Absolute Wannabe

Believe me when I say that it pained me to type out the title to this post. Cameron Crowe is one of my very favorite filmmakers. To me, a guy who can write teenagers who are real people, really capture the full spectrum of human emotion, and incorporate a great soundtrack into his work is a real genius. Though it initially made me feel warm, fuzzy, and hopeful, a recent late night viewing of 2005's Elizabethtown  ended up making me a little nervous. I realized that Crowe was just like everybody else. Now, this probably doesn't make sense to those of you who admire his work. As a writer and filmmaker, Crowe definitely has a unique voice and vision that helps his work connect with all kinds of audiences. That's precisely the problem. Last week I wrote a post about how movies are only a reflection of life and not actually true to life itself. In the post, I mentioned that filmmakers are just one person with one perspective, and that is absolutely true of Crowe. In Crow

Okay, okay, before you start questioning my sanity, let me start by saying that the title of this post is absolutely a hyperbole. I'm pretty sure I haven't actually believed that a movie I saw was real since I was about six...or maybe sixteen...regardless, it's been a while. If there's one thing I've learned in my last couple of years studying film, it's that movies, no matter how fantastical or realistic, are a reflection . They attempt to depict real situations, characters, and emotions, but at the end of the day, they are about as real as the face you see in a mirror. A reflection can look just like you, but, at the end of the day, it disappears as soon as you walk away. So, with this in mind, why have I (and so many others like me) used movies as a guide for who I want to be, what decisions I should make, what my goals should be, and, ultimately, what my life should look like? The truth is, I believed in the illusion. I'm always going to believe in

If you weren't on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or any other social media, you may have missed that Tuesday was International Women's Day. There were protests, there were speeches, there were important people saying important things, but, most important of all, there were Internet lists. What would the world do without Internet lists?  How would we know what terrifying documentaries to watch or what this person learned from her pet snail ? Okay, so those really condescending and sarcastic last few sentences do not reflect my real attitude toward Internet lists. I actually love them (well, most of them). I actually shared one on Twitter on International Women's Day about films directed by female filmmakers. I wish I hadn't. Now, let me be clear. It's not that I don't want to celebrate female filmmakers. I absolutely do. I just wish there weren't so few of them. The existence of the list I tweeted and so many others I saw on Tuesday proves that women in f