Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Adventures in a Retail Clusterf*ck

If my gratitude for having been liberated from the world of employment in retail or hospitality was high during the days leading up to Christmas, then it reached a level even more intense on the day immediately after it. Even though all those years working in and around shopping centres on Boxing Day had taught me little apart from how easy it is to lose faith in humanity on December 26th, this year I decided to try my luck at the sales.

Like some sort of chump, I psyched myself up and woke up relatively early (for the day after a feast as epic as the one defeated the day before) and put on my kicking boots and decided I'd be one of the many thousands that would no doubt add up to an absurd figure at the top of the night's news. I should have realised my mistake then, but let's face it - I'm not usually one for overly rational thought processes.

Knowing I wouldn't be able to find a car park, I recruited my brother to drive me over. To be honest, I think he was just curious to see the extent of the madness. He certainly did appear to get a sick kind of joy from the image that met us at the end of Waverley road. Turning off Waverley onto Warragul, we were immediately absorbed by the traffic vacuum and slowed to a stop. A family walked across the road in front of us, Ev remarking that they had the right idea. Too right. Twenty minutes it took, to get from that intersection to the entrance of Chadstone. As we waited at the lights at said entrance, the family that had walked past us at Waverley road again overtook us. On foot.

I was reminded of a Christmas a few years ago, when I met Mitch at Chadstone two days before Christmas. I'd arrived there first (via public transport like the boss that I am), and soon received a phone call from Mitch to say he'd been searching for a park for about ten minutes and might be a little while longer. I found his car and jumped in, figuring that two sets of eyes would be better than one whilst on the  hunt for that most elusive of yule tide prizes; a parking spot. Ten minutes after I greeted a more than slightly irritated Mitch, I had to laugh and cry out, "Everybody's wasted!" upon seeing yet another car being cut off by a more ruthless carpark hunter. Half an hour after that both Mitch and I had our windows wound down, and were yelling on the top of our lungs, "EVERYBODY'S WASTED! EVERYBODY'S WASTED! EVERYBODY'S WASTED!". In that situation, it was all we could do to keep a shred of our sanity.

Yes, that's a car. Shut up.

Indeed, on Boxing Day 2011, it yet again appeared as if everybody was in fact wasted. There were men directing traffic. There was horn honking. I hauled ass out of the car as Ev bade me good luck, and I walked straight into the most ridiculous clusterfuck of a retail warzone you can imagine. Everyone had their game face on. You could barely take a full step because of the sheer amount of people that were inside. It was loud, there were children yelling, there was music, there were huge signs declaring HUGE SAVINGS, there was shouting and there were just oh so many people.

At some points it was actually impossible to move, it was so crowded. I'm not joking, or exaggerating. I couldn't move, or take a full step. I'd shuffle forward, then find myself stuck behind a family gazing seemingly dumbstruck into a shop window. At that point, if I were in a cartoon universe, I dare say there would have been steam coming out of my ears. At least, that's how I felt. Aside from the moving around, exiting the shuffling throng to actually enter a store was a feat unto itself. Upon entering a store, and immediately being deafened by the music being blasted, it was a free-for-all battle for goods. Clothes were barely still on hangers, ripped off by people shoving past each other and prams (honestly, the fuck?) parked in the most inconvenient of locations. For instance, right in front of a rack of dresses. I attempted to shuffle and sidle my way around the shop to observe the sale table. I slowly - oh SO SLOWLY - made my way there and to my frustration found nothing worth buying. Oh, and then I got tangled up in my own boots because of the crowd and accidentally tripped a shopgirl over. She went flying, and I took that as my cue to leave. Generally once people start injuring themselves in my presence, it's time to leave.

Next stop was a lady-orientated chain store whose name rhymes with "Chorever Blew". I was there to exchange a top that I'd been given by a well-meaning family member. If anything, that location was even ruder than the first. People were actively refusing to get out of the way for each other, making a point of reaching over other ladies' limbs to grab/snatch at a garment that caught their eye. The snaking, monstrous line for the fitting rooms was only out-shadowed by the line to actually pay. And woe is me, to my horror I found myself behaving exactly like everyone else after only a few short minutes of trying to find something suitable to exchange my gift for. Such was my irritation and growing anger at being shoved and glowered at, that I too began to refuse to budge when someone appeared like they wanted to sidle past me.

