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Damsels in Distress

Violet: "I don't really like the word "depressed". I prefer to say I'm in a tailspin.

The To Do List, Trailer

Aubrey Plaza gives you The To Do List.

Arthur Newman, First Look

Colin Firth and Emily Blunt star in this dramedy written by Becky Johnston.
The quick synopsis: Two people trying to escape their past move into an abandoned house together.

London Girl (On Billie Piper)

Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Really? Belle de Jour? Instantly back to one Catherine Deneuve, but this one’s different. It’s Twentieth First Century London and this Belle has no problems with a perhaps repressed childhood, Christianity and masochism tendencies. She’s a woman who decides to become an escort mainly because she enjoys sex and the money is really good (if only things were this easy on regular bases, but anyway), this is her reality. She takes no time in presenting her world to us. Her world includes two sides, Belle and Hanna’s, though they’re really the same, which is something questioned throughout the entire seasons. It was interesting enough for me to keep watching.

Belle speaks to us, she tells her world to us breaking the fourth wall, I am not the biggest fan of this approach, but I got used to it because you soon realize this woman is really pleasant, she’s likable, intelligent, knows exactly what she’s doing, what her circumstances are, she’s not trying to pretend to be someone else, she’s really not, it’s her choice. You can see that in the final episode of season one, when she chooses to stay in her own flat, in her own terms and decides to do things by herself. 

 

Second season brings new characters, new challenges, especially in the department of relationships, which will be also part of the main plots throughout the rest of the seasons, which I really hoped it wasn’t. Bambi is a younger girl who’s just entering the escort world, and more than being a comic relief and setting a different state of whoring, she is someone that helps seeing who is Belle/Hannah is all about. Personally, she did that to me. I really got to her, to understand her ways and I really liked her. Now in terms of Belle quitting her job, which was part of her, therefore part of who she was, to be with a man, wasn’t part of my favorite explorations. Second season was different in many ways from the previous, for once Billie was pregnant and it was also pretty clear has her breasts grew bigger by each episode. I should mention Ben by now, her relent and always present friend who is clearly attracted to her. 

Third season had two opposing sides. It was to me the mature timing of the series, everything seemed to feet accordingly and it was just the funniest times. Belle had reach her success as an anonymous author of the secret life of a London call girl, she was enjoying her research for literary material as much as we the audience were enjoying her adventures and misadventures. She had found a stable so to speak confidence and respect in her own secret career, both of them. The honesty was at its core I guess, even if those questions of a secret life and her professional job, about being able to reconcile work and pleasure all at once still aroused her. She thought she would find in her editor the seemingly right balance, except that she found the exact person to whom comes the closest to her clients, except that she knew and had to face this one’s dishonesty. Too conveniently dramatic or not, that finale scene of Belle and the editor,  where they are fighting about each other’s dignity, she comes out of it as a really strong, intelligent and dignified woman to my perspective, that’s why this could be my favorite season. They had captured one of this story’s moral points, which is the dignity of a hooker. I like when Bambi comes to Belle’s apartment after her fight about race with the boss and Belle doesn’t want her inside because her sister is there and she’s like, “It’s because I’m black?”, and Belle responds, “No, it’s because you’re a whore”. 

Belle working on her literary material...

Ok, so the other part of this season was perhaps the growing mess outside Belle’s, because Belle was always consistent, always made sense. But for example, they totally forgot about her sister’s son and that messed with my brains, every single time she would appear. In the second episode of this series she gives birth, so, you know, I thought they would eventually maybe just mention the kid or something, but no. 

Season four took a whole new approach and it was my least favorite, actually. It’s like they didn’t had time for anything, the whoring part with the clients, her other life as Hannah/Belle, it was a mess. Characters suddenly didn’t fit their previous beliefs. I guess conflict was just badly written, they went with the easy known way outs. There was no such thing has continuity. Belle would be wearing this elaborated as fuck clothes in one scene and the next one would be wearing yet another mind fuck clothing set that she couldn’t possibly had the time to change; the same goes with the makeup, sometimes we couldn’t see her face, again continuity to the garbage. It was excruciating to watch the New York segment, too. 

They also took the last season to go on every cinematic road they wished. There was fixed camera a la Requiem for a Dream, there was spaghetti a la Tarantino, there was cut split screen and whatever. One thing it wasn’t that disappointing was the crazy road of fucked up clients, it went to a whole new mess too. Even the new male character they wrote to once again question Belle’s take on a relationship with another man was hopeless. The approach was soulless, the intentions didn’t fit and it just needed to end. Music was also much more present, and Adele made the end of it, with her 'Someone Like You'.  

This precious minute. The best part of the entire finale season.

"Is that in the script?" Oh, Billie, that laugh!

Only someone absolutely committed to this would be able to do something as reliable and as entertaining as Billie Piper did and not only was she great, it also seemed she really enjoyed playing this character. And her faces, her reactions to the many different things her character would have to face were often hilarious. I loved when she would turn to us and just say the simplest of the sentences, “What the fuck?”

This is never an easy topic, both in writing a story and the reality of it, in its reception and in making it; especially to the actors involved it takes courage. But they took risks and made it.

Holly.

