Mandy was a movie we both felt conflicted about (no spoilers.) The abundance of style felt to me like a way to pad out a fairly mediocre and very familiar plot, and the film seemed to be trying very, very hard to impress you. But what impresses me in all of my favorite movies is when the director plays a more subtle game. When your mind is blown through more sneaky means than "LOOK HOW WEIRD THIS SHOT IS!!!!" I've seen many comparisons of this film to the works of David Lynch and I just don't buy it. Lynch is actually a lot more subtle than he's given credit for, aside from a few scenes here and there (and maybe all of Eraserhead), he's not continually stopping his narratives to luxuriate on some surreal mind-blowing shot or sequence, the way Mandy did at every instant.
In regards to that standard plot...a great movie can really blow your mind because the story takes you in unexpected directions, or at least has some sort of twist or something new in the narrative to offer. And a movie can avoid being overly stylish and do this too. Mandy was like an interesting coat of paint on a pretty normal piece of furniture. Doesn't seem very rewatchable, was very slow, very distracting in every instant.
It was fun to watch. It had some interesting performances. It's not a favorite movie though. And it's the kind of movie that seems to REALLY want to be your favorite movie. But nobody likes desperation.
Anyway, what is this, a passable blog about films!?? No! It's about black and white cookies, unfortunately.
After the movie, we went to the 7-Eleven across the street and found that they had 7-Eleven brand black and white cookies.
Who's that girl? It's Kristen!
This doesn't lend anything to the narrative but just looked cool! Kind of like a certain movie we had just seen!
The 7-Eleven cookie felt a bit stiff that night, so I threw it in the microwave for about 8 seconds.
Softened up that little son of a gun real good. Maybe too much? The chocolate had melted a bit over my fingers when I grabbed it, and stuck to the wrapper too.
Speaking of the wrapper, this is a disturbing giant list of ingredients. I think this is twice as much as usual. Hey people, what even is "titanium dioxide"? Am I right? What is that, some sort of naturally occurring oxide of titanium, chemical formula TiO2 that when used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or CI 77891? And is it sourced from ilmenite, rutile and anatase. And it has a wide range of applications, including paint, sunscreen and food coloring? When used as a food coloring, does it have E number E171? You know what I mean? Does the world production in 2014 exceeded 9 million metric tons or something? I bet it has been estimated that titanium dioxide is used in two-thirds of all pigments, and the oxide has been valued at $13.2 billion, right?
I took a bite of the vanilla side.
Hrrrm....very uh, chemicall-y. It tasted kind of strange. Not very pleasant. The cake was soft and a bit bland but not too bad. Now is the time for a chocolate bite:
AH, this taste again. I've encountered this before on this blog. Kind of a big fudgy taste, like chocolate frosting on some cheap brand cupcakes. Not horrible, but it feels wrong for a black and white cookie.
Eating the two sides together was a bit of an anticlimax...and...woh woh...what's going on here?
It split in two! Is this because of the microwave? Or would this have happened anyway? Well, I took advantage of this rare freak occurrence and made a black and white cookie sandwich. A taste that emphasized the pretty decent cake and de-emphasized the disappointing icing parts.
Speaking of disappointing, I ate this while watching the season premiere of Supergirl. I watch dumb TV.
The bright side is I also tried these little babies, which are...incredible. Wow. WOW!! Go out and buy these little sons of guns!!!
So the 7-Eleven cookie gets a score of 711...out of 100,000,000.
-Jordan
