Movie Review: The Social Network

Do you remember when you first got Facebook? I was trying to go back as far as I could and remember when I first heard about it and signed up and finally pinned down the time and place. It was 2004. I was a sophomore in college. I got an instant message from my friend Tyler telling me that a couple of college students had started this website that was like Myspace but only for college students. I signed up. I didn't use it much in the beginning but in the past 6 years I cannot believe how it's grown. Since then, I am now friends with people I haven't seen since I was 8 years old. I keep in touch with former and present teachers, co-workers, friends of my parents, and random people I might meet throughout the week. As a former Livejournal user (like Mark Zuckerberg!!) I used to blog like a crazy person...but now I send my thoughts, frustrations, and laughs into the world via 400 characters several times throughout the day. This has been my experience with Facebook.


The Social Network
Directed By: David Fincher
Written By: Aaron Sorkin
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
What It's About: Facebook

Tonight I saw The Social Network. If you don't know me at all then I should let you know that I am an insanely huge fan of David Fincher. I love his work. I love his work ETHIC. I love how much he respects the movies he makes and never assumes that his audience is stupid. Se7en is one of the coolest serial killer films of all time. Zodiac is quite possibly the best serial killer movie ever made that is based on actual events/case files. I am also an insanely huge fan of Aaron Sorkin. I mean seriously. The West Wing and Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip are two of the most smart and well written shows ever. Put these two fantastically talented men together along with a kickass group of actors and music by Trent Reznor and you have THE movie that defines not only the past decade but also sums up the mentality of my generation.

From the moment the movie starts it just sucks you in and does not let go until the credits are rolling. There is not a single slow moment in the whole movie. It's intense, suspenseful, heartbreaking, hilarious, and SO incredibly interesting.

What I Loved:
-Realizing about 5 minutes into the film that none of David Fincher's movies are similar except for one common thread: lighting in a dark room. The first scene of the movie takes place in a dark restaurant, most of Benjamin Button is in darkened places, Zodiac had several in its own restaurant scenes, Fight Club was almost entirely done this way...what I'm saying is...it's the dimly lit rooms that reminded me it was a Fincher movie so I kept waiting for someone to find a dead body or punch someone in the face.

-The writing. I can't say enough about it. Smart, sassy, funny, and so quick that it just keeps the movie and its viewers on their toes for the entire 2 hours.

-The acting. Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg) better get an Oscar nomination for his performance. It's absolutely fantastic. Even now I can't think of him as anyone other than Mark Zuckerberg. What's so incredible is that Eisenberg completely disappears into the character and so clearly makes him a sympathetic character while playing the hard, power hungry, shell on the outside. Very often throughout the movie he's playing 3 or 4 emotions at once. Such a great part. I also have to give major love to Justin Timberlake who ROCKS as Napster creator, Sean Parker. Also, little Brenda Song, who I used to watch with my kids at LA Fitness on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody on Disney. She plays the psychotic girlfriend of one of Facebook's co-founders and is so, so good. I love seeing kids from Disney who I assume will never go anywhere else deliver such mature and engaging performances.

-The message. There's not much of one. It's just defining. It paints a picture of the one thing that people will always, always refer to when they think of the decade that was post-9/11 and pre-Obama. Social networking. It's our moon landing. It's our printing press.

This is a quote from Roger Ebert's review of the film and it sums up my feelings perfectly: "The Social Network" is a great film not because of its dazzling style or visual cleverness, but because it is splendidly well-made. Despite the baffling complications of computer programming, web strategy and big finance, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay makes it all clear, and we don't follow the story so much as get dragged along behind it. I saw it with an audience that seemed wrapped up in an unusual way: It was very, very interested."

Baby Food Cleanse: Day 2

Yesterday my predictions were correct. I was MUCH hungrier throughout the day because of all the activity in regards to school. I actually had the baby food with me AT school and so I could just eat it throughout the day. It really isn't like other "fasts" or "cleanses" where you're just starving all the time. I eat. I get hungry faster. So I eat more.

Food I Ate:
-Yogurt/Apple/Oatmeal (baby food)
-Sweet Potatoes/Turkey (baby food)
-Squash/Turkey (baby food)
-Banana Mango (baby food)
-Raspberry/Oatmeal (baby food)
-Vegetables & Turkey (baby food)
-Sweet Potatoes & Apples (baby food)

Big Meal:
-3 oz. of grilled salmon
-6 asparagus spears
-1 cup of sunburst squash
-1/3 cup of cous-cous
-1 glass of red wine

Water:
-90 oz.

Again, the days have been easy. But at night I desperately want to snack so it's actually been a motivator for me to go to bed earlier.

