How I Met "How I Met Your Mother"

It's fairly unnecessary for me to chime in about my reactions to the finale, after nine seasons, of How I Met Your Mother. All of the actual professional review sites have shared their thoughts and feelings, ranging from disappointed to defensive, and this gently-read blog that I've largely ignored for the past few years isn't going to add to the conversation in any significant way. But something about the last two-part episode has inspired me to record what the show has meant to me, and how the finale made me think about my own life.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

If by now you've seen "Last Forever," and read the largely negative reviews, then you know that it's the "twist" ending that really upset a lot of the show's fans. Of course, there are problems with the show's denouement and how it was presented. But I suspect it's only going to make more and more sense as time goes by and I continue to think about how it ended. In the pilot episode, I fell in love with Ted's falling in love with Robin on their first date, and it was a cute, funny, and startling moment when his future-narration reveals that this meet-cute brought him together with his kids' "Aunt Robin."

For nine seasons we've seen Ted and Robin's relationship grow into a complicated romance-turned-friendship. Numerous times, it's been exhausting to see them split up and get back together, when we've known since the beginning that they would not end up together. Once we finally discovered whom Ted was meant to be with, "The Mother," Tracy McConnell (pitch-perfectly played by Tony nominee Cristin Milioti), the show did an admirable job of getting us to fall in love with her throughout an awkward 'bottle episode' of a final season. She was perfect for him, intelligently designed to match him in every way, and it was a delight to see their pairing, finally.

What I didn't know until after the series ended was that her death after only a ten-year union with Ted was planned from the beginning. It's a great relief for me to know that this was the creators' intention, because it allows me to better appreciate the ways, throughout the years, that they've built towards it. When I first heard murmurs a few weeks ago that this outcome was being theorized by fans, I was initially dismayed. It did seem like a betrayal, as if the show had gone off the rails in its latter seasons, and this was one final transgression against a show which had once been so excellently-crafted and emotionally affecting.

That it was the plan all along for the show's framework of Ted telling his kids how he met their mother, to be focused primarily on his relationships with Robin, Barney, Lily, and Marshall before Tracy came into their life, makes much more sense when it's revealed that he's curious how they'd feel if he started dating Robin, six years after having lost his wife to an unspecified illness. It's understandable to be skeptical that his kids wouldn't react in such a cavalier way throughout the story if their mother is dead, but I disagree. They're teenagers, listening to their nerdy dad tell one anecdote after another that has nothing to do with their mom. And, she died when they were young children, so it's not as if he's trying to start dating immediately after the funeral. I like to think that Ted frequently regales his children with countless stories about their mother: who she was, what she was like, and what he loved about her. So this story we've been privy to doesn't seem as relevant to them as all that.

Of course, there are numerous things wrong with how the show wrapped up. I was never a fan of the final season dragging out over the course of one wedding weekend, and wish that they'd stretched the finale's years-long story arcs out through the entire ninth season instead. This would have given the writers many opportunities to creatively tease out the eventual reunion of Ted and Robin, rewarded longtime viewers with more delightful scenes in the life shared by Ted and Tracy, and more intelligently served the storylines of Lily, Marshall, and Barney.

Barney is easily the least satisfying of all the characters, both throughout the show's run, and during its marathon last episode. I was never on board for his romance with Robin, apparently life-changing, as the writers tried so hard to convince us. (It reminded me of the bad taste Grey's Anatomy gave me when uniting George and Izzie in that show's watershed third season.) Perhaps because I was so uninterested in their union, I had no problem with their divorce, but it was frustrating for the show to have burned so many calories trying to convince us that they would truly go through so many enormous changes in order to come together, and then when they come apart, for Barney to basically bounce right back. Robin truly reevaluates her life after her divorce, but Barney seems like the same old cad.

Barney was a latchkey kid with seriously complicated relationships with his mother and absentee father. This turned him into a hypersensitive young man, rawer even than Ted, who was moved to change his entire life after an early heartbreak and the tutelage of a hardened womanizer turned him into the Barney we would eventually meet. For him to try so hard to do things right, finally, and see it fail, I can't believe it wouldn't send him into a truly dark tailspin. I would have liked to see a middle-aged Barney find himself at the bottom of a whiskey bottle, struggling to find a new identity for himself. A full season of flashbacks/flashforwards would have given the character a chance to build himself back in more than just the one moment (beautifully acted by Neil Patrick Harris) when he first meets his daughter.

What I liked the most about the last hour was Robin's disconnection from her former friends. Some of it was inconsistent with earlier seasons' flashforwards, but it felt the most natural to me of any of the finale's "disappointments." The speech she gives to Lily when bailing on a frustrating Halloween party makes perfect sense. Why would she stick around with a well-meaning old married couple, her promiscuous ex-husband, the ex-boyfriend she suspects is the man she should have ended up with, and his beloved wife? She's successful and famous, she can avoid the pain associated with this particular group of friends and move on with her life. Of course it's sad. Life is frequently, relentlessly, sad. Alyson Hannigan's acting was excellent in this episode, possibly because she wasn't acting much at all. In a ridiculous pregnant whale costume, against a bare set, Hannigan's big watery eyes were powerful enough to make me forget she was ever Buffy's bestie (or her Big Bad).

And that's what was so great about all of the changes in the show's conclusion. Life is rarely neat and clean. People are almost never in the right place at the right time. How many times did Ted and Tracy just miss meeting each other, and how many more years could they have had together? People do marry the wrong person. People marry the right person, and lose them tragically. People marry the right person, and struggle with their relationship regardless. People have to put their dreams on hold because a baby is coming. People pursue careers that make them very happy, but still feel something is missing. Hearts get broken, more often than not.

