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Review: The Cake Eaters

After today a wave of Christmas specials will plague our television screens! I’ll be looking forward to: Doctor Who, Sherlock, The Snowman and His Dog, Love Actually (If it’s on). What about you? But the rest of TV can get so dull around Christmas; It’s good to have a nice film in your back pocket you can rely on to fill the 2 hour gap before your favourite show starts. That is why I recommend ‘The Cake Eaters’! This is a really beautiful film about loss, love and relationships. There are three different story lines in this film. The central character is Georgia (played by Kirsten Stewart). She has a condition called Friedreich's ataxia. It limits her life span and affects the way she moves and the way she talks. But this doesn’t stop Georgia from wanting what most teenage girls wonder about - sex. In the car Georgia asks her Nan, Marg about her first time. Marg: I was seventeen, sixteen. Okay I was fifteen… I was drunk so I don’t remember a lot about it…sugar we don’t have such great luck in this family! At an outdoor junk sale Georgia meets Beagle (played by Aaron Stanford). He serves lunches at her school. Beagle is a young, timid kind-of-guy. He loves Georgia and cares about her. Steph: is he (Beagle) cute? Georgia: he’s interesting Beagle and Georgia get together at her house to do ‘homework’ (wink). But it’s really hard to do ‘homework’ (wink, wink) with your over protecting mother at the door of your room. At home Beagle lives with his dad. His mother passed away a month ago from a bad case of diabetes. We find out that most of the responsibility of her care was left to him. His father, Easy, was having an affair at the time with Georgia’s Nan. But this was kept a secret from Beagle. One night at the butchers, where his father works, Beagle spots them kissing. He confronts his father and Easy tells him the truth about their long-going affair. Beagle then leaves. Guy, Beagle’s brother, (played by Jayce Bartok also writer of the film) has been away in New York for three years tailing his music career. He hears late the news of his mothers death and comes home. Reunited with his family, Guy tries to reconnect with his fiancé, Steph, who he unexpectedly left before going to NYC. But it’s too late. In one scene Guy is outside looking into Stephs home: he sees her with another man and a small child. Guy walks away and ends up visiting the grave of his mother where he sobs an apology to her gravestone.   To cement her grown up decision to experience sex for the first time, Georgia decides to get a hair cut from Steph who is also the local hairdresser. She lets her know what she is planning on doing and Steph tells her to wait but Georgia replies ‘I don’t have a lot of time to wait’. It was at this moment that this love story became different from all the other love stories because Georgia, unlike most girls, doesn’t have her whole life to wait for that moment. It added an interesting complexity to her story. She comes out of the salon looking refreshed. Her hair is cut short like a radical punk rockers to go with her serious attitude. She stretches her arms on the hood of a car and with her eyes closed looks up into the sunlight. Sidenote - This reminded me of the film Delirious - the scene where Toby walks through the town after partying in a hotel with the woman he admires. As he walks through the streets a wave of blossom flies over him through the air. He looks up to the sky and lets the pink flowers waft over his face. There is a same sense of peace in both films. (haven’t seen it? Then consider adding it to your film list!). As an affectionate sentiment to Georgia, Beagle paints a portrait of her. Beagle then rides them to the resort at Georgia’s request. In their room Beagle says he likes her but thinks they’re taking things too fast. Georgia replies that she hasn’t enough time to waste (because of her condition). She eventually shouts at him to ‘just leave!’. Beagle tries to but he realises he can’t leave her there alone. He returns and they finally sleep together. I really liked Georgia and Beagle together. You can see the potential in their relationship. When Beagle returns home after spending the night with Georgia his dad grabs him by his jacket collar. I think that he is going to pin him against the wall but he hugs him instead. Father and son make up. Guy enters and they make dinner as a family together.   I wondered throughout what the meaning of the title was because they didn’t eat any cake in the film. Strangely I even thought they would start a cake club.   Slightly perplexed by the meaning of the film’s title I looked it up. ‘Cake Eaters’ is used to describe the kind of people who have it all in life (this being their cake). But at the start of the film Georgia and Beagle don’t seem this well off: Beagles mum’s died and Georgia just models for her mums photos. Yet at the end of the film they are together and show us that they were able to find their slice of cake and eat it too. Beagle: so I’ll see you at lunch Georgia: yeah Beagle: anything special you want? Georgia: yeah, you. I am always interested in hearing how the other person lives. This is one of those films where you sit back and really get involved in the characters of this small town, seek comfort, and watch relationships begin to bud. Wanting to know what becomes of them will keep you watching to the end!

