Movies I LOVE: Moonstruck

Posted: August 4, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Humor, Miscellaneous, movie, personal | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Moonstruck is one of those movies. It’s one of those movies you never particularly feel like watching and then when you watch it you’re astounded at how much you like it. No matter how many times I watch that movie I laugh out loud. It’s hilarious and touching. Actually, when I think about it, it’s the kind of ensemble writing I aspire to in my novel. Not that I’m anywhere close to that kind of writing.

This movie should always be watched while eating a huge italian dinner. Just fyi.

I almost put a spoiler above this post in case anyone is like waiting for a post-apocalptic world so they can watch this movie on their third date with an alien from Pluto but then I said screw em. Moonstruck starts out with the widow Loretta Castorini getting engaged to a total helpless man child Johnny Cammareri who then immediately leaves for Sicily to visit his dying mother. He makes sure Loretta promises to go visit his brother who has hated him for the past five years.

A lot of this movie is lost on people who are not Italian or part of Italian families. I am Italian on my dad’s side. Actually, I probably think I’m a lot more Italian than I am because I’m like three quarters Irish on my mom’s side or something. My dad’s family doesn’t live around here and my grandparents on his side are pretty dead so I don’t really even have the experience of being in a large Italian family. I’m an honorary Italian kinda. But I cook really good Italian. I totally count.

Who wants sixth helpings??? Everyone!!!!

Whoever wrote the script to this movie must be Italian. They just understand all the little quirks and traditions of being Italian. The casting is also pretty perfect. And, on that, I would like to say for those of you who looked at the cast and said ‘weird’, don’t judge. I’m not a Cher fan. She’s fantastic in this movie. I’m not really a Nicolas Cage fan. He’s perfect in this movie.

Loretta was all happily engaged to Johnny when she goes to see his brother Ronnie (Nicolas Cage) and totally sees she’s  marrying the wrong brother. I mean, come on. He yells at her over bread and she makes him dinner, she calls him a wolf, and he makes passionate love to her after throwing a table.

Proof that not every man is deathly afraid of commitment.

This was back when Nic Cage actually had some……more (he does still have some) hair and was really actually sorta kinda……hot. Legit. He only has one hand in this movie and he’s hot. He’s really hot. And he is a man of action.

You know how people are like afraid to commit and doubt themselves? Guess how long it takes Ronny to propose…….Think about it. A month? That’s nothing. It takes him TWO DAMN DAYS!!!!!!!!!! That is a man who is not afraid to go for what he wants. Ronnie is one of my favorite characters in this movie because he’s got great monologues and he’s just so damn awesome. He actually orders her to get in his bed. Amen, brother. I love the monologue about love too.

And I was thinking about that. As made famous by the classic piece of film Bridget Jones’ Diary, how many marriages end in divorce, one in two or one in three?

One in three says the undeniably luscious Mark Darcy.

AAccording to most Singletons and to most cynical people today, marriage is less than halfway successful. It might possibly end in divorce anyways. So, if that is the case, why don’t people just go for it? Yeah, I’m not sure if this will work, but no one is so lets get married. More people should be like Ronnie Cammareri. He is in love with Loretta and he is not afraid to go for it. If you think that you’ve met the love of your life, why wait for four years to make sure you’re compatible. It’s a crapshoot anyways.

Finally, or almost finally, the music is perfectly suited to the movie. It’s italian but it’s not begging to be played while you eat spaghetti. This song is called Old Man Mazurka which just makes it even cooler. The superstitious side to this movie also compliments the music and the storyline.

So, go watch Moonstruck. It’s one of those movies you won’t think will be that good. But it is. Oh, and did I mention that Ronnie immediately meets Loretta, falls in love with her, and asks her to the opera with in twenty-four hours? No wonder he’s pretty much perfect.

To end, here is an example of the great dialogue and heart-warming charm of this movie. Go watch it! (and eat some spaghetti while you do. And Tiramisu. And Sausage. And bruschetta. And biscotti. With wine. Lots of wine.)

