SimpleWeblog

Music Review site

Random notes:

• Login for different authors

• Edit queue - approval before being posted

• New Reviews page - based on date

• Artist list page - sorted, link to an artist page, album reviews

• Artist page - artist reviews, album reviews (links?)

• Album page - album reviews, link to artist

• some kind of relationships? see also / if you like this you should try...

Writing to an audience

I've heard that one of the keys to succesful technical writing is to know what audience you are writing for. It seems like that is a key for any kind of writing that wants to convey information. Which begs the question, for this site, of what the point is? I guess it is really just for me, so I shouldn't worry about this whole issue. I should write what I feel like, what I am interested in, and not be worried about what other people will think about it.

Not that I ever seem in danger of giving out the URL, anyways.

Soccer Game: Loss, 4-0

I'm not sure about the score, but I know we didn't score, and they scored several times. But I think they only scored once in the second half, which was nice. Maybe twice, which would make it around 5-0, but whatever. We still can't control anything in the midfield. The defense came together a bit more in the second half - we actually held positions, and covered people, and it was nice. I had an OK game, but totally got beat by one really good guy on the other team several times in one on one situations. Oh well. It was just frustrating to lose again, 6 games in a row. I still feel like we are improving, but we still seem to be playing at a different level than the other teams, and obviously not in a good way.

Movie Review: Planet of the Apes (Burton)

It looked really nice, but it was not entertaining, and veered into downright terrible by the end. Very disappointing. Makes me think I shouldn't bother to go see Sleepy Hollow. I don't even want to go into all the problems - the plot was stupid and filled with inconsistencies.

I would easily have rather seen a full-length version of the Planet of the Apes musical from The Simpsons. And I don't usually like musicals.

As for this movie, though, I just need to try to forget it ever happened. Maybe I can get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Movie Review: Dreaming of Joseph Lees

Wow, it has been a while since I did a movie review. Well, relatively. I didn't really mean to watch this one, either, but Tivo recorded it, and it seemed to be a nice change of pace from the lousy summer movies the work group has been going to. And it was a decent movie, telling a story about a love triangle in 1950's England. And everyone loves to watch the girl leave the boring guy to spend time with the exciting guy, right? Heh. But they gave her an out in this story, so you could keep liking her. And it started to ask about how responsible people should be for each other, and about whether you can change your mind once you make someone a promise. The answer has to be yes, but it seems like you need to do a tough job to communicate that properly. But I was probably reading a lot more into this film than is healthy for me. Samantha Morton does a good job as the protagonist, and everyone else seems to do ok. Nothing special, but nothing really offensive, either.

Soccer in the Sun

I guess this is just soccer weekend for me - today was the MLS all-star game, tomorrow is my (slightly less glamorous) game. The all-star game was fun, but the sun was just oppressive. I put on sunscreen, and still got burned. Maybe I sweated it all off. The game itself wasn't the greatest soccer exhibition I've ever seen - the defense really does let a lot of stuff by, so we got to see 12 goals. Landon Donovan scored 3 quick goals, which was impressive to see. (I wonder if we could convince him to play a game on our team?) Then the east came back, but there was never any real tension until the end when the east was up by one and regulation time ran out, and it seemed like the ref was letting the stoppage time keep going and going. But the west scored again, and came out with a tie. A tie really isn't the most impressive end to the game, according to the non-soccer fans we went to the game with. And the play itself wasn't too impressive for the soccer fans. So I'm not exactly sure who this game is designed to appeal to. But we did get to see some sky surfers (a terrible spectator sport, although the landings were neat) and lots of fireworks. And a band that won some downtown San Jose club battle of the bands competition, which apparently wasn't much of a contest. The crowd for the game seemed pretty good, with a diverse mix of people. But I think I should make more of an effort to see real games. Too bad there is only one Cyberrays home game left (unless they make the playoffs!).

RSS in Greymatter

Here is a way to do the RSS thing in GM. Which seems pretty easy, although you are limited to only the 2 previous entries. So maybe it would still be worth it to do a little perl hacking and add in a configuration option for creating the file? Hrmm. I'm almost motivated to do it now, but knowing that I will have to be doing a bunch of coding at work later today makes me think it might not be such a good idea. What would it be like if my work coding could be on fun little projects like this? Hrmm. I'd probably miss making big, crazy software.

