The Late Late Show

When it was announced that Stephen Colbert was replacing David Letterman, obviously I was kinda sad. I mean, I still remember the days back in my senior year of high school when I had the luxury to watch The Colbert Report on TV every weeknight. Even now, I still watch clips on his website every so often. But I wasn't terribly upset to hear that the show was ending, because in a way I felt like it was a good time for Colbert to retire the character and move on.

For some reason, I reacted to today's news of Craig Ferguson's departure from The Late Late Show with a lot more sadness. His humor really isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I've spent hours on Youtube just watching his interviews with his celebrity guests. I first discovered him when I stumbled upon a series of interviews in which he and my rock goddess idol Shirley Manson bonded over their Scottish heritage. From there, I've cracked up over countless interviews, such as he and James McAvoy's "Vortex of Scottish Charm."

My favorite clip though is the one I've embedded into this clip, when he explains his past history of alcoholism and why he refuses to make fun of Britney Spears. It's a really impressive balance of humor and gravity about an issue that has always bothered me about celebrity culture. I still remember my mixed feelings about the Internet reaction to Anna Nicole Smith's death, which Craig Ferguson touches on in this monologue.

Things I Did This Past Week

(aka the last half-week when Taylor Swift's "22" could still apply to me)
(aka the week of my golden birthday)

• Watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier in theaters and reaffirmed devotion to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers.
• Watched B.A.P perform live in Chicago with the best cheapest tickets in the house, at the front-row center mezzanine
• Mistook a stampede of screaming and crying fangirls for a mass disaster evacuation, only to realize upon reaching the second floor that they'd been the lucky ones to win the pass to high-five the band members before the show. Said band members were only a couple yards away from yours truly, who was watching the hysterical frenzy next to an open door.
• Accidentally ended up at the front of the crowd waiting for aforementioned band members to exit the theater. Again, esteemed people were only a couple yards away from yours truly.
• Had a food-coma-inducing birthday dinner at Dame's Chicken and Waffles with friends.
• Discovered that the Rando Cardrissian rule in Cards Against Humanity is the most hilarious thing ever.
• Nearly went home in eternal shame due to the fact that Rando Cardrissian was beating all of us until someone finally caught up and surpassed his black card score (that was me).
• Was bequeathed a flower in a paper-cup from sorority little. Flower is miraculously still alive.
• Completed watching My Love From the Stars, the newest and most popular k-drama that has since ruined lives all across Asia as people eat themselves sick on chicken and beer while lamenting their lack of a perfect alien lover man.
• Felt grumpily dissatisfied by the snoozeworthy final episode of aforementioned drama, in which nothing noteworthy happened between the first and last ten minutes of the hour-long episode.
• Felt strangely sad about the end of an era where YY and yours truly watched an episode every Tuesday and Thursday night and commentated via GChat on the absurdities and hilarities of an alien romance, complete with character nicknames such as Marshmallow (secret-softie alien man), Bricks (dumb-as-bricks corporate heir who miraculously grows a brain), Tears (incessantly crying wuss until she becomes a cold-hearted bizznatch), etc.
• Learned how to salsa dance with friends at a Friday night salsa dance social.
• Apologized profusely with awkward dopey laughter to amused/bemused/bored dance partners for utter lack of grace and elegance and dance skill at aforementioned salsa dance social.
• Ordered a Virgin Mary for the first time ever at Saturday brunch with the Koala. Did not regret forgoing the Bloody Mary afterwards.
• Ordered an unsweetened ice tea at Francesca's and stupidly realized afterwards that an iced tea in the South is not the same as an iced tea in California.
• Sat in aforementioned dessert cafe for four hours and churned out roughly 660 words, thus completing Chapter 11 of EP.
• Spent the rest of the evening accompanying the Koala and other young undergrad folks, which included pretending to still be a student and enjoying free midnight breakfast at the Pavilion.
• Teased the Koala for her romantic boyfriend fantasies, which are too hilarious to describe in words and only suitable to be conveyed in dramatic performance with wild flailing and embellished dialogue.
• Presumably gained an enormous amount of weight from all the restaurants I visited and all the slices of Guglhupf fruit tart I consumed in light of the celebratory season.
• Felt very touched by all the friends and family who got in touch with me over the past week to wish me a happy birthday, whether via Facebook or e-mail or text or in person.

