“Music Within” review
by V.E. on July 29th, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
I almost didn’t write this review. That is, when I watch a movie, I feel obligated to review it, if only for my own use later, when I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen a movie or not at all. In this case, I nearly ditched the whole thing, but then I thought, “Well, I have to write something about it, even if it’s just 140 characters on Twitter.” But then I realized that I had more than 140 characters worth of thoughts about this movie, so I’m going along with it. This time. (As you know, I do sometimes ditch the “I must review everything I watch” edict, as in the case of CANAAN.) As a note: the quotations I use here are approximate, except for the one attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, which I wrote down so I could remember it.
Summary
Music Within (wiki) is a movie starring Ron Livingston about the life of Richard Pimentel, a deaf man who had a hand in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Richard grows up in Portland, Oregon, with a crazy white mother and an Asian-American man who ran a grocery as a father. In elementary school one day, his teacher tells the class, “Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, ‘Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them.‘ What do you think he meant?” The teacher was also the head of the school’s speech club, so when he asked for volunteers to tell the class something they may not know about the volunteer, Richard raised his hand and the teacher knew he’d be a great speaker.
Fast forward: Richard tries desperately to get into college. He doesn’t have a lot of money and he needs a scholarship, but he can give speeches like nobody’s business. He auditions for a spot in the speech department. The head of the department tells him, “You’re probably the most talented speaker I’ve ever seen, but you haven’t lived. I’m not accepting you. Come back when you’ve lived and can put some weight behind your words.” Richard is devastated, but he refuses to give up. That same day (or thereabouts), he enlists in the army and shortly thereafter, he’s shipped off to Vietnam.
While in Vietnam, he sustains an injury that renders him almost completely deaf with a loud ringing in his ears. He returns to Oregon intent (again) on attending college, this time through the GI Bill. He’s denied because he’s deaf. He goes to college anyway and pays for it by working at a strip club (where the dancing girls there treat him like a son) and entering (and winning) speech contests in the area. One day, he meets Art Honeyman (played by Michael Sheen), a genius with cerebral palsy 
who is confined to a wheelchair. Upon learning that Richard can understand Art (presumably because, when he speaks, his words are deliberate and pronounced), they become fast friends.
They meet Christine (Melissa George) on campus, a relative free spirit who becomes romantically involved with Richard while he fights for the rights of disabled people, including himself. He learns to read lips and holds down at least one job where his employers don’t even know he’s deaf. He also works at an office trying to find other (disabled) veterans jobs, arguing that they deserve a chance, too.
One night, Art calls him and tells him it’s his birthday and all he wants is pancakes. Richard is amiable to this, so they head out to what is purported to be the best pancake house in town. After Richard hauls Art up probably forty steps (there is no ramp), they head into the restaurant and are greeted by the disgusted stares of both the staff and the other patrons. A waitress tells them that the establishment has the right to refuse service to anyone, and that they should leave. Richard argues for Art, “But we just want pancakes. We’re not going to cause anyone trouble; we heard this was the best pancake house in town and we want some pancakes. Our money is as good as anyone else’s.” The waitress (rather heartlessly, I thought) tells Art that he should have died at birth and that if they don’t leave now, she’ll call the police. With some effort, Art throws a quarter on the table and says, “Call them.” So, they’re both arrested for a law on the books at the time that basically made it illegal to be ugly in public.
Richard redoubles his efforts to make workplaces more disabled-friendly—and loses Christine in the process. She loves him but when he chooses a(nother) conference over her, she calls it quits. He gets a call from the President’s Office and begins working on the text that will become the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). After a fellow friend and veteran commits suicide, Richard is at the end of his rope. He nearly offs himself, but Christine stops him.
Finally, he finishes the text for the ADA and shows it to Art, who reads it. Art tells him that he (Richard) gets disabled people and that this document reflects that, to which Richard is supremely relieved. Later, they watch on TV as President George H.W. Bush signs the ADA into law. Even later, they go back to the pancake house (which now has a ramp, according to law), where a (different) waitress genially takes their order and brings them pancakes. Richard says, “We’ve waited 20 years for this, Art; these better be good pancakes.” The movie ends with Richard giving a speech about why it’s important to make the world a better place for all people, not just able-bodied people.
