Easily an A*

 What makes a film a romantic comedy? I ask myself this question a lot: mainly because, being a girl (holding up the stereotype here), I watch them what seems like all the time. I am proud of the fact that Love Actually is one of my favourite movies, I will not apologise for my love of Autumn in New York or Valentines Day and I will happily talk about any movie containing either Zooey Deschanel or Joseph Gordon-Levitt (preferably both please) to anyone who will listen.

And most importantly, I will always, always have a small part of my brain, whatever I'm doing, that thinks: I could be watching When Harry Met Sally right now.... Especially in a physics lesson.

I want my life to be like one of these movies. I want to dance around in the rain, always wear the perfect outfit in any situation and have amazing music playing over every dramatic moment in my life. Basically, quite like Olive Penderghast really....



"I want John Cusack holding a boom box outside my window. I want to ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80’s movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason."

But no, sadly John Hughes did not direct my life either, I will never look quite as cute in my glasses as Zooey and the song playing never quite fits whatever dramatic moment is happening in my life (this is why I need to stop putting my iPod on shuffle) so, like Doctor Mindy, I will have to settle for watching other, fictional people have their awesome musical numbers for no apparent reason. At least I can have popcorn that way.

Anyway, Olive Penderghast is the main character in Easy A, which is an amazing and really funny film. Properly crying with laughter funny, holding your sides, stomach-aching funny. I don't know whether it just works with my sense of humour or if its the fact that its like an updated Mean Girls with Amanda Bynes, YouTube, Penn Badgley (um, Gossip Girl, do you live under a rock???) Stanley Tucci as the world's nicest dad and a soundtrack with Jessie J and Joan Jett. Literally what is not to love about it? A main character who's favourite class is English, finally. I mean I love Cady Heron but I could have related to that film so much more if she had been forced into joining the Book-thletes or something like that. And if Mean Girls is the most quotable film ever, Easy A wins the prize for the most gif-able.

 

Sadly there is no Tina Fey but there is an English teacher who has like one good joke, so that's something. Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe from Friends you guys!!!!) is also the worst "guidance counsellor" ever. I assume this is the American equivalent of student support worker, rather than career guidance or something, but either way anyone working in a school should take note of what to really try NOT to do with underage students. And seeing as I'm on the subject of what not to do with your life...

This, coming from the girl who claimed, on twitter, that she wanted Drake to "murder her vagina."

I love irony.

 

Is it just me that feels like I need to say this every time I put on sunglasses now?

Which brings me to.. the best thing about Easy A, which is obviously Emma Stone. She is about ten times more funny and sorted and smart in this film than some people (cough, Amanda Bynes) will ever be and I just love her. I hope Lobster Tod and Olive live happily ever after in the land that characters go after the film ends. I am now going to have to watch everything that this girl is in from now until ever and ever. I first saw this film about a year ago and have honestly watched it about five times since. It hasn't stopped being funny yet. So what are you waiting for? Go and watch it (or watch it again), laugh, cry, seriously re-evaluate your wardrobe and then come back and tell me how much you love Easy A. I'm leaving you with this: unless you weren't convinced already that no one else (including you, Chloe Moretz) could have played Olive with so much awesome as Emma Stone.

And finally, if you think I may have a been a bit harsh about Amanda Bynes, a bit too mean, I have one thing to say to you...

 

x

Julie & Julia.

Or, A Movie Not To Watch If You Are In Any Way Hungry. That kind of makes it sound bad and it's not, I loved it. But whether you are fasting or just ate a three course dinner, your mouth will be watering before you get very far here so maybe get some snacks or something ready, I don't know.

