Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin: A Terrible Night.

Tonight seems like a film caught in the reel, where the same image continues showing over and over again. The only problem is the film being shown is terrible. Relating this with tonight's debacle might not make any sense, but I want to try and get it out of my head. The night started with me feeling sick again. For some reason I felt the tightening in my throat like before. Tonight I gagged twice. I suffered with the worrisome thought of getting sick for about an hour. I tried keeping myself occupied by turning on the TV, and it helped a little, but then I couldn't stop worrying. I turned on "The Dreamers" and I think that is what got my mind off of getting sick. I then began trying to come up with ideas in my head that could develop into short film ideas. With the ongoing movie, I remembered how great Bertollucci uses film history as a device to further excitement in the film. There's is a debate between Michael Pitt and Luis Garrel about whether Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin was better. I was fascinated by the film history brought up, and the recreation of various scenes from classics that I still have not seen. It seemed like it was all coming together within the film. And then I felt satisfied. Although, I wanted more. I felt like Dreamers began a search within me to find more. I felt like I wanted to study all that is film at that moment. There's a brief clip in Dreamers where the three characters go to the cinema to watch Sam Fuller's "Shock Corridor." I searched through Drew's collection and found the movie. I began watching the movie, but then I wanted more, so I opened up Drew's Janus collection and took out a documentary titled, "The Great Chase." It was a documentary about the great chases in cinema. It began with Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" and transitioned to D.W. Griffith's... I cannot remember the title, but it's like a noir-like atmosphere where a women is captured by two men on a railroad car. It gave me an idea for a short, but I, being too lazy didn't write it down. It stayed in my head and bothered me to the point where I couldn't enjoy the documentary any longer, so I stopped the film, came to the computer and pulled up Howard Hawks' "Scarface" the 1931 version. I watched about the first two minutes and paused it. Then I went back to the living room where "The Great Chase" was playing, turned it off and finished watching "Cube 2" which I started earlier today. It was horrible. Then I thought why should I make films? What difference does it make if I come up with an idea? Tonight has been such a frustrating evening. Is it truly pointless to have a debate whether Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin was better? I just feel like tonight has been a complete waste. I'm feeling better, but I feel like my illness spawned the bad night. And there might be a possibility that it could spoil many others. The illness makes me unhappy, and made watching movies, the thing I love, stagnant. The fact I couldn't get through even one film makes me frustratingly unhappy. It's like I cannot concentrate. I want to be happy, but so many things are far out of control. Maybe it's because I try to control, and that is what stagnates the situation. So many things are out of control that trying to dominate the situation either drives everything else away, or makes the situation go nowhere to the point that frustration occurs. By controlling myself not to feel sick, I'm bringing it up furthering a tiresome struggle to stay in control of my body. By controlling outside situations in making decisions, I'm bringing difficult matters up, which bring forth the harshness of life and the suffering I'm causing because of my own arrogance. Everything finds a way of working out. That's what I've always been told, but life is full of happy and unhappy people. It's to the point where one day, you have to fall in one category. Maybe days are established by this process, and I'm just having an unhappy night. I don't know. My thought process has been difficult. Although, when is my thought process easy-going. Maybe the way thought occur are used to create tension. And tension is what arises in films to create more incidents. So, my bad night is just another situation in one of the films I've tried watching and have been reluctant to finish. Actually the only one I've finished was terrible, and that set up the basis for the rest of my night. I feel like I have to finish a good movie in order to fix my terrible night. It's stupid of me to complain about a terrible night, when others are starving. That's a real terrible night. Tonight I also skimmed through channels on the TV and came across a news program discussing how the suntan lotion I wear on the beach, bleaches the water and is carried through the ocean and kills the coral reefs. By applying suntan lotion, which prevents me from burning up and suffering in agony, I cause agony for a dying reef. My happiness, therefore creates unhappiness. This is just en endless cycle of choosing to be happy or unhappy. So, why should there be a debate whether Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin is better? It's already midnight, and I haven't finished watching anything that has made me feel good. I shouldn't care about this, but by doing so I'm trying to control again. This must be what insanity feels like. I just need to not care more. But I enjoy caring. It makes me happy. I'm repeating my famous words again, "I just don't know." I seems as if I've tried to find the secret of film (which there is none), solve my thought process, and waste my night away by thinking about issues I cannot solve tonight and probably ever. Why does life have to be so confusing? I don't know how to end this post. Sometimes, I truly wonder how people put up with me, and it worries me. Although it could be possible that it's late, I'm tired, and I'm thinking, which usually ends in a disaster. I'm not going to watch anything tonight. I'm going to my bed, covering up and saying goodbye and goodnight to a terrible evening.