So, yesterday Datingish posted a clip from the classic John Cusack 80s teen romance flick "Say Anything," and it got me thinking... How good were 80s teen movies? Teen movies now pale in comparison. Think about. As sappy as some of those movies were, 80s teen movies were also filled with so much more angst. Some examples:

The Breakfast Club - between dancing on tables, lusting after each other and smoking up in the library, the kids bare their souls to each other in heart-wrenchingly uncomfortable scenes. Everyone has problems - the princess is expected of too much, the geek has too much pressure, the weird girl is a klepto and feels invisible, the rebel is abused, the jock has self-loathing and anger management issues (and too much pressure). Yes, in their own way they're all stereotypes and teen movies now try to copy them often. But they were the originals. And they were not one-dimensional like teen characters now.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - A happy movie about kids ditching school their senior year and having fun? Wrong! What about those intense scenes with Cameron when his dad's car gets wrecked? Yikes. Those are some of the most intense scenes of any movie I remember.

Say Anything - While this is one of the cutest of cute 80s love stories, Diane Court's dad is a con man. Her mother is obnoxious. She has a lot of pressure on her to do amazing things. And John Cusack's character (who, if you added a college education, is pretty much my dream man) is being raised by his uptight sister who doesn't have time for him because she has a child of her own while receiving pressure from his absentee father to join the military. That's some tough stuff. And let's not forget angsty Lily Taylor who tried to kill herself when the asshole love of her life cheats on her and writes 60 some angry songs about him. And then there's the classic John Cusack boombox in the backyard moment.

Heathers - Um, holy crap, you don't get any angstier than that (for those of you who haven't seen it, it's a film starring Winona Ryder and Shannen Doherty about suicide, murder and social heirarchy. It also coined some classic phrases such as "that's so very," and "what's your damage?")

I haven't even seen some of the other classic 80s flicks like 16 Candles and I only vaguely remember Pretty In Pink because it's been so long. But I'll be they're just as good and angsty. The only one I've seen that I recall not liking was St. Elmo's Fire. What's your favorite 80s teen movie (EDIT: and/or scene from an 80s teen movie)?

I have lived in Park Slope for two years now, and except for the fact that it's hard to get people to come out to my 'hood to visit me, I have liked it a lot. For those of you unfamiliar with New York City geography, Park Slope is a neighborhood in Brooklyn that has, in the past 10 years about, become the place to move when you want to raise kids. I didn't understand why New Yorkers who lived in other neighborhoods seem to have such a beef with it. Yes there are a lot of kids, and that can get kind of annoying, but it kind of makes it feel more like a real community. And yes, a lot of the people that live here are yuppies, but it's no better anywhere in Manhattan now and even in other parts of Brooklyn. So I didn't understand people's beef with Park Slope. However, last night changed it all. (Warning: this post contains angry ranting)

