Oh What a Romance!!

Over the weekend I went to see “Life as We Know It” staring Katherine Heigl (Holly) and Josh Duhamel (Messer). The movie is based on two opposite personalities that are merged together through a tragic event. After this tragic event they are expected to work together to raise their friend’s one-year-old daughter. The movie begins with a blind date between these polar opposites, Holly and Messer, set up by mutual friends. She prepares for the date by getting all dulled up, however, Messer, like his name is late with a grungy appearance and disorganized. They attempt to leave her apartment to go to dinner, however, Messer only owns a motorcycle to take her out, doesn’t make reservations, and makes a booty call while he is with Holly. Ultimately, this date fails because they can’t relate to each together what so ever. This allows the film to begin on a humorous note. As the film progresses, a tragic event occurs where Holly and Messer’s mutual friends all of sudden die in a car crash. They leave behind their one-year-old daughter, Sophie in the hands of the polar opposites. Holly and Messer are forced to drastically change their lives to surround Sophie with a proper upbringing. Throughout the movie, you can see their love for Sophie grow and each other. Ultimately by the end of the movie, through all the hard times they end up in love and as a true family just how their friends had intended them to. Even know this film is predictable, I still enjoyed it because it was heart wrenching and a definite chick flick. I guess the added humor with the twisted romance appealed to me as a viewer. There were even parts that I began crying. In addition, I am a sucker for little kids. The baby, Sophie, in the film was absolutely adorable. How could someone not love something so CUTE? In the end, I guess one can come to the conclusion that opposites really do attract. Holly and Messer led very different lives, but ultimately the undeniable attraction couldn’t be ignored. Their lives began to rotate around each other by truly caring about each other. This film’s themes are comedy and drama. I feel like the writer and director did a good job of fitting the story line and acting to parallel to these themes. There were many funny things throughout the movie you could get a giggle at making it a comedy, but at the same time you could cry from the emotional drama. Ultimately, I really liked this movie and recommend for all the chicks out there.

So Percussion with their Strange Banging… Seriously?

As I first walked into Boll Theater, I was asking myself what is all this crap on this stage? The stage was cluttered with all types of things and items that didn’t even look like instruments. I guess I just thought that this didn’t look very professional. This was the first of many things I began to question and critique. As each member of the band came out, they all were taping on a chunk of wood with some sort of wooden thing. At first, I thought it was quite inventive. It reminded me horses trotting on brick with the clack clack of their hooves, however, as they kept playing my opinion drastically changed. My head began to hurt from the constant banging and it kept going and going, which led me to think to myself that this part of the performance would never end even know it was only the beginning. Finally they were done. Thank God. As they performed the next couple songs, I began to zone out. They used multiple xylophones and bells to continue their taping mixed with bizarre movies playing behind them. To be honest those movies were so depressing that consisted of monotone colors and the same replication of movement the entire time. They could’ve spiced up their performance with something not so boring and something that people would actually want to look at. Repeating sounds, repeating banging, that’s the only way to describe “So Percussion”. All throughout the performance, they never once looked happy to be up there or enthusiastic to be playing music that they were sooo fond of. I just thought that was bizarre. If this was their passion, shouldn’t they at least show their audience a little expression.
Being a college student, I don’t know how this would appeal to someone like me. I could not find any parallels to this type of music and the types of music I enjoy listening to. This was just way too out there for me. In addition, I even felt uncomfortable listening to this that placed me out of my comfort zone with the strange idea of banging on stuff. According to the New York Times articles published on this group, overall the ratings were relatively well perceived. I don’t understand what all the hype about them was. Ultimately, it led me to disappointment and a horrible throbbing headache.

