Undergraduate Admissions

Since I’ve had some extra time on my hands, I’ve been trying to watch some movies. During the semester I probably had enough time to watch movies, but I rarely wanted to just sit down and watch something for two hours.

I watched that new Futurama DVD movie. I thought it was pretty good. I’m glad there’s a few more coming, too. I was never a huge enough fan of Futurama to buy all the DVDs, but I always liked it when I saw it. In a way, I think I prefer it that way; it means anytime I see Futurama on TV, there’s a chance it could be a new episode to me. Futurama always had a wordy and sometimes subtle humor that I have always enjoyed.

I also watched The Simpsons Movie, which I found less convincing than the Futurama one. It seemed like they couldn’t make up their mind if they were trying to make a movie or an episode of the TV show. I didn’t really laugh too much, but by the end I was at least concerned about the characters, which is more than I can say for any episode of the Simpsons from the past eight or so years. I’m glad I saw it, but I wasn’t really too impressed. Also, I think this is really weird, but I thought the animation was too fluid at certain points. It looked weird! Maybe I’ve just spent too many years watching anime and other stuff with a pretty low frames per second, haha.

Finally, I watched the movie Grosse Point Blanke. My dad recommended it to me, and let me borrow the DVD of it. (He also lent me the Simpsons movie. We trade movies all the time. I lent him Borat recently and he loved it so much that my mom wants to watch it now. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, but my mom does surprise me sometimes.) It’s a movie starring John Cusack, in which he plays a professional killer who returns to his hometown to go to his 10-year high school reunion. It’s basically everything you would expect it to be from that one sentence. I noticed John Cusack has a way of speaking and acting that is very personal, but seemed a bit old fashioned to me. I can see why my dad really likes his movies. I wonder when an actor will materialize who has the same qualities, but acts more like he is of my (our?) generation. I wonder if there’s even anything universal enough about my generation to make such a thing possible.

At the same time, the movie had a certain genuineness to it that movies don’t really have too often nowadays. Nowadays, everything is too grand, too slapstick, too dumb, too flashy. Good movies that are just about people are pretty rare these days, especially comedies. I guess it’s probably a part of everything getting dumber in general. There really aren’t many recent comedies that I like. That being said, I did see Superbad recently, and that movie was pretty awesome. It did seem pretty genuine, and I am definitely of the opinion that the portrayal of most of the dudes in the movie was all too real. Seriously, it was definitely the most accurate portrayal of modern high school dorks I’ve ever seen. And believe me, I know.

Lupe Fiasco - Daydreamin’