Back in the wild, wild west days of the Web 1.0, people were already wary about the use of their images online, whether photography, art or graphic design. There was no TinEye so people needed to protect their images and their work with hefty (and annoying) javascript codes. But stealing wasn’t the only problem, bandwidth was also an issue, it wasn’t cheap and when people direct-linked to your images, it caused quite a strain. But when they stole and used your image without attribution, it was a different kind of loss. A creative kind.

I spent a lot of time on my web design. I took pride in my content creation. I tried to use images I had scanned or photos I’d taken or stockphotos to create my layouts or designs. I tried to attribute them as best as I could, to the person who made it, while also trying to control my adaptation of the work. Unfortunately I became a victim of theft when I had an entire website layout (hand-coded) stolen from me and I was at a loss. Multiple attempts to contact this person failed and while my friends knew the work I had done, once in awhile somebody would come out of the woodwork and accuse ME of stealing from my own thief. Unfortunately, this has happened to everybody at one point or another. (Heck, look at Urban Outfitters! They do it all the time!)

Which brings me to Pinterest.

I’m a bit torn over how to exactly use this new social media platform due to my concerns about the pinning of images. I’m already hesitant of tumbling my own photos to my personal tumblr due to the way that people can de-link from your hard-written/tagged work. Pinterest adds a new element to this problem due to a murky roundabout way that “pins” all responsibility on the uploader to verify the copyright of an image. While Facebook pushes users to click that little button to verify the legality of the image (whether it’s fair use or not) and takes legal responsibility if there’s a concern, Pinterest takes it for granted.

While it’s unlikely people would get sued (except in the most egregious of situations), this is an age-old problem on the web that could be addressed in a few different ways.

1. Tie in with a tool like TinEye, a great partnership idea that could ask users to verify their image or tie back to a reference link.
2. Creative-commons tie in. Perhaps as a tool to train users who upload their own images about their rights as a copyright holder. Similar to the requirement for Flickr uploads.
3. Even something as little as a second-verification process like Facebook.

Pinterest has the potential (and definitely the legs) to be the next BIGGEST thing, up there with Facebook and Twitter, it could be the veritable “third social media must-have” ** and really needs to address these issues if it wants to continue being a powerhouse. With major websites like Flickr moving forward with “Pinterest-killer” codes, it’s something serious they need to address in the near future.

Either way, Pinterest seems to be here to stay, just be careful what you pin.

**As much as I adore LinkedIn, it’s not as sexy or as fun as other networks and it should stay that way.

Now that Facebook as a wide-spread tool for connecting in the 21st Century, personal matters are becoming public on the world’s largest social network. In my personal experience, in University I found myself in a Facebook faux-pas when a boyfriend and I broke up. It was absolutely final and in my mopey-ness, I proceeded to remove our relationship a few hours after the breakup (maybe 6 hours later). The next week I found myself pounced upon by one of his friends for being “indifferent” and uncaring because I removed it so fast, when in reality, he broke up with me. While I wasn’t harassed further, I learned some nebulous implications of a personal relationship turned public and since then, my current partner of 5 years and I have no formal Facebook ‘relationship’ preferring to show our affection in person. But relationship incidents are on the rise on the platform and here are two examples that are ending in litigation.

In Cincinnati, Mark Edward Byron, a man under a restraining order against his wife for a domestic violence charge, was charged in contempt of his restraining order and ordered to pay his wife over $1,100. The crime? Calling her out, swearing about her and defaming her character on Facebook to their mutual friends. The judge also offered an alternative punishment, which would have Byron offering an apology every day for thirty days to his estranged wife on Facebook.

In Minnesota, Randall LaBrie was not charged in online harassment of his nephew Aaron Olson on Facebook. Olson charged that LaBrie posted old family photos of him with “vulgar and coercive statements” attached to them and would cause “substantial hardship” for Olson. The court dismissed the case, ruling the photos were innocuous and could not be the basis of harassment and that the comments were not damaging.

So what happened here?

It’s obvious that in Byron’s case, he had a history of causing grief and harm to his wife and had been put under a restraining order for it. Part of his restraining order was to never cause harass or annoy her, something he obviously ignored when he began his tirade online. Also, Byron was falsely claiming that his wife was not obeying their custody agreement, but the court discovered that it was Byron himself who had been missing the visitations. In this case, Facebook was merely the vessel for more harassment, whether it was this social media platform or Twitter or email, he would have been in contempt due to his previous charge.

