don't fix what ain't broke?

I can appreciate a new, modern twist on a classic.  But even before I open my violin case I'm slightly defeatist about the contemporary Christian rock versions of traditional hymns that I will be playing for a Christmas eve gig.  I'm not against either genre as a whole; I quite like Christmas hymns and take prejudicial umbradge at the fact that they have been "modernized".  I'll have to wait to hear what it sounds actually sounds like, but I fear that the saying "don't fix what ain't broke" will apply to this music.

Still, there are much worse ways of making money, so I will stop complaining...now.

Instant reaction: ding dong, the Kim Jong Il is dead?

First reaction: suspicion.  It's not like North Korean media is a reliable source.  But I don't seen why they'd fake his death.  If anything, they'd be apt to put out propoganda that he's immortal.  After all, he was purported to not use the bathroom because he was superhuman and produced no waste.  Also he supposedly made like eleven holes-in-one in the first time he ever played golf because he's a supreme being.

Second reaction: what does this change? Reminds me of the announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death. Dang, a lot happened this year in this world, amiright? Seal team 6 seals the deal, they capture Whitey, and now the ruler of the hermit kingdom is no more. Dang.  But anyway, I'm disinclined to celebrate; he took over ruling North Korea from his father, and now his son looks like the most likely candidate to fill in the small but powerful shoes left behind.

Third reaction: be the one to tell my parents, who have actual opinions on this matter, having been born and raised in South Korea.

Fourth reaction: embarassing, but I'll admit it-- I wonder if this'll seep into the sixth season of 30 Rock.  The fifth season of this NBC comedy ended with (spoiler alert!) Avery Jessup (played by Elizabeth Banks, who'll be busy for the next few years with a big role in the Hunger Games movies) taken hostage by North Korea, forced to be a "journalist" there, and maybe married to an officer.  The sixth season is currently in production, and I wonder if/how the writers will incorporate this news into her plotline.  But more importantly, I wonder if they're bring Margaret Cho back to give another devastating impersonation of le deceased

Everyone loves a good story(teller)

In Peter Pan, Wendy is highly regarded by everyone-- Peter, the Lost Boys, all the pirates-- for her storytelling abilities.  In that sense she's reminiscent of Scheherazade, the woman who had to keep telling stories to entertain the king, lest he get bored and decide to kill her.  In both cases, being a storyteller is related to being female; to me this is special/strange because most of the prominent storytellers I can think of are all male.  When I think of the word griot, a storyteller who passes on oral traditions, I see an African male.  I think of Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grimm, Walt Disney...

Life is just a series of stories, some interesting and some not.  In his appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon actor Patton Oswalt explained his take on being an actor:

Basically, it's great to earn money, but it's great(er) to have a memorable experience that over time will become an anecdote to relate at a dinner party or some other social event.  I feel the same way, and that sometimes it's worth some present-day discomfort that can be crafted to yield the laffs in the future.

Poor Captain Hook, and some other thoughts

I finally saw a live-action non-musical movie version of J.M. Barrie's eternally youthful male Peter Pan.  I was only slightly acquainted with this story as a child and until now only saw snippets of the Disney version, the famous live-action one with a woman in the titular role, and Hook, which is more of a contemporary modernization of the show than a proper movie adaptation.

I don't tend to sympathize with the villian, but in this case I feel bad for poor ol' Captain James Hook.  His goal in life is to defeat a child-- a smug little boy-child!-- and he's lost his right hand to a ticking crocodile (symbolism of a biological clock or something?), and <SPOILER ALERT> he dies alone with no one (well, no female) to love or mourn him.  This guy's got it rough, and I pity the fool.  And there's some real Oedipal/Electraesque (Electracal? Electran?) about the fact that he and Mr. Darling, the father, are traditionally played by the same actor to better highlight the poignant struggle between children and parents when it comes to growing up.  It's not hard to see why this is a children's classic, but it's also so very tragic and heartbreaking.  It is true nostalgia, for algia is Latin for "pain", and nostalgia is to "remember with pain".  That is what it means to realize that you're not a child any more, and it's rougher than realizing that you're too tall to enjoy the McDonald's or Burger King play time area.

