Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat, college.

OK, it's been a while since I've posted anything other than just a video or a comic strip, but there a few things which have come to my attention (unfortunately for them, me and you), so I thought I'd make this a lengthy post to make up for the lack of chatter coming from my side in the past few weeks (or months).

Let's start with this: I've watched three interesting films in the last three days, all interesting for different reasons. One musical and two comedies. The first of these was Gigi:



I admit, I didn't watch all of this trailer, because I couldn't subject myself to any more of this nonsense, but I watched enough to tell you that the trailer misrepresents the movie (surprise surprise). It gives the impression that Gigi is interested in finding a man, when in fact, the clip which shows her asking her great aunt rather sardonically about whether her family marries, is immediately followed in the film by a song about how she doesn't understand why Parisians are so obsessed by love.

In fact, this one of the longest sequences in which we actually see Gigi. Practically all of the rest of the time she is just an incredibly young piece of meat that gets handed around between her grandmother, great aunt and (by the end of the film) fiance, a rich spoiled twat who sings that everything "is a bore!" all the way through the film. I know it's the fifties, but Jesus, this film is incredibly sexist and borderline perverted, what with the opening song (sung by a very old, leery dude who is the only person to bother with a French accent in the film) being "Thank Heaven For Little Girls", the tone of which seems to be "Oh, I know we shouldn't really think about young girls sexually... but just look at them! And besides, one day they'll be old enough, so it's good to get in early and take advantage when their young and stupid, then you can shag them and dump them when they get too wrinkly/naggy/clingy/dependent." The dude who sings this is seriously scary, and everyone refers to him as being young at heart, when in fact he appears to simply be an old perv who uses money and his ridiculously shiny teeth to take advantage of young women. At one point you think he's going to settle down with Gigi's grandmother, as they have a romantic sing song, but no, after that scene, in which they appear to be quite close, you never hear of their relationship again.

As for Gigi herself, she drifts around in the background, with her incredibly obnoxious great aunt taking up loads of screen time, until suddenly the "it's a bore!" guy decides he's in love with her, and pretty much offers to buy her from her grandmother. Gigi, far from seeing anything wrong with this, objects because she'll be too much in the public eye, because "it's a bore!" is super fucking rich. However, five minutes later she comes round and decides to go out with him, they go out to dinner, he gets embarrassed for some reason, drags her home, leaves her house, comes back, proposes, she accepts even though she just got humiliated and carried home like a child, the end.

9 fucking Oscars. Kind of casts in to light what a bunch of crap we'll probably be thinking the current Oscar winners in 50 years.

The other two were The Lady Killers and Annie Hall; I won't get in to too much detail, I've wasted enough time slagging of Gigi, as it's a lot more fun to trash something than praise it, but both were pretty excellent, Annie Hall being the better of the two, or at least my personal favourite. Woody Allen is a strange guy; I found myself both repulsed and attracted to his whiny complaining and constant wisecracking throughout the film. I guess he reminded me of me a little bit, as I'm pretty cynical, but not as intelligent or funny. Here's the opening, it pretty much sums up the film, in tone, but also because it's full of these interesting moments where the fourth wall is broken and Woody directly addresses the audience:



The other things that have been bothering me around to do with the university. Now I know I said I'd stay away from politics, especially student politics, but the nominations for the 2010 student executive elections are on the DUSA website, and I can't help but notice that our old friend Craig Kelly (who, in the past, kindly and anonymously said my blog was arrogant, along with some other such things, before posting a lovely and welcoming invitation to his office under his real name, I guess so as to have a dig at me while appearing above all such nasty, naughty name calling at the same time), is unopposed as President. That means he'll walk into a paid position of "authority and power" without even having to run. I don't envy him the position, but I do envy him the pay package, which will come practically work free if the actions of the last two presidents is anything to go by, as they don't seem to have done very much (allegedly).

I guess this might have put people off from running as president:

"Nomination forms can be picked up from Anne Marie Bottoms, Executive Support, 4^th Floor, DUSA during office hours of: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm. Should Anne Marie be unavailable at the time of pick up, leave her a message at extension: 81085 or e-mail her at: abottoms@dusa.co.uk"

Miss Bottom's email address would appear to be a joke one. No offence, Miss A. Bottoms.

Anyway, the other thing, which has been repeatedly rammed in my face this last week, is that the the humanities department is getting rid of one of their modules, Renaissance literature. Shock horror. There's a facebook campaign to save it, which makes it deadly serious of course, because it's so rare for someone to implement facebook as a way of expressing any minor annoyance they might have that once it happens, you know shit's about to hit the fan (/sarcasm). Both my tutors have made pleas (one in an email to everyone, one in my class today) asking people to calm down and stop being silly, as Renaissance literature will continue to be taught, and in fact will be extended, in first year modules (in fact, even if I wanted to or cared, it would be a be a bit hypocritical of me to join the campaign, since I avoided doing Renaissance in third year and only got the basic stuff in first and second year - but hey, it's done me alright). The problem for them, Aidan Day and Chris Murray, is that they are both running contentious, if, in my opinion, completely valid and excellent modules; British comic writers and Bob Dylan's song poetry. Now, some close minded nincompoops have attacked these modules, saying "duh... um... Shakespeares are important, comics ain't important, they're for kids, Bob Dylan sings songs and isn't proper england, up the Shakespeare" or whatever, which completely goes against the idea of opening new areas of research, but also displays a real ignorance about the topics in question.

So it's a bit annoying for me, because I thought I couldn't care less, but now I do, because there's a possibility that this half baked campaign about something uninteresting happening to a module I didn't even take and won't miss will actually effect modules I did take, loved and will miss. I find it easy to imagine the amount of shit Aidan and Chris get as it is for wanting to do something interesting and different, without people getting their axes ready to chop comics and Dylan to save Shakespeare, who is still going to be taught anyway (in fact, while level three Renaissance is optional, there's no dodging it in first year, so if they make it more extensive as a result of chopping the third year module, it'll probably be better for everyone).

Anyway, Heather's coming home soon and I need to go and make the tea. If Craig Kelly even bothers to run (why the hell would he?), I'll see if his campaign material is worth a cheap laugh or two and post it when it appears.

Toodle pip!