever and a half, he doesnt want it to change. its like tough luck asshole, thats how things happen. if you dont want change, move to a cave. i dont like change either, but im not yelling from the rooftops about it. nor am i blinded by my viewpoints.

the dumb thing about all this is, is that i dont have anyone i can talk to this about. none of my friends really wanted to stay in contact after we grew up. i havent made too many strong relationships after childhood. the ones i have made, i dont want to feel like im bothering them. i dont want to feel like im incessantly talking nonstop and only about myself and my problems. so i bottle it and then it explodes and then after im done writing it out or talking it out, im still angry. my anxiety is still high. but im over it. im done talking about it. i could get riled up again, but it just tires me out.

like i feel like i used to have a good relationship with my dad, but then i moved away. i learned some new things. i saw some different view points. i aligned myself with others that were abroad. i try to look at things differently. and now that ive come back, its like hes exactly where i left him. he didnt change, but i did. he doesnt want to learn or grow. he thinks hes done, that this is the most him he can be.

it makes me really angry because i want to share things with him. i want to talk to him about the things that excite me, that i think might excite him cause we share a lot of common interests. but then all i get is push back and anger and confrontation and it just makes me tired. it makes me angry too, but i just want to be done and over with it. i want to be away from it. from him.

when i left, i didnt know mothers werent supposed to be that way. now that ive learned thats not how any individual should be, i can see how dads shouldnt be that way either. im not saying hes abusive like my mother, but hes nearly there. belittling and jeering and outright testosterone fueled meanness when things dont go his way or i dont perform to his standards. theres even a disparity between how understanding he used to be and how understanding he is now. the older i get and the further i get away from who i used to be, the less understanding he seems to be. it makes me sad. it makes me angry. it makes me want to leave and not come back. it makes me want to go and to go and to go. at the same time, i live in a constant state of existential crisis. life is short and nothing has meaning. all that stuff. so theres fear, true panic inducing fear that dominates my line of thinking for a few days before i get it under control and so i dont want to lose my relationship with my dad. he is probably one of the closest people in my life. but he also keeps getting more distant as time progresses.

nights like tonight just make me want to cry. i go from anger to sadness/panic to exhaustion. like ive ranted, ive changed the subject a couple times now, but i dont feel better. theres still a low simmer of anger in my chest thats constricting in the way anxiety is constricting.

i dont want many more of these situations. i guess its time to move. i dont want to do it permanently, but it looks kinda like it might have to be. and if it is permanent, that means i leave behind my grandmother who means the world to me. it means i leave behind one of my best friends, a friend i believed would die and i wouldnt be informed of his passing a few years ago. i already left some close friends behind in my last state of residency. i read a lot because i choose to escape from things. i have a hard time facing things. like facing the fact that my dad is probably not going to change as a individual and will continue to be confrontational and a hypocrite. i really wanna cry but my depression doesnt allow it.