Still, I enjoyed the movie and think it was artfully directed.

Five senses of autumn

Autumn sounds like
- noses being sniffed
- leaf blowers mimicking the lawnmowers of summer and spring
- fallen leaves scraping, tapping the pavement
- swaying tree branches, dry leaves bristling in the wind
- seasonal sneezes
- people mourning the impending winter

Autumn smells like
- dry dirt
- warm spices-- cardamom, cinnamon, cloves
- apples
- earth

Autumn tastes like
- apples
- pumpkins
- herbal tea
- bitter air
- fear

Autumn feels like
- brisk, cool winds
- air that starts to dry out the skin
- red noses
- leaves crunching underneath shoes

Autumn looks like
- quietly flaming trees

Classical music rocks! Really!

Classical music is largely the genre composed by dead white (European) men, true, and has a reputation for being boring and pretentious—so much so that a few years ago some convenience store owners decided to blare it outside their doors to keep out ne’er-do-well teenagers.  I believe that the owners were successful in keeping out the bored adolescents that haunt these places, but I’m guessing they alienated other people, too (some of them "thugs"? eh, gives me uncomfortable feelings about classism...).

For me, baroque music is the hardest to appreciate unless you’ve actually played it before.  Beethoven straddles the line between this older, stodgier classical music and the more dynamic classical music, the kind that elicited polarizing reactions.  I wonder if any of those owners played any of Beethoven’s symphonies; I think those pieces are the easiest to get into for the beginning classical music appreciater.  I’ve recently gotten more into Rachmaninov, who is complex but not obtuse, emotional and passionate but also maintains nuance.  Maybe my favorite composer is Dvorak; in season 2 episode 7 of Glee the theme from the last movement of his “New World” Symphony was played for a few seconds to the slo-mo visual of a sneeze, turning it into an Epic Sneeze.  I’m not a rabid fan of that show any more, but I have to hand it to whoever chose that music to go along with that footage.  I squealed out loud at that part, because I instantly recognized that music and was delighted that thousands of Glee-watchers had also heard it and enjoyed it and have been exposed to some Dvorak.  Again, it’s not much, but I’m grateful for what it was, and I hope that other shows put in bits of classical music.
(could not find clip of the scene on Youtube, sneeze music starts at 0:16)

This genre is still changing and evolving, despite its name.  There are some pretty out-there, intellectual modern classical music symphonies out there—I’ve played a few of them.  Think of the soundtrack for Inception, which had the traditional symphony orchestra but included electric guitar—epic.  Really, how many things are more epic than that, than that movie’s soundtrack?!  I won’t begrudge Trent Reznor’s Oscar win, but Hans Zimmer is an awesome, cutting-edge composer who is building off this supposedly-dull music genre.

Classical music will never die, muahahahaha!

smoke, no fire

I am against smoking; I'm generally dubious of any substance that is taken in to the body through smoke.  I'm all for sinus-clearing steams and vapors but I don't take to something that is rolled and lit.  The only kind of smoke I like is the scent that lingers after a campfire has been put out.  One time I didn't wash a shirt for an week after wearing it because it still carried that woody-smoldering scent and I had no desire to lose it quite yet.

I write this rant because yesterday I went outside to enjoy a bit of unexpectedly good weather and breathe some fresh air (having been inside and inhaling the staleness of reused building air) and took in a deep breath of secondhand smoke, which came wafting over from the crowds of smokers who also were taking advantage of the nice weather.  Now, I completely understand unhealthy addictions, and in this day and age people who smoke know that it's unhealthy, it's bad for you, etc.  But after giving it more thought, what really kills me is that smoking disproportionately affects the poor, just as obesity and playing the lottery are habits/lifestyles (some word like that, I have a hard time getting concise words at the moment) that are mostly or more commonly found in people with lower incomes or close to the poverty line.  Taxes on cigarettes are great in that they bring in more revenue at the state but also make them slightly more expensive and give slightly more incentive to stop smoking-- even a pack a week habit is expense, moreso that coffee (okay, depending on your cigarette and coffee).  But then we have a bunch of people who have tight budgets and spend chunks of it on a legal, carcinogenic, habit-forming drug.

