Been hitting the movie goal hard this week. Here’s a few more reviews.
#9 - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Action movie, lots of neat techy gadget, token funny man. The pacing was a bit slower than I’d have liked, but it was still pretty good. B+
#10 - My Girlfriend Candice - The first short film on the list. By my favorite film maker Casey Neistat. The short 20 minute story details a trip he and his girlfriend took to see the last space shuttle launch. Full of honesty and Heart, just like everything Casey makes. A+
#11 - The Red Balloon - Another short. I’ve heard of it, seen it parodied, so I finally decided to give it a shot. It was.. interesting. Fairly entertaining though. B+
#12 - Dredd - Total lack of character development. Horrible pacing. The only redeeming factor was the special effects but those were over-used. Also watched it in 3D. Don’t even get me started on that awful gimmick. D-
#13 - Rock N Roll High School - A Ramones movie? Hell yea. This movie was pure camp and I loved every second of it. A.
#14 - Primer - I’ve heard good things about this movie, but it went way over my head. The quality was poor to say the least but the acting was fucking fantastic. Goes to show that technical quality is a distant second to the story and acting. I’d like to see this reshot with a bit more explanation of things. B+
Movie number 8 - Glory Daze
Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, French Stewart, and tons of cameos by people like Matt Damon,Brenden Frashier and Matthew McConaughey music by NOFX and The Vandals? What the fuck?
Quality acting, lowish budget, decent story but fairly predictable. Good enough to put on and zone out a bit. Not super funny, not super entertaining but it’s a decent boring day movie to watch.
Movies 5,6,7
Had a bit of netflix marathon last night, watched Tenure, Going Greek and Bus Stop.
Tenure - The entire movie was kind of bleh. A bit of embarrassment humor here and there. All in all it wasn’t really funny. It wasn’t really a love story. It wasn’t really original. It was just a well made piece of nothing. D+
Going Greek - Decent low budget film. The acting was decent, film making was decent. There was at least one scene where you can see the home made letter boxes that don’t cover the entire frame which is kind of funny. The story was decent though, better than most college movies. B-
Bus Stop - Marilyn Monroe plays a lounge singer. A Cowboy with no sense of the world falls in love with her and basically kidnaps her into marrying him. She tries to resist and all sorts of hijinks occur. The ending is a bit silly, but it’s a classic movie so I suppose that kind of thing is to be expected.
Movie #3 - Senna.
This Documentary kept popping up in my movies to watch so I gave it a chance.
The story is that of the legendary Aryten Senna, a Brazillian F-1 driver in the late 80s and early 90s. All in all a pretty interesting piece.
Perhaps the best part of the movie was all of the behind the scenes b-roll the film makers had access too of Senna just hanging out with his family or in closed meetings. I think that was probably what helped to give the main character a real dynamic feel.
All in all, a solid 4/5. Note: The movies has a bit of a sad ending, so watch out for that.
First a word about “Cinedine” or a cinema that is also like a restaurant at the same time. Good idea for fun movies/date night. Terrible idea for movies like Django Unchained. Way too much distraction.
Also I spent $27 tonight. $10 for a ticket, $16 on food + Tip and a dollar to park. Django Unchained was good, but $30 for a single person is a bit ridiculous.
As for the movie, A+. Tarantino is hands down one of the best dialogue writers of all time. His cinematography isn’t anything terribly ground breaking, but the dialogue and story lines are fantastic.
The bad: The last act felt a bit out of place. It works in the film, but the movie could have totally ended in the 4th(?) act. Though I realize that a 5 act play format doesn’t work that way. Whatever.
All in all, definitely go check this one out.
Here’s a photo of Ben Roy (of the Gr@wlix) being a lunatic the other night.
Hands down one of my favorite comedians right now.
As most of you know, I have been an avid supporter of Loom for many years. Keith invited me to Loom when it was still at Espana. My first time there was incredible. I felt so welcomed. Jay even came up to me and said hello and was so kind. I have worked hard to be the best DJ I can be for Loom, when I was there, as well as to the dance community as a whole.
I know some of you are aware that for the past year or more that I have been dealing with physical and sexual harassment at the hand of some of the Loom DJs. These DJs are Stephen Bils and Juan Chaparro. I brought this harassment to Brent’s attention multiple times while I was a resident and nothing was really done about it, so it continued. It finally turned violent on Friday, January 4 when Stephen showed up to my gig and started to harass me.
I feel like it will help you understand what led up to this if I explain everything from the beginning:
The harassment started in the summer of 2011, before I was working at Loom. Stephen and his friend Juan started posting things on social media about me doing sexual favors for DJ gigs and other gross sexual things. Stephen even said he had a naked picture of me (which he didn’t) and was going around showing people this picture to slut shame me. Despite their harassment, I continued to build my career as a DJ and saw the resident position at Loom as a great honor and a big step forward for me.
When a girl Stephen was romantically involved with slapped me at a party, Juan posted on my Facebook wall that I deserved it, which made me doubly ashamed because he brought knowledge about this assault into the public sphere. Some of Stephen’s other friends started posting on his comment about what a slut I am and making fun of my body in this supposed picture he had of me. I blocked all of them. I thought everything had kind of callmed down and then one of his friends showed up to a place I was playing and started in on calling me a bitch, slut shaming me, ect.