I see now how all along the show was laying the foundation for us to be okay with Ted and Robin coming together in their fifties, only ready to be together after being dragged through the highs and lows of life first. That girl in the fifth season episode "The Window," whose numerous relationships all had to start and end before she could be reunited with her childhood sweetheart. Stella, who eventually found her way back to her daughter's father after jilting Ted at the altar. One of my favorite characters, the almost-Mother Victoria, who came into Ted's life before he was ready to let her go for a time, and whose own wedding was prevented at the last minute. There's even the first season episode "Return of the Shirt," where Ted seeks love by getting back together with a former flame, only to realize he hasn't changed enough since their first breakup. Finally, take Tracy's deceased boyfriend Max, whose death she had to overcome before she'd be ready to turn down Louis' proposal, even though he is a great guy, before she can be ready to meet Ted.

Relationships end, and they change, and sometimes we find our way back to the people we used to love, or didn't love enough, but a lot of the time we don't. When How I Met Your Mother premiered I was just eighteen, a sophomore in college, and the characters seemed majorly grown-up (Major Lee Grownup). Now, I am pretty much the same age they were when it all started. I have friends who are lawyers, I have friends who are married, and I've quit jobs. I've fallen in love. I've had my heart broken. And I've seen many of my friendships change.

It was this that made me cry when watching the finale, seeing the rift between Lily and Robin and knowing how this has been mirrored in my own life. Today I discussed the show with someone I became very close to in college, and thought about how HIMYM ending was one of the "big moments" we'd be sure to discuss. Coincidentally, this conversation happened on the day she taught her first college class as a professor. I asked if she, like Ted, walked into the wrong classroom at first. Over the years, there have been drunken nights, inside jokes, hook-ups, road trips, and first kisses in my life to rival those portrayed on the show. Once I managed to tune into the most poorly-timed rerun of the episode when Victoria moves to Germany, while visiting my boyfriend who lived in another country. Our relationship didn't last either.

I so wish that the finale had just been tighter, and more consistent with some of the show's set-ups. I wish the Slap Bet had been more entertainingly resolved, and that we knew what happened in the Pineapple Incident. I wish we'd gotten to spend more time with The Mother, as surely Ted and their children did too. I wish the final season had been rewritten, and that later seasons had been better paced overall. (I wish a lot of things in my real life had gone differently, too.) But I wish all of this because in the Golden Age of television that has come about in my twenties, almost no show has better spoken to what it's like to be me. Mad Men's Peggy has resonated with me, there's the titular Veronica Mars, and elements of shows like Happy Endings have struck a chord. But I think when the time comes for me to go back to the beginning and watch all over, I'll be so glad that Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin, Barney, and even Tracy and all the others, were in my life ... at the right time.

Call me crazy

Click for full size.

Take a look at the above poster for Savages, which I've been seeing on buses and benches all over for what seems like forever now.  Tell me if you think I'm reading too much into this, but here's what I see when my eyes scan from left to right:

• Blake Lively in Dia de los Muertos makeup - you'd only know it was her if you'd seen other advertising for the movie.
• Aaron Taylor-Johnson looking grown up and scruffy and intense.
• Taylor Kitsch, willing you with the power of his stare to forget basically his entire film career but especially his last two movies.
• Salma Hayek almost completely obscured in shadow.
• John Travolta
• Benicio del Toro's face half-covered by what looks like a motorcycle face mask with a skull print.

I knew something about this ad was bugging me, but it took me seeing it a few times before I sorted out the problem.  The three white men in the ad are clearly distinguishable and identifiable in how they are framed and lit.  The women and Latin-Americans in the poster are obscured, their identities not really critical to the selling of the movie.

In this one-sheet, you can see all of the starring actors well except for, I presume, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, whose baby blues are peering from behind a calavera-patterned helmet.  The existence of this poster makes me feel that I could have been making something out of nothing when I look at the other one, but I feel like there are many contractual and social reasons behind imagery and billing in film advertisement.  Taylor-Johnson is probably the least famous of all the faces on the poster, but the trailer leads me to believe that he has a bigger role than Lively - these things all come into play when the actors deals are made.

So what do you think?  Am I making this up?

Grimes - Oblivion

I'm good at blog.

I'm sure the only thing better than my infrequent blogging would be a completely unorganized account of new television shows, halfway through the premiere block, and while I'm not fully caught up!  But whatever.  I don't have TV anymore (resolving this soon) so I've only been able to catch whatever's on Hulu, or whatever I see at my parents' house on the weekends.  Deal with it!  If a show doesn't appear on the list below, either I don't care enough to bother with it (Pan Am, Charlie's Angels, The Playboy Club), it's finished its summer run (The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Switched at Birth, True Blood), or it won't be back (or premiering) for a few months or longer (30 Rock, Apartment 23, Mad Men).


SUNDAY 
The Amazing Race (8pm on CBS, premieres 9/25)
          Year after year, I remain super pumped about this show.  It is always fun to watch with my family, and it's such an amazingly produced reality competition.  Hoping to audition for it eventually! 
Once Upon a Time (8pm on ABC, premieres 10/23)
           I saw the pilot for this a few months ago, and it was a little weird, but seemed promising if you're into darker network dramas.  I'll probably watch a couple of episodes but it's not really my style. 
Boardwalk Empire (9pm on HBO, premieres 9/25)
          The first season took ages to finally get exciting, but it ended up being wonderful.  It's not my favorite "high art" show but I'm excited to watch it during the desert between Breaking Bad and Mad Men. 
Dexter (9pm on Showtime, premieres 10/2)
          This show goes up and down in quality, but it's still mega awesome and better than a lot of other stuff I watch.  I think Colin Hanks will actually be a really creepy baddie so I'm looking forward to this season. 
The Walking Dead (9pm on AMC, premieres 10/16)
          I thought the first season was super boring, but it's a high production value show about zombies, so. 
Breaking Bad (10pm on AMC)
          There are only three episodes left in what has been an incredible season of what is currently the best show on TV.  How Vince Gilligan and the actors manage to manipulate the audience so thoroughly is just incredible.  I am obsessed with this show and will post more in-depth thoughts when the season's done. 