I remember feeling confused when a picture was released showing cigarette smoking Patrick Swayze a few months before his death.  He died of pancreatic cancer, and I'm guessing that the reasoning behind this was that the man was going to die soon anyway, seeing as that type of cancer is hard to treat and beat, so why not let the guy have some puffs?  I guess it still bothers me, but I get the logic; I mean, he already had cancer, it wasn't like smoking could significantly debilitate him any more.

Stream of consciousness: Benefits of writing every day

http://lifehacker.com/5844427/a-sure+fire-approach-to-improving-your-writing-and-getting-over-writers-block

this article, saying that writing on daily basis will help you write in general.  i agree, and that was part of the motivation for keeping this blog up.  okay, sometimes i cheat and if i have more than one idea that's been simmering in my head on a particular day i'll write a bunch of posts so that i have something for the days of drought when it's 11:30pm and i realize i have to put something up here.

unlike the article suggests, sort of, my intent here is quantity over quality: i want 365 posts. some of them are just barely three sentences long and written in a matter of minutes, and a few of them were posts that i actually wrote and edited over the course of several days.

but i have still been practising some of the things the article outlines: don't make this a diary.  this isn't a diary for me about 'this is what i did today' but an attempt to be a little bit more reflective.  not really THAT analytical, except for some of the commercials, and even then a lot of it is just stream of consciousness/raw reactions to something, not necessarily searching my thoughts and challenging my preconceived notions on x y z.

writing something--even if it's drivel-- is better than nothing.  i've gotten better at allowing myself not just to write terribly but to let it be public-- and public in the sense that anyone on the internet can read this.  i like writing drafts, and do the practice of the vomit draft, which is pure stream of consciousness and writing what comes to my head, even if i acknowledge as i'm writing or typing it that it's nonsense, stupid, reveals my smallness in terms of lack of mental capacity, shows that i'm not as smart as i think i am or present myself.  i've written this as such, as pure unedited writing just to demonstrate.  See-- i didn't even capitalize some things or concern myself with grammar, proper syntax or whatever it is called.

it doesn't seem like my writing will improve as a result of this mind-dump but keeping it up every day will, according to this article, still help in the long run.  Right now i have a surfeit of ideas i want to blog about in the future, and i am saving this post for a 'rainy day', for when i don't feel like writing and have no time or energy to write.  cheating, i know, because i SAID i was going to post something every day BUT that doesn't mean i have to necessarily WRITE something every day, hahhahaha loophole! ah, but see, now I feel guilty about this habit of mine and I feel guilty for having revealed this to you, the reader.  okay, so i resolve that from now on i WILL in fact write every day, but i will not necessarily post what i have written that day, for sake of my pride and an attempt to put out better quality posts (excluding this one, of course).

Numbers

Today is September 11th, 2011.

Yesterday was the 10th, or, as Americans also write it, 9/10/11.  It doesn't entirely make sense as to why we in America put the date as month/day/year; I'm sure there's some fascinating (to me, anyway) story about why we do it this way but it's still not logical.  I think that in Europe they go from smallest to largest (day/month/year) and I can't speak for Asia as a whole but in Korea the date is listed by the year first, then the month, and finally with the day.

Nine, ten, eleven.  Most of the world uses base 10 in counting, and makes a big deal about anniversary years that are multiples of 5 and 10.  But we all start with one.

1: the beginning.  Everyone wants to be number 1.  Number one also refers to urination (why?)

2: can refer to defecation (again, why?).  Silver medalist, not bad at all.

3: good things come in threes?  Bronze medalist, just made it to the podium.

4: in Chinese this number is bad luck because it sounds like the word for "death". 4-1-1 refers to info.

5: halfway to ten! Number of fingers on a hand, toes on a foot (usually).

6: Sixth is "sexto" in Spanish.  From Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss, the toughest tongue twister: the sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick"

7: Lucky number in American/Western lore.

8: Homophone of "ate".