Cheers to another good year.

An Ode to Captain America

 

Last Saturday, I finally watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Considering how much the good reviews had hyped it up for me, the film turned out to be everything I'd hoped it would be. Cap's interactions with Black Widow and Falcon were great--I love seeing that sort of camaraderie in movie friendships. The spy thriller plot kept me on edge all the way until the end, and there's that one scene where the Winter Soldier vaguely begins to remember his past, and oh man--Sebastian Stan was brilliant in acting that part. Also, Hayley Atwell! That scene was so bittersweet.

More than anything, this movie affirmed why Captain America is my favorite Avenger. I know I've mentioned before that people usually give me the side-eye when I say he's my favorite, since he's always been accused of being "boring" or "useless." I think more people are drawn to the flashy types like Iron Man, who I can't deny has his charms. But to me, Captain America is symbolic of the type of person I want to strive to be. In an interview with the writers of CA:TWS, they described his character as such:

McFeely: The temptation is to give him a dark night of the soul, have him tortured over whether he's doing things right.
Marcus: 'Should I become Dark Captain America?'
McFeely: But the world doesn’t change him, he changes the world. His A-plot was 'Do I belong here, is there a place in the world for me?' He doesn't doubt himself, he doubts where he's woken up. To marry that character story with a political story that demands it--that's where the conspiracy thriller comes in, making him not sure who to trust.

To me, this is key: The world doesn't change him. He changes the world. Even before he became a superhero, his actions have always stemmed from a place of sincerity in that he just wants to do the right thing. No ulterior motives or secondary agenda. And I don't know about you, but I admire that quality about him. To me, his character is the purest example of selfless heroism and inspires me to be better.

And another thing: in my teenage years, my family would joke about how my brother was the eternal optimist and I the eternal pessimist, to which I would counter that I was a realist. Now in my early twenties, despite my occasional unexplained bouts of gloom I would generally call myself a converted optimist who has learned to accept things as they come. Consequently, I've developed an allergy for people who are perpetually pessimistic. Just as happiness can be infectious, so can grumpiness--and I don't particularly enjoy being around people who put me in a worse mood.

Captain America's backstory carries a vein of tragedy, in that he wakes up in the 21st century to find that the world he knew has completely changed. Many of his friends have died since 1945. He has missed more than half a century's worth of time. But does he brood about this and throw tantrums about the unfairness of his fate? No, he makes a list of modern things to check out (e.g. Thai food, Marvin Gaye) and even cracks a joke about how it's nice that there's no polio. I would say he's more than entitled to some angst, but all the scenes we see in the films show him being almost absurdly optimistic about his situation.

YY and I had a conversation about this after watching the movie, and we touched on the fact that young women our age tend to go for types like Tony Stark/Iron Man--because these charming guys are wicked fun. But the truth is that I've never been compelled to romp around in hedonistic abandon. Given that I was Greek-affiliated in college, it's almost shocking how tame I have been. If I had wanted to rectify this, I could have done it easily, since I basically lived with a fraternity last year. But the young adult "crazy phase" seems to have bypassed me completely. So yeah, maybe I'm just as boring as Captain America and have the personality of someone from the 1940s. That's not to say that I snub my nose at people who do enjoy these things. Hello, I was a part of a sorority--if anything, the dramatist in me thoroughly enjoys poking her nose around the excitement, even if I personally don't want to participate. But ultimately, I appreciate someone who not only motivates me to be a better person but keeps me from relapsing to my pessimistic tendencies. And that, my friends, is why I love Captain America.

