James Byron Dean

Last Wednesday I went to the library to get a movie in English. I wasn't looking for any particular movie when I saw it: East of Eden. As I really like James Dean, I got it and when I started watching it I realised it wasn't the film, it was a documentary about his life, but as I had already put it on, I watched it anyway.
I didn't expect it to be really interesting, but it really was! Well, James has had a very complex and interesting life. He was born in 1931 in a little farm. He and his parents gave up farming when he was a kid and moved to California. He had a special relationship with his mum, the only person that could understand him. She died of cancer when James was only 9 years old. That was really hard for him and his father, who, unable to take care of him, sent him to his sister place, back in Indiana. He spent his youth there and went to High School. He was outstanding in sports and drama. When he was 18, he moved to California to live with his father and to study drama. He started going to some castings and getting many roles, acting in theaters, TV shows and playing non-important roles in some movies. Two years later, he gave up his drama classes to start being a full-time actor. When he was only 22 years old, Elia Kazan was looking for an actor to play Cal in East of Eden, and thought him perfect for the part. James was exactly what he was looking for, an actor with energy, not very known and young.
The movie was a complete success with James Dean as the main role. In the movie, he played Cal, a misunderstood boy who felt unloved by the world. Cal and Aron are the sons of Adam, a farmer and an investor. Cal is very impulsive and energetic and Aron is the “good boy”. Cal is envious because he thinks his father only loves Aron and he is obssessed with this thought. Eventually, he discovers that his mother, who had apparently died some years before, is alive, is in town and is rich. Cal tries to gain his father's love, but he always lets him down. When his father loses an important amount of money, Cal makes an investment and gets all the money back. He decides to give his father the money as a birthday present, and when he gives it to him, Aron announces he is getting engaged with his girlfriend, spoiling Cal’s present. Cal feels very angry with his brother and tells him the truth about his mother, to make him feel angry and upset. Aron, very bitter with the discovery, decides to enlist the army and goes away. His father then suffers from a stroke and gets paralysed. Cal explains him the truth, that he has always been envious of his brother, that he feels unloved and that he told Aron the truth about their mother. With Aron’s girlfriend’s help, he talks to his father and they sort out their problem. Cal promises that he will stay with him while he is paralysed.
After this movie, James Dean started to get known and his fame went higher and higher. He was very popular among young people and became an icon of rebelliousness. In his second movie, Rebel without a cause, James plays Jim, a misunderstood adolescent. His situation at home is horrible, his parents are always arguing and Jim looks down on his dad for being a coward and letting the arguments happen. He meets Plato, a 15 year-old boy that will become his best friend. Plato idealizes Jim because he is going through the same as him, with the horrible situation at home and feeling misunderstood. Jim then falls in love with Judy and starts going out with her. One day, Jim gets involved in a fight with Buzz, a bully from school. Buzz challenges Jim to a race with stolen cars, consisting in running towards a cliff and getting out of the car at the very last moment. The one that stays longer in the car will be the winner. They start racing and Buzz gets his jacket caught on the car door, and he can not jump off. Buzz dies and Jim runs to his place. He is trying to tell his parents what happend, but they do not understand and he, feeling frustrated, runs away to an abandoned house, hiding from the police. Nevertheless, Buzz's friends follow him and call the police. Meanwhile, inside the house there are Jim, Judy and Plato. Plato carries a gun, and Jim, who does not want another misfortune, takes the bullets out. Then Plato gets out of the house carrying a gun and the police, thinking that it was Jim who was there (Plato was wearing Jim's jacket), shoots him and kills him.
The other movie that James Dean acted in is Giant, but as I haven't seen it, I can not explain the plot. Some other things interesting about his life are that he met a woman (can't remeber her name) and they started going out, but the relationship was not successful because of James' character, so unstable. He was very moody and always did what he liked. When he was asked to go to the war, he declared being homosexual. Once, he asked his father why he had left him with his sister, why he cared so little about him. His father told him that he was not his real father, that his mother had had an affair and he was not his real son.
James Dean's carrer and life were very short, as he died from a car accident in 1955, when he was only 24 years old. Probably, if he had lived longer, he would have given us some more excellent interpretations, but we will never know. Anyway, just with three movies behind him, James Dean has become one of the best actors ever and has become an idol for heaps of people of all times.

