Movie Review: Boys Don't Cry

An Expedition into cinematic genius that is the combination of the tragic, yet triumphant story of Brandon Teena (Teena Brandon) and the reservoir of talent that is Hilary Swank: Master of portrayal: Boys Don't Cry.

Quite recently, the Gods decided to smile upon me. They beckoned me worthy of such luminescence. Me? A humble beggar with a remote and Dish. They graced me with their presence and sent me a gift, a beautiful gift. The gift of a good movie. The gift of Boys Don't Cry appearing on HBO.

Quick synopsis of this movie. 

Based on a true story,
Brandon Teena (played by Hilary Swank) is a troubled transgender teen, living as a boy in a small town of Falls City in Nebraska. Brandon becomes popular fast among the men and women of this town; the women have never met a man so considerate and sensitive. Brandon's humble and gentlemanly mannerisms catch the fancy of the small town beauty, Lana Tisdel (played by Chloe Sevigny), which leads to a blossoming relationship between the two. Things seem to be going great for Brandon. Accepted with open arms from the people of Falls City, he make friends and finds love among the young drunkards and white trash of Falls City. Everything is right with the world, that is, until word gets out of Brandon's true sex, female.

Watching this movie brought out so many feelings in me. I wanted Brandon to be happy. I wanted Brandon to tell the truth. I wanted Brandon to runaway. I knew in my heart that a small town like that wasn't welcome to diversity or change, nor would they accept Brandon for his true self. An absolutely heartbreaking story. A movie like this was beautiful in the simplicity of the story; meant not to preach about acceptance of others, but more to have courage to be who you are. It's simple, yet cutthroat. Beautiful acting on Chloe Sevigny and Hilary Swank's part.

My respect for Hilary Swank has met gargantuan heights since my eyes set sight upon my TV screen. Considering the fact that before Hilary did this film, she had been looked upon by Hollywood as a symbol of female beauty. With small female roles and even appearing on Beverly Hills 90210 for several episodes, who could blame them? Which is why this movie came as such a shock to Hollywood. Casting sweet and beautiful Hilary Swank to play such a different role, entirely different for Hollywood, that entailed so much out of the actress, served an amazing performance in the movie and changing status for Swank to a serious actress, which entitled her to her first Oscar and lead her to pursue more challenging roles, like Alice Paul in Iron Jawed Angels and Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby. Also considering that Hilary Swank was willing to do the role, which involved serious sexual and violent innuendo, for a mere $3000; a minuscule fraction of what "big shot" actor would get for a role wanting so much from them. Swank has proven herself a true artist and yields the true essence of being an actor. It is about the work that one does, not the money or glamour that it entails, those are merely a perk. God bless you, Hilary Swank.
                                           The Bluest Eyes in Texas are Haunting Me Tonight.
                                                                                A.

The Evolution Of Jenna's Hair On "Awkward."

1st Season.

"Awkward." is one of my favorite shows mainly for the angsty plot about a young girl in high school and her experiences in love, family, and friendship. It is a story that is both relatable and entertaining to the audience. It is a story that transcends through time. The writing of this show is intelligent, charming and sophisticated, providing a simple storyline but bringing it out through a complex variety of characters. It's simple and clean cut but with a surplus of feeling, very Hemingway-like. "Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit," kind of story.

At first, I, kind of, liked Jenna Hamilton's hair. It was lustrous and shiny, thickness, a good color and bounce. Even though Jenna's hair was always in a braid, pony, or, simply, down, it looked soft and feather-like. The temptation to touch Jenna's hair was abundant in the 1st season of this amazing show.

2nd Season.

I am Jenna Hamilton...and I'm not fat.

Season two was more a a switcharoo -that rhymes- hair-wise. The tendrils that fell and complimented her face and jawlines so divinely, were no more. The gorgeous coif of hair she had in her bangs was shortened greatly. With a lack of loose 1st season hair to frame her face, and a shortage a bang, the hair she dreadfully wore in season two gave audience the illusion that she was fat with no neck. This is simply not so. The hair serves as nothing but slander, she is very much thin and pretty.

3rd Season. Dear Lord.

her bangs wouldn't be sticking down in abrupt wind if
there wasn't grease to hold it down. Jenna Hamilton is
modern day Danny Zuko, Grease.

With only two episodes into the third season, Jenna isn't really delivering with the hair. Her hair remains a braid, yes, but with greasy lookin' bangs. Other than being greasy, they seem untamed. Jenna needs to get on that brush status.

At least you're not Nikki DeLoach.

Walking around with short middle-part bangs, acting like it don't bother people. God, why is it so hard for leading ladies to have respectable hair?

