#do you know how much it costs on av in my state to get cremated????

[littleladylynx]

Oh my God I'm like so close to taking a sexy little bath with bubbles, nice candles, maybe a bath bomb and my hair dryer :)

[thisguyatthemovies]

Why so quirky?

It took more than 14 years to get around to it, but the other night I watched the 2005 Cameron Crowe train wreck “Elizabethtown,” a film that sometimes shows up on Worst Movie Ever lists. It’s bad, but its “worst” status is more about disappointment, given the writer-director’s previous track record {“Say Anything…,” “Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”). Still, did I mention it’s bad? A ridiculous premise, plot lines that go nowhere, obvious and heavy-handed symbolism, multiple and sickeningly sweet (and annoying) “meet cutes” and quite possibly some of the worst casting in a major motion picture ever all add up to a movie that deserves much criticism.

“Elizabethtown” also is notorious for inspiring the term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” (or MPDG). The phrase usually is credited to Nathan Rabin, who wrote a piece about the movie, “The Bataan Death March of Whimsy Case File #1: ‘Elizabethtown,’” for AV/Film nearly 15 months after its release. In it, he describes Kirsten Dunst’s character, Claire, the inexplicably bubbly love interest of suicidal-but-handsome protagonist Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom), as the embodiment of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Rabin describes the type as such:

“The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

By that definition, applied retroactively, Dunst’s Claire isn’t the first MPDG in movie history (some include Katharine Hepburn’s early roles on MPDG lists), nor is she even the best example of one (think Natalie Portman in “Garden State,” or Zooey Deschanel in “Yes Man” or the TV show “New Girl”). And the term, which Rabin reportedly now regrets coining, has become better defined with attributes that don’t necessarily fit Claire, even though she will forever be considered the epitome of the trope.

In case you have not seen “Elizabethtown” (and you’ll probably be just fine never seeing it), Bloom plays a shoe designer who works for a company not unlike Nike. Somehow, he is saddled with all the blame for a shoe that is so bad that it is recalled and will cost the company (somehow) nearly a billion dollars. Bloom’s Drew Baylor is fired and decides to off himself, but a phone call about the unexpected death of his father interrupts him during his first attempt. Drew, a West Coaster, is enlisted by his family to travel to Elizabethtown, Ky., his father’s hometown and where the elder Baylor has passed away, to bring the body home for cremation. Relatives in Kentucky have other plans for his final resting place.

Drew takes a flight to Kentucky and – wouldn’t you know it? – is the only passenger on the plane. That’s where Claire comes in. She apparently is the lone stewardess, and she is a talkative one at that. She won’t leave Drew alone from the get-go, and she (somehow) senses Drew is troubled and needs help because, for a guy who had a relatively important position with an internationally known shoe maker, he has no idea how to live this thing we call life. She does what any upstanding MPDG would do – she makes the repair of his damaged soul her sole purpose in life.

Claire would seem to vary from the standard trope in that she has a life of her own, at least when she and Drew meet. Her career would afford her at least a modest independent existence. She seems to have a nice place. She even has a boyfriend, though it is not clear if the guy really exists or, if he does, he is all that into her. But Claire quickly becomes a genie let out of the bottle; Drew’s every wish is her command. She just happens to show up wherever Drew is so much that if the roles were reversed, Drew would be accused of stalking. She says all the right things, even as Drew continues to hint at ending his life. She even (somehow) has the availability to, within a brief period of time, piece together a scrapbook (including hand-drawn illustrations) that will help Drew navigate a soul-discovering solo cross-country road trip AND (this being a Cameron Crowe movie) has provided the soundtrack via mix CDs that are (somehow) timed perfectly to coincide with landmarks during Drew’s travels. So omnipresent, so magical is Dunst’s character that some have suggested she was written to be a guardian angel sent to save Drew’s life. That interpretation at least makes some of Claire’s story semi-plausible and almost tolerable.

Claire is selfless to a fault, and she certainly is strange, maybe unstable. But, if anything, Manic Pixie Dream Girls lost even more sense of self and picked up more strangeness as the stock character turned into a full-fledged trope. Think Deschanel as Allison in the 2008 Jim Carrey vehicle “Yes Man.” As is always the case in these things, Carrey is a cynical, disillusioned man looking for meaning in life. He happens upon Allison, who hits a lot of stock MPGD notes. She zips around town on a moped. She wears mismatched clothing from vintage stores. She performs avant garde (and awful) music. Her primary means of supporting herself (?) is by teaching a class that combines jogging and photography. She is everything Carrey’s Carl Allen is not, mostly carefree. They, of course, engage in romance, even though Carl is notably older than Allison (that’s the case in many films, not just MPDG movies).

