I Love Her

One of the perks of being married to a newly-inducted Writer's Guild member is getting to see movies earlier than most. Last night we had the privilege of attending an advanced screening of Spike Jonze's newest film, Her. I haven't been able to stop smiling since.

Her is set in a lovely, clean, bright and futuristic LA, (which I've read was partly filmed in China). Technology has advanced to tiny ear pieces in which humans can speak directly to their own Operating Systems and command tasks like, "Read Email" or "Play melancholy song."

We meet our hero Theodore Twombly, (Joaquin Phoenix) a brooding writer reeling from a soon-to-be-finalized divorce from his childhood sweetheart. Theodore's ability to empathize makes it easy for him to make his living writing other people's letters at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com - a bright and cheery office in which writers dictate letters to their computer and authentic handwritten letters are then generated and mailed.

Theodore struggles with the concept of moving forward after his failed marriage and has a difficult time connecting with anyone except his best friend Amy, (Amy Adams) who is struggling within her own marriage. In a society in which technology is one of the biggest forms of entertainment, education and above all, communication, it's easy to imagine that people are having issues with actual human interactions and connections.

Enter Samantha, (the voice of Scarlett Johansson) - the upgraded Operating System with an incredibly life-like personality capable of mimicking human emotions all while cleaning up your hard drive and reminding you to get to that meeting on time! Theodore is understandably standoffish at first, but quickly falls under the charm of Samantha's amazing ability to, well, connect. What happens throughout the remainder of the film is both beautiful and poetic. Without the ability to connect physically, Samantha and Theodore spend the entire film connecting verbally - telling stories, sharing experiences and expressing ideas. Surprisingly it's the most realistic romantic tale I've ever seen/heard on screen that other films tend to skip over. Most other films lazily take for granted that audience members accept the concept of love coming so easily and with so little need for authentic story telling.

Spike Jonze and the incredibly talented cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema create a beautiful environment for Joaquin Phoenix to run around, smiling, laughing and generally finding true happiness again. I found myself grinning ear to ear for over half of this movie.

As you may be able to guess, falling in love with your self aware OS comes with great difficulty and this is no exception. While I knew it may not have the happiest of endings for Theodore and Samantha, I was over the moon with how Jonze handled the loss. It was lovely, realistic and, well, incredibly human.

An Open Letter to Before Midnight

Since its arrival in theaters, I've held Before Midnight at arm's length. I've had this tradition for the past, well, over a decade now with this series. I've waited until it's come out of DVD, (and yes, one video tape). I've ordered take out, I've had a glass of wine, I've gotten under blankets and I've enjoyed these movies by myself. No one else is around, no other opinions are in the room with me. It's me, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater. I've enjoyed them for their romance, borderline pretentiousness and meandering conversations through the streets of a beautiful, warm-climate European country. 

I felt the moment was right tonight: I had blankets, leftover pasta and a couple of cold IPAs and a few hours by myself. I was expecting a jump into the future and based on a few spoiler alerts, I knew that this wasn't a romantic tale but a realistic one. We left off with Before Sunset: Celine is dancing to Nina Simone after spending an afternoon together walking with Jesse and you're not sure if Jesse is going to make his plane back to New York, back to his wife and young child. You hope he doesn't.

He doesn't. Cut to nine, ten years later... Jesse and Celine are together. They've just dropped Jesse's now 14 year old son back at the airport from their six week Greece vacation. Jesse feels tormented and sad. He can't handle the fact that these are the most precious and pivotal years in his young son's life and he fears that he's missing it. What follows is a twenty minute car ride with Celine and their two young twin girls who sleep through the whole conversation.

Celine and Jesse bicker slightly about her present job circumstances, his remorse over dropping Jesse's son off and you begin to piece together a bit of what happened in the last decade. They soon join their friends at a lush, gorgeous vacation home in Greece where they have another beautiful, meandering conversation over dinner outside. They talk love, romance, reality, death, separation and friendship. Every now and then you get a smack of Celine's pessimism but you think, yes, this is where the reality comes in. Let's see where it goes.

Jesse and Celine are given a night off from their kids and a couple's retreat at a local hotel room with a bottle of wine. What follows is one of the worst fights in coupledom. A fight that last the remainder of the film. It stretches from, "you want me to pick up and move just because of this" to, "tell me everything about myself that you don't like" to "you've regretted your life with me because of, well, me." It was heartbreaking, aggravating and more than anything, you just wanted the movie to end. 

