ah real monsters

So, I'm already thinking up what I'm going to be for Halloween. Originally Craig and I were planning on dressing as Hellboy and Liz, but that's a monumentous task and I don't think either of us has the money, time or patience to actually create the Hellboy costume (the Liz one would be relatively simple in comparison).

Then I thought it would be fun for us to dress as Tony Stark and Captain America since I bask in the homoerotic love that is so obvious in any of the Avengers comics. Plus, I think Craig secretly wants to make an arc reaktor. But since I was going to go as Cap (since Craig looks eerily like Tony since he's grown in the goatee-- something that probably spawned from my endless chatter about how hot RDJ was in Iron Man), and I just went through hell bleaching my hair, finding SFX dye and dying it atomic pink, I want to do something a little less, erm, BLONDE.

Plus, there's the whole "I have no money" thing.

So I'm trying to decide what I'm gonna be. I'm thinking something classic-ish. Like Frankenstein's monster/ zombie bride sort of thing. Maybe a witch (though I did that last year and got bored before I could recreate the costume for the Cal Arts party). I really want to do my makeup this year again and try something completely crazy and new. I'm probably going to try to do another zombie thing, but have more skull showing, make it more Land of the Dead and less Evil Dead.

Oh, the ideas springing to mind. :D

Drabble #1

Her brain feels like a record being scratched. The sizzle pop of it liquifying and dying, the numbness of her eyes and the funny feeling in her teeth. She wants to lie down and sleep for an eternity. She twists the ring around her finger, rubbing her tongue against her top lip as she does so. The television is on, playing The Empire Strikes Back with the sound muted. She can recite every word be heart, every inflection of tone, but she doesn't dare tell anyone else this for the embarrassment of liking popular culture.

This is why she doesn't invite people to her apartment. The movie and music posters lining the walls, next to kitchy frames with photos of family and friends would be too much for her to deal with if they knew. If they knew that she really had a life, that she felt things that other humans feel. She'd rather be an enigma to them, the mysterious, faceless girl in the corner. She doesn't want a reputation-- doesn't want to be Notebook Girl or Stupid Girl or 80s Girl, even though she feels a sense of pride and fulfillment at the names (all but the second one, of course). She can't stand touching anyone here. She touches people only when touched. It's odd, how something she considers so normal in one world fails to translate in another.

Her head pounds, and she thinks she is dying.

Die SS

I know, I know—two posts in one day? I should be writing. But I’m just so excited about the new project I’m working on. It’s going to take me a millennia to complete, but I don’t think my interest for this subject will ever wane.

Currently, I’m doing research and writing a (very) rough draft for a fairy tale/folklore set during World War II. I’m still working out the little kinks in the plan, but so far my research has taken off swimmingly. I’m putting together a source book of information that I can refer back to, as well as period details that would go into a film (like SS uniforms, artillery, and bombers of the time period).

I’m just so excited, I cannot stop thinking about this!

Anna Anthropology

I haven't sketched in a long time. I think the last one I really worked on hard was back in July, after I visited the Art Institute of Chicago. I love Matroyshka dolls, and I was messing around with the idea of making one of my own. These were my two ideas, and they somehow morphed into images of myself.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not Russian. But who cares?

I'm Your Boogieman

Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) is not John Carpenter’s Halloween (1878). It takes someone with real vision to remake a film and have it be as interesting and unique as the first, if not more. Zombie has proven that he not only has the vision, but the talent to execute it.

One fault of the horror genre is that, with the creators so intent on delivering a visceral scare or immediate physical reaction, most fail to recognize how haunting it can be when you know a character and their life intimately before it is terribly altered.

Watching Michael Myers’ (Daeg Faerch / Tyler Mane) mother, Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) deal with her son after he murders four people on Halloween night is painful—you are watching a mother was well as a victim. Jamie Lee Curtis’ heroine of the original, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) is not reduced to just another victim. With the set-up of her relationships, you find yourself relating to her on a very personal level. She’s someone we know, who has friends and a personal life.

Zombie includes the famous score by John Carpenter, as well as Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” as well as choosing other tracks to further the tone of the film as creepy and darkly humorous. Missing from the film is the long tracking shot at the beginning, as well as some other key camera moves that define Carpenter’s style. Instead, the camera work grabs you and forces you into the action, the death scenes in particular. Nauseating, not because they are graphic, but because framed behind trees or caught in a flurry of movement, the quick glimpse of blood coupled with the clear sounds of bones breaking and flesh being beaten is much worse than any of the torture-porn gracing theatres today.

Myers’ is human, more disturbing than the 1978 “Boogeyman.” If Zombie’s intention is to give much more than a quick “jump out of your seat” scare, than he certainly succeeds, bring a new face of evil to the horror genre.

Copyright Anna Cruze

2007

One of my biggest pet peeves are people who do something simply for the sake of being different. I've met so many people who don't read Harry Potter, watch The O.C., listen to certain bands or watch action flicks simply because these things are "mainstream" or "popular."

Normally, people not liking something would not bother me. My best friend doesn't read Harry Potter. Her taste in novels, to me, is atrocious (I find nothing satisfying in the Gossip Girls series, thank you.) But it doesn't bother me, because I know that she likes what she reads, and that she tried to read the Potter series and was just not interested. But she is a rarity-- most people don't actually try.

Most of the people I know refused to watch The O.C. when it was on because they had already made up their minds about it. They saw pretty actors, soap-opera plotlines, and that was it. Now, I agree that The O.C. is not lacking in the drama/soap department. But what bothers me is that even so, The O.C. was one of the few shows that had decent writing. The characters were funny and even though they were filthy rich (most of them, anyway) and incredibly priveledged, you still felt for them, and were able to relate to them. It was not a show simply about "rich, snotty Californian teenagers," as my friend D told me-- what really irked me was that he had never actually sat down to watch an episode.

That, my friends, is what irks me the most. People who make flash judgements on something that they have never seen, read or listened to at length. The people who make casual dismissals of something that I love (like many peoples' constant trash-talk on Gwen Stefani), without ever learning about what they are so eager to loathe.

I may not be a huge indie fan, or all that into extreme experimental film, but I don't trash-talk it. I watch it and listen to it. I've even read the first A List novel. I may not like it particularly, but I don't sneer at those that find it beautiful or inspirational. I may not be the largest fan of The Decemberists, but I'm not about to walk up to someone I know who is an obvious fan and tell them that what they love is absolute rubbish and that they have shitty taste in music.

So, people. Suck it up, and stop being elitest bastards.
Thank you. :D

This will be a journal where I can write about my artwork, the books I'm reading, movies I'm watching, music I'm listening to, and where I can show my inspirations.



I am a fan of many types of music, but my favourite artists are No Doubt, Gwen Stefani, Garbage, and Nine Inch Nails.

I'm a big fan of literature. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Francesca Lia Block. I tend to lean towards the fantasy and science-fiction work, though it's not impossible for me to read from other genres.

Like my taste in music and literature, the movies that I watch are equally eclectic. I will watch anything from action to avant-garde. I am a big fan of science-fiction and war films, that making up the majority of my "favourite films" list.

I live in a limbo between Chicago and Los Angeles, and I attend the California Institute of the Arts (or CalArts) for Film/Video.