Category Archives: movies

So Classic

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I was born in the wrong era. The 1930s-1970s is the area I should’ve been in. All the movies, the styles, I loved it (except for the sexism and oppression but let me live in my world where that didn’t happen). I am completely content to lie in my bed and watch TCM all day every day. The majority of my DVD collection consists of films made before 1970. This is the time where movies were great, meaningful and an escape. The movies stars…don’t get me started! Monroe, Hayworth, Hepburn, Leigh, Taylor…they acted like stars. It was always glamour! Not this crazy Amanda Bynes, Anne Hathaway crap.
TCM—that’s my station. I love The Essentials, it’s a Saturday night special hosted by Robert Osborne and another actor or actress (this month was Drew Barrymore). They go over movies that are “essential” to watch. In February they do 31 days of Oscar—all Oscar winning films leading up to the Academy Awards. They have wonderful documentaries…great flicks…it’s wonderful. I didn’t think it could get any better until I found out that this month is “The Woman’s World: The Defining Era of Women on Film”.
From the TCM site:
TCM proudly introduces Friday Night Spotlight, a new month-long festival of films hosted by a special guest. The theme of the inaugural Friday Night Spotlight is A Woman’s World: The Defining Era of Women on Film, with celebrated singer/actress/superstar Cher joining Robert Osborne in hosting the screenings. This Spotlight will shine on the “woman’s film,” a staple from the late 1930s through the early ’50s that viewed life from the female perspective as it changed with the times, creating a genre that was rich, varied, sometimes subversive and always entertaining.
Among films with the theme of Motherhood are dramatic vehicles for two icons of the woman’s film, each playing a mom who sacrifices everything for a daughter: Barbara Stanwyck as Stella Dallas (1937) and Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce (1945). The War Effort and the Homefront of the World War II era are represented by Claudette Colbert in, respectively, So Proudly We Hail (1943), in which she serves as a Red Cross nurse in the Pacific, and Since You We Went Away (1944), in which she bravely maintains a family while her husband is away at war.
Working Women, a force that would grow considerably during the war years, include Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday (1940) and Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1942), with Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy, respectively, as the men in the lives of these independent career women. Among the Women Taking Charge are Ginger Rogers as a young working-class woman who marries into wealth yet retains control of her own destiny in Kitty Foyle (1940), and Bette Davis as a genteel but strong-willed socialite who takes over the child of another woman (Mary Astor) in The Great Lie (1941).

Not only are the celebrating women in film…they’re doing it with Cher. Stop being the best TCM I can’t take it! I have a full-time job how the hell am I supposed to live knowing this is going on?! Fine, FINE! You win! I’ll spend every Friday night at home watching your station.



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Jar Jar Abrams

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I awoke one day and twitter was all abuzz about JJ Abrams signing on to direct the next Star Wars film. If you have been in hibernation for the past few months, George Lucas sold LucasArts to Disney, and Disney announced that Star Wars: Episodes VII-IX will happen. Episode VI is expected to come out in 2015.

Now, I’ve loved Star Wars for most of my life. That’s true, I think, for a lot of people who were born after the first three films came out. I enjoy the prequels—they do a number of things very well, though they have their shortcomings. Honestly, much better than any of the films is the current series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is expected to move from Cartoon Network* to DisneyXD after this season, now that ownership of the series has changed hands. Hopefully, none of the content of Clone Wars will change. It’s seriously just . . . so much better than the films. Have a marathon of Clone Wars with some friends and then try to watch one of the films. It’s a weird experience.

I am cautiously optimistic about Disney’s ownership of LucasArts. I mean, Disney is a giant, terrifying corporation. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to quality. This is the company that made the iconic movies that dominated just about everyone’s childhoods. They’re not out to ruin the franchise that they just paid billions of dollars to buy. Plus, Leia is a Disney Princess, now. Super exciting.

Now, JJ Abrams will be directing the next film. Once I have learned all that I can about something, I usually react fairly quickly with “I love this” or “I hate this.” According to high-powered executives on some comedy shows (like Better Off Ted), that would make me a great leader. However, when the JJ Abrams-as-director thing was announced, I had a more cautious reaction.