Blogs, and specifically, blogs about food are a common occurrence now on the internet. Whether your thing is the cooking of food, the photographing/Instagramming of food, the feeding of others around you, stalking out the best places for coffee or a certain kind of sandwich or just (who are we kidding?) the best kind: the eating of it, there is a blog made just for your specifications. Here is the link to the last food blog I discovered - it's amazing by the way - after googling a recipe for bacon and chocolate chip cookies (don't even ask). I want to live in a world where all anyone ever eats is cooked by this woman.

http://iamafoodblog.com/ <-- Click it. It will change how you think about cookies forever. Oatmeal and bacon, that's all I'm saying.

Julie Powell was (is?) one of these success stories. Her blog "The Julie/Julia Project" about her adventures in cooking her through Julia Child's recipe book, written from her home (and tiny kitchen) in NYC, resulted in the popular book: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, published 2005, followed by the 2009 Nora Ephron penned film: Julie & Julia. Every blogger's not so secret fantasy.

And due in part to my love of both Nora Ephron and food, I decided to watch the movie for the purposes of having something to write about. Not that I don't have many, many other things I could be doing with my time, or indeed writing about, or anything. Its sort of like that feeling when your fridge is full of food and even though you're hungry, you don't feel like eating any of it. That's how I get when I'm trying to decide what to write - and I though the analogy was suitably food-related. 

So, onto the movie. Firstly, it's Meryl Streep. There is very little else I can say here, except that Meryl is The Best. Jennifer Lawrence was so astounded and excited to have even been nominated for an Oscar in the same category as Meryl Streep that it was the first thing she mentioned in her acceptance speech, and wouldn't everyone? She is kind of Completely Amazing in this and also did I mention her husband is played by Stanley Tucci. Yes, you did read that correctly. Stanley Tucci. Emma Stone's dad (Easy A), Anne Hathaway's fairy-godmother (The Devil Wears Prada, duh) and now Meryl Streep's husband: can he get any cooler? Its like an alternate universe where Miranda Priestly and Nigel realise they are obviously meant for each other and get married, leave fashion, gain 15 pounds each and move to 1950s France. (They might also have to change the whole string-of-ex-husbands and being-gay thing too to fit with the plot of this.) But save a little bit of your excitement for this movie because... wait for it... Chris Messina is also in it... as Amy Adams' man! Yes, Danny Castellano is here and instead of being all cute and grumpy and moody about Mindy's love of romantic comedies and cynical about Meg Ryan he is here and being cute and adorable with Amy Adams and her beautiful red hair and saving her from a pot of still-very-alive-and-trying-to-escape boiling lobsters. You'll have to watch it; I can't do all the amazingness justice in this sentence. 

Moving on again to the number one best thing about Julie & Julia: It's a Nora Ephron movie. Which means not only do you get MasterChef-worthy, drool-inducingly delicious food and the choice of two equally delightful leading men, you get writing equal to that of When Harry Met Sally - arguably THE best movie ever - from the undisputed queen of romantic comedies that are actually both realistic and funny, insightful, touching... I could go on but you get the idea. While Julie (or Julia, for that matter) is no Sally, and the romance aspect takes a bit of a backseat here with both the protagonists being happily (minus the odd wobble) married, it is nice to see a film in which relationships and/or the having, getting and maintaining of them is not the principal motivating factor in the heroine/s life and choices. Basically, its really good and I now have the weird desire to Go Cook Something... Probably not a good idea, given the last time I was duped into following a healthy-yet-tasty recipe from Tumblr. Post to follow when I recover from the embarrassment of baking something containing three kinds of actual fruit but still resembling cardboard more than, well, literally cardboard?

I don't really have anything else to say about Julia & Julia, except please watch it and tell me if you also inexplicably really like it too. I can't quite sum up what it is about it, there's just something very lovely about a story in which unhappiness is mysteriously and mostly either pretty absent from the plot or soothed by cooking a chocolate pie and smushing it into your (adorable) husband's face, in a good way. This isn't a domestic violence situation here or anything, just to clarify that. Also who doesn't want 53 comments on a post about murdering some crustaceans? Enjoy... or Bon, um, Watching?
xoxo