Weigh your options

I love movies. I love watching them, reading about them, reading the books their based on, I just love everything involved in the creative process of making a movie. So, I'm starting something that will let me do both things that I love: movies and writing. Every week, a new movie...so we're starting...today!

Movie 1: Celeste and Jesse Forever

I have no problem admitting that I kinda sorta adore romantic comedies, but I think the best thing that's happened to romance movies recently is their decision to try and be more realistic.

We grew up in an era where movies were made to showcase this unbelievable love. I mean, I love The Notebook as much as any normal woman does and A Walk to Remember - I'm shaking my head with my eyes closed just thinking about how romantic everything was, even Titanic had the epic love that endured. When you look at most love related stories, there's a tendency for things to just...be so blissful and the only thing that ever separates them is death.

What a drag that in our society, that just doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

...and it looks like quite a few movies are catching on. The idea that art is a direct reflection of society at the time is showing pretty hardcore. The thing I loved about Celeste and Jesse Forever is that it never claimed or tried to be some awesome love story. It was actually a story that told what happens when life happens - to a degree at least.

You have two people that were in love, deeply in love, and that just didn't work out, but they have this great amazing friendship that everyone thinks is kinda weird (totally been in their shoes before, I mean we weren't in love or married but...you get the point...sorta) and it's endearing.

I don't want to spoil the movie, but I think what I enjoyed most about it was how it didn't try to speed things up. It let you see things as they happened and it was a movie that was easy to relate to.

I think if there was one moment in the movie that kinda stuck with me it was when Celeste is out and has this interaction with a friend:

Celeste: "He's just going about everything so wrong."
Paul: "You want to be right or you want to be happy?"

It hit home...this battle with always wanting to be right and the sacrifice we make sometimes in our efforts to be right thereby throwing our happiness to the wind when we're faced with a disagreement.