J's Bod

I enjoyed Jennifer's Body. I think. I did.

THAT BAND. omg. yes. Totally perfect. Adam Brody played that guy really well. I like him for no real reason. Maybe because of the OC theme song?

I can't believe I saw a scary movie in the theater. I HAD to though. The movie also HAD include the normi horror movie conventions to subvert them. Not that it was the most subversive movie ever, but it rocked it a bit.

I hated Juno but Diablo's dialogue seemed more appropriate here. Most appropriate for Jennifer, who said most of the almost unbearable lines. There weren't many.

It isn't a total feminist horror movie dream come true but it is something.

That scene where Jennifer is in Needy's kitchen and barfs black hell all over the place. I know what that feels like.

That HELL YES! movie poster...what?

Not articulate enough for a full report. Everyone has conflicting opinions.

Vampires are so in right now.

I walked away from Jennifer's Body last night feeling really confused, but the more I've thought about it the more I've decided that I really love it. It's not that Jennifer's Body is really a movie worth loving per se, because it is conflictual in nature, but in the spirit of campy high school horror flicks I feel it warrants more credit than it may receive. Because the predominant cultural paradigm, that being Men, anything related to masculinity, and the male gaze, do not want to see horny teenage boys being dismembered, especially while they are succeeding at downplaying a currently nationally covered rape trial. (Meanwhile, little girls are abducted every day, fathers carry on incestuous relationships with their daughters, and women are murdered by their husbands only to be identified by the serial numbers on their fake tits and the public feigns upset, but they are not nearly OUTRAGED enough...)

Diablo Cody has utilized her snappy Gilmore Girls/Katherine Hepburn era cinema quality dialogue to much better effect in Jennifer's Body than in Juno. And like the aforementioned Gilmore Girls the movie features Adam Brody as a band leader, except this time he's not a nice boy trying to score a date with Lane by pretending to be a good Christian. Brody does an excellent job at playing a phony-Satanic emo rock star that violates poor Megan Fox as Jennifer, sending her on the highway to hell. The "sacrifice scene" is one of the most ridiculous in the entire movie.

Jennifer goes cRaZy, seeking revenge as an evil undead succubus/vampire babe, feeding on the local population of dumb boys (although not all the boys are deserving, like the totally heinous feeding fodder of Jess Weixler in the equally campy flick, Teeth.) In the beginning of the film it seems as though Jennifer owns her sexuality since it is mentioned she has been a sexualized and sexually active person since she was in junior high. Still, once she's become an undead vampire zombie, one gets the feeling that although she is the master of her sexual universe, all those leering eyes and grabby manhands have taken their toll on her psyche and for this she must tear dudes limb for limb. (It should be mentioned that Megan Fox is famously insecure in real life.) I don't know how I feel about Megan Fox and her freak thumbs, but I have to say, after seeing Jennifer's Body I'm warming up to her. She is undeniably sexy, in a frosty, yet seemingly oversexed, yet cheesy-alluring way.

Jennifer's Body gets right what Juno got totally, totally wrong. I am a just as much a sucker for a feel good indie flick with quick, quirky lines and a coooool soundtrack as the next guy, but all that enticing trickery aside, Juno was an epic bum out with its HAVE THE BABY rhetoric. I mean, Diablo Cody is a feminist, right? And she is supposedly cool and funny and smart, so why was that decision doled out without any larger discussion of its tremendous ramifications? There is a totally awesome safe sex scene in Jennifer's Body, which I couldn't be more pleased with in all its awkward glory. You rarely see that dialog and stupid pause to put on a condom in a movie or on TV, because I guess it's not sexy enough to protect one's self from STDs, HIV or pregnancy. Better yet, the sex is consensual sex between nerdy Needy and her boyfriend. What! Everyone knows nerds don't have sex!!!

Jennifer's Body playfully uses all the conventions of the teen-marketed horror genre without being OTT campy, but for some reason the film still feels a little flimsy. Why? I must say that I am disappointed in the depiction of the relationship between main character Needy (the name says it all) and Jennifer, "best friends since the sandbox". Their relationship is set up to be the classic nerd girl/hot girl jealousy fest, with the duh-factor being that the hot girl has always been a shitty friend and is, in fact, monstrously jealous of the nerd girl for her moral righteousness, her goody-two-shoes behavior and her healthy self-assuredness. I think this is a lame trope and it should be retired, as it is reductive, reinforces girl-on-girl competition and teaches skepticism of lady friends. Discouraging healthy (Keyword: healthy, Needy and Jennifer's relationship can be characterized as anything but...) female friendships is a surefire way to set back any feminist progress.

That being said, I secretly loved the sexualization of the Needy/Jennifer relationship, although I think it stopped short of fully exploring the sometimes implicit lesbian nature of intense girl/friend love. And then there's the whole succubus/vampire as a sexual metaphor thing. Maybe this is a stretch, but I detected a whiff of Daughters of Darkness, Vampyros Lesbos , or even The Hunger. Ian Svenonius writes in his book The Psychic Soviet,

"[The Vampire] seems damned for eternity to be an all-purpose metaphorical sex device, the hapless agent of identity politicians everywhere."