First of all, JJ Abrams destroyed the planet Vulcan in his first Star Trek film, for which I will never forgive him (yes, the planet is ugly and brown, but seriously the Vulcans are awesome leave them alone). At least now he will be in a setting where the destruction of planets is less of a shock and more of a fact of life.

JJ Abrams’ previous projects are . . . well, interesting. He did a wonderful thing for Star Trek. And while I have some issues with a few things from the 2009 Star Trek film and while all that I know from the trailers for the next Star Trek film is that there will be many explosions and that Benedict Cumberbatch’s face is as ridiculous as his name, I’m glad that he’s doing it.

Lost is much-acclaimed by some people but irritates me to no end. That said, JJ Abrams really just did the pilot of it and then the writers and showrunners after that kind of had no idea where they were going with it. The best things that I can say about Lost is that they had two former cast members from Babylon 5 and that Lost was filmed on the same island as Dante’s Cove.

Fringe is definitely a weird show (and it recently had its finale), but it’s a truly enjoyable show that I . . . did not watch all of the way through.

So I really think that we should be open-minded about JJ Abrams taking on Star Wars. That said, I was “open-minded” about M. Night Shyamalan adapting the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender (one of the greatest shows of all time) into a live-action film, and The Last Airbender turned out to be an outrageous abomination. I’m not saying that I would kill him, but if M Night Shyamalan were dying of thirst and I had an unlimited supply of water, I don’t know that I would share. And I don’t even drink water.

So, JJ Abrams needs to be careful and make something that will please the show’s fans and possibly even attract some new ones. But we should not just dismiss him or these new Star Wars films because we’ve been disappointed in the past.

 

*This is probably for the best, as Cartoon Network apparently likes to cancel its best and most well-rated shows. Like, for example, Young Justice is ranked #2 on IMDB of Cartoon Network’s shows, but they have failed to renew it for a third season. I am all kinds of outraged over this. They’re keeping The Annoying Orange and some of their other, um, “stellar” programming. Oh, and they’re continuing to air live-action shows. On Cartoon Network. Because that makes so much sense. (No but seriously I am so irate with them)



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Why I’m Breaking Up With Johnny Depp

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photo of barnabas collins johnny depp pictures
Johnny and I have loved each other and been involved for a very long time, he just doesn’t know about it. I loved Johnny Depp—really loved him. I thought he was completely brilliant. He was always photographed with a book in his hand, he owns an island with no electricity, and he raised his kids in France so they’d have culture and not be spoiled brats. He did amazing projects and he was amazing in them. He’s a musician. He played with Eddie Vedder at charity events and would pop up randomly at shows. He was just my perfect guy.

Johnny Depp has played almost every crush I’ve ever had. My first crush in the whole world was ‘Cry-Baby’. Oh yeah. I was gonna marry a motorcycle riding drape that sang country music (and I kind of did). Then he embodied Buster Keaton in Benny and Joon, he was Hunter S. Thompson (my hero) in Fear and Loathing, played Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow (don’t judge me—I’ve loved Ichabod since I was seven and saw him in the cartoon version), he played a pirate and every girl loves a pirate, starred in a Stephen King film (my other hero)—don’t get me started on the Libertine (I’d get syph from him any day), and then came our first fight.

I have always had a thing for Willy Wonka, but Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. When Depp was announced I was over the moon. Then I saw the first shots and wanted to burn him at the stake. But I forgave him because that’s what you do when you love someone. He’ll make this up to me, and he did with Jack Sparrow. A sexy pirate? Johnny, you know how to please your girl. Then Sweeney Todd … playing on my love of serial killers? Johnny … I am eternally yours. Then he did it again. Johnny Depp was announced as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. Shut the f-ck up. Guys, I love Alice. The wifi at my house is called the Rabbit Hole, I refuse to have door handles without key hole locks, and I have rabbit that guards my front door. The Mad Hatter is my boo. The Mad Hatter and Ichabod are my childhood dream boats. Then I saw the first shots of the Mad Hatter. That was our first real fight. That fight would lead to our eventual divorce.