These instances of harassment and assault at the hands of Loom’s resident DJs illustrate the years of trauma they gleefully subjected me to, and I did deal with it personally because it was important for me to ovecome to continue to grow my career. In many industries, such as mine, this is the cost of being a woman. I only wish my workplace had been supportive of that and protective of my safety.
I would like to emphasize that I am only trying to bring the reality of my experience to the publics attention. In past e-mails and conversations Brent has acknowledged the harassment, but never the rape threats. Stephen and Juan’s personal vendetta against me escalated to violence, and I feel grateful that it did not escalate to rape. But I am so afraid that it will that I am risking my reputation and career by telling the truth in the hopes of protecting other women.
I got my residency at Loom in January of 2012. Stephen tried to convince Brent not to give it to me but Brent did anyway. The harassment subided for about a month but then I started hearing that Stephen was joking about raping me and telling other people they should rape me because I would like it. This is when I brought it up to Brent, quite a few times, actually, and nothing was done. Brent did send me an article on how to deal with “shit talking” in the music industry. Let me state here that there is a huge difference between “shit talking” and sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is against the law.
I then quit my residency at Loom in July of this year because of the sexual harassment I was being subject to. I thought that quitting would make Stephen’s anger against me subside. It actually made it worse. This fall he started calling me a bitch and harassing me at a party we were both at. I was talking to Brent when Stephen approached and said “Lauren, you are such a bitch”. I told him not to talk to me like that but it just escalated the situation. Brent stood there the whole time and said nothing while Stephen berated and belittled me. He then started saying he would beat my ass if I wasn’t a girl. I slapped him in the face and told him to never talk to me again; Brent suggested that we leave which we did.
I DJ’d a house party this past Friday night. Stephen showed up to said party with what seemed like the sole purpose of harassing me. He was shouting at me and in my face while I was playing and even poked me in the arm a couple of times. Since I didn’t know a lot of people at this place I decided it was best to just say to him if he ever talked or touched me again I would kill him. It was a poor choice of words but I was scared since this the same person who has been joking about raping me and from whom I had been continually dealing with his harassment for over a year. After I told him this he backed off a little. About an hour later he walked by me and shoulder checked me really hard. He did this three different times. I ignored him until he started shouting at me and trying to shame me in front of the entire room, including the people that were hosting the party. I have been dealing with this physical intimidation and verbal abuse for so long that honestly, I lost my cool. I told him to leave and followed him outside to make sure he really left. At this point I started begging him to leave me alone and pointed out all of the ways that I have tried to avoid him, including giving up my residency and not even going to Loom anymore. He said, “Good, you shouldn’t go there anymore!” and then gave me a shove. I then swung at him. I know it was wrong but my instincts kicked in and I was scared. I didn’t really know what else to do. He then threw me to the ground, put his knee on my chest, grabbed my hair, and bashed my head into the sidewalk. He called me a weak bitch and said he was going to rape me for real. Someone then pulled him off of me before he could do whatever he was planning on doing next. I have attached photographs of the physical damage to my person inflicted by him.
He said that if I called the cops he would just tell then that I said I was going to kill him and that I swung first. People around me were telling me not to call the cops. I didn’t know what to do so I left. As I walked away he mockingly asked me if I was going to go call Brent and tell him he was being mean to me again.
Right now I’m not confident that Loom is committed to protecting their women patrons or employees. Their responses to sexual harassment that I made known to them, that they witnessed themselves, were not professional or appropriate, signifying that the safety of women is simply not valued in practice at Loom. I know that Brent and Ethan are both positive people and they will probably disagree that they are facilitating this unfriendly environment for women, but I have asked them to consider the instances of sexual harassment and assault at Loom that they know of and ask how they have responded to them in a way that fosters a safer space for women.
To improve Loom’s reputation as a safe space for all people, I have some good-faith suggestions: 1. Publish and publicly share a sexual harassment policy including what harassment/assault is and how it will be enforced. There’s no need to address past issues or accusations, just create a policy and share it. Establish, by way of signage at the door, that House of Loom has a ‘No Tolerance’ policy for harassment of any kind and those offenders of this policy will be removed from the premises. 2. Keep a confidential record of the details of sexual harassment complaints against patrons and employees for law enforcement. 3. If a reporter of sexual harassment desires it, arrange for a safe escort or ride home and offer to contact the police.
I have included links below for information on the legal definition of sexual harassment and the rights and responsibilities as an employer. I have urged Loom to terminate both Stephen Bils and Juan Chaparro, sending the message to others in their employ that behavior such as this will not, under any circumstances, be supported, that they will no longer be complicit in these abuses, thus ensuring that this never happens at House of Loom again. I hope that Loom will make the necessary changes to make House of Loom once again a safe place for all, reinforcing their mission to ‘create community and promote social progress.
I always liked loom and have no beef with’em, but if even half this shit is true it needs to be made public. The only way to deal with bullshit like this is to let people know it isn’t okay.
In the reader again with a photo of @kaitlynhova !