Tis true, and I much prefer Jennifer's slutty succubus to Edward's chaste vampire in the Twilight series, yet another flimsy anti-sex/pro-abstinence ploy in the hands of right wing media propagandists. (Although I must admit that I still love Twilight, all shitty Christian dogmatic trickery aside.)

And I loved Loved LOVED the use of Hole on the soundtrack in Jennifer's Body last scenes.

Wait, is Lil Wayne emo?

I do love the dude, but I think I am offended by this.

But maybe I'm just offended by the way Wayne sings "faaaannnnnccy underweaaaar". Hey, at least he didn't say panties. Worst word ever.

+++ What about all the newspaper clippings magically floating in space around Lil Wayne's head while he's rapping? This is the bizarre pastiche that defines my attraction to Lil Wayne's artistic persona.

I think Lil Wayne's appeal has something to do with the fact that he's basically yr best friend's weird little brother. Like, he runs through the house in a cape and underwear and yr friend is all embarrassed and like, "Wayne, why you gotta be like that?" and he's all "LIIIIIIIIIIKE WHAAAAATTTTTTTT?" fully going mental, still running through the house. What I'm trying to say is that Lil Wayne is an enfant terrible.


I know I should be offended by most things he does, but I think my love for him comes from a place that actually wants to be him. I just want to get to know the real Wayne. I want to spend some time in his messy mind. He is so unapologetic about who he is and what he does and that is incredibly appealing. He's all "I feel like dying" and drinking Purple Drank all the time, like "WHAT OF IT? Mind yr own fucking business." He's telling us that it's ok for us to be freaks with ourselves, because HE'S LIVING IT. I am kind of scared that he will die soon, but on the flip, he could possibly live forever like Keith Richards. Maybe sizzurp is actually fortifying Wayne and preserving all his vital organs like Tutankhamun.

Has anyone ever thought Lil Wayne resembles ET?



I think Lil Wayne is the living legacy to the Castle Of Crazy that ODB built for us. I recently read ODB's biography and it was all at once shocking, funny and sad. It's just those "mad artist" personalities that I gravitate towards...



WU TANG IS FOR THE CHILDREN!

Wayne's World

I have pretty much no interest in Lil' Wayne. I liked watching this video for about 2 minutes and mostly just for him saying "Wayne's World, Party Time- Ecstacy!" and "Typical Day .."and thinking REALLY?. But it is just depressing and annoying. Kind of like Weezy. And you know what? I still kind of fear for his life even though I can't stand the dude.

I heard him TOTALLY late in the game. I kept hearing he was the best rapper. I was in the car with my brother, driving to my dad's house and some bullllshiiit* was in the radio and I ask him, "What in the hell is this?" and he was all "Nen!! This is Lil Wayne how do you not know who he is?" And I did know I just hadn't heard it. He said something really disgusting about getting a blow job in that little bit I heard and I made my brother feel embarrassed by asking if he understood what he just said, and was that OK?

BUT How did he get the best rapper alive title? Totally undeserving. Clearly, that belongs to Jay. Who is so incredible and hilarious that I am able to look past his misogynist songs for a minute which is really rare for me! I don't give him a pass. I would really, really like to talk to him about it. And also talk to him about how I draw basically the same way he rhymes and see how he feels about that. Anyway, to me, Lil Wayne sounds like a very stoned person being coaxed to freestyle at some party from hell by a bunch of other very stoned people who think it is amazing.

Also, Mrs. Officer offends me!! REALLY.I know it isn't cool to be offended but I am all of the time!!! The whole thing - that chorus..ugh...
And I feel like an Aulde Maid for even writing this - but seriously, the Lady Cop is a woman with authority and power over Weez - who then declares himself the boss and has her wearing handcuffs and heels and sounding like siren. That Chorus!

Also, he made this song.

NOT INTERESTED!

Just brushing off my shoulders now and going to sleep.

I will say though, that I did kind of like the remix of a Milli, a Billi. Which is by my man, obviously.



* I can't beleive it but I couldn't find a clip of Daniels saying "This is some bullshit". I had to go to Clay Davis. Am I just bad at youtube?

A day in the brain of Lil Wayne

The manboy is a genius.

Lil Wayne, I was obsessed with U b4, but now I am fully obsessed with U. I know I'm a little late to yr game, but I'm still feeling you, right?

I love that you might be gay.



I love that you pretend to play guitar.


I love yr fancy style.
Just look at that necklace!


And I love that you intend to own property on mars.

Also, the lyrics of Mrs. Officer are incredible. It's the best anti-popo song since "Fuck Tha Police" by NWA (or "I Wanna Know What <3 Is" by Kathleen Hanna as Julie Ruin.) I can't speak to the subject of what it's like to be a young black man in America today but I can only imagine that it's hard and sometimes (most of the time?) terrifying, especially considering how racist police task forces generally are, and that's why this song is so good, because it dismantles the officer and the force she could possibly rain down on Wayne's little ET head with LOVE, all misogynist fantasies aside. It is a smooth, sensitive, grown n sexy anti 5-0 love song.

I have many friends that want to h8 on U, but I think you are very clever and that is why I would like to spend just one day inside yr head. You know how to use double entendre, you know how to use the shit out of an onomatopoeia, and then you drop a little bit of consciousness, just 'cuz.

