#i can’t see why this is considered a classic. singing in the rain is MILES BETTER and I only caught half of that one

[lady-grace-pens]

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time this morning and I can’t stop thinking about how much I hated it. I can’t figure out why. But I also watched the first part of Barry Lyndon and I’m really into it so there’s that too

Rant in tags because I have thoughts and opinions

[gingercullenboy]

Movie Commentary Monday: Episode 1

Hello everyone and welcome to the very first episode of Movie Commentary Monday (or as i call MCM, which sounds ridiculous by the way) where I express my thoughts on a movie while desperately trying to be funny (and usually fail).

There will be dozens of side comments in brackets because I talk too much, sorry in advance.

This week’s movie is:

Isn’t It Romantic (2019)

Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Writing Credits: Erin Cardillo (screenplay&story), Dana Fox (screenplay) & Katie Silberman (screenplay)

Stars: Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine, Priyanka Chopra, Betty Gilpin, Brandon Scott Jones

Summary: A young woman disenchanted with love mysteriously finds herself trapped inside a romantic comedy.

(thanks IMDb)

Now, buckle up folks, it’s gonna be a loooooong ride. Let’s get down to business!

(this isn’t a Mulan reference)

Why is the Mom so bitter about happy endings? I bet she has seen things...

They don’t make movies for girls like us. 

THIS!!! LINE!!! IS!!! SO!!! IMPORTANT!!! 

That single sentence just basically summarized the entire history of Hollywood and you can’t argue with me on this. The evidence is there (sorry i’m bitter like mom) (i’m full of rage like younger john mulaney)

Natalie’s (Rebel Wilson) apartment is a mess and is so tiny, it’s like screaming YOUR FUTURE HOUSE at me, it’s unbelievable

Fucking finally, a realistic view of New York; smelly, crowded, and filth everywhere (not that i could ever know, i don’t live there but i’ve seen metropolitans before)

“STOP THE CART WITH YOUR BODY” WTFFF I’M CRYING THAT’S SO RUDE

Ok, Natalie’s a nobody at the workplace, even though she’s a fricking architect. UNREALISTIC TO ME

That co-worker and office manager can choke, that’s all I’m gonna say

Ohmygod, Whitney (Betty Gilpin) is so cute, I’ve seen her 10 secs in and I already love her (lovey dovey characters are always my faves)

JOSH (Adam Devine) IS AMAZING, ADORABLE DORK, PROTECT HIM AT ALL COSTS

LIAM HEMSWORTH’S AMERICAN ACCENT GOT ME SH00K!!! He just said “Goddamn it” and I am already hooked

Who puts whipped cream in a coffee? ME, BITCH

I PUT WHIPPED CREAM IN MY COFFEE BECAUSE BLACK COFFEE TASTES LIKE SHIT, SORRY THAT I’M NOT TOUGH AS YOU

Natalie says nice guy with a nice life and it... kinda bothers me. It’s a reaaaally generic expression and a bit insulting if you think about it bc if you don’t fit that person’s standards of being nice with having a nice life, it discourages you (in this case, you=man). So when Josh said “I’m a nice guy with a nice life” I thought ‘Of course you are’ bc he is in my standards. What I’m trying to say is that rom-coms have stereotypes on not only women but also men. Yes, it is sad.

Awwww Josh has a crush on Natalie *wipes happy tears* but she thinks he’s looking at the model billboard LMAO SAME, NAT

I’m so done (but it’s also so relatable, bc i’m like Nat but with less cynicism)

WHITNEY’S DESKTOP OMG

PAWSITIVE VIBES???? I WANNA MARRY HER SO WE CAN WATCH ROM-COMS WITH CATS ON OUR LAPS ALL DAY TOGETHER

Natalie was on the subway and a stranger waved at her. Then he tried to mug her. Then she knocked herself over. My mom always says don’t talk to strangers and I see why. I’m 22, if you’re wondering *clears throat* Moving on...

