I'm thinking of a book...

I’m thinking of a popular book, one that was recently adapted into a movie.  It is set in the South around the 60’s and features a young white female protagonist who forms a strong and loving relationship with older black females.  No, it’s not The Help; I’m referring to The Secret Life of Bees.

thoughts on movie violence...

It's hard to say which I think is less bad: stylized violence or realistic violence.  I'm going to refer to the Kill Bill  films as examples of stylized violence and The Departed as one that has violence that is over the top but still too realistic for me to call it stylized.  (Spoiler alert for the movies).  Stylized violence exists for the audience to enjoy, where the Bad Guys and Good Guys are clearly delineated.  I shied away from watching any Tarantino film for a while because I heard about how violent they were, yet when I finally got around to watching one I found out that I liked them.  The story-telling and dialogue are whip-smart, but also the violence is stylized and unrealistic so I could sort of distance myself and remind myself that it was just a movie I was watching.  On the other hand you have “The Departed”, which is very much set in the real world, where people get beaten up and shown to be in pain, real pain.  The violence is over the top because the situations are over the top, and the violence serves to emphasize just how badass and cold-blooded the characters can get.  What’s better: hand to hand violence or gun violence?  I could argue that the former is better because it is more real, but then the latter evens the field a little more; you don’t have to be physically fit to shoot someone.  But “The Departed” has a lot of non-gun violence in it as well.  At the bottom of it, these are action movies—but with great dialogue!  In horror movies the whole point is to shock or gross out the audience with stylized violence. 

I can’t tolerate horror movies.  I know that the kind of violence portrayed in these movies is also very stylized and unrealistic, but I don’t get anything out of watching people get tortured and scream in pain.  That kind of violence isn’t warranted, to me; oftentimes it’s senseless killing and there’s nothing that smart or thought-provoking about it...

Quick reaction to "X-Men: First Class"



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 I saw X-Men: First Class more than a week ago. Overall I liked this movie.  I wouldn't mind seeing it in theaters again but I'm not terribly passionate about this film.  Some lingering thoughts:

Dropping some eaves

I took a particularly long bus trip recently, and in the row diagonally across from mine two strangers engaged in a very candid conversation.  I have no idea how their conversation started-- probably sometime during the wait in line for the delayed bus-- but the bulk of it was had on the bus.  One was a mother of two in her 50s, the other a 20-year-old man.  They were the only ones talking in the bus, so it wasn't difficult to hear what they said.

And what they had to say!  I basically learned both of their life stories, a SparkNotes version, if you will.  The mother was visiting one of her sons, who was determined to see three shows with her that weekend.  I didn't catch her career, but her work paid for her to have an iPad (gorgeous, wonderful piece of equipment, that), which she brought with her for the trip.  In addition to that also owned an iPhone, a Kindle and a laptop.  She had some kind of connection with someone who worked in the theatre industry, which was fortuitous for the young man sitting next to her.  He had written a musical adaptation of a famous children's book and was in the midst of casting actors and entering the production for a theatre festival.  They exchanged personal information and while on the bus (thank you, technology) they Friended each other on Facebook so that they could continue communication after the bus ride was over.  Of all places...it really is a marvel, the randomness of life and the people you meet, whether purposefully or unintentionally, whether you've know them for 10 years or 10 minutes.

Ramblings on age (part I, maybe)

I went to go see "Bridesmaids" recently and I got asked to present identification.  That's something that hasn't happened to me in a while; I don't see TONS of R-rated movies but that was only the second time I was asked to prove that I was of age.  Well, actually, I tried to buy a ticket for "Love, Actually" when it came out but bought a ticket for "Haunted Mansion" and sneaked into the theater next door just in time to hear Bill Nighy drop a string of f-bombs.

Quick (over)analysis of New Era commercial

New Era  commercial featuring actors Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski exchanging baseball trash talk:

I like.  Things that pique my interest?

Random Hunger Games thoughts

This morning I finished reading "Catching Fire", the second book of the Hunger Games trilogy. As with the first book I had a very hard time putting it down and ended up reading the entire book the day I got my hands on it.

When "Mockingjay" , the last book in the trilogy, came out toward the end of last year my interest was piqued and I resolved to read the series someday. I guiltily admit that news of the film adaptation motivated me to read the books sooner, rather than later. I regret that my reading list has gotten increasingly influenced by movie releases, but I'm glad that this has gotten me to read books that I otherwise would've left toward the bottom of my ever-growing reading list.

I can't help but try to imagine which actors will be cast for the leads. I read somewhere that Chord Overstreet (left), one of the newest cast members on the tv show "Glee", might make a good Peeta Mellark. What he has going for him is that 1) he's roughly the right age, and 2) he's blond (blonde?). He's an adequate actor, I guess, and I found myself imagining him as this character as I read "Catching Fire." I feel like Logan Lerman would do well with this character, having seen him in a few films, seen what he's capable of. But he doesn't have the right hair color and I don't think that he'd look good with blond hair. It might seem like a trivial detail, the color of an actors hair, but I think it plays a big role in the story because it contrasts with other characters' features.

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