Ha Ha... And after we got done
I said lady what's ya number she said 911
Haaa... emergency only
Head doctor perform surgery on me
Yeahh... and now I'm healed
I make her wear nothing but handcuffs & heels
And I beat it like a cop
Rodney King baby yeah I beat it like a cop
Ha Haaa... beat it like a cop
Rodney King baby said beat it like a cop
But I ain't tryna be violent
But I'll do the time but her love is timeless
... Mrs. Officer...
I know you wish ya name was Mrs. Carter huh?
Wee Ooh Wee Ooh Wee,
Wee Ooh Wee Ooh Wee (Yeah),
Wee Ooh Wee Ooh Wee, Like a cop car...

You sometimes get pretty abstract and you stop making sense and you stop rhyming, you're just riffin' now, and then you just make growling noises and that's pretty hot.

Oh yea, yr pretty cute too.



WAYNE'S WORLD, PARTY TIME, EXTACCCAY

I'm really into you.

some notes on HJNTIY

This movie was bad (not surprising!) - the kind of bad that drains your brain. I got lost immediately after leaving the theater in a neighborhood I know well and work in and my friend Megan, who I saw the movie with, is now subscribing to a conspiracy theory that these movies are made to make women more dumb. I'll buy it. Why was I compelled to see this movie? Is it a self hatred thing?

I feel like even writing out the full title of the movie is a waste of time.

I think it goes without saying that this movie, and the characters, and the intended audience are DESPERATE! That is the big word. This movie is basically like making a motion picture out of any given issue of Cosmo. Desperate bordering on pathetic and offensive, decidedly unfeminist, but I kind of want to check it out anyway.

Is Ben Affleck depressed? This is the only thing that's really stuck with me about the movie. I am really worried about Ben. He, not his character, seemed totally brutally depressed in the movie. Seeming kind of disinterested and melancholy even when he wasn't supposed to. I checked his wikipedia and he seems totally bummed out in his picture. What's up? J-Lo? His children? Matt Damon being more successful? Something deeper? I want to know. Apparently the fact that he has a child depresses J-Lo. Still wondering about him. I used to not like him at all. Now I really care for the man.

Ben is actually one of the most redeeming parts of the movie. He made me cry. I don't want to give it away (not that it matters, is anyone else going to see this movie? Ever?) but it's the end of the movie..there were some break ups, some reconciliation, some realizing that making someone else happy makes you happy, some compromises and Ben, the saddest man, does something that made me cry. I know it was stupid and they were just playing me. The scene was made to make me cry. I looked over at Megan, who was also crying - Why is this happening?

"It's just a really romantic gesture"!

Anyway, Here are some notes. I can't spend anymore time thinking about this movie to turn it into an essay:

Why is Drew Barrymore in this movie? Because she executive produced it and wanted to be in it acting like she does in every movie (herself) and wearing clothes she likes. And because it allows Ricki from My So Called Life to have a little cameo.

How is I am a Mac an actor? I can't stand looking at him. Very weird head. He is the one giving out golden advice like, "HJNTIY" and kind of driving this movie! Imagine that!

Scar Jo - She is just the worst. Some one really needs to tell her she is not Marilyn. Sorry! If you're looking for a vulptuous retro-ish babe I really don't see any reason to go anywhere but to Christina Hendricks. ScarJo is of course, the bad girl pursuing a married man. She also plays a struggling singer and yoga instructor, which is disgusting. She had an album, remember? If you saw Vicki Christina Barcelona, she is pretty much the same character but worse.

Why is dude from Entourage in the movie? I don't know. Kind of unnecessary.

Is Jennier Aniston kind of playing herself? She's really wanting to get married, her boyfriend of many years (Ben) doesn't believe in marriage. She is continually a bridesmaid..

Jennifer Connelly is really beautiful!

Bill Z'bub (Bradley Cooper) is there and has this exchange with ScarJo:
SJ: You have an ass that makes me want to dry hump.
BZB: I think I just fell in love.

THEN Scar Jo jumps in a public, gym pool. Naked.

There's no sex in this movie, which is a guess surprising? It's implied, it starts, but it's never seen.

The all white cast of this movie lives in Baltimore, this really cool place where everyone has a really nice apartment!

The apartments, by the way, where totally wack. I've never known any single men in there 20s -30s to have super designed apartments that look like a silver version of the Bridge on Enterprise in Star Trek TNG or a men's razor commercial

Every apartment had a lot of undergraduate painting major Art Skool Art in it. Is it supposed to be MICA student work they bought on the cheap? Or is this what Art looks like now? Sad, existential Ben points out a one point that a particular painting was kind of depressing because it looks like a deflated breast. I was thinking the same thing. Love you, Ben.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT! They basically ask you, "Hey, mind if I have an American Spirit? Want one?"

Ginnifer Goodwin's character was the way way WAY over the top Single Straight Woman Overly Eager to Find a Mate. She is continually putting herself out there, doing "stupid shitty things"(her words) and acting completely crazy. And, I mean she is acting crazy but everything she is thinking and doing is a hyperbolic version of something you and I have thought/done. So that's embarrassing. With her character there is an inevitable mental checklist of some maybe insane things people do to CONNECT. You know it is stupid and not real. But still, I'm thinking - I've done that. I've thought about doing that. Wondering...are they going to order another drink?