What did give me some amusement however, was the presence of boyfriends. These poor unsuspecting males had obviously been dragged along by their significant other/girlfriend/wife/potential lay, to this horrid cave of house music, pastel colours and sparkles. The expressions on their faces ranged from discomfort to confusion to thinly veiled disdain. I had to stifle laughter at a couple of points, such was the expression of woe on at least a couple of stubbled faces. Seriously, why would you subject a guy you care about to that sort of torture? At least if it's a store that sells both male and female clothing, they have somewhere to scamper off to hide. LET THEM HIDE! In this case though, the wares being flogged were not only female-only, but also at perhaps the upper echelon of girliness. Come ON, have a heart!

Fun fact: When I worked at a shoe store, the highlight of
my day was often making conversation with bewildered and bag-carrying
boyfriends and husbands. 

As one awful pop hit ended and another began, I couldn't help but audibly groan as I put my headphones back on (pro-tip: a soundtrack of Dropkick Murphys, The Bronx and Dan Deacon makes Chadstone on Boxing Day that much more bearable). I looked up and saw a bespectacled Boyfriend shooting me a grin. His lady was rummaging through a rack of skirts and he was standing there, not knowing what to do with his hands or where to plant himself. We exchanged a look that wordlessly said, I don't know what I'm doing here and you don't look like you know what you're doing here but this is pretty ridiculous and kind of sucky.

I finally made it to the front of the paying queue (with rather a good haul in the end, might I add), and smiled at the girl behind the counter. I don't particularly enjoy shopping at Chorever Blew, but I know what working on Boxing Day is like.
"How've you been faring today?" I asked
The girl laughed wryly. "Okay I guess. A few overwhelming moments but we're surviving."
I wished her the best of luck and meant every word. I understand that you might think, "If you hate the job, then just quit!" but I'll tell you this, it's easier said than done when you're strapped for cash. And there's a whole mess of thought processes between, "Oh, I'll survive a few days of hell for the extra pay!" and the subsequent "KILL ME NOW. WHY DID I NOT THINK THIS WOULD ACTUALLY BE LIVING HELL".

Anyway, the best is yet to come. In possession of a possibly-too-generous Myer voucher from my place of employment, I finally psyched myself up for the challenge and walked over. Past the stupidly long line to get into Swarovski, past the couches with worn out children and grandparents, past the line in front of Gucci. For those of you playing at home, while Chadstone proper opened its doors to the mouth-frothing public at 7am, Myer opened at 5am. Apparently. So I was all-too aware of the hours of shopping that had been undertaken before I even arrived. I'm not usually one to get caught up in SAVINGS! BARGAINS! SPEND MORE! but shit, I wanted something good.

What I was met with was hangers strewn all over the floor, clothing all over the floor, women wandering around with great hunking piles of clothes in their arms. A little overwhelmed, I wandered over to the swimsuit section and found it resembling a colourful warzone. It was like the scene I'd encountered at my previous location, only worse. A man was sitting on the ground surrounded by bags,  seemingly having given up and chosen to rest. He was getting dirty looks from everyone, but appeared not to care at all. I guess you have to admire that. Not a single fuck was given by him that day. Anyway, I snatched up a bunch of possible potential outfits and and headed for the fitting rooms. Or rather, I headed to the line for the fitting room. As I edged to the front, I saw a small contingent of girls working there. The expressions on their faces ranged from despondency, weariness, and one putting on a brave face. One though, looked like she was about to throw in the towel. I suppose it was her job to enforce the five-garments-per-customer rule.


I saw a group of giggling teenage girls exit a change room with a pile of discarded clothing and my heart went out to her. 

Anyway, I emerged with a pair of shorts and went to explore the rest of the Myer monstrosity. You know, it was funny. Once I decided to tackle the crowd as if I were at a music festival, I was a-ok. I thought of it as a kind of "that band's just finished and I have to get through this crowd going this way in order to get to that stage over there" situation and just amped up the nimble footwork. I did get elbowed in the boob, and I did get hit with a stray handbag, but my mood lifted considerably and I was able to push past the confusion and more than mild irritation and see the scene for the absurd comedy that it was. My next stop: homewares. 