Silly Weblog

I will try to keep updating this every day (and hopefully with things a little more interesting than random, one line comment...) but I've actually made some attempts at the cartoon thing lately, so I am going to use that as another possible "production, not just consumption" thing. And I don't even have to worry about sharing it with other people. Not that anyone knows about this, yet.

Hrmmm.

How useful is producing if you keep it hidden from the world?

Creepy

I would like it if other people don't think I am creepy.

Serious

Of course, the real news today was the 25 layoffs. Which I should talk about more later, when I am a bit more coherent. It was a very weird day.

Concert Report: Whysall Lane, Calvin Johnson, Mark Robinson

I knew Calvin Johnson solely from his Dub Narcotic Sound System stuff, but I figured anything with him singing couldn't be too bad, and it was a good way to try out my new concert-going friend. So, we made it to the show, stuffed full of crepes, not really sure what to expect. Whysall Lane turned out to be a guy and guitar, an OK player and a decent singer, with some OK songs. It seemed like the songs he played from the other band he is in, Versus, were a little better. Hmmm. But he played a couple of songs with a cello player, and a couple with a bass player, which was neat. I'd be interested in checking out Versus, but not too inspired by this stuff. And the songs with the cd-player as drum machine were a little weird. But he had someone to turn it on and off, and that someone was the cute bass player, so maybe it was ok. Maybe.

But then came Calvin! I find him entirely amusing. And he has a really interesting voice. He did most of the stuff with just his guitar, and then a few acapella, which was neat. The songs themselves weren't so great - almost like they weren't quite finished - but he did little dance moves and all sorts of goofiness to keep things entertaining. He did one song in a frightening falsetto, which was funny. The crowd got into it, too, which was nice. He also had some good crowd banter, including a question and answer session. Heh. Definitely a good show. It would have been incredible to see him doing Dub Narcotic Sound System stuff. But this was still neat. Completely worth $7.

Finally, it was Mark Robinson. He played the first few songs with a guitar player from Canada. His crowd banter consisted of hockey trivia questions, which was disappointing after Calvin's bizarre stories. Then he played a song with Calvin, which was pretty darned neat. And then he finished up with some songs with the Whysall Lane guy, which was solid. Overall, the songs seemed OK but his vocals seemed a little weak, and the use of the CD as drum machine (with no one to turn it off when the song was over) was distracting to me.

Overall, the show was fun. I'm not sure why Mark gets to be the headliner. It was neat to see someone who really was able to handle the crowd well, after so many shows with little or no interaction. And it was nice to go to the show with someone who was actually interested in going. Yeah. Hopefully that is the start of a good trend.

Payola - Urban Radio Style

Here's a topic we haven't had here for a while. Payola at urban radio stations is just as prominent, but done in a different way than at rock and country stations. I stand by my views on non-commercial stations. The article is interesting, but it does seem to take the view that the more "organized" payola at rock and country stations is less sleazy, and therefore slightly better. Maybe I'm reading into it, but having it be more corporate doesn't seem to be so great.

Giggly drunk

It was a little weird, to be out with my boss, my previous boss, and another manager, discussing work things over drinks. Especially when the alcohol without food effects started to set in. But very enjoyable. What is this, a decent mood I have been in? I need to thank someone, I think.

Heart Of Gold

A friend came back from a trip with a story he was really excited about. But the story had an alternate interpretation, one much less exciting. As a friend, what do you do? Do you express skepticism, to try to soften the blow in case things turn out bad? Do you just share in the excitement, because they are happy about it, even if you think they may be making a mistake?

Being me, I chose to express skepticism. But once it struck home, that things may not have been the way he thought, I felt bad. Maybe I am just a spoilsport these days.

Although I did have a real happy moment today, driving home from the game, listening to music. So maybe I'm just getting back to regular skepticism levels.

Soccer: Back to the beginning

Well, we lost 5-0 again. We had our real goalie for the first time, though, so it took a little adjusting for the defense to get used to it. And we definitely missed Thuy, who was on vacation. And Mark and Dave, who were hungover. And Roger, who was also on vacation. I played a better game than I feel I had for a while - one shot blocked, although I got lucky because my clear didn't have the right angle but bounced off an opponent's arm and the ref called it. I also had one neat stop, where I was running full speed back and just barely managed to get a foot on the ball as I was falling down. I think the defense was playing its positions a little better overall, but we were still weak in the midfield. Same old, same old.