In LaBrie’s case, he and Olson had a history of family disagreements. Olson’s petition against his uncle also included a request for a restraining order and some confusing testimony about the timeline of events. The way his case was presented made it seem that the mere fact that LaBrie had posted the photos at all were enough for Olson to become upset, regardless of the captions. Olson was upset that somebody else could upload photos of him and comment and that he couldn’t control whether the images were on Facebook or not. He claimed that the visibility of the photos was negatively impacting his life, a claim that was cleanly dismissed by the court.

So what can we learn from this?

Judges are beginning to sift through the muddle that is caused when personal interactions become public using social media, especially Facebook, the biggest threat. We should expect inconsistencies in rulings but in these two instances I think they were judged fairly. Byron has already been charged and the eye of the law is upon him to prevent any more harm to his wife and LaBrie’s nephew Olson seemed to be using the law to prove a point and to settle hurt feelings. The rulings are fair in either case so this is a good sign for future cases.

On a side note…

Byron seems to have disregarded the judge’s verdict and has publicly tweeted his displeasure about the ruling. I’m assuming this means he doesn’t agree with the social media punishment he’s been delivered, but the Huffington Post says he’s cooperating. His attempts to tie in his behaviour to free speech activism is a bit disturbing considering his history (domestic abusers being manipulators who often try to drag their spouses through the mud to lower their reputation or ‘worth’ in others eyes). This is something I’m going to tackle in another post, the fact that anybody can be public and available due to social media to respond to any perception of their behaviour. Whether it’s Chris Brown or this guy, everybody has a voice on social media. For better and for worse.

Sources
Judge orders man to apologize to wife on Facebook. – Daily Dot
Minnesota man files harassment charges against uncle over Facebook photos. – Daily Dot

Recently, on the advice of an instructor and the nagging voice in the back of my head that kept telling me to “cover my tracks”, I embarked on a virtual trek to delete old, dusty accounts attached to my name or my aliases. Along the way I found accounts connected to social buying sites such as Livingsocial, music sites like Last.fm and corporate sites I’d joined to vote for contests. After my hard work, when you google my name you find ten carefully curated accounts that represent the way I wish to be viewed online. Applause.

But it’s a bit trickier for me than for most, there is only one other person in the world (according to google) with my name, so almost anything connected to me is easily searchable. If I had a more common name like Danielle Smith, this wouldn’t be such a problem. In a world where cultivating your personal brand and using SEO tactics to advance above your peers is important, I’m fortunate enough to already be at the top of the heap, at least, in terms of my name.

This exercise made me wonder, how much do people truly care about over-sharing? I agonized about leaving a connection to an anime website I used to contribute to, worried that people would perceive my writing as amateur and geeky when really, it was exemplary that a 16 year old was engaged and producing online journalism. Don’t get me wrong, I was no Tavi Gevinson, but I didn’t want to edit out a portion of my work and my life.

But for those who grew up with Facebook as teens, this could be a more serious problem. With the recent launch of Facebook Timeline, it’s possible to dig up dirt on profiles that was once nearly impossible to find. The only way to wipe this clean? A 14 day ‘purge’ of Facebook to properly deactive the account. While I disagree with the skewed poll options in a recent Digital Trends article about worries over Facebook Timeline, it summarizes the complications of this two week deactivation period and the complicated ways in which users need to ‘opt out’ of web activity.

With popular sites like Suicide Machine and Delete Your Account dedicated to walking you through the steps required to remove your account from popular websites, it appears that everybody has at least a few online profiles they’d love to forget. In my experience, it was a cathartic exercise in email/reputation management and a walk through memory lane. While I’m nowhere near ready to get myself off the grid and delete Facebook, at least I know I’m not the only one.

For the next few weeks I will be blogging as part of an assignment for my Corporate Communications and Public Relations program. We’re required to post about social media, PR, items of general interest and about ourselves. Of the requirements, I find it the most difficult to blog about myself, which inspired this, my first post, a comment on the impact that negative responses to a blog can have on your output. In my case, it changed my creative direction to this day.