MONDAY 
How I Met Your Mother (8pm on CBS)
          One of the most affecting shows about twenty-somethings dating and dealing with relationships and growing up is reaching its breaking point.  I'm hoping that this is the second-to-last season and that we can start letting it wind down.  This week's reveal of Victoria was exciting because I really liked her with Ted, but I know she won't be the 'mom.'  Also, I am personally more interested in Marshall and Lily's journey at this point than Barney or Robin's, and I hope they work on leveling that out.
2 Broke Girls (8:30pm on CBS)
          The pilot had funnier jokes than I expected, so I will give this one at least a few more episodes to really win me over.  I didn't find Kat Dennings to be particularly funny, though her character is meant to be pretty dry...it just felt like she had taken a crash course in comedic timing and was acting a bit too robotically. 

TUESDAY
Glee (8pm on Fox)
          Fox is annoyingly making us wait eight days before watching its content on hulu, so I haven't watched the season premiere yet.  Luckily, I remember how awful the show became last season, so I'm happy to wait.
New Girl (9pm on Fox)
          It's been a little while since I watched this pilot, which I found to be instantly grating.  However I love Deputy Leo from Veronica Mars, and I'd be betraying my fellow twee hipsters if I didn't love Death Cab for Cutie's first lady, so you know I'll keep watching.
Raising Hope (9:30pm on Fox)
          I'm also waiting until next week for this to go up on hulu, but I was charmed by this show's first season and look forward to having it back.
Sons of Anarchy (10pm on FX)
          Ugh I haven't seen any of this season's first three episodes!  I freaking love this show but they don't stream or put the episodes on demand so I'm at a standstill for now.
Awkward (11pm on MTV)
          One of my favorite new shows.  I was initially drawn to it because creator and showrunner Lauren Iungerich is an alumna of my college, but it's really wonderful.  It's a bit of a hybrid between My So-Called Life, Daria, and Juno, so I don't see why it wouldn't be awesome.  Also, the lady who plays the protagonist's mom used to date JC Chasez. #funfact

WEDNESDAY
Up All Night (8pm on NBC)
          I didn't find the pilot to be that great, but the second episode was a bit funnier.  I think the actors have good chemistry, I'm just not convinced that the premise has anything to offer.  I'm sure you could say the same thing about NBC's Thursday night comedy block though, so prove me wrong, show!
Free Agents (8:30pm on NBC) 
          This show is going to get canceled really soon. Let's face it.  It's funny and charming though, and I love seeing Kathryn Hahn given some breathing room.  She's got a bit of the Judy Greer thing going - always the friend, never the star - and that's got to change soon.
Modern Family (9pm on ABC)
          Everyone loves this show and so do I, but I thought the Wyoming-set season premiere was chock full of offensive sexist and homophobic "jokes."  The show has tilted at this in the past but really let loose in the premiere.  Let's hope it's not a trend.  I am not as mad about new Lily as others are, but I do miss those babies!
Happy Endings (9:30pm on ABC, premieres 9/28)
          This show rules and I'm worried that mistreatment by the network will result in a premature cancellation.  I can't wait for it to come back!

THURSDAY
Community (8pm on NBC)
          I am going to watch this tonight!  I'm not the biggest fangirl of this show, but it is always clever and very funny, so I'm glad it's back, especially since we'll have to wait a while on 30 Rock.
Parks and Recreation (8:30pm on NBC)
          The best show on NBC is back!  So far I feel like they'll allow us to miss the Ben and Leslie relationship without hating the change too much.  I hope so, because I love Adam Scott and his character.
Whitney (9:30pm on NBC)
          I haven't seen this one yet but it looks so awful.  Absolutely nothing about it appeals to me.
The Office (9pm on NBC)
          Last night's season premiere was so bad that during the cold open, I thought they were joking.  I've long felt that this show is a husk of its former self, so hard not to feel when one remembers how wonderful its brief predecessor was.  That said, I think there's been a steep drop-off in quality this season, not entirely thanks to Steve Carell's departure.  I just don't think the writers know what they're supposed to be doing at this point. 
Grey's Anatomy (9pm on ABC)
          My unhealthy relationship with this show continues.  I'll be catching up on this one tonight, but I mean, it'll be the same soap it's been.  No big deal.
Jersey Shore (10pm on MTV)
          I'll never stop watching; this show rules.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (10pm on FX)
          I'm a week behind but thought the season premiere was a little weak.  I think they could have played more with physical comedy, but whatever, it's still one of the most shockingly funny things out there, so I'm happy it's back.

Sweet 25...

It's Back to School week over at A Bright Wall in a Dark Room!  Click over there to read my essay about Never Been Kissed...

School Week: Never Been Kissed (1999)

IF YOU FAIL GYM, YOU’LL NEVER GET INTO COLLEGE

by Katherine Spada

Touchdown!

I don't like to go too in-depth when reviewing movies released by my own studio, but I do want to just share a couple of thoughts on Moneyball which I saw last night.  We all know I love inspirational sports movies about sports that I don't like, and Moneyball isn't really an inspirational sports movie, but damn if it isn't about baseball.  Here's how little I know about baseball.  Freshman year of college I bought a cute green shirt at a thrift store that said "Athletics" and had a baseball on it.  I was rather emo at the time and had a penchant for ironic t-shirts from the boys' section of the Goodwill.  When people kept asking me if I was from Oakland, I couldn't understand why (I thought it was just like an elementary school's P.E. department shirt).  While Moneyball is largely about how statistics factor in to major league baseball, which I didn't quite follow, I still really enjoyed watching the movie.  Brad Pitt was excellent in it, the writing was very impressive, and I can't wait to see more and more of Chris Pratt.  I'll admit that a movie about baseball being over two hours long doesn't help you forget that baseball is super boring, but even what seemed like superfluous scenes were great.