Celine was a pill - an absolute nightmare. She's essentially the epitome of everything that I hate, absolutely hate, about women rolled into one monster. She's incredibly angry, self-loathing yet at the same time, greedy for attention, praise and honor. She constantly puts herself in hypothetical conversations that allow for human error, which Jesse treads lightly yet repeatedly falls victim to. He tries his best to tell her she's beautiful, to praise her when she asks for it yet draws the line when it gets too dangerous. Celine can't accept compliments, yet demands them incessantly. Jesse is trying to work out a major life dilemma with her and she is internalizing everything and throwing it back in his face. She literally leaves the hotel room a total of three times, the third time claiming that she no longer loves him. I will give praise to my favorite line of the movie. Celine asks Jesse to tell her what bothers him about her. "Number one, you're fucking nuts," he says.

Perhaps this was just a bad night to watch this. We've been watching The Sopranos from start to finish and just recently saw the episode where Adriana dies. I cried for two fucking days. But as a woman who has been married for two years now, I find this movie to be an absolute disaster to watch alone. Couples have fights, couples make up, couples resent one another, couples stretch the truth to save one another. But what I lack in myself, I don't look for in my husband. The things I blame myself for have no basis or blame for someone else like my husband or anyone for that matter. We are two separate entities who happen to be very much in love with each other. We support each other endlessly and try to relate to one another at all possible opportunities. Seeing a story of a couple who, like a lot of couples, may not make it made me incredibly sad. But more than being realistic, I think this movie did more damage to my ideas of women than it did to my idea of relationships. 

It's natural to lash out at the ones closest to you as it is natural to wonder, out loud, where it all went wrong. Jesse and Celine may have their issues, one that's made more complicated with the fact that Jesse got a divorce and left his young child behind to be with Celine. Yet this is their reality now - perhaps it's not as romantic and ideal as it was when they were twenty years old and met on a train. Is this what we all have to look forward to? The wondering "what if?" The constant blame and perpetual sacrifice thrown back into the face of the person you love? I don't think it is, but god damn! It's been eleven years since I laid eyes on my first boyfriend, (who was awful). I think about him often and internally like to blame him for my inability to argue or claim independence in situations where perhaps I should. Yet eleven years later, I find myself very happily married, dealing with perhaps the same demons I had at 20 years old. That's not my old boyfriend's fault: that's mine! 

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm clearly drunk and writing a novel about my anger over a fictional story. Perhaps a part of me wants ALL stories like Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight to be like its predecessor. One that only consists of the delicate balance and symbiosis of falling in love. The part that isn't fucked up. Or at least that parts that we all remember about why we got into it in the first place. 

So thanks, Celine for being a crazy B. I'm actually looking forward to my husband coming home so I can hug him and remember why I'm not nuts. Just drunk.

Tread Lightly

I don't think I took a breath in this week's much anticipated premiere of Breaking Bad's triumphant final season. From the achingly slow push on the bathroom door before Hank emerges to the final "Tread lightly" warning Walt bestows at the end, the moments in between are incredibly difficult to ingest.

Walt's house has been boarded up, skateboarders have taken over his pool and his poor neighbor Carol is frightened to death at the mere sight of him. After you realize that all hell has broken loose and the inevitable ending that you feared/hoped had happened has actually happened, you wonder how they're going to treat it.

For a moment I thought, no, they can't possibly back track and tell the story again - we know it! But as you see Hank's face become redder and redder and feel the rage building inside of him, you think - YES! This is exactly what I had been hoping for. I've been audibly plotting how I think Walt should die for months now. I've toyed with the idea of a slow, drawn out torture or the return, (surprise!) of his cancer. Even if it doesn't end the way I have a feeling it will, I am enjoying every last minute of the absolute torment that's happening on screen.

And, wow, Hank. The minute he clicked the garage door closed trapping Walt inside with him, I braced myself. His absolute rage, his firey eyes - my God. Walt has been had and Hank knows every turn he's made to get there. It's an amazing fight that ends just as eerily as it began.

"I don't know who I'm talking to," Hank muses. "Then tread lightly."

"Your Face Looks Like a Bag of Walnuts"

After this week's episode of Mad Men, I'm left thoroughly convinced that Don Draper has officially become the least interesting character on television. When entire episodes become devoted to yet another peek into Don's former life as Dick Whitman, you know you're in for nothing substantial.

The more we learn about Don, the less interested I am in seeing him achieve anything - especially failing. In what was a twisted turn for the cast of Mad Men in Sunday night's drug induced episode, it became the most boring and ridiculous waste of a storyline.

In other news, have you seen this girl? Her name is Sally Draper and she's gone missing. Some say she ran away, some say her mother ate her, others are convinced her father abandoned her on a train filled with circus people. Whatever the case may be, please call the authorities if you have information. Do not, repeat, do not call her parents.

What's He Building In There?

There is truly something to be said for stories that scrub your brain of the day-to-day heaviness and grief we surround ourselves with. I finally sat down to watch Safety Not Guaranteed and fell into a trance. What a delightfully fun and light-hearted movie. While the storyline flirts somewhat with heavy-handedness at times, this story does not take itself too seriously.