Starring Role

It almost feels like a joke to play out the part
When you are not the starring role in someone else's heart
You know I'd rather work alone, than play a supporting role
If I can't get the starring role.

-- "Starring Role" by Marina and the Diamonds

There are a couple of habits you pick up as a storyteller.

You become really good at remembering the minutiae of people's lives. You know that this person will eat only mushroom pizza and no other toppings. You know that this other person can recite the lyrics to every Backstreet Boys song ever recorded. You know that this person accidentally hit reply all to the work e-mail listserv, and so everyone saw him joke about hasenpfeffer in response to an email about an Easter Bunny photo-op at the hospital. You catalog all these quirks into your brain, because the best script-writing is happening all around you. You simply learn to pay attention better than anyone else.

You also develop the habit of seeing life around you as a story in the process of unfolding. If you're the type that shies away from attention, perhaps you imagine yourself in the supporting role to one of your dramatic friends. Maybe you're the witty one who makes snippy wisecracks about the heroine's mishaps, or maybe you're the sidekick who gets the inside scoop of every escapade. If you imagine yourself as part of an ensemble cast, you might wonder which of your friends has garnered the biggest fanbase among viewers, whose storyline has been the most consistently riveting, or which potential romantic pairing in your life do the viewers ship most rabidly.

So when things don't go the way you wanted, you learn to go with the flow, because you know that nobody writes a story where the dominoes all line up perfectly. Nobody wants to watch a TV show about a protagonist who gets everything he's ever wanted without facing a single setback. Maybe you had to fail here, in order to stumble onto a whole new and exciting narrative arc elsewhere. Maybe you weren't meant to attain that dream at this moment, because what's coming around the corner is so much greater than anything you could have achieved right now.

Maybe you and I have circled each other for so long, because our time wasn't then. It is now.

IF I STAY Movie Trailer

I don't think I ever reviewed If I Stay or Where She Went by Gayle Forman on this blog. For the record, those are two of my favorite YA books of all time. And to prove that point--yes, I own physical copies of both books. Bittersweet tragedy? Check. A family story at heart? Check. A high school love that revolves around music, featuring a classical cellist and a rock musician? Check. I didn't cry reading If I Stay, but that one definitely needs to come with a warning label for waterworks.

When I heard they were making a movie based on If I Stay, I didn't have much of a reaction, to be honest. As someone who generally prefers the book version over its film counterpart, I wasn't exactly squealing with joy at the news.

Then, I saw some photo stills from the set and felt strange about the casting of Jamie Blackley as Adam. I'd pictured Adam very differently in my head.

(Note: I have a soft spot for Adam because of Where She Went -- and not because I'm like one of those Team Edward groupies who's madly in love with a fictional character. If you've read Where She Went, you know what I mean.)

Then, I heard about Chloe Grace Moretz's backhanded comments on young adult literature in an If I Stay promotional interview, and I felt rather angry about it.

Then, I watched this trailer and all the negative feelings melted away, and I remembered why I loved the book so damn much. And also, I eat my words about Jamie Blackley, because at the moment when he says "It's too late. I see you" in the trailer, all these feels started bubbling up inside of me because dude, HE IS TOTALLY ADAM AND I JUST WANT TO GIVE HIM A HUG. And also, whenever that "Say Something" song pops up on the car radio, my roommate and I always make fun of it for being so weepy (not a weekend-road-trip-anthem or Monday-grocery-run-song in the slightest), but whoever made this trailer is a freaking artiste, because he/she managed to use this song in a way that not only did not have me rolling my eyes, but it actually made me feel something like sadness.

Anyways, point is -- I love this trailer. I still have my reservations about how this movie is going to turn out, but this trailer is definitely making a strong case for it.

Book Report: Dreams of Gods and Monsters

It's been established quite a few times here on this blog that when I fall in love with something, I fall hard. My attachments can become both fierce and long-lasting, and I will snarl at anything that tries smack them down. And when it comes to books especially, I become a full-fledged YAngelical and try to spread my love to everyone I know (i.e. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK OR YOUR LIFE WILL BE FOREVER INCOMPLETE).