They make GG, whose characters name is GiGi wear really weird frumped out fug clothes, too. Why? She is so cute.

What a horrible movie! I just wasted your time if you read this.

"Get Yourself Some Ribs and Some Ice Cream Because You’ve Just Been Dumped"

I don’t know where to even begin writing about He’s Just Not That Into You. Let’s see… … … How about the bizarre playground intro featuring Ugly Kid™ that segues into different groups of women consoling each other of their respective prospective dates inattentiveness leading to one of the most offensive depictions of women of color I’ve ever seen in a film: African women surrounded by goats, grounding meal, clickclacking their way through a dialogue about a guy losing her “hut number”. WHAT! It was from this first OH SHIT moment on that I knew that we, as viewers, were basically in for the blurst.

HJNTIY was a serious braindrain. This is the kind of movie that almost makes you wish you hadn’t wasted your time watching this movie. It wasn’t remotely feminist, nor did it pretend to be. The writing basically made every character out to be the most annoying or pathetic person ever.

Ginnifer Goodwin’s character was insufferably embarrassing. I think it must take courage to play such a terribly wimpy, cloying character. Most of what she says/does is a hyperbolic form of some totally embarrassing thing you’ve probably said/done trying to attract the attention of a potential date, but it’s a repeated, relentless type of embarrassment pumped on A-rod type roids. I feel bad that she basically got the shit-end of the movie’s wardrobe too. The director must have told the stylist to dress Ginnifer’s Gigi in the most fug, marmie clothing possible. And her character’s name is Gigi for fuck’s sake! Gigi is the dumbest name ever. Gigi is what WASPy old ladies name their little fluffy white dogs. The resolution of the movie is supposed to make the viewer feel like Gigi finally gets what she deserved all along, the redemption for her being such a sweet and pure type, but that is just Hollywood trying to 5 card shuffle you, because in my opinion her emotional idiocy is pretty inexcusable. That goes the same for just about every character in HJNITY.

It is pretty fairytale unbelievable that I’m a Mac suddenly comes to his senses and is all “Gigi, I love you. I’m sorry that I’ve been a total boner all along!” This type of unreal romanticism is precisely my major gripe with "da movies". I think it promotes a very damaging ideal to those types with undiscerning eyes.

Jennifer Connelly, an actress I never seem to think about, but is unbelievably beautiful, is supposed to be the grounding, stable force amongst the gaggle of weakling women depicted in HJNTIY, but I reached a certain point in the film where I wanted to scream at her DTMFA, to quote relationship and sex columnist Dan Savage, who probs should have been consulted in the writing of this peice o'shit, who probs could have saved HJNTIY from its ugly fate as a peice o'shit. In the film she’s married to Stella shorts’ Bill Zebub, who is basically a bobo version of Will Arnett. Whoever handled casting seriously effed up by not casting Will Arnett.

Bill Zebub is seriously hot for Scarjo’s character, which is basically just her Vicky Christina character redux. Face it, Hollywood, SCARJO CAN NOT ACT! She is an actress that coasts by her milkmaid hoots and stupid pouty lips and has lucked out in her choices of roles/directors she’s worked with so that now she has indie cred. She will forever play the adultress, an oversexed, emotionally cold character that is out to bone married dudes/steal her friend’s love interest, etc. She did have some of the best lines in the movie though.

Scarjo to Bill Zebub on why she can’t resist his married-manly man appeal: “[You have] An ass that makes me want to dry hump.”

(What? You want to dry hump his ass, Scarjo?)

To which Bill Zebub responds: “I think I just fell in love.”

(Really? Is that what it takes to fall in love? The possibility of dry humping butts? Wow, men really are just boners.)

At this point Scarjo dives into her gym’s pool naked. Ewww! I think that breaks some kind of gym hygiene rule, no?


Then there is Entourage Dude who is almost entirely superfluous. His character seemed more like a plot device to include the gays, as he panders to them in his real estate business, which brings me to BIG OFFENSIVE MOMENT #2 in HJNTIY: two prospective gay clients try to explain to Entourage Dude that it is easier for gay men to pick up on when a potential date is 'bout it 'bout it because if gays look at each other for more than three seconds IT'S ON, time to go to the bone zone. I think this is simplistic at best and it perpetuates some nasty gay stereotypes amongst hetero losers. But maybe I am just being a PC superfreak.

Drew Barrymore’s character is actually totally superfluous. There is virtually no point to her being in this movie except that it added just a little bit more star power to this trashy waste of time. It makes sense that the two most superfluous characters in HJNTIY end up together. It all equals up to a giant, yawning "WHO CARES."

Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck are the only mildly redeeming actors here. Jennifer plays a character that I can only imagine is quite similar to her normal self, desperately wanting to get married, wondering why she's always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and Ben plays a somewhat depressed dude (Is he depressed irl? Is it because he has a wife I hate for no reason and an uggo baby?) who is just trying to be real with himself and stick to his guns. It is just one of those fundamental disagreements in a relationship that takes some time to achieve the eye-to-eye. In any event they seem to be the only ones with any sense about them. Their on-screen chemistry resulted in me crying at the dumbest movie ever. It was an incredibly romantic scene, loaded on at the very end to pull out all the stops and give emotional viewers like me the weepies. We can only hope that all us women find a partner who will make such grandly romantic gestures and treat us nicely, right?