Here’s looking at you.

Writing: How do you make your book not sound like a Taylor Swift song?

Posted: April 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We were both young when I first saw you...I close my eyes and the flashback starts...........

Okay, we all know how the song starts. Well, girls do.

It’s like every sad teenage romance concentrated and inserted into a song with really repetitive verse. I really disliked that song when it came out because I heard it on the radio every ten seconds and because it was really really corny. It made rom-coms sound like deep posing inquisitive films about the meaning of life. I understand that Taylor Swift was a teenager when she wrote. I know she’s a pop singer. But, come on. She literally made the music video about Romeo and Juliet.


HAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!

But, you know, love is kind of like Taylor Swift’s song, if you get down to it. It’s part of the reason I request to be moved on a plane when I sit next to newlyweds. Humans act like weirdos when they’re in love. They make up silly names for each other and talk to each other like they’ve forgotten proper English. Often, Human couples make their friends, and anyone else who comes in contact with them, want to go be physically sick somewhere.

As an author, I am slowly realizing that love stories are the worst things to write. Avoid them if at all possible. Kill your characters off. Make them suffer. Suffering is easy. Your readers will sympathize with your poor forlorn characters and rally behind them. Do anything, but attempt to make two people fall in love on paper. Trying to create a convincing love story that is neither corny or dull is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

No one wants to read about what normal couples say to each other. Neither do they want some really complex, profound romance stuck in Shakespearian England. That’s already been done. By a guy named Shakespeare. It’s hard to make a romance interesting because it’s simply been done so much. There are so many stories with a love story in them, that you loose interest in the idea of another romance story again almost immediately.

How do you create an authentic and realistic love story? I really don’t know. I do know that writing is a balancing act. You have to shimmy between dramatic and realistic. You have to make it believable, but not overdone. You have to make sure the reader understands what you mean, but also make sure the reader isn’t constantly hit over the head with your point. Romeo is in love with Juliet. Romeo is in love with Juliet. Romeo is in love with Juliet……….you get the picture.

For now, I’m trying to work on the two characters’ personalities apart from each other. I think it’s easy to group the two involved in the love storyline into a couple. All the time. They become ‘us’ and ‘them’ and loose their own identities. To me, I find it more interesting when two characters are separate and you learn to like them on their own merits and then you see them together. It adds depth and stops them from becoming like the power couple (tomkat? Posh Becks? Bennifer.) of your story. The one thing you don’t want is to create a couple that, every time they show up, makes your reader want to skip to the next interesting part. A Couple should be an interesting part, not the filler in between to make sure we get the 12-23 age group.

"Oh look. Here comes Christine and Raoul again. They're going to sing some stupid love song and then talk about how much they want to have cuddly times. How much longer till the Phantom comes back and gets all crazy on their asses? I'm waiting for that."
Christine is such an idiot, by the way. Only a vegetable would pick raoul over the Phantom. What is wrong with her?

Also, keep them apart for as long as possible. Anticipation is the backbone of romance. That’s what makes Mr. Darcy so much more bettered than Mr. Bingley. We all know that Jane is going to end up with Mr. Bingley. But we don’t know what they hell will happen with Darcy and ELizabeth. They could both pull out some bazookas and start shooting at each other over the dance floor with the way they STARE at each other. Or they could rip each others close of and get down to business. If you know what I mean.

But, hot glances across crowded rooms aside, there is a reason every writer, or at least most of them, wants to create that perfect love story. Love has something that nothing else has. If done right, love can be pure and colorful and vibrant and funny and EVERYTHING. All at once. No other emotion can do that. You love people you hate. Love cancels everything else out. That’s a powerful emotion for a writer to use and, trust me, we all secretly hope that one day we can figure out how to wield the emotion ‘love’ in our ink-stained fists. Is it as easy as the occasionally funny one-liner, no. Is it always going to work out? No. Half of my stories stay far away from love just because I know how bad a book can turn out when love is done wrong. It’s a special power that we, as writer’s must earn, but it’s one we should strive for. Just like that magical package of glory called an acceptance letter that comes from a fairy who goes by the name ‘book agent’.

