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Kindle Notes & Highlights
I remember when I first read Island of the Blue Dolphins, I was like, “Shut it down, no need to write more books.”
Did you know that if your DNA is under a murder victim’s fingernails, they don’t even have to give you a trial? The sheriff just yells, “Geeee-ilty!” and then his dog chases you all the way to prison!
“A large, upsetting Greek man with a perm,
but who is the most boss of the men??? Is it the Harrison Ford kind of boss, or the Tommy Lee Jones kind of boss? They’re both your dad, but which is the best spanker?????
I find it personally insulting to imply that I belong to a species this simple.
I know it’s early, but I’m calling it. Artistic low point of the twenty-first century.
he should never have fired Natalie for having too much juice in the caboose
The truth is that you simply can’t make it into adulthood unscathed. And if somehow you did, you wouldn’t have the perspective and empathy to properly care for another human being for the rest of both your lives. It’s impossible. Everyone’s going to have their shit.
The true work of love isn’t staying together when things are perfect; it’s staying together even when things are awful, weathering catastrophic mistakes (within reason) because, well, you decided
You’re saying, “I promise I will stay with you even if you suck for a while,” an almost narcotic comfort that we all deserve.
“Honey, I have something to tell you.” “Just tell me!” “Honey…I shrunk the kids.”
We open with a feather, which is a metaphor. You see, because it’s white, like Tom Hanks, and you want it to stay away from you, like the Vietnam War. Also this feather shot JFK.
My momma always said life is like a box of chock-lits. You never know what you’re gonna get.” I mean, you mostly know. They write it on the lid.
Instead, apparently everyone just tapped out hard on Forrest’s education, like, “Oh, he’s a little slow. Let’s NEVER TELL HIM ANYTHING.”
Gump: Well, now we ain’t strangers anymore. [gets on bus] I think I see a couple of holes in your security system there, Mrs. Gump, but okeydokey.
In olden times, how did they even know how to do it? Like, before sex ed, when everything was supposed to be a secret? It’s not like now, when a man Gosling’s age would have watched literally ten thousand hours of instructional video by this point [porno]. Vintage intercourse must have been THE DRYEST WORST.)
squirreling all of his letters away in her secret hex box lined with poor-people skin!
geese are rank, shit-covered, hissing demons,
That’s like when you tell someone your dad died and they nod and say they understand how you feel because they really miss their cat when they’re at work.
the Sorting Hat. So it’s a sentient hat, and they stick the kids’ heads up its asshole so it can tell them whether they’re brave, smart, evil, or other (the four genders). What does the Sorting Hat do the rest of the year? Does it have to sit in a cupboard in the dark? That seems cruel and unusual for a living hat. Does it ever get to fuck a woman hat? Freedom for Sorting Hat.
But I do know that sometimes I forget about Nicolas Cage for weeks or even years at a time, and then I watch a Nicolas Cage movie again and it feels like coming home—to a house where your dad is cocaine and your mom licks your face if you’ve been good AND if you’ve been bad. I’m happy there!
Face/Off is just Big Boy Freaky Friday.
(like you give a fuck, you cavalier goofball!).
I tell you I would legitimately fucking catch on fire from embarrassment,
I actually think being exceptional is bad. It’s dangerous and unfriendly and it prevents us from building robust systems of aid and care. It precludes forethought and planning (oh, a hero will save us!), and it undercuts accountability when talented people do bad things (oh, but he’s so special). My Norwegian mom always told me, “You’re not special—never think you’re better than anybody else,” and I’m glad she did! Now I listen to other people and treat them with respect and wear a mask at the grocery store! Exceptionalism is a grift!
Not sure how Merlin’s big pointy hat is going to fit inside his helmet but NOT! MY! PURVIEW!
Luckily, along comes Leonardo “I Am Definitely Wearing Lipstick” DiCaprio, who is traveling to America with his friend Fabrizio (Human Olive Garden Commercial).