Now onto something superficial: Philip Seymour Hoffman is four years younger than Brad Pitt but looks about twenty years older. I continue to love him more than Pitt, but man were their scenes together jarring.

Come learn from my vast wisdom!

Attention Los Angeles area readers: Tonight I will be speaking at an event in West L.A. called "Moving On Up! The Young Alum Panel on Getting Hired in Hollywood."  This is a 21+ event hosted by the Claremont Entertainment Mafia, an alumni resource for graduates of the Claremont Colleges working in the entertainment industry.  Claremont students who are 18+ are welcome, just let the CEM members at the door know you're a student.

So Claremont alumni, and interested friends, join me tonight at 7pm at The Joint for this panel and some mingling.

The Joint
8771 W. Pico Blvd. at Robertson

Event description:
A successful career in Hollywood is exciting and lucrative, but how exactly does one begin?

Claremont Entertainment Mafia has assembled a panel of three of our most promising young alums - future movers and shakers - to discuss their own experiences on getting hired and getting promoted in the industry.

Join us for an evening where we will share anecdotes, advice, and take your questions regarding all aspects of the Hollywood ...hiring and promotion process, as well as the day-to-day grind.

DEVIN RAPSON (PO '09) got his first taste of the industry as a PA on Scooby Doo 4, in addition to interning with Oscar-winning Pomona alum Jim Taylor. He ran the feature department as coordinator at Landscape Entertainment with Bob Cooper, and recently has been hired to the prestigious Paradigm Talent Agency.

KATHERINE SPADA (CMC '08) began her career as assistant to Universal EVP Peter Cramer. After traveling the world, she currently works at Columbia as assistant to EVP of production Elizabeth Cantillon, working on such projects as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the next film in the James Bond franchise.

JAVAN TAHERKHANI (CMC '08) moved up the cutthroat CAA ladder, from mailroom to floater to assistant, where he worked with powerhouse packaging agent Rob Kenneally. Now at Media Rights Capital, he works closely with the leadership of the television division to identify, develop, produce and sell premium content.

The panel will be moderated by Justin Huang, PO '09.

Warrior review at MediaBlvd

My review of Warrior has been cross-posted over at MediaBlvd Magazine.  Enjoy!


http://www.mediablvd.com/magazine/this-is-sparta_201109153917.html

This... Is... Sparta!

This weekend I went with a couple of my martial arts teammates to a late-night showing of Gavin O'Connor's sports drama Warrior.  I've long held that inspirational sports movies are the highest art of storytelling, even when they are about sports I don't like or care about (inspirational movies and TV shows about football probably offer the highest ratio of satisfaction to level of disinterest about the sport).  Given that I train six days a week in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and regularly head to my neighborhood bar for UFC matches, I was excited to finally have one of these movies about mixed martial arts, a sport I actually care about.  O'Connor directed the well-loved Miracle, about the U.S. Olympic hockey victory against the Soviet Union in 1980.  I found Miracle to be boring, but hoped that wouldn't be the case with Warrior.  Luckily, it wasn't.

In Pittsburgh, former trainer and recovering alcoholic Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte) returns home from church to find his younger son Tommy (Tom Hardy), drunk and self-medicated, sitting on his front stoop.  It's been over a decade since escaping his abusive father, and Tommy's lost years remain a mystery he does not wish to discuss.  Whatever his sorrows are, it's off to the gym for former Marine and wrestling champ Tommy to work out his anger.  Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Paddy's older son, ex-UFC fighter Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is a family man, teaching high school physics and struggling to pay the bills after his daughter had suffered from a heart problem.  It's back to prize fighting for him, beating up hillbillies in parking lots to earn some extra cash, but he can't bring himself to tell his wife (Jennifer Morrison).

Both brothers are in need of money fast, so they independently find themselves training for Sparta, a single-elimination MMA competition with a five million dollar purse.  It isn't until the final third of the movie that the leads even have a scene together, and this is part of what I liked so much about it.  The audience is given just enough backstory about Tommy and Brendan's lives to know that they have been estranged since adolescence.  We aren't spoon fed erroneous details about what happened after one brother left and one stayed behind, nor asked to care, really.  What matters is the present, two brothers fighting for the money they need to start over, and approaching catharsis in the process.  After watching two separate stories unfold, one about Brendan and his wife, and one about Tommy and his father, when they finally collide, all of the pent-up emotion has been saved for the octagon.

The fight scenes were excellently choreographed and shot.  Edgerton and Hardy clearly got into shape by training with real fighters, and whenever they were in combat I winced at each round kick and submission as if I were watching a live match.  [RIP Tom Hardy's neck, you will be missed.]  This is not to say that the movie didn't have flaws, particularly with its performances.  For a large chunk of the movie, Edgerton just speaks in a full-on Australian accent, and Hardy's take on emoting seems to consist primarily of pouting while growling, but I don't actually think the role required much more from him on that count.  There are a few glaring logic problems, but they're worth overlooking.  However, the emotional payoff in the final scenes of the movie is, well, cheesy.  Even cheesier than I would usually expect or tolerate from a sports movie like this one, and I wasn't the only one in the theater laughing.

If you're a fan of martial arts, I assure you that Warrior leans more toward The Fighter than toward Never Back Down.  It's not all the way at The Fighter's end of the spectrum, but it's still a very good movie.  I'd definitely classify it as more of a family drama with sports than the reverse.  Now, if you're not interested in martial arts, I think it's still a movie worth watching, which I say as someone who was obsessed with Friday Night Lights but would find watching football to be like having teeth pulled.  But, for those made squeamish by fight sports, those scenes are definitely brutal.  Finally, and most importantly, the movie is full of juicehead gorillas with their shirts off, so if that tickles your fancy, you're good to go.