After Alice came more Pirates. Pirates number 4? Really? Even Orlando Bloom stepped away from that shipwreck of a franchise. After Pirates 1 those movies are shit. You’re making them just to make them at this point, Johnny! You swore you never would! Yes, I know that it affords you the ability to dress as Jack and read to kids at schools and hospitals but come on … draw the line! Then came The Rum Diary, a Hunter S. Thompson story. I was so excited, my love was going to come back to me. Nope. Wrong.

I could not and still cannot fathom how Johnny, one of Hunter’s most beloved friends, could allow that book to turn into that movie. For shame, Johnny. Then the final straw happened. Johnny Depp f-cked up Barnabas Collins.

When I was eight I had a bout of insomnia that literally almost killed me. Eight days of no sleep for an eight-year-old. The only thing I could do was watch TV. Scifi played the original Dark Shadows and I fell hard for Barnabas. I own the DVDs, I named a dog after him (I still have the tag on my key chain) and now Johnny was going to play him. For those of you who didn’t see Dark Shadows consider yourself lucky; Tim Burton and Johnny Depp ruined that show. There aren’t words for what they did to that story and that character. They should be banned from making anymore movies together. Their time has passed and so had mine and Johnny’s.

After Dark Shadow’s I called it off. This was not “my Johnny” anymore. After our break came his break up with his real life love, Vanessa Paradis, and more of the true Johnny emerged. He’s a douche. A huge douche. He is on any stage that will have him. He’s playing with Manson, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, the Stones, and a few others all within six months. He’s also staring in “The Lone Ranger” and updated version of the television show as Tonto. What a piece of trash that movie looks like. After that comes yet another Pirates film. I was also really disappointed when I read that the split with Paradis was cause by an affair. Really? You’re going to cheat on the mother of your two children? Come on! Douche move.

I’m done, we’re done. I’ve moved on. We had our fun but Johnny; you need to find yourself again. Get back to the Johnny I used to love because this guy … he’s just such a douche.



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Themyscira Girls: They’re Undefeatable

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photo of themyscira girls wonder women pictures
I love Batman. I even love Superman.

Like many of my fellow Millennials, I grew up watching Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini did incredible jobs bringing the DC characters of these storylines to life in a way that could be enjoyed by children—and even more so by adults.

So, when I say that I’m tired of seeing so many Batman and Superman movies, I mean nothing against those characters or those films. No matter how upsettingly disappointing Superman Returns was, or how much the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy seemed to be going out of its way to seem as little like superhero films as possible.

I am only tired of seeing Superman and Batman films because they are only two out of the “DC Comics Big Three.” So where’s my Wonder Woman movie?

It’s not that Wonder Woman hasn’t been on our screens before* (though no, I’m sorry, Lynda Carter doesn’t count as Wonder Woman any more than Adam West counts as Batman).

Like all of her Amazon sisters (I won’t go through the many versions of her backstory, but you can look that up just about anywhere), Wonder Woman (Princess Diana) is tall, extremely beautiful, strong, a trained warrior, and immortal. Not all female role models have to portray realistic body images (certainly most male superheroes do not). Diana herself is stronger than some Kryptonians (beyond rare in the DC universe), can fly, and is very difficult to injure.

The world of comic book movies needs a Wonder Woman movie. She is my favorite DC superhero, in part because, unlike Superman or Batman, she has the strength of character to kill people. Sometimes it means beheading a monster (she is an immortal warrior princess), and sometimes that means snapping the neck of an evil human who is already in custody. Because she’s a badass who is determined to do the right thing.

I think that it was on Cracked.com that I read someone speculate that Gotham City was plagued by so many villains because they were all fleeing from Wonder Woman. It’s a lovely thought.

So, again, where is my Wonder Woman movie?

Or perhaps the better question is what are the major obstacles (aside from just normal getting-anything-done-at-movie-studios-is-a-real-pain obstacles) to getting a Wonder Woman on …

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