Surf's up, Ace

I saw Point Break the day it opened in theatres. I could not wait, it was Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in the same movie, it has to be good right? Well it is good action flick. Unfortunately, Keanu is better to look at then to listen to. He's just not the best actor in the world. I am the first to admit that. He worked it well in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but for serious movies there is just something about his acting that bugs me. Even so, I will still see pretty much any of his movies. He is fun to look at.

I own the movie so I have seen it a million times. But it's not until you watch it with a critical eye that you start to notice certain things about the movie. Since the beginning of this class was have talked about the male gaze. Well in Point Break it is all about the female gaze and I really did not realize that until we really starting talking about it in class. That would be one of the reasons I have watched it a million times. Keanu Reeves, Wow! Hunka, Hunka burnin' love. He does look good in this movie. His tight shirts, the wetsuits, and many scenes where he does not even wear a shirt. You can not help but just stare at him as well as the other male characters in the film. Patrick Swayze is another one that you can not take your eyes off of.

Like we discussed in class. There is obviously a lot of the female gaze going on. But there is also the male gaze. That male gaze would be on the only female character in the movie Tyler, Johnny Utah's love interest. The scene where she is changing in the parking lot out of her bikini with just a towel wrapped around her, I am sure that got the attention of many men. Then also at the end of the movie when Rosie releases Tyler in the desert, she is only wearing a little nightgown. There was another scene where I believe both the male and female gaze was happening. That was the scene when Tyler and Johnny are lying in bed together and he is rubbing her arm.

I still to this day really enjoy this movie and will watch it when it's on TV. Looking at Keanu and Patrick in this movie never gets old. Lori Petty the Tyler character sure changed gears when she starred with Pauly Shore in "In the Army Now." Quite a difference in leading men huh?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110123/

Here is a link to some pretty interesting trivia for this movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102685/trivia

Not so "Clueless"

I love watching the movie Clueless. I watch it every time it is on. I thought it was funny (yet sad for me) that when we talked about the movie in class, most people saw it when they were 12 or 13 when the movie first came out. Hm mm. I believe I was 26, Wow! I'm old, yet I still really enjoy it and I admit it, I own it.

Cher is just an adorable and lovable character. You gotta love her. She tries so hard and yet is so clueless about so many things. She tries hard to be "smart" and she thinks she knows everything, but like it was discussed in class, I think most teenagers in high school think they know everything.

We really see her evolve into a different person throughout the movie. She starts out as a pretty selfish, shallow girl that will not have anything to do with people in a lower class than her. Then when Josh calls her out on it and basically points out that she really is a selfish person she begins to re-think herself and her actions. She even asks her best friend Dionne, "Would you call me selfish?" Dionne responds, "No, not to your face." Which I think right there goes to prove even her best friend is pretty shallow.

I kind of felt sorry for her. She feels the need to impress her mother even though she has passed away. Cher says, "She died when I was young. A freak accident during a routine liposuction." She talks to her picture as though she is still there. I believe she feels the need to be the mother figure and take care of her dad.That is why she is always making sure he is eating the right food. She is always watching out for her dad and trying to help him, he may get annoyed with it but he knows her heart is in the right place. Just little things like that I believe are the parts that give her that lovable, caring side.

Cher is not so "clueless" when it comes to the male gaze. The portion of the movie when Christian's character is introduced. Cher wants to make sure Christian notices her. She knocks the pen off the desk so he will notice her legs, the chocolate she brings in and eats in front of him and says, "Anything you can do to draw attention to your mouth is good." She says, "Sometimes you have to show a little skin. This reminds boys of being naked, and then they think of sex." The funny thing about this line is she is still a virgin. I also find it ironic that Christian ends up being the gay character. Or as Murray said, (makes me laugh every time)"Your man Christian is a cake boy! He's a disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde reading, Streisand ticket holding friend of Dorothy, know what I'm saying?" But the male gaze is still very much there.

I think Amy Heckerling did a great job making the characters very true to real life high school students. She did the same in one of my other all-time favorite movies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. At that time, the 80's, I could completely relate to the movie and its characters. She just has a way of understanding her characters. I feel the same about John Hughes films. For my generation I have the great teen movies of the 80's: Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, etc... Boy do those bring back the memories.

Here are a couple of links to remind you of the great teen movies of the 80's and the 90's. There are some you may have forgotten about. I did. Enjoy!

http://www.hollywoodteenmovies.com/TEEN%20MOVIES%20OF%20THE%2080'S.html

http://www.hollywoodteenmovies.com/TEEN%20MOVIES%20OF%20THE%2090'S.html

Eve's Gaze

Eve's Bayou was emotional for me. I could not hold back tears as I sat there and watched this little girl go through all this pain and disappointment. It affected me so much that I was really sad on my way home. I was really sad for Eve. Here was the one man that she looked up to more than anyone. Her daddy, her hero the one she most looks up to, and he has completely shattered the image she had of him.