Don't Think About It

Over at A Bright Wall in a Dark Room, you can find a very personal essay I've contributed on the subject of Drake Doremus' Like Crazy.  Click through to visit the site; full text reposted below.
-----------

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

by Katherine Spada
I was twenty, and had just graduated from college a few months prior. My internship had yielded an unbelievable job offer that everyone told me was foolish to pass up. However, I’d already planned a gap year to travel, and that was not something I wanted to turn down. So off I went to Australia for six months, and that’s where I met him.

In Drake Doremus’ festival favorite Like Crazy, Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones meet cute as college students in Los Angeles, and struggle to figure out what they should do after graduation when it’s time for her to move back to England. Before she’s due to leave, they have a romantic mini-getaway until, foregoing reason, she decides to outstay her visa. This decision changes the course of their love and their lives for the coming years.

He was sitting across my tiny table, having cooked us a pumpkin and roasted garlic risotto. We drank wine, there was a candle lit, and the air was cool outside my high-rise apartment. We spoke of traveling, and how we viewed the world. I felt a catch in my throat and excused myself to the bathroom. You’re in trouble, I told my reflection. Weeks later he was using my laptop and I worried he’d see in my search history, “how to make long distance relationships work.”

Yelchin’s Jacob knows it’s a bad idea for Jones’ Anna to stay in Los Angeles the summer after graduating. Perhaps neither truly realizes how serious the blowback will be from her decision to stay through the summer. More likely, they both realize there could be consequences too scary to face, but given the option to continue wallowing in each other for just a few more months, they are powerless to turn it down.

Anna and Jacob make plans for him to visit her, but they have ongoing lives that can’t be put on hold in between visits. Jacob is a carpenter with a growing furniture business; early in their relationship he gives Anna a lovingly made desk chair where she can write comfortably, the film’s title etched into the wood. In England, Anna pursues a job writing for a publication where she’ll have to plug away for a few years before she gets to where she wants to be. Phone calls never occur quite at convenient times for either of them, and they’re incurably out of sync with each other’s schedules.

One of us waits at the airport with flowers in hand, dressed up and well-groomed, eagerly scanning the faces of each haggard traveler coming off a long international flight. The other spends over an hour deplaning, lugging bags through customs and immigration, and then hastily trying to wash off the stench of travel in an airport bathroom before coming through the arrivals gate. In the span of a couple of weeks (all the time we could manage to get off work), we’d pack in visits with friends and family, sightseeing, fancy white tablecloth dinners, romantic mini-getaways, and lots and lots of serious talks about the future. More tears spilled in airports and on airplanes, and in cars driving away from them, than seems physically possible.

Anna’s parents can see how happy Jacob makes their daughter and are very supportive of their relationship, in whatever way they choose to pursue it. Of course, the suggestion of marriage comes up very early. Just like staying through the summer instead of leaving right after graduation, getting married seems like a very good idea.

“So, are you planning on moving to Australia?” “What would he do if he moved here?” “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just got married?” I can’t, I’m too young. I don’t want to get married for convenience. What about money; how would we make it work?

Jacob and Anna carry on with their lives. It’s so hard to miss each other, but they try their best to share in each other’s personal triumphs. Promotions, settling in to the fun activities of hanging out with their cultivated groups of friends, generally growing up. They begin to move on to new relationships, but they stay in each other’s thoughts, Anna’s chair and bracelet (engraved fittingly with “Patience”) remaining tokens of Jacob’s love that she can’t leave behind.

I remember being bitterly jealous of couples I saw holding hands at farmer’s markets or watching TV shows together over delivered pizza. We are so much better than they are, why don’t we get to be together, but they do? Maybe marriage is the answer… There is always value in thinking reasonably and thoroughly about major decisions like that.

“Don’t think about it,” Anna tells Jacob when he voices concern about their future.

My long-distance relationship didn’t follow the same trajectory that Anna and Jacob’s did. The film peeks in on their lives, leaving them abruptly and ambiguously, but it’s easy for a romantic to infer that the struggles in the film paved the way for a happy future. I imagine that Like Crazy is to a long-distance relationship what Blue Valentine is to divorce - realistic to the point of being difficult to watch if you’ve lived through it. There are so many major threads that weave together a long-distance love: devotion, trust, emptiness, wist, heightened romanticism. Like Crazy captures all of these so well, but it especially reminded me of the willful ignorance of it all. The struggle to pretend that very real hurdles don’t exist because it’s just not fair for them to hold us back. The naive desire to believe that, should those hurdles be overcome, everything will carry on harmoniously.

I was twenty-three, riding in the passenger seat of his car on the way to the airport, heading back home after my last visit to Australia. I broke the silence with verbalized fantasies of all the things I couldn’t wait for us to do together when we were finally living together in the same city. At the airport I cried, as usual. Two years prior I’d made the same trip from Sydney, then only on the starting line of this long-distance marathon. That time, I’d sat against the window, embarrassed to be seen by flight attendants as I wept into the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Mercifully, a girl finally rushed down the aisle to be seated next to me. Her face was splotchy and she carried a bouquet of flowers as she left her Australian boyfriend behind to return home to South America. We cried together. I shared with her some of the Chupa Chups I’d packed for the flight. This time, I traveled alone.

Katherine Spada is a Hollywood assistant and sometimes writer. When she’s not working, she trains in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When the mood strikes, she contributes to MediaBlvd Magazine, and blogs at Kat Ex Machina.

Resisting the urge to write Erik/Charles slash fanfic...

Just a quick review because there's no way I can be impartial or really tell you anything you don't already know about Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class.  I really like The X-Men and I will be excited to go see any movie made about them.  I even liked X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine more than a lot of people did.  I didn't grow up reading comics but my sister did and she taught me about the world of mutants, and X-Men: The Animated Series was probably my favorite TV show when I was a kid.  I wanted to grow up to be Wolverine!