Thoughts
It’s a feel-good movie, I’ll give you that. Michael Sheen does very well playing a man with cerebral palsy, and Ron Livingston does well as a deaf man, but I want to know why they didn’t cast actors who actually have those disabilities? (Not to mention that Richard Pimentel is part Asian-American, but the actor who plays him on screen is about as white as they come.) I don’t know what the dynamics of hiring disabled people is in acting, or if it’s all politics, or what, but it seems like they’d be more aware of who they got to play the characters in a movie that’s basically about able-bodied people versus disabled people. Also, Music Within outright fails the Bechdel Test. Over all, it’s a good story, but the director, casting director, and producer (etc.) have a long way to go in regards to execution.
I much rather enjoyed learning about Richard Pimentel himself. He gave a commencement speech in 2008 at Portland State University (where he attended years before), which made me cry, and which I highly recommend. (You can also read the transcript.) I don’t know if I cried because I’d seen the movie and it was a good capstone, or because the speech was just that good. Either way, it was much better than the utterly forgettable commencement speaker I had at my graduation. (shudder)
Going back to the O.W. Holmes quotation: Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them. I thought about that a lot through out the movie and since then while writing this review. I’ve come to learn that OWH was… well, not really a nice guy. Maybe not even a good one. But in this case, I think he’s probably right. That said, I have no advice for people on how to find their music or release it to the world, if they even want to do that. I think my music is writing. I don’t know if I’m going to be a person who dies with my writing still inside me, but I hope not.
The Past Week via Twitter: 2010-07-25
by V.E. on July 25th, 2010
filed under twitter
- God, I miss New York. #
- Today, my professor said, upon returning the draft of my #story "Good work so far. I'm interested to see how it ends." #
- … to which my response is: "WHA?? I thought I was done already… T_T" #
- argh, still working on this ending. uuuuuugh. #
- my professor liked the new ending much better. my sister didn't. my father said, "perfect–the princess or the lion; don't say–ever" #
- he meant the lady or the tiger, but that WAS what I was going for, so there. at least HE got it. #
- @Dredgly @Zekor best answer EVAR. in reply to Dredgly #
- home from work. class tomorrow (second-to-last day!). then more work. also have to start reading 'Amandine' to review. #
- @sarahtv3 meeeee toooooo in reply to sarahtv3 #
- today (Thurs) is my last day of summer school. also, no work! #
- reconnected with a friend today. also last day of class, no work, and went to see a movie, which was better than I expected. great day! ^_^ #
- work today until 10 pm (ugh, but it's done now!) and work tomorrow again at 8:45… yay me. #
- sleep teim! work tomorrow, then to the mall to get better (work) shoes. I was paid today (Fri), so I might actually be able to afford it. #
- also! http://bit.ly/bpEA68 read my review (more like random thoughts, really) of "Eclipse" and let me know what's up! #
- @TheYaoiReview I'd have to say Byakuya, but he's definitely more of an ass, too… Not sure if that's good or not, but there you go. in reply to TheYaoiReview #
- @TheYaoiReview what? he's not more popular? how is that possible? in reply to TheYaoiReview #
- hah! no more work until Thursday and got new shoes today so my feet don't kill me the next time I go in. huzzah. #
- @TheYaoiReview damn. well, we can be the Byakuya corner together. lol. in reply to TheYaoiReview #
- @TheYaoiReview so would that make Renji more like Takaba or Fei? in reply to TheYaoiReview #
- @foodforfel good luck! in reply to foodforfel #
- my sister is closing the gap on my mother's first place making-of-food with her Japanese dumplings and rich chocolate cake. #
- that is, my sister's dumplings and cake, not my mothers. #
- lazy days (at least for today). going back to the Red Cross tomorrow with my sister to *try* to give blood (for the 3rd time this summer!) #
- so tired of emo friends. (does complaining about it make me emo, too?) #
- "Poirot: Appointment with Death" right now on PBS! (based on Agatha Christie's novel) #
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“Eclipse” (movie) review
by V.E. on July 23rd, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
Okay, so Eclipse (wiki) is easily better than the book. Easily. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s the best Twilight movie so far. I didn’t even finish reading the third book in the Twilight series because it was so boring I literally fell asleep trying (which is why I never wrote a review of the book). But watching the movie makes me want to try rereading it because (spoilers:) I want to know if, near the end, Bella actually asks Jacob to kiss her—after she’s already engaged to someone else, no less—which he does. I mean, she does in the movie, of course, but I know movies are often only “based on” novels, which implies that the screenwriter/director, etc., have some artistic license. (I’m only half looking forward to Breaking Dawn because [1] I haven’t read the book, and [2] it’s still Twilight, but [3] maybe blood this time? Please?)
The movie cut out almost entirely any plot based on Bella’s human (ie: not vampire or werewolf) friends, to which I had two reactions. The first was: “Well, that stuff was kinda unnecessarily to further the plot, so…” and the second was: “What the hell? 