Good tunes This film is littered with disgustingly good music with meaningful lyrics! Concrete Bed - Nada Surf (I almost screamed when I almost couldn’t find this song) The Frames - Lay Me Down (lyrics: I will return to you…so lay me down) Lauren Pritchard - As Shadows Do (lyrics who told the rain to end…as shadows do)

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Dedication - Film

Hello everyone that stayed up late enough to be awake this early morning! So last night (2 hours ago) I watched a film called ‘Dedication’ starring Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup. In the film a pessimistic, and depressive Henry (played by Billy Crudup), author of a kids book (haha just realised the irony), loses his illustrator friend, Rudy to a tumor. Soon after Rudy is replaced by Lucy, another illustrator, (played by Mandy Moore) who has come out of law school and a break-up. This was a really honest film about two people coming together and falling in love at the end. People aren’t always perfect and Henry definitely is not: he suffered abuse as a kid from his mum. Now he’s hateful against everything that oozes of happiness or romanticism - or is christmasy. …At a book signing at Christmas Henry says to a little girl ‘beaver is another word for vagina’. Then upon meeting Lucy at a cafe gives her the advice to get her head down and ‘tell your boyfriend you’re a dyke’ … Not to mention his bad case of superstitions: he doesn’t drive, he doesn’t turn long metal things clockwise, and he leaves heavy books on his chest to relax him. Lucy is just as funny! I love the scene where she is about to walk out of the bosses door after having enough of Henry’s scepticism, but is offered more money to stay in the job. ‘I am prostituting myself’, she says banging her head against the door as she accepts the offer. So what does the title of the film Dedication mean? Well, In the film Lucy’s ex, Jeremy, is cheating on her and cheekily, having not made up his mind about whom he loves more, writes two dedications in the draft copy of his book that is about to become published. One page is dedicated to Lucy and the other to a girl named Simone. But unlike Jeremy, Henry gets that there is only one dedication and that is to her. So now you’re wondering what is the turning point of the film? What is the point where Henry flourishes Lucy with love? Well, Henry might sound like a jerk but ‘it’s complicated’. It is not that Henry means any of those horrible things, he just has a hard time expressing himself. When he insults Lucy he always takes it back by trying to resolve things - not because he wants to be romantic but because it's what makes her happy. It’s the kind of thing that says ‘I care’. With Lucy he took her to a planetarium because she wanted to see the stars, then he took her to the beach. On the way to the beach, (Lucy driving of course), Henry throws out a draft of Jeremy’s book that he was holding. The same draft that proved her ex was still cheating on her but Henry knew the only real damage letting this out would have been to Lucy. Then, when he gets to the beach house he overcomes his superstition by turning the key clockwise to let Lucy into the house. I nearly forgot, he buys her a telescope! (They probably amount to a treasure chest of gold in real life). He did this because she told him a story about when she was young, and her brother had a telescope he never shared with her so Henry brought her her own. It’s the little things that matter and Henry overcame his issues because he realised there was something more special worth holding onto than any superstition - Lucy. There is some really beautifully written poetry in this film; some is spoken and some is said through action. Example of spoken poetry - Lucy’s ex gets in touch with her to try and win her back. Sitting on her door step he tells her ‘when I wrote, 'window into beauty' I meant it because you are my only window’ (If only he wasn’t two-timing her). Example of poetry through action - Picture this: in a moment of anger the guy you’ve been seeing throws a one-of-a-kind stone that you treasure into a pile of millions of stones lying on a beach. But the next day he realises his mistake and spends the whole day picking out stone after stone to find your one-of-a-kind stone. He searches so furiously that he unmindfully ends up sleeping on the beach the entire night. In the morning he finds the stone. Now that is dedication. The whole thing is meta of course. In the film, Lucy is that stone. She is 1 out of 900 girls and Henry realises that throwing her away was a mistake but finding her was easy because there is no one like her. (This is how it is said in the film - beautiful right?) So If I could sum up what I learnt from this film it would be to always treasure what you have. Henry says ‘I’ve spent my whole life wanting something and doing my very best not to find it. Never even going near the places it might be’ and for some reason people actually do this (people like me). But I think the important thing is that when Henry was faced with what he wanted that he couldn’t let it go because he started to love the ‘joy’ it brought him and realised he’d be mad to ‘skip’ it. Lucy: you’ll never throw it (the stone) away again Henry: never Lucy: it’s the only one like it Henry: I know Bootiful! Sidenote - I noticed that most of Lucy’s black nail polish had almost flaked off her nail - true mark of an indie film:  acknowledging beauty in the normal and everyday. Sweet Tunes So the whole soundtrack is pretty spectacular but one song in particular stood out for me… Deer hoof - our angels ululu. This song marks this film! I think life can feel like guitar strings strummed heavily together sometimes. That is what plays whenever we are In Henry’s head.

