As a huge fan of the book I looked forward to the movie release like no other. I read the reviews that said it was a typical chick flick and those that said it was a romantic comedy. Julia Roberts does play the lead and is the queen of romantic comedies so I was disappointed before I even got to the theater, on opening night of course.

My disappointment turned out to be a good thing. I had high expectations before reading all the reviews. Going into it believing that it had been butchered and churned out into yet another Julia Roberts romantic comedy lowered my ridiculously high expectations. I liked the movie more than I probably would have without having read the reviews.

I still like the book MUCH better than the movie. But it was no romantic comedy and was actually pretty good. In fact, if you never read the book, you’ll probably love the movie even more than I did. It’s a drama with some funny parts. Exactly as it should be. Exactly like life.

I loved the book primarily because I identified so strongly with the author and her problems. I read it at a time when I was half out of my mind, hated my life, hated myself and was struggling to figure out why. I had recently discovered, much to my chagrin, that I had actively participated in the creation of the life I had come to loathe. I had just come out of a long and ugly separation from my husband and was about to embark on a reconciliation. I was also alone on a beach in another state, my first solo trip ever, when I read it. The parallels were undeniable. Reading about her brutally honest account of the mess she had made of her life, her realization of the role she played in that mess, the guilt, shame, anxiety and depression she felt and her efforts to find peace made me feel positively euphoric. I was not alone or (entirely) insane!  There was at least one other person out there feeling exactly as I did AND she wasn’t afraid to go public. The book served as an affirmation and gave me hope.

With that explanation out of the way….the movie:

First and foremost the best line of the book was altered for the movie. When Richard from Texas said, “The mosquitoes here are big enough to rape a chicken!”, in the book, I laughed out loud. Alone. On a beach. In another state. That line was altered in the movie. It wasn’t nearly as funny. Apparently you can’t say the word, “rape”, in a PG-13 movie? That one line alone would be worth the R rating. How many teenagers are really seeing this movie anyway?

Secondly, the movie, by necessity, is considerably condensed compared to the book. There was simply too much to cram into 2 hours on screen. Much of what made the book so great was skimmed over or eliminated altogether. The biggest example is that in the book it was extremely clear that her ex-husband hated her with a passion and that bothered her more than anything. This knowledge was integral to understanding her problems.  This was not so clear in the movie. Another example is how incredibly dysfunctional her relationship with David was or how attached she was to him despite him being all wrong for her.

The soundtrack was amazing, including two great songs by Eddie Vedder. I may buy it on iTunes but my relationship with iTunes is currently up in the air so I may have to purchase this soundtrack old school style…on CD.

It was a good movie. It would have been better as a trilogy…Italy, India and then Indonesia. Or maybe even four movies, the first one being pre-Italy, leading up to her trip.  That would have given the film makers enough time to explore, in as much depth as in the book, all of her problems and how each leg of her journey helped her. It would also have given rabid fans of the book (like myself) a chance to anticipate and pay for three or four different movies.

In the end, it is what it is. It’s great if you never read the book and good if you did. What did you think?

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Is it just me or has this been a horrible year for celebrities?  Especially celebrities who I grew up watching or listening to.  This one is, by far, the saddest for me. The Outsiders, Red Dawn , North and South, Youngblood, Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Point Break, and the most awesomely bad movie ever, Road House.

I used to read about Patrick Swayze in teen magazines.  It was a constant internal struggle trying to decide between him and Kevin Bacon when I was a teenager.  I even have a picture of a poster on my wall to prove it.  Excuse the poor quality, it was 1986…

I have no idea why he was wearing overalls and I didn’t care.  I used to have dreams about him riding that horse in North and South. I spared you and cropped myself out of this picture.  It was awful.  I was dressed in full-on ’80′s garb and making some weird face with my eyes closed.  What also got cropped out was the canopy bed and stuffed animals that were in my room too.  This period of time was when I had lots of crushes on celebrities and boys at school but also couldn’t part with my stuffed animals.  The bridge between childhood and adulthood.  He was a huge part of that.

I know enough about Pancreatic Cancer to know the prognosis is usually not good.  I still had hope, since he was a celebrity with money and connections, that he would find some alternative cure that would work.  I’m sad that he’s gone, and with him, another piece of my adolescence.

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When Lost in Translation was released, I was skeptical.  Bill Murray as the romantic lead in a dramatic movie?  This was the same guy who blew up gophers and did a recurring skit as a cheesy lounge singer.  And Sophia Coppola?  I still hadn’t forgiven her for The Godfather III.

I waited until it was on cable to watch it.  I had low expectations despite all the buzz I’d heard about how great it was.  It turned out to be one of my favorite movies of all time.

The subtlety of the script, the acting and even the cinematography and soundtrack is breathtakingly beautiful.  The story is timeless, realistic and profoundly bittersweet.

Hubby and I watched it again this weekend and my desire to know, for certain, what he said to her at the very end was renewed.  I acknowledge that leaving us in the dark about what he said was the perfect ending.  Having said that, I still want to know!

