The Feel Good Movie of the Year!

I am trying very hard to not post something dealing with current events, since that's practically all I've talked about for the past two weeks. I will not talk about H.R. 503. I will not talk about H.R. 503. I will not talk about...

OK, I probably will, but not today.

I was the happiest woman in the world this morning. The coffee shop in my building recently changed management, and for a while it appeared that they were no longer going to carry Pop Tarts. Travesty! I never liked cereal that much as a child, and I lived on Pop Tarts. Now that I'm actually getting up early enough to eat breakfast, I've been getting them almost every day. (Some days I feel ambitious enough to walk to Dunkin' Donuts and get a bagel.) But today the shop not only had a full rack of Pop Tarts, but they also dropped the price on them! Oh happy happy day!

It doesn't take all that much to make me happy sometimes.

The Gojira/Full Contact Poetry show has been rescheduled for Friday, May 25th, and Diamond Doug's band finally has a name: Condemned to Extinction. With a name like that, I bet they do Backstreet Boys covers...ha ha.

Speaking of Full Contact Poetry, we will finally have a website soon. Well, as soon as I get off my butt and put it together. Yes, as if I wasn't having enough trouble putting my new site together, I've volunteered to get the group some online exposure. (And after telling this to Roger Mexico, he replied, "Well, you're doing mine when I'm ready, right?") I must be on crack. I don't have enough design and programming knowledge to fill a thimble, and suddenly I'm the web designer to the stars?

Of course, getting these sites up and running means that I'll be "outing" most of my pseudonym-bearing friends, including myself. Oh, and there'll be pictures too. Are you scared yet?

I went a little insane at the Blockbuster the other night - I've already mentioned the Bring It On purchase, but this was accompanied by the rental of four other movies that I managed to miss at the Esquire Theatre over the past little while: The Million Dollar Hotel, Xiu Xiu, the Sent Down Girl, Dancer in the Dark, and The Cup. All were good movies, but, with the exception of The Cup, all of the films had pretty downer endings. (I guess it's hard to make a sad movie about Buddhist monks caught up in the World Cup finals. I loved this movie, it's sweet and refreshingly funny. Rent it now.)

Sometimes the best movies are not the ones you want to watch over and over. Case in point, Schindler's List. Amazing movie, and I taped it when they ran it a few years ago unedited and without commercial interruption, but I don't think I'll ever say, "Wow! What a day! I think I'll go home, kick back, make some popcorn, and watch Schindler's List!"

Nope, those nights are reserved for the fun movies. Movies that, while they may be well made and entertaining, have no great big moral lessons to take home and ponder. These are just movies for the heck of it. These are movies I've seen so many times that it's OK if I take a short nap in the middle because I know every line, every scene by heart.

I had to leave Disney movies and "any John Cusack movie that involves him standing in a torrential downpour" off the list. While I know these movies like the back of my hand, they usually make me cry. And there's no crying allowed on this list.

Here's a partial list of what's in my "fun movies" stack:

Bring It On - my newest acquisition. I have no idea why this movie appeals to me, but Zappagirl and I had the cheers running through our heads for weeks. Oh yeah, and Eliza Dushku's in it, and she kicks major ass.

Groove - Last summer I went to my first (and probably last) rave. Three days later I saw this movie, and wondered why this party looked like a much cooler place to be. The movie itself is akin to being at a rave - not technically perfect, some parts are downright silly, but the pervading mood of the movie gets to you and you find a ridiculous smile on your face that refuses to go away.

Fear of a Black Hat - I was so sad to see this movie finally went out of print. It's the Spinal Tap of rap music, and no one is safe from the parody. I appreciate this movie so much more after watching an entire day of rap/hip-hop themed VH1: Behind the Music episodes.

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut - the movie that surpassed Airplane! in the category of movie I laughed the hardest at in a movie theater. Obscene as hell, but the music was better than anything Disney's offered up in a long time (even better when you knew which Disney movies and Broadway shows they were satiring), it was funny and irreverant and it actually had a message. The only complaint I had was that Chef wasn't in it enough. I'm going to wear out my tape soon.

Clerks - possibly the best movie ever shot for a riduculously small amount of money in a Quick Stop. I love Kevin Smith. My voice mail message was "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" for months. Need I say more?

Dogma - I know this is a love it or hate it movie, but I thought it was brilliant, not to mention a pretty faith-affirming movie, no matter what religious sect you consider yourself part of. (Could have done without the Golgothan, though.) That and Silent Bob is THE MAN. Yes, I have the action figures. No, you can't play with them.

Yellow Submarine - I remember watching this movie on Saturday afternoons on a tiny black and white TV when I was a kid, and I loved every minute of it. I think this was the point when I fell in love with the Beatles. Watching a restored print (in color, finally!) and actually getting all of the bad puns and in-jokes just takes me back to when I was eight and trying to adjust the antenna so I wouldn't lose the reception during "Nowhere Man."

Damn. Now I don't want to go to happy hour; I want to go home and stay up all night watching movies. I guess I can do that tomorrow.