Inspiration #4

I love Maggie.

Not the same way I love Jake, but still.

She's quirky (and another slightly weird-looking actor) and I can relate, on some level to her. Boy is only a few months younger than her Ramona, maybe that's why.

I remember all my friends in high school going nuts over The Secretary. I didn't watch it until uni. I'll never look at worms the same way again.

I loved her in Stranger Than Fiction, this speech she made about why she paid only a percentage of her taxes cracked me up. Obviously, I know she didn't write it, but she delivered it with such panache. Will Farrell looked amateur next to her, in my opinion.

The first film I saw her in was Donnie Darko too, since she played Jakes older sister (ZOMG, it's like they're related or something!) she's played sibling roles with him before that too.

She was good in World Trade Centre, and Mona Lisa Smile ... I put up with Julia Roberts for her. That's true love. Did help that Kirsten Dunst, Topher Grace and Julia Stiles were all in it, I guess.

I've got a few of her films I haven't watched yet. I'm going to spend a few nights catching up on the 50 DVDs I have that I haven't watched (!!!), including 40 days and 40 nights, and Away we go (both Maggie's).

I don't know why I love Maggie. Apart from the aforementioned quirkiness. She's so up-beat and off-beat and I love her sense of individualism. All qualities I'd like to believe I have.

Inspiration #2

I need to feel better.

Jake Gyllenhaal makes me feel better.

I'm going to talk about Jake Gyllenhaal.

He's my favourite actor. Ever.

Once, in high school, someone asked me which actor I thought was most attractive, and all my favourite actors then were comedic actors and they ent pretty. I couldn't answer, because I didn't really look at actors like it.

Until Jake.

The first film I saw of his was Donnie Darko. We were analysing shows at uni, there was a theme but I can't remember. Someone did Requiem Of A Dream. We did an episode of Wire In The Blood which involved Barbies in bondage? Sign of what this serial killer had done to his victims. Anyway, someone else picked the cinema scene in Donnie Darko, where he learns about time travel from Frank?

It freaked me out, but the time travel aspect intrigued me, even if Frank's eye was disgusting. First pschological thriller I ever bought (I hate horrors. They don't scare me, but they wind me up. I don't like the way my nerves are on edge from the music or something). It was so good. Kind of like reading a Scarlett Thomas, where you sit back and go 'what?' and then watch again to understand. And again and again and get the directors cut and a book analysing the film.

I can't remember the next Jake film I saw. But as I watched his films, I noticed something about him. About the way he picks scripts. We need to disregard Bubble Boy, but otherwise, all his films have something 'different' in the scripting. And edge or an idea not explored. He likes working on films that are based on books (Brokeback Mountain, Jarhead) or biographies, reports of things that have actually happened (Jarhead, Zodiac, Rendition), he'll portray the writers, or sometimes he'll work on films that have huge ideologies, the significance of Catcher In The Rye to the American teen, the idea of finding a proof to work out the next prime number in any given sequence without working out the multiples (The Good Girl, Proof) ... every film he does is thought-provoking in some way. And he is a hottie, so it's aesthetically and mentally satisfying.

Basically, I want to marry Jake Gyllenhaal. But if I met him, I'd be worried he wouldn't be as inspiring as his work. Apparently he does plays in London a lot too? I'd love to go find one and check him out. Like, see him craft something on stage, in real time. He and his sister seem pretty down to earth about the whole Hollywood thing too, which I guess is down to having a script-writing mother and a director father. And an acting Godmother (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Oh, and he was so humble about losing one of his best friends, when everyone in Hollywood was clambouring to give a Heath Ledger soundbit, everyone on Brothers said he was too upset to talk. And he took on another man's kids when he started seeing Reese Witherspoon ... that makes him such a huge hero in my eyes.

Why can't I meet Jake Gyllenhaal, goddammit? Or at least someone like him.

Twists and turns

Yeah, I finally finished 'Dreaming Of Amelia'.

Hmmm ... I liked that the kids in the book seemed to act like 17 year olds, Jaclyn got that right, but ...

... you know when you're reading something, and something feels forced? Like, the author's realised maybe the story's going nowhere, or there isn't enough excitement in the book? Or they've been ambling along for 400 pages and realised they have to get this all down on paper and the last ten pages are crammed full of action, at the expense of accuracy?

That's DOA. I can't place my finger quite on what was off about it. A lot of characters were over-the-top, which made a good guise for a shoddy plot twist. But it makes it hard to choose what unsettles me about the writer.

And she wrote with an agenda, like I hate. Part of it was the whole 'leaving school, going to uni, saying goodbye to childhood' sort of things, like 'you'll be okay in the real world!' blahblahblah. Part of it was 'I heard this brilliant story about a local place, I'm going to write it down and thread it into my fiction. You're going to love the history lecture. In fact, you'll love it so much, I'll make the characters randomly time travel at the end'.

I think, if the idea had been executed in another style, in third person maybe, without the juvenile tint to the wording, it would've been a good book. The second message would have worked in an almost Donnie Darko sort of way. But it didn't so it wasn't.

And now I'm back to picking a book. Or writing mine, lol.

I need to work on my synopsis. God it's effing hard.