I’ve found several speculators who have come to believe that they have discovered the definitive answer, such as these:

“I have to be leaving…but I wont let that come between us, okay?”

“I love you. Don’t forget to always tell the truth.”

“I’ll always remember the past few days with you… Don’t part mad, tell him the truth, okay?”

“When John is waiting on the next business trip… go up to that man and tell him the truth, ok?”

I even found the alleged script, which includes the following lines, although Sophia Coppola has said the line was not in the script:

BOB  Why are you crying?
CHARLOTTE (sincere) I’ll miss you.
BOB I know, I’m going to miss you, too.

We may never know for sure and I know it’s better that way but it still bugs me every time I watch it.

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Some little asshole 8th grader punched my 6th grader in the arm on the bus yesterday.  I have a lot to say on this topic but right now I just want to go all Rebecca-DeMornay-in-The-Hand-That-Rocks-The-Cradle on this kid.  Unfortunately, I can’t find a video clip of that specific scene from the movie to put up here.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, she is a psycho nanny and threatens to rip some kids f-ing head off on the playground for doing something to the kid she watches.  Probably not the best idea for me but it’s a fun little fantasy. 

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Ok, when Michael Jackson died, I was shocked like everyone else.  He was too young.  His music was a huge part of my childhood and adolescence.  I felt sad even though the music will always be there.

But John Hughes?!  Holy shit.  His movies rocked my teenage world.  I can recite most of them line for line to this day.  I stop and watch each and every time one of them is on cable.  His passing, also too young, is even more sad to me than MJ’s.

Hubby worked downtown when Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was filming.  He watched the parade scene from his office.  I was 15 the year The Breakfast Club was released.  Don’t You Forget About Me was the theme song at my high school prom.  Sixteen Candles is one of my favorite movies of all time.  My kids have seen Uncle Buck so many times that they can recite it line for line.

I loved that his movies were so real.  Yes, they were hilarious, but also gritty.  Just like life.  He nailed the mind of an 80′s teenager.  He created the brat pack.  He made us love Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall.  Two extremely unlikely heroes.

Obviously I never knew the man but he contributed so much to my young life. He will be missed.

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I got a full night’s sleep last night so I’m feeling much better today (yay!).  Yesterday morning was….well, ugly.  I was lost in a fog of self-pity for a few hours after the kids left for school.  It was fueled by getting only two and a half hours of sleep the night before, a book I read while not sleeping, and my overall general anxious and neurotic nature.  About as good a combination as cocaine, crystal meth and ether.

Ok, so it really wasn’t as bad as all that, but I do love Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and did feel pretty….dark. 

I read The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.  This memoir of the year following the death of her husband of 40 years was amazing. It’s basically written as a diary but also manages to describe the more general ways in which humans deal with grief and mourning, without turning into a self-help book.

During this year, in fact beginning 5 days before her husband died, her adult daughter was also seriously ill. She recovered before the end of the year covered in the book, much to my relief. I don’t know how the author made it through that year, although she does explain it in great personal detail.  I won’t say anymore about the book in case you haven’t read it yet.

In any case, she talks a lot about self-pity and how we hate feeling self-pity which just causes guilt that results in more self-pity.  It’s a vicious circle of fear and loathing.  No, no one died in my life, so I’m not comparing my little bout with self-pity to hers.  It’s just that reading her tragic account led me to feel guilty about the things I worry about and that led to my sleep-deprived-pity-party.

I’m glad I didn’t post about it at the time.  I snapped out of it pretty quickly after talking to a few friends, reading and setting up a job interview.  It actually turned out to be a good day with unseasonably nice weather too.  Today is another beautiful day here and I got sleep so I’m back to normal (as normal as I get anyway).  I always love a happy ending.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

“I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love.” — Charles Bukowski

I’ve come to the conclusion that despite my cynicism, sarcasm and general suspicious nature, deep down I’m a sappy, schmoopie optimist. 

I finally saw The Bucket List on cable tonight.  I knew what it was about and how it would end.  I still cried through pretty much the entire movie and was almost inconsolable at the end.  I went completely over the edge by the song “Say” by John Mayer.  I already love that song and hadn’t known it was from this movie. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ0z86LmXBM]

I read Roger Ebert’s review and don’t disagree with a single word of it.  It still got me.  I would love to be able to say that I’m just in a weird place right now and that’s what caused me to buy into this ridiculous movie so wholeheartedly.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that because I always have been a sucker for even the most obvious and contrived movies, songs and books.  Both the movie and the song are cheesy and clichéd.  I love them both anyway. 

When did I become so excessively sentimental?!  Is it because I’m getting older?  Because I’m a mom?  Am I, emotionally, still a romantic, dramatic teenage girl?  I don’t know the answer, and I am truly embarrassed by it!  It’s silly and ridiculous, but…it’s me.

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“The only place I get hurt is out there. The world don’t give a shit about me.” – The Wrestler

SPOILER ALERT:  IF YOU HAVEN’T YET SEEN THE READER OR THE WRESTLER AND ARE PLANNING ON IT, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!