And look who’s down there dancing a jig! “Aaaaaaaay! It’s-a me, Fabrizio!” Fabrizio treats everybody to all-you-can-eat breadsticks and then invents the Mafia.
Finally, even though she knew Bill Paxton was searching for the necklace, and he patiently listened to her stupid story (it’s like she writes erotic fan fiction about herself), that old lady just goes and drops it into the ocean at the end!!! Like, seriously, old lady? First of all, you’re a dick. Second of all, that necklace belongs in a museum. Third of all, you’re a dick! I wish Bill Paxton would drop YOU into the ocean at the end.
Exactly what Tim Allen’s character is into that makes him so single-mindedly disdainful of parenting, non-mute women, and holiday cheer is never revealed. This is a cinematic technique known as “not fucking bothering.”
I think my feelings about The Santa Clause can best be summed by this (100 percent true) sentence: it took me literally an entire day to get through this ninety-minute movie because I kept getting pleasantly distracted by YouTube videos of farmers lancing cow abscesses.
Just describing the plot of The Rock is a lush, lip-smacking thrill, like a piece of bacon that is all fatty rind, like a bowl of Lucky Charms that is all marshmallows—so many elements that could each, alone, be too much, here combined into one film that somehow works,
Toxic friends will say, “Call a newspaper maybe,” but it’s Scorpio season, okay? Cut unsupportive snakes from your life, honey!
I feel like in the ’90s people were always answering the phone while they were having sex. I remember watching movies as a kid and thinking, like, three out of four adults were probably secretly having sex when you talked to them on the phone! Honestly, I’m still not sure this isn’t true! It puts me constantly on edge! This is why I only text!
Fabrizio promises Cage that he will protect him like he would protect his nonna’s gabagool.
He’s not trained!!!! He shouldn’t be there!!!!! It’s like having a basketball player on your team because he’s good at repairing basketball hoops!!!!!
Was 2003 our tackiest year, as a species? I know the competition is stiff—there was 1997’s swing revival, 1998’s failure to contain and exterminate said swing revival, or literally any given moment in the Trump era (for instance, the random day I’m writing this, when America’s toilet king bragged on Twitter that his daily COVID-19 press briefings are a “ratings hit” rivaling even the Bachelor finale!).
When faced with a choice, Bay picks “all of the above” every time. He’s like a dog in one of those obedience trials who’s like, “Obedience? I don’t know her,” and just goes buck wild on the sausages.
I was twenty-one in 2003, and tasteless shit isn’t just IN my blood, IT IS MY BLOOD. I crave excess!
The lawyer, feeling less appreciated than an old bug (and still very concerned about inspections), stomps off to sit on a tuffet somewhere and lick an oversize lollipop, probably.
Dr. Grant touches Laura Dern on the buns to establish that their relationship is caliente yet tender.
which also, coincidentally, is my stripper name.
Mufasa comes into the cave and is like, “Do not eat my toucan, please; I need him for blathering and ineffectual childcare.”
Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king.” Then he goes back up to lion heaven to play two-on-two basketball with Confucius, Anne Frank, and James Gandolfini.
So, the moral of The Lion King, I guess, is don’t push your older brother into a wildebeest stampede because someday your nephew might throw you in a hyena-infested fire? Also, the sky is full of dead lions.
Rush Hour is a flawed thing, a creature of 1998, and it is not my jurisdiction to dismiss its faults. But complicated love is still love.
Man, there’s nothing America loves more than a really pretty woman who kind of tries. That’s the most sympathetic thing in the world. A really pretty girl who tried a little bit.
Twilight feels like it was written by an AI that almost gets it. Something is just 2 percent off about every line and every interaction,
I do need to pause and say that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson perform the frick out of these goofy-ass roles, and you know what? I love them both. I do! I think they are good! Sue me! Take me to Taste Court!
If you ever find Dennis Hopper in your basement, DO NOT APPROACH HIM. Dennis Hopper is extremely territorial.