9: Almost at ten.  Why do the digits 9-1-1 refer to emergencies?  Why these three digits?  I wonder what the number for emergencies is in other countries. Which reminds me of this silly little clip from another one of my beloved BBC/Channel 4 sitcoms...

10: Back to seriousness.  The big one-zero, the first of the double digits if we go by Arabic numerals.  A decathalon is ten events, a decade is ten years, December is the...twelfth month.  Again, things don't always make sense. 

Again, it's hard to make sense of this world.  But there's still hope...

Stream of consciousness: embarazada

A cognate is a word that sounds the same and has the same meaning in different languages.  Examples: in Spanish the words medicina, dormitorio, chocolate mean medicine, dormitory/room, and chocolate in English, respectively.  But, I think I've mentioned before, there are false cognates, or words that sound or seem the same but don't directly translate.  One case that's brought up often and used to comic effect is the Spanish word embarazada.  You would think that it means "embarassed", right? Wrong: it means 'pregnant'.  Can you imagine the hilarious accidental situations in which a novice Spanish speaker might misuse this false cognate?

But why is it so?  Why does the Spanish word for "pregnant" sound like the English word for "deeply ashamed"?  For generations, eons, woman's purpose in life was to procreate (after having been legally married, of course); it would only make sense that showing signs of pregnancy would be cause for happy emotions and celebrations, and not shame...unless it were an "illigitimate"/"bastard"/"unexpected" birth.  That's the explanation I can think of right now.  Today we see female celebrities dressed very stylishly throughout pregnancy, showing off the progress of their baby bump.  There's even a show called "Pregnant in Heels" that, to my knowledge, features a pregnancy concierge to help an expecting mother look fabulous throughout her term.  But it's only been recently that the pregnant woman was seen as beautiful or remotely sexy.  There's a lot of negativity directed at female bodies in general.

Take the word "hysteria" too.  Another word with the same suffix: hysterectomy, which is the surgical removal of the uterus.  Coincidence? No; I think it was in Victorian times that it was thought that the womb/uterus floated around a woman's body, and that this movement made a woman so disturbed that she was hysterical, experiencing hysteria.  Recently the trailer for a movie of the same name came up, and I have high hopes for it.  Not a serious-face period drama, but that's what makes it enticing, to me: it's a comedy-- a sex comedy at that-- which is set in a traditionally stuffy time period, and it focuses on an...interesting subject matter.

42253

September just started and it's only begun to feel like autumn outside.  Christmas is a long way away, right? Well it's around this time of year that my ballet school would hold auditions for roles in the second most famous ballet of all time: The Nutcracker.  In my nine-ish years of ballet I auditioned three times, and thrice I was cast in a different role of this production.  But this post will focus on just one audition process.

42253 was the number I was given to pin to my leotard, the way runners have bibs in races.  The 4 was for my level, the two 2s the class number, and 53 for my height.  We young dancers were made to audition by level and lined up in order of height.  Our judges were high level ballet teachers and the choreographer and his/her assistant, and we were all terrified of them. They never smiled, and sometimes would converse with each other behind their hands and point to a girl and make notes.  In my mind's eye they are all white, an even balance of male and female, all dressed in form-fitting black clothes, and carrying themselves like dancers even as they were sitting in their chairs.  Of course I was nervous.

Also, that year, I missed my audition time.  I don't know whether the blame lies with me or my mother, who was to chaperone me that day, but I arrived while my peers were auditioning.  Luckily it wasn't as big a deal as I thought it to be and they let me go in with the level 3 girls.  Oh, but that still left me shaking like a leaf when I entered.  Each level wore a different leotard; level 3 was forest green and level 4 navy blue, which are both pretty dark hues, but I definitely stuck out and it was obvious that I wasn't meant to be there.

Whatever steps we were asked to perform, I executed them to the best of my ability.  Despite my nervousness I must've done well, because I did end up receiving a callback for auditions the next day.  The role that I secured that time was the most fun out of the three I did.  This is the only audition for which I remember my ID number, because I had it for so long.  I can still hear the choreographer calling my number, and how happy and relieved I felt to hear it.  I don't think that this experience is a metaphor for my life, nor do I feel that this is a turning point or huge moment in my life, not in the least.  But just as my birthday and cell phone number are numbers I won't easily forget, so is 42253 memorable.

the end.