Doesn't need a full picture to know, that shit ain't cute.

Movie Review: Les Misérables

Les Miserables: In this case, less is more.

I am fully prepared to be attacked by the audience who loved the film, backlashes, tomatoes, prison sentences and all!

I've recently taken the liberty of purchasing the film from the PlayStation Store on PS3. I thought to myself, "Hey, you love Anne Hathaway, you love Hugh Jackman, you've heard a lot of buzz about this movie for months, why not buy this movie?" I scurried to the "purchase" link on the screen like an anxious, hungry fat boy to his sugar-drenched candy. God, was I hungry for this movie. Within seconds I was watching the film. It started off pretty solid. The cinematography was great: their uses of accentuating basic colors of white, blue, and red was very symbolic and put to good use. Trouble with the film came quite early, sadly. I felt that the story itself escalated way too quickly. One moment Hugh's pulling a boat, the next he's a free man. The story didn't fully explicate the cruelty and forcefulness of the french government. The audience is left with just the empty statement that Jean Valjean went to jail for an extreme amount of time just for stealing loaf of bread. Russell Crowe, sadly, didn't deliver as Javert. The chase between Javert and Valjean wasn't as enticing and thrilling as it was between them in the lower budget 98' version of the film with Geoffrey Rush and Liam Neeson, a truly powerful duo. There were plenty of things that just didn't sit right with me in the movie. The following is a list:

Things that didn't sit right: 

Valjean's upbringing to an honest, heroic man: the film didn't fully go into as to how Valjean became the good man he is. It was but a simple, short clip of him at a convent, explaining his wrongs and throwing away his papers. Cut to 8 years later, BOOM, he's an honest and good businessman. How dandy that life works out that way.

Fantine's role in the movie: Anne Hathaway, being as brilliant as she is, made the most out of the rough 10 minutes she was in this film -FYI one of the shortest featurings in supporting roles in Oscar history and she still managed an award, god bless her. Her role was, like her new haircut, short and sweet. She lives, gets fired then dies, but before so, presents us with her glorious gift of song. I was stunned to find out the hard way that the version of I Dreamed A Dream that she sang in the trailer- which made me cry, by the way- was not the same version sung in the movie. Instead she presented a more raspy, thrusting sort of sound other than soft whispers. This version did not make me cry. 

The overall production of the movie: I felt the film itself presented something entirely unbecoming from the story. The whole production was completely over-the-top and unnecessary, which presented a bourgeois essence, something that can relate more to the upper class of the story rather than its true heart and soul, the squalor-ridden lower class. This is a clumsy misdirection on both the set designer and the director's part. The story does not and should not rely on hoity-toity set design, fancy-schmancy cameras and editing to truly express the beauty in the story. The story itself is what makes it beautiful. 98's version of the movie presented a much more simpler design, and with that, the audience was not distracted from the core of the story.

Cosette and Marius's relationship: I find it hard to believe that after 5 minutes of their first encounter, Marius and Cosette loved each other. They didn't even kiss and they knew they loved each other. It simply doesn't work that way. They aren't Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet got together twice before they announced their love to each other. 98's version showed that Cosette and Marius snuck out a couple of times as teenagers do and got better acquainted. This version completely cut out the communication from these two and as a result presented a weak feeling of emotion in these characters and their relationship.

The singing: It got annoying after a while. I find it unnecessary to sing every word when some people are mediocre singers at best *cough cough* Russell Crowe.

Javert's death: It was abrupt, empty, and unsatisfying. Like a bird hitting a window, quick and inexplicable. 

Cosette's life completely cut out: We see very few shots of Cosette throughout the whole movie. Again, escalating too quickly. One moment she's a little kid and poor the next she's a youngster in love, then BOOM married with a dead dad. Her role isn't as important as it should be which makes her seem like an extra in the movie which is weird because she's the whole movie poster and icon of the story. Since when are extras on movie posters?

The length: The movie was too damn long and unnecessary, and it made the audience -me- aware of how long it was. I'd like to be enthralled in a movie and not have to check my phone for a brief moment. The length of this movie should be used to further explicate and build on the story, not bore people.

The ending: I'm sorry, but it was corny. It should have ended at Javert's unsatisfying death.

                         There's 2hr 38min and $12.99 I'm never getting back.

                                               A.