Baby Food Cleanse: Day 1

It's nearly 10am (usually I'm up way before this, but it's Sunday) and I've just rationed out my baby food portions for today. The way I'm told this strange little cleanse works is that you eat up to 10 portions of organic baby food every day with a nutritious adult meal thrown in there at some point. Today is my first day and it'll also be a little more lenient because my presence is being requested at my parents' table when they have friends over for lunch. I also have no idea how the baby food is going to react with my body so today will be a bit of a test run.

Food for today:
-1 hard boiled egg
-10 raspberries
-1 SMALL serving of a baby back rib
-1 serving of collard greens
-4 multigrain chips
-some homemade salsa
-6 cans of baby food ranging from butternut squash to baby's first mango...
-100+ ounces of water

10am:
-oat/grape/cherry baby food
-butternut squash & corn baby food (this I did mainly because I wanted to hurry up and find out what this particular one tasted like)

11am:
-worked out for 45 minutes

12:30pm:
-pretty hungry. but not insanely hungry. i timed the workout so that it would end before lunch. the only reason i'm waiting to eat is because my parents are bringing people home for lunch.
-drinking a lot of water to make up for it

1:30pm
-3 oz. of lean spareribs
-1 cup of collard greens with pepper vinegar

6:00pm
-Carrots puree
-Sweet potato puree
-Squash & Turkey puree
-Apple/Vanilla/Oat puree

Wow...well, it's now 7:45pm and I feel great. Today (aside from the workout) was a pretty lazy day so the lowered calorie intake probably didn't effect me as much.

Good Baby Cuisine:
-sweet potatoes (were awesome.)
-apple/vanilla/oat was totally fantastic and i just might continue to eat it as a sweet snack after the cleanse
-the turkey was not half bad. it was just a matter of getting past the texture.

Bad Baby Cuisine:
-my gag reflex kicked into full gear when i had to down the carrots. Bleh.

I am now on ounce number 85 of water for the day.

On to Day 2...!!!

Movie Review: The Kids Are All Right

"The Kids Are All Right"

I just saw my favorite movie of the summer. (Sorry, Inception. I hope we can still be friends.)

The past ten years have been full of the kitschy little "indie" films that focus on endearing, dysfunctional families who realize that in the end they're all each other has and the end credits are cued by Cat Power, Frou Frou, or some other so-hipster-it's-become-obnoxious band. I'll be honest, as enjoyable as they are the first time around I've become really bored with them. I end up rolling my eyes and avoiding all of the hipster teens who've decided that the lead teen in the movie is now their idol because they soooooo identify with their plight.

"The Kids Are All Right" is none such movie.

The premise is pretty simple...Julianne Moore and Annette Bening play a married couple with two teenage kids who decide they want to meet their sperm donor. Enter, Mark Ruffalo. He attempts to become part of their family and all hell ensues. To be honest, there's not much of a plot. The dialogue does not drive things and there's no real point. But in this case, it's actually a great thing. There's no message in this movie. It's all means and no end and it works perfectly. It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, old, young, Christian, atheist, Jewish, or Muslim this movie is just plain GOOD.

Per usual, I'll give you what I loved and what I didn't love so much...

What I Loved:

-The writing is absolutely some of the best I've seen in a long time. The jokes are so natural and perfectly played out by the entire cast...there's never a single moment of, "I'm quirky, let me see how many quirky things I can say in response to the quirky thing you just said! Wheee!! Quirk party!"

-The lack of message, pandering, and political correctness. It just gives it to you straight. (hah-hah.) You're not expected to go into this movie and change your mind about gay marriage, adoption, sperm donors, or whatever else is brought up in the film. You will not leave feeling manipulated. I have to give major props to the filmmakers for this because what I detest so much about modern cinema is the CONSTANT emotional manipulation of the audience.

-Julianne Moore. Let's face it. I love her in anything. She's one of the most talented actresses that exists and I really think this movie is going to get her a first, much deserved, and way overdue Academy Award. She's not playing a 1950s housewife or overly emotional socialite. This is a role she's never played before and she does it beautifully. Her character is a directionless, hippie, whose ADD drives her wife (Annette Bening) crazy and who gets caught up in a fling with the sperm donor after he shows interest in her work. She's funny, adorable, and the speech she gives to her family in the end is heartbreaking and so, so real. LOVE her.

-Annette Bening. She's the borderline alcoholic other mother who is a very successful, Type A doctor and hates that Sperm Donor Mark has entered their family picture. Bening does a marvelous job in the movie as well but I'm hoping they'll reserve the nomination for Moore.