As the launch day of Myer's big sale, it was 50% off all cookware sets. Couples with trolleys stacked full of pots and pans and non-stick surfaces narrowly avoided a bumper car scenario at every turn. You could almost smell the stench of newly wed domestic bliss. Only $99 for a Jamie Oliver roast dish! Specials on Kitchen Aids? My god! Get another trolley! And get this: I got right into the spirit of domesticity. Having never shopped for kitchen goods, it floored me sideways to find out exactly how much that shit sells for. That shit sells for a lot! Did you KNOW that?? JEEZ! $800 for a bunch of Jamie Oliver pots and pans! Like, four of them! What is this world coming to? At any rate, as someone who's in the market for a house of her own, it suddenly dawned on me that while I have a bar fridge, a big TV and a fantastic collection of Star Wars books and a tea towel with The Drones on it, I'm kind of lacking in the kitchen department (disregarding the tea towel of course). So, I bought a cookware set. You read that right. A nine-piece cookware set. Do you know what I have now? A wok. A roast dish. A bunch of pots. I HAVE A STEAMER, YO. I pushed it off the shelf and kicked it (let it never be said that I ain't lady-like) all the way over to the counter, past the trolleys and their newlywed owners. I sat on the gargantuan box while in the queue to pay, resplendent on my newly-found domestic acquisitions. 



The amusing thing is, I came out with some kick-ass jeans, shorts, a top and a belt, but I think I'm most excited by cookware set. Maybe because it's a sign to myself that I'm not just threatening to find myself an abode of my own, or maybe because I only paid $13 for it. Thanks to the fact that it was reduced by 50%, and I had $200 left on my gift card, I only paid a grand total of thirteen of my own clams for it. Pretty good, no? 

I left Myer with a spring in my step and with The Monkees in my headphones. Suddenly the crowds bothered me even less. Maybe that's why people do this every year - that the promise of bargain-hunting happiness outweighs the inevitable pushing and shoving and overwhelming rudeness. Maybe. I know this for sure, however: that I won't be enduring that scene again in a hurry. Sure, I found myself some good bargains and some sweet-ass duds but that was four or so hours of my life that were for the most part incredibly unpleasant. 

My cookware set and I were picked up by another obliging family member (again, I'm sure it was out of morbid curiosity than familial goodwill), and we laughed at the PARKING INFRINGEMENT NOTICEs that were strewn all over the cars that had the audacity (read: stupidity) to park in loading bays and ramps. Turning onto Dandenong road and looking over the vista of cars in front of us, we were struck by how dumb the entire thing was. Dumb. That's the only word I can think of to describe it. Yes, I know I was an active party in it, but I'll be the first to admit to the overwhelming dumbness of it. Remind me to do all my shopping online from now on. 

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

A (mostly) rage-less Christmas


A couple of weeks ago I was wandering around a certain shopping center. At this point in time the exact reason for my being there in the first place escapes me, as whenever possible I try to avoid spending time in awful suburban black holes of retail boredom, especially during the silly season.

I was walking around the certain shopping center and lo and behold, I was near my old place of employment. It happens to be a cafe specialising in chocolate goods, for those of you folk playing at home. I heard the strains of Bing Crosby's voice floating in the air from up on high and suddenly like a bolt of be-tinseled lightning it it hit me - that this would be the first Christmas in FIVE YEARS that I wouldn't be working in retail or hospitality. It'd be the first extended family Christmas lunch in about three years I'd be able to attend in its entirety because I happened to be working on Boxing Day, or had to go to work to set up for a Boxing Day sale, and my extended family had decided that Christmas lunch would fall on Boxing Day. This would be the first Christmas in five years in which I'd be able to be rested, in which I'd be able to keep regular patterns of sleep instead of mentally and physically preparing myself for the midnight shifts, the long hours of scanning through gift cards, or unwrapping endless DVDs and CDs, or serving hoards of angry shoppers their post-shop hot chocolates and chocolate desserts after they demanded to know why a dessert bar doesn't serve something savory, you really should be serving something that isn't chocolate you know.

My GOD, is it ever a relief. I can watch The Shop Around the Corner and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and When Harry Met Sally (my yule-tide cinematic offerings of choice) without dreading going to work the next day. Without dreading the absurd hour I'd have to arrive to open the store in order to unwrap yet another box of sale DVDs, or to spend another day trying to convince people that they REALLY need to buy into a chocolate gift box offer that in truth probably isn't saving them any money at all.

Christmas 2006, 2007 and 2008 were spent working at a record store. I take that back. "Record store" implies something like Polyester Records. I'll rephrase; I spent those years working at a now-defunct chain store specialising in CDs and DVDs, whose name rhymed with "Blanity".