Saturdays are no longer for working

Or at least, not ones with lots of scheduled network downtime, and the associated problems with trying to bring the network back up. Argh. 9:45am, nothing worked, 2:15pm a few things work, but nothing I really need to do my work. When am I supposed to get things done, again?

Greymatter enhancement requests

• Spellchecker. A good idea, riight?

• RSS file generator. So you can track all this excitement even easier.

• SOAP/XML-RPC interface for adding posts. So you can make all sorts of bizarre posting tools.

Oh yeah

I would also like to mention that certain events have made me very happy and excited, and give hope that the future may not just be full of suck. Whoohoo. Now I just have to avoid building things up so they have to result in disappointment.

Dentist

I almost forgot to mention, I went to the dentist yesterday, and they said I had "good bone support." And they said I had very clean teeth, my brushing habits were good, and I was doing a fine job flossing. That is the first time I have ever had good things said to me in that situation. Yay.

Chit-chat

I don't want this to become a chronicle of my emotional problems. That's not really something other people should be dealing with. Maybe I just don't want to sound so whiny. And I know I haven't really been putting in the effort here to keep things interesting, unless someone is really fascinated by my movie viewing habits. But sometimes I want to share things with the website that are personal, and kind of pathetic. Like this! I got a letter today, and it upset me and confused me and made me feel pathetic. Yup. Pathetic mostly because I don't know how to respond. And that makes me confused, because it means I still have feelings. And that upsets me, because I shouldn't care so much.

Yup.

Out of touch

We wanted to go to dinner. We had wanted to go to a movie, but we couldn't agree on one, so it was going to just be dinner, and then maybe videogames or a rental or something low-key. We take off in a near-perfect california carpool of 5 people in 4 cars, and see that traffic is still bad on the freeway. The frontage road zips along pretty well, and we are easily passing the cars on the freeway. Good thing, too, since I am getting very hungry. And then we get stuck in slow traffic on the street we are trying to cut across on. Fine, we'll go up to the next one and go across. No dice - it is even worse. 40 minutes later we get back to about where we would have been originally if we had stayed on the same street. Another 10 or 15 minutes and we get to the restaurant. And what was the problem with traffic? No power outage, no accident - it was a sade concert at Shoreline. What the hell? Is she that popular? I must be so out of touch with what is going on in this world. It makes me happy I enjoy music where tickets to see a live show cost $7 and traffic isn't a problem. Yeah! Maybe that is a legitimate reason to stop liking things once they become popular.

Well...

I went back and read the website that inspired the nightmare. It didn't seem quite that bad. But I am all of a sudden really scared to try to fall asleep. It's not that I want other people to feel pain, but I do want to know that they understand the pain I am going through, and it is hard to believe they really van do that if they aren't feeling the pain. Someday I want to look back on this time in my life and think that I was just a silly, emotional, inexperienced kid. But I'm scared that I will look back a little further and think about it as the best things ever were for me. I don't feel like my goals for life are particularly complicated or unreasonable, but they seem so hard to control directly...

Sigh.

If I had time...

I would like to think I would contribute to something like this. It is what I was hoping for when I first read about the .net system. But I barely have time to get my thoughts together in my free time, much less get involved in something like that. Is that an excuse? A rationalization? Some day, I will have to put up or shut up. Maybe that should be what I do for my vacation...

Bad Dream

I was in a factory, with a tour group with people from work, when an accident cut off one of the employee's arms, covering everyone in blood. We ran out of the building.

Soccer Games

Last week we lost terribly, like 5-0. This week, we played an awesome second half, but still lost about 6-5. Thuy scored 4 goals. I was a little slow, and broke up a couple of shots but didn't do that great. But the team seems to be coming together a bit, which is nice. Maybe someday we'll win?

Bad Dream

I woke up at 6:30 this morning, terrified by a dream where I was looking at a website.

Concert Report: PopFantasy2001

A concert where the crowd actually seemed to be enjoying itself. Yeah! And a free meal that wasn't too bad. Here's the rundown:

• Benett - A female singer, with backup band. She seemed to be enjoying herself, which was nice, and led to some good crowd interaction. She has a decent voice, but none of the songs were particularly catchy.

• Aerospace - They're from Stockholm, and they had the most intense tambourine playing I've seen in a while. They were really good, and had catchy songs, and reminded me of a friend from college for no apparent reason. They put on a really good show, so I got their CD, but I don't think the CD captured the experience well.

