thoughts on Knocked Up

So after enjoying This is 40 so much the other day, I decided to watch Knocked Up again. When I saw it for the first time back in 2007, I thought it had some funny parts but didn't like it that much as a whole, but after seeing This is 40 I had this suspicion that I might have been too hard on it the first time. It turns out I was; this time around, I had no major problems with the concept or the story, and I liked the characters, and I found the whole thing basically plausible. I think back in 2007 I had a problem with Seth Rogen's character, Ben, but this time, I thought he seemed like basically a nice guy. He has some creepy roommates (seriously, that Jay guy? Gross. And the way Jason fixates on Debbie? And he's her personal trainer in This is 40? How is Pete okay with that?), and he needs to quit smoking pot and get a job, but lots of people live with roommates when they're twenty-three, and he does eventually stop smoking pot and get a job, so...yeah. The following things made me go "Hmmm," however:

1) Allison (Katherine Heigl) REALLY likes Ben, right from the beginning. She stays at the bar with him when her sister has to go, even though they've only been talking for a couple of minutes at that point. She invites him back to her place with no hesitation. Then, after she finds out she's pregnant and they get together to try to get to know each other...one minute they're kissing, and then they cut to them having breakfast with Pete and Debbie's family the next morning and Debbie is giving the girls this elaborate explanation about how he just happened to come over for breakfast, and I'm like, "Wait...what? They slept together again?" I literally rewound to confirm that this is what had happened. Like, it's not like they were just trying to make things work because she was pregnant. She was super into him right away. I don't think I got that the first time around. Hmmm.

2) Debbie flies off the handle at Pete when she finds out that he's been making up excuses to go out and do things like play fantasy baseball and see movies by himself. Allison agrees that Pete doing this was super selfish, and in fact kicks Ben out of her car when he doesn't agree. What the heck? As confirmed in This is 40, Pete is a Lying Liar Who Lies, but...why can't he ever spend time away from the family? Why is this such a big deal? Hmmmm.

3) Seriously...how did Ben not have a job already? He tells Allison this story about how he was hit by a mail truck in high school and got a $13,000 settlement, but...that's not that much money. Hmmm.

Other random observations that did not make me go hmmm:

1) How cute are Sadie and Charlotte in this one? Charlotte's hair is so curly, and she's always wearing some sort of costume instead of real clothes. Adorable.

2) That whole conversation between Pete and Ben when they're on shrooms and talking about all of the different chairs in the hotel room is INTENSE. Pete: "Debbie's and my worst problem is that she loves me so much that she wants me around more. How is that a problem? Why can't I accept her love?" Ben: "You can't accept her love? Why? Why can't you accept her love? She's so pretty, and her hair always looks different, and..." Me: "Whoa, this is getting weird."

3) The first time I saw this in the theater, I recall whispering to my friend Kelly, "That Asian stoner chick has all of my clothes." (The character's actual name is Jodi, BTW.) She does, in fact, wear two shirts from American Eagle that I used to have. In fact, I just got rid of one of them this past summer because the threads started unraveling in one of the sleeves; watching this, I was like, "Man, I wore that shirt for like five years. What a great shirt. I wish I still had it."

Okay. I think that's it.

thoughts on This is 40

I daresay that this was a great movie, everyone. I usually find Judd Apatow pretty hit-or-miss-- I thought The 40-Year-Old Virgin was very funny and sweet; thought Knocked Up had good intentions and some funny parts but wasn't that great as a whole; and hated Funny People-- but I really, really liked this one. I've heard some comments that it was about thirty minutes too long, and I can see that; there are some scenes that go on a little too long, and others that were funny but didn't really advance the plot and therefore probably could have been cut. However, I seriously enjoyed every minute. I'm not kidding. It just felt so real.

