Garbo's World

Did the hokey-pokey.  Turned myself around.  That's what it's all about.
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And I don't care.  Because it's AMAZING.




Roger on LSD might be my favorite thing ever.  Brilliant episode of 'Mad Men'.
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I killed a bug in my bathroom last week.  I must have carried it in somehow, because I've never seen anything like that in my apartment in the almost four years I've lived here.  I'd bought a pair of sandals at a dubious shoe store in Astoria the night before, and who knows what was living in the cardboard box and bag I left sitting on the floor all night - but it ended up in my bathroom at 4am.  I freaked out.  I hate bugs.  Any bug.  I was so grossed out by the whole thing that I mentioned it to Dottie, which was my biggest mistake.

Because the next day I came home to a voice message from the bug, cursing me and vowing revenge from beyond the grave.
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I wish that every time I got a haircut it didn't feel like something from this scene:




"Why are you always looking at yourself in the mirror?!?"

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So I heard the 90's Heart song 'All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You' somewhere recently - probably in a store or a nightmare, since there is no way I willingly played it because I LOATHE THAT SONG like a skin rash.  But as is the way with songs I despise, when I hear even five seconds of the thing, it's trapped in my head for days.  Even worse, I know all the words.  Because somehow I also know all the words to songs I hate.  I'm sensing a form of self-punishment at work here.  

Anyway, the song is retarded.  Let's break it down:





So this chick is in madly in love with a guy, he's amazing and everything she ever wanted in a man, except oops, he's shooting blanks.  Or there could be a more detailed backstory - like a tragic crotch-related accident they couldn't rhyme into the lyrics - but whatever it is, she ain't getting no babies.  Still, rather than going through more traditional channels like adoption or artificial insemination, she decides to just bang strange guys she picks up on the highway.  And according to the line, "We went to a motel, it was a place I knew well." it seems she does this A LOT.  Because unprotected sex with hitchhikers is a sure way to get a baby, not to mention a slew of colorful diseases, and it's much more exciting than using a registered sperm donor whose medical history is readily available to you.  Nope, picking up drifters is the only logical choice!  And what about her guy?  He must be amazing if he's fine with his true love rolling around with road hobos, hoping one of them gives her a baby hobo, so he can later raise it as his own.  Wow.  That's love, man.  And considering the statistics on hitchhikers being psycho killers is about 1 in 10, they're playing some dangerous odds.  But the best part is when she does have one of the drifter's kids, and years later he drifts back around again and sees that her kid has his crazy hobo eyes and... WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SONG?!?!   GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD!!!
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A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET - I'm not a huge fan of horror remakes, especially ones based on iconic films, but this remake does manage to do something the original film didn't, which is be really terrible.

I wish someone had warned me that this wasn't actually a remake of 'A Nightmare On Elm Street', the clever slasher film I loved as a kid, but rather the Lifetime Network's dramatic rendering of 'A Molestation On Elm Street' - since I kept waiting for the gripping courtroom scene where the teenagers testify about the abuse they suffered at the hands of one Frederick R. Krueger, and then point out on a doll where he touched them.  Because this version was all molestation, all the time.  No waiting.  Jackie Earle Haley should have just played it as his character from 'Little Children' instead of Freddy Krueger, because at least then it might have been scary, instead of just gross.   
 
In the original, Freddy Krueger's history is told very briefly by Nancy's drunk mother about halfway through the film (which she awesomely caps with, "He's dead, honey.  Because Mommy killed him.") - and that was pretty much it.  Moving on.  Because while Freddy's backstory was needed to explain who he was, it in NO WAY stopped him from killing you.  Freddy being a molester was beside the point in the original - but in this version the characters run around like a bad Scooby-Doo episode for most of the film trying to solve 'The Mystery of The Haunted Preschool' in order to find out what happened to them as kids and possibly clear Freddy's (un)good name.  But for all the plot importance they put on solving this history mystery, it still in NO WAY stops him from killing you.  It's not like you can reason with him and make him see the error of his ways - he's a nightmare being who wants to kill you in your sleep.  He's not exactly open to suggestion.  Not to mention that innocent people don't tend to make gloves with knives for fingers or enjoy cutting up teenagers.  So there's your first big clue, Mystery Inc.  In the end it just amounted to a lot of backstory masturbation and a huge waste of time.  