• Yuji Oniki - A guy from Oakland, not Japan, even though he sang a song in Japanese. He had a few songs I got into, and some that I didn't. He seemed to rush through things a bit, and I think it was to fit in more songs, but it made it seem like he wasn't having a very good time. Oh well.

• Lunchbox - They seemed pretty good musically, with some itneresting songs, but the cluttered sound in the venue didn't help. And then they kept falling back to "buh boo buh boo" type nonsense lyrics, which made me felt like they weren't trying hard enough. I'm pretty sure that's not true, but I would have appreciated an attempt to distinguish the songs more easily.

• #Poundsign# - The main band for the night, supposedly, and they did a pretty good job. All four members sang at least one song, and they switched around the instruments quite a bit. Some of the songs were nice, but a lot of them seemed to go on a little too long. Also, their drummer was a cute girl, which made me wonder why I hadn't learned that lesson already.

• The How - Apparently a side project of two guys from Boy Racer, who played an earlier night, and it was much more punk than Indie Pop. It was a nice change of pace, and really helped end the evening on a high energy level. The crowd even started jumping around, and an attempted crowd surfing. Fun, and the guy was a surprisingly good singer. And he was very tall.

Movie Review: Shadows (Cassavetes)

I don't really know anything about the history of film, but this was one of those directors I knew I was supposed to know something about, so I had Tivo record one of his movies to give it a shot. Turns out, this seems to be a movie of some importance in the history of films. This was Cassavetes first movie, filmed "improvisationally" around 1959. It was interesting to watch - seeing a movie from that time that treats race as mostly a non-issue, that doesn't shy away from sex and realistic violence, things that don't usually get associated in my mind with black and white 50s movies. And it is hard for me to tell how realistic it really is, but it definitely tries for that feel, and succeeds for me, at least. The characters were interesting, but the scenes seemed to play out more as little sketches and incidents, with heavy transitions between them. I enjoyed watching it, but it definitely took some effort to get into it. The tone of it does seem to linger on beyond the end of the movie, which is pleasant when so many movies seem to disappear so quickly after I watch them. It was definitely good enough for me to try to get Tivo to pick up some of his other movies...

Movie Review: Insomnia

I think I could relate to this movie better than I normally would have, since I had been overworked and underslept for a few days before watching it. Unfortunately, it lead to me falling asleep in the middle of it. Luckily, I was watching it on Tivo so I could go back and try again. But I'm not sure exactly why I felt like I didn't understand some of it - was it my sleepiness? Or was it the movie? I didn't understand the main character's motivation, and the easy way he fell in with the author. I guess I sort of understand the apparent need to be perfect, but I didn't quite believe it. Maybe it was just me. Otherwise, I thought the movie was pretty neat. I wish I understood more about the rivalry between Norway and Sweden. I feel like the subtitles didn't lend themselves to the language comments. But I enjoyed it, despite almost everyone being kind of a jerk. I think it is time for me to go get some sleep, though, and enjoy living somewhere that always has a few hours of darkness...

Laser Tag

The Drive team played against Contori in Laser Tag today. It was entertaining - we had about 10 people, Contori had 6. We kicked butt in the first game, then they wore two packs for the second and lost even worse. I was a little surprised by just how bad they did with that. Then the third game was a free for all as they tried to rush us out so other people could play, and I never like those as much. But even Robin had fun. Nothing like shooting and being shot to bring people together.

Sigh.

Movie Review: Final Fantasy

I didn't really give this one the greatest chance - I went already feeling tired, and did actually fall asleep in the middle of it, although not for long. I also had my prior associations with Final Fantasy in my head for quite a bit of the movie, which didn't help. I felt like the movei did live up to the game, though - a silly mystical plotline that didn't make much sense, some awesome looking sequences, some not-quite-right sequences, some heroic actions but the main character being unable to die. The aliens were pretty cool looking, especially when they killed. Lots of the technology was pretty good looking, and the people were very lifelike when they weren't moving. The movement wasn't too bad, but some walking and closeups of hands and things were not so good. And there seemed to be a lack of facial expressions throughout the whole thing - no tears, no smiles, no laughter. It was creepy watching when they were talking. I don't think that helped my emotional identification with the characters. But the backgrounds were usually awesome, and they did some very cool birds. But I never got sucked into the story, so I was very conscious of the computer generated effects the whole time - I couldn't just sit back and appreciate them for their beauty, there was always an aspect of "that was pretty neat they could do that." And they even had good hair in some shots! So close, and yet so far. I wasn't sold on the cinematography, either. There were no really awe-inspiring shots to me. It will be interesting to see how much money it makes - I feel like it will probably be a disappointment, which will continue to doom cool animation projects in this country. And leave us with things like Osmosis Jones. Ugh.