I could wax lyrical for hours (you think I'm exaggerating?) describing the myriad ways humankind's stupidity was on show during my years behind the counter there. Some of the more memorable examples include the woman who walked in, past rows and rows of CDs and asked a co-worker of mine, "Do you sell CDs here?". Or the man who asked me, "There's this song ... it's got trumpets in it. I don't know the name, or who sings it, but it's definitely on a compilation CD". Or the people who'd tell us our prices were too expensive (I don't care), that they were going to shop somewhere else (good), or who'd run up to me as I was pulling down the roller doors and yell "LEMME IN I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I WANT" then spend ten minutes deciding if in the end, they really wanted it at all.

People would shove each other out of the way, would leave their trolleys or food or children in the middle of the aisle, would push in front of each other in the line, then yell at me when I asked who was next.

Please, to observe.
Woman: I'd like twenty gift cards please.
Me: ...Okay. But just so you know, this will take rather a long time. You see, I have to do them all individually. Are you sure you want twenty?
Woman: YES I'M SURE.
Me: Okay.
Working as quickly as I can, I grab boxes and write details and scan the cards through the computer and eftpos thing.
Woman: WHY is this taking SO LONG?
Me: ... Like I said, I have to do each of these individually. I told you it would take a long time.
Woman: Well, I have A LOT of other shopping to do.

Christmas 2008 I also worked at Bardot. It's okay, I was just as puzzled and shocked. Looking back, it was almost as if I was job hunting, blacked out, then woke up in a store blasting house music, surrounded by heavily made-up skinny girls. I wasn't asked to stay on after Christmas.

Christmas 2009 and 2010 was spent at the chocolate cafe. Mercifully, it was a Jewish business and so we were for the most part spared the torture of Christmas carols on repeat. Which is more than I can say after working at Blanity. I now have the words of Michael Buble's back-catalog etched into my mind, as well as the Top 40 releases of 2006-2008, and maybe every pop-singer reinterpreted Christmas carol ever.



Anyway, even if we didn't have to listen to Christmas carols instore, that didn't save us from local children's' choirs singing outside our store, or from the shoppers with their game-faces on and their screeching spawn yapping at their heels. Aside from the usual working-at-a-cafe gripes, every little annoying thing that happened was accompanied for the most part by the look people get after wandering up and down a shopping center for hours on end, slowly ticking off names, their energy and will to live diminishing with each store visited and shopgirl chirpily asking, "Can I help you with anything?". Since when did Christmas become so painful? Probably at about the time one begins to earn money and thus can buy presents for family members.

Goddamn, for a post that claims to be rage-less, this is full of plenty rage. I guess that's indicative of how enjoyable past Christmases have been, and thus how AMAZINGLY OVERJOYED I am to have the days leading up to the 25th of December chock-full of happy vibes instead of weary bones and jeans that reek of chocolate.

I went to Chaddy a couple of weekends ago, while in the throes of a hangover no less, and as I attempted to navigate through the crowds and the trolleys and the prams I was struck with one thought that stood out in front of all the others trundling around my brain: that I wanted to thank my lucky stars that I wasn't working there.

To all those who are working in retail or hospitality, I salute you and wish you the best of luck.

To everyone else, I am glad to have finally joined your ranks. I'm going to rejoice in my yule time off and watch me some Jimmy Stewart. The thought of sitting in front of the TV with a cup of tea with the Christmas lights flashing out of the corner of my eye makes me all manner of happy. Cheap thrills y'all, cheap thrills.


Every time. Every time I watch this someone decides to chop onions in the room.

Shit Girls Say

I'd quickly like to turn your attention this.

Spawned from the brains of those behind Twit-sensation - perhaps a perfect example of "less is more" - Shit Girls Say, two videos have of late been sent into the world of the internet lampooning (celebrating?) the things lady-folk are wont to say.

I'd be lying if I said my day-to-day speaking was completely devoid of a few of the phrases uttered within the surprisingly well-shot and good-looking videos. Of particular note would have to be "Could you read this and see if it makes sense?" and "Could you do me a huge favour..." and "I HAD TO GET UP AT LIKE, SIX THIS MORNING". And for that I apologise.

Watching the videos at my desk I had my hands clasped at my mouth, attempting to stifle hysterical giggles. I mean shit, girls really do say that shit! All the time. ALL THE TIME. At any rate, the view counter on these babies are climbing ever-rapidly so one can only imagine there'll be more released in the near future. Here's episode one, in which Juliette Lewis's cameo alone is worth price of admission.

