Hey there everyone!  I’m very sorry that I haven’t written in a while, I know it’s hard when you don’t hear from me, and I definitley missed you.

The week before last, Sophie and I went to see Get Low.  When I first heard the name of this movie, I thought that maybe it was a long overdue name change to the dance flick Step Up, but no, it turned out to be quite a serious take on a hermit’s last moments in life.

The main character, Felix, has spent the last forty years in a cabin in the woods.  It’s just him and his mule.  But after he goes to visit the gravesite of an old friend, Felix starts to think about his own impending demise.  So he goes into town to buy a funeral.  At the funeral home, he waves a wad of cash around and says that he wants a funeral party, and that he wants to attend…. still alive.

However unconventional his request, the funeral director can’t pass up the promis of a ball fo money, and what follows is a heartbreaking journey, as the reason for this party finally comes out.  Felix has been punishing himself for forty years for a past crime, refusing to ask forgiveness from God or the people that he’s wronged.  It isn’t until the end that we really find out what happened, although it’s sufficiently hinted at.  Felix’s pain is evident, his stubborness is relatable.  At one point, when discussing asking God for forgiveness, he says “I aint done nothing to him.”

What a wonderful commentary on what forgiveness is.  Felix assumes that he’s doing something for God by asking for forgiveness, but, as he discovers, asking for forgiveness is about relief for him.  Forgiveness between man and God is about man’s wellbeing.  God doesn’t need anything from us.

Just a couple of faces that were especially familiar to me: Bill Murray- who I recognize from What About Bob, Groundhog Day and Osmosis Jones- I’m taking you back aren’t I? and Lucas Black who you might recognize from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which, in my opinion, suffered sans Vin Diesel.  These are the two that were the most familiar to me, but the entire cast was brilliant.

Bravo Get Low

Jasmine Out

This image is not my property, but the property of the production studio found at http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/get-low.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/in-theaters/get-low-movie-2010-memorable-funeral&usg=__7wHPyT2y6S-3-h5Ou_OEgIzvh8U=&h=830&w=597&sz=218&hl=en&start=0&sig2=kf_p_inU086zjqVHIUb39A&zoom=1&tbnid=4tTvcO0FXjm_mM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=115&ei=oKG2TJv_HcGB8gaxysiNCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dget%2Blow%2Bmovie%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D576%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1047&vpy=218&dur=35&hovh=265&hovw=190&tx=146&ty=267&oei=oKG2TJv_HcGB8gaxysiNCQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:0

             Last week I went to see the new movie Easy A.  Yes, everyone, I know that it will not win an Oscar- it’s pretty much a certainty- even though it has the fabulous Stanley Tucci in it.  The main character, Olive, tells her best friend that she lost her virginity to an imaginary blind date over the weekend.  Little does she know that the school’s resident extreme moralist is also in the bathroom (played by, of all people, Amanda Bynes.)

Overnight, Olive has earned the reputation of a floosy.  But instead of working very hard to correct the misunderstanding, Olive embraces the new image.  She starts dressing in more immodest ways and strutting around the school where she feels she can now be seen.  The story takes an interesting turn when she starts to give boys fake ‘action’ because she feels sorry for them and they give her gift cards and coupons for the exchange.  Here’s where the A comes in.  In their English class, they are reading the scarlet letter.  So eventually Olive’s best friend turns on her and Olive goes off the deep end.  now her wardrobe is all corsets and skinny jeans with, you guessed it, the letter A sewn to the front.  The moral of the story- and the slightly anticlimactic one- is that our ‘personal’ lives should be personal.

Now, this movie was funny.  Very funny.  Olive’s family is as quirky, quick and witty as she is.  But it’s poignant as well.  The pain she goes through is very real.  As she realizes she has become a stereotype and not a person anymore, I wanted to cry.  But then again, don’t I cry at everything, overly empathetic thing that I am.

However, there are a few things that I have a problem with.

First of all, the christians in this school are horrible.  Every last one of them is hateful, prejudiced and mean.  For the entire story, I kept waiting for Olive to meet a person of faith who, not only showed her kindness, but empathized with her.  She never does.

Second of all, the scarlet letter isn’t an appropriate comparison here.  For those of you who haven’t read the wonderful Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, here are the Jazz notes:

Hester Prynne has a baby while her husband is away for a length of time, meaning that she has had an affair- duh.  The town decides that her punishment is to wear a red letter A on her clothing: A for adultery.  Hester, who slept with the puritan’s town minister, is genuinley remorseful for her act, and she lives a quiet life, raising her daughter- who is suspected of being possessed, but this is neither here nor there.  Hester is the heroine of the story, demonstrating true redemption and humility.  The town minister, who struggles with confessing his sins until the very end, is really more of the villain- in my opinion anyway as he refuses to accept and acount for his sins and lets Hester carry the punishment of them both.

Olive did not commit adultery, so the letter A is completley pointless- why not an S?  That would make more sense.  And further more, Olive’s in your face attitude is as far from Hester’s demure quiet as could possibly be.  However, as my movie buddy Sophie pointed out, the point of referencing the book might be pointing more to Olive being ostrasized than anything else.  I can see that, I just think that the Scarlet Letter could have been handled with more care.  It’s like using Romeo and Juliet as an example of a happily ever after (hello Taylor Swift.)