In 2010’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” two characters combine for the role of MPDG. The titular character, played by Michael Cera, is a slacker musician a few years removed from high school. That doesn’t stop him from dating a high-schooler, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), whose sole purpose is as a superfan for Scott’s band. Then Scott meets the girl of his dreams (literally), Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is at least older than Knives but still is quirky (she works delivering packages while on roller skates) and impulsive (she often changes her hair color) but is too aloof and serious to be a full-on MPDG. She does, however, end up being a sort-of trophy, to be won if Scott can defeat her seven evil exes. So, her existence still is minimalized.

Some movies have addressed the MPDG thing head-on. Though sometimes cited as a MPDG, Kate Winslet’s Clementine in 2004’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is actually the anti-MPDG. Sure, she wears orange hair and gloves with the fingertips cut off, and she’s impulsive. But she also is flawed, sometimes dark and independent (MPDGs typically don’t get any of those traits). And she says this, which seems like a direct response to the trope, even though the term didn’t yet exist, as written by Charlie Kaufman: “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fu**ed-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. Don’t assign me yours.”

Those are sentiments Claire in “Elizabethtown” never would have expressed, her focus being on a lost, sensitive young man and his happiness, not hers. Nor would she be allowed to even think such, given she and MPDGs like her are the products of writers and filmmakers who want to believe that this idealized version of young women is out there. That will probably be the case as long as men are writing movies, just as the male equivalent of the MPDG – the ridiculously handsome man with washboard abs who manages to accumulate much wealth despite always being around to tend to a woman’s needs and whisk her off to beaches on his private jet – will always exist as long as women are fantasizing about them and flocking to see them in rom-com-drams and reading about them in romance novels.

A little healthy fantasy is fine, but movie tropes and stereotypes are not, if we believe they can shape how we live in real life. Manic Pixie Drew Girls, though not totally a thing of the past (Joi, the A.I. girlfriend in 2017’s “Blade Runner 2049,” comes to mind as an updated version), are becoming outdated as more and more females are having their voices heard in Hollywood. MPDGs are being replaced by independent women who are the focus of the story and don’t have to be bubbly if they don’t feel like it, who aren’t required to be quirky and can chase their own happiness. These characters, unlike Manic Pixie Dream Girls, are multidimensional. They give a movie depth, not just gloss.

Imagine if that’s the kind of character Dunst’s Claire could have been. “Elizabethtown” wouldn’t show up on so many Worst Movie Ever lists. And it wouldn’t have been forever linked to a tired movie trope and the terminology to describe it.

[janiklandre-blog]

Thursday, March 2nd,  2017

sun is shining, scary strong gusts of wind  - and it is 12:30 p.m. by now - and I've had a long morning. Beginning with last night when once again I fell asleep much too early. Days lately have fallen out of a year long structure - beginning with days at 7 a.m. at Café Mocha, where for years the Mexican Rudolfo treated me for his abuela, grandmother in Spanish, greeted me warmly, missed me when I did not come and for years I had the Mariana special for $5 including tip - earlier a couple of eggs, home fries, toast, coffee, then I switched to oatmeal, always with a whole banana, some strawberries, blueberries and the atmosphere was warm and loving - and just before x-mas Rudolfo opened his own place in Brooklyn. I really should visit him.

Selena, at first very friendly, called herself "the new Rudolfo" - alas she was not. Among the early costomers was an Italian chef who set up his Skype at the counter and began yelling in Italian - so his Italian family could understand him. Rudolfo did ask him for me to please tone it down - Selena said: he is a costumer and custormers can do what they like. At which point I said - I am out of here.

I had long been aware that the oatmeal while prepared with love was not so healthy - instant oatmeal that I improved with sugar - now I switched back to a long ago oatmeal - raw, good oatmeal, soaked overnight in Kefir and with raisins, in the morning I add some honey, a banana, juice from and orange and grind half an apple and eat it at home. Then I go out to buy the NYT and by 7 I try to be at The Bean, corner 2nd Avenue and 3rd Street, where the coffee is $2.50 plus 50 cents tip - dreadful music Rudolfo knew I liked it very soft - so I drink my coffee, read a few pages of the paper and leave.