It is so good when I look at this character, Holly, and I see nothing and no one else but Holly. No Billie, no Belle, no Rachel. That’s where she scores, Billie. One of the things, if not the biggest, I found so interesting about her, it’s like every time I see her it’s like her face changes. It’s true that I haven’t seen enough of her work but I’ve seen enough to conclude this, she changes quite a lot and there’s nothing that feels as good as this, for a fan. I loved that she became one of the most refreshing surprises from the acting spot. I gradually came to knowledge her subtle but absolutely committed work she did in True Love, she was great, and I think she’s really great. She’s lovely; she has such a lovely voice. She gain one faithful admirer.

Magic Mike

Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Written by Reid Carolin.

The whole experience of Magic Mike started way before the film start. The group, including myself, looks at the people; so who’s coming to see this film^? We’re looking for possible perverts, cougars (oh, so unpleasant). Two men walk together to their sits and we look at each other suspiciously. My friend had just said or questioned really, who the guy is coming to see this film, she had already seen it and she was looking for the men’s interest in seeing this film. Good question. Why I am watching the film, for once?

So the moment came, the so awaited film of the year (like I said at the beginning of the year!) the film starts, everyone is pretty excited, you know those noises women do. I don’t know what hit my mom but she couldn’t stop laughing at the first stripteases show, she later told me it was The Kid’s boxers that made her laugh like that.

As the film progresses, I realize the story is really about the lives of strippers, it’s about the world surrounding them. We have our own talented Magic Mike who’s trying to find his own legit road, trying to get out of this world and we have the newcomer and promising talent with The Kid, who’s trying to find his own road but without thinking of collateral side effects.

Like everyone else, I create my story and conclusions out of Magic Mike, it may get closer to what they were trying to say, but at the end I think everyone realizes the cycle we see in Magic Mike and The Kid’s, where one ends and another starts, it’s like passing the torch to a new version.

 Matthew stealing the show, is it too wrong saying this?

The final scenes of this film kind of messed my mind briefly as the film ends. Until the last moments, we are presented with as much of an authentic approach to this world as they are willing. My mom laughed so hard because The Kid’s boxers were those known used and without elastic kind of boxers she must have washed many times to her son. In a way, the film always tried to use authentic ways to makes us laugh, to makes us believe. The environment in the backstage, we could see through wide shots everyone preparing for the show and talking in the meantime. The moment when Mike and The Kid, Adam jump the bridge and the whole meaning about this scene of a young adult trying to find his way, trying to hold on to something. The conservations between Mike and Brooke, and her laughs that annoyed some girls behind me, when I had to hear typical girl’s responses like, “God, she’s so annoying, what a stupid laugh”. The use of colors in some sequences and the connection with the soundtrack. So when we see that talk between Mike and Brooke questions my mind set for a moment, it was like we suddenly had jumped to a romantic comedy. But the film as a whole is brave in taking this theme in particular and makes it as dignified as possible.

Part of my excitement for this film was really to see people’s reactions, to go to a theater and hear people’s reactions (even though I hate to hear it on a regular bases, obviously), it was my mom’s reactions, which by the way she loved the film and the kid, Alex Pettyfer. The day after she asks me to show her the trailers and that she really wants to see it again. I wonder if the male couples in the theater had enjoyed it, because I did. I was glad it had a story. I was also excited to see Olivia Munn but the one who really ruled the fuck out was Matthew McConaughey, like I would say, he was the king. It was really the connection of his own charisma and this character, the balance of Dallas’s seriousness and loose seriousness on the dancing part is of a great sobriety. Oh it would not be fair to not mention the mind behind all this, the one you cannot dislike, Channing Tatum! I can say I’m his generation…I remember perfectly when I saw She’s the Man in the theater and giggled a lot at him and even had a lot of fun with the film…that’s how I am part of his generation!

The Remake of Carrie

My early thoughts on Carrie was something like, 

"Dude, she would never had her period in the shower, and much less in those proportions. 

That's totally inaccurate!"

Talking about being inaccurate, Moretz as Carrie feels indeed inaccurate. Don't you think?

I don't think she has that impenetrable and dreadful stare. She does have the look of her own generation, so if that's the purpose, a Twenty First Century Carry, then let's wait and see if it works.

Parks and...

You know, sometimes I just do stuff...I don't know what I'm saying, so I will just share this with you (shamefully). The next few images feature Parks and Recreation and probably the most unexpected fusion you can think of. There was once Parks and Game of Thrones, I give you Parks and USWNT (in other letters, the United States Women's National Soccer).

It's just that these are probably my favorite faces, ever.

And its fusion it's just explosive.

Then put them around Retrievers and we get this.

I really thought there was no face like Hope Solo's bitch face...but then I thought again...

It's just an hopeless case...

Everytime I think of Tobin Heath...I put my finger like Swanson's and just say Tobin Heath!!

Anyway, I'm the hopeless case.

And if you at least laugh at this, then great!

P.S., All the great work I had done here was greatly done on Paint.
This is how good I am.

P.S.S., all this to conclude that Parks and Recreation is always on my mind.

Stills, from Hollywood

Smashed. 

I'm so curious to whether or not I'll officially fall for Winstead, I mean, I'm really curious about the film.

Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.

As much as I love naive Jessica (Celia Foote, Jolene) I also really love tough Jessica (Young Rachel, Pam).

Rush. 

Mmmm, Daniel...