Girlfriends

So my email the other day about sisterhoods in packs of four kind of got me thinking about girlfriends.  The three other girlfriends in my sisterhood are spread throughout the west coast and sometimes it feels like a piece of myself is missing when I don’t get to experience things with them.

I was watching the news the other day and there was a story about how a group of scientists had done a study on women and their social habits and they had found that one of the main reasons women live longer than men is their relationships with other women.  I’m not a scientist so I can’t really explain it but the report said that there was/is something about that social relationship that contributed positively to women’s health.  Women who didn’t have close girlfriends lived about as long as men did.

Whereas my email before was more of a look at specific numberings of groups of women (and not altogether serious), this is something that I find to be really interesting.  As much as I love my girlfriends sometimes they drive me crazy, and I’m certain I do the same to them.  I mean, there have been times when I was simultaneously holding their hair back as they vomited boxes of wine into our previously clean bathroom, and wanting to absolutely kill them for putting me in a position where I was now covered in bile.  There have been times when I want nothing more than to just go see a movie with the three of them but can’t because we live 1000 miles away from each other.  And there are times when I’m completely in my own life, not a thought about them, but somehow, as ridiculous as this sounds, they’re still with me.  They made me who I am and I can’t be anyone else around them because they know me completely.

Maybe that’s the part that really lends itself to healthier lifestyles, when you have a group of people who won’t allow you to be anyone but yourself, you can’t put up defenses or put on tough girl acts.  Embarrassingly enough, after watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, I came to the realization that we’re all out there kind of putting on a tough front (specifically when you have to be in the dating pool).  I know my friends and I are constantly pretending like certain boys and certain things don’t have any sort of hold over us when they do.  Sure, we might be able to brush certain things off, but sometimes it hurts, and sometimes we pretend it doesn’t.  The thing is though, when I’m with my girlfriends, they always know.  They know when it really hurts and when it doesn’t.  They know when I need to lie to myself and when I need to be slapped in the face with the truth.

The girlfriend dynamic is an interesting one.  As Tibby says in the original Traveling Pants movie (I’m paraphrasing), we can fight because we know that we’ll always love each other.  That’s really what matters to me.  Who cares that we refuse to grow up (we are talking about the girls who sneak booze into the movie theater, take pictures with our asses showing in Las Vegas and who all would rather travel around and visit each other than start working on a career)?  We will always, in some ways, be eighteen years old around each other, and in other ways, we’ll always be the older one taking care of the others when we need it.  And that’s the beauty of female friendship.

Peace, Love, and People Who Know You Better Than You Know Yourself,
Julia

Fearsome Foursome

I just got back from watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with one of my best girlfriends (yes, she and I and two others have matching tattoos of lips on our left butt cheeks; we’re classy ladies, I know), and I got to thinking about girls and groups of four.  What is it about female groups of four friends?  Is it that we form foursomes because we so often see them in the media or is it that the media is simply saw these fabulous four-groups of women and saw huge potential?

In any case, it is an interesting kind of phenomenon.  Sure, groups of four lend themselves to drama.  Sex and the City, Little Women, even The View, have four women talking and not talking, agreeing and disagreeing, fighting and loving each other.  In every case the four women are significantly different, and yet they all turn out to be such good friends.  Sex and the City we all know and love, the pessimist (Miranda), the optimist (Charlotte), the writer (Carrie), and the slutty one (Samantha), who, throughout the course of the show realize that they each have a little bit of the other ones inside of each other.  

In fact, all the four girls movies carry this theme be it in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,Grease (before Sandy joins the Pink Ladies), Now and Then (if you’re my age you know it well),Designing Women or even Golden Girls, all the ladies couldn’t be more different, yet couldn’t love each other more.

It’s the same with my three best girlfriends.  We all come from different backgrounds, different places.  We all behave differently in different situations.  Sometimes we bug the crap out of each other, but we always love each other.  We call each other on our bullshit, we let each other believe the bullshit when we need to, and sometimes we know each other better than we know ourselves.  What is always fun to me is when we try to discover ourselves within our onscreen counterparts.