Here's what I've found in my own life, and I discussed this a little bit during my blog on the most recent episode of Nashville: you think that relationship drama (both with friendships and romantic relationships) is going to disappear when you get older, but if anything, it just gets more intense. You have more history with people. It's harder to just walk away from relationships. People continue not to always say what they mean, and feelings get hurt. Your own personal problems start to involve financial issues, career dissatisfaction, and health problems, none of which are easily solved. However, there is also a certain level of getting real as you get older-- of determining what's really important, who you really want around, who you're stuck with for better or worse, what dreams you need to hold onto and what you need to let go of. You get less dramatic and stop thinking that one bad decision has ruined, or is going to ruin, your whole life. You also start to see the world as a lot less black and white; when you're younger, you think that you would never do this or put up with that, but then, yeah, you do, and it's not the end of the world. And it's all messy, and it's emotional, and the only way to avoid it is to never take any chances or get close to anyone, and it's all here in this movie. Pete cries alone in his car after a concert his record label has put a lot of money into doesn't go well. Sadie, their older daughter, screams at them for taking away her computer, phone, etc.; she's mad at them for reading her text messages and Facebook pages, but she's also upset that they took all of this away when she was just TWO EPISODES away from finishing Lost. Pete and Debbie have a conversation about how they would murder each other, and another one in which they wonder if they would even still be together if she hadn't gotten pregnant fourteen years ago, and another one in which they tell each other they're each other's favorite people. Pete hides their financial troubles from Debbie, which seems really, really awful of him, but then he points out to her that he feels like he has to lie and hide things because she overreacts to every little thing, and it's true: this is a grown-ass man who can't even eat a cupcake without getting yelled at. Neither of them are perfect, and sometimes you wonder if they should even be together, but they're both committed to the marriage, which means they see each other at their very best and very worst, and WE see them at their very best and very worst, and it's pretty great.

Here is my single favorite part of the movie: Pete and Debbie find that some kid has been posting rude things to Sadie's Facebook page, that he made a Hot-or-Not list and put her on the "Not" list. Debbie confronts this kid and absolutely goes off on him, like swears and threatens him and makes him cry. Then his mom (Melissa McCarthy) confronts Pete, and he goes off on HER, and at one point I think he threatens to hit her son with his car. The three parents eventually wind up in the principal's office, and this kid's mom tells the principal everything the two of them have said, and the two of them just FLAT-OUT LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH AND DENY EVERYTHING. I don't know why I found that so awesome, but I did. Also, Melissa McCarthy just keeps saying worse and worse things (she tells the principal something like, "I'm glad your husband died. He probably killed himself because he hates you"), and they include more of her rant during the credits, and it is hilarious.

I really, really liked this, everyone. Would definitely recommend.

thoughts on The Silver Linings Playbook (spoilers)

There is a scene in this movie that is not in the book upon which it is based, and which I feel is really necessary to understanding the Tiffany character (Jennifer Lawrence), both for the audience and for Pat (Bradley Cooper). Pat's father, Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro), is freaking out because the Philadelphia Eagles lost a game that he had a lot of money riding on, and he's blaming Pat and Tiffany. He's very superstitious about the games, and he claims that the Eagles have been bound for a loss like the one they suffered that day ever since Pat started spending so much time with Tiffany instead of watching all of the games with his dad. Tiffany gets angry, and you think that she's going to go off on how stupid all of Pat Sr.'s superstitions are and how obviously her relationship with Pat has no impact on whether the Eagles win or lose. Instead, she starts rattling off a bunch of scores and explaining what she and Pat were doing during each of those games, explaining that the Eagles actually always win when she and Pat are together, and would have won that day if Pat had been with her like they'd planned. It's pretty brilliant; obviously, none of that has any impact on whether the Eagles win or lose, but Pat Sr. obviously believes that it does, and it's highly unlikely that someone telling him tht he's wrong is going to make him go, "Oh, okay. You're right." In a later scene, after Pat has realized that Tiffany has done something dishonest to make him realize that his marriage to his ex-wife is over, he will note that she "treated crazy with crazy," and yeah, when explained that way, it makes sense.

