Blue Profitt

Friday night activities: Watching the "Johnny Comes Marching Home" sequence in Stalag 17 and getting chills like I haven't seen this film a million times.

In my defense! The class is about theories of nostalgia, and we are discussing the politics of remakes/when the remake arguably becomes the definitive version of the film text.

Spent 7 years in graduate school taking classes on global women filmmakers, film spectatorship, and feminist theory just to be like, "This week we are watching The Parent Trap" as soon as I got a full-time job.

Must buckle down next week (spring break) and get a huge chunk of my new piece drafted. Exciting, scary, all the things that writing is and can be.

Got to watch Shoeshine today 🥹 In case you're wondering, no, I will never, ever stop teaching films where children try (but don't always succeed) to do something about the fact that they do not have rights in this world.

Really and truly so grateful to the last peer review comments I received. They recommended so many great resources that I somehow missed. I'm so happy to hear that my revisions worked, and I'm even happier that I've grown my bibliography for more research/teaching purposes.

Getting stuck in an elevator is a really cool way to spend your Wednesday afternoon.

In the words of David Bowie, "She's known in the darkest clubs for pushing ahead of the dames." :)

Unsurprised, but watching Veronica Mars is about the only thing that's helped me to feel any sliver of "normal" this week. A tether, a constant, a text that unites my teenage self to the self in her thirties. Sigh.

Ahistorical thinking at its finest (AKA most terrifying). The word choice makes little sense (not sure what a "higher" literature student is, if not in postsecondary ed). Are you just OK with missing out on context that should move us forward? And a scary conflation of education & entertainment.

A little weirded out that my Criterion copy of Dance, Girl, Dance suddenly looks so strange on my TV. It's only been about 6 months since the last time I watched this film (using this copy), & for some reason, it looks all stretched out. To my knowledge, nothing has changed, but something must have?

I've been watching some select episodes of Veronica Mars (like any good fan, I ignore "Season 4"), and it is PAINFUL how much I relate to her. The insatiable and killer curiosity, her ability to make connections, the way she almost wants to be misunderstood ... she calls me out EVERY time.

Since I Fell for You

Been thinking about it since we watched Dogfight (1991) for class this past week. Ugh. So beautiful.

The Odessa Steps feature in the 1925 comedy JEWISH LUCK, based on the writings of Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem (who also wrote the basis for FIDDLER ON THE ROOF).

This film was completed before BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and was also shot by cinematographer Eduard Tisse.

Maybe it's that I was an English literature major, so my bias is just as sharp as my skills on this one. But punctuation matters so much if you know what tone you want to convey, even in what may feel like an offhanded post. Please, read my commas as compassionate pauses.

I'm going to be so tired from teaching and an after-hours screening on Wednesday that I doubt I'll have time for my favorite 2/18 tradition (watching Drugstore Cowboy) ... the same thing happened last year, ugh :(

Getting to share Zemeckis's debut, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, is one of my favorite parts of the job. Not everyone loves it as much as I do, but sometimes you make real fans out of people. I'm so excited to share it again this coming week!

Love having a new piece to write ... except for all the anxiety of having a new piece to write. In all seriousness, though, I am looking forward to this one. It combines some passions from early in my career with my still-beloved-to-me dissertation work. Exciting!

I've looked at all the clouds here, & this is such an interesting idea, especially for large courses! I teach at a liberal arts college, so I can usually get reactions face-to-face, but I would have loved this when I taught courses of ~60. Also, love to see the absence of "confusing" over time!

Usually, it's very good that my hunches are right. Sometimes, I desperately wish they were wrong.

Don't make me take away your River Phoenix privileges!

Teaching The Outsiders (the novel) for the first time. It's for a core Arts & Humanities course at my university. Since I do much more work w/ the film, I'd forgotten how sweet some of the book's details are, like the chocolate cake for breakfast. It's in the film, but it hits different in the book.

I love ballet, and I miss it very much. Yes, part of me misses doing it, but a much bigger part of me misses being near places where I could watch and experience it. Not corner dance studios (although I did attend a great one). Professional ballet in beautiful theaters. I miss it dearly.

I'm planning quite the unique course in popular culture studies in the fall, but there's a voice inside my head saying, "You'll never teach it." And that pun should tell you, to some degree, what the course is about.

Virginia Pearson and Charley Chase as mother and son reminiscing over baby pictures in MUM'S THE WORD, and demonstrating how title cards and pantomime worked together to deliver a punchline.

I was going to make a whole post about a lesson I've been trying to teach myself about anxiety & anticipation, but it really does all boil down to "You know what they say when you assume." And if it's not deeper than a derriere joke, you might as well just own up to the joke.

I've completed 1 out of 3 major "end of January, beginning of February" writing tasks. Given they're all quite short, I think this is doable! I'm excited for how they all turn out.

Finding myself on Google Scholar ... a jump scare of epic proportions.

Update: I've seen my besties Cesare and the T-Rex. Phyllis and Jim are for tomorrow, likely in that order.