Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

I KNEW the Director's Cut of Daredevil cut stuff out. It took having to download and watch the theatrical version after seeing said Director's Cut since I can't say I remember every scene from the theatrical release... but I do remember a sex scene that wasn't present this time around when I watched the Director's Cut.

Seriously, though, who cuts stuff OUT of a Director's Cut. I was under some weird (albeit, probably false) assumption that the Director's Cut usually just had stuff that they took out for the theatrical release. I never thought that the added scenes also meant that some of the original scenes were taken out.

Most of you may not care, but if you are an avid film watcher, it DOES raise the question of which version is "better". I always assumed (there's that word again) that the Director's Cut is always better because I thought it was just the original plus extra scenes so what could possibly be bad about that? But if it comes at the expense of some of the original scenes, then you actually start to question the films as two separate stories.

Take Daredevil. Ok, so they cut out the sex scene from the Director's Cut. Big deal. Well, I guess it might be a big deal depending on who you are. But here's the thing. That sex scene comes as a result of a very interesting divergence of plot.

You see, before that scene, Matt Murdock and Electra were standing on a rooftop and he's going on about how when it rains, he can "see" her because each raindrop creates a unique sound that allows him to form an image of her in his mind. It's actually a pretty cool concept. So they kiss and blah blah blah... and then he hears someone getting beaten up in an alley a few blocks away. He tells Electra he has to go... and here's the kicker. In the theatrical cut, she takes his hand and says something like "stay with me," and he does, leading to the aforementioned sex scene. In the Director's cut, he says, "I'm sorry," and leaves to beat up some henchman in an alley where he discovers something about the kingpin.

Now that's a very interesting difference. In fact, in order to make the Director's Cut version more plausible (at least, I think that's why they made the following decision), they went back and cut out an earlier scene where Matt Murdock and Electra walk around the city, getting to know each other (this is a scene I hadn't noticed was missing until I saw the theatrical version again). I guess the implication here is that that earlier scene had established a bond between Matt and Electra so it lends greater weight to his decision to stay in the theatrical edition.

Despite all of this, it makes that scene on the rooftop intriguing. Essentially, in one version, he chooses the girl over fighting crime while he does the opposite in the other. Somehow, I feel like this changes the way I see the rest of the film.

Interesting. Over the last little while, I've become steadily more aware that I have gotten myself into a funk that's very similar in nature to the one that I experienced back in 2nd and 3rd year university. I suppose Grant is really the only person who knows what I'm referring to (or at least, knows exactly what I mean by this since I'm sure I've told a lot of people about that period after the fact). In very similar fashion, I've somehow managed to not allow that to interfere with my work (school work back then, real-life work now), but I've sunk into this state of apathy where I can't bring myself to do very much. I'm even having problems working on my writing project(s) (although the reasons behind this are complex and would take a longer blog post than I would care to write right now).

The big thing that really brought my attention to this resemblance is that I am watching films constantly these days. Not only that, but I find that I'm re-watching a lot of the films I saw back in my days of weekly Classic Video visits. I've always been quite content with watching the same film many times and since I only saw most of these films once, I now have the option of seeing a film I know I will enjoy on days where I don't feel like seeing rubbish.

Blergh...

I just thought about the idea of someday being a place where I could see my friends on a regular basis and realized that it might not ever happen.

The next person who talks to me on skype might have to deal with a temporary existential crisis. If you are this unfortunate person, I apologize in advance.

You know, it has occurred to me to take into consideration that if I decide to move back to Toronto after next year, I will be unemployed. It's funny because "money" hasn't entered my thoughts since my first paycheque. Seriously. I spend less than I earn (by a fair margin) and I don't spend very much beyond necessities (the occasional meal at a restaurant with colleagues being the primary source of "frivolous spending" that I do). As a result, I have been losing my ability to conceptualize what it means to "balance the chequebook".

I am also in a profession where the "standards" by which I measure my success has a lot less to do with "if I don't do a good job, I'll get fired" and more to do with "if I don't do a good job, 120 students are screwed". Being of a moral disposition, this thought unnerves me far more than the threat of unemployment.

Tangled = awesome

Rebecca Black's Friday Youtube statistics:

78 million views
190,00 likes
1,500,000 dislikes
63 comments added in the time it took for me to see the video

After 5 years, I decided to give Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind another viewing. I don't know whether this is a sign that I haven't evolved very much in the last few years but my reaction to the film is pretty much the same as it was when I first saw it: I don't much care for the ending but right up until then, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind strikes a very deep chord with me. I don't think I stopped thinking about it for a full week back when I first watched it. Now that I'm a little older, I think I have some idea as to why this is.

The premise/problem of the film lies in Joel actively watching the memories he's shared with Clementine disappear as he realizes that he's made a mistake but can't stop the process. That's pretty much the saddest scenario you could possibly invent and it's probably one of the reasons why this film affected me so much. I don't know what it is; I have a thing for extremely sad scenarios. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I prefer them over happy endings but it must be a close race. So it basically goes like this: if you can't give me a happy ending, you better make me want to jump off a bridge. I think that's fair.

Worst part about being in the real world: you can't talk about aging without offending someone.

It goes something like this:

Me: You know, I had an interesting moment this one time when I twisted my ankle. It took a full month to heal and I was thinking to myself, 'Man, back in high school, I would have been good to go in 3 days'. That was the first time I consciously realized that I'm getting old.

Some highly offended 30-something-year-old: Are YOU complaining about being old?!