I was lucky enough to have lived with my three girls in college and in that time we made what can only be referred to as an urban family.  We were shoulders to cry on when boys broke our hearts, we poked fun when certain bodily fluids from certain gentlemen callers ended up on articles of clothing and whatnot, and we were there when we just needed to be crazy.  In fact, we’re still there for all of that.  We’ll still go see the Sisterhood, sneak in and drink a bottle of champagne on a Thursday afternoon, and come out talking about how much we all miss each other, how much we want to all be together when these kind of movies come out.  And it doesn’t feel like a socialized construct for the four of us to be friends, but is it?  Are we just a product of reading Louisa May Alcott or seeing Golden Girls, are we a product of watching Now and Then ad naseum as kids, are we products of numerous nights of Sex and the City and cosmopolitans?  Or is something older, something more primitive and primal at work?  Are we like the women of yore who hunted and gathered in groups of four (did they even hunt and gather in groups of four?  did they hunt and gather?)?

What’s the deal with the foursomes?  

Peace, Love, and Sisterhoods,

Julia

P.S. Perhaps I’ll have to write about threesomes (and not the naughty kind) someday where we will discuss Charlie’s Angels, Crossroads (starring Britney Spears), Clueless and Mean Girls, among others.  

Who Watches the Watchmen?

I’m back from the best weekend of my life. That may be an exaggeration, but it was freaking awesome. Yes, that’s right, this weekend for the first time I went to Comic-Con International in sunny San Diego California (shout out to my cousin and cousin-in-law who let me crash in their house with the, literally, tons of free crap that I accumulated.

Comic-Con is not for the faint of heart. It is four and a half days of fanboys and fangirls dressed as anything from Storm Troopers to Cling-ons, Sailor Moon characters (I apologize but that is the only anime I know) to The Spirit. It’s a veritable free-for-all of nerds. In other words, it’s my mecca. As Phoebe said in one episode of Friends, ‘It’s like the mother ship is calling you home.’ Of course, she was speaking of Bloomingdales, but I did get a big frakkin bag to take home with me.

Yes, it was a fantastic weekend. But Comic-Con 2008 just happened to be the Comic-Con where the most anticipated comic book movie ever was being promoted. It’s a little movie I like to call Watchmen.

Yes, Watchmen is a movie based on a Comic book. But it’s based on THE comic book. Basically, if any of you came to me and said, Julia, I want to start reading graphic novels because I’ve heard that they aren’t just men in tights battling weird creatures. I would say to you, okay, start with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, both of which were written in 1986 and basically changed the face of comics as we know them. Before these two books comics weren’t taken seriously, but these books went to a darker, more adult place with superheroes. Basically, they went somewhat realistic because really, if superheroes were real things they would be fucked up in the head. I mean, we’re talking about men and women who put themselves above the law and the workings of the law. They dress in costume and fight criminals, sometimes killing them in the process. Batman may never kill the Joker, but there are other bad guys that die along the way at his hands.

Yes, comic-con was a Watchmen-fest. But one other big comic book movie is coming out at the end of this year, and its presence didn’t go unnoticed in the face of the Watchmen-mania. This movie would be The Spirit. Will Eisner, the king of comics (the awards for comics are called the Eisners for a reason), created The Spirit in the 1940s. He’s a grittier and sexier superhero along the lines of The Shadow and the movie is directed by a comic book writer you may have heard of: Frank Miller (he wrote Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns among others).

Yes, it’s a good day for comics and for film. What I realized at Comic-Con while walking through the 135,000 people in attendance: These are the people that dictate popular culture. These are the people that make The Dark Knight the fastest grossing movie of all time (it’s been out for just over a week and has made over $400 Million worldwide), they are the people that make or break t.v. shows, they are the people who dictate what’s cool and what’s not, yet they are the people who get/got picked on in high school, who’d rather spend time in front of their computer than at a bar. It’s quite a spot to be in, both loved and mocked, but no one ever said that being a geek was easy, and would we like our geekiness so much if it were mainstream?

