Two plus two is ten

So I'm sitting here printing out a metric fuckton of class material and it looks like I'm going to be so busy this quarter...and yet all I can think is, "I'm so glad to be back at school!!!! Eeeeee!" (Also: "So many trees died for this, oh my GOD," but at least I'm printing everything double-sided?)

Anyway. This quarter marks the first time we're assigned to an actual clinical site, during which we care for real patients during an 8-hour shift one day a week. Next week we're just shadowing a nurse preceptor and observing what s/he does, but after that? Hands. fucking. ON. I'm terribly excited, and also flat-out terrified. This is scary new territory for me.

In other news, I'm trying my very best to wait until October to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, because some part of my brain insists that I need to wait until then to watch blatantly Halloweenie movies. I'm not sure why my brain insists on this? Also, it's harrrrrrrd. I've been scratching the itch somewhat with a variety of spooky movies, but...it's not the same. Luckily, I only have a few more days to go, and then I can mainline Halloween movies to my heart's content.

...except I'll be spending most of my spare time studying, so LOOKS LIKE THE JOKE'S ON ME. HEY-O.

(I kid, I kid -- movies and tv make for great background noise while I make flashcards, which is how I ended up blasting through six seasons of "Gray's Anatomy" during the lead-up to finals. I regret nothing!)

I miss you, livejournal land. I'm back on facebook again (I rejoined because all of my classmates were there and we have a private group set up for our class and everything), but although it's undeniably handy sometimes, I still don't like it. I've been on lj in some username or another since 2001 -- back during the days when it was invite-only, haha, I'm old -- and even though it has its problems, it's still my social networking site of choice. I know I'm not posting much lately and I rarely comment, but I still read my f-list every freakin' day and love seeing what everyone's up to. So...yes. [/maudlin]

I finally watched Ravenous last night , and oh my GOD, what a deliciously twisted and fucked-up movie that was! I'm definitely adding it to the "must own" list, because...damn.

(There are spoilers below, including spoilers for the ending. The movie is over ten years old at this point and I learned some of the information below just by reading the back of the DVD box, so...yeah)

I wasn't expecting it to be as smart as it was, I guess. I'm pretty sure it's considered a cult classic at this point, so I had a vague idea of what to expect re: gore and black humor and whatnot, and I had fairly high expectations of the acting given some of the names involved, but I definitely wasn't expecting this dark little historical horror film to compare cannibalism to Manifest Destiny and the westward expansion of the United States, nor was I expecting such a comparison to work so fucking well. And it's so blatant, that's what I can't get over! The film all but says outright that the United States is a wendigo. It takes and takes and never gives, it grows strong by glutting itself on the blood of men, it's always hungry...and its hunger is savage. I mean. This is set up from the very first scene, where shots of Boyd in the Mexican-American war are intercut with shots of soldiers gorging themselves on bloody steaks. COME ON, NOW.

Most of the time, Really Obvious Symbolism annoys the shit out of me, because it's like the director isn't sure the audience will get it and so they beat them over the head with it, but I thought it worked beautifully in Ravenous. The tight focus on Boyd and Ives/Coulquhoun definitely helped -- broaden the scope too much, and the movie suddenly becomes About America in a really obvious and annoying way. Instead, they were able to make the story about America through these characters, both of whom have their own wants and desires and fears and needs and arcs. The entire movie felt kind of like an extraordinarily fucked-up love story (seriously, the whole second half is basically Ives trying to seduce Boyd, although to what degree the film leaves up to the viewer), and so the ending felt perfect to me given what we'd seen of Boyd's character thus far. Just as in the beginning of the film, Boyd exhibits bravery in cowardice -- he knows he's not strong enough to fight his desires, and so he's not going to try. Instead, he takes himself out and then takes Ives with him, and in this final act -- and in his final refusal to eat Ives when they're locked together in the beartrap -- he finally finds redemption.

(There's something delightfully subversive about that, actually. The film made a point of talking about transubstantiation several times before, and Ives even uses the argument that this symbolic act of religious cannibalism justifies what he's doing and what he's become. For the film to link Catholicism and wendigo myths is subversive enough, but I LOVE that it goes one step further and allows Boyd to find redemption in his rejection of cannibalism even though he and the audience both know human flesh and blood would heal him and save his life. SO AWESOME.)

Haha, oh god, how pretentious do I sound right now? *facepalm* Seriously, though, how did it take me this long to see this? This movie is so far up my alley that it should be arrested for trespassing and loitering.