The hardest part for Eve was that it is all based on her own gaze and what she saw purely by accident. The image of her daddy was shattered, shattered by something she was not supposed to see. When she saw her daddy "messin," that is something that will live in her memory for a long time. Understandably she tries to shake the image with the help of her sister Cisely, but like Eve narrates in the beginning, "Memory is a selection of images," Eve says, "Some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain." I think a lot of little girls feel this way about their daddy and once that vision of them has been broken, it is really hard to go back. It's really hard when families go through such turmoile. I know my daddy was not as "perfect" as I wanted him to be, but at least I did not have to see the imperfections with my own eyes.

Eve really did not want anything bad to happen to her daddy and wanted to protect him. For the most part people never really want anything bad to happen to a loved one, no matter what they have done. I know I always tried to protect my daddy because I always wanted to believe he was perfect . Eve finds out there are two sides to the story of the night between Cisely and her daddy. She was mad and disappointed but at the same time did not want anything to happen to him. Unfortunately, he is taken from Eve and the family in a tragic way. Once again, she watched it happen with her own eyes and will be a memory printed on her brain. But she will no longer have to watch him "messin" around.

Am I dating myself if I say I remember watching Debbi Morgan (Mozelle) as cute little dimpled Angie Hubbard on All My Children?

Here are a few links:

Roger Ebert's Review of Eve's Bayou. He named it as the top film of 1997.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19971107/REVIEWS/711070303/1023

http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9711/11/eves.bayou/index.html

My feelings for Wanda

We were asked in class about how we were feeling about Wanda. Personally, I felt really sorry for her and I just wanted her to be happy and for the movie to have a happy ending. I guess I just like the types of movies that give me answers to all my questions and gives me complete closure on the story and that gratification and in essence, that Awww effect.

We meet Wanda, she has just been dumped by her husband and as we see in the movie she is literally dumped by every man she meets on her wandering journey. She obviously has no self-worth what-so-ever especially based on how she allows men to treat her. She does not care about her children and felt that her kids would be better off with her husband than with her. What mental state is a woman in that can just walk away from her children like that. It was like she was just empty inside.

I kept waiting for something good to happen to her, but nothing ever did. I guess this type of movie they don't give you that typical happily ever after story. I kept waiting and wanting for her to be saved by someone, anyone. She just wandered around with what seemed like her head in the clouds. She was pretty clueless and extremely naive. I guess I was really hoping for the sappy love story to happen. I just kept waiting for it. It never happened.

I just felt so bad for her. The way Mr. Dennis would slap her around and she would just take it. Like she deserved to be treated that way. No one deserves to be treated like that. I really thought there was going to be a little romance when she and Mr. Dennis were in the empty field drinking and Mr. Dennis took off his jacket and put it over her shoulders. But when she says, "the sun's going down," he just tells her that her hair looks terrible and she should wear a hat.

There is not a lot of information out there about Barbara Loden here are a couple websites: http://www.hollywood.com/celebrity/Barbara_Loden/190111

http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/64206/Wanda.html

Beauty Question

The question that was raised in Monday nights class was, "Is beauty a problem?" I believe it is a problem now. I don't think that it has always been a problem. It seems that there is so much pressure that is put on little girls to be almost "perfect" and I do think there is a need for that. Actually the pressure is being put on little boys now too. What is perfect? I surely don't know. Too many reality shows are emphasizing on how to "fix" yourself. I will admit to watching Dr. 90210. I watch these shows and see people (male/female, young/old) go in for a consultation for one thing and walk out with a laundry list of things that need to be "fixed" according to the doctor. They look fine to me, but there is such and emphasis on making yourself into something different or "better." Even men are getting into cosmetic surgery. I have seen them go in for calf implants, bicep implants and other parts that they are not able to build up by working out.

My co-worker showed me this website she found. It is a cover photo of Faith Hill on an issue of Redbook magazine. They show you the before and after effects of editing a photo. It is amazing the difference. Here is the link: http://jezebel.com/gossip/photoshop-of-horrors/heres-our-winner-redbook-shatters-our-faith-in-well-not-publishing-but-maybe-god-278919.php

Just by looking at the pictures and the difference pretty much proves that even what you see in the magazines and on TV is edited. Those beautiful people are not as "perfect" as they make them. Although I still believe that Faith Hill is beautiful as is, and yet they went in and changed her. Some of her bone structure was even changed.

I think my favorite is when Jamie Lee Curtis was on the cover of More Magazine in Sept. 2002. They did a photo shoot of her as she really is and then after she "gets some help." It shows what she truly looks like under all of the hair, make-up and wardrobe. I have a lot of respect for her after this magazine issue came out. Here is the link: http://www.lhj.com/lhj/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/lhj/story/data/jamieleecurtistruethighs_08212002.xml

I believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and people need to stop modifing themselves.