So anyway, getting to see a side of Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr that I had not given much thought to, was really exciting for me.  As always, it is cool to see the mutants use their powers, I got a chance to learn more about some characters I never knew that much about (Beast, Darwin, Banshee), and the 1960s setting added an interesting element.  That said...this so did not go far enough.

The story of a younger Magneto and Professor X could/should have been a 2-3 film arc.  The theme of discrimination against the mutants during the 1960s could have been used to tell a story against the backdrop of Civil Rights for African-Americans, which was a missed opportunity.  And for a movie where I felt everything was resolved far too suddenly, parts seemed to drag on for ages.

This movie was incredibly cheesy, but not quite in a way that felt like they were trying to kitschily establish our beloved mutants in the swingin' '60s.  Beast's post-transformation makeup was simply unimpressive, and the writers seemed to change their minds about characters' personalities every few pages.  There were, obviously, massive logic holes, but this is a universe where a blue scaly woman can transform into anything she wants so, you know, I'll just let them be.

To paraphrase my friend, I am desperate for them to make a Young Magneto: Nazi Hunter movie.  Michael Fassbender was easily the best part of the movie, and I wish Magneto's relationship with James McAvoy's Charles Xavier could have been given more time to grow.  Also, if this story were expanded into multiple films, I feel like the relationship Raven/Mystique has with both Charles and Erik would have become a compelling storyline.  Her brief scenes with Magneto were (oh man I was about to say "magnetic," what's wrong with me?) intriguing.

In any event, it got me pumped again about X-Men, and I fully intend to go back and watch last decade's trilogy again.  Then every movie Michael Fassbender has ever been in, because damn.

Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is, maybe he didn't?

Okay, so I should state upfront that I'm a Woody Allen neophyte.  Of his films, I've seen What's Up Tiger Lily, Bananas, Sleeper, Match Point, and now, Midnight in Paris.  So yeah, I missed all the good ones, I guess, except Match Point.  I've been told that I struggle more than others with separating the artist from the art, and I admit that to be true.  I do try, though.  I mean, let's take Roman Polanski.  Rosemary's Baby is incredible, then his pregnant wife gets murdered by the Manson family, then he makes this amazing and twisted adaptation of Macbeth, and I also love Chinatown and The Pianist, but the man is a confessed child rapist and I can never forget about that even when I'm watching and loving his films.  So you'll have to forgive me when I say that I don't ever really seek out Woody Allen movies because he totally creeps me out.

Anyway, I was told Midnight in Paris was "delightful," and many of my friends "loved it" and saw it multiple times.  I was pleasantly charmed by it, and found it a quick, whimsical journey through Paris across time (the film is only 100 minutes long, including credits).  The story is sweet and has a clever conceit involving time travel that is forgiven any logic questions because that's not the point of the movie.  Owen Wilson continues to surprise me as a pretty one-note actor who nonetheless brings a sort of honesty to his roles that really draws me in (he was the best part of How Do You Know, fwiw).  All of the acting in the movie is really charming, with pitch-perfect roles played by Rachel McAdams as Wilson's fiancée, Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein, Alison Pill as Zelda Fitzgerald, and Marion Cotillard as MPDG ingenue Adriana.  My favorite cameo was probably Adrien Brody as Salvador Dalí.  Allen gives us a sparkling, spotless Paris that is most beautiful in the rain, where a lost-in-his-thoughts wealthy American can wander the streets at midnight without encountering a single vagrant or having his wallet stolen.

The film is about nostalgia, and treats the subject in a cute, reflexive way.  Owen's modern-day screenwriter is nostalgic for the golden age of writers and artists gallivanting around Paris in the 1920s.  1920s-era Adriana is nostalgic for her city's Belle Époque, whose denizens Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec (sidebar: the casting director couldn't find one LP actor in France?) wax romantic about the Renaissance.  It's a good theme, because who among us hasn't sat and listened to a haunting Gershwin tune and wanted to wake up in the Jazz Age, or gotten transfixed by Seurat's Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte - 1884 and wanted to just melt into it?  I've spoken with some of my friends about our Austen-inspired idealization of Regency Era England, which lasts for about five minutes before we realize that as ethnic minorities and women, our lives would actually be pretty terrible were we to be transplanted to Pemberley by magic.

Wilson's character does make a brief concession to the fact that life is better in a world with antibiotics in it, and overall, I believe he realizes that one must learn to feel positively about the modern age, because nostalgia is fantasy.  Surely Paris' 1920s beauty is tempered by the hindsight of knowing what horrors would befall Europe a decade and a half later.  And here's where my thoughts on separating the artist from the art come back in.  Our protagonist idolizes Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Degas, and others.  Misogynist, misogynist, womanizer, sadist, etc.  And all mindblowing artists representative of their time.  Obviously their portrayals are not realistic; they are conjured by Wilson's character as manifestations of what he knows he needs to remember in order to write a great novel.

Let me know what you think about Midnight in Paris.  What historical era or work of fiction do you wish you could be transported to?

The Ugly Carrot

Okay, so I've been in a haze of Tylenol and Sudafed for the past three and a half days, so I only have the energy and mental stamina for a very brief review.  This weekend I saw Bridesmaids, directed by Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig, and written by star Kristen Wiig and her writing partner Annie Mumolo.  Even though I found the trailers and commercials to be less than promising, Bridesmaids was eagerly awaited by myself and most of my friends, hoping to prove to observers that not only do women watch comedies, but they can carry them too.

While I enjoyed Bridesmaids, it was not as funny as comedies such as Dodgeball or Zoolander, but it was sweeter and smarter than both.  My mom called it "deeper" than she expected, as the story was certainly more about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and about female friendships, than it was a broad hijinks-vehicle.  Jon Hamm was excellent in a small role as a douchebag, basically a modern Don Draper if he were honest about being a jerk.  Chris O'Dowd as Wiig's love interest was very sweet and likeable, and he and Wiig played against each other well.  Melissa McCarthy was the highlight of the movie, playing both the bawdy scenes and the endearing scenes with a loveable honesty.  Her olive branch of friendship to Annie (Wiig) was more touching than any history between Wiig and Rudolph's characters.  Also, her flirtation with a character played by her real-life husband Ben Falcone was funnier to me than many of the other comedic set pieces.  Ellie Kemper and Wendi McLendon-Covey were underused.