OH MY GOD SHE WOKE UP WITH THE MAKE-UP ON AND A NICELY DONE HAIR WITH FLOWERS AND STRAWBERRY DRINK ON THE SIDE, I CAN’T-

Oh, hello Mr. Morningstar... *wiggles eyebrows* (quick note, i don’t actually watch Lucifer but i really like Tom Ellis)

She just ripped her IV and blood didn’t spill everywhere, yeah this is a rom-com alright 

She’s dressed from lost and found and she looks like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman-

NO WAIT, THE ENTIRE SETTING HAS CHANGED

HOLY SHIT ‘A THOUSAND MILES’ BY VANESSA CARLTON IS STARTED TO BE PLAYED BY A RANDOM GUY ON A BIKE AND HE PLAYS IT FROM THE STEREO ON HIS BIKE I’M CACKLING

ENTER LIAM, HE LOOKS SO GOOD I CAN’T EVEN DESCRIBE (i’m a thirsty hoe, your suspicions are correct)

What the fuck does beguiling mean? *checks dictionary* oh, okay *is weirded out now*

HE’S AUSSIE NOW, THEY’VE DONE IT, HE’S KEEPING THE ACCENT, AND I’M HAPPY AGAIN

...Birds form a heart while flying... Uhhh... Strawberries and champagne in the limo... Rich as fuck, my poor ass can’t relate

NATALIE’S STREET HAS CHANGED, TOO

He’s giving her flowers already? Ok- NO WAIT

HE JUST WROTE HIS NUMBER ON MULTIPLE FLOWER PETALS AND HANDED TO HER, IS HE FOR REAL LMAO

“But there’s only one of you, so...” Well, this doesn’t change the fact that there are millions of ways to order the numbers, you dumbass (why is he like this)

Her apartment... Every Millenials’ dream

And... A gay neighbor/best friend who acts like an over-feminine gay (which is also a stereotype)

So, I’ll count every rom-com trope I’ve seen in 22 mins *counts her fingers* So far, I have seven tropes

The Big Presentation (eight)

Unconventional workplace which looks like a Google office (nine)

Nat is the star architect now (ten)

Rival bitchy colleague (eleven) (WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE WHITNEY, THOUGH) (SHE’S MY SENSITIVE WIFE) (oh, she looks hot)

They gave like, four other tropes in two mins and it doesn’t feel like rushed at all *salutes respectively*

The setting change is so... Like, you cannot miss it, it’s sweet and makes you feel all giddy inside, it’s so lovely, so rom-com like (does that make sense to you?)

OH PRIYANKA, SHE JUST TURNED AND I’M LIKE “Oh I’m fucked”

“Josssssssh”

Natalie keeps falling (twelve)

“MY LIFE IS A ... ... ROMANTIC COMEDY!” “AND IT’S ... PG-13!″ EVERYONE STARTED DANCING BEHIND HER I’M HOLLERING 

The subway map behind her is shaped in a heart, lovey dovey couples everywhere... And shE’S GONNA JUMP ONTO A TRAIN??? THIS GOT DARK ALL OF A SUDDEN

Officer Hansom *facepalms*

She threw the flower petals and guess what? THE NUMBERS FELL DOWN IN THE CORRECT ORDER, WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN HAHAHA (thirteen)

Y’ello

Y’ELLO

Y’E LL O

IS THIS HOW AUSSIES ANSWER THE PHONE, AUSSIE MUTUALS PLEASE RESPOND

BLAKE (Liam Hemsworth) IS SO ADORABLE I’M ROOTING FOR EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE 

Dress up montage... Yeah- Oh wait, they cut it out what the hell fvygbuhnj I WANT MY DRESS UP MONTAGE, GIVE IT TO MEEE

This is some fancy first date though... Also leaving 100 bucks tip doesn’t justify breaking in to a store I guess??? Seems like the law has no function in rom-coms lmao (fourteen)

BUTTER PECAN??? HOW OLD ARE YOU, 200 OR SOMETHING??? WHAT THE FUCK, MAN

The rain... You know what’s coming after- Ah, and they kissed *giggles uncontrollably* YES!!! (fifteen)

THEY CAN’T HAVE SEX BC IT’S PG-13 (liam’s abs, though) *bi scream*

Her apartment makes me cry, it’s so beautiful (ok i’ll stop counting from now on bc i cannot keep up anymore)

Also the romantic tension between Natalie and Josh................ I have no words

Isabella (Priyanka Chopra) calls Josh ‘Mush’ and it’s so f-king cringey, I swear to God sxrdctfvygu

STOP OVERSELLING NEW YORK, WE KNOW IT’S NOT THAT GOOD

I can talk about Blake for five hours, he’s so fucking funny lmao

Donny (Brandon Scott Jones) is such a gay sidekick, he comes out of nowhere and talks weirdly but he makes me laugh so I’ll give him a pass

NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE, NATALIE’S GONNA STOP ISABELLA&JOSH’S WEDDING

That musical scene is everything, and Natalie hits that high note H AR D

GET IT, GIRL

Blake............ no-

I ROOTED FOR YOU, WE ALL ROOTED FOR YOU, HOW COULD YOU DO THAT-

Oh my, he’s a certified douchebag, I should’ve guessed, I’m so disappointed in myself 

Unexpected wisdom coming from Donny who had no function to the story other than appearing beside Natalie at random times (again, rom-com trope) 

BUT at least he made her realised who matters to her the most

Slow motion running!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Her boobs are like sxrdctfvyg SHAKING AS SHE’S RUNNING ESXRDCTFVYB (as someone who has big breasts, i relate to that so hard) 

“Yoga Ambassador. Yoga. Ambassador.” “Ambassadors are for countries, not for streching.” Dang, Nat!!!

She finally realised she loves herself! Awww, that’s so sweet and empowering and I can’t get enough of this!!!! Yes, to love someone else first you should love yourself!

Oh she crashed the car and went back to reality

Another hot doctor???? Wait, I’m confused- No, false alarm, she’s back and her real doctor is tired, is also swimming through lawsuits LMFAO

She pulled her IV and blood SPILLED EVERYWHERE AS IT SHOULD BE, THANK GOD

I’m glad that she’s happy with what she’s got and she didn’t decide to keep what she’s been doing but instead, tried to take care of herself, it’s such a good message to young girls and I cannot praise this enough

PLOT TWIST, DONNY IS ACTUALLY REALLY GAY AND HAS A BOYFRIEND AND IS ALSO A WEED DEALER OH MY FUCKING GOD I LOVE THE TWIST SO MUCH 

Natalie!!! Is!!! Confident!!! Now!!! I’m literally living for this *throws hearts to the screen*

OH MY WIFE IS BACK, HI WHITNEY I LOVE YOU MY SWEET SUMMER WIFE I MISSED YOU

Nat stormed into that meeting and she’s. on. fireeee

Real Blake is as jerk as ever, no surprise

Using parking lots as metaphors would never cross my mind but ok I guess???

Fuck, he said “What does beguiling mean?” I’M LOST FOR WORDS, THIS MOVIE SXDCTFVYGU

JOSH HAS BEEN LOOKING AT NATALIE FOR THE WHOLE TIME, NOT THE SWIMSUIT MODEL, WHO COULD HAVE THOUGHT???

ps. me and probably everyone else except Nat lol

EVERYONE SINGS

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I REPEAT, EVERYONE SINGS AND IT’S SO GOOD

LIAM PLAYS THE SAX HOLY SHIT HE’S SO HOT I’M GONNA FAINT

Priyanka with that rose.......... Consider me dead, thank you

“It’s hot as fuck” tcfyvgubh probably true

Overall, I would give this movie 7/10 because of the message. Plot is nicely done and I got see basically every single rom-com tropes. At total, I counted 23 tropes I guess? If I could look every minor detail, I would count more but I won’t get into it that much for now. (i’m running late to a meeting with friends so i have to cut short)

I loved the production design, setting felt like I’m in a classic rom-com movie and characters were written accordingly. Every actor in the movie has fit perfect to me. I especially loved Priyanka and Liam because 1) I’ve never seen any of her movies and 2) It’s been a long time since I watched a Liam Hemsworth movie (i only watched hunger games, so you think about it lmao)

I guess that’s about it! I have a list for the next weeks’ movies but if you have a request then tell me so, I will watch your recommendations first! I appreciate comments; if you have something to add, please do. I will read every single one of them.

See you next week!

[derickandveronica-blog]

V #1. Real Characters

I walk the two miles all the way down to No Frills because it’s one of those off brand grocery stores where things are cheaper but you have to bag your own stuff. I wish I could go to the nice bodega downtown that sells creamy, herb cheese set in little displays with plastic grapes, but right now that’s a luxury I can’t afford. My friend Jackie says, “Always set aside enough money for fancy cheese,” but I guess this month I forgot.  

It’s lucky, though, that the walk to No Frills is a nice one. It’s all downhill and I get to walk through this neighborhood filled with great, old Victorian houses. Some of the houses have gold historical preservation plaques tacked on their fronts, and the ones that don’t are painted bright, beautiful colors, like they’re competing for the plaques.

My favorite house, between Chestnut and Oak Street, is painted a smooth gradient of orange, starting pumpkin colored at the base of the house and gradually getting lighter, until at the paneling near the roof where it’s a soft creamsicle color. It just looks like light and happiness is beaming off the house, rising through the roof, like heat.

My own place used to be a stately, Victorian house, but it got chopped up and divided into apartments some years back, before I moved in. My landlord, Emily, doesn’t care about the place in the slightest. She’s let the paint fade and chip and she doesn’t seem to mind the awful stripe of black sludge down the front of the house. Its where the gutter empties. All winter, when the rain never stops and everyone is always muttering “the rain, the rain, the rain” like some kind of city-wide chant, the black, greasy rainwater pools at the roof before sliding down the front of the house into the yard below.

When I’m walking and not looking at the brightly painted houses I think about my usual stresses. I wish I could just focus on the houses and the pleasant heat in my leg muscles as I walk, but I can’t.

There’s a term paper I need to write about earthquakes and a doctor’s appointment I’ve been meaning to reschedule. And there’s my mom. She called me this morning. I had stood in my kitchen, gently stirring some oatmeal and saw that the phone was ringing, the screen lit up and vibrating. I had considered letting it ring all the way to voicemail. But I picked up. I wish I wasn’t so hopeful like that, but I am.

She told me about this new medication they’ve got her on, one that gives her these urgent, visceral, terrifying dreams. She told me she had a dream I died, something that also had to do with me being pregnant and wearing some god-awful denim dress. I didn’t know what she wanted me to say.

“I’m still alive,” I said finally.

She sighed into the phone.

 Really, she’s the one dying. Of emphysema. The unsurprising result of smoking for 40 years.

I don’t have a whole lot of feelings about my mom dying. It’s hard to explain this to people. When I tell them about her diagnosis they arrange their faces to be sympathetic or gently horrified. I arrange mine to look sad, or like I’m carrying an awful burden, but this is mostly just for the other people. It makes them more comfortable. I wish I didn’t do things to make others comfortable, but I do.

The summer before she went to the doctors and he sat there and told her about her condition and, then, five minutes later she called me and told me “I have emphysema. I’m dying. You better call me more often,” and then hung up the phone—the summer before all of that—I went home for the first time in years.

I was delusional, of course. Maybe a few years of living on the West Coast, where everyone breathes and sighs about community and love and healing got to me.

We’d fought the whole time. She was drunk and angry and always larger and taller than me. She steamed up the house with her cigarette smoke, kept the windows locked, so that I woke up in the morning feeling like the back of my throat was dry and dirty. It was like she wanted to die.

That summer I had a revelation.

 The first time I wore a bikini I was thirteen and it was bright red. I had noticed, only recently, the way men looked at me. How they poked each other in the ribs when I walked past. I spent hours looking at myself in the mirror, topless, running my hands along the smooth planes of my stomach. It was a miracle that we found the matching set for the bikini, since we got it at Goodwill. But it fit perfectly and looked great against my tan skin.

“Brown as a bunny, you are!” my mom said sometimes. Which was nice.

We went to the pool by our house, a neighborhood pool and something of an establishment during the hot Midwestern summer days. When we got there I stripped off my summer dress and took note of the muscled, gleaming lifeguards at the water’s edge. My mom, as was her habit, promptly passed out on a pool chair. Her mouth leaked open at the corners and her arms splayed out at her sides.

The bikini looked even better glistening under the chlorine blue water. But after diving off the diving board many times and frog crawling along the checkered bottom of the pool it had begun to hang loose on my body. The strings at my back, holding the top piece in place, threatened to come loose and reveal my breasts.

I woke my mother.

“Can you please tie this?” I asked. “It’s coming loose!” I was perhaps a bit hysterical.

She rose from the pool chair, her eyes puffy and groggy. She looked evil like a villainous character rising from their dark throne, and I realized, my stomach clenching, that I’d made a huge mistake.

And then, there in front of the moms and babies and muscled lifeguards, she ripped my bikini top from my body. One swift motion and it was gone.

The tender pink cones of my nipples were seeing the outside world for the first time. They felt fragile, sensitive to the dry summer air.

A woman nearby gasped.

“Get your shit and let’s go,” my mother growled. And so, we left.

 My revelation was simple. I had been dreaming, since I was a little girl, maybe even before the red bikini episode, no more relationship with my mother.

Not one where she knew how I felt, or where we fought about why I never came to visit, and not one where I was willfully and purposefully cutting her from my life. Just one that was no more, brimming with nothingness.

When she called me that day after the doctor’s appointment, blurting out the news and then hanging up, the revelation rung inside of me, like a gong.