The spider-man trailer was a little disappointing, too. The helicopter in the web was dumb, and the web swinging scenes were not jaw-dropping. It didn't make it seem fun and exhilerating. But we'll see. Try to keep expectations reasonable...

2:07 AM?

I can't believe I stayed out this late when I have to be at work early to print out 6,800 lines of PL/SQL code for a 9:30am code review.

Oh well.

Happy birthday, Roger.

Movie Review: The Messenger (Luc Besson)

It is not a good Luc Besson week - first, Kiss of the Dragon, then this. A lengthy retelling of the story of Joan of Arc. If you are going to retell a classic story that everyone knows the ending to, you'd better do it in a pretty entertaining way. Everyone I knew who had seen this had said it was terrible, so I went in with extremely low expectations, and for the first 45 minutes I thought it was OK. A slow buildup, a few jarring moments ("now that's what I call booty"????), but it had an interesting mix of skepticism and reverence. Not an easy balance. But the Milla Jovovich started giving speeches, and I think she just couldn't quite pull it off. And then Dustin Hoffman comes in as the voices she hears, and things fall apart pretty quick. I don't really want to hear mediocre religious arguments inside someone's head. The bishops and other church folk are never developed as characters, so I don't care about their motivations. And I don't feel sympathy for someone who didn't understand the horror of the battles she wanted to happen. The movie seemed to deserve its bad reputation.

Movie Review: Paths of Glory (Kubrick)

This was a fantastic movie. I was a little unsure of it going in - I am not used to watching movies from the 50s, and I'm still not fully recovered from the disappointment over A.I.. But this was fantastic - an interesting and challenging story, believable performances, and a solid ending. It raised questions about the morality of war, the ability to stay true to morals while fighting a war, the use of death as a punishment, and all sorts of other interesting topics. And it did it without getting too preachy - none of the characters are Evil, they are simply human, with greed and self-righteousness and all those other qualities that lead us to do evil things. And the entire movie is very watchable - reasonably paced, well acted, full of tension. It makes me think I should investigate more of the "classic films" that I've never seen. It also makes me very, very glad I have never been in a war.

This has a lengthy discussion of the actual story of the movie. Don't read it if you think you'll watch it - they explain everything that happens.

Movie Review: Kiss of the Dragon

I wasn't expecting much from the plot, and when I saw it was based on a story by Jet Li, I figured I would be right. And then I saw the screenplay was co-written by Luc Besson, who wrote and directed one of my favorite movies ever - The Professional. What did that mean? Turns out, it meant nothing. The plot was silly, the dialogue was terrible - but the action scenes were mostly neat. What was strange was seeing the police kill so many innocent people without any apparent repercussions, and then the final few fight scenes ended in Jet Li killing the bad guys in particularly gruesome ways. It was disturbing. Unlike Romeo Must Die, this movie did not leave me feeling energetic and looking for action. It left me feeling disturbed. Do I see too much fictional violence in my life? How has a lifetime of watching action movies affected me? Strange. Not sure why this movie triggered such a reaction.

Movie Review: The 13th Warrior

Is this really worth my time?

It was a terrible movie. Really poorly constructed. Hard to understand what was going on, either because of weird, inconsistent accents or poor plotting or terrible editing, who cares? It was really boring. I didn't care about any of the characters because none of them seemed to have motivation. There was lots of violence with no reason. There were lots of threads that were dropped - the son of the king? The knife-things the woman was supposed to keep safe? What happened? Who cares?

Glow in the Dark Phone

I bought a glow in the dark phone.

At this point, I am pretty sure it does not actually glow in the dark.

But it is still a hideous green plastic color.