You should see Bridesmaids.  It's a little too long but it's definitely worth watching.  I don't think it will crush institutionalized sexism in Hollywood.  The First Wives Club made nearly $200K in 1996, and here we are 15 years later hoping that another rare female comedy will change everything, while reviewers are criticizing the movie based on the attractiveness of its stars.

Trailer Tuesday

Non-shocker: there are a ton of movies coming out that I am excited to see.  I'm not talking about "I'll Netflix that one," but actually ones I am looking forward to seeing in theaters!  It's going to be a good summer, I think!

X-Men: First Class (June 3)
It's the X-Men, so...


Super 8 (June 10)
J.J. Abrams, Coach Taylor, Steven Spielberg, aliens and explosions?  I'm there.


Captain America (July 22)
To be honest, my favorite thing about this trailer is how funny tiny Chris Evans looks.  But also I love America and superheroes and WWII movies so this will hopefully be awesome.


Cowboys and Aliens (July 29)
They had me at Harrison Ford, but Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig fighting aliens in the Old West?  Thank you, I'll take two!


The Help (August 12)
I'm reading the book right now and while I am enjoying it, and the movie looks dandy, I am a little fatigued by how POC stories always have to be told by white people.  Also, Viola Davis is amazing.


The Debt (August 31)
While watching the trailer for this in theaters my dad and I simultaneously gave each other a 'thumbs up.'  I am hungry for this movie.


Colombiana (September 2)
Well, I strongly disliked Taken, which was written by the same people as wrote this, but a hot spy + Michael Vartan is a pretty good formula, so I'll check it out.


Warrior (September 9)
Inspirational sports movies are my favorite, and this time it's about MMA, a sport I actually watch and enjoy, unlike football, which every other inspirational sports movie is about. 


Anonymous (September 30)
I was a lit major and also this looks gorgeous.

Do not mistake my appetite for apathy!

First of all, Wikipedia, Thor cannot be classified as a superhero because Thor is a god, not a superhero.  I don't know why stuff like that bugs me so much.  Anyway, the whole cast and premise of this movie seemed very weird to me until I realized that Kenneth Branagh was the director, which is also weird, but impressive.  At first it seemed like this movie was actually taking itself completely seriously, and during an interminable scene of Asgardian warriors visiting the realm of the Frost Giants, I considered taking an extended break to visit the snack bar.  Things pick up once Thor is exiled to Earth, where Chris Hemsworth and occasionally Kat Dennings bring charm and humor.  Natalie Portman's acting and her character were both weird and out of place, though it was a nice surprise to have the female love interest completely clothed throughout while the man spends some time shirtless.  Not enough time, though.  Hemsworth is best when playing the charmer, not the angry fighter.  Winking at Sir Anthony Hopkins, demanding a horse from a pet store, and smashing his coffee mug against the ground.  The movie is basically constructed using plot holes as a building material, but it was enjoyably fun overall.  The visuals of Asgard were impressive, drawing into stark contrast how crappy the effects in The Green Lantern's trailer look.  I'd worried that Hemsworth would be a graduate of the Sam Worthington school of covering up one's Australian accent (school motto: "Don't."), but was relieved to see that he stuck to the "ancient people have English accents except for that one Asian guy" rule instead.

'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold' review at MediaBlvd

My review about Morgan Spurlock's POM Wonderful presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold has been posted online at MediaBlvd Magazine.  Check it out!

Visible Minorities

This weekend I attended a screening at the 27th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where I saw Jeff Chiba Stearns' documentary One Big Hapa Family and Patricio Ginelsa's short The Journey.  Issues of multicultural identification have always been very compelling to me, and especially after seeing Kip Fulbeck's exhibits on the issue at the Japanese American National Museum, I was eager to see what looked like a warmhearted look at one Japanese-Canadian family's history with intermarriage.

Chiba Stearns looked around at his family reunion and realized that after his grandparents' generation, no one had married within the same race.  Consequently, all of his siblings, cousins, and their children, are of mixed Japanese and Caucasian heritage.  His documentary explores the questions of why his parents' generation married outside their race, what impact that had, and what his hapa relatives have to say about identity.  At the screening, we only saw the abbreviated 45 minute cut, but the DVD includes the full-length feature, which goes further with interviewing his young cousins about their hapa identity.

One Big Hapa Family does not cover any new ground that Kip Fulbeck hasn't explored before, but his documentary could be a good introduction for people curious about issues of multiethnic identity.  It's appropriate for all ages, and its innovative uses of animation integrated with footage would entertain children as well as adults.  It also taught me about parallels between Japanese-Canadian and Japanese-American history, which was interesting.  For those interested, you can find more information at Chiba Stearns' website, where DVDs are on sale for $20.  Proceeds go to fund the documentary he is currently making about the need for multiracial bone marrow donors.

My personal thoughts on multiethnic identity as an American with multiple cultural identifiers are...numerous.  For now I'll just shill One Big Hapa Family.

Who's the woman in a gay relationship?

Last night's episode of Modern Family addressed the fact that in a homosexual relationship, heteronormative society still expects one partner to fill the masculine role and the other to fill the feminine one.  Cam felt hurt, offended, and marginalized when he was treated as an "honorary mom" on Mother's Day.  Because Mitchell goes to work while Cam stays home with their daughter Lily, he is regarded as the "mother."  When Mitchell brings him breakfast in bed, it's hurtful enough for Cam that his partner views him "as the woman" in their relationship.  Later at Lily's play group's Mother's Day picnic, all the other childrens' parents refer to him in the same way.