Isn’t Bella supposed to be ‘normal’? I mean, what about all her regular friends?” Something which, to the movie’s credit, Bella’s father echoed during one of their talks.
Throughout the movie, Edward and Jacob go toe to toe more than once, and each time Bella has to break them up before somebody throws a punch (which, actually, would’ve been fun to watch). Finally, Jacob and Edward have a talk and Jake says, “You have to consider that I might be better for her [Bella] than you are.” This might just be my personal experience talking (all right, it is my experience talking), but I kept wondering why Bella was forced to choose between them. I kept thinking, “Why can’t you guys just get along?” I mean, I guess, I’m essentially asking the characters why they seem unable to share, but I realize that polyamory is sort of not-on-the-radar for most people. (Though it’d be an interesting nod to Mormon polygamy, I have to admit.)
Something that irritated me was that there is no blood in this movie. Seriously. I mean, how is that possible in a vampire movie, right? Well, it’s not so much a “vampire” movie as it is a “love is eternal” movie. Even during the fight scenes, there is no blood. The vampires who are downed break apart like ice. That is, if you tear a guy’s arm off, it’ll break off like pieces of ice and what’s left looks like shards of quartz sticking out of his shoulder. It’s the weirdest effect relating to vampires ever (shining-like-diamonds-in-the-sun notwithstanding).
I have a sneaking suspicion that the unnamed newborn girl who surrendered to the Cullens during the fight (but was killed off by the Volturi anyway) was Bree Tanner, but I have no evidence to back this up other than what Wikipedia tells me, as I didn’t finish the book and I’ve never read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.
Like New Moon, Eclipse managed to pass The Bechdel Test. Another review mentions that Eclipse has “the most feminist perspective” of all the Twilight movies so far, but I want to point out that that doesn’t mean the perspective is by default a feminist one. It’s not.
Oh, and PS: Forks High School is home of the Spartans. No joke. I find that hilariously funny. (Alice says, “I’m throwing a graduation party!” and Jasper responds, “Yeah, because how many times will we graduate high school?”)
Worst scene: Graduation… it was totally cliched and lame.
Best scene: the talk between Edward and Jacob in the tent during the storm.
Worst character: it’s a toss up; Edward or Bella.
Best character: Jasper Hale.
Most underdeveloped character: The Volturi representatives.
Most annoying character: Rosalie, again. (I didn’t like her in the first movie, either.)
Advice from Harlan Ellison
by V.E. on July 23rd, 2010
filed under writing
I have a sorted history with Harlan Ellison (mostly involving an ex-boyfriend to whom I no longer speak), but he’s right in this respect, at least:
Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
The Past Week via Twitter: 2010-07-18
by V.E. on July 18th, 2010
filed under twitter
- @yaoipress will my work be appreciated in my lifetime? in reply to yaoipress #
- @yaoipress (is that even the right kind of question to ask?) in reply to yaoipress #
- oookay. got something down by way of a short story, but it's no where near complete (or completely thought out, for that matter…) #writing #
- printing it out for now so I can work on it tomorrow during class. after class: work, then more #writing #
- @sixpickledfish lolwhut? in reply to sixpickledfish #
- Don't wanna go to school… Wanna sleep. Ugh. #
- home from class. home from work. dinner done. homework now. rinse and repeat tomorrow. #
- Ugh. If there was one day to miss class, today is it. #
- We're talking about our character studies in class. Don't wanna. #writing #
- almost 6 pages down; 6 more to go. luckily, I can stop for tonight. tomorrow (Wed): class, work, more #writing #
- There is a significant temperature between walking in the shade and walking in the sun. >_> #
- Significant temperature difference, I mean. #
- At work on my 10 minute break. My professor wasn't pleased with how many people *didn't* do the homework (3-4 pages of #writing … #
- omg I almost missed Bastille Day. #
- first draft of my short story done! and it's–ugh–only FOUR IN THE MORNING. must sleeeeeeep. #writing #
- what the hell? @latimes "Buried ship unearthed at World Trade Center site http://bit.ly/b9sis5" #
- wow. just wow. *seriously?* http://huff.to/95n5Nc "Vatican: Ordination Of Women A 'Grave Crime'" #
- so, in theory, I finished my short #story and turned it in today. one week left to revise and the final draft goes in next Thurs. #writing #
- next up today: work. then, revising my free-form poem when I get home. then, tomorrow off! yes! #poetry #writing #
- oooooh maybe I can watch some #anime tomorrow. haha. something fun for once. #