Okay, I don't actually do that. Because I'm generally not the type that tries to impose the things I like onto others, because my tastes can be a wee bit eccentric. But secretly, I am DYING to have someone share my excitement. And unfortunately, none of literary-inclined friends quite have the same tastes as me, so oftentimes my recommendations are left unheeded and thus, I party alone.

Anyways, as mentioned previously, I pre-ordered the third and final book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. You know when's the last time I pre-ordered a book? Harry Potter. You know when's the last time I reached that level of excitement about an impending book release? Okay, maybe I was excited about Throne of Glass, but not enough to pre-order the book. No, the answer is Harry Potter. The book finally came yesterday afternoon. I put off reading it until after I came home from dinner and grocery shopping, which put me at around 9 PM. I even commented to my roommate, "Ah, I shouldn't start this book right now," just as I picked up the book and proceeded to sit on the futon.

And yeah, I basically did not move from that spot on the futon until 1:30 am. Which was a REALLY fast speed-read, given the size of that book. I finished it in around five hours and felt like my eyes had turned into lead. Which was really a poor life decision, because I have class on Tuesday mornings before work. And I also, I missed the total eclipse, which I'm not terribly bummed about because it was probably too cloudy to see anything last night. But anyways! Poor life decisions...

...that I don't regret one bit, because THIS BOOK!! This is how you write the final book in a trilogy, everyone. This is how you write an ending that feels bittersweet but whole, in that you're sad to leave this universe behind but you know you're leaving everyone in a good spot.

And normally I dive straight into spoilers and my thoughts on the book, but I'm not doing that here because my YAngelicism is kicking in and I want everyone would go out and read this trilogy without reading any spoilers, because I can't understand why this series is so underrated. Is it because it's not a dystopian? Because it's not a paranormal romance? Because you can't really fit it neatly into a box, because it's so strange and unique?

There might a thread of selfish motive in my proselytizing here, because immediately after I finished the book, I wanted to discuss it with SOMEBODY, but alas I have no friends who have developed such rabid affection for this series as I have. The eternal struggle of my life. Le sigh.

And on a final note, before I end this "report" (cough): ZIRI I LOVE YOUUU!!

Twice

Was it the blue night

Gone fragile

Was it about the men

In wonder steady gone under

Was it the light ways

So frightening

Was it a two wills

One mirror holding us dearer now

-- "Twice" by Little Dragon

Two hours after I'd risen, a vague feeling tugged at me, like when a sliver of lyrics splinters into your brain and, for the love of god, you can't remember a thing about the song it belongs to. I remembered nothing about what I had dreamed in the night--only that these melancholy bones respond to you like how the aching of arthritic joints portends rain. I could peer into the ocean depths and see nothing in that canvas of rippling darkness, but a sonar device would tell me what I already knew. Miles and miles below the water's surface, you lurk in the crevasses of my brain, a grotesque nightmarish thing that will never see the light of day. I do not need to see you to know you are still here.

Last Train Home

But we sing if we're going nowhere
Yeah we sing if it's not enough
And we sing
Sing without a reason to ever fall in love

-- "Last Train Home" by Lostprophets

The ground was still wet this morning. The slick black asphalt, wrung out by cars huddled in their morning commute, hissed with the spray of rainwater. The flowering trees had already shed their petals before the storm; I never did figure out if the blossoms were pear or cherry or plum. I tried not to step on the writhing earthworms, though they covered nearly every inch of the concrete sidewalk--some with half their bodies squashed flat by the fresh imprint of a shoe, others doomed prey to the robins or the rising sun. Fiddling with my headphones, I shuddered as I caught sight of a flattened frog, limbs splayed out beside the pinkish translucent worms that looked almost like intestines. Forty paces further, I saw black feathered wings shrouded in a funeral veil of crinkled brown leaves. The little bird looked so peaceful, lying on its side in that bed of brush with eyes closed shut, that it took me a moment to realize that it was dead.