Here’s looking at you.

Shows I Love: Downton Abbey!!!! *spoilers maybe.*

Posted: March 28, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Humor, Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I don’t mean to alienate those sad people who do not appreciate Dowton Abbey, but it’s high time I address this period crack drama. It’s awesome. And I’m totally addicted. I won’t talk too much about the plot so I don’t give away too much about the plot, but in case you are waiting to watch it all at a later date or you haven’t caught season two, I suggest you skip this post. If that sort of thing is important to you. I’ll talk about the people I particularly love in it, mostly and some other stuff.

I like this show a lot because it’s interesting and different. Yes there have been more than one period drama, even a few with upstairs and downstairs plot lines, but nothing recent and nothing that is an original show. When you watch most Masterpiece stuff, you’ve already read the book and you know what’s going to happen. Downton Abbey is different than say a Little Dorrit (also love it) or a Cranford cuz you don’t know that this person is going to end up with this person or that this person will die at the end. It’s like a football game for girls.

The Characters in Downton Abbey are interesting. Lord Grantham comes across as this nice guy, but, as is revealed in Season Two, he’s actually kinda stuck up. And he has that whole weird thing in the middle with that lady and it’ just weird and you wonder what the HELL is going on. Season Two is way better than Season one because it’s not all about the stereotypes. To hook your audience you do, to a certain degree, have to give the romantics a bone and throw in a love conflict. You have to have some heaving bodices. You have to have the cook with the irish/welsh/cockney accent who is gruff but really cares about everyone. You have to have the rebellious one, in this case my girl Sybil. GO Sybil! Season one does occasionally pile all the goopy stuff on a little heavy. It’s not going to turn into a Rom com, but neither is it Tolstoy.

Season two gets dicey. In the best way. People leave. People come back. There’s a war and everyone gets intense and all the men get these delectable  proud responsible faces on and stare into the distance. It’s epic. I also like that some of the people don’t have happy endings. People are more REAL in this, which is nice.

Is it bad that I can totally picture Thomas saying stuff like that? And do. I do totally picture Thomas saying weird gangsta stuff While wearing a gold grill.

I highly suggest watching Downton Abbey. It’s well done. It’s got some substance while still satisfying your guilty period drama needs. Not that guys actually have that sort of need. One thing that I wonder is why guys won’t watch period dramas. I mean this one has violence in it. Some even happen in the middle of war zones. Some have manly occupations like owning a cotton mill. (As if Mr. Thornton needed that to be manly). The women in it are always end up in various states of undress. People smoke cigars. Real men watch period dramas. Or should. From the pole I took (btw……hehehe. Pole) of my guy friends, I got the following responses:

Guy one: Why would I do that?

Guy Two: No, that’s chick stuff.

Guy three; No.

Guy Four: Hell no.

Me: but why not?

Guy four: Just no. Hell no. What’s wrong with you today, dude?

Oh well. What can I expect from a man who calls me dude? This is why women will one day eat men or roast them over hot coals, using them only to ensure that the human race continues.

With that said, I just wanted to mention some of the characters and some of my favorite plot lines, with some funny pictures from Hey Lady Downton Abbey and other places on line.  *Probably Spoilers* fyi.

1. Mary and Matthew Crawley

All the Hey Lady pictures are from this website:http://heydowntonlady.tumblr.com/. Highly recommend it if you love Downton Abbey and want a good laugh.

