Absolute Wannabe

It still shocks me when people tell me they no longer go to the movies, but even I was surprised that I went to see a movie twice in one week. Yes, I am no stranger to a repeat trip to the theatre, but  Booksmart  hit me hard. I very rarely see a new release that rockets to the top of my list of all time favorites. In fact, I don't think it's happened since I saw Whip It  10 years ago. If you haven't yet heard about Booksmart, it's an original, funny, empathetic take on an old classic. Two best friends want to go to a party after four years of a solely academic high school career. What it does differently from movies like Superbad (which I also love, by the way) should and will change the genre forever. The two leads ( Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein ) not only land every joke and win you over immediately, but they also communicate the weird and wonderful world of female friendship through their performances in a way I've rarely seen. They don't compete,...

I didn’t watch the Golden Globes this year. In fact, the closest I got to Oprah Winfrey was when a customer at the Starbucks I work in forgot we no longer sold her chai tea and ordered a “dirty Oprah” by mistake. Still, I was told about the speech . And I watched it. And I, like so many others, was moved by her words.  It made me irritated, too. Here’s the thing: it’s incredible that Oprah stands with women who are oppressed, abused, assaulted, and silenced. Beyond incredible. She spoke with a characteristic eloquence that made people aware and gave people hope in a way so many of us need right now. However, we cannot deny that she had the opportunity to speak those words on such a public stage because she is   Oprah . She’s one of the most powerful women in the world. I don’t think the irony is lost on anyone that the network that she owns is, well, OWN. We think Oprah, we think mogul, renaissance woman, icon, boss. The woman doesn’t need her last name anymore (or,...

I think we've all met a person at some point in our lives who describes themselves as having "no filter". To tell you the truth, the phrase has always made me roll my eyes. Almost everyone (those who have a medical condition preventing control over what is thought and said excluded) has a "filter". Actually, if you think about it, the way we decide what we say goes through a series of turns in our heads: "Is this socially acceptable?", "Will those I'm speaking to get confused or offended?", "Do I care about the opinions of these individuals?", "Is this a joke my dad would tell?", etc. The maze is different for everyone, but it exists. I think the metaphor can also apply to how we consume, well, everything. We don't eat certain foods for certain reasons, don't go to certain places for other reasons, and, most prevalent in my mind, won't consume certain media because of the mazes we've created. Our sets...

I've tried to start this post several times over the past few weeks. For one thing, it's incredibly difficult to write after not doing so for months (seven, to be exact). It's another thing entirely to admit that I don't know what I'm doing, where I'm going, or who I am. That being said, I've done it before. Two years ago,  I posted a video on YouTube entitled "I'm Not Sure" . Now, if you've never seen this before, I completely understand. I just watched it for the first time since I posted it, and it was cringeworthy. This is not only because it's weird to watch 20 year old me go through her YouTube phase, touch her face too much, talk with some strange inflection in her voice. Well, that's certainly part of it. Really, though, it's because nothing's changed. At the end of the video, I say I'm grateful that I have a year and a half left of college to "figure it all out". That year and a half has passed. I ...

I think it's a pretty safe bet that a lot of aspiring actors/writers/directors/filmy people practice their future Oscar speech in the mirror as kids. I did. Who am I kidding? I still do. It comes with the territory. My mirror talks go, ahem, went (who am I kidding? go) further. Sometimes, I do my makeup while talking to Barbara Walters. Other days, brushing my hair turns into a podcast interview. Most of the time, though, I rehearse what I'm going to say to my heroes. These hypothetical moments are incredibly important, and I can't afford to say anything stupid, so car rides, showers, and mornings getting ready are devoted to preparation. This probably makes me sound crazy. The word "narcissist" may also come to mind. I think one of my heroes would have appreciated both the crazy and the narcissism in this bit of oversharing, though, but we lost her this morning. One of my first posts on this blog was a tribute to Carrie Fisher. I read it over this afternoo...

When I turned 22 in August, I made the joke that I was scared to go into a Forever 21 for fear of setting off the age limit alarms. It was a bad joke. Still is. In truth, there are a lot of things I should have outgrown: Disney movies, old cartoons, comic books, procrastination. That's not the end of the list, but those were the only things I could think of off the top of my head. One of the things I never thought would be on the list, though, was teen movies. As I sat in the theater watching The Edge of Seventeen  (fantastic movie, by the way), I realized I was five years older than the protagonist. Granted, that's not a huge age difference, but it was enough to make me realize I'm in a different place in my life than the characters in the movie for the first time in a while. Teen movies are and have always been one of my very favorite things. I grew up wanting to be like the older characters in teen movies, then relating to the characters when I aged into their stor...

I'm a binge watcher. A product of my time. There are still, however, shows I will watch as they air. Sure, most of them are award shows, but that still counts, right? American Horror Story falls into the very tiny category of non-awards shows I'll tune into live every week. After hearing a ton of hype, I watched the first couple seasons on Netflix, then started tuning in every Wednesday starting in season three. Even if I hadn't watched the first couple of seasons, I wouldn't have missed anything. Each season is a brand new story, a chance for the showrunners and a troupe of actors to explore something new. After the third season, though, I felt like something was missing. The cast of characters kept getting bigger, more subplots kept developing, and, to me, the series began to feel scattered and unpolished. In short, it lost its edge. Despite loving the show and the amazing cast, I couldn't finish last season. I went into this year thinking I was going to sk...