-Mark Ruffalo. This guy, is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most underrated actor of his generation. He's so subtle and lovely in every single movie he does and I love how unobtrusive his performances are. No wonder he's flown under the radar for so long...he shows up, does his work, and watches while the more assertive actors around him get nominated for everything under the sun. I really think this movie will get him his first Oscar nomination. His character (Paul) is an organic farmer starting his own restaurant in California...he's a motorcycle driving, wine enthusiast, who lives life on his own terms and has no real responsibilities or rules. Oh, and damn, is he ever sexy.

-The kids. Mia Kawaskaaoskwwaka (Alice from Alice In Wonderland...) and Josh Hutcherson are so authentic as teenagers (I loved seeing Mia's imperfect skin) and they were so awkward and unpretentious without even trying. I want them to be MY kids.

-The Ending. Once again, I loved that there was no real message or huge POINT to this film. It is what it is: The Kids Are All Right. It does not end the way you expect it will. There's no huge pay-off and no final scene where the new whole family is eating around the dinner table being dysfunctional and quirky together. You will cry though. This movie is not self-indulgent whatsoever and does exactly what is needed for the characters and story.


What I Didn't Like:
-Nothing. I loved every single frame, sound, and GLANCE that the actors were giving each other in this movie. Well freaking done, Focus Features. Keep 'em coming.

Movie Review: Sex & the City 2

For me it was this dress. When I saw this photograph on one of the release posters for SATC 2 I had a reaction straight from Carrie Bradshaw's mouth to my heart. "Heelllooo, lover." I have this picture on my desktop...because I am so in love with this dress. I'm not one to have random celebrity pictures on my desktop but I look at this glorious piece of fabric-y art and it just makes me smile. I want to go to the Oscars, get married, and SLEEP in this dres. Ahem. Sorry. I'll move on to the review.

Before I saw SATC 2 I read a lot of reviews on the film and they were absolutely scathing..and that's a nice way of putting it. I, however, ignored them completely because a) anything Liza Minnelli is in I will watch and I will love b) Aiden's back!!! and c) the aforementioned dress. So, with a cosmo in tow I had a day date with my sister to decide for myself. After having seen the film I now understand the scathing reviews...but I loved the movie just the same.

What's It About? Carrie & Big have been married for 2 years and have hit a rough patch. Miranda is trying to balance being a mother, wife, and working woman. Charlotte has her dream life but her daughters are driving her crazy. Samantha is trying to trick her body into thinking it's younger. After making friends with a sheikh the girls are invited to a luxury vacation in Abu-Dabi and then many antics ensue.

What I Loved:
-The ladies. I love this cast. Kristin Davis is a puffy little ball of adorable and I just want to BE Sarah Jessica Parker when I grow up. I think she's lovely, talented, and just fantastic.

-The clothes.

-Liza. I will go head to head with any drag queen on amateur night to prove my love for Liza Minnelli. She officiates a marriage ceremony and then sings Single Ladies and DANCES. This woman has had two strokes and viral enciphilitis and she still just rocks. Streisand and Cher, my ass. Minnelli's where it's at. Is the scene cliched and over the top? Absolutely. But it's delightful so I don't care.

-Aiden. He probably had about 10 minutes of screen time but a piece of my heart has always belonged to him and I'm sad he and Carrie ended the way they did.

-The mommy/wives. There's been a lot of criticism about Charlotte wearing a vintage designer skirt when cooking cupcakes with her daughters. Her eldest gets angry for attention, covers her hands in paint, and subsequently ruins the skirt, causing Charlotte to have a complete Mom Meltdown. I LOVE that Charlotte is wearing her best while being a housewife. Why is that so bad? Sure, she'll ruin some clothes but at least she's still at the point where she wants to take care of herself and feel good about herself before dealing with her kids all day. Miranda's struggle with balancing her wifelyhood, mommyhood,and working womanhood is brutal but I loved the heart to heart that her and Charlotte shared on their vacation. There's a really great scene where they have a confessional about all of their insecurities and admissions about being mothers...more women should have this. I'm so sick of hearing mothers compare themselves to other mothers and just guilting themselves to death over their children. Just love yourself, love your kids, and chill out! I love that SATC was bold enough to open that door to discussion about modern day motherhood. Rock on, Michael Patrick King.



What I Did Not Like:
-The script. It bothered me that the girls' actual story lines were only brushed over when they got so much more attention in the first film. It was a shame because I wanted to see less desert and more Miranda and Steve. I really wanted more meltdowns and nanny interaction with Charlotte. I'm not sure where it went wrong as I found it completely watchable but it was definitely too much desert and not enough city.

