Well it’s 4:20 on 4/20, and I’m pretty sure Brandon is dead.  For those of you who are not friends with him, or living in a cave, 4/20 has been stalking Brandon for almost a year now.  He’s predicted his death will come today, and I really hope it comes true.  Sure, it would suck if he died, but it would give me the coolest, creepiest story to tell for the rest of my life.  With that in mind, I think the loss of his life is acceptable.
So I’m rapidly approaching 1000 movies.  I’ll probably watch my 1000th movie (Cinema Paradiso…it’s already decided) on Sunday, sometime.  I have a lot of work due Monday, though, so it may have to wait until Monday night.  Either way I will be watching my 1000th movie and finishing IMDB’s top 100 movies on the same night.  Hopefully after this milestone I’ll slow down on the movie watching a bit, but I can give no promises.  This summer will be pretty ridiculous, with a projection of 150 new movies.  Today I’ll probably watch either Ran or Fargo (which keeps oscillating in and out of the top 100, so I’m watching it early just to cover my bases).  Also, congratulations to the late, great Brandon Nowalk on owning the top 100 last night.  It was his last great accomplishment, besides the whole predicting his death thing.

The Blanton Art Museum has a special student opening tonight, which should be fun.  They’ve been building it for over a year, and it’s supposed to be a huge deal.  I’ll try to take pictures and post them in my next update.  I’ll also make sure to comment on my cultural superiority for attending museum openings.  “What?  You haven’t seen the Blanton’s Picasso?  Swine.”

Last weekend was fun, especially since Katherine and Sara weren’t in College Station.  I swear, every time I visit I dread seeing them.  Anyway, we watched the surprisingly great Kin-Dza-Dza on Friday (coo!), and then took pictures in downtown Bryan on Saturday.  The pictures were really awesome…it was really hard trying to choose a picture of the day so I just went with a picture from earlier in the day.

So I got to register for classes today, which was fun.  I’m pretty excited about my classes, but my schedule is kinda spread out, and I have two classes on Friday.  Still, it should be fun starting my upper division government classes, finally.  At lunch today I started talking about registration with Katie, who suddenly realized she had no idea this week was registration.  Luckily, she’s not registering until tomorrow, but it was still funny.

Next Saturday is my mom’s “Kitchen Party”, back in the Wood.  I’m not really sure what’s going on, but I’m sure there will be lots of food, a completely finished kitchen, swimming and an abundance of alcohol (Leahanne).  I’ll be driving back either late Friday or Saturday morning, so let me know if you need a ride.  Davide, I expect you to be there, btw.  You have to come back to visit sometime and see how different my house looks with the kitchen and living room opened up.  Everyone else, just let me know if you’re planning on going so I can tell my mom.

The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius are surprisingly great.  It’s really easy to read, and something that doesn’t take a whole lot of concentration.  It’s almost like a quotation book, where each paragraph is a complete thought and you can easily skip around.  Whatever, though, Marcus Aurelius will always just be the good emperor from Gladiator.  They should add a section to The Meditation about Russell Crowe being a badass.  It can go right after, “throw a phone at your enemies when you can’t place a long-distance call”.

Does anyone else think it’s ironic that Brandon choose April for his History Month, only to later be cursed by one of the days that was supposed to be spent celebrating him.  It’d be even more ironic if 4/20 later became Brandon Memorial Holiday, allowing the very cause of his death to be used to honor him.

Well, happy 4/20 everyone.  Right now most of you are probably too high to even read this.  That, or you started reading but the word “cave” somehow reminded you of brownies and you left the computer with a desperate case of the munchies.