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Revenge - Mercy 3x04

  Emily Thorne: suave, kick ass, mysterious, heartless, scheming, boy-magnet, female badass.

  Meet Emily Thorne, our female protagonist. She is out to get revenge on the fearless Grayson family and everyone else involved in framing her father for a crime he did not commit.

  In this week's episode…

  Nolan Ross steps into the love boat with Victoria’s other son Patrick. Since Patrick arrived these two have been getting very close but is it for love or revenge?

  Cut to later by the pool…

Nolan: I just assume. We saw each other at the beach club that maybe we were…

Patrick: you did

Que a full on kiss!

Nolan: have mercy!

Watch out Nolan this boy’s a Grayson!

Whilst Conrad drives to the police to confess his crimes his car crashes. The priest with him innocently died last episode but Conrad survived. Conrad must have, like nine lives, why is this man still alive? Is he immortal? This and realising he never had Huntington’s has made him feel more invincible. As if the Grayson’s aren’t already brooding with enough superiority!

  Last week we saw Aiden working with Victoria against Emily. But at the end of the episode Aiden revealed he was actually working for Emily. This week Aiden gets jealous of Jack Porter. Now Aiden is taking this show on the road – accusing jack of tampering with the car that nearly killed Conrad. Poor Aiden It can’t be easy to love a woman with so many other men in her life. But who will Emily choose at the end of the day: Daniel, Aiden or Jack? She’s spoilt for choice.

  Since Emily told Jack (her childhood friend) she is the real Amanda Clarke I had hoped they would finally be a couple. Sadly the truth came too late for Jack whose wife and brother, Declan, died last season. Finally, today Jack pulled her by the arm and asked to be involved in Emily’s revenge plan; to take down the same people that murdered his family. It was so much fun seeing Jack and Emily together at the Car site. It’s just a shame that they aren’t more than revenge partners!

  Last season Nolan was arrested for blowing up Grayson Global and for unleashing Carrion. The computer program that was used by the initiative to cause a major black out throughout New York City. The terrorist organisation, the initiative implicated him and also forced Padma, his love, to give evidence against him. Since the beginning of the season Nolan has fasted from technology but finally he’s giving up his new diet to investigate Patrick. Now the damage can really begin!

  Who exactly is Patrick? And why does his ex-wife hate him so much? But for $20,000 I think Nolan will soon be finding out. 

  Fashion alert! I can’t help noticing Nolan Ross is wearing all the right clothes this season. If only I could have an outfit for every occasion.

  Meanwhile Victoria is reunited with an old friend - the owner of an art gallery. Did anyone else notice the daggers behind both their smiles during their conversation before the party? If we had taken off our rose-tinted glasses we would have seen two cats scratching at each other. Getting into bed with Victoria never ends well. Unlucky for this manager she just got demoted by the Grayson to changing light bulbs. Surprisingly Victoria was helped by Patrick. It really is how they say, like mother like son!

    Highlights

  Conrad to Victoria – ‘are you still chewing that same bone’

Yeah for 3 seasons now!  

  Favourite tunes of the episode

  Flume warm thoughts

I move around by gospel claws

  JC

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Welcome to the Film List

This is a lighthearted attempt to give meaning to the numerous hours we dedicate to watching films and television weekly. We watch anything. 

Some of the reviews coming up include Awkward, Bob's Burgers, Revenge, Community, Parks and Recreation, GOT and films from genres including indie drama, comedy, action, fantasy and the incredibad.