You can call me an old-timer of the internet. In 1998, at 13 I launched my first blog on a website I used to have and moved to diaryland a year later. Blogging became a part of my daily life, I felt guilty going a day without logging my thoughts. Diaryland allowed you to password protect your diary so only an exclusive group of friends were allowed to know my intimate thoughts. As a teen I was a prolific writer, I wrote short stories, poems, often thinly veiled but related to my own life. Blogging allowed me to expand my group of friends and share my work with them, pieces I never would have allowed them to view face-to-face.

The blogging revolution also came at a very sensitive time in my life, when I was 14 my parents divorced, I was separated from my brother and felt my world collapse. I blogged furiously about my anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, and every teenage hormonal response I had to my changing emotions and my changing world was logged. Then that trust was abused. A friend gossiped about something I’d written, something that was less than flattering and I experienced my first instance of virtual uncloaking. While a physical journal may have been kept safe in a physical hiding spot, a journal with a password, or with ‘allowed access’ only needs a friend with malicious intent to betray you. The fallout from this incident caused me to delete almost all my personal writings and to this day, I haven’t posted even as much as a poem to the internet under my name.

As you can tell, I no longer blog about my personal life anymore, I haven’t in awhile. Instead I turned to online journalism, writing commentary and reviews for the now defunct AnimeFringe website and designed and collected content for fan-pages instead. I ran a popular website about a television show that hit one million unique visitors before I archived it and lost the domain (sad), a website for my high school that they kept for four years and a website for my student union in University. Post-University I joined blogTO as a writer in 2008 and have run househippo.org for at least six years (I can’t remember my own anniversary!) as a repository for my cinematic endeavors. I’m essentially all over the web but a little more guarded because I learned my lesson early. As much as I love the internet, I wouldn’t share my innermost thoughts with my thousands of “friends.”

• The Cambridge Satchel Company – The Classic
  
  This UK handbag company makes handmade, all English leather goods that just scream classy. I can just imagine myself pairing this hot number (with a blind embossing of my initials, obviously) with just about every dress I own. Grey, black, brown, green, red, you name it! It screams professional but fun, without being a flamboyant attempt to hold onto youthful pieces. This bag has a hold on me.
  

• Fluevog Shoes – Bellevues Mollie Johnson
  
  Everybody loves a good Fluevog, especially those who can’t afford to buy them regularly! The Bellevues are a classic style for Fluevog and this pair of gray/blue heels are soft, like a turtle dove, but still powerful and Voggy! Jeans, skirts, dresses, I want these to wear even around the house!

• Diesel Watch – Chronograph DZ5302
  
  This classic Diesel watch has a gold-tinted stainless steel bracelet with matching face and dial, perfect for somebody who can’t quite afford a watch of gold but desires to blind everybody with a faux-expensive habit. On a slightly different note, I’m also partial to the Ocean Blue Analog watch as well.

• JumpFromPaper Bag – Cheese!
  
  This JumpFromPaper bag is not only adorable and light-weight but it plays a bit of trickery with your mind, harkening back to 3D sidewalk art and MC Escher. I think it’s the perfect bag to highlight my fashion whimsy but it’s also mod enough to wear at work or play.

• iPad
  
  Ok, I’m a convert. I kept saying I didn’t see a need for one, what with a smart phone and a laptop, but as I try to heave my giant internet-typewriter in my bag, I realize how much I covet a magazine-sized superphone! I’m not desperate enough to click on those ‘Free iPad’ banners yet, but I understand the temptation. (Also, the ThinkGeek Etch-a-sketch cover is amazing.)

  And last but certainly not least…

• Miniature Pony
  
  

  Not quite Lil' Sebastian, but good enough.

  
  Well…I can’t ride it. I can’t carry it. I can’t use it to lug my bags and goods, but I can definitely love it to pieces. This is what happens to city-kids who never got to ride horses as children, we become obsessed with mini-farm animals. Watch the video below for one that can do TRICKS!!

  So maybe next year, my friends, at least one of these will be in my possession. And yes, you can pony-sit.

  ]]> http://househippo.org/2012/05/14/consumer-aspirations-aka-my-birthday-wish-list/feed/ 0 http://househippo.org/2012/04/05/five-tv-mama-bears-you-dont-want-to-tangle-with/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-tv-mama-bears-you-dont-want-to-tangle-with http://househippo.org/2012/04/05/five-tv-mama-bears-you-dont-want-to-tangle-with/#comments Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:30:08 +0000 Danielle http://househippo.org/?p=797

  A few weeks ago it was Mother’s Day across the pond in the UK and to celebrate, I created a list of some of my absolute favourite contemporary TV Mama-Bears who fiercely protect their cubs, whether physically, emotionally or…otherwise.