I recently read the book The Silver Linings Playbook and really disliked a lot of aspects of it, including the way that Tiffany manipulates Pat; I posted a review of it on Goodreads and was told that I just didn't understand it, and that Tiffany was helping Pat in the way he needed to be helped. The thing is that in the book you kind of have to figure that out for yourself and agree with her methods with no real explanation of them; the book is written in the first person from Pat's perspective, so at times it is very difficult to understand Tiffany, which is a real problem, because on the surface, a lot of her actions come across as pretty selfish/manipulative/etc. I found it amazing, in the movie, how just the addition of the scene with Pat Sr., as well as a couple of other similar scenes, made all the difference in making Tiffany's actions seem more acceptable.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, everyone. I don't care for Bradley Cooper and didn't like the book (as previously stated), but they made a lot of smart changes from book to movie that made the story work a lot better for me. In the book, Pat doesn't remember what he did to wind up in the psychiatric hospital until near the end, and Tiffany doesn't reveal the details surrounding the aftermath of her husband's death until late in the story, as well, and it just helped *so much* to understand why the characters are the way they are earlier in the game. Also, Pat Sr. is much kinder here, which also helped. I actually, despite all of the acting nominations that this movie has received, thought the performances were just okay. I liked Bradley Cooper here more than I usually do, but let's face it, he often plays complete douchebags, and his character on Alias was Just the Worst. Jennifer Lawrence mostly just gets to act angry throughout most of this, but she has some good moments, as in the previously mentioned scene with Pat's dad, as well as when she sees tht Pat's ex-wife has, in fact, come to the dance competition and just instantly bursts into tears.

Not bad, friends. Not bad at all.

Nashville!

So. There have been a few episodes since the holiday break and I haven't felt it necessary to blog about them until now, but after last night's episode, I have quite a bit to say.

Okay, so I LOVE Rayna's new (though I guess now fired) guitarist, Liam. I love their chemistry onstage, I love how ridiculous he finds Juliette, I love how clear it is that he wants something more with Rayna, I love how he challenges her to be her best/try new things. I just plain love him. I was disappointed when she fired him and thought she should have at least talked things over with him. She's kind of a hothead, huh? I hope that his time on the show is not over; I'm sort of getting the impression that we were just supposed to think of him as a temporary replacement for Deacon, but the thing is that she is different with him than with Deacon. Deacon just kind of put his life on hold for her for all those years; he's never really asked for more from her or, professionally, challenged her or made her better, though they are good together musically. I know that Deacon stopped putting his life on hold for her and that his agreeing to be Juliette's guitarist has changed things, but despite the preview for next week's episode in which Deacon kisses Rayna, I am rooting for Deacon and Rayna not to get back together. Much as I hate Juliette, I think she actually seems to understand Deacon and that the two of them would be good for each other. He helps her be more serious as a musician; she encourages him to break free from Rayna and fulfill his potential. That's my two cents, right there. No Deacon and Rayna...despite the fact that the scene where she goes to see him and she's all, "I can't do this anymore," and he's like, "So stop. Doing it," was AMAZING.

Also amazing was all the stuff with Teddy. I don't care for him and think that he and Rayna are completely wrong for each other. However, I like that the show is respecting the complexity and seriousness of marriage. Even if, as Teddy suggests to Rayna in the episode, she made the "wrong choice for the right reasons" by marrying him, even if he has done some shady stuff as of late, and even if she is attracted to Liam and still has feelings for Deacon, they've been together for twelve years. They have children. That absolutely should not be easy to walk away from, and I like that it's not easy for either of them, even though I think they both know deep down that their relationship is doomed. Also: OH MY GOD. That scene at the end? Where Rayna tells Teddy that she's still his wife and still committed to making things work? And then here comes Deacon rushing to get on the plane? I know that there's no way she could have known that Juliette had hired Deacon, but-- WHAT MUST TEDDY HAVE BEEN THINKING IN THAT MOMENT?! His glaring at the plane with gritted teeth was AWESOME. What a kick in the pants-- and what an amazing ending for the episode. That, coupled with the preview for next week with Deacon kissing Rayna on the elevator, had me gasping out loud at the end of the episode.

I like this show for a number of reasons. Sure, there is a "naughty fun" aspect to it in that it is soapy and dramatic. However, I also find the dramatic aspect of it strangely comforting. I sometimes feel like there is too much drama in various aspects of my own life, and that I'm too old for it, that certain types of drama should go away when you're an adult. Why would I expect that, though? You may get more mature as you get older, but relationships continue to be complicated-- if anything, they get moreso as you get older. Emotions are still difficult to deal with. People don't always say what they mean or do what they want. Things get confusing. People get hurt. Watching Rayna argue with Teddy about whether she should have chosen Deacon and whether there is anything going on with Liam, I was just like, "Yeah. Life's tough."

You'll notice I haven't mentioned Gunner and Scarlett. They're cute, but kind of boring, and also not connected enough to the main storyline of the show. Too many degrees separate them and Rayna James, who, let's face it, is the star here.