vavabene

made a delicious dinner, bought an iphone and completed my absentee ballot. i feel quite productive for a tuesday night.

Clueless was on tv today (as it usually is on one of the 3 letter channels- usa, tbs, upn, whatever). While I’ve seen it hundreds and hundreds of times, it’s one of those movies that keeps opening up to me. I know that’s a bit dramatic- considering I’m talking about a movie about three overly-privileged valley girls with egos galore, but Clueless, more than anything, reminds me of how I’ve grown up. Like, for real.

Every time I watch it I feel like I delve a little deeper into all the sarcasm and parody. I wonder when I will finally catch on to EVERYTHING. I watched the movie for the first time with my parents (side note- awwwkward) in 1995. FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. I laughed at the little bits I understood, took mental notes on all the fashion, and shelved away little sayings and “isms” into my mental repertoire.

Feather pens? Yes please. Velvet? Even better. Plaid? There would never be enough space in an outfit to stick all that plaid. (Fun fact- according to IMDB there were 53 different types of plaid and tartain used in the movie)

Jokes I didn’t understand when I watched Clueless for the first time at age 8 (and yet it was still my favorite movie) that now make sense:

1. Travis apologizing to Cher because of this program with steps…
Cher: 12?
Travis: Ya! How did you know?
As an 8 year old I had absolutely NO idea what the hell they were talking about. 

2. Cher: Isn’t my house classic? The columns date all the way back to 1972!
I had never been out of the country at this point in my life. I didn’t get the joke that, compared to everywhere else on the planet, America has virtually no history.

3. “Oh how fabulous. Getting Marky Mark to take time out of his pants-dropping schedule to plant trees”
At the time I thought Marky Mark was a cartoon character and had yet to see the famous banana hammock ad.

4. Hot guys being Baldwins.
Would this still apply to Stephen Baldwin?

5. Cher: “Duh- it’s like a famous quote!
Dionne: From who?
Cher: Cliff’s notes.
Not only did I learn who Cliff was in junior high, I also used his notes many times as well.

6. “Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Schore movie.”
I long for the time when I hadn’t yet heard that voice. Oh, and when he hadn’t caused a massive mudslide in my driveway. And hit on my sixteen year old friends and I on the 4th of July. And again while I was hiking on Runyan Canyon. Ya- I long for that.

7. Tai: You guys do Coke here?
Cher: Ya…this is America.”
well- that and the “herbal refreshment reference” were way beyond my comprehension at the time. I guess I was as Clueless as Cher at this point. Har dee har har.

8. Tai: Cher, you’re a virgin?
Cher: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Dionne: Besides- that PC term is hymennally challenged.
Hilarious.

9. Murray: “He’s a disco dancing, Oscar Wilde reading, Streissand ticket-holding friend of Dorothy. Know what I’m saying?”
Also hilarious. Reminds me of something Lucille would say in Arrested Development. I’m also impressed Murray knew who Oscar Wilde was.

10. Christian’s obsession with Tony Curtis.
So obvious to me now. And now I understand why my dad laughed so hard at this point.

11. That the entire movie was based on Jane Austin’s Emma.
Once I realized this, I easily passed all my Emma-based papers and tests in AP English without having to study.

12. Dee’s virginity going from a “technicality” to “nonexistent”.
I watched this at a time when I not only had no idea what a virgin was (when not applied to an ice-blended drink) let alone a technical one.

i don’t know why i would do such a thing to myself at midnight, before I attempt to fall asleep so i can get up for work at 7 in the morning…

I decided to make a movie soundtrack playlist. this was a very very bad idea, since it turns out most of the movie scores that i find beautiful are incredibly sad. so now i’m sitting here, in tears, for no particular reason other than the music is so pretty.

what a lame lame lame way to spend my night.

i think i’m going to compile a list of my favorites for future reference. but so far the list is composed of the scores of blood diamond (so amazing, so deserving of far more credit than it received- movie and soundtrack-wise), inception (duh- try and listen to the song “time” and not tear up a bit), gladiator, the last of the mohicans, a beautiful mind, and amelie.