 At No Frills I grab my usual items: bananas and oatmeal and eggs and potato chips. The linoleum is freshly waxed and gleaming. Everything is gleaming. The apples, the cucumbers, the mirrored surfaces of the meat counter. They’re playing a classic rock station over the radio and “Stairway to Heaven” comes on and I sing a little out loud, softly, when it gets to the part where Robert Plant screams and the drums get loud. It feels good sometimes to sing in public. Like I’m testing the boundaries of what’s okay to do. It makes me feel like the kind of girl brooding, artistic men would write poetry about, or else the kind of girl who’s quirky and thin and cutely-fragile who writes her own poetry. But I don’t think I’m either of those.

In line at the checkout I watch two West Coast weirdos, as my friend Jackie calls them, talk to each other. They’re real characters, like New Yorkers say in the movies. The man is wearing earmuffs, even though its blazing hot summer outside. The earmuffs are those puffy white childish ones, like they’re made from the fur of the abominable snowman, and they look ridiculous against the balding slab of his head. The woman with him, either his sister or maybe his wife--in the way that sometimes people who look alike become couples—is talking at him, nonstop, way too loudly, in some language that might actually be Latin.

“Oblitus dicere!” she says.

He doesn’t respond, just looks glassily off into the distance. Perhaps the earmuffs have made her voice fuzzy and distant. Perhaps this is their purpose.

What makes me laugh the most is that the couple has many, many cans of tuna fish in their cart and nothing else.

 Back out on the street, blinking in the sunlight, I wait for the bus. The two characters are here, like I knew they would be. I think about talking to them, but I don’t know what I’d say.

My mom would sometimes involve herself in other people’s private business. Stuff that was definitely closed to her, but she didn’t care. I try not to be like this, even when I’m curious.

Once, upon coming out of the library, with stacks of books piled in our arms—hers about political conspiracy theories and mine about girls who lived fashionable, glittering lives in New York City—she spotted a couple sitting on a bench at the library’s entrance. It was obvious, immediately, what was happening.

The girl was crying gently and the boy, with a falsely sympathetic face, was speaking quietly and quickly and patting her leg like the way distant relatives do.

My mom marched over. She shifted her stack of books to the crook of her left arm so she could point her right finger accusingly at the couple.

She took a deep breath.

“You don’t need him! You can do much better than an ugly boy like him!” She was shrieking, and the whites of her eyes were huge and lit up, like there was a light bulb illuminated inside her head.

The girl was stunned. But the boy, strangely enough, looked as if he’d been expecting this. He smiled haughtily at my mom, his lips curled up, and that was when I realized it. My mom was one of them. The weirdos on the street. The characters.

I felt myself shrink down, wanting desperately to be somewhere else.

“Stay out of it, lady!” he smirked.  

“Go fuck yourself,” she said.

 Sometimes, once in a blue moon, my mom wasn’t a character. Or, at least, she kept it under wraps. Once, when we were on a plane and the flight attendant angrily slapped a bag of cookies down on my tray table after I took too long deciding between my snack options, my mom smiled a small smile and peered at me out of the corner of her eyes. Her face said, “Somebody’s having a bad day!” I had smiled wide, not caring about the cookies anymore.

I craved these kinds of moments. When we were on the same team. I just knew that there was another world, jogging along right next to ours, that was full of these moments. Where we had inside jokes and camaraderie.

This other earth, though, was almost always frustratingly out of my grasp.

 This morning on the phone she’d told me that she was ready to die.

“I just want to be fucking dead already,” she said. It was so brash and ugly and hard to look at. I stayed quiet on the phone.

After a while she sighed. Sometimes, I had no idea what my mother knew, how wide her awareness extended.

“Maybe you want that too,” she said.

But I didn’t know what world we were in. The real one or the one just out of reach. We were, for once, on the same team. But it was all wrong.

 The houses get steadily uglier as the bug chugs towards my neighborhood. It drops me off a few blocks from my house, and the characters stay on the bus, heading, no doubt, into the even seedier parts of the city.

My shoulders and hands ache with the groceries and I have to stop every block to stretch my fingers and then curl them into fists, pumping blood and sensation back into them. At my house, I peer up at the black sludge down the front of the house, but it doesn’t look too bad today, maybe because of the sunshine. The sun has a way of smoothing out all the ugly things, blurring your vision a little. I wish I could have this effect on people, but I can’t.

I unlock the front door, give it a little kick with my foot so it doesn’t stick, and climb the stairs up to my apartment. I knock my hips against the stair’s railing, forming a soft fleshy bruise I’ll feel for the next few days but which will look oddly beautiful against my skin, because the bags are just too heavy.