The all white cast of characters in HJNTIY live in a Fantasy Land called Baltimore where everyone works for weekly's and advertising and lives in newly renovated luxury lofts decorated by Crate n Barrel. This movie could have been saved by a few more jokes and some cameos from the cast of The Wire. I would have liked to see Entourage Dude trying to sell a condo in the gay district to Omar, or Bubs begging for change outside Drew Barrymore's place of work. Another instance of YOU SERIOUSLY MISSED THE BOAT, HJNTIY.


All in all, this movie doesn’t teach you anything that reading Cosmo hasn’t already. It is full of the clichés that popular culture has already forced down your throat or hit you over the head with one million times in regard to men/women/sex/heteronormative relationships. It’s replete with the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus rhetoric that women are dumb, sexually frigid, or whore-y, and they don’t know how to interpret men’s intentions ever, and men are basically just boners.

I keep wondering what part of my reptilian brain does this movie and movies of its type appeal to. Maybe it's the part that hates myself? It feels a little bit like self punishment. One of the real reasons I wanted to see this movie, aside from the frothy appeal of a chick flick, and the seriously loaded-for-absolutely-no-reason cast, was that when the book (from which HJNTIY was adapted) was released, I was attending university and I was in a wishwashy college relationship with someone whom I still love very much as a friend, but was not really suited for as a lovematch. At that time my very outspoken and opinionated feminist grandmother who watches a lot of Oprah and has a lot of time to her self to just think, took me aside and said, “Perhaps you should read this book. It seems as though ***** is not that into you.” Regardless, I did NOT read the book because I thought it sounded terribly trashy and dumb, but my grandmother’s words resounded with me and it wasn’t that much longer before that relationship went the way of the dinosaurs. This book was co-written by two people who also wrote for Sex and the City, one of which is a gay man who I think must hate women. The world has perfected an infinite number ways to make women feel like complete shit and this movie is one of them. The movie incorporates some of the stylistic elements of early episodes of SatC, and by that I mean there are many asides by random work-a-day everyman/woman types, breaking down the fourth wall, and weighing in on such hot topics as Why he/she hasn’t called, Why you are no longer having sex with him/her, Why he won’t ask you to marry him. It is generally pointless and ineffective to say the least. HJNTIY lacks any of the appeal of SatC and Patricia Field’s interesting wardrobe choices.

I do subscribe to a conspiracy that HJNTIY was intended to have stupefying, mind-erasing qualities because both Jen and I were so blasted at its end that we got lost somewhere on the edge of Brooklyn Heights and could not find the metro for the life of us, which resulted in us Gossip Girling it home in a cab.

Don't see this movie or you will need to
GET A BRAIN, MORANS.

a convo of important thoughts

4:05 PM Jen: james franco with a date http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/02/23/movies/0223-REDCARPET2_12.html

4:06 PM me: ew
i'm gonna kill that bitch

Jen: seriously
a blonde
we have no chance

me: how dare she attend the oscars with my boyfriend?!!

Jen: MY boyfriend!!
OURS

me: maybe they are just friends?

Jen: weird he didn't ask mike to ask both of us to go with him!

me: maybe she is his sister or cousin?

Jen: probs not

4:07 PM me: that is disappointing

Jen: he seems like "hey check out this babe i am with!"

me: well, i must admit i spent the better part of an hour trying to find out if he was currently "involved" last night

Jen: there's not too much info like that on him around

me: no

Jen: i guess he's too busy being in class to get in those magazines

me: it was all old girlfriends n stuff
yea

4:08 PM he's too busy being smart and cool
and totally fucking dreamy

Jen: yeah

me: would you try to talk to him if you saw him

Jen: i made up that he is vegetarian too
i don't konw
probably not

me: i think i would

Jen: what would you say "oh, hey! you're my celebrity crush!!!"

me: maybe i wouldn't say something but i would try to wink at him

4:09 PM or is that too pervy?

Jen: you would do that think where you make a peace sign and stick your tongue out through it

me: definitely

Jen: and he'd be like "oh, hey! you seem cool. what's up?"

me: i would blow him a lot of kisses

4:10 PM Jen: i would pinch his butt

me: i would flash my titties at him!!!!!!
hahahahaha

Jen: hahah

me: would you dump alan for him
these are the insane thoughts i think of all day

Jen: i think that too

me: the weird inane things that cross my mind

Jen: i told alan i would have to date him one time at least
and alan is like, what are you talking about?

me: me too
4:11 PM one date

Jen: it is really crazy how obsessed with him i have become!

me: to see if there is chemistry

Jen: he was so babes in milk!
right
just to check it out

me: i know
he is just so charming

Jen: did you watch pineapple express?

me: yes
so funny
4:12 PM i mean, it's not an incredible story anything

Jen: i still think seth rogan is annoying and his whole thing is tired
but i liked it

me: but there are so many classic lines

Jen: and loved JF

me: you can tell they are just riffing
jf is so cute when he talks about his bubby
you can tell he is a really sweet person irl

4:13 PM Jen: totally
irl the cutest
did you hear him on terri gross
?
i couldn't work, i was too busy being charmed and in love

me: a few weeks ago
or today?