So the movie-watching hasn’t slowed down.  I’ve taken advantage of two relatively easy weeks by watching 24 movies in 11 days.  The best of the movies was surprisingly All About Eve.  Almost all of the movies I’ve watched are from pre-1960, because I’ve seen very few old classics.  Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past week…hiding in my room and watching movies.  And you thought I was normally a recluse…
Every time I look at the picture above, of the Frank Lloyd Wright house, I want to build it.  One of my biggest goals in life is to either build or buy a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It will never be the same as it would be if he was alive, but it would still be incredible.  Seriously, can you imagine driving up the coast of California, making a sharp turn and then seeing this house on the side of a mountain?  By the way, I really love all of these colored pencil sketches of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.  I know they have one for the Guggenheim, and I own the Falling Water one, but if you ever see another for sale online let me know.

Brandon History Month is off to a great start.  I hear he is in negotiations with MTV to have a series chronicling the six month extravaganza next year.

Four days later…

Brandon, Leahanne and Sara spontaneously drove down yesterday to see Brick with us!  I don’t think we take impulsive trips to see each other enough, and I think it should be our goal to do this more next semester.  Next year I am going to randomly drive to College Station without telling anyone, and ya’ll will be forced to stop whatever you are doing and hang out with me.  I don’t care if you have three midterms the next day, you will stop studying and go do something crazy, like stealing a movie display the size of my car without anyone noticing…which brings me to Brick.  The movie was incredibly written, directed and acted.  It takes the loose definition of neo-noir that people have developed from fragments of recent movies and gives it a face.  This movie doesn’t back off from everything that makes a classic noir movie.  I think Ebert said it best when he described it as, “noir to its very bones!”  The shots and lighting were all perfect, as were the locations.  The standout work for me, however, is the script.  Rian Johnson essentially created a fictional street vernacular for his characters to speak in, allowing a new generation of film-goers to enjoy classic noir lines in a new, edgier way.  Some of my favorite lines from the movie include the following:

“He’s a pot skulled reef worm with more hop in his head than blood.”

“He just hit you? He asked for my lunch money first. Good thing I brown-bagged it. “

“There’s a thesaurus in the library.  Yeah is under “Y”.  I’ll wait.”

I’d find more, but my internet browser isn’t working (I think I downloaded too much).  I’ll add more next time, though.  I’ll also add pictures.

Has anyone noticed how the best indie movies of the year usually come out in the spring?  Last year Crash was the standout hit, but it seems like studios have pushed these smaller movies into the timeslot right between “beginning of the year shit” and “summer blockbusters”.  All I know is that there usually isn’t a single movie I want to see until late March, when some obscure small film catches my attention.  Anyway, I hope that Brick is a huge success at the box office.  I know I’ll be going to see it at least one more time.

Someone (Brandon) should download Thank You for Smoking and Lucky Number Sleven so I can watch them, because I probably won’t catch them in theatres.  I would do it, but I don’t have DC++ and my Bittorrent could take four years.  Speaking of Bittorrent, I’ve been sharing the Russian cult sci-fi film Kin-Dza-Dza for the past week, and it’s been one of the most downloaded things I’ve ever seen.  I’m going to watch the movie this weekend, but it seems like it’s one of the few hidden treasures that practically no one knows about.  If anyone wants to see it let me know and I can give you a copy (unless you are Brandon or Leahanne, in which case you will see it in a few days).

Okay, well I’ll end with the ten things I hate about Leahanne:

• The fact that she actually has me doing “10 things” lists.

• Her continual claim that she has a father, despite the fact that I’ve known her for three years and never seen him.

• She doesn’t know what Kin-Dza-Dza is (neither does anyone else, but I still take it out on her).

• She completely ruins my plans of watching movies in my room by driving to Austin and dragging me to a movie.

• She wears shirts that identify her as straight just to throw it in Brandon’s face.

• She’s a drunk.

• She thinks that V for Vendetta is better than Brick.

• She constantly reminds us that she has “class at 9″ and “a future”, while the rest of us just hope we don’t end up teaching history at FHS.

• Her name.  Pick one or the other for Christ’s sake.

• Mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you.  Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

I hope everyone enjoys the none-religious day off on Friday that happens to coincide with Good Friday.  Make sure to also take a second to enjoy the hypocrisy of our government.