Peace, Love, and Rorschach,
Julia

Psychological Damage

I don’t know if anyone has ever witnessed the actual act of a parent fucking up a child, but it’s pretty disturbing.  Yes it’s true, I’m not a parent (nor probably ever will be).  I also think that no matter what you come out of childhood with some kind of damage to your psyche, isn’t that the very nature of becoming an adult?  Being damaged to some extent.  But when you actually witness a parent say something to a really young child that is sure to give them a serious complex, it’s one of the most disturbing, and sadistically fascinating experiences of all time.  

I went to go see Mamma Mia! for the second time – yes it opened on Friday and I’ve seen it twice – this morning in Century City.  Century City is directly next to Beverly Hills and below Westwood, it’s kind of ritzy to say the least.  So I see the film and I’m in my euphoric ABBA-induced haze, humming Waterloo to myself.  I’ll admit, I probably don’t look all that sane.  I’m making my way through the spotlessly clean, Leave it to Beaver outdoor mall, the perfectly manicured palm trees swaying in the mild Santa Ana winds.  And to my left I hear a family, a mom, a dad and a daughter that couldn’t have been more than two.  The little girl was squirming to be put down and toddle along next to her parents.  This girl’s mother was one of those uber-yoga ladies.  She was in a Juicy Couture yoga suit, perfect blonde highlights and a body that must have cost more than my car.  Her daughter is walking at the pace of a two year old, as two year olds tend to do and the mother actually asks her daughter if she knows what speed walking is, tells her that she’s going to need to walk faster if she has to walk, then claps in time with how fast she should be walking.  Now all this is simply annoying, and I wouldn’t have been appalled if the mother had not then said to her daughter, and this is verbatim, ‘C’mon honey, you have to walk off that ice cream you ate.’  

It’s a sad shocking feeling when you are listening to a conversation like this and realize that poor innocent little girl with blonde ringlets and chubby little kid legs will have issues with food for the rest of her life.  It made me glad to have not grown up in L.A. and made me happy that I’m not one of those people who gets dragged into the crap of it.  

I guess that little girl will become an adult early.  Good luck kid.

Peace, Love, and Mamma Mia!

Julia

P.S. The Dark Knight is great (Heath Ledger steals the show) and Mamma Mia is great if you’re cool with an hour and a half of ABBA cheesiness.  I’m down for hours and hours and hours of it. 

Culture War and the City

No matter what you thought of Sex and the City, the T.V. Show or the Movie, there is no question that it was groundbreaking.  Finally a show that showed women, real, flawed women.  Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte aren’t cliches, though they may be somewhat caricature-like at times.  

Since the release, and amazing success, of the movie, dozens and dozens of articles have been written about this ‘phenomenon.’  The articles have mostly been about how shocking it is that this movie did well; the ones I like are about how ridiculous it it to find this shocking.  But one article in particular caught my interest.  Not only does it bring up a somewhat horrifying look at a, I guess you can’t call it a culture war, gender war, but it brings up a particularly terrifying point about how far women have come really, the consensus, it is considerably less far than we thought.  

Consider this, Sex and the City was the first time on television (and it was on a channel that most people don’t get) women got to be flawed and imperfect and sexual and deep and shallow and tough and weak and fashionable all at once.  And the show came on the air in 1998.  

According to the Newsweek article, many men can’t stand Sex and the City, and not in the way many women can’t stand Football season or the Final Four or Sylvester Stallone Movies where we don’t want to watch it, but have no problem going out and doing our own thing while the men in our lives enjoy them.  No, men seem to actively hate Sex and the City to the point where they will bombard imdb.com to make the movie’s rating one the lowest of the year.  This is a movie, that, on the whole, got relatively positive reviews, and, I’ll put in my two cents, I absolutely loved.  More importantly, it was a movie that my mom, a self-proclaimed SATC hater, loved.  So why this backlash?  I can’t bring myself to bear the thought that a great many men would actively take this source of so much joy as a threat, but is there another explanation?  Are men threatened by the thought that our female friends are exceedingly important to us, perhaps, at times more important than men themselves?  In this new age where we are getting married and settling down later and later, your friends are the ones that have been there.  I’m not much of a relationship-y kind of person, but the vast majority of my friendships have outlasted multiple romantic relationships.  I’ve been there through numerous of my friends breakups and they’ve been there through my heartaches as well.  It stands to reason that these relationships become important, and more important than many of our romantic involvements.  Now, this is not to say that I don’t love men.  I do, sometimes to my own detriment.  This is not to say that I don’t want men.  Again, I do, sometimes to my own detriment.  This is just to say that my romantic relationships with men are not necessarily the most important relationships that I have.  Perhaps this fact scares men, but when the tables are turned, I completely expect that men will have close bonds with their friends that might be more important, and, for the most part, much different, than a relationship they have with me.  Do I feel threatened by this? No.  