Movie Review: Startup.com

I really enjoyed this. It made me feel better about my current work situation. It was a documentary about the rise and fall of govworks.com. You get to see the company grow, the effect it has on the founders' personal lives, and the eventual problems it creates between the founders. It would have been interesting to get a little more perspective from the employees, but it was nicely focused with the way they did it. You get to see the inexperience, the bad decisions, the naivity of the entire industry... it is pretty amazing for someone who works in high tech. If nothing else, the founders of my company have seemed to be able to stick together and bring in outside experience without the company losing its vision. Pretty nice. It seemed like the govworks people didn't understand how to build a software infrastructure, and they grew too quickly to keep the quality of the team high. Kaleil seemed great at getting publicity for the company, but they couldn't capitalize it. And now I can't reach their site, or the sites of their competitors. Oh well. Local government shall remain inefficient.

Movie Review: Plunkett and Macleane

This was a fun little movie about two men becoming robber specializing in robbing the wealthy in 18th century England. No overly moralistic ideas, just lots of backstabbing and evil people and excitement. I enjoyed it a lot, and Johnny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle both did a good job. Liv Tyler even did a fine job as the love interest. I even thought the music (modern, electronic stuff with hints of less anachronistic instrumentation) added to the mood, which was trying to capture a more romantic adventure than the typical stodgy historical drama. Tivo missed the very last bit of the end, but from what my roommate told me, it was a little disappointing. They didn't quite have the guts to pull of an ending where the main characters have to really face up to what has happened, but I guess that isn't usually the point of movies whose heroes are criminals.

Online Art

The SFMOMA has an online component to their 010101 exhibit. I had found the exhibition at the museum to be disappointing, but I'm not sure about the online exhibit yet. It is really strange for me to view websites as art - I am so used to using the web as an information tool. Sure, I find things online that I consider art, but the act of browsing the web is not something I think of as art. Maybe it is just the strange mechanisms for scrolling - but it is a more challenging concept than I would have thought. I can see books as art - but they still function in the same way as books whose only art is the text contained in them. Web art seems to include control over the navigation and display (using flash, or java, or whatever) more than a normal website, so it doesn't work in the "usual" way. Now, maybe the rules for the web are not as well defined, or maybe those things are not the important aspect of the medium. Or maybe I just clicked on poor exhibits. Do I think the web can be art? Definitely. Is the 010101 online exhibit succesful? Not entirely, at least not to me. But it will be neat to see it progress...

Depression

I'm pretty sure this is the most depressed I have ever felt in my life, at least for a sustained amount of time. That's not good, but it seems understandable. In fact, it could be "that feeling blue after any kind of a loss (a death of a loved one, a break-up of a relationship, moving away from a close friend) is considered normal in most instances and is not diagnosed as depression." So I've got that going for me.

Do you think you can trust these online depression tests?

And here is what the government says about a popular alternative remedy.

I think my plan shall be to increase the number of happy things in my life, and try to decrease the amount of unhappy things. I just have this problem of needing to get through the huge amount of stuff I need to do for work first.

Movie Review: Vernon, Florida (Morris)

It's another early Errol Morris documentary, this time an hour of interviews with people in a small Florida town. We get to see turkey hunters, the local police officer, a strange animal guy, and some other interesting characters. Again, it was a little unfocused, and the imagery wasn't as stunning, but it was still pretty entertaining. It is a little window into a population that I have little or no contact with, and while they can be amusing, the movie does not feel condescending. It lets them tell their stories, it shows some of their life, but it doesn't feel like it is trying to make a point about them. It makes lots of other documentaries seem like propaganda films.

I enjoyed this a little more than Gates of Heaven, probably because it seemed like a better length for the stories it was telling.

Movie Review: Nurse Betty (LaBute)

This was a weird movie. A combination of a hitman movie, a road trip, soap operas, comedy, and an exploration of psychological trauma. Weird. Not sure if it was totally succesful. And it boggles my mind that it was directed by the same person who directed "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors". Was it his choice to make this seem like a more optimistic movie? Or is it a result from the studio pressue from the larger budget for this?

The movie itself, though, was somewhat enjoyable, but because of all the different themes it was hard to really get into it. Having the maincharacter be completely delusional for most of the movie was also interesting - you want things to work out for her, but not while she isn't in touch with reality. It was strange to see so many people be upset with her or want to help her or want to use her and no one recommends seeking actual psychiatric help. I guess I enjoyed it, but it didn't leave me with an overwhelming emotion like his previous movies, it just left me feeling confused.