Modern Family may include a gay partnership and an inter-ethnic/trans-generational second marriage among its characters, but in all three of the nuclear families portrayed, one partner stays home to parent full-time while the other works outside the home.  In the two straight partnerships portrayed, the stay-at-home parents are women.  This episode did very little to challenge the strictly enforced rules that women are the nurturers, the ones who parent instead of working, the ones who like the color pink.  None of the other families at Lily's play group seemed to have a stay-at-home dad, two parents who share work/home duties, or outside child care help while both parents work.  Being a stay-at-home dad made Cam "the woman," and it was roundly accepted by all but him.

These rules are so hard-wired into our society that people expect for homosexual couples to adhere to the same binary.  I'll tell you right now: when two men are in a relationship, neither one of them is the woman.  And when two women are in a relationship, both are!  When a man and a woman are in a relationship, and the woman works while the father stays home to look after the children, the woman is still the woman and the man is still the man.  I'm reminded of a blog entry I once read by a new mother who was tired of constantly being asked, "Who's watching the baby?" or, "Is your husband babysitting tonight?" whenever she was out somewhere alone.  It was presumed that the mother and the baby would never be apart, and when the father was caring for their child, it was referred to as "babysitting."  This is demeaning both to women who cannot be allowed to carry on with their daily lives without being harangued as to why they are not with their kids, and to men who are viewed as incapable oafs unable to keep their children alive.

This is all part of a bigger problem (isn't it always?).  Being viewed as feminine or womanly is a bad thing.  While it is fair for Cam to be incensed that he is being incorrectly defined against his will, it is made very clear that to be "the woman" in the relationship is to be inferior, to be weaker.  He even directly tries to counter this assertion by stating how physically he is much bigger and stronger than Mitchell.  When women dress in men's clothing, it is acceptable, fashionable, even sexy.  When men dress in women's clothing, it is laughable, or demeaning.  If a man throws "like a girl," it implies that he is weak.  "Be a man," they are told, meaning, "be big, be strong, be better."  Women are the "fairer, gentler, weaker" sex.  Society continues to reinforce the binary, that a couple must have a man and a woman, and the man is superior over the woman.  The sooner we can equalize our expectations of both genders, the better off we'll all be.

(For the record, I believe gender performance is partially socially constructed, but that there are inherent gender traits we all have.  Some men are more masculine/feminine, and the same with some women.  I don't think we should all forgo gender definition and live in some sort of Barbie-crotched world of neutrals.  But I think if we let people define their own identities a little more freely instead of immediately putting our babies in worlds of pink OR blue - never both! - we'd stop judging people so harshly when they don't conform.  Next thing you know, they'll be giving women the vote!)

'Hanna Rennt' at MediaBlvd

My review about Joe Wright's Hanna has been posted online at MediaBlvd Magazine. Check it out!

While Kirby Dick rolls his eyes...

This post also appears online at MediaBlvd Magazine.

Somehow I had managed not to see anything by Morgan Spurlock until last week when I went to a screening of his latest documentary, POM Wonderful presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, a look into the world of product placement (a.k.a. "embedded marketing") in film and television.  Even having missed his debut, Super Size Me, I think I can understand critics who say that the premise negates the necessity of the movie in this new documentary as in that one.  Of course eating at McDonalds for every meal for a month will take its toll, and of course using sponsors to finance a film about embedded marketing will shed light on the not-secret fact that advertising is used to offset the cost of filmmaking in a time when revenue is way, way down for the movie business.  While Greatest Movie does provide a few interesting things to think about, it feels as though Spurlock is going through the motions, holding back from being fully along for the ride that the journey could take him on.

It is funny to see Spurlock wink at the camera for over an hour, pitching product integration ideas to potential investors, then cutting to a scene in which the exact idea is carried out, or saying multiple times, "this scene right now is in the movie."  A few times, he does make mention of the fact that by signing contracts with his sponsors, he is not sure he can remain an objective documentarian.  I wish he had investigated this further.  What does "selling out" do to the integrity of the filmmaker?  How would this process impact any future films he makes?  I couldn't help but think of Kirby Dick's wonderfully meta look into the MPAA, This Film is Not Yet Rated, which provides layer upon layer of insight into what goes into rating and releasing a movie, illustrating the process itself.  Compared to that favorite of mine, Greatest Movie comes up short.

There are a few attempts to show how product placement has gone farther than we all realize, such as when Spurlock discovers that public schools are selling advertising space on athletic fields, CCTV, and school buses.  He even goes to Sao Paolo, Brazil, a city that has banned advertising on public buildings, but neither vignette goes far enough.  He interviews Sao Paoloan business owners to see how the advertising ban has affected business, but I did not get a sense of the real toll it has taken on the economy.  The representatives of the Florida school district where Spurlock buys advertisements for his movie talk about their schools' need for money, but do not really say what impact they think the advertising has on the students.

Though I'm being critical, because I think that Spurlock could have provided us with a more well-rounded look at the long-term impact of sponsorship, I did enjoy watching Greatest Movie.  When he interviews members of OK Go to ask them if they'll participate by writing the movie's theme song, I could not stop laughing at the OK Go product placement so blatantly shown onscreen.  It was amusing to see how Spurlock had to stay true to his promises to the sponsors by conducting interviews at Sheetz convenience stores, or by including full 30-second commercials in the film.  Nothing will top what he does to shill Mane 'n Tail shampoo.

But when all is said and done, I felt I had learned very little.  I learned what it was like for a documentarian to secure corporate sponsorship to finance his movie.  But I wish I'd learned a bit more about how product placement in movies and television shows has affected the economy of the industry.  What was the outcome of Spurlock's experiment - could he consider himself an objective documentarian, or has he just gone through the motions of financing his film?  Altogether, it's an enjoyable movie to watch, but I didn't feel that it really served its intended purpose.