Lost

Yesterday, I remembered something that made me think. You know, sometimes someone says something to you and those words kind of thouch you and you remember them forever.
Well, I have a friend who once told me that curiosity is what keeps people alive, that people who do not feel curious about anything are empty inside. Life would be sad without it, with nothing that makes you want to keep living, she said. Sometimes these words come to my mind and I check my life (mentally) to see if I'm interested in something or not, just in case. In my life I have been interested (and by interested I mean that I felt motivated) in lots of things. And it is not that I can't find a reason to live any more or anything like that but I feel as if there was something missing, there is not anything that catches my attention in any special way and the more I think about it, the more worried I get about all this stuff. Where is my motivation?
Maybe it is because I have to decide what to do in my future, and I honestly have no idea or maybe it is because I'm going through a weird stage of life, meeting new people and missing the old ones. It does not mean that I'm not enjoying this period, cause I certainly am, but I feel completely lost. Once I felt that I really had found my way in life and I feel as if I had stopped for a while to enjoy the views and when I came back to the track, it was not there any more, it had vanished. I know I will not be able to find it again, so I am trying to find another one, but I have a feeling this time is going to be tougher, somehow I can tell. Maybe the other one was just a mirage, who knows.
I am sick of being worried about this stuff but I can't help it. It's as if my mind needed to know where I'm going next to keep working. This time, I do not know which one is the next step to take and there is no curiosity around me. What the fuck is going on?

Basket case

This is a song that I really like and is always in my mind. I found this CD months ago, I was at home with nothing to do and I saw it on my sister's shelves, so I listened to it and I really like it! This song is Basket Case, by Green Day.

Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything
All at once
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Am I just stoned?

I went to a shrink
To analyze my dreams
She says it's lack of sex
That's bringing me down
I went to a whore
He said my life's a bore
So quit my whining cause
It's bringing her down

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Uh, yuh, yuh, ya

Grasping to control
So I better hold on

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I'm cracking up
Am I just paranoid?
Am I just stoned?

Prejudices

People say that the first impression is the most important one but this is not true at all. It happens to me constantly, you meet a person and you think that person and I will not get on, he or she looks so arrogant... And then you start to know them and find out that he or she is actually really nice! Well, it can happen the other way around too, you think they are really nice and they happen to be two-faced (I just learned this word :D)...
If you think about it, most of the time, people (and I'm including myself) judge other people just by their looks. Is there anything more stupid? We know that appearances tell nothing about a person but we still think- look at that guy there, the one wearing his pants so high, WHY is he wearing those pants? Doesn't he have a mirror? Doesn't he have friends who tell him that is ugly?? He must be a nerd with no friends-, and there it is, prejudice! The thing changes when we know the other person, though. Sometimes we find out that he's not what we thought but, why do we always have to talk without knowing? People (including myself again) tend to talk about everything, no matter what the conversation is all about, let's say we talk about technology development in Australia and we don't know anything about the subject, everyone will take part in the conversation anyway.
It's better to shut up than to talk without knowing, because that's when we realise that a person is an ignorant. As the saying goes, it's better to keep your mouth shut and look stupid than to open it and confirm it.
Well, what I just wanted to say is that sometimes we judge other people without knowing anything about them and that's a mistake, cause we wouldn't like other people talking about us the same way, so giving it a second thought is worth it. Prejudices never mean anything good, so try to make an effort and forget them!

Junk TV

I was hoping for some inspiration to write a new post, and I just found it! It's not a fascinating subject, but hey, at least I know what to write about.
I usually don't watch TV cause programmes bore me, but yesterday, while we were having dinner, my mum was watching one of those horrible gossip programmes about famous people who had sex with (apparently) everyone on stage and felt the need to tell the world they had been sleeping with all those people. I was complaining but as we were having dinner, we all had to watch that shit.
And that's when I started thinking about the sad lives all those people must have, they need to go there to talk about their nasty private lives to feel important... But what really worries me is that those programmes always have the highest audience! How sad is that? I don't know if you (who am I talking to?) have ever watched one of those shows but they are awful, there's nothing worse than sitting in front of the TV watching some retarded people insulting each other. Usually, watching TV is a waste of time but in this case, it becomes a lot worse, that is throwing your life away hearing how some jerks yell at each other to get some attention. I don't know how people can enjoy that! Besides, what they say is not even interesting and, if arguing in the real life is unpleasant, watching all those people shouting is disgusting.
TV is supposed to be the society's reflection, and if this kind of television is our reflection, we are in big trouble.

Party!

Well, I do not really have anything interesting to talk about, but I have to write more than 4,000 words before January and I don't want to get all stressed out the week before, so here I am.
Last Friday it was my friend's birthday, so he organised a party at his premises. It had been so long since I hadn't been with all of my friends together (as we are studying different things, we don't get to see each other so much), so it was great. We were dressed up as the 80s and we spent there the whole night.
You know, the great thing about parties is not the party itself, it is that if you are feeling down, it makes you feel better and if you were already feeling good, you become euphoric! That's why when you are not going through the best moment of your life, you have to make an effort and smile, because life is made of details, little things that make it easier.
(I was just thinking I must sound like a psychiatrist or something like that, always talking about life and this kind of stuff... it's just that when I don't have anything to talk about, these things come to my mind).