MoviesNoThankYou.

I’m thirty-four years old. Until I was twenty-five, I slept with a Mickey Mouse doll unironically. I read the movie spoiler for Paranormal Activity and had nightmares for a week. When startled, I curl into the fetal position and close my eyes. I’m often struck by the fear that a hungry lion will enter my apartment. Suffice it to say, I am the most delicate flower you will ever meet.

Another (completely related? let’s find out together!) fact about me: I spent the first 32 years of my life watching movies – LOTS of movies.

And here it all comes together for, over the years, I have found myself watching movies that are so disturbing and so traumatizing to my delicate and fragile nature that to this day I shudder at the thought of them and passionately exclaim “I will never see that movie again! EVER.”  Here are a few.

The Pledge.
Spoiler alert: Benicio del Toro dies, Robin Wright finds out about the plot, and Jack Nicholson goes fucking crazy. I watched the last 30 minutes of this movie with only one eye, I was so distraught at the way it was turning out. The premise is Jack Nicholson – a detective hard worn by life and its betrayals and demands – is looking for a murderous pedophile. He has a plan to lure out the suspect (Benicio del Toro), and it’s the only thing that matters. Of course, no one else believes Benicio is the killer and the consensus is that Jack needs to just let it go and live, laugh, love etc. He becomes obsessed with proving Benicio is the killer, eventually setting a trap.

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SongologyEmpire.

Wherein the artist translates hip-hop (line by line) for the un-initiated.  Today’s song, part one of “the” “greatest” one ever, “Empire State of Mind”.

Yea I’m out that Brooklyn (1), now I’m down in TriBeCa(2)
1. Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York. It is cool.
2. Tribeca is a neighborhood in Manhattan. It is also cool. So cool that Jay-Z lives there and Robert De Niro launched the eponymous film festival
Right next to De Niro (3), but I’ll be hood forever (4)
3. Jay-Z is indeed referencing his proximity to the living legend of an actor (who’s never had to learn an accent for a role) Robert De Niro.
4. Hood is vernacular for neighborhood.  The term hood suggests an urban street life.  Here Jay-Z is making the point that no matter how many billions (literally?) of dollars he has he will still be true to his humble humble roots
I’m the new Sinatra (5), and… since I made it here
I can make it anywhere, yea, they love me everywhere (6)
5. Frank Sinatra. But it’s not for his love of good women and fine scotch that Jay-Z is his successor – it is for his ability to turn a song into an ANTHEM. Sinatra did this with “New York, New York” the theme song from the 1980 Martin  Scorcese film of the same name. Liza Minelli and Robert De Niro starred.
6. A more specific reference to the song ‘New York New York’.  In the last verse is “I’m gonna make a brand new start of it/In old New York/If I can make it there/ I can make it anywhere…”

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