  1. Catelyn Tully – Game of Thrones

  Wife of Ned Stark, proud mother of 5 children and former Lady of House Tully, Catelyn Stark wears many hats but her life hasn’t been easy. She was once in love and betrothed to the handsome Brandon Stark but after his untimely demise, married his younger brother Ned instead and is devoted to her family.

  Mama-Bear Moment – After her husband was executed by Joffrey the Jerk, Catelyn pushes aside her pain to comfort her son Robb. Despite the loss of her husband, her children remain her first priority.

  2. Cersei Lannister – Game of Thrones

  A Lannister always pays their debts and Cersei Lannister is no exception. She is fiercely protective of her children who are (unbeknownst to Westeros) incestuous products of her relationship with her twin Jaime. She spends a lot of time ensuring nobody messes with her cubs, even in the most minor of ways.

  Mama-Bear Moment – Showing the power she wields, she punishes the Starks for a tiny scratch that Joffrey gets from Arya. The punishment? She sentences Sansa Stark’s wolf to death. Cold vengeance for such a tiny grievance.

  3. Susie Greene – Curb your Enthusiasm

  The term “her bark is bigger than her bite” doesn’t apply to Susie because her bite is terrifying. Known for her caustic tone and filthy mouth, Susie, the wife of Jeff, Larry’s closest friend and manager, has mistrusted Larry since Day One, especially with anything to do with her family.

  Mama-Bear Moment – While Larry is at the Greene’s house, he accidentally gives Sammi, Susie’s 7 year old, wine, and takes the family dog for a walk. Susie comes home and finds her child drunk as a skunk and her dog missing and who shows up in the driveway soon after?

  Warning, lots, well, constant swearing.

  4. Athena – Battlestar Galactica

  Athena joins Battlestar as a Cylon spy on a mission to seduce Helo to test human/cylon procreation. What she doesn’t expect is to fall in love with him, to get pregnant and switch allegiances entirely. Their daughter Hera is a rare hybrid human/Cylon and is abducted multiple times during the series causing Athena becomes a paranoid Mama-Bear to cope.

  Mama-Bear Moment – Long story short, Athena forces her husband Helo to kill her so she can resurrect and save her kidnapped daughter aboard the Cylon ship. It’s a risk because not much is known about resurrection but the losing their daughter was not an option. Cue the tears.

  Helo and Athena – Skip to 3:20

  5. Emily Gilmore – Gilmore Girls

  Emily is an amazing grandmother. While she may have had some mishaps while raising Lorelai, her focus on Rory is bullet-proof and nobody is going to mistreat her smart, talented and lovely granddaughter. Her way with words is definitely where Lorelai gets her verbal magic from.

  (Grand)Mama Bear Moment – When Rory is slighted by her boyfriend Logan’s disapproving parents, Emily wields her social prowess to give Logan’s mother a verbal knock-out.

  Emily lays waste to the Huntzberger matriarch

  Honourable mentions: Tara from United States of Tara, Claire from LOST and Nikki/Jessica from Heroes

  ]]> http://househippo.org/2012/04/05/five-tv-mama-bears-you-dont-want-to-tangle-with/feed/ 0 http://househippo.org/2012/02/29/the-blindspot-series-fried-green-tomatoes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-blindspot-series-fried-green-tomatoes http://househippo.org/2012/02/29/the-blindspot-series-fried-green-tomatoes/#comments Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:00:46 +0000 Danielle http://househippo.org/?p=770
  Now is probably the time to admit that I’m not very good at following lists or planning when it comes to film. In fact? I’m terrible at it. I rarely buy all my tickets ahead of time at TIFF because I never know what whim I’m going to have on a specific day and with cinema it really comes down to what mood you’re in. That being said, this month has been tough. My grandfather who has been hospitalized since just after Christmas passed away and I was really in no mood to ironically enjoy Eyes Wide Shut. I needed something uplifting, something emotionally loaded but something heartwarming at the same time. I trusted that Netflix would help me find the right film and it totally did, another film that should absolutely be on my Blindspot list, Fried Green Tomatoes.
  
  Q: Why Fried Green Tomatoes?
  A: I’m in lesbians with you.
  For somebody who prides herself on watching all those ambiguous girl-power films with lesbian undertones like Thelma and Louise or Heavenly Creatures, somehow this film had managed to escape me. Hipster-looking lesbian protagonists from the Great Depression? I’m sorry, sign me right up.