But it was a funny movie.  Very Humorous.  It’s just sad that that’s the basic foundation of my positive reaction to the movie.  It had the potential to be so much more.

Jasmine out.

This picture is not mine- it is the property of Screen Gems Studio and found on http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=56045

Alright everyone.

For those of you who are hanging on my every word- desperate for my review of The American, here it is: watch it on DVD.

This is not because it was poorly made (it wasn’t) or because it was a stupid plotline (it was thought-provoking) or because the characters were underdeveloped (they were masterfully created.)  It’s because while the character is spending his time in Italy the movie takes a fairly distasteful turn.  The main character, Jack or Edward, is a master rifle-maker or an assassin, or both we’re not sure which.  He goes to Italy and makes an exceptional gun for a fellow assassin.  While there, he visits the red light district and falls in love with a prostitute named Clara, making him realize that maybe life isn’t all about be chased.  Good story.  Great character.  I don’t even mind the fact that the girl is a prostitute (because of the whole redemptive tone of the entire movie) however, I did not need to see them have sex for five minutes.  I’m sorry, did I say see?  I was closing my eyes and pressing my fingers against my ears.  I had to leave the theater at one point, it was just too darn distasteful.

So under the circumstances of a DVD situation, I would have felt free to skip that scene (alhthough there’s little I could have done about Clara’s outdoor topless dialogue) and enjoy the movie whose themes center around redemption, love, and things worth living for.

Hello vast audience!  It’s been a while, but I have now, officially started my second year of college- hip hip hooray!

It’s time to take on a new project.  my roommate and I- wave hello Sophie- are going to see every Oscar nominated movie BEFORE the Oscars this year.  But Jasmine, you might exclaim, the Oscar nominees aren’t out! That’s why Sophie and I are going to attempt to guess which movies are most likely to be nominated.

Last week, we went to see The Other Guys.  No, I do not think that The Other Guys will win an Oscar, sorry Mark Wahlberg, but we wanted to start off our once-a-week movie plan with something light-hearted.

The other Guys was hilarious.  normally, I don’t care for crude humor (I almost died from embarrassment at Dinner for Schmucks) but this was just perfect.  Maybe it was because, unlike Schmucks, the producers didn’t attempt any moral takeaway.  The Other Guys was what it was, a movie about two guys that have the worst possible things happen to them.  From accidentally becoming a pimp, to break-ups, to a car that really needed to be sanitized then burned, Mark and Will endured every possible humiliation.  But they’re peacocks!  You’ve got to let them fly.  Mark’s anger management routine was the funnier one I’ve ever seen because you could see it exhausted even him, and Will’s scenes with a wooden gun make you wish you had one for the bad guys to take away too.

Now, a word of caution.  When I got home and was telling my family about it, I turned to my brothers and said they needed a few more years before watching this movie (it’s quite heavy on the expletives) turned to my mother and told her she would hate it (she didn’t believe me, then went to see it on a date night with Dad and said it was the stupidest movie in the world) and told my dad that he’d probably love it.  It’s a movie with curse words in every scene and some sexual descriptions although no onscreen ludeness.  As far as the cursing goes, you have to remember what they’re trying to make fun of, and that’s guys that take themselves to seriously.

Tomorrow, Sophie and I are going to see the American.

If you have suggestions for movies you think will be nominated, my lovely, intelligent, talented and numerous audience, then please send them in!

until next time!

         For those of you who thought that Robert Pattinson was just a pretty, pale face are in for a nasty shock, presuming they turn off their Edward radar long enough to actually take in his newest undertaking: Remember Me.  I’m not going to lie.  I went to Remember me because he was in it.  I had lost quite a bit of respect for Robert ever since he fumbled the character of Edward Cullen.  In the books, which are not extremely well written but do have a good showing when it comes to character development and dialogue, Edward is quick-witted, humorous, eloquent, and gentlemenly.  In the movies, Edward is brooding, slow, gloomy, and doesn’t display any real creativity with words or any particular display of manners.  I was profoundly dissapointed- but it’s a risk we take when trying to convert written word to the screen.

So I went to see Remember Me because a) I was intrigued.  I love a good romance as much as the next girl and b) I am of the strong belief that I cannot have an opinion about something without being informed.  Because of his poor performance in Twilight, I felt that couldn’t judge Robert as an actor until I did so outside of the Twilight franchise.

And I was impressed.

My awe at the movie is mostly because of how the director treated the ending.  spoiler alert: this movie has a 9/11 finale.  I remember the day the towers were hit.  Anyone over the age of five probably does.  My parents took my brothers and me out of school so that they could explain the situation to us themselves.  I watched footage the entire day.  Everything changed that day, and while I remember feeling scared of war and shocked at the tragedy of the whole thing, I never truly understood the impact.  my fifth grade mind wasn’t that far along in empathy to be able comprehend the entire tragedy.  But this movie made me understand.  This movie forced me to realize that on that day, people who had their whole lives ahead of them, were cut off.