On an almost completely unrelated subject, but still a Sex and the City subject, someone, as we were having a discussion about the men in the movie, asked me to name one ‘good’ man in the movie.  This struck me as somewhat of an odd question seeing as, I, as do many other women, love all the men that our ladies ended up with.  Personally, and I can’t speak for my friend, I think that all of the men in Sex and the City are ‘Good’ Men.  They’re not perfect men, that’s for sure.  They’re real.  Like our ladies, they have flaws, they make mistakes, they say the wrong things, sometimes they do things that hurt their significant others, but they are good men.  I won’t give anything away in case you haven’t seen the movie yet, but I will say that all the men make mistakes, as do the women.  Much like in the show, the people in the movie are not, as I said, cliched-stereotypes.  Mr. Big is not some asshole out to break Carrie’s heart.  Steve isn’t some poor bartender who has to, over and over again, convince Miranda to not be so cynical when it comes to men.  Smith isn’t constantly trying to get Samantha to open up.  And Harry, is well, he’s Harry.  And sure, as in any good movie, there is conflict and people hurt for a time.  But really, in the movie the girls and the guys hurt on equal scales.  It’s just that the story is about the girls, not the guys.  And really, that’s the point.

Peace, Love, and Culture Wars,

Julia

Pride

The gays are out in L.A. this weekend.  That’s right, it’s pride weekend in L.A. and I had front row tickets.  Lord knows I can’t miss out on spending the weekend with a bunch of Fabulous men and women.  

For anyone who hasn’t experienced it Pride Weekend in West Hollywood looks something like a huge carnival full of beautiful men that have no interest in me and beautiful women who also have no interest in me.  They shut down San Vicente Blvd., take over multiple parking lots and a relatively large park, there are four different D.J. areas, all complete with dancing, there’s a gay cowboy/cowgirl area (one of my personal favorites), an erotica exposition area where proper use of whips and chains are demonstrated to the public (this area is also inhabited by many older people wearing neon fanny packs and sporting huge cameras, taking pictures of the cute boys in boxer-briefs who hand out condoms and flavored lube).  Basically, it’s my heaven. 

Now, in comparison to San Francisco, West Hollywood is just much different.  Not better or worse, but different.  It isn’t as in your face as San Francisco (I have to say, after hours in SF, I tend to have to have a whiskey or three; there are some things better left to the imagination), but there also aren’t as many drag queens.  In fact, I only saw one in WeHo.  She happened to be a pretty famous one named Chi Chi La Rue, but there was only one.  Drag Queens are one of my favorite parts of San Francisco and pride weekend, they’re just so over the top, so flamboyant, it brings out my inner fabulously gay man to be around them.  

Of course, this being Los Angeles, we had to have some wonderful movie items.  I happened to score a Mamma Mia! poster and a fan proclaiming me Dancing Queen.  There are some rather incriminating photos with a fake chiquita banana hat on and one with my head in the body of a buff cartoon proclaiming my avid use of rogaine.  

On the plus side I also got to sign up for the AIDS walk and the human rights council that fights for gay rights (I finally have time to take up political and humanitarian causes now that I’m not working 100 hours a week).  Plus, I got to dance to DJ Chi Chi La Rue.  