  A few notes.
  I dub this the “Parkdale Hipster Ensemble” but Mary Stuart Masterson’s wardrobe is a contemporary dream. She out Annie Hall’s Annie Hall and wears some of the best androgynous outfits I’ve seen in cinema, ever. My favourite being the first one she wears to return home with some honey. But she continues along this theme all throughout the movie. I pretty much want to own all of her outfits. Also? The film has a slight food-porn element. There are a few scenes that seem like they are shot by an entirely different camera crew as they pan over sumptuous barbecue, a plate of desserts or, you guessed it, fried green tomatoes. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek due to the later reveal (I’ll never look at barbecue the same again) but it’s still an interesting shift in certain scenes.

  The Film
  A strong “let your freak flag fly” film, Fried Green Tomatoes follows the exploits of tomboy-turned-rebel Idgie and her best friend Ruth. The two are entwined together in a tragedy, when Idgie’s brother Buddy (a young Chris O’Donnell!) is hit by a train chasing after Ruth’s hat. Ruth leaves town and Idgie leaves her senses, setting up shop by the river. But as the years pass, Ruth is asked to talk some sense into the morose girl, to ask her to come back home. Instead? Ruth discovers that Idgie can definitely take care of herself and finds herself drawn to the compassionate oddball she’s grown up to be. While definitely not as overt as the book makes it out to see, the two are definitely in love. They struggle with supporting themselves and defining their relationship to friends and foes, making a claim in the world.

  The Meaning
  This is really where the spoiler alert comes in handy. Ruth gets sick and dies. Yup, for no discernible reason she gets sick and she dies. In a completely different way that my grandfather passed, but in the same way that one moment she’s there, the next she’s gone. There’s grief and there’s memory, and what’s interesting about this film is that the entire story of Ruth and Idgie is a tale retold by Idgie herself. She’s reliving her moments to a new friend she meets at a retirement home. Of course she keeps her identity hidden until the last scene but it’s clear after some time that she’s heartily recalling past moments. And that is what I took away from this film. Those who are gone, are never really gone, as long as we’re still remembering all the crazy moments we had.

  The tweets
  This was the most popular part of my last Blindspot post, Die Hard, but since this was a more dramatic film, only a few key things were tweeted.

  Feb #BlindSpot has been swapped out to Fried Green Tomatoes! So many good lines! “Are you a politician or does lying run in your family?”

  Mary-Stuart Masterson looks like a Parkdale hipster who would have paramours lining the streets for days, she even has a mason jar!

  Going through the “Change” sounds like an X-Men mutation. “You need to get some hormones and then a job!” Oh #oldladywisdom

  “Face it girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.” #friedgreentomators is the beeeest.

  Oh my god, the secret’s in the sauce. Oh my god. #friedgreentomators

  Want more? Follow me on twitter.

  Next up for The Blindspot?
  March 2012 – Gate of Flesh
  April 2012 – Hoop Dreams
  May 2012 – Eyes Wide Shut

  Previously on The Blindspot
  Die Hard with boredom

  ]]> http://househippo.org/2012/02/29/the-blindspot-series-fried-green-tomatoes/feed/ 0 http://househippo.org/2012/02/12/this-weeks-i-watched-grease-singalong-the-eyes-of-tammy-faye-the-kid-stays-in-the-picture-some-like-it-hot-oh-brother-where-art-thou-the-woman-in-black-art-copy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-weeks-i-watched-grease-singalong-the-eyes-of-tammy-faye-the-kid-stays-in-the-picture-some-like-it-hot-oh-brother-where-art-thou-the-woman-in-black-art-copy http://househippo.org/2012/02/12/this-weeks-i-watched-grease-singalong-the-eyes-of-tammy-faye-the-kid-stays-in-the-picture-some-like-it-hot-oh-brother-where-art-thou-the-woman-in-black-art-copy/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:18:14 +0000 Danielle http://househippo.org/?p=739
  The films I watched from January 23rd to February 11th.