4:14 PM Jen: yeah months ago even

me: yea
i heard it

Jen: when milk first came out

me: it was great
he paints in his free time
that's what he told her
i wonder what he paints

Jen: monkeys in trees

me: he is a half swedish half portuguese jew

Jen: sunsets

me: pugs n kitties

Jen: cats

4:15 PM me: how hot is that mixture
half swedish half portuguese jew
way exotic
this convo should totally be in teen beat zine

Jen: we should write for them

me: dear teen beat,
4:16 PM we will write all james franco related features
love,
streets
jen n megan

Jen: love, streets
we will also write about how ugo pretty much everyone else is
penelope cruz won
that's cool
but i thought it was weird bc that movie was so eeehhh
4:17 PM but she was great.

me: she was
she deserved it
pedro amoldovar wrote this really cute blurb about her in the ny times zine a week or two ago

Jen: cute
4:18 PM i hope scarjo never wins anything

me: basically saying that she is the brave continuation of a history of mediterranean women who basically yell their lines
the passion
like sofia loren, etc

Jen: she is great

me: i hate scarjo

Jen: me too

me: she can not act

4:19 PM Jen: not at all

me: i hate anne hathaway also for basically no reason

Jen: she always wears really ugo clothes to places, too
me too
WELL
i heard!
she used to do it to someone someone that worked at stripes went to college with
and they said she was bad at doing it
A hathaway
FYI

me: i really hate natalie portman too, but it comes and goes
4:20 PM well, caitlin meissner's old roommate kimmy's boyfriend cody hung out with scarjo

Jen: i don't like her either. but then i think, why don't i like her? she is cute vego

me: because apparently he was friends with tegan and sarah because he met them on makeoutclub.com
and scarjo is tight with tegan and sarah

Jen: woof

4:21 PM me: yeah, i think that too about natalie portman

Jen: could you imagine scarjo calling you? in that dumb voice

me: because i like that thing she did on snl
and i liked her short in that movie paris, je t'aime
so i like natalie sometimes
but most of the time i h8 her

4:22 PM Jen: whatevs

me: zac LOVES natalie and scarjo
but i think he loves them to piss me off

Jen: scar jo is inexcusable

me: because i love so many celeb boys
my dad also loves scarjo
eww
so gross
4:23 PM i love jf and emile hirsh and cillian murphy and luke wilson
jf the most tho
luke wilson is kind of old and can't act
oooo, i love this french actor louis garrel
i like dark haired, kinda handsome jew-y looking guys

4:24 PM Jen: jew bombs

me: like zac, only celebs

Jen: i like spock
http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/scarlett_johansson/

me: see i like keira knightly and think she is a bobo natalie portman
only british and cooler

Jen: look at how bad she always looks

me: i can't believe natalie portman was dating devendra banhart

4:25 PM Jen: did they break up?

me: idn
back to the ny times pic of jf and date
4:26 PM i like that they identify her as "guest"
do you think it's one of his classmates at one of the many universities he attends

Jen: who knows
maybe
she is very attractive

me: we need to crash that class

Jen: and skinny
and wearing a really expensive dress

me: yeah
that dress is nice
4:27 PM but she is kinda "birdy" looking
i don't think she is that special
just blonde and skinny

Jen: she looks like american beauty
the girl

4:29 PM me: yeah
she looks like a bratz doll
4:31 PM god
jen
us weekly and ok and people need to hire us to be the commentators on all these award show and celebs
4:32 PM we are knowledgeable and funny and our opinions MATTER

Jen: it would be great
if we were the next go fug yourself!!
4:33 PM well
we obviously will have to blog about celebs
and just post gmail chats

me: twin blog has potential

4:34 PM Jen: i have the flu
i have just been looking at celeb pix in bed ALL DAY
me: :(

4:37 PM Jen: do you want to go to HJNTIY w or thus?

me: yes
we will eat lots of popcorn

I can't remember...RR...

I really should have written this, like, three weeks ago when we saw the movie. I wasn't especially affected by this movie...it's not fresh..I'm trying.

Revolutionary Road!!

I think the only reason I wanted to go see this movie is because I wanted to be at the movies. That and how beautiful Kate Winslet looked in the advertisements.

Were we supossed to feel bad for Leo? Ever? Because I didn't. Why does the man cheat in ever movie ever? And in Mad Men? As soon as it starts you know - he is going to cheat. Even at the end, not much sympathy for him. I mean, it's sad. You feel bad for the situation. But I wasn't crying at all, which is saying something.

I kept thinking "When/how is this movie going to end? What time is it? Why is this happening?".

Winslet's character was so sad. She was bound by her times, couldn't really make her own decisions, she was stuck. But why did they have to make her so manic? I mean, really?

Um, i just remembered this - the neighbor's insane son "speaking the truth" but he's CRAZY. How does he know!? That was stupid.

KW's bouncing ponytail was the best part. Hands down.

I mean, maybe it was probably a good book. My boss said it was. I don't have much to say.

Over acting. Seriously POINTING FINGERS in fights. that was there.

I can't even go into the abortion stuff.

It had been described as Mad Men-esque. Well, you should probably just watch Mad Men instead - it's good. I watched it pretty much all weekend. Deep into season 1.

Anyway, what Megan said!