All in all, it was everything I could ever want from a pride weekend.  Free stuff, surrounded by people celebrating themselves (and their newfound right to marry), sun, and great music.  The only thing missing was my harem of gay men.  So fellas, next year I expect you to be here.

Peace, Love, and Girls who like Boys who like Boys,

Julia

Women’s Lib: Redux

With the weekend we’re all waiting for bearing down on us (that would be next weekend with the release of Sex and the City), Entertainment Weekly gleefully returned to a favorite topic: the fab four New York ladies we all would love to be (and be friends with).  In an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker, talking about getting the movie made, she cites the success of The Devil Wears Prada as a major catalyst in Sex and the City finally being greenlit.  She also hopes that the probable success of Sex and The City will open up the market for more films where women actually move beyond the girlfriend, the housewife, the assistant, or the teacher.  

It is a cliched statement to make that there are no good roles for women.  The other day I was told about an article criticizing movies like Iron Man because of Gwenyth Paltrow’s marginalized role in it.  Of course, the roles for women aren’t as deep as male roles.  This has and is still changing, but it’s true that many times female roles are relatively shallow.  Gwenyth Paltrow, on the other hand, took a role that could have been shallow and made it fantastic, so there you have it (also, it’s a superhero movie so the rules are a little different).  

Even still, there is a significant void when it comes to movies for women.  With the death of the romantic comedy sometime in the mid to late 90s (though there have been one or two notable death rattles), movies that are made to appeal to women are, for the most part, totally condescending and just plain bad (27 Dresses, Maid of Honor, anyone?).  

So here I am hoping Sarah Jessica Parker has hit the cultural zeitgeist on the head again, and some smart studio exec will actually hire a female writer to write about females (or like SATC a gay male writer to write about females) in an intelligent and realistic manner.  The Devil Wears Prada and Sex and the City work because we, as women, relate to the women.  They are smart, talented, determined, they like what they like, be it great journalism or Manolo Blahniks, and they are flawed.  They fall for the wrong guys, they fall on the runway, and they have to deal with evil bosses.  So I raise my cosmo for many more great fearless female movies to come.  Helen Gurley Brown will be proud.

Peace, Love, and Dolce & Gabbana,

Julia

The Geek Shall Inherit

I just finished watching Iron Man and I first must brag that I’m 1 for 1 on my movie openings; it was fantastic.  But I was thinking about the comic book movie while I was watching the latest incarnation.  It dawned on me that comics are in an uphill swing and it’s due to the comic book geeks.  

Jon Favreau (from Swingers) directed Iron Man.  He’s a pretty famous comic book geek, and that’s what hit me.  Comic book movies died a horrible death in the mid/late 90s – the final nail in the coffin being Batman and Robin.  And it was a short but desolate wait before X-Men came out and blew everyone away in 2000 and an even longer one before the studios finally got it together and started cranking them out.  Of course, there have been some misses (Electra, who shouldn’t count because she’s not a real superhero, and the second Fantastic Four movie) but all in all the movies have been awesome entertainment.  My theory on why is this: the comic book geeks are finally directing and writing the movies.  Before, with the exception of the first two Batman movies (which are pure genius), people like Joel Schumacher, who is really more of a big movie director, were making the superhero movies.  But now we’ve got the greatest literary and filmic minds at work creating visual fantasies in front of our eyes.  We have Michael Chabon, the best author of our time, writing the script for Spider-Man 2.  We’ve got Bryan Singer (director of The Usual Suspects) directing X-Men and X-Men 2.  

It’s as though the best performer and the best playwright joined forces to produce the best play, except it’s better because they’ve finally found a way, through technological advances to make these creatures of our childhood imaginations real.  And they’ve finally hit on a way to keep them interesting.  Found a way to keep these fantastical plots and characters grounded in reality, which is really what made them so successful to begin with.  

That’s what makes a good superhero movie, a combination of Spielberg-like movie magic and human emotion.  And that’s what makes a good superhero story.  In fact, that’s what makes superhero stories good, the humanity of them.  Here are these people who in some way acquire superhuman abilities and have to cope with what it means to be superior to other human beings, be it through extra senses (spider or otherwise), flying capabilities, a skeleton made of unbreakable metal, all superheroes have to deal with the same thing, are you going to use your powers for good or for evil?  And if you are using your powers for good, what does that mean for those close to you?