TWINSIES! 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Breaking Dawn is truly one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.

It is.
I originally agreed to accompany Alice to a screening of Breaking Dawn on the condition that she be aware from the get-go that I would be heckling the screen and laughing the entire time. Just days before I had been at Brian & Fish's abode, swigging a cider and screeching in uproarious and disgusted laughter at the last few scenes of Eclipse. No doubt this beginning-half-of-the-last-bit-of-the-franchise (is that a thing now? Splitting the final part into two halves and giving it an absurdly long name like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One?) would provide even more hearty lulz and vomit-inducing schmaltz.

Little did I know exactly what I was getting myself into.

In a last minute decision to leave a vessel of sangria in the capable hands of a few pals, we sped over to the Jam Factory to get some vampire-lovin' into our eyes. I repeat, LITTLE DID WE KNOW WHAT WE WERE GETTING INTO.

Have you read the books?
I have read the books.
I don't know what possessed me to read the books, or why on earth I was able to borrow ALL of them from Michelle, whose projected image of being quite an intelligent person must be some sort of act, an elaborate ruse. I'm sure this has been discussed at length in all possible internet locations, but for those who haven't had the questionable joy and definite torture of reading Stephanie Meyers' best-selling tween pron ... Breaking Dawn is by far the most bizarre. It has all the over-the-top romance and teen angst and dull characters you would expect, but with the added bonus of the following:
  • Vampire sex
  • Half-human, half-vampire spawn. 
  • Said spawn communicating with its parents from inside the womb. 
  • Edward eating the vampire spawn out from inside Bella. 
  • A teen wolf falling in love at first sight with a new-born baby. 
  • Werewolf inter-gang politics. 
I'm not kidding. 

Story-wise, this particular chapter of Dull Girl Loves Old Vampire IMMEDIATELY jumps right into the  thick of it. It assumes we've all seen the film's predecessors, and that as such exposition is unnecessary.  Wedding. Done. Off to Rio for a honeymoon. Bella is nervous about secks. They finally shag. They destroy their bedroom. Hurr hurr. Bella is pregnant. Jacob is sad. Jacob is angry. Edward is full of angst. Bella is being killed by baby. Baby communicates with parents. Edward is happy. Jacob helps out Bella by keeping her safe from his werewolf brethren. He's full of angst. Bella almost dies in child birth. Edward eats baby out of Bella. Baby is fine. Jacob goes to kill baby but decides he's in love with her instead. Half-human half-vampire baby is given a name that is half stupid and half idiotic. Bella is turned into a vampire. It all whips by at break-neck speed ... yet why does it feel excruciatingly long?

D:
I went in expecting a laugh a minute as a result of the sheer absurdity of it all. And yes, I did laugh. I snorted in laughter at Kristen Stewart's facial expressions, which ranged from confused to slightly pained. I laughed at (not with) the feeble attempts at humour during the wedding sequence, which sadly only achieved an uncomfortable "awkward". I giggled at the sound of the werewolf voices, the booming and lowered versions of the actors' regular tones. I laughed at the straight-faced seriousness of EVERYTHING that went on. And everyone laughed when Bella uttered the baby's name, Renesmee. 

While I did get a great deal of amusement and barely stifled giggles out of the goings-on, the overwhelming feeling I had as the credits rolled was not the one of extreme hilarity that I had expected. No, I felt my entire being crying out, "the fuck was that???"

Firstly, Kristen Stewart. She might be okay. I thought she was alright in Adventureland. But here... maybe it's the insipid character she's portraying, maybe it's the direction, maybe she's mediocre at best but ... no. Just, no. Her facial expressions never change, she mumbles her way through her lines, she displays no charisma in the slightest. I know Bella's supposed to be a somewhat awkward girl, but the scenes in which she attempts to seduce Edward are just uncomfortable. They're awkward, cringe-inducing, they're So Bad. Ditto most instances in which she's required to display an emotion, but those particular scenes especially are cringe-inducing.