***Spoiler Alert***That’s it-she dies from a self-induced abortion?! WTF?

Two nights ago Jen and I went to see “Revolutionary Road”. Originally I had no interest in seeing this film. I made fun of it over and over again, complaining that the trailers gave absolutely no information as to what the movie was about. But then I watched part of it over the shoulder (with no sound) of someone on the MetroNorth train to New Haven the weekend I went home for my birthday and I was intrigued. It was the bar scene and Kate Winslet’s bouncy ponytail looked so appealing, bouncing around on her back and shoulders as she sexily danced with her neighbor in the red light. And low and behold, Kate Winslet and her bouncy ponytail won the Golden Globe* for best actress and then the commercials started to reveal more dialogue/plot line. Ooo, I just had to see this film!

I had high hopes that this film would turn out to be a sleeper hit, a hidden gem. My hopes were dashed. I could not really tell what the point of this movie was except maybe to make women look like miserable nags or loonies, or maybe to illustrate the point that everyone was miserable in the marriages in the 1950s as evidenced by Kathy Bates’ husband turning down his hearing aid to effectively tune her out at the movie’s end. I guess it was a meditation on the psychoses of the era: the not so distant memories of the war, the nuclear familes, the suburbanization, the keeping up with the Joneses, the sameness of the jauntily suit-and-hatted men stepping off the commuter trains pouring into Grand Central from Connecticut and New Jersey to file off to their jobs in marketing and advertising, and the lunch time highballs. The relationship between Leonardo DiCaprio, as Frank Wheeler, and Winslet, as April, didn’t seem all that different than my grandparents’ unhappy marriages. Their marriages ended just as tragically, in the particular way that tragedy struck those relationships that approached what should have been their golden hour in the mid-50s.

Winslet’s April was so sad. She was sad in the way that a woman who was bound by her times is sad. Unable to reasonably leave her husband, most likely unable to be gainfully employed in anything other than the secretarial sector, if that, unable to access birth control, and unable to terminate a pregnancy without risking death herself. She was trapped. And when she tried to express her unhappiness and raised her voice about the lack of love in her married life, she was made to look like a fucking madwoman. A woman can only be one of two things: a nag or a crazy. Wait, she can be a bitch too. A bitch, a nag, or a crazy. Lots of possibilities here! Lots of ‘em!!! Also, when her character went as far as to “be bad” and she ended up doing it to her married neighbor in his car, it was made to seem as an act of revenge for her husband’s philandering and that it was a physically uncomfortable and regrettable act that made her feel ashamed afterward. In fact, whenever there was a sex scene in the film Winslet’s character did not seem especially emotionally present or sexually satisfied.

There was one point toward the end of the film that I had no idea where the plot was going and it made me so nervous. I kept wringing my hands and, turning to Jen, whispered, “What is going to happen?” I was pretty sure either Leo or Kate was going to kill the other –or- Kate was going to kill herself –or- Kate was going to run away with the kids who were almost never in the scene, anyway. For a stay-at-home 1950s housewife, Kate’s character did very little mothering. In any event, the ending of Revolutionary Road was not all together unexpected but not entirely predictable either. This movie was not very interesting, yet still pretty sad.

Luckily I made it home in time to watch Lost!

*What are the Golden Globes all about? It is the award show warm up to the award show season and the prizes are decided upon by the Hollywood foreign press…what does that even mean? Who is the Hollywood foreign press anyway? Like, the actual foreign press?

Oh, Sylvia

Sylvia the movie sucks. It is really unfortunate. I kept telling Megan while we were watching it that I'm going to re-make the movie. Maybe!

It really should have been called "Ted". The movie was more focused on Sylvia Plath's husband, poet Ted Hughes, than on Sylvia, or even kind of trying to accurately represent her as a person or a writer.

The movie starts hours before she meets Ted Hughes with only glib mentions of her past. Her "downward spiral" is really only shown in comparison to her husband, his affairs, and probably abuse ( not that we would really know since he destroyed her journals from the last months of her life and has made sure nothing too horrible she wrote about him has really been published). Oh, and her journals weren't even a part of the movie. They were a big part of her life since age 11, but they didn't really make the cut.

I also hated how they had her wear pink for the first 40 minutes of the movie and then brown and green when she was "losin' it".

Director Christine Jeffs and writer John Brownlow had an agenda making this movie.

My version will be totally opposite. That's my pitch.

Ted, not Sylvia

Sylvia, the movie, sucked. Listen hear, babies, and listen good. The downlow on John Brownlow, the dude responsible for the screenplay, is that he's definitely not a feminist and he was definitely not savy to the life & times of Ms Plath when writing that bullplop.

Plath, as played by Gwyneth Paltrow (whose taste I'm starting to question), is portrayed as a completely pathetic, sad sack of a woman who totally went nuts and offed herself after suspecting, then confirming, her husband's dalliances. Little mention of her history of mental illness, her artistic struggles, the fact that her husband roughed her up and apparently destroyed her journals postmortem so that no one would know the half of it. Woops, just forgot, whatevs.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the story just drops you in her Cambridge years so there is so much neglected subtext. And almost immediately we find Sylvia at a party where she falls all over Ted Hughes after gushing on about how great his poetry is. I don't doubt there was some steamy hot passion there with a dash of sublime appreciation and career envy to boot, but I also don't think Sylvia would be so transparent and uncomplicated. Not that I knew the broad personally, but her writing evokes some depth, so why would her character be so shallow? Touched, she was, but I doubt Plath was petty.