The entire movie is not about 9/11.  It was about a broken family.  A young man, whose brother had committed suicide, whose sister was struggling to fit in, whose father was emotionally and verbally abusive, and whose sense of morality is being tested to it’s limit, meets a girl, who shares his own angst.  This girl adopts his family, his struggles and his pain.  By the end of the movie, everyone is starting to have faith in each other again.  And then the main character dies in the two towers, waiting for his dad who has begun to repent of his awful behavior.

I was shocked.  They didn’t prepare you for this ending at all.  There were no hints.  They didn’t allude to the date until the very end of the movie.  They spent the entire movie making you invest in this family, in these broken people, and then it shatters it.  I felt like I had lost something in the towers.  I cried.  The story was about to have, if not a happy, then a hopeful ending, and it was gone.

The directors handled this with great taste.  They didn’t use any real footage.  I would have probably shut down if they had.  They didn’t show the towers after the planes.  They didn’t even say the what was happening outloud.  The audience just saw the family’s reaction, and saw the family at the protagonist’s grave.  It was meant to speak to those who had been there; those who remember; those who, like me, maybe couldn’t quite express what happened that day.  This is for those people who lost something that day, that they couldn’t quite identify at the time.  I’ve never felt so moved by September 11th.  I have rarely felt so connected and invested in a movie.

A note- while I thought the film was extremely poignant, there is a handful of innapropriate moments: sexual content and a few f-bombs, but the film is rated pg-13- so they reign it in.  These are purposely broken characters, imperfect for a reason.

So Robert- good for you- maybe there’s hope for you after all

      Who watched the Oscars last night?  I did!  And I was shocked that the Hurt Locker took so many general categories.  I’m sure it is an excellent movie, but it didn’t have any acting awards for the night, which makes me wonder if it’s just a political, special effects movie.

I am happy that the fabulous Sandra Bullock got Best Actress.

My last comment on the event is that I was surprised and pleased at Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin’s performance- very funny men :)  That’s all today- I’m going to take a bit of a me day.

     Yesterday, I went to see Alice and Wonderland.  Before going, I was told that the critics had declared it thoroughly and unforgivably Tim Burton with Johnny Depp given free-reign to be his bizarre self.  Well I loved it, even if I defy elite opinion.  Not only did it retain the brilliance of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical style, while still allowing the viewer to grasp a basic understanding of the details of Wonderland, but it also infused fantastical dilemas of right and wrong, love and fear, and being practical while believing in the impossible.   The animation was brilliant.  The costumes in wonderland were humerously punk/fantasy, while the real world ones looked like Tim Burton’s animated world: pasty and gaunt.  the characters were apathetically larger than life- does that make sense?  I’ll try to explain.  While the main characters seemed to take everything normal in a scatterbrained and ADD way (Alice runs off during the middle of a conversation because she sees a rabbit- doesn’t that seem strange and slightly rude?), they seem to take the unusual in stride.  Once Alice is able to establish that, no, this place that is vividly real, where she can be scratched and putrified, where she has been thrown about, chased, and stuffed in a teapot, was, in fact, very real and not a dream, she was ready to fight.  Why she suddenly gained supernatural courage once she realized that she could indeed die instead of just wake up, I can’t explain, and I think that this is why these characters are so vivid.  They are never conventional.  This is the first Tim Burton film that didn’t somewhat disturb me, and I applaud him, and the wonderful cast, especially Anne Hathaway, who neve seemed to be able to decisively place her hands anywhere.

Once again, a successful trip to the movies.

Yesterday, for my birthday friday, my lovely family and I watched Julie & Julia.  I find this to be such an amazing and inspirational movie.  Not only is the music lovely and the Parisian setting to die for, but the story itself has stirred the same old things inside of me, the desire to be everywhere.  But it also served as a heartwarming and comical rebuke.  Both main characters seem to write constantly.  Julie, the woman from present-day New York, develops a blog that transforms into, not only a commentary on cooking, but an outlet for her thoughts and her real talent, which was writing.  Julia and her husband write all the time, because they write letters.  Why don’t we write letters anymore?  I always think of something infinitley cleverer than what I did say after I put down the phone, so why not take the opportunity for thought and write a letter…. or talk slower?  So there Amy Adams and Meryl Streep sat, Oscar participants speaking directly at me, saying “just start writing.”  If I write everyday, something will come out.  It could be entirely worthless to the rest of the world, but it won’t be worthless to me.    

           So today I am off to the movies to watch Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.  I am very excited- even though I heard the reviews were bad.  I don’t always like what Tim puts out there, but I’ve got to give him points for originality.  I don’t really think I could be a movie critic, because I don’t think I could ever call a movie bad.  My stragedy is to pick out what I like and what I don’t like, but I don’t think I could disqualify a director’s piece of work. 

           One more thought: I am going to be diligently watching the Oscars this weekend for my birthday.  I love to see actors take their art seriously, instead of seeing the tabloids tear down their characters- they really don’t deserve that.  I would love for Meryl to get another Oscar- she was just so charming in Julie & Julia.