Fan Letter 1

Since I'm never going to actually mail any of these out, I figure I might as well write them and have them somewhere.

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Dear Mr. Downey,

What can I really say, I'm a fan. I'm not one of those creepy fans that wants to marry you, I'd be wholly content with meeting, and chatting for a day. I love your performances across the board in movies of varying acclaim. I haven't seen everything you've been in, but with what I have, I totally enjoyed your performances.

More than anything, as a fan, I really would just like a good conversation. To just see how you tick when it's not in the public eye. It's not what you were, but it's what you are. Who you are outside of the public eye intrigues me, I feel this way about many celebrities. Well, not many, but just sitting down and talking would be fantastic.

What I'm interested in knowing is what else you're interested in. The public knows of you as an actor and that you ave an interest in music. But what else is there? What types of movies do you like to see? What types of things do you read? It's the little things that make up everything that intrigues me the most. I am a 'why' type of person and am interested in knowing as much about what I'm interested in as possible. Any bit of information helps in creating more well rounded characters, stories.

'Here, check this out, a sketch of one of my characters.' That's what I'd say upon meeting you quite possibly at some point during the conversation.

To any type of point, I would quite simply like to meet and talk. A photo would be magnificent. But it's the truth. I am a fan, but like I said before not a creepy fan. I don't think it's that bad a thing to just meet and chat for a bit. It'd probably be fun. I might teach you something too. We'd both probably benefit somehow.

Points of praise:
Delivery, voice, facial expressions, physicality, emotion. Humor. Those are some of the things I really and truly love about your performances.

Another point is it's interesting with the parts you choose to perform how those hint at things about you. I feel that way about all actors. What you choose to do is an interesting reflection of self. You have taken on parts of damaged characters who are inherently good people. You have taken parts of the wild and of the human. You're wildly human, or maybe simply humanly wild and it works. The pain, the joy. Sometimes you seem to be more than an actor and you are the character, something that few can say they've accomplished.

I look forward to seeing what happens and where you go as you age. A new generation of actors is arriving and going through their own hells, just as everyone did ten, twenty years ago. But even with the youngster coming up, they still need their heroes, and audiences still need the older actors for inspiration and for those sorts of roles in film.
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I got a bit sidetracked while writing this, but it's the over all truth. More to come. More to come.

Jasmine P.

Do Unto Others As You Would Want Them To Do Unto You

I haven't properly written anything out in a while, more than a month really. Well, I think there's one or two things on LJ or Facebook but ehh, those two journals don't get the same treatment as over here does. Twitter gets the truth most often, the deepest parts of my soul in only 160 characters. Well, 140, but 160 in a text, but that's neither here nor there.

I've figured out and decided that I'm at a major cross roads in my life and I've been here for a while. How long I cann0t tell but things are different. some times I'm a lot happier than I've been in a while, other times I'm somewhat listless and my attention span has been nowhere serious for the past few days. I think it's partially a very mild depression but I'm still moving away from where i used to be. i mean, this time last year I was crazed and ready to get the hell out of dodge. And I think a very little mite suicidal. I assume I'm true about that last assumption. i don't like that thought one little bit, but it might be a small part of my truth about life.

Considering I've spent so much time alone I've had a lot to think about without other people getting in the way. Apparently Firefox can't spell check anymore. fucking whore. blargle ggj ...joy. Back to the point, my technological assistance is apparently temporarily out, maybe because this window's been open for a while, and now I just plain have an internet error, joy.

Back to my life. Now, there are two guys who are apparently vying for attention in my mind. One of them works at Borjo and I know I won't say a damned thing to him, and i think he's in a relationship anyway. Okay, this is annoying. Time to refresh the fucking window. There, it's fixed, but back to the point, once more. The other guy I've never said a word to, but he does intrigue me and I do want to say something. Mostly tell him his hat is bitching, but even that apparently sends me a twitter and makes me confused and like an annoying girl. Interacting wiht strangers is quite annoying and American society does not make it any easier. Great, it's crapped out once more. Fuck you ODU internet. Yeah, I wish this were more of a spur of the moment thing and not something I've been thinking about saying all semester. I'm a weird one. Chance are I'll say this, then it'll be another person on my 'hi-bye' roster of acquaintances. No big deal.