Safety Not Guaranteed was brought to you by the makers of Little Miss Sunshine. (And two nerd blogs have confirmed that the directing and writing duo Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly are currently working to remake of Flight of the Navigator next.) Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass star as epically adorable main characters who appear both lovable and troubled. Plaza plays a jaded intern at a Seattle magazine who immediately agrees to research and write a story about an ad placement requesting a time travel partner. Partnering with Jake Johnson, (you're talkin' to a Nick Miller fan here, people) and another young and nerdy intern, the three hit the road to begin their work.

What we find in this journey is an innocent, sweet childlike quality in Plaza and Duplass' obvious romance as they discover their separate, hidden agendas. While Plaza is dealing with the passing of her mother at a pivotal time in her emotional development past, Duplass is dealing with the death of an old girlfriend. (Or so we think.) Throughout the tiny, not always predictable plot twists, we are sprinkled with the storyline of Jake Johnson's character who is scheming to get back together with his high school girlfriend who conveniently lives in the town within time traveling proximity. 

While each plot twist doesn't exactly pair up or strategically matter much to the overall outcome, I found myself curiously outguessed at every turn. In the end, while you know the two characters will eventually find their way to each other, that lingering devices may not tie up neatly and while simple time travel questions will of course go unanswered, (you've jaded me hard, J.J. Abrams), I found Safety Not Guaranteed to be one of the cutest movies I've seen in awhile. 

Daenerys and Drogo

As with most current things, I am not current. I am about six episodes in to the first season of Game of Thrones and I have to tell you - I'm in. After hearing friends discuss dragons, dire wolves and all things sexual, I felt it was my duty as an ill-informed TV viewer to check it out. The premise is absurd, I mean, of course it's absurd. But as absurdities go, this is the Ken Burns of mythical and supernatural tales.

My favorite characters by far and away are Daenerys and Drogo. What a hot power couple. I don't know what it is about Drogo. Call it my attraction to tall, dark and tortured, but Drogo really does it for me. Spoiler alert: You know what's terrible about the internet? The fact that I went looking for a picture of them and saw that Drogo dies. Of course he does, I mean I knew one of them had to, but damnit.

While their relationship may have started off a bit rocky, (what with the whole no eye contact during forceful sex bits), they really have hit their stride. Daenerys has assumed her sexual prowess and confidence over her overpowering and vaguely Satan-faced husband, turning him into a regular John Cusack in love.

I just finished the episode of the failed attempt on Daenerys' life at the marketplace, thus spawning her husband to declare war. Drogo rushes into the tent to embrace his bride, calling her "Moon of my Life." Daenerys steps back, lovingly and proudly watching her husband shout threats of war. "I will rape your women!" he angrily screams to an amped up group of followers. She smiles.

What an understanding wife and queen it must take to allow your husband to assume his rightful place as the dominant overlord of all the land. I wish I didn't already know that one of them must ultimately die. I was really hoping for a spin off prequel: Daenerys and Drogo - The Early Years.

Warm Bodies: A Harrowing Likeness to Every Dude I've Ever Dated

After watching the preview for Warm Bodies, you can go ahead and assume that you've seen the movie in its entirety and can expect every plot device, twist and turn. It's a post-apocalyptic Zombie reality wherein a human meets a corpse, falls in love and teaches others of their kind that yes, people can change. Yet as the credits rolled, I don't think a single audience member would attest to its not being endearing, funny and immensely enjoyable.

Warm Bodies essentially blends together every great Zombie-esque Horror movie genre ingredient with a big helping of RomCom fare. It was appropriately cast with such appearances by John Malkovich, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, (James' younger brother) and yes! - that kid from About a Boy, Nicholas Hoult, (who grew up to become an absolute stone cold fox.)

We first meet R, the appropriately named hero Zombie and narrator who cannot remember his own name, only that it begins with the letter R. R is introducing us into this apocalyptic world by roaming around a deserted airport now filled with other members of the undead. Teresa Palmer, a virtual unknown, played Julie our rough and tumble heroine. Julie meets R during a patrol when her group happens upon R's pack and trouble ensues. R pledges to keep Julie safe and so begins the remainder of the movie: Girl meets Zombie, Zombie falls in love with girl, girl leaves Zombie, Zombie teaches other Zombies to love, Zombie finds girl, girl saves Zombie, Zombies save humans.

R reminded me of every John Cusack character ever made, but younger and foxier. Much like any guy I've ever had a crush on only slightly more alive. Slightly. He slouched when he walked, he wore an ironically casual hoodie, he mumbled, he shrugged, he mused in inclement weather, he romantically listened to scratchy vinyl... This movie was my teen fantasy of being locked away with a hot member of the undead while discussing your favorite Guns n Roses records. Eat your heart out, 18-yr. old Katie. No, really. Eat it.