A friend of mine said that she wishes just once that an Academy Award nominated movie didn’t make her want to slit her wrists after watching.  I saw both of these movies in the past week and couldn’t agree more!  Ok, technically, The Wrestler isn’t up for Best Picture but does have two nominations for acting.

While these two movies would seem, on the surface, to have virtually nothing in common (one is about a boy’s coming of age in Nazi Germany and the other is about a washed-up wrestler in the present day), they do have quite a bit in common, as far as exploring the human psyche.  Both left me sobbing by the end.  You knew this was going to be psycho-babble, come on! 

In both movies, the main character has shut down emotionally, completely closed off.  They both have been so deeply emotionally scarred by earlier events and/or relationships, that they distract themselves with other things that make them feel better.  One, with success and superficial relationships with the opposite sex.  The other, with fame and drugs. 

In the end, both finally realize that they do actually need meaningful connections in their lives and reach out to someone.  In The Reader, he successfully opens up to his daughter and presumably lives happily ever after. 

The Reader

In The Wrestler, he tries with a woman he has feelings for but is shot down.  The interesting thing about the reasons she shoots him down is that they are due to her own emotional baggage, not because of him.  He, of course, believes that it is him.  He then tries with his daughter, but due to his aforementioned distractions, lets her down for the final time and she disowns him.  In the end, the woman who rejected him comes to her senses, and admits that she does have feelings for him.  Unfortunately, it’s too late.  He’s already given up.  After a lifetime of screwing up every relationship he’s ever had, he finally completely succumbs to his belief that his distractions are the only real things he has going for him. 

Because there was no redemption at the end, The Wrestler is the one that depressed me the most.  The Reader is a much more complex, thought-provoking movie, but this isn’t a movie review.

The Wrestler

My point?  Yep, I do have one.  It is profoundly sad to me that we all need, yes NEED, meaningful connections with other people, romantic and otherwise, but we all put up walls.  We get hurt and so we shut down.  We have all done this at some point.  The worst part is that we don’t even realize how OUR emotional shutting down affects others who attempt to make a connection with us.  They have their own issues and so assume that they are rejected because of their own imperfections.  It’s a vicious cycle that many folks never find their way out of.

If we could all just find a way to admit to ourselves that we do need other people and open up enough to risk getting hurt again, we would probably actually be hurt a lot less often than we are with all of our walls.

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“At heart, I have always been a coper, I’ve mostly been able to walk around with my wounds safely hidden, and I’ve always stored up my deep depressive episodes for the weeks off when there was time to have an abbreviated version of a complete breakdown. But in the end, I’d be able to get up and on with it, could always do what little must be done to scratch by.”— Elizabeth Wurtzel

Ok, so maybe going to see The Reader wasn’t the optimal choice of movies to attempt to get me out of my funk.  And maybe that last sentence was the understatement of the century.

That is one freakin’ depressing movie.  My head is still spinning from it all.  I won’t review the movie or go into great detail.  The beginning is HOT, and I mean porn-hot.  Then….almost unbearable heartbreak, tragedy, psychological damage, devistatingly poor choices, pride overtaking good judgment, oh yeah….and Nazis.  YIKES.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a great movie.  It just didn’t help my mood.  My friend and I were both sobbing (literally) through the majority of the last half.

I am well aware that this self-serving pity party isn’t helping anything.  I’m a psych major for God’s sake.   Intellectually, I know exactly what my problem is AND how to fix it.  Emotionally though, I’m just stuck for now.

So…plan B:  Beer.

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“My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.” — Philip K. Dick

So, I’m in a funk.  I can’t seem to care enough to get motivated to do anything.  I could be studying, working out, doing our taxes, cleaning, laundry, on and on and on.  I’m not bored.  I feel….bleh.

Being unemployed for this long with no end in sight, no real hopes for something that I’ll be excited about, or that is remotely stable, is completely unfamiliar to me and….life-sucking. 

Yes, I’m going to school to change careers to eventually do something that I’ll love, but that’s a long way off.  The class I’m taking now is extremely time consuming and not at all exciting, but is required.

I haven’t seen any of my girlfriends in weeks. 

I beat myself up constantly about not having a job.  I know this is counter productive and I’m trying to stop it.  It’s hard to reverse 38 years of negative self-talk.  That’s a work in progress.

I took some time out from my usual all-day job search (looking for a job is a full-time job) to relax.  I watched an awesomely bad movie on DVD.  I thought maybe if I just relaxed, did something mindless and enjoyable, I might feel better.  Nope.  Instead, I felt guilty because  I slacked off for two hours!

Tomorrow, I’m trying a different tactic.  I’m actually meeting a girlfriend for a movie.  I’m hoping getting out of the house and hanging out with her, eating popcorn drowned in salt and butter, and watching Ralph Fiennes on the big screen may cheer me up a little. 

If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to come up with a new plan over the weekend.  I’m fairly certain it will involve beer.

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