I killed two crickets today. It wasn't on purpose, I swear. I was in the bathroom and about to take a piss, when I saw the two huddling in the corner by the bathtub. I didn't want to kill them. Not like my roommate, who took a wild swing at one that appeared above her bed last Sunday. I had grabbed the first container I found in the kitchen and swept them in before closing the lid. I didn't think they would die in the unwashed container, still slick with chili oil, did I? Find a cricket in the house and good luck has come. Kill the cricket in your house and bad luck will befall. They came to bring you good luck and you killed them the first instant you saw them? she teased when I called. Superstition had always been just a plaything. I had read those Feng-Shui books for fun as a child until she confiscated them. She didn't want my mind warped with such things. She didn't want me to observe death all around and wonder if something were about to happen.

DNF: Love in the Time of Cholera

It's official. I have officially slapped Love in the Time of Cholera with DNF status.

I loved Marquez's writing style, but good lord I was all out of fucks to give about Florentino Ariza. If you plan on reading this book, then you should probably stop reading right here.

The book starts off at the end of the timeline, with Urbino and his wife Fermina living in old age. Urbina dies in a mishap involving a pet parrot. Right at the end of his funeral, an old man approaches the newly widowed Fermina and re-proclaims his undying love for her. And thus almost immediately, Florentino and I get off on the wrong foot.

The book then rewinds to the beginning, when Florentino and Fermina are young and exchange secret love letters. Their courtship continues even after her father discovers the relationship and uproots the family to get away from him. When Fermina finally returns, she sees him in person and all the magic is lost (i.e. "WTF WAS I THINKING??!!"); she tells him she doesn't love him and soon marries Dr. Urbino, her father's chosen suitor, thus effectively demolishing Florentino's tender heart.

The rest of the story essentially becomes the tale of how Florentino pines "chastely" and "faithfully" for Fermina for the rest of his life. While sleeping with a ton of women on the side. I don't even remember the exact number, because there were too many to keep track of. Possibly hundreds. I have no idea what happens in the end, or how Fermina responds to Florentino's confession. I'd like to imagine that she tells him to GTFO and kicks him out of her house, but to be honest, I don't really care about what happens.

I'm not sure how this story is supposed to be interpreted. If it's supposed to be a sentimental romance about the endurance of love or something, then it completely rubbed me the wrong way. To me, there was nothing remotely romantic or beautiful about his lifelong pining. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and GET OVER IT, FLORENTINO. If it's supposed to be the story of one man's lovesickness-turned-mental-delusion that leads to him living a stunted life, then Marquez did a great job, but unfortunately I was so turned off by Florentino that I couldn't even bring myself to finish the book.

I do have to say, the book caused me to re-evaluate myself in ways that made me quite uncomfortable. I've read many stories in the past where I totally bought the "pining" bait, hook line and sinker. Not to mention that I participated in my own fair share for some years (cough). Also, there was an incident last semester that I've refused to blog about, but let's just say that when you're on the receiving end of unwanted attention, all that pining stuff just gives you the heebie-jeebies.

In other news, last week I decided to pre-order Dreams of Gods and Monsters, aka the final book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone triology. If you buy the first-print from Barnes and Nobles, it comes with a signed drawing of Karou by the queen Laini Taylor herself. And since my boss gave me a B&N giftcard for Christmas, it all worked out. CANNOT WAIT.

Progress Report No. 8

I AM DONE WRITING THE FIRST ACT WOOHOOOOOOO!!

Granted, it's only the first draft so at some point I'll have to go back and comb through everything with a surgical knife. Ugh. I also haven't written the prelude, since I plan on saving it for last when I finally nail down the ending. And I have a feeling that the first four chapters will need a ton of revisions, since I was still trying to get back into writing-shape at the time. But as of today, I've produced 37,745 words total--some of which was based on older drafts written in high school, but the majority is brand new material.