Not that cringe-inducing is necessarily a bad thing. Could be a good thing. Thing is, I can't for the life of me find Bella and Edward likeable. I just can't muster up a shit to give about them. Bella is the absolute epitome of dull. Edward isn't much better. Bella is so incredibly, frustratingly dependant on Edward, I found myself wondering in mild shock how on earth anyone could think that these are good moviefilms for impressionable tween girls to become fixated on. Bella's entire existence seems to be validated by Edward's love and stalker-like tendencies. Sure romance is nice, but when Bella appears to think that her vampire beau doesn't want her, blankface's world seems to completely and utterly shut down. During their honeymoon Bella actually pleads with Edward to have sex with her, in a scene so goddamn pathetic I couldn't even find an iota of laughter to be had. Why both Jacob AND Edward are enamoured of Bella is beyond me. And I sure as shit lament the predicament this leaves the young tweenage boys of today; they've got a vampire to live up to, and that ain't going to result in ridiculous expectations at all ...

There's this one scene, where Bella's walking down the aisle. She looks like she's about to chunder, or have a heart attack. Then she sees Edward's "perfect face" (that phrase, I'll have you know, is used a truly disgusting amount of times within the books), and she's able to keep on walking. I'm sure that if that sort of thing went down in another film I wouldn't have felt myself cringing in disgust and discomfort, but in this instance it was just so goddamn awfully HEAVY-HANDED. Which is another problem with Breaking Dawn (and the Twilight Saga in general) - every point made is beat into the audience like a pistol to the face until it's not made, but also lodged in the squidgy inside of your brain.

Chess game as battle of sexes while Bella seduces Edward!
Genius!
I almost want to procreate, if only in order to send one less young girl into the world who doesn't think that a controlling, obsessive, stalker boyfriend who sparkles in the sunshine and swoons at their very breath is the height of romance. And that she must be completely dependent on the relationship (yet all the while stringing along a faithful friend who's similarly obsessed) in order to have meaning in her life/existence (even after being transformed into a vampire). And don't even get me started on the anti-abortion undertones I couldn't help but get from the film...

Christ, that got a bit more ranty and rambly than I had originally intended. This started out as "Reasons Why Breaking Dawn is Fucking Bizarre", not "I HATE TWILIGHT".

Basically, before I had time to ponder the goings-on and subsequently fly into a murderous rage, I was in the cinema. Sitting in the cinema, I was puzzled. I was puzzled at the complete off-the-wall-ness of the film. The strange visual effects used while Jacob was raging through the woods as a wolf, the violent animations during Bella's transformation (is this a teen filim?), the vampire baby killing Bella, the pathetic leads, the over-the-top love story, the werewolf voices, the dumb battle between vampire family and wolf pack, the VERY LOUD DRUMMING that played whenever the werewolves were onscreen.

And this may be because I was talking to a friend about John Waters films before Alice and I headed to the cinema, but I just kept thinking about what I was seeing onscreen from the point of view of someone who'd just spent dinner talking about John Waters. The film ends with Bella's eyes opening and WOAH surprise they're red. Maybe, just maybe, she had spent all of that time lulling everyone into a false sense of security, convincing them al that she's dull and occasionally pathetic only to KILL EVERYONE IN THE NEXT FILM. Maybe.

Or maybe it'll be even worse than this one.

At any rate, this has been the reaction of most people I tell what the last film I watched happened to be.



Potemkinstein.

 

Whenever Mitch has something to say about Jesse Eisenberg, he mistakenly refers to him as "the Eisenstein guy" or "Jesse Eisenstein-whats-his-face". This is probably betraying more than a little bit of how much of a dorkmax I really am, because this always sends me into fits of giggles.

Sergei Eisenstein is a Russian man who was born a very long time ago. In 1898. Perhaps as a way to validate his crazy tufts of wild genius hair, Mr Eisenstein obviously decided early on that he was going to be a pioneer of Soviet cinema. I would have tried the same, but he just did such a darned good job that it seemed like a bit of a waste of effort. He's the type of guy whose ponderings fill first-year editing dossiers. His films a shown to lecture theatres filled with fresh-faced wannabe directors and editors. WHAT IS MONTAGE? Let's ask Sergei.

Anyway, can you imagine Jesse Eisenberg playing Sergei Eisenstein in a biopic? It'd be directed by Michael Bay, and every shot of Eisenberg/stein would be full of explosions and very quick pans and maybe Scarlett Johansson. I imagine Jesse Eisenberg awkwardly directing October, or of Mark Zuckerberg cruising around with Justin Timberlake around Soviet Russia, making montage like bosses.


Michael Bay presents BATTLESHIP MONTAGE: THE SERGEI EISENSTEIN STORY. 

The point of this stupid post (yes, there is one) is to inform you all that one is now able to watch Battleship Potemkin on Youtube. As well as a bunch of similarly old and classic films. Go feast your eyes and fill your brains.