Babe of the Week

In the Velvet Darkness, In the Blackest Night, Burning Bright, There's a Guiding Babe: Brad, Pre-Angelina

From Thelma and Louise, to Moneyball and The Tree of Life, Brad has proven himself to be not just a babe, but a fantastic actor, too. He has managed to make quite a name for himself in Hollywood, blazing the trail for aspiring actors following his footsteps. From short beginnings playing bit, uncredited parts in Growing Pains, like former BOTW, Leo DiCaprio, to top knotch performances in amazing movies such as Fight Club, alongside Edward Norton, where he played a gorgeous loose-cannon potential terrorist alter ego, Tyler Durden, a role which is certainly difficult enough to describe rather than performed, but interpreted beautifully and flawlessly, nonetheless. Let us also not forget his work in Se7en, where he worked alongside the great Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey, where he played a rookie detective on the hunt for a serial killer, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a truly captivating story about a man who as he aged grew younger, and as a result of his condition was able to experience things you wouldn't imagine, and form everlasting relationships with the people he met on his journey: a poetic Forrest Gump. Brad before Angelina was iridescent, a diamond in the Hollywood's sea of costume jewelry. Not to say he's lost his touch, but just isn't the same as he used to be. Brad is amazing and, at his age, still looking pretty darn foxy. He is one of those actors who we sort of take for granted, right up there with Leo! In fact, Brad has won no Oscar gold but has been nominated a stunning 4 times! He is very much underrated. At least he's trying. Kudos, Brad.

                                       You had me at Interview with the Vampire.

                                                          The Council of Babes.

Babe of the Week

Jesus H. Christ!

T'was but a matter of time that the glorious Hugh Jackman joined the ever-so exclusive club of BOTW. Please, if you will, sit back, relax and bask in the abyss of sublimity that Hugh Jackman, a king among actors and a god among men, has to offer.

This gifted hunk of man has been mostly accredited for his role as Wolverine in the X-Men movies and his most recently dazzled us in the big screen adaptation of a Broadway play based on the famous french novel by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, where he played a solemn Jean Valjean, fugitive father, a role which earned him a solid nomination by the more-than-so biased Academy Awards for Best Actor [do not be thrown off by this statement, I have some personal beef with the Academy but that does not change the fact that Hugh Jackman is an Australian god]. You may also remember him from such films as Australia, a movie directed by the great Baz Luhrman, director of Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge,alongside Nicole Kidman. He had played the role of a loose cannon cattle drover, going by the name of -of course- Drover and his controversial relationship with an upper class English widow, played by Kidman, in late 1930's Australia. You may also remember him The Prestige, a film directed by Christoher Nolan, amazing director of the Batman Trilogy and Inception. Jackman was utterly captivating alongside Christian Bale [veteran BOTW] as you watched their playful friendship evolve into a scorching and vengeful rivalry; a race between mesmerizing geniuses, masters of illusions and trickery. David Bowie is also in this movie, just thought that was worth mentioning.  

Other than being an amazing actor, we must agree that the man is nothing short of gorgeous. His rugged lumberjack manly-man Tom Selleck looks are hard to come by nowadays. His rugged features reminds us of a simpler time, where girls were girls and men were men, where John Wayne and Tom Selleck dominated the hearts of women every which-way! Guys like that, they had it made. Kudos, Hugh.

                                          If you've got no love in your heart, you've got nothing.

                                                      -The Council of Babes

My Utmost Apologies

To my Fellow Readers and Aspiring Pupils,

I apologize that I haven't been able to sit down and gather my thoughts on our capitalist society and the babes who dwell within it. Times are changing and people don't have the same fraction of time to dabble in such deeds as they did yesteryear. It is painful that we should have to grow accustomed to unwelcome change, but these things are inevitable. We must deal with change as it hits us. We are evolution's evidence and we will adapt when change hits us abruptly.

                       But I'll meet you guys half way and try writing more often.

                                                        -A.

The Empty Space in My Bed

Never was there a story of more woe...

Than this of Cinthia and I. Blessed be the one who's bed she sleeps in. T'was but only a short time I had her with me. I can  still smell the sweet aroma of her majestic hair that had lain upon my very pillow. Apricots. Fresh as the dickens. Oh glorious Cinthia! The love I bear thee can afford thee no better term than this: thou art a goddess! How I yearn for your return, or my arrival to where ever you may be. There is a certain solemnity that airs every crevice of the manor. In contrast with how life once was when Cinthia lived about my quarters, I receive no sense of meaningful life direction. Without her I am forever lost, a wanderer, a vagabond, a nomad. I have no home. Two roads diverged into the woods, and I didn't take either of them.  My life is an everlasting abyss that only sinks in deeper into the depths of tragedy and affliction. Alas, I am fortune's fool. Oh dear, sweet Cinthia, if the gods themselves have within them slight traces of a merciful heart, they will find a way for us to be together. Until then, sweet waif, I'll be dreaming of you.
                              Return to my bed.
                                     -A.