On to more stupidity that's been running through my head. I am currently obsessing of the TV show Psych. I think a rabid obsession has been missing from my life. I haven't really been focused on anything for a while and even with my faulty attention span from the past few days, I have been enjoying the show and the commentary and have tried to draw James Roday and Dule Hill. James is much more of a challenge, and he is now on my list of actors it would be bitching to meet. Well included in this list is the even awesome RDJ, Johnny Depp, and Morgan Freeman to remind myself of a few of the celebs I would love to meet. Hell, I would love to film an episode of Psych. 'Guest starring a random fan!' Bomb diggity.

I don't know where I'm going right now and I think that's why I had to spend some time alone, so I could get a proper handle on myself and what I need. I don't know how to fix me and getting a boyfriend is a bit of a pipe dream still. Pipe dream territory is never fun.

Now's not the time for my to do my big 'it's the end of the year' thing. I kind of did that for my birthday when I said 'i'm not dead yet' but maybe this time I'll wait until January and just have my big 'changing of the year' thing ring in the next year instead of shutting down the old one. God, this new mp3 player recharges is no time. From no batter to almost full in about 45min. Gold.

I'm sure this has accomplished something important to me, but I'm not sure of what it is quite yet. The point is to be theraputic and I'm not sure how useful this one was. Probably more than I realize at this moment, but it's not as useful as my last conversation with Alex. But nothingis near as useful as any of those, except for face-to-face interaction.

Jasmine P.

Movie Review: Tropic Thunder

I don't usually write review, but responses to movies, but there isn't anything to respond to, so a review instead =D I also think I need to analyze something before I go crazy, and this is the most recent thing I have to analyze.

TT was not a great movie, it was okay, it is worth seeing again. The fake trailers were ehh, Satan's Alley made me laugh the hardest. The the theater the audience laughed the most at the trailers and the Booty Sweat commercial and not as loudly at the rest of the movie. Or I stopped paying attention to them seeing as how I was wrapped up in the movie. Overall it was poorly written and disjointed, my opinion saved by RDJ's excellent acting, and secondary character Jay Baruchel as Kevin Sandusky. Stiller was weak, Black was in a very Black type of casting, and everyone else filled their parts fine, the pyro/FX technician, Sargent dude, etc. Cruise's character was odd.

Hmm, the movie was disjointed in the fact that there was the set up, then the middle seems to be kind of random, then the conclusion makes sense, well the 'movie's conclusion' before they go to the fake Academy Awards. Also, the characters had very rapid personality growths. Only character Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson's character 'Alpa Chino' also seemed to have somewhat logical growth, having not changed until whenever the award ceremony was.

I think the conclusion to the movie that would have been more satisfying for me would be something related to how the Downey, Black and Stiller's characters had changed after their ordeal instead of having Cruise dance around for another 5 minutes. I would have liked to see how each actor changed, even if it was some simple little 'post ceremony red carpet' type of thing.

Downey in those blue contacts was one of the scariest things I have ever seen. Well less scary and more disturbing because it didn't work. I loved his use of accents in the movie. No issue with the blackface, because the movie did it's job of straight up making fun of self-absorbed celebrities.

Jasmine P.

Displaying my Art

While washing some dishes and playing my usual game of 'If I I Meet A Celebrity, I'll Ask Them These Questions' I was explaining why I was curious for 'one of the harder parts you did in your opinion' instead of 'what is the hardest part you've ever played' because trying to define something as a 'hardest' of any extreme is not easy, and it's not something I condone because verything has it's own difficulties and eases.

I was explaining my wording and relating it to pieces I do. There are things I dislike about most everything I do, and no matter how many things I dislike, there's usually some little thing I like about a piece I've done. And That got me to thinking about why I show people my art.

I don't show people my art to be told 'it's great' because most of my friends are not artists. They think damn near every doodle, every sketch, every finished piece is amazing. I sure as hell don't, not for my art, or anyone else. There are aspects I like. But what I had gotten around to thinking was I show people my art for their reactions. Their responses, questions, understanding, acceptance, confusion. I'm not digging for compliments. I'm digging for responses that I can file away. There are people whom I show my work who most often respond with 'that's nice, but why are you showing me this?' it gives me the chance to explain something I've created, in turn explaining myself, but it gets me away from the 'yes men' who think it's amazing that I an hold a pencil, a pen, anything in such a fashion that I am able to make something out of it.

My line of questioning is more on the aspects of a film, of a project and working on it more so than a laundry list of favorite, least favorite parts. My questioning gave me the 'why' What was a hard aspect of a part? Why? What is something about a past performance you'd want to change? That damn near gives me the 'why' without having to ask it. This question is also fun because actors always want to change and improve a performance, but can't. I think it'd be fun to hear about some of the things they wish to change about their performances, or parts they disliked and wish they hadn't done, or any myriad of things. My list of questions goes on and is probably terribly redundant after a while.

~~~

Part of what got me thinking about this was reading 'A Guide TRYS' the book that inspired the movie. It's interesting to see that Dito didn't so much as write about himself whereas he wrote more about the people around him and his interaction with them, which at the same time says a lot about himself. He's not vain and he loved the people he was around. A Guide is also great because of how it's written. It's not one long narrative, it's written more like how he'd be telling the story to someone else. There are interjections about how a past event made him feel and so forth. That makes it interesting. And the chapters aren't terribly long. It's just about one chapter per interaction. 'Tag' was one chapter, but it was about general tag games, and one special tag game. Nothing's really in chronological order which also makes it interesting to read as time just around.

Reading this was making me think of the movie and commentary with how Dito kind of let the actors do what they would and how things worked. I remember hearing RDJ talking about filming the movie with Dito and how only Dito would make a movie with five acts. Or from Dito talking about how he had the actors really go at it in a scene, like the scene where Young Dito was being beaten up by the Reaper, he told the actors to really wail on LaBeouf for the scene. Or in the retaliation when Antonio attacked the Reaper, Dito told him to hit him as hard as he could upside the back of the head with the prop bat. It made me think about difficulties that actors have with some directors, but also how different directors tackle a movie, or people who aren't 'trained' as directors but become directors.

Did I mention a spoiler warning? Too late.

My point in bringing in Dito's directing style is that letting the actors give everything they could as they saw necessary, as they felt the characters felt gave them a real humanity and at the same time showed a real vulnerability int he actors. It would also prove to be more difficult for everyone involved because it wasn't the lack of directions the actors didn't have, it was showing so much of themselves in these characters. It was a different sort of challenge for the actors to go for it which made it's own difficulties. That lead me to my who thing about my own art because as I pose these questions in my head I give my responses for other people which have little bearing on what their responses would really be because I don't know more than what I've read online or gleamed from commentary or interviews.

Jasmine P.

Movies

Okay, since I'm obsessing over KKBB and movies at the moment this is well timed.

Firstly, I love movie commentary. If I buy my camera [and I will, dammit!] whatever movies I make will feature commentary, mine and Za's since she'll probably be in half of what I make, and whoever else wants to comment on my videos.

Commentary is fun, it tells a lot about the behind the scenes of a movie and if there is character/actor commentary and not just director and writer commentary, it's even better. Actor commentary is the most fun because they're usually incredibly vain, or their general reaction to their fellow actor's performances. You learn a lot about the actors themselves and they just enhance the fun of the movie.

One of my other things about movies are how much fun is sounds like the actors have on set. The jokes and such. I guess it's the same general bullshit that happens between me and my friends, but it just sounds like so much fun, and for it to be on video, that's like a second bit of awesome and amazing because all that shit you say off the top of your head, you can hear it again later and it just plain sounds like fun.

Over on facebook my status says/said I wanted a youthifier. Actually, I want the Youthifier 2.0, the 1.0 version only lasted 1 minute before the 2.0 was created, but there is a reason for this. It's quite annoying to adore an actor who's old enough you be your father, but part of the charm of an actor is their age, their intellect, so a Youthifier make them younger than they are, but leaves their mind, their mentality, their intellect where it is for their age which helps them you keep their awesome, part of it at least.

The first Youthifier was a doorway, one way through de-ages the person. The Youthifier 2.0 is a gun instead of a doorway, so you point and shoot, causing the physicality of their body to get younger.

Regretfully this is only for flings. A few hours hanging out. Truthfully, I wouldn't want long term interaction, but for a while it would be quite fun, but they have the right to be as awesome and sexy as always, so they must be returned at some point, so I'd need an Ager to return things back to normal.

Okay, so I'm watching Batman at the moment, but my question is why does the Riddler give Batman clues to foil him? I mean, it's like Superman telling Lex Luther 'Hi, just so you know, whenever you decide to kick my ass just surround me in Kryptonite <3'>

New question, how the fuck does Batman just know 64 squared off the top of his head? [4096, if you're curious] Don't ask why I'm so hyper critical at the moment, but what I'm saying is true. If the Riddler really wanted Gordon to die, or whatever, he wouldn't have brought Batman back.

Back to the jaw thing, cap him in his face. I mean they catch him and tie him up all the time, but never manage to kill him. Batman had living chess long before Harry Potter did.

So, back to the whole movie thing, well, the Youthifier first. It'd be fun, but then again I've also said I'd be fine with just a general conversation with various celebrities. The Youthifier would be for...something else. Not too dirty, but it would be nice. Less guilty for making out and the like. But seriously, a conversation would be fun, I'd even let them ask the questions. Let them know what they would about me instead of me knowing what I would about them. Unless they wanted to just tell me about every aspect of their lives that I would think of questioning.

The whole inspiration for the Youthifier came from waking up this morning and trying to not feel guilty about feeling attracted to someone twice my age. Then I decided to make them my age and I figured out how. The Youthifier, a doorway to making them my age, but keeping their mind and everything they know that makes them sexy.

After logically thinking that getting someone to walk through a random fuck doorway and not walking through with them it needed an upgrade into something a lot more logical to be using, so I made it into a gun instead. The Youthifier 2.0. At some point there may be a 3.0, but I don't know. I kind of want to draw it in action, too bad I can't draw real people with the skill it requires for them to look like whoever I'm trying to draw.

I had some other movie obsessiveness, but Batman distracted me, and now I can't remember what else I was going to say. But still, 'yay' for sexy actors. Wow, this is more something like I'd post in LJ, this gets to go to LJ anyway. Fuck it

Adios for now
:salute and bow:
Jasmine P.

Movies and Summer

'I'm getting...hungry. You won't like me if I'm hungry' :roffle:

I recently enjoyed The Incredible Hulk. Oh, that movie was so much fun, it's a 4/5. But how can I not love a movie starring Tim Roth and Edward Norton. And Robert Downey Jr. was there for a bit! Come the fuck on, 3 out of 4 of my favorite adult actors. AlL I need now is a movie that stars Downey, Norton, Roth and Johnny Depp. My god, that could be a very sexy, very amazing movie.

On the topic of favorite actors, I'm happily awaiting my new purchases that star Downey. I saw a part of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang earlier and decided I needed the entire thing unedited and bought it. I'm in a good enough mood at the moment. I've been pretty alone for the past week. Well, I mean, I've hung out with my brothers, but it's not the same socialization that I need which is the problem. I need people my age and people who understand me but until that happens I'll keep to myself. The only person who is guaranteed to be with me. Myself.

Well, this is not supposed to be a negative journal, so back to the happy.

I'm looking forward to and waiting for the following movies: gonzo: The Life and Works of Hunter S. Thompson, Hancock, The Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder, Watchmen, other. I can't remember them all at the moment. I seriously know there are others. This is the Summer of Movies for me apparently. 2007 was the Summer of Driving. Once I got my license all I did was drive around. I drove with Alex, I drove alone. It's all I did, drove somewhere and nowhere. 2008 is the Summer of Movies. I'm keeping track of how many movies in theaters, on DVD and how many box sets of TV shows I've watched. TV shows I think are only around 5. Theater Movies are 6 different movies, two have been viewed twice since I've been here, DVD and TV movies has got to be about 25+. I need something to do aside from read and watch movies.

My summer reading has so far included Wired Mag, Esquire Mag, Sin City 1-5, Iron Man: Beneath the Armor, Memnoch the Devil, Wizard 200 Mag, pt 1 and pt 2, and I've partially read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, By the Sword, The Vampire Armand, there are others scattered everywhere. I pick up books all the time and can't remember them all.

I need to get away some time this week. I was spoiled last week :< :sigh: I'll get out at some point. And I seriously want to get down to Busch Gardens before summer's over. Before I move back to Norfolk. I guess I can wait without losing it longer. I'll just keep going to the movies. They help and are fucking entertaining.

Adios for now
:salute and bow:
Jasmine P.