On a 9/11 musical, sort of.

In an earlier post I professed my love for the UK television program "Skins".  I've only seen the first two of three seasons; the last season features an almost entirely different cast.  Anyway, the second episode of the second season features a 9/11 musical, with the cast occupying various roles on and off stage. 

I think there was an off- Broadway or off off-Broadway musical on the same topic, titled "Clear Blue Tuesday" or something of the sort.  I believe that the musical in this show is called "Osama: The Musical!" (or, again, something of the sort).  Oh, the show is available to view on Hulu. I haven't the time or energy to rewatch it but I clearly remember how incredibly tasteless it was...and that was sort of the point.  In the show, the school's director wrote the musical himself, and though he is British he claims that he's a New Yorker at heart.  Yeah, right.  One of the lines from the main song is "Then came the day Osama blew us away/oh yes he blew us away", and in the opening number "hey girl" is made to rhyme with "bagel" (it works better if you try on a British-ish accent).  Like I said it's incredibly tasteless, tactless, and therefore hilarious in a sort of twisted way.  Don't get me wrong, I find little humor in the events of that day, it was devastating to say the least.  The musical as produced in this show is deliberately cartoonish and exhibits the worst of all the cliches and hallmarks of cheesy jazz-hands Broadway musicals, and that is what makes it darkly, bitingly funny.  It's nevertheless haunting, though, to remember the events of that day, even in this setting.

I bring this up because September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday in the second full week of the month, just like today.  But today was mostly overcast.

thoughts on Pan's Labyrinth

Stream of consciousness writing, vomit draft, raw & largely unedited thoughts on the aforementioned film.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” is another one of those movies I had meant to watch for ages but kept finding one reason or another to put it off until later.  I have this feeling against casually watching movies that demand more attention.  This seemed like a fairly prestigious film, one that had been nominated for an Academy Award and therefore made me sort of sigh reluctantly at the thought of having to block out time to watch it.  Plus, it’s a foreign film and necessitates the reading of subtitles for the duration of the film.  I hate to fall under the figure of stupid ugly American who won’t watch a good movie because she has to read subtitles.  Basically it was an accumulation of little excuses that deterred me from discovering this gem, and I’m glad to have finally watched it.

 This film is deserving of its R rating.  I’ve definitely seen more grisly, bloody violence in other movies but there’s something very primal and psychologically disturbing about the violence in this movie, which I admire of it.  Having seen the film more than once I know when to close my eyes and ears—not just the sights but also the sounds that accompany them are equally terrifying.  It is very much an adult fairy tale.  This sounds misleading, as if there is some “adult content” that children should not know of until they reach a certain age, but it is not the case with this movie.  It is just that children would probably have nightmares about it, and there are heavy topics that would have more of an impact with adults who can process the psychological and historical occurrences.

I’m not sure if I would go as far to say that director Del Toro is a feminist but he certain puts a lot of womb-like elements into the set direction.  There is something very pro-woman in this film, which goes against and in contrast to the very male, fascist antagonist figures.  I know that he went against typecast with his actresses; for the deferring mother he cast a woman known for playing strong independent females, and for the strong surrogate mother maid he cast an actress who typically plays more of a femme fatale, lusty eye candy for men.

A real grown-up fairy tale, very well told by director Guillermo del Toro.  A wonderfully brave and not too precocious nine year old actress plays the protagonist.  Wi would tell anyone who dismiss fantasy as kids stuff to watch this and have them change their minds.  Some truly gripping, terrifying scenes that don’t show violence but hint at it, which makes it all the more gasp-inducing.  I’ve read somewhere that its really a horror film disguised as a fantasy, which it may well be.  And really, if I hahad known it was so violent I probably never would have seen it.  However, that wasn’t the only impediment/deterrent that prevented me from getting around to watching this.  Sometimes I like to watch something that I can put on in the background and sometimes I want something “meaty”, something I can chew over, some food for thought.  I heard much acclaim about this movie and worried about finding the time for such a prestigious work.