Some things I've learned along the way:

-- Outlining will help you nail your thoughts down, but it will likely all go to shit once you actually start writing. I tried plotting way too extensively before writing, which might have been a symptom of being way too intimidated by a blank Word document. Once the words finally started flowing, I moved scenes around, cut out events here and there based on where the story and character interactions were going. When I reread my outline just now, my first response was: HAHAHAHA.

-- Intuition is my best friend. I wrote an entire scene about Rory and Rhys' first meeting that was inspired by Flight of the Conchords' "Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)." It was cute but something felt off. I liked the scene a lot, but in the end, I ended up hacking off more than half of it and changed the direction of the scene. Now, I can rationalize my decision--the scene was too twee for the mood of the story, Rhys' behavior was a bit out of character, and it was jarring to allude to a modern musical group when I'd consciously avoided any recent pop culture references. When I finished writing the revised scene, that icky intuitive feeling was gone. This also applies to metaphors and figurative language. I'll write something I think is really clever, but then that icky intuitive feeling tells me to delete it. When I go back to it days later, I'm horrified by how terrible it is.

-- I've heard this piece of advice before, but it is completely true. Don't drain the well. I try to stop writing while I'm at a good place, so that there's less activation energy required the next day to start up again--as opposed to stopping after you've exhausted all your writing momentum, which leads to a huge block the next day.

--If I'm stuck, I will be guilt-free about reading books or watching TV. Sometimes, I'll see something that triggers an idea, and then I can go back to the drawing board. Or I go to the gym. Sometimes I'm so bored about mindlessly running that something will spark in my head.

-- One of my anxieties when I first started writing again was that I'd "lost my touch" from high school. Back when I worshiped Francesca Lia Block and Janet Fitch, the poetic language came like second nature. Then I went to college and wrote a ton of critical essays and worried that my writing was now too didactic. Now, I'm happy to say my writing's at a happy balance between the two. There were some old drafts with purple prose that I gagged at reading, so I can say I definitely improved.

Anyways, it's only 3 in the afternoon right now, but I have a feeling I should stop working for today. I have my work cut out for me with Act II, given that I don't have any old drafts from high school to build off of. It's already April, and given that I head to school in August, I don't have much time left to write so freely. But things have been smoother than ever, so hopefully I'll have several productive months in store.

--------------------Excerpt-----------------------

For a moment, nobody in the room moved. Then, the figure raised her bow and began to play the violin once more. Without the piano, the loneliness of the violin solo came out in a piercing cry, and at that moment, Rhys understood what the phantom wanted.

Hands shaking, he bent down to pick up the electric guitar. As he flipped the switch on the amp, he ran his hands across the strings, all perfectly tuned. A guitar pick had been laid out on top of the amplifier, and Rhys took it, feeling the plastic edge press into his fingers. He closed his eyes, counting the beats and visualizing the musical notes of the violin’s singing voice in his head.

Then, at the turn of the next measure, the howl of the electric guitar entered like a crackle of thunder before the first rainfall, like the crying gasp of a resuscitated breath. Several beats later, the drum and the bass entered the room, buoying the entwined melody of the violin and guitar.

Outside in the city of Eden, the central clock tower struck five as the carillon bells rang across the rooftops, heralding the entrance of late October dusk. But in the basement of Ecstasia, the only sound that could be heard came from the jagged enmeshment of four instruments—the drum, the bass, the guitar, and the violin. Though the frayed edges of memory were still slowly weaving back together, something new had been reborn in the music that echoed through the halls of the former opera house. Her Highness had returned.

Musings on Anastasia

https://novoed.com/creativity-music

Well, I just signed up for one of those free online courses at Stanford. It's called Creativity: Music to My Ears, and I really have no clue what it's gonna be like, but the fact that people like Mike Shinoda, Lily Allen, and Tegan & Sara are involved has piqued my interest. Haven't decided if I'm going to audit the course or not, but chances are I'll make an effort to actually be an active student. Plus, I'm really curious how the team projects will work, since people from all over the world are taking this class. Obviously I happen to have a lot of free time which is not the case for most people, but if someone is also bored and looking for something to do, come join me! The class starts tomorrow and lasts for six weeks.