  With my recent invite to Letterboxd, I’m a bit afraid this column will go the way of the dodo. It’s clean, smooth, collaborative and a great way to keep a film diary. You guys who don’t have access however? I’ll keep this up, JUST FOR YOU. This post has turned into a biweekly bit so I want to change the name but have no idea. Any suggestions? This Fortnight and a Week I Watched? Films in a Fortnight or So? Fortuitious Fortnight? Hrm, I need to work on this…

  This week had a lot of revisiting, some new documentaries and my review of The Woman in Black, the biggest yawn of 2012.

  Grease Sing-A-Long
  TIFF has done me in with their sing-a-long as of late. While I already had a ticket for the February 25th Grease Sing-a-long I was invited to attend the “practice session” with media and invited guests and belted along to Greased Lightning and Beauty School Dropout with the best of them. I was worried it would satisfy my appetite but no, if anything I’m even more excited for round 2! Join me on Saturday February 25th at 7pm. Tickets are still available!

  The Eyes of Tammy Faye
  As a Canadian who was a child when all of the Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker and the PTL Club went down, I just knew Tammy Faye as the evangelist with the eyelashes. My boyfriend grew up in North Carolina and insisted I watch this documentary. This was a very dark, but interesting documentary about a woman who suffered quite a bit of misfortune in her life. A woman I’d previously only recognized as a batty Christian. Tolerant and friendly to gays and lesbians, not afraid of perma-tattoos (her lipline, eyebrows and more) and in love with Jesus, she’s an enigmatic figure. I’m seriously glad they made this movie to at least try to explain some of the history of her madness.

  The Kid Stays in the Picture
  Robert Evans’s riches-to-rags-to-documentary is a great, if not narcissistic look at a producer who shaped some of America’s most iconic pictures of the sixties and seventies. From Rosemary’s Baby to The Godfather and Chinatown, Evans put the wheels in motion for some of the most successful and important American films of all time. All the historical stories are great, it’s just too bad he’s a sexist jerk. “Discovered” by Norma Shearer, one of the more sexually and gender progressive classic film stars, I’m sure she’d roll her eyes at the way he describes women in this documentary. Oh well.

  
  Some Like it Hot
  Probably my favourite movie about accidental drag queens of all time. Lemmon and Curtis as two musicians who somehow witness the Valentine’s Day massacre find love in Florida in a female band? Priceless. Lemmon as the creepy pervert and Curtis as the self-rightous stalwart is a lovely pair, especially when Curtis decides to impersonate a millionaire at the same time that he’s impersonating a woman. Also? Fat Marilyn! I love Fat Marilyn! The scene on the yacht with her dress that doesn’t do up in the back? Ugh, I love this movie.

  Oh Brother, Where art Thou?
  Probably my second favourite Coen brothers movie, although it depends on the day of the week. Sometimes it’s Barton Fink, sometimes I love No Country for Old Men, sometimes it’s Raising Arizona, but really? Lebowski is my first and this is my second. I really enjoyed the inanity this time around, I hadn’t actually watched it in maybe 3 or 4 years. Ulysses intentions are just as nefarious as ever, and boy did I feel bad for Pete this time around. Also? I may have sang my way through the film…

  The Woman in Black
  This was a whim, I’m not usually a contemporary horror fan because most contemporary horror is terrible. This was no exception. The Woman in Black may be a moving, creepy play but that does not translate onscreen. Instead of attempting to draw a dark atmospheric mood, the film instead just allows Radcliffe to play his character as somebody so desenstized to death and ghosts that he has balls the size of watermelons but the personality of a mop. I didn’t care about him, truly. He’s a broken man and that is all. The scares were paint by numbers or, paint by watch. At a certain point mid-way through the film, the “AAHHH” ghost screams, reminiscent of The Ring and other movies that use that fake-scream to spook you, was playing every two minutes without fail. I was so bored I wanted to cry. Nothing was unique, nothing rang true, nothing was actually spooky and I figured out the story and the twist half-way through. Skip it, go see The Innkeepers instead, do NOT waste your time or money on this piece. Remember Harry Potter as he was, not as he is.

  Easy Virtue
  The Kristin Scott Thomas/Jessica Biel/Colin Firth film pairing I never thought I’d see. A young heir to a large manse finds love in all the wrong places in a widowed race car driver, a lovely American woman from Detroit who doesn’t ride horses or hunt or play tennis. Biel is surprisingly charming and interesting as the ‘older woman’ and this movie is anachronistic but funny as all hell.