OMG SHOES

http://www.nataliedee.com/

Why are women's and men's shoe sizes numbered differently?  Women are supposed to have daintier feet, yeah, I know, and we are vain and lie about our what size we wear to make ourselves feel better.  But then why is a men's shoe size 3 the same as a woman's size 5?  I mean, on the flip size, guys want to be able to say they wear a bigger shoe size because you know what they say about men with big feet, a-ha ha ha... But seriously, why are they different in the first place? I sorta get why it's different when it comes to clothes because women have curves in varying places, widths, girths, etc; additionally we have more styles of clothing than men do-- I'm aware I'm grossly generalizing based on U.S. fashion and trends. Okay, focus: why the difference in shoe sizes? Feet are feet.  Women and men walk in different shoes but that doesn't mean that the feet inside are built differently to accomodate the footwear.

Opening Night

The opening night show is almost never the best show-- not to say it's the worst of a shows run, but it's not usually the one held in apotheosis.  Ah, but opening night is still (dare I say it) magical in its own right. Why? Well, every show is one that no one else has seen before, but the first one is the first time that anyone has seen that particular show-- ever.  And even a bad (unresponsive) audience brings something new to how everyone involved in the production goes about the show.  From having read and heard the script over and over you know where audiences are supposed to laugh and it's soo rewarding when they actually do laugh (and slightly devastating/disheartening when they don't).  But sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll get a surprise and get 'em to react to something that you didn't know was supposed to be funny or sad or surprising or unsettling.  And sometimes unexpected occurances come in the form of technical difficulties and not-yet-ironed-out problems with sound systems, lights, actor cues, etc.  But it's okay, because everyone is running on Opening Night nervous optimism, it'll be okay, it's just the first show, things'll get better!

A violinist's deformities

The violin is one of the most technically challenging instruments to play.  For example, the movement of the right arm holding the bow and stroking it across the strings is not one that comes naturally.  There's a certain way that you have to position your arm and move it within the three parts that it breaks down into: the shoulder joint, elbow joint, and wrist joint.  I could go on.

Because of the physical demands of playing the violin, a violinist's body becomes altered-- maybe not noticeably so, but still the change is there.  It may appear on the neck, as a violinist's (or violist's) hickey.  It might appear on the left hand fingertips, which have become slightly flattened and calloused, with the fingerprint lines blurred.  Maybe their right arm is more developed than the left arm, although I can think of a few other activities that might cause and exacerbate this issue.  Or maybe the person may favor to physically lean to the left as a result of having the violin on the left shoulder.  I'd say the last three of these four apply to me, and that I've only recently noted the last one.  Whenever I braid my hair on one side I like to leave it hanging on my left side.  I've always felt more comfortable with it there, and after thinking about it one day realized that it's probably because I've spent 10+ years with a violin on that same shoulder and having extra weight on the other one just seems...wrong.  Also, I've noticed when staring off into space during class lectures I tend to glance to the right, and it's just more comfortable and natural for my head to pivot to the left.

Improv

I am highly impressed with anyone who can improv, whether it's in terms of acting or music.  Okay, so in a sense, everyday life is improv because our daily interactions are unscripted and unpredictable no matter how much planning and scheduling may be involved.  But improv really is something else, in being able to come up with something entertaining and pleasing right on the spot, in front of other people. 

Whenever I've had to give a presentation in class I tend to just wing it.  I don't like working with note cards, I usually writes some notes on a sheet of paper and refer to it from time to time.  I usually have a good sense of what I want to talk about and the order in which I want to give my points.  I'm not much of a talker in real life, but somehow I feel pretty good about giving presentations and speaking about my topic for the required amount of time.  I don't really count this as improvisation though, because in this scenario I'm 'performing' by myself and know in advance the topic on which I'll perform.