This is why it is so important that superheroes have a secret identity, their loved ones are in danger.  Their enemies know they may not be able to get to the superheroes themselves, but they can harm them by harming their family.  This is also why I have such a problem when Batman goes and tells Katie Holmes that he is Batman, um, reread the comics, Alfred is the only one who knows who Batman is.  Alfred and Robin, but not until later.  In fact, the only superheroes who are publicly known are The Fantastic Four, and one of the main plots of their story is that they have to deal with fame as well as their powers.  

What I’m getting at here folks is that superheroes are real, and superhero movies are here to stay…that is until they run out of superheroes and good ideas.  But until that fateful day, let’s continue enjoying the good ones, ignoring the bad ones, and worshiping at the altar of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  And if anyone is interested, I’ll be at comic-con to become a bigger geek in July.

Peace, Love, and Comics

Julia

About that Time

It’s about that time again folks, it seems to come earlier every year.  No.  It’s not Christmas yet.  It’s summer movie season!  A great time of year when big blockbuster hits, speckled with some little gems hit the theaters just in time for us to cool off in the nice air conditioning of a huge cineplex.  And it’s all kicking off this weekend folks.  So here are my predictions (a little insider info as well).  

May 2

Iron Man this weekend.  I’ve heard only good things about the latest in the superhero movies.  I’ll be at the Paramount Theater on Saturday Night with this one.  

Made of Honor also comes out today.  And as much as I love Dr. McDreamy, it’s a little too My Best Friends Wedding.  I think this one is a renter.  

May 9

Speed Racer.  I’m not quite sure why they felt that this needed to be a movie.  It was a cheesy japanese cartoon show and really didn’t need to be a film.  That being said the cast is fantastic and it might be a must see.  We’ll wait until the review come out before the real opinion comes out.

What happens in Vegas.  Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, not my favorite duo, though this could be a nice sweet surprise.  It could be the cute romantic comedy summer hit.  Of course, it could be a fucking disaster too.  I’m kind of drawn to it in a weird way.  

May 22

The biggest movie of the summer according to me will be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  I was lucky enough to see some of the sets, which look amazing.  I think this is going to be great, and it’s got my pedophile crush Shia LeBouef as well as my sexy geriatric Harrison Ford.  Can’t go wrong.  Not to mention they are bringing back Indy’s love interest from Raiders (she was the best one).  Can’t wait to see this, it might have to be a midnight viewing.

May 30

So I was skeptical about this, and still am a little iffy, but I’ll be there (most likely on opening night), yes ladies, it’s our girls on the big screen.  The Sex and the City Movie comes out on the 30th.  From the looks of the trailer it’s everything we want and more, just one thing….the ending of the show was so perfect, this movie is going to have to be perfect just to not piss all of us off.  I’ll be there opening night.

May

Also out in May, the movie I’m really looking forward to is Son of Rambow.  A British film about kids who make an action movie.  It looks fantastic and has received nothing but good reviews.

June 13

The Incredible Hulk.  The first Hulk movie was a complete and total disaster and I kind of think this might be too.  Edward Norton is great casting for Bruce Banner, but dare I say it, the Hulk just might work better in comic book form.  It’s a hard concept to sell, man gets pissed and grows in to big green monster guy.  It’s hard to be a real movie.  

June 20

Get Smart.  I have a feeling this one is going to be great.  Perfect casting.  Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.  I’m really excited.  

Also out on the 20th Brick Lane.  It was a book by Monica Ali.  When I lived in London everyone was reading it on the tube (which is always a good sign because Brits read good books) and the movie looks great.  

The Love Guru.  Mike Meyers needs to stick to Austin Powers, this movie is sure to be a disaster.  It looks unbearable.  

June 27 

Wanted.  So excited about this.  It’s based on a Graphic Novel and has Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy (who I want to do naughty things to).  Sort of Fight Club like, cubicle workers take over the world kind of thing.  Can’t Wait.  