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So I made an indulgent purchase last night. I found the DVD for Anastasia at Target for five dollars. It was the cheapest looking DVD cover I'd ever seen; the print quality was terrible and Dimitri looked like he'd gotten a bad nose job. But five dollars for my favorite childhood movie on DVD? I'll take it. Plus, my roommate had never seen the movie before, so obviously I needed to enlighten her on how incomplete her childhood was.

This is NOT the DVD cover I got. I have no clue why they couldn't just stick to the perfectly good VHS cover. A decade later, and I'm still digging Anya's WTF face, which perfectly encapsulates the batshittery she puts up with.

A brief history on my relationship to Anastasia.
This is the movie equivalent to Ella Enchanted in terms of how it's irrevocably nestled into the fibers of my childhood and thus my entire being, and how if anyone tries to diss it, the little girl in me WILL CUT YOU.

It's more tempered now that I'm old and financially independent and whatnot, but when I was a kid, if I became obsessed with something, I WENT ALL OUT. During my Sailor Moon phase in kindergarten, I had a Sailor Moon towel, Sailor Moon bookbag, Sailor Moon sneakers, a Sailor Moon t-shirt, two Sailor Moon dolls (Moon and Venus), and probably more stuff I can't even remember anymore. When Anastasia came out in 1997, I watched this movie in theaters, then later received the VHS as a present from my parents and watched it a billion times after that. For Christmas, I received an Anastasia doll--the one wearing the pale yellow dream sequence dress. For Valentine's Day, I gave out store-bought Anastasia-themed valentine cards. For my birthday, my mother let me pick out an Anastasia music box---and to this day, I still regret my brainlessness in picking out one of the most boring music boxes in the store instead of the highly-sought replica of the very important music box from the movie. What was I thinking? I have no idea.

At some point, the obsession died down and gave way to something else, though I can't remember what. Might have been The Parent Trap featuring Lindsay Lohan, because I also rewatched the crap out of that one as well. Anyways, for a long while I didn't watch it again until I think 2012, when E came over and I realized another poor soul had never seen the movie in her life.

Thoughts from 2014
So I did watch this movie relatively recently (in the last two years), but last night I tried to watch a little more critically and judge whether or not nostalgia was a key factor to my adoration.

Thanks to my American public high school education, I was more knowledgeable this time around about the history behind the Russian Revolution, especially the Romanov family and Rasputin. So that first scene of the revolution was just a wee bit uncomfortable to watch. But overall, the historical inaccuracies aren't very detracting once the story kicks off--you've just gotta think of it as a fairy tale that takes place in a quasi-historical setting.

My overall conclusion from last night's viewing--I won't call it the greatest animated movie ever, but goshdarnit, I am not embarrassed that I still like this movie. And here's how I break it down:

Sophelia's Recipe for Movie Instalove

A: What? Hey - why are you circling me? What were you, a vulture in another life?

1) Fiery heroine tells it like it is. I've always been drawn to the spunky heroines, and Anastasia is no exception. She and Dimitri get off on the wrong foot from the very beginning, which leads to some of the funniest banter in the movie.

Dimitri: Look I think we got off on the wrong foot.
Anastasia: Well, I think we did, too. But, I appreciate your apology.
Dimitri: Who said anything about an apology? I was just saying that...
Anastasia: Please don't talk anymore, it's only going to upset me.

Anastasia: [after waking up, flailing her arm and smacking Dimitri in the nose] Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone el - oh, it's you. Well, that's okay, then.

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Quite possibly my favorite sequence in the whole movie.

 2) Pretty dresses and fancy parties. This was obviously more important to me when I was a wee lass, but there's a reason why my second-favorite scene in Ella Enchanted is still the part when she goes to the last masquerade ball. (It's not the first-favorite because nothing can surpass the scene when she finally breaks the curse. NOTHING, I TELL YOU.)

All of Anastasia's dresses in this movie are gorgeous and, most importantly, SO SHINY. I can't even pick a favorite because she looks great in everything. My favorite scene, though, is probably when the dream sequence in the old palace when the dancing ghosts come out of the wall and the ballroom comes back to life.

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3) Put that soundtrack on replay. I have an unabashed fondness for musicals, whether animated or theatrical; however, my love depends a lot on how many songs end up on my playlist to be played over and over again. The Phantom of the Opera, Spring Awakening, and Beauty & the Beast rank very highly with me because I can listen to their soundtracks over and over again without skipping; as a counter example, there are really only two or three songs from Wicked that I like.

With animated movies, I weigh story more heavily over soundtrack, but good songs make a big difference. This might sound blasphemous (and may also be influenced by the nostalgia factor), but I actually prefer the Anastasia soundtrack over the most recent success story, Frozen. Months since I watched Frozen in theaters, I don't listen to any of the tracks much anymore. I actually didn't love "Let it Go" like everyone and their mothers; my favorite was "For the First Time in Forever." I was rather ambivalent about the other tracks. With Anastasia, I have quite a few favorites but once or twice a year, I will go through a phase and listen to "At the Beginning" over and over and over again.

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Anastasia = more than just about getting the dude at the end

4) Heroine's Journey. This is a little less straightforward than the other points, but I'll attempt to explain--once again, by referring to Ella Enchanted.

Ella Enchanted and Anastasia are both rooted in the traditional fairy tale formula, but they're more than your typical cardboard story where the end-all is marriage. Sure, I'll admit the respective love interests are both probably up there on my list of swoonworthy fictional characters (not that I actually made such a list or anything... cough), but when you look at the character motivations, that's where you get the meat of what I'm talking about. Ella and Anastasia aren't looking for love; the ultimate goal is not marriage.

Ella wants to break her curse, and her whole arc is built on this motivation. Her romance is woven into this arc because ultimately, she is only able to break the curse to protect Char--even though it means giving up a future with him. Anastasia wants to know who she really is and find the one thing she's never had--family. Dimitri plays a different role in Anastasia's arc, in that he ultimately forces her final choice. By the end of the movie, Anastasia knows who she is. The goal of finding family, however, takes on a different turn. The last decision she's faced with: stay with her grandmother (her last living relative) and live as royalty, or start a new family by eloping with Dimitri (who, as a former servant-boy and renowned conman, is below her royal station) and presumably give up the world of fancy dresses and balls. So yes, you can argue that ultimately it's another whoopdeedoo-marriage-ever-after ending, but I'd counter with the argument that choosing to be with Dimitri was the last step in Anastasia's journey to attain her goal.

*You could actually do this heroine motivation analysis on all the other Disney heroines, and the results might surprise you. I got the idea from this one article I read which argued that Frozen isn't actually the great feminist movie it's hailed to be. I didn't agree with everything the author said, but I thought her motivation analysis of Anna and Elsa was on point. Most Disney princesses actually have pretty clear goals in their story arcs (usually they even sing about it: Belle wants "more than this provincial life"; Ariel wants to be "part of [the human] world"; Rapunzel wants to "see the glowing lanterns gleam", etc.). Could you state Anna and Elsa's goals as clearly? In my opinion, not really. Which might explain why I didn't love the movie as much as everyone else. In fact, this recipe thing I've just written pretty much spells out why I didn't fall in love with Frozen:

1) Heroine: Anna falls under the somewhat-ditzy category of heroine that I've never felt much of a kinship towards (see: Ariel of The Little Mermaid). Elsa's just kind of a wet blanket. Who sends a snow monster after your own sister??
2) Pretty dresses and stuff: Okay, I'm one of the people who actually did like Elsa's "Let It Go" transformation, so I'll give Frozen points for that.
3) Music: As explained previously, wasn't quite up to par for my tastes.
4) Heroine's Journey: Ditto.