  Art & Copy
  Do you like Mad Men? Do you like advertisements? Remember Just Do It and Got Milk? Listen and learn the backstories from the advertisers, the outliers and business-types who made those ads happen. An engrossing film for anybody who likes art, design and copy, especially for advertising, marketing and communications students. If anything was ever going to make me want to shill for ‘the man’ more, it was this film. It’s available on Netflix so there is really no excuse.

  TV-Land
  On the tv front, I’ve started watching The United States of Tara which is amazing. There are no adequate explanations for why I hadn’t dedicated myself to this show yet, everybody on it is great, they’re fucked up, it’s subversive and it’s not TOO Diablo Cody-ified. I watched a few episodes when it first came out and just let it go for reasons unknown to me, but I’m obviously an idiot because this is great television.

  
  Also rewatching? The Rose of Versailles, a late 70′s anime about the start of the French Revolution through the eyes of a female commander of the Royal Guard. Melodramatic but entertaining, it features a super strong lead female character and has a bit of historical fluffiness too.

  ]]> http://househippo.org/2012/02/12/this-weeks-i-watched-grease-singalong-the-eyes-of-tammy-faye-the-kid-stays-in-the-picture-some-like-it-hot-oh-brother-where-art-thou-the-woman-in-black-art-copy/feed/ 0 http://househippo.org/2012/02/02/this-weeks-i-watched-every-little-step-shorts-that-are-not-pants-die-hard-exit-through-the-gift-shop-dead-mountaineers-hotel-the-secret-of-the-kells-test-pilot-pirxa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-weeks-i-watched-every-little-step-shorts-that-are-not-pants-die-hard-exit-through-the-gift-shop-dead-mountaineers-hotel-the-secret-of-the-kells-test-pilot-pirxa http://househippo.org/2012/02/02/this-weeks-i-watched-every-little-step-shorts-that-are-not-pants-die-hard-exit-through-the-gift-shop-dead-mountaineers-hotel-the-secret-of-the-kells-test-pilot-pirxa/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:46:59 +0000 Danielle http://househippo.org/?p=707 This week, an amalgamation! Turns out I only watched 3 movies (in full) the week of January 9th-15th, probably due to Skyrim and starting my semester at school. Luckily I made up for that from the 16th-22nd. I still feel like I’m missing a few…

  Every Little Step
  This was a random Netflix choice, I’m a huge sucker for competitive documentaries and a film following the attempts to cast the full relaunch of A Chorus Line sucked me in entirely. On top of that, the film also featured the exclusive tapes from the initial creation of the musical, gleaned from real-life experiences of dancers and performers in the 70′s. Contrasting that to the struggle that the performers still experience today was a really effective measure. This is not a doc I’ll be forgetting soon.

  Shorts That Are Not Pants
  A GREAT series curated by James at Toronto Screen Shots, including international and domestic shorts. Th best part? I was given the chance to see Wild Life, a NFB documentary that was just nominated for Best Animated Short at this years Academy Awards. A great selection of films and hopefully we’ll see more from this series soon. Check out Shorts That Are Not Pants for more information.

  Die Hard
  See my Blind Spot post for this gem of a film!

  Exit Through the Gift Shop
  While I saw this in theatres, my lovely boyfriend John hadn’t. It was great reliving Mr. Brainwash’s rise to relative fame in Banksy’s doc once more. I was able to concentrate on more of the aesthetic elements of the film this time around, really recognizing pieces of work and street artists. John loved it, I’m glad.
  

  Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel
  For my Attack the Bloc post at blogTO, I was given some screeners to view to really improve my understanding of the obscure genre of film. Soviet sci fi is usually quite cerebral and complicated, but Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel? Not quite so. This was more of a schlocky homage to American cinema of the 70′s, and considering the late date of this film (1979) they had more than enough time to study those works. The protagonist belongs in a different film altogether, the hotel occupants are leftover psychadelic users and the sci-fi is weak at best. It’s kinda fun and weird, but it’s not good by any means.

  The Secret of the Kells
  This was for a friend of mine, she’d never seen this work, a film that snuck into the Best Animated Feature in 2010 despite being relatively ignored this side of the Atlantic ocean. I quickly made myself known of this work and have been singing it’s praises ever since. The studio has a new work out next year, Song of the Sea and the teaser is gorgeous.
  