Not to mention that Gwyneth, as Sylvia, is all rosy and refined for the first half of the movie, dressed entirely in pink and pearls, hair smooth and curled, lips glossed, and consequently, as she goes crazy, her hair gets long and fried like a poodle and she starts wearing entirely drab earth tones and looking sallow. The visual metaphor is perhaps a little too obvious.

However, there is some nice use of slow-mo in this film.

Also, I must add that Ted Hughs is played by Daniel Craig. I've been pretty indifferent to Craig, but in a recent conversation, when asked what I think about him I decided that I think he is handsome and a good actor and all that, but there is something so BRUTAL about him. Like, he looks like he would be pretty nastymean IRL.

I vote that Jen May remake Ted, I mean Sylvia. As long as she uses the slow-mo.

Vicky Christina love and linen

I do my best writing while I am walking to work and about to fall asleep. Of course, I never actually write it so maybe it isn’t good. I can just think it is without having to read it later and feel embarrassed and wonder why I inappropriately use commas,like, always.

BUT I AM GOING TO WRITE THIS ONE OUT. RIGHT NOW. Vicky Christina, let’s go.

I know that it really isn’t fair to bring an artists personal life to their work. To use it to discredit them, or to celebrate them. And of course Woody Allen has repeatedly said his movies have nothing to do with his private life whatsoever.

But

Husbands and Wives* was produced and released at the peak of Woody and Mia’s breakup. It was made while he was boning Soon-Yi. It mirrors their life so much that he really can’t say that one has nothing to do with his life. But he does. Mia Farrow’s character wanting kids, Woody smooching 19 year olds, being excited by the prospect of being with them. The fights. The divorce. Come on. So I feel I can hold WA’s life up to the light with Vicky Christina. SO basically, Woody wasn’t happy with Mia, He isn’t happy with Soon-Yi(I’m just guessing!) . He is never happy. It's existential- got it! What now?

I will unfairly say this; to me, Vicky Christina Barcelona is Woody kind of giving up. He wants it all but he is admitting that the exciting 16 year olds, get old, the talented, stable, caring partners( I am talking about Mia here, not the Rebecca Hall character she just came off kind of predicable and depressing) get boring and nothing works. There is always the “what if..” the uncertainty. “Love is only romantic if it cannot be” or whatever. Which is fine. A point worthy of exploration.

But, I feel like he just used his power as Woody Allen to explore his fantasies of “love” he wishes he could pursue. It leaves all of the relationships in the movie feeling kind of empty. Totally contrived, giving no one any credit and using stereotypes all along the way. Love never works, Scarlett, Penelope, please make out now.

Scarlet Johansson’s performance was horrible. Penelope Cruz owned the screen. She is beautiful.

Too much linen.

Woody seems to really hate the USA.

And a bunch of other things.

This really does not make as much sense as it does when I write it before falling asleep.



* Husbands and Wives, I thought was a really good movie about some of the same things. Just saying.

Vicky Christina Barcelona otherwise known as Woody Allen's Dreams of Threesomes

Last week Jen and I went to see Woody Allen's new film, Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Wow.

Woody Allen is a fucking pervert jerk and I hate him.

I don't even know where to begin. How about this...there were several moments towards the end of the film where I was leaning into Jen's ear whisperning, "Are you serious???" or mouthing "This movie suxxxx" repeatedly.

Walking home from BAM, I had to reproach myself. Was it really as terrible as it felt while I was stuck in my theater seat? No, probably not. I mean, I get it. Woody Allen is typically existential, kind of posing the preposterousness of human condition and the things we do/the situations we create for ourselves or find ourselves in. Like, to quote D. Higgs, "love is love" and it's love whether it's a ménage à trois or a commitment in the form of a legalized, institutionalized marriage, what have you. It's what you make it, whatever you choose to commit yourself to, because what is a relationship except a promise that you uphold, a commitment that you make, over and over again?

But, underlying that, I feel like Allen is a woman-hater, or rather, such a woman-lover, a womanizer, if you will, that his female characters always come off as cheap, petty, insane and inane, the kind of yesterday's papers that are easy to forget and dismiss.

Overall, Vicky Christina Barcelona basically felt like a playground for Woody Allen to live out his "two girls for every guy" fantasies and gape at Scarlett Johansson's stupid pouty lips and big hoots.

UGH.

I have something to tell you, Woody Allen, girl CAN NOT act. Why does she carry so much cred? Don't understand, never will. Her role fell absolutely flat, just killed it, made the whole god damn movie so painful to watch.

And poor Rebecca Hall, casted basically to fill the role of Scarlett's wet blanket, brunette lookalike. The old adage is true, according to VCB; Blondes do have more fun.

Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz were a pleasure to watch. I agree with Jen's observation that Cruz proves better when acting in Spanish as opposed to English, but she is just so mesmerizingly beautiful. Call me out on my double standard, I don't care.

I think my chief complaint, however, is the blatant overuse of linen in the costuming. Really? Do people really wear linen around the clock in España? I'm all for easy breazy comfort, and I can only imagine how hot summer can be in Barçe, but need every character in VCB look like they are walking around in potato sacks?

I rest my case.