-The Middle Eastern portrayal. Now. I am all for politically incorrect humor. I love turning stereotypes on their head. But it's one thing to take a culture and disrespect it in a really huge way. I wasn't necessarily offended by it but I was definitely disappointed in it. It was fine until one particular sequence towards the end when Samantha has her purse wrestled from her and it's thrown to the ground. Everything spills out and lots of condoms are included in this. She ends up being circled by a mob of angry Muslim men and she stands up and yells, "YES. YES, it's true. I. HAVE. SEX." Which I understand..being a liberated American woman I'm still a bit rattled at the sexual repression/oppression that goes on around the world. But I would never go to a different country and blatantly disrespect their customs and faith simply because I believed differently. It was weird, cartoonish, and really crossed a line for me.

-The story was a bit anticlimactic and that only goes back to the fact that they didn't spend enough time on the girls' stories back in the city.

-There was only a teeny tiny bit of Aiden. And wow...when he picked up Carrie and spun her around when they saw each other I remembered how much I liked him.

SATC 2 is not as good as the first one...but what sequels are? It has a banging soundtrack, glorious amounts of clothes that make me salivate and quiver with envy, personal butlers, and burkas! Yes, it is 2 1/2 hours long. No, the plot is not as tight or as emotional as the first one. But quite frankly, I didn't care. There's a reason that goes beyond sex, Carrie's puns, and every sentence that Samantha decides to turn into a sexual innuendo that still makes SATC 2 so great: It makes me unafraid to grow older. What SATC did for inserting women's enjoyment of sex into the mainstream of society, it has now done with women growing older. Do I get married? Am I a good mother? Why isn't marriage what I thought it would be? How do I balance/justify working and being a wife and mother at the same time? Say what you want about the lack of emotional punch that the original had...but I really commend the movie for so honestly bringing to light guilt that mothers feel and doubt after marrying who you thought was the love of your life.

Lost: The End

Wow. It's over.

Lost has been an enormous part of my life for the past 3 years and I don't regret a second of it. It's probably one of the most genius things to ever surface on television and while I have my issues with aspects of it and I thought the finale was anti-climactic I do have my thoughts on why this was done. This is not going to be an organized review at ALL...but if you've hung on to Lost for the past six years you should have no difficulty following along. :)

After a conversation last night with a friend who was so pissed off about the end of Lost that she said she was officially breaking up with it it caused me to think a lot more deeply about what exactly the finale had done. When I went into the finale I was not expecting much to be completely honest. I knew they would do more service to it than Abrams did with the ending of Alias (a show I TRULY broke up with after the finale) but I also knew that the intellectual punch would probably not be packed. I was incredibly excited though and jumped on for the ride from the beginning.

Here's why I ended up being pretty much apathetic at the outcome of the story...the truth of the sideways world did not work for me for 2 reasons.

1. It's been done before. See: Titanic. And I'm a huge fan of Titanic. And while I cried my eyes out when Rose met up with Jack in her pretty white dress and everyone stood around and clapped I watch that scene today and roll my eyes. I just don't care.

2. This is a technicality with the story telling aspect of the show. Over the past six years we've jumped time, added characters, removed characters, seen dead people, who is actually good or bad, WHEN are we?!, that I was totally numb to any fantastic explanation of the weird. Does that make sense? If the island had spun off into outer space I still would have said,"Huh." and accepted it because that's what the show has been asking us to do for SIX years. Say, "Huh." and accept it.

The sideways world and the church also explore the "happily ever after" notion. While I do believe in a paradise-esque after life it has nothing to do with MY building it as a place to meet up with my pals so we can "move on" together. I hate that kind of egotistical new age bull shit. I think the biggest and most relevant kind of peace that these characters could have found was in their real, physical world because this was where they were living out their purpose.

I really wish they had focused more on the build up of Jacob & Smokey's replacements. (I do believe Smokey has been replaced, by the way, and I believe that replacement is Ben. I'll explain in a minute.) This season has been so brilliant for me because it returned to the original mythology and philosophy of the island. It talked about purpose, free will, and good vs. evil. The ending where EVERYONE is redeemed & in a church uprooted a lot of that and I believe it was the writers' cop out way of saying that all is happily ever after. It was generic and lacked conviction. It reminded me of the end of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (which I LOVED by the way.) But JK Rowling's response to the end was a cop out so as to not piss people off. Even though the final chapters of Book 7 were straight out of the fricking New Testament and Harry is the closest thing to a Christ figure in literature since Aslan she CLAIMED that there was no inspiration from Christianity. Calling your bull shit Rowling. Just because your story actually SAID something (whether you actually believe in Christianity or not is irrelevant) doesn't mean you had to sugar coat it to please everyone else...nobody who's ever said anything of importance in the world has been all inclusive to the masses.

