thoughts on Young Adult/other randomness

1)I've thought to myself more than once this past semester, "Why are TV and movies so crappy these days? I used to really enjoy TV and movies." I think the issue is actually largely with me. I've been really busy this semster, and, thus, much more impatient and critical, at least when it comes to entertainment. If I'm going to go to the movies, it has to be something I REALLY want to see. If I'm going to watch a TV show, then every episode had better be, at the very least, pretty good. The end result of this is that I've been to the movies only four times this semester, counting today, and that I've stopped watching both Glee and The Office. For the most part, I think this is a Good Thing, because though I had, before today, seen only three fall movies (50/50, Footloose, and The Muppets), I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Less quantity, more quality, is what it comes down to.

2)Anyway, whether the issue is actually with me or not, the previews featured at today's showing of Young Adult indicated to me that movies are about to get awesome again. Coming to us in the (relatively) near future are This Means War, a spy vs. spy movie featuring Reese Witherspoon that looks Just Awesome; American Reunion, a sequel to the American Pie movies (I know!!!! They made a sequel!!! Featuring what looks like the WHOLE original cast!!! I will gladly admit that the American Pie movies got progressively worse as they went along, but...if you can't tell from the number of exclamation points, I'm excited about this), and Rock of Ages. Now, I don't know much about Rock of Ages, but apparently it was a Broadway musical, and from the looks of the preview, the concept is that a bunch of actors that I kind of like sing all of my favorite songs from the 80s. In other words, other than Hunger Games, it may very well be the coolest thing I see in 2012. I'm serious.

3)Okay, so Young Adult. In a nutshell, this is a movie where Charlize Theron's character, Mavis, does a bunch of things that made me mentally chastise her multiple times during the movie: "You're being so inappropriate!," and, "You shouldn't drive! You're drunk! You got a cab that other time! What the heck?!," and, "Stop drinking so much! Just leave like he told you to!," and, at one point, simply, "Stop it." It's much like when Friday Night Lights was still on and I used to sit there the whole time yelling, "Stop it, Tim!," or just, "Tim Riggins!" Both Mavis and Tim are heavy drinkers, so there you go.

Anyway, the actual plot of Young Adult is that a woman who was a big deal in high school, and who thinks she's better than everyone still living in her hometown (she moved away to Minneapolis), decides to go back home to try to win back her high school boyfriend, who is married and whose wife just had a baby. This is a bad idea in the first place, but while there she keeps getting drunk and doing increasingly inappropriate stuff. She also makes friends with a guy she ignored in high school, Matt; the parts where the two of them hang out are the most enjoyable parts of the movie. The rest of the movie is fairly uncomfortable to watch, but I'll still say that I enjoyed it as a whole. Like, at first I wasn't really buying Charlize Theron as Mavis; she's a little bit too pretty to play a woman who was once the prettiest girl in a small-town high school. And she looked just wrong schlumping around in a Hello Kitty t-shirt and sweats. I started to like her more in the role as the movie went on, but I still think it would have worked better for the part if Mavis were played by someone who was only reasonably attractive but thought she was way better-looking than she actually was.

Also...I like Diablo Cody, who wrote this movie. Juno is one of my favorite movies. However, the more Diablo Cody works I see/read, the more I realize that all of her characters kind of sound the same. On the one hand, I guess that's good because it means she has a distinctive style. On the other hand, it doesn't really make sense, given how different the characters she writes actually are. The weird thing about this movie is that everything that Diablo Cody has written up until this point has suggested to me that she has a very positive view of humanity. This is one of the things I like about her, actually: that most of her characters react to the events in their lives in a much nicer/cooler way than what I would expect, given my own experiences. This movie is darker, though the thing here is that most of the people in this movie react to *Mavis* in a much nicer/cooler way than what you would expect. The sad thing is that many of them do this because they either feel sorry for her or don't care much about her one way or the other. So, yeah. Dark. I kind of walked away with the impression that we weren't really supposed to like either Mavis *or* the people from her hometown, which seemed weird, for a Diablo Cody movie. Hmm.

A random thing that occurred to me as I was watching this movie: my parents no longer live in the house I lived in when I was in high school, so I have no idea whether or not it's normal for parents to keep their child's room *exactly like she left it when she graduated and moved out*, as Mavis's parents do. It seems kind of creepy and excessive; like, obviously, I can see keeping *a bedroom* for your child, and leaving a couple of things on the wall that she would like (my parents do this for me, even in their new house), but you would think that they might need to also use that room for other things. That said, it made me giggle when Mavis dug through her old container of scrunchies, because-- hee. I had so many scrunchies.

Another random thing that occurred to me as I was watching this movie: before Mavis leaves Minneapolis, she complains to a friend (another former Mercury, Minnesota resident now living in the city) about how horrible their hometown is, leading me to believe that she is from some total backwoods hole. Then she gets to the hotel she's staying at and I'm genuinely confused, all, "Wait...is she stopping somewhere on the way to her hometown? Because this place doesn't seem that bad. Or small. They have a Chili's." The longer she is in Mercury, the more of these confused thoughts I have: "But there's a Thai restaurant! How small can this place be if they have a Thai restaurant?" And her ex-boyfriend, Buddy, asks her to meet her at a sports bar that she thinks is totally lame, and I'm all, "What? It looks like Buffalo Wild Wings. I wouldn't go there every day, but it's fun now and then." Also, her ex-boyfriend invites her to come see his wife's band play, explaining that the band members are a bunch of moms who enjoy playing together. "They're bad, huh?" Mavis asks conspiratorially. Buddy kind of just shrugs, but when we actually see them play, I think to myself, "Aw, they're not bad at all! They're a good little cover band! And they look like they're having so much fun!" I guess what this comes down to is that 1) I've lived in places a heck of a lot smaller than Mercury, Minnesota, so chill out, Mavis, and 2) I'm less of a jerk than she is.

Final random thought: at one point, Mavis comments that she is depressed, and Matt suggests that she go out and get some exercise or something. Me: "Oh, that probably would help a lot! It's weird that she never works out!"

So...yeah. I both enjoyed it and found in uncomfortable. I'd recommend it overall, though.