Last night I went to see Brazilian Girls play a free show at Prospect Park as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series. Brazilian Girls are clearly a band that make people want to dance. So naturally, when they went on stage, a lot of people stood up (there are seats at the bandshell). So since the people in front of me were standing, and since I wanted to dance, my friends and I stood up too. It's a concert. That's what people do. But that threw the people sitting behind me (particularly the 4 or 5 girls sitting directly behind us) into a tizzy. People started yelling at us to sit down. One girl tapped me on the shoulder and was so condescending too. I'm normally pretty non-confrontational but I was getting pissed off so I was like "It's a concert. If you want to sit, go to a movie" and the girl goes "This is Celebrate Brooklyn. It's different. People sit down." Excuse me? I'm not some foreigner. I live her, bitch. I have been to many a Celebrate Brooklyn concert and have almost always ended up standing for the final band. When I told her that (without the "bitch" part), she responded "yeah, well I've been coming here my whole life." Oh, ok. Well then you must be right and those people standing aren't really there. Nor were they actually there at the other concerts. I must've just been imagining things. Then they tried to tell us that we had to sit down because elderly people behind us couldn't stand up. Though I was just ignoring them at this point, I was thinking to myself "if they're too old to stand, they shouldn't go to dance music concerts because people usually stand at concerts and that's part of the experience." That might seem insensitive, but really it's not. I'm not going to go to concerts when I'm too old to stand. Or if I do, and I can sit, I'm certainly not going to expect other people to sit down just for me. Especially if it's dance music. If it's the philharmonic or something, that's different. But Brazilian Girls? No sitting during that. I felt especially bad for my very tall friend, who they singled out. The thing that made me the most angry about this was that these girls clearly had no idea who Brazilian Girls were. They just came because it was a free concert and then had to ruin it for those of us who actually like the band. One girl behind me actually said "I didn't think they'd actually be from Brazil. But her accent sounds Brazilian." *Shudders* The ignorance! THE IGNORANCE! Actually, little missy, they're from New York and her accent is a mixture of European accents from the various places she's lived. And those foreign languages she's singing in? None of them are Portuguese! When the girls behind me finally gave up and stood up, it took every fiber in my being not to turn around and yell "SIT DOWN!" But I resisted. Then they proceeded to talk through the entire show, which drove me nuts. It took every other fiber in my being not to turn around and say "if you're not going to watch the show, please go home or at least shut the f*** up so those of us who actually like the band can enjoy the concert." It totally ruined the concert for me, even though Brazilian Girls put on a great show. AND then, the Celebrate Brooklyn officials cut off the Brazilian Girls and wouldn't let them play their finale song, Jique, because they were running over time (it was only 10:30pm...). What? Park Slope people can't handle noise? It's New York freaking city!

Which brings me to the other reason I'm pissed off - the neighbors are trying to shut down my favorite bar in Park Slope because of the noise. Um, if you don't like noise, move to the f***ing suburbs! This is a city. The point of cities is that everything is all mixed together and easily accessible - bars, restaurants, stores, residences. And I'm sure the people complaining about the noise have cars and can drive where ever they want. But we don't all have those luxuries, and I'd like to have a bar in my neighborhood that I can go to without getting on the subway and waiting for a couple of hours late at night by myself which isn't particularly safe, thanks. Seriously, Park Slopers lately seem to think they live in the suburbs for some reason and that everything should be quiet with white picket fences. It's making me really angry.

So I just read this article saying that, despite all his talk of hope and change, Obama is going to support legislation that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies who tap our phones without warrants as part of the Bush Administrations program. You might remember this issue being brought up on this featured post by bobbyduncan about FISA. This makes me incredibly incredibly angry, but I will try to avoid going on a political rant. Instead, I will recommend that Obama supporters - or even just FISA opposers - go to Obama's website and log on to his little social networking thingamabobber HERE and join the anti-FISA group. Please go help encourage him to step away from the dark side and to support our constitutional rights. There are already almost 12,000 people in the group. Hopefully that will help him see what is important to his supporters.

I do have to say though that I find it almost comical the Republicans are slowly stripping away our rights like this when the whole historical concept of being Republican was that you wanted the government involved in our lives as little as possible. How the Republican party has changed....

Last night I met this girl who, when asked what she does answered "I'm a documentary filmmaker." My first instinct was to be excited. Me too! I'm a documentary filmmaker, as well! Let's bond! But then I realized that this girl had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She never attended any kind of film school, which is fine. Sometimes the best way to learn is to just work in the field. But she hadn't worked in the field either. She didn't know simple things like how to rent a microphone for a shoot... I mean, come on now. But this new generation of YouTube filmmakers seems to think that they can pick up their home video camera, start filming random stuff and that makes them a filmmaker. It doesn't. When this girl was explaining the film she is trying to make right now, she actually said to me "it's not professional or anything." Wait, what? If it's not professional, then you cannot answer "filmmaker" when asked what your profession is. End of story.

