Author: Mitzi

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L.A. Film Fest and An Epic Lot of Epicness

The L.A. Film Festival started last Thursday ( the same day as the Lakers game that led to stupidity and the last day of E3 ) and tonight Patrick and I went to… it?

We went to the 8 pm screening of Katalin Varga. I don’t want to talk about the film (though it was good and I would suggest seeing it), I mostly want to talk about the experience of going to the film festival… which I sort of did but sort of didn’t. There seems to be this whole subculture of film festival fanatics. These people have passes! Like passes around their necks that they paid $200 for! I like movies and all but I don’t know if I’d be into paying that much to view some movies that I may or may not like. Though, I think I probably would watch them all if i had the time.

That kind of thing makes me wonder who these people are. I like to think they all know each other, they are like the discussion board members from Pattern Recognition. They have their little dramas etc. This makes it more interesting than the truth, which is that they are probably in the industry, or are reporters.

This post was not well thought out at all, nor did it really have a point. Oh well, LAFF, it’s here, it’s queer, get used to it.

Speaking of movies, check out the genius marketing that is being done for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (which I am very excited about seeing):

What if would look like in a Scott Pilgrim comic
What I really look like
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Too Many Strings

So there is a theory, not sure whose theory, that a person can only be active in up to three online communities at a time.

The same is probably true for blogs.

I have two main blogs that I use, one here and one at mitziyoung.com. The other is for the off chance that I should some day need a “professional” blog. The idea being the posts on the other site be more thoughtful and insightful than say, the video I posted earlier of “God Gave Rock And Roll To You”. So far though, the content is basically the same there as it is here. Although I actually posted more about Lost there than here.

I also have a Twitter account that I update daily and a Tumblr that I update more frequently than the blogs and less frequently than the Twitter. The obvious reason for this being the length of content and ease of posting. Twitter is fast and easy. Tumbler is just as easy, less fast. Blogging is the kind that likes to play hard to get.

Anyway, all of this you probably knew before (not about the accounts but about the ease of posting, etc.) I’m thinking the best way to do things now is to post here daily – or at least attempt to. I think I tried several 365 projects and they’ve all failed. Well, in the sense that I failed them. Really the easiest 365 project for me is Twitter.

Anything worth cross posting to the professional site will get reposted but this will be my daily journal, my dear diary – with discretion seeing as how this space is still pretty public. There is always the password lock entry feature, but what fun is that? Secrets aren’t fun unless more than one person knows it.

So there we go. Most days I won’t be able to think of anything to write, so maybe I’ll just post some links or pictures from today’s internet fodder.

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Lost: 80% Complete

Okay so May 21st I started watching the T.V. show Lost. Now, almost one month later (editor’s note: I was sick when I wrote this and thought it was the 18th) , I am in the middle of season 5 (out of 6).

nice Photoshopping

So far I’m not thinking the show is great. At least not as great as the six years of OMGLOST would lead me to believe. It’s good television I suppose, though I’m still waiting for the moral of the story. I feel like there is some metaphor that I’m not getting and I’m hoping that maybe it is made apparent at the end of the show. However, I’ve heard from many people that the last few episodes are pretty aggrivating. I don’t think I will be bothered by it since the most time I have invested is one month of my time.

One thing I do have to give them a hand for is how dedicated their audience is. They are great at the cliff hangers and mysteries that never get solved but reveal just enough to make you hang on for another few episodes.

I know there’s a lot of stories that happened behind the scenes that influenced the story lines in the show. For example, Anna Lucia being shot and dying was because Michelle Rodriguez has gotten a DUI while filming in Hawaii. Season 3 dragged and didn’t have any major plot points because it was filmed during the big LA writers strike.

So it’s interesting to see how the show developed, and it was definitely worth watching but I can’t say it was great or one of my favorite shows. I think they did some great things with the characters of John Locke and James “Sawyer” LeFlour but I think some of the other stronger characters were a bit predictable. I know the early dialogue was EXTREMELY predictable, as I was saying most of their lines before they were.

A common expression used on Lost : confusion

Anyway, will resume watching season 5 today as I am at home and sick with a cold. Maybe slipping in and out of consciousness will make things more even more interesting.

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Los Angeles: A Meta City

These bikes came up in my Google Reader today, via Design Sponge. Usually I’m not one for cruisers but these bikes are too irresistable to well… resist! They remind me of bikes used as transportation in old European cities, the kind with cobblestone streets that you can ride down with bike baskets filled with Italian food or French fromage. The kind of streets that are wide enough for about one and a half cars. Where said cars park a little on the street and a lot on the sidewalk. The kind of streets where tiny old ladies walk around carrying baskets of bagguettes or flowers with lace scarves covering their curly grey hair. 


 

I then started thinking about my own city in this way, Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure it would take nothing short of a miracle for Los Angeles to become European Cityesque, but what if it did? What would that look like? What if Los Angeles: VAST AND WIDE FRONTIER OF THE WEST was more like Los Angeles: the city of cities? 

I wonder if we could ever learn to put the cars away, take the bikes out and use them as our main mode of transport? The less we have to carry around the better. In my mind there are two main parts of LA, The East Side and The West Side. The East side consists of Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park, and Hollywood. The West Side is Venice, Santa Monica and Culver City. Imagine each of these neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods operating as self sufficient towns. They each have their own entertainment, their own restaurants and markets, they have their ownThen connect east side and west side with trains.

Would streets be more or less crowded? People would probably be happier. Communities would be more tight knit as you would see members of your community every day out on the street. I wonder what this would do for crime and racial segregation. I’m sure a lot of Americans would see this as a step backward. They  would never want to get rid of their cars. I wonder if there is a particular neighborhood that would be willing to carry out this kind of experiment.