Jazz improv particularly impresses me.  I've played a musical instrument for most of my life but I've had no training in improv and don't feel like I have the fascility with my instrument to the point of being able to come up with pleasant melodies off the top of my head or just go with the flow.  I wish I had that kind of ability to just close my eyes and feel the music in my fingertips.

thoughts on movie violence...

It's hard to say which I think is less bad: stylized violence or realistic violence.  I'm going to refer to the Kill Bill  films as examples of stylized violence and The Departed as one that has violence that is over the top but still too realistic for me to call it stylized.  (Spoiler alert for the movies).  Stylized violence exists for the audience to enjoy, where the Bad Guys and Good Guys are clearly delineated.  I shied away from watching any Tarantino film for a while because I heard about how violent they were, yet when I finally got around to watching one I found out that I liked them.  The story-telling and dialogue are whip-smart, but also the violence is stylized and unrealistic so I could sort of distance myself and remind myself that it was just a movie I was watching.  On the other hand you have “The Departed”, which is very much set in the real world, where people get beaten up and shown to be in pain, real pain.  The violence is over the top because the situations are over the top, and the violence serves to emphasize just how badass and cold-blooded the characters can get.  What’s better: hand to hand violence or gun violence?  I could argue that the former is better because it is more real, but then the latter evens the field a little more; you don’t have to be physically fit to shoot someone.  But “The Departed” has a lot of non-gun violence in it as well.  At the bottom of it, these are action movies—but with great dialogue!  In horror movies the whole point is to shock or gross out the audience with stylized violence. 

I can’t tolerate horror movies.  I know that the kind of violence portrayed in these movies is also very stylized and unrealistic, but I don’t get anything out of watching people get tortured and scream in pain.  That kind of violence isn’t warranted, to me; oftentimes it’s senseless killing and there’s nothing that smart or thought-provoking about it...

Unintentional eye contact

I'm a dreamer, and sometimes I'll zone out while staring at a fixed point in space; it might be a spot on the ceiling or someone's face, just as long as it's in my line of vision.  Unfortunately this can lead to An Awkward Situation: accidental/unintentional eye contact with a near-stranger.  Usually it's someone I don't know very well.  This is easy to do during orchestra rehearsals, when I daydream and just happen to be staring at whoever is across from me within another instrument section.  I don't study that person's face but merely rest my eye on that person's visage, and inevitably they'll accidentally look my way since I'm probably in their line of vision and...there's that brief moment when we'll look at each other, and then we blink and look away.

Going Solo

These are some of the movies I've seen in theaters by myself:
3:10 to Yuma
Atonement
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Inception
Rango
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few examples...in any case, these are the ones that came readily to mind and they are listed in the order in which I saw them.

What kind of loser goes to the movies alone?
Me! I do!

Why?
Two reasons:
1) Impulsivity.  In the case of the first three and Rango, I happened to have some time at my disposal and saw them on a whim.  I had wanted to go see all these movies and I just happened to be near a theater and have enough time to sit down and watch something before going somewhere else.  With the exception of Forgetting Sarah Marshall I saw all the movies in almost-empty theaters, which was really nice in that I didn’t worry so much about annoying movie patrons (e.g. people who have side conversations throughout the movie, or text constantly, or make loud crunching noises, etc.)
2) Impatience.  I really would’ve liked to see Inception and the last Harry Potter film with a group of friends, but it just didn’t work out logistically.  Determined to watch it before accidentally getting it spoiled for me by happening upon something about the plot on a website I frequent, I chose to watch the film by myself at time that was convenient for me on the day that it came out. 

I don't regret watching any of these movies by myself, but it would've been nice to get to discuss it with a friend immediately afterward.  I still go to the movies with a friend or two and enjoy that experience as well.  But there's something really satisfying-- maybe selfishly so-- to just sitting down by myself without having to find a seat for my companion(s) or talk to anyone else or wonder what anyone else is thinking.  If I'm by myself I might feel less inhibited to cry during the movie, and more likely to laugh aloud at things that are only hilarious to me.

When I see a trailer or read about a movie I don't automatically think "A-ha! That's a movie I want to see by myself!"  Going solo to the theater just happens sometimes, and while I don't actively seek out that experience I still relish it and look forward to it.