- my dad & brother graciously installed a window unit AC in my room so now the room is cooler (also, so my cat doesn't die of heat exhaustion) #
- long day. I have off tomorrow (Fri). #
- so: free-form poem, #anime give blood, have someone read over my story, & start reading 'Amandine' #writing #poetry #
- Apparently, I write like David Foster Wallace. Proof: http://iwl.me/s/d7939cdb #
- I tried giving blood again today. No luck; still anemic. Iron has to be at 12.5; mine was 11.2 after the first prick & 10.9 the second time. #
- My brother gave blood easily, though. No sweat on his part. Oh well, one out of two isn't bad. #
- @Dredgly awww. thank you. ^_^ in reply to Dredgly #
- laaaaaaundry. #
- today felt like Saturday, but it was Friday, and tomorrow I'm working, so I guess… it kind of *was* my Saturday? #
- @GivesMeHope I just wanted to let you know that your links here on Twitter never work for me. Don't know if it's just me or… others, too? in reply to GivesMeHope #
- shit. didn't mean to do that. #
- work in half an hour for almost 5 hours. not really looking forward to it, but not NOT looking forward to it, either… if that makes sense #
- work wasn't bad. still haven't gotten paid >_> and I forgot to ask the manager when she was in the office today. #
- my newest review is up! RT @feministreview Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine http://bit.ly/91UTu7 #
- I was "eh so/so" about Kuroshitsuji II, but after the first episode, I'm definitely watching the rest of it. #anime #
- so I'm thinking about going to a movie tomorrow afternoon since I have a free one-time theater pass. Any suggestions? #
- "What none of them could know was that they were not attacking his knight, but rather, the equivalent of his queen." Absolutely genius. #
“Captive Queen”
by V.E. on July 18th, 2010
filed under writing
My review of Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine is now up at Feminist Review. Please check it out if you have time! (And note your thoughts in the comment box there!)
Survey tiem
by V.E. on July 18th, 2010
filed under personal, quizzes/surveys
Man, I haven’t filled out one of these in ages.
01. What is your first name? V—
02. Were you named after anyone? Yes… maybe? I’m not sure.
03. Do you wish on stars? Not recently.
04. When did you last cry? In the past half hour, over a friend’s death.
05. Do you like your handwriting? Yeah, it’s fine.
06. What is your favorite lunch meat? White-meat turkey.
07. What is your most embarrassing CD? Uh, I’d have to remember what CDs I have at all.
08. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? Yeah, sure.
09. Do you have a journal? Yes.
10. Do you use sarcasm a lot? No, never.
11. What are your nicknames? Lady V, Eve Amedeus, Vi.
12. Would you bungee jump? Eh… skydiving is more my thing.
13. Do you untie your shoes before you take them off? Sometimes.
14. Do you think that you are strong? In some ways.
15. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Cakebatter.
16. Shoe size? 10 Women.
17. Red or pink? Red, hands down.
18. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Simple question; complicated answer.
19. What do you miss most? Making mistakes without having to deal with the consequences.
20. What color pants/shoes are you wearing? Lavender pajama pants and bare feet.
21. What are you listening to right now? “Kimi = Hana” by Pigstar.
22. Last thing you ate? A Hostess powdered Donette.
23. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Violet Blue.
24. What is the weather like right now? It’s been hot recently, but it’s not bad right now.
25. Last person you talked to on the phone? My dad; he was coming to pick me up from work.
26. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? His physical size.
27. Favorite drink? Water.
28. Favorite sport? Colorguard.
29. Hair color? Brown.
30. Eye color? Green.
31. Do you wear contacts? No, but I have in the past.
32. Favorite food? Hmm… spaghetti with marinara sauce.
33. Last movie you watched? Murder on the Orient Express.
34. Favorite day of the year? March 4th, May 4th, or September 19th.
35. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings.
36. Winter or summer? Winter, usually.
37. Hugs or kisses? Hugs and kisses.
38. What is your favorite dessert? Apple pie.
39. What book(s) are you reading? Next up is Amandine.
40. What’s on your mouse pad? I don’t have a mouse pad.
41. What did you watch on TV last night? I didn’t watch TV last night.
42. Favorite smells? Rose, vanilla, the earth just after it rains.
43. Favorite sound? My father’s laughter.
44. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Uh… neither.
45. What’s the furthest you’ve been from your home? New York City.
46. Do you have a special talent? Sure, doesn’t everyone?
47. What is your ring tone? “Set the Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol.
What the hell? Why only 47 instead of 45 or 50? Booo.