June

I should also mention Kung-Fu Panda which will probably be a big animated hit, but looks like total crap.  Sorry folks, but what’s the story there?

July 2

Hancock.  I’m the only person on earth who can’t stand Will Smith so I am a completely biased judge.  That being said, it’s an interesting premise.  First black superhero.  Maybe worth it for the novelty factor, though I have yet to discover what his superpowers are.  It doesn’t just work if the novelty is black superhero, it has to be cool/good superhero.

July 11

Hellboy 2.  There’s a bit of a trend this summer.  Hellboy is another comic book movie, it’s a great premise about a guy who is destined for evil but tries to do good.  The first one was great and I’m hoping the second one lives up.  I think it will.  

July 18

The Dark Night.  I will see this at the midnight before screening (haven’t been to one of those since Sin City came out).  It looks absolutely amazing.  The late and amazing Heath Ledger is going to be unstoppable and even though I had issues with Batman Begins, I feel in safe hands.  This one is going to be huge and it’s going to be great.

July 18th will be a huge movie day for me because MAMMA MIA! is coming to the big screen.  So my brits know what this means, as I saw this show a whopping 8 times when I lived in London and I’ve seen it in total 9 times (once in the U.S.)  The casting is impeccable and it will be wonderful.  If you haven’t seen the show, go to the movie, then fly to Vegas or New York or London and see the show (and take me with you).

July 25

X-Files Movie.  Need I say more.  I’m betting it was worth the wait.

August 8

Pineapple Express.  From the Judd Apatow crew (Knocked Up, Superbad, Forty Year Old Virgin).  This will be a hit and it certainly looks like they’ve hit that magic again.  

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.  The inner 13 year old in me loved the first one (it has a place on my overflowing DVD rack) and I’m stoked for the second one.  This is going to be big because all these girls went out and got freaking famous between films.  Before Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) was the real Box Office Draw, but now you’ve got America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) and Blake Lively (Gossip Girl).  It’ll be good, and I’ll be in a theater full of 12 year olds.  

August 15

Tropic Thunder.  A friend of mine worked on this and said it’s really funny.  I think it’s going to be a surprise hit, but don’t hold me to that…you never know what can happen once you get to editing a film.

Alright those are my predictions.  We’ll see and have a happy summer movie viewing season.

Peace, Love, and Summer Blockbusters

Julia

Ages of Innocence

I’m sitting here watching Walk The Line for the 3 millionth time and I can’t help but thinking that the fifties aren’t as innocent as we all like to think of them as.  And I thought about it a little more and how did the fifties get this rap as a time of innocence?  I mean the major portrayals of the fifties in film are American Graffiti and Grease, and they aren’t exactly innocent little romps (lest we forget the ‘hickey from Kenickie’ line).  The major movies from the fifties include Rebel Without A Cause, Sunset Boulevard and Vertigo to name just a few.  Is it the poodle skirts and saddle shoes?  Maybe the clothes give off the air of innocence, but I am loathe to believe that it is just the clothes that have propagated this whole myth of the innocent fifties.  

So as I’m thinking this to myself, being the good history student I am, I wonder what the truly innocent time was.  And then I came to a stunning realization (or at least I thought it was stunning), there isn’t an innocent time.  If we go back to the forties we were in a devastating war, in the thirties no one had any money, in the twenties no one had any booze (and we had just ended another devastating war).  I spent four years studying how different groups of writers thought they were revolutionary and in ways they were, but they weren’t any more or less innocent than their predecessors or their successors.  I mean we still don’t know how things will turn out.  Will Iraq turn into another Vietnam?  Are we going to make ourselves extinct?  In 10,000 years will someone find some film of Deal or No Deal and come to the conclusion that our society was completely obsessed with humiliating themselves?  Will it be seen as some kind of self-flagellation to go on The Price is Right and act like a crazy person?  Will those societies look at us and say ‘what innocence they had.’  In 50 years, will our quaint cell phone technology and wireless internet look completely ridiculous?  Is any society ever innocent?

Peace, Love, and Walking the Line,

Julia