Downtime

I have thirty minutes until I have to be somewhere. But I just got done watching Magnolia and my head hurts -- both from the movie and natural causes. So instead of tackling my very intimidating, very important list of things that HAVE to get done tonight, I am sitting here blogging and reading blogs. This does nothing to alleviate my stress. But it does feel good to complain a little.

In all seriousness though, has anyone seen Magnolia? That movie takes you for an emotional ride, and it huuuuuuuuuurts. It's so painful. There's zero no comic relief in a three-hour-long saga of various stories that thread in and out. And the central themes are loss, pain, death, loneliness, the devastating effects of emotionally abusive parents, and falling frogs. Yup. Frogs fall from the sky.

I looked it up online, and apparently the falling frogs are a Biblical reference to Exodus. And during a part of the film, there's a TV audience in which someone from that audience is holding a large sign that reads "Exodus 8:2." I looked it up. The verse reads, "And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs."

Goodness. So heavy handed. And really funny. Everyone in my class couldn't help laughing as it rained giant puffy frogs down on the unsuspecting characters running around the San Fernando Valley in pain and despair. The frogs splatting (sight and sound) was rather graphic, but it didn't take away from how completely bizarre it was.

I wish I could be in class tomorrow to discuss the movie. Movies are always better when they can be discussed with other film friends. We overanalyze the same garbage and make the same pompous connections in movies (like the frog thing above). It's quite fun.