What's also sad is that I LOVED the events in the sideways world. I loved seeing everyone reconnect in different ways and really hoped that somehow the sideways world would be reality and after all of the drama on the island went down EVERYONE would have died on the island but would have lived in the sideways world. I don't like that the sideways world was just made up.

I did love Jack's ending. (not the church part, but his actual death in the bamboo forest) I thought that last shot really did the show justice.

With all of this said...and I do have a lot more to say..I definitely got choked up at the flashbacks and loved seeing people reunited. I thought it was sweet. But not necessary.

If I were Cuse/Lindelof I would have scratched the ENTIRE time travel ordeal and would have just stuck with them getting back to the island and battling Smokey and figuring out who Jacob was and what their purpose was. I really think the show lost emotional investment from people when it introduced time travel because we had to suspend our sense of logic so much at that point that each episode was just an exercise in waiting for them to answer questions. So if they threw something bizarre like,"Ben runs around terrorizing people in a polar bear costume!" (a la M. Night Shyamalan's The Village) we would accept and wait for explanation. People can deal with things quickly mentally but it's easy to forget that our emotions do require patience and nurturing to catch up.

Ok, so why do I believe Smokey will eventually be replaced by Ben? Because Jacob doesn't have a sidekick. Just because Smokey/Locke was "defeated" by Jack/Jacob doesn't mean the Evil Smoke went away. If Evil went away then there would be no need for a protector of the island. Therefore, Smokey MUST have a successor. The vessel that is Locke is now gone and the two people left on the island are Ben and Hurley. Hurley is the protector. And while I ADORE Ben Linus with my whole soul, he is an untrustworthy little man with a mild sociopathic streak. He has never done anything on the show without an ulterior motive and has ALWAYS been after power. If you think for one second that he found his "purpose" by being Hurley's #2 you're dead wrong. It was Ben's loop hole. It was his way of gaining a foothold so that good vs. evil would continue.

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Things never do go according to plan.

The September graduation and subsequent move back to Los Angeles has been postponed until December. Why? It turns out I still need more credits to get my B.A. Six months. As opposed to three. I know this is not much at all but it means I'll be spending two more full seasons here and that scares me. It scares me because I feel like I'm in one of those dreams where I have to run as fast as I can but my legs just won't go. I SEE where I am supposed to be but I just can't seem to get there. It's like I've been turned into a statue while the rest of the world goes on beside me. I also feel like a broken record because, believe me, I know I harp on about this constantly.

This week it will have been a year since I left Los Angeles. I remember bawling my eyes out all the way to pick my Dad up from the airport and quickly giving him a tour of where I lived even though we needed to get on the road. But I had to. I had to give someone PROOF that I was there and that I had an existence outside of Charleston or Indianapolis. I left LA with a pile of debts that I couldn't pay and just an overwhelming feeling of defeat and failure. I know that I needed to go. I didn't have a choice. I am thankful for all of the things that I've been taught over the past year, even though this year has absolutely been the most difficult year of my life. I'll be 25 in a month and that scares the hell out of me.

Where does that leave me now? With a plan. When I returned from my vacation in Charleston I was rejuvenated and relaxed and the first thing I did was open a bank account. Why don't you have a bank account of your own, you ask? Because I owe money to my previous bank. Then Chase comes up with this new thing where you can open a limited "second chance" bank account that's six different types of fabulous because I have my own bank account!!!! For the first time in a YEAR!!! I know that you all probably take this for granted, but until you have to keep all of your money in the same account as your parents' and have to ASK them to write you a check whenever you need money it is an invaluable thing to have your own account.

Things I've Accomplished:
-Opened bank account. (Yay!)
-Paid two tickets from the LAPD that I did not have money to pay until now. (Yay!!)
-Paid off my Verizon account and can now get it reinstated. (Yay!!!)

Slowly but surely I'm getting the necessary things paid off. I have a credit score that I don't want to talk about.

My six month countdown begins now. When I moved to LA I was 22 and was still in that stage of wondering what I was going to do with my life and still being a kid. When I moved back into my parents' house last year that changed entirely. While the quarter-of-a-century number scares me I'm excited to turn 25 because there are literally no more excuses.

Six Month Goals:
-Pay off necessary debt and raise credit score.
-Have $5,000 in the bank to move to LA with.
-Chop off all of the wasted time I spend freaking out and obsessing over life and use it to do homework or something productive.
-Get all A's these next two semesters. (Except math, that won't happen.)
-Have a set plan for each day with a check list and actually complete it.