A is "Not" so Awesome

“Easy A” can easily be described as a disappointment. The trailer for this movie made the movie seem undeniably good and something that high school to college students would want to see. Unfortunately, I was strongly mistaken. This movie incorporated multiple aspects of what you would imagine high school to be like, but in an unrealistic way including petty drama, cliques, high school romances, rumors, etc.
The film begins with the typical high school setting where Olive Penderghast, the main character, flies under the radar. The story is sparked by one little lie that she lost her V card to a freshman in college. She tells her best friend, Rhi, and it is intercepted by one of the biggest gossipers of the school. From then on, the word spread rapidly from person to person. As soon as she knew it, she was what everyone was talking about. At that moment in time, she was no longer a nobody, but a somebody and embraced this popularity. With her newfound confidence, she speaks out in English class and is therefore, sent to the principal’s office. She finds herself in detention with another one of her classmates, Brandon. Because of her so-called reputation, this desperate boy asks her to help him out. She feels bad because he is constantly being bullied and she pretends to have sex with him. After this incident, the situation spirals out of control. Her image goes down the drain and people begin to characterize her as the “class whore”. People begin using her to improve their statuses; she loses the respect of classmates and teachers, loses her best friend, and ultimately loses control of her life. Olive has to end the lies and stop the rumors to turn her life around to find true happiness.
Throughout this film there are some well-named actors including Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, Alyson Michalka, Penn Badgley, and Dan Byrd. Emma plays the sassy main character Olive Penderghast, who gets caught up in the “rumor mill” of her high school. The supporting characters include: Amanda Bynes, (the prissy catholic girl), Alyson Michalka, (Olive’s best friend), Penn Badgley, (the only decent guy in this movie), and Dan Byrd, (the bullied boy who starts Olive’s downgraded reputation). The director is Will Gluck. He is known for the television series, The Loop (2006), Gary & Mike (2001), and Luis (2003). Also supposedly, this was Amanda Bynes last film before her announced retirement. However, she returned to acting soon after. Another fun fact, in the original script, the "F" word was used 41 times, the "S" word was used 13 times and the "C" word was used 3 times. However, these had to be cut down be PG-13 appropriate.
“Easy A” is a hard read because I had multiple mixed feelings towards the story line, acting, and overall effect of the movie. To begin with, the whole film was overly dramatic from the way rumors spread to the characterization to the acting. First, the way the rumors spread from person to person wasn’t realistic. The rumors were spread by everyone turning to their neighbor and everyone texting each other immediately. In reality, news doesn’t travel this fast or in this context. In addition, I thought Olive was supposed to be this nobody and all of a sudden everyone knows who she is. Second, the characterization was extreme. For example, Amanda Bynes’s character, Marianne, was all about praising the Lord. She was the one that led the protest to have Olive expelled. In real life, this type of situation is extremely rare to nonexistent. I felt like this aspect of not only her character, but also all the characters were exaggerated. Last, I thought that acting like the characterization was dramatic. I felt like there was no realistic type of actions by all the people in the movie. For example, Olive’s parents were more like friends and acted more like teenagers that Olive could relate to. From personal experience, I could never see my parents acting like that. They represent more of someone to follow by their actions, not there to be like one of your best friends. Throughout all my negative ordeals with this movie, I did find a few things that I was partial to. For example, in high school I read the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which this movie was based on, and did not enjoy this book what so ever. I felt like the film did a good job of twisting the ideas of Scarlet Letter to make it easier to understand for modern times. One other thing I liked about this film was the main character. Even know the dialog was theatrical, I feel like Emma Stone, who played Olive, did a great job embodying her character. You could tell she fully committed herself to her role. In addition, she made most of the things she was saying believable with her quirky twist. Also, we can all relate to some of the aspects of high school since we’ve all had to go through drama and rumors at some point in our lives. In addition, the film is placed in the genre of comedy. In my eyes this genre fulfilled that type of expectations that are related to comedy where I got a few giggles out of it.
If I were to give this film, “Easy A”, a star rating, I would give it a 2 out of 4, where I was stuck right in the middle of good and bad. The plot was overly dramatic, where it felt like you were being beaten over the head with the same things over and over again. As a viewer, I thought the ending and some parts of the movie were predicable. If a movie is predictable, I don’t understand why there is a point to continue watching because you ultimately know what is going to happen. I would’ve liked this movie better if it kept me guessing. Next, the acting was mediocre, except for the main character, Emma, who I thought, as stated before did a good job with her role. Even though, I found many things that were bad about this film, the things I saw that were good were refreshing. Overall, the film was at the most, ok and I would probably not advise others to see it or if they do, wait until it’s out on DVD.