  Test Pilot Pirxa
  I wish this film could get remastered and put together with some more footage from the cutting room floor because there is a FANTASTIC story in here that seems to get lost due to budget. Pirxa is a great paranoid thriller about a captain piloting a test ship half made up of robots and half of humans but doesn’t know who is who. When one of the crew begins to torment him, he becomes distrustful of just about everybody on-board, which is deadly when the tormentor decides to strike. Political, topical, I just wish the weird car chase at the beginning was halved.

  So I’m caught up to the 22nd of January which was only, what, 2 weeks ago? Crap.

  ]]> http://househippo.org/2012/02/02/this-weeks-i-watched-every-little-step-shorts-that-are-not-pants-die-hard-exit-through-the-gift-shop-dead-mountaineers-hotel-the-secret-of-the-kells-test-pilot-pirxa/feed/ 0 http://househippo.org/2012/01/29/the-blindspot-series-die-hard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-blindspot-series-die-hard http://househippo.org/2012/01/29/the-blindspot-series-die-hard/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:00:10 +0000 Danielle http://househippo.org/?p=711

  So I’m an obsessive list-builder and to-do lister and have decided to lump myself in with these crazy people and create my own Blind Side/Blind Spot series. (I prefer the latter because the former makes me think I’ve been hit with a truck or a lawsuit.) It’s a completely self-directed monthly list that encourages, nay, forces us to watch movies we should have, by all accounts, seen by now. This could be films we’ve purchased and left aside, classics we’ve ignored, auteurs we’ve avoided or pop culture we’ve passed on.

  I’ve not yet determined my full set of films, I think it’ll be a more organic process, discovering films I’d genuinely like to discuss will be key. But this month, we can all agree that this girl really, really, really needed to finally see Die Hard.

  Just to get some things off my chest. I’ve NEVER ADMITTED I’VE SEEN DIE HARD. I’m constantly reminding people that I’ve yet to see this film and in almost five years of dating my boyfriend who supposedly looooooves it, has never even sat me down to watch it. So to cap off this holiday break, while everybody else was watching the Golden Globes, I decided to finally knock one off my list and live-tweeted the entire thing.

  I still don’t see why this movie is special, it’s an action flick, John argues it was good in comparison but I still don’t get it. There are some clever bits but this is utterly forgettable for me. I must still be missing something. But I will treat you to my tweets from the evening peppered with some telling stills. Enjoy!

  Did my writing early, now for Die Hard and then on to Champion Day! #endofweekendblues

  The Nakatomi Building is still ridiculous 24 years later, the hair is huge but the glasses are amazing! #DieHard

  Alan Rickman why you so hot and w/ such a confusing accent? Also, Bruce Willis must’ve spent the duration of this movie dehydrated #DieHard

  Trussing up a corpse with a message? Morbid, Bruce Willis! Oh well it’s just generic German villains! #DieHard

  

  Falling down an elevator shaft into an air vent? I call bullshit. Also? He’s more believable when he isn’t quipping endlessly. #DieHard

  Protip: If you are a stupid coke head, don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sigh. #DieHard

  For those just tuning on, I’m live tweeting my first ever viewing of #DieHard and its about 50% fun, 50% stupid.

  Bruce Willis, you so stupid! His accent is totally fake! Don’t fall for it! #DieHard

  I do enjoy this slow burning thriller part, camera angles askew, a little Hitchcockian dialogue, and now back to the machine guns! #DieHard

  Glass in feet, glass in feet, ugggggh! #DieHard
  

  But whats in the corporate safe? Oh, just a shit ton of fucking antiques and art, private collection? Wtf? Ohhhhh and bonds, gotcha #diehard

  Now for the reformed badboy to realize he loves his wife, oh yeah! Are those real tears Mr. Willis? D’awww. Love those crazy kids! #DieHard

  What’s with the movie’s subtle racism? Lets assume the nanny is illegal. Booo. #worstnewsanchorever #DieHard

  Willis has his crazy eyes now! The FBI is even worse than the godawful LAPD. Now he’s rappelling down the building w/ a fire hose? #DieHard

  Carl Winslow just shot somebody, cue the E.T. music! Now Argyle comes to take the happy couple home. But why not the hospital 1st? #DieHard

  So obviously, as you can tell, this was not the stunning film I thought it would be, let’s only hope the next few months will expand my horizons a little more thoroughly.

  Next up for The Blind Spot?

  February 2012 – Eyes Wide Shut
  March 2012 – Gate of Flesh
  April 2012 – Hoop Dreams

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