Yesterday after I left it was very warm, a foggy day, I had wanted to talk to Joanne who every morning had walked past Mocha with her little daughter on her way to school. At The Bean I had got into talking to a woman in her early 50's  who is not only homeless but seems to have no documents whatsoever. She is American born - showed up in the neighborhood a few years ago, is rail thin and at some point caught the eye of a man by the name of Eugene who must be close to 70 and probably over. He has been living at the Catholic Worker for many years, talks non-stop, at masses prays for countless people and always for the superfluous people. Not long ago he took himself on the bus to Lenox Hill Hospital on East 77th Street and was instantly admitted for serious hear surgery - a triple bypass or what not - he said he went there because he knew it was better than the downtown hospitals. The day before he still bicycled. He for a while slept with the woman in the street, then one freezing night she was allowed to stay in the Mary House auditorium where she took up residence for the next two years and it took many trips to courts to get her evicted and now she sleeps in some boiler room and says she is Eugene's nurse.

She told me she would love to come a nurse. She comes to the Bean like the squatters of yesteryear who often lived without bathrooms, without running water and rushed in the morning to the bathroom of a restaurant where they washed their hair and took a bath of sorts. The heart of a number of us goes out to this rail thin woman in her 50's, I asked had she a birth certificate and momentarily assumed that obtaining a birth certificate should not be that hard - and once upon a time it wasn't. So far with the help of 411 - telephone info that I believe costs $4 now - I rfeached her hometown in Virginia, that has no town office, but a librarian - I asked for the number of the library - gave me the number of Virginia vital statistics, that should have a record of her birth.

So today I did run into Joanne and found out attempts have been made, but some important info was missing - alas I doubt I will succeed.

Interestingly - or you might say sadly - there are quite a few people - one who lives at Mary House now claims no document for her ever existed - well, I lost my birth certificate in the 2000 fire and the town hall in Koeln where I was born was bombed and burned - so it cannot be replaced - luckily my passport was saved - the last and only document I have proving I do exist.

When I came to America and for many years carrying I.D. on you was not obligatory - now it is - and every policeman has the right to stop you, say I.D. and if you don't have any arrest you - put you in jail where over the years you will cost the state enormous amounts of money.

I.D. is also necessary to enter what is called "the system" - we still do have some vague "safety net" for the neediest - our new president wants to do away with it. Another woman at the Catholic Worker who had no I.D. at all was a most wonderful Irish woman, my age, Margaret Murphy - she had painful ovarian cancer and only when she no longer could bear the pain spke up, was taken to the hospital - a totally unnecessary operation was performed and she died on the operating table. She had wanted to be cremated - but there needs to be one living relative to approve it - and so she had to be buried and luckily the CW has quite a few grave sites and I did see her lowered into the ground. Other than that she had been born into great poverty in Ireland - must have come to America around the time I did - she never revealed anything about her life  prior to her arrival at CW in the mid 70's, where she worked her hands to her bones. She is much missed. I was among the people she liked. And Eugene always prays for her.

Well - hardly what I intended to write about. Anyway many of these totally undocumented steadfastly refuse to get documents - a stance I do understand - I too would like to see all documents abolished but am practical enough and if possible stay out of jail. In some countries pretty good - here: hell holes.

So I was taking this long walk yesterday morning and saw an announcement for a free meditation group at St Mark's church - Episcopalian church on 2nd Avenue and 10th Street - Thursday Morning at 9.

Back still to why I woke so early. After Molly left I went out for another walk and ended up buying an odd garment - ages since I bought any garment. By the time I was home it was 7 p.m. and I decided to put on channel 13 news - curious about the reaction to Trump's speech - the stock market gained 300+ points and is now at 2100 - recently fell to 1800 - great cheerfulness abounds - and, this has happened before, I fell asleep sitting on a chair - slept quite a while - and got up at 4:30 - legs cramping - got into looking at a stack of maps and schedules - I have a large stack of old subway maps, central park maps - somebody other than me might sell them to tourists - anyway by 7:45 I was out of The Bean and headed for the meditation - 90 minutes - what do you know, I might become a Buddhist - very nice group of people - at 10 I had an appointment for physiotherapy - the place on 8th street off 2nd Ave - Cornell Weill - mostly Polish, quite crammed - my therapist is Korean, showed me good exercises and assured me I was in pretty good shape - so by the time I got here it was almost noon, then I fiddled with the link to the blog and finally figured out how to get to it and put it into my Thursday Thoughts, then a woman security called - it seems a nasty colleague has gotten her fired, she wanted me to write something - I have always liked her - and here I am, it's almost 2 p.m. - I have not eaten lunch   Adios  Marianne