Okay for most of Season one I thought Mary Crawley was a whiny bitch and she kinda was. Really she was. Besides the fact that she complained about doing EVERYTHING, there was that whole sleeping with the Turkish dude issue. She knew that if she did it, she’d be ruined. Yet she carried on like it wasn’t her fault. There is a lot of freedom in loosing one’s respectability……not that I would…..like……know anything about anything like ……..that. She ruins the whole thing with cousin Matthew cuz she’s all like:

Mary: I can’t tell anyone I’ve had sexy times with mister Turkish gent. I’m a whiny whiny bitch. It doesn’t matter that every eligible person ever is in love with me. I’m ruined even though I had ample time to stop him. woe is me. WAAA.

And Matthew. ugh. He was so like clumsy for the first season. His chin was weak. If there is one thing I cannot abide it is a man with a weak chin. He had all this baby fat stuff going on. He is at his best when he is mad:

Or when he does that posh flirty thing that makes you smile and also makes you kinda annoyed.

And Lavinia. Good Gosh. Did anyone ever believe that he actually wanted to marry her. Okay, well maybe we did. It was kinda sweet, but i mean come on! Mary Crawley is so much more woman than Lavinia. Lavinia’s all sad and innocent and childlike. Season two and Lavinia do serve to make me like Mary more so maybe there was a point. I suppose the unrequited part of the love story is the part that makes it interesting. Still, not my favorite romance in the Crawley family.

This is:

Sybil and Branson!!!! yayyyy. You know they aren't worried about silly things like propriety. They're more than that. They have ambitions. They know that there Ain't no mountain high enough. Ain't no mountain high enough! To keep me from youuuuuuu!!!

 

I am a Sybil fan. Through and through. She is who I would want to be if I landed in Downtonland. She isn’t obsessed with all the upstairs silliness. She’s actually probably a lot like Granny Grantham (love you Maggie Smith) would be. Anyways, Branson, what is his first name? Who cares….. right, Branson is the chauffeur and he’s political and he’s like a firebrand. Plus he’s irish. He doesn’t do much in the first season but second season……oh yeah. he’s all dramatic and full of conviction. When he and Sybil declare ourselves, it’s a lot like bringing home a guy nowadays. Your father roars and refuses to give in and then eventually, if he ever wants to see you again, relents.

Because of this class discrepancy, they can’t worry about silly things like hats or what color dress to wear or how to say things. I like that. They realize they’re in love and most of their time is spent trying to figure out what to DO. That is what makes Downton Abbey more than most period dramas and most dramas in general. There is some cliches, but there is also good writing and better acting and more engagement between the cast.

I like Allen Leech a lot, who plays Branson. He’s got a funny twitter. And he really is Irish.

But, the one thing that annoys me about them is the end of Season Two. I was waiting to see the whole trip to Ireland and the whole wedding. I was thinking Season Three finale maybe. But the end of season, she’s already knocked up. 

It makes me less interested in the characters to know that I’ve already missed the most interesting parts of their relationship. One episode they’ve decided to get married. The next they’ve left, gone to Ireland, moved in with his mother, both get jobs, get married, see her sisters, go on honeymoon, knock it out, and she gets pregnant. How did i miss all that?

Lastly, because this might be the longest post ever, here is my favorite character:

Ladies and Gentleman: Mr. John Bates. Batesypoo to those who know him.

John Bates is the cornerstone  of downstairs. He’s got deep….okay I’m getting mushy. He’s a man. He’s a good man. If he lived nowadays he would sit on the couch with a beer on weekends and watch football. Anna has really good taste. It would be much more obvious for her to fall in love with someone young and dashing. John is, however, the better choice.

Someone really dark and dreary once said that life was trying to forget death. I hope not, cuz that’s sad, but either way, Downton Abbey makes me forget death a little bit. And that can’t be bad. To make it really simple here is yet another picture:

Hell yeah.

Something less testosterone-repellent next time. Why is it that girls can do guy things but guys can’t do girl things without feeling weird. Freud? Jung? Ghandhi? Anyone? Either a post on one of my favorite movies Lord of the Rings, which I am currently rewatching or football. Choose your poison.

Here’s looking at you.