See, recently I've been reading tons of articles about the death of independent film. Many independent film companies (or independent branches of big studios) are going under or being shut down. I know people who've been personally affected by it, as well. Part of the problem with independent film today and the reason it's having trouble, since digital has made it much cheaper and more accessible, is because there is so much of it out there and there are so many people making shit that should never be made and throwing it in the independent film pool and calling themselves independent filmmakers. This gives legitimate independent films a bad rep. See, films cost a lot of money to make. And if you're not going to do them well (like this girl I talked to who said her film was unprofessional) then there's no point in doing it at all. It's a waste of time and money. And it's girls like this who know nothing about filmmaking and aren't willing to take the time to learn - they just want to make their film damnit! Who cares if it's good or not! They have a vision and so of course it will turn out great! - that clog the independent film industry and drag the good films down with them.

If you want to be a filmmaker, go to film school. If you don't want to go to film school, then you start as a PA (production assistant) or intern and you work your way up. That's the best way to learn. You learn through experience, by helping others with their films first. Even most kids who go to film school start on the lower rungs and work their way up. But film school and working for other people is where you find the answers to questions like "where do I rent a microphone?" That way, when it comes time for you to make your own film, you know the answer to that question. If you want to be famous for doing some stupid dance on YouTube, then my advice is not for you. But please don't call yourself a filmmaker. It's disrespectful to those of us who are actually working really hard to achieve that title.

This girl was all "let me get your number" because clearly I know a lot more than she does. And I should've given her a fake number because now she's going to be calling me all the time asking me stupid questions, and what am I going to get out of it? Nothing. Film is also all about who you know, and knowing her is not going to help me in any way. In fact, it might be to my detriment. Maybe that sounds mean but it's the reality of the situation. That's one thing you learn in film school - it's all about who you know. This girl didn't even seem to know that.

I just got back from Boston and it was quite the trip. Leaving out the emotional details that come along with the fact that I went on this trip with the boy who dumped me a week ago, let me summarize my Boston experience.

First I went to see Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls perform with the Boston Pops, which was awesome. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. I even got to meet The Dresden Dolls afterwards. They are probably one of my favorite bands of all time so this was a big deal for me.

The next day was not quite as perfect, though it ended well. But the thing is - we drove to Boston and we were staying outside of Boston, so we had to drive when we wanted to do anything. Driving in Boston is... impossible. Don't do it. There aren't street signs, not that it matters because the street name changes every 3 blocks. There's no such thing as intersections. Instead 6-12 streets tend to converge into one quagmire like blob, in which all lanes disappear and you no long know where you're going. And don't even get me started on the stop lights and their timing. Do NOT drive in Boston. I had been to Boston one other time for 24 hours to look at colleges and had a similarly unpleasant experience because we were driving. DO. NOT. DRIVE. IN. BOSTON. It will make you hate the city. And if you can afford to, stay in Boston proper so you can use their public transit easily. It's worth the extra expense for the reduced hassle.

However, despite the frustration with the driving, it was a beautiful day. People were out in droves. There was a city-wide bar-b-que going on, as well as a cultural festival in the Boston Common. There were street performers everywhere. It was quite lovely. We did minimal parts of the "Freedom trail" (which just sounds so propaganda-y to me), which is this self-walking tour through a bunch of historical things. Lots of graveyards. I lost interest pretty quick. Oh! We also spent the morning in Cambridge, around Harvard Square, which was a very cute little area. There were also lots of people out there and there was some kind of Cambridge Music Festival going on, so there were bands and musicians on just about every corner. I made friends with one of the bands because they were from Minneapolis (where I'm originally from).

The one thing I recommend that you MUST do while you are in Boston (besides NOT driving) is that you go whale watching. We caught a whale watching cruise from the Boston Harbor and it was AMAZING. They take you out into this area that is FULL of whales. I thought we'd be lucky if we saw one (though they told us they guarantee we will see whales) but we saw probably 12-15 humpback whales and minky whales. And they came up to the surface a lot. A few of the humpbacks even breached a bunch for us, which apparently is rather rare (breaching is where they jump out of the water). It was so incredible. One word of caution though: if you go, plan ahead and bring warm clothing that you can layer because it gets cold out there on the ocean, especially when the boat is moving fast and your at the very front of it (or the bow if you will). We did the sunset cruise, which was especially romantic, but probably even chillier than the rest.

Here are some pictures from the whale watching excursion: