If Looks Could Kill - Graphic Art & Design

*** Please DO NOT HOTLINK TO MY IMAGES ***

Just finished watching The Notorious Bettie Page, recently released on DVD. I was marvelling over the mediocrity of Gretchen Mol playing Bettie, unable to figure out why she was cast until the bangs were cut and the clothes came off.

From there, it was at least visually stimulating, re-enacting many of her famous photo scenes. They nearly lost me earlier in the movie with a fake slap and recoil so badly acted that it makes professional wrestlers look like polished actors with finesse in comparison.

The storytelling is far from compelling, but this is still one I will add to my collection, since it involves Bettie Page and pin-up girls photography.

I also like that the movie portrays her as unrepentant for her cheesecake photos, even after she finds the Jeebus, fiercely declaring that Adam & Eve were nekkid, until they came into sin and were banished from the Garden of Eden - it was then that they wore clothes.

However, at the same time, they also showed that when she stopped modelling was when there was controversy over these photos and their “appeal to deviants,” and felt personal shame after overhearing the case against her photographer, Irving Klaw, in court. I wish she would have perservered, stigmas and religious fanatics be damned, but I suppose this was right for her.

I’ve seen recent interviews with her as an older woman now, and she insists on full shading obscuring her face and body from the camera as she spoke with her soft Southern voice. I think this adds to her iconic legacy in pop-culture, insisting on being remembered only as she was at her prime.

Unfortunately, there was a 1972 mugshot that did no justice to maintaining that memory. The woman in the mugshot has no spark, just joyless features vaguely reminiscent.

Today, at work, it was brought to my attention that I “hold back,” that I don’t jump in and add to conversations. This has been a recurring theme all my life. As a tot, I got in trouble for not wanting to say goodbye to creepy friends of my parents. On a kindergarten report card, Miss Nancy commented that “Amy needs to share more of Amy with the rest of the class.” In high school, I was called to the guidance counselor’s office for “being withdrawn” in my classes.

I have always been a quiet person. Being an artist, I am extremely visual, so words often fail me. More accurately, I have a hard time verbally expressing myself and besides, I can tell when people don’t get it or don’t give a shit and it makes me falter, because why continue past that point?

I prefer to observe and listen. You learn a lot that way. I’ve learned that I dislike most people. That causes me to have even less to say, because chances are, no one will enjoy it. Normally, when I refrain, it’s because I have a stake to protect: employment, education, quality of living, et al. I’ve always gotten flack for just wanting to be left alone.

It’s just me, that’s how I am. I live in the Redneck Republic of Texas. I’m a flaming liberal where EVERYONE approaches under the assumption that you naturally share their beliefs. More often than not, I don’t. My head nearly ruptured during the last two elections. At my last job, the group went out to lunch, and our manager asked each of us how we spent Easter Sunday. EVERYONE had gone to church, until she got to me. >:)

I think it’s inappropriate to even ask, because I assure you they DON’T want to know what I think about their god and what they do in his name, the so-called “sins” they commit freely every day, smugly knowing they can merely ask forgiveness and be absolved. I also loathe being judged, so unless asked, I refrain from saying anything on the topic.

On a secular side-note: This article is interesting - not that I consider myself an atheist. It would be upsetting to consider humans as the pinnacle of sentient life in the universe. In relation to yesterday’s post, I have my own abstract theories that comfort me. Mind you, I inflict this upon no one.

Back to the reason for this post, I work to live, not live to work. I do it so that I can afford the home that I savor and the education that I love the shit out of (but don’t have time to savor or even fully explore). Not to mention my own creative endeavors, I seldom have time for them. All work and no play makes Amy a dull girl.

“You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.“

This is especially relevant right now. I don’t want to become trapped in my lovely nest, the possession of what I’d once thought I’d possess. Why do you? This theme, she’s-a recurring. *shakes head in disbelief*

Anyway, getcha some Fight Club quotes here.

I have an inexplicable crush on Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, and the pictures from the upcoming Young Hannibal look promising. It would appear they chose well, in casting young Hannibal.

Source: Upcoming Horror Movies - scroll to the bottom to leer at the pictures. >:)

This article touches on something that has bugged me about computer animation from the beginning - it’s too sterile, too calculated, too fluid.

For example, if you are watching the average creature, there are often incomplete motions, twitches and jerks of excitement, indecision, rage or anxiety - the imperfections that are a major part of being an organic creature.

With wholly animated features, it’s not as apparent, or if it’s used for special effects. It’s when they try to pass them off as living characters, mixed in with or passing for live-action, that it becomes immensely distracting because it’s always a little off.

Specific examples in Star Wars:

1. Jar Jar Binks & Watoo:
   Unnecessary to begin with and distracting to boot. Abnormally fluid in movements, even in slapstickery and buffoonery. Attempts at mottled, imperfect skin texture appear systematic and precise.
2. Yoda:
   Not only does he look like an entirely different creature than the puppet seen in the original movies, but his eyes apparently glow in the dark now. Somehow, even in scenes where shadows should be cast over his eyes by his brow-bone, the whites shine clearly and distractingly at all times. [Examples]
3. Revised Jabba (in whichever Episode that was of IV through VI):
   WTF? I don’t think an explanation is even needed here if you grew up with the original originals, pre-Lucas-fucking-with-it-further.

Another offender:

• Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within:
  Here, it seemed like they used intentionally plain looking characters to presumably make them more human. Instead, they succeeded in a visually uninteresting group of CGI characters that looked lifelike at some angles, but moved inhumanly, again with systematic computer-applied “imperfections” such as freckles.