The worst part of this 'Law & Order: SVU' version is that it reduces Freddy Krueger to cameo appearances and flashbacks, thus giving him little personality or screen time at all.  In the original series, Freddy loves his job.  He's positively gleeful about killing teens in their sleep, he almost prances - but in this film he's serious as stone and doesn't seem like he's having any fun at all.  He's just an angry guy trying to relive his glory days.  He's molesty Springsteen.  And oh, oh, oh, he's (been set) on fire.      

Adding to the problem were the multiple points of view.  The original film was Nancy's story, except for Tina's death at the beginning, all the dream sequences were Nancy's alone.  This gave it an intimacy, so the audience went through the nightmares with her and learned about Freddy Krueger at the same time she did.  But in this version, all of the characters have nightmares (the original series didn't do that until the sequels, when Freddy's character was already established), and it really hurt the film.  It made it feel ungrounded, robbed Freddy of any presence or connection with the audience, and kept you from really rooting for Nancy when she finally became the main character. 

I don't understand why these bad remakes are always so obsessed with fleshing out the backstory.  Why?  It's much scarier not knowing everything - to have it revealed as little bits of history during the filler scenes, not shown in extended detail or made central to the plot.  Because nothing takes the scary out of a film faster than trying to make us understand, or god forbid, feel sympathy for the maniac psycho killer.  These are slasher films, for crap's sake.  Not 'Manhunter'.  Less is more.   
        
But maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe we need more slasher films redone as serious dramas.  Maybe we need to know all about Jason Voorhees' troubled childhood with his crazy mother, never allowed to do anything without someone watching, or see him struggle with his facial deformity and getting rejected by pretty girl campers - when all he really wants is to be a goalie.  It would be just like 'Mask' - only with brutal murder instead of bikers and a mother who isn't nearly as scary as Cher.  I want to feel his crazy pain.

Ugh.  No.  I don't.  I just want him scary and killing campers.  That 'Friday The 13th' remake got it right.  Because it never tried to be a drama.  It was just a scary slasher film.  And amen to that.

My main problem with this new version of 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' is that it isn't scary.  It is creepy and gross, because of all the kid-touching stuff, but it's hardly a horror movie.  They spent so much time filling in his backstory that Freddy never got a chance to actually BE scary.  He's more of a molesty uncle with bad skin.  And that's why it's terrible. 

Thumbs down.
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ME:  If you ever became a vampire and didn't make me one too, I'd be so mad at you.

DOTTIE:  Dude, even if you begged me NOT to make you one, I'd be like, 'Sorry, it is what it is.' 

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With all the hoopla over 'The Lorax', which is my second favorite Dr. Seuss story (that I'm not sure needed a feature film voiced by Taylor Swift and Zach Efron because the TV version is amazing enough, but I guess even Dr. Seuss' estate likes money) - I figured I'd post something about my favorite.  The Sneetches

I love the story of The Sneetches because it's all about conformity and fitting in, and the lengths people will go to in order to feel accepted or special, even if it's by someone else's standards.  The star-bellied Sneetches seemingly have the world by the balls, and delight in treating the unstarred Sneetches like crap every chance they get.  Then one day a stranger comes to town and offers to put stars on anyone who wants them, an opportunity the unstarred Sneetches jump at.  But once everyone has stars, they aren't special anymore, so the Sneetches start paying the same stranger to remove the stars.  They do this over and over until the stranger is rich and the Sneetches have no idea who is a star-bellied Sneetch and who isn't, so they finally stop caring. 

The thing I always found weird as a kid and would ask whatever parent or sibling was watching with me, was why the unstarred Sneetches never had their own days at the beach, or marshmallow roasts - why did they always just sit around feeling sad and not as good as the star-bellied Sneetches?  Even as a child I knew the star-bellied Sneetches were complete assholes, and couldn't figure out why the other Sneetches would even want to fit in with them.  Why didn't they just have their own fun? 

I guess the lesson is that there are always going to be star-bellied Sneetches telling you that you're not good enough or lacking in some way, but the trick is not to listen.  Because if you keep changing to make other people happy, sooner or later you're going to forget who you are.  So just be yourself, and do what makes YOU happy, and fuck what anyone else has to say about it.  Have your own fun.   




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As someone who lives in fear of a normal life, this completely cracked me up.  I love 30 Rock.

(thanks, Videgum.)
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Holly Golightly frantically searching for the cat she didn't want to love, in front of the man she didn't want to love, knowing she can't be without either one - and I'm a mess every time.  Except for 'Moon River', which was never one of my favorites, there could not be a more perfect Hollywood ending. 
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