Going the Distance

It's no secret that I love romantic comedies. I'm pretty sure I've started other blog posts with that exact sentence, so it's also no secret that I know it's not a secret. Ever since I saw the trailer for Going the Distance, I knew I had to see it as soon as possible. Rarely do movies come out that are so made for me.

Firstly and most importantly, I LOVE Drew Barrymore. I love everything about her. Mostly I love that, no matter what movie she's in, it seems like she picked out her own wardrobe. Her clothes are so wacky! She dresses like a five year old whose mother is like, "I'm tired, wear what you want" and so she just piles on the sparkle and camo with stripes or whatever.
All of the other things I love about this movie are summed up really well in Owen Gleiberman's EW review, which you can read here if you so wish. I agreed wholeheartedly with the Gleibs (as I do about half the time) when he wrote this:

Going the Distance is a light and tasty morsel of a romantic comedy in which two smart, funny, and basically sweet people try to conduct a cross-country relationship. The movie, which sounds like it was spun out of an advice column, is very high-concept, except that it has a gently authentic tone, a flavor rooted in its affection for the shrewd innocence of the 1980s. For the first 15 minutes or so, I actually wondered if it was set in the '80s....After two love montages set to the Cure's ''Just Like Heaven'' and the Pretenders' ''Don't Get Me Wrong,'' I began to think: Between this feel-good '80s jukebox and the fact that no one in the film has yet sent a text message, which year is this?...As it turns out, Going the Distance is quite contemporary, but the wistful retro vibe is no accident. The director, Nanette Burstein, is...out to take us back to an earlier vibe — to a time when pop music was optimistic, and so were movie romances. Erin and Garrett don't just fall into glorified lust. They fall in love because they like each other's company.

He's right; this is VERY much like an 80's romantic comedy. The montages are so montage-y it's almost laughable (I mean, they are dancing on a beach!), which I really like. If you're going to do a montage, you might as well go whole-hog and just do it up right. There's no such thing as a subtle montage, anyway.
Going the Distance was also a lot more realistic than most romantic comedies, which is both a pro and a con. H did not like that the movie's humor skewed blue (this movie is like 95% made up of dick jokes) because he thought it seemed out of place in what he called a "chick flick." I didn't agree though, and not just because I don't use the term chick flick (barf, sorry). The characters talked to each other basically like real people talk to each other. My friends and I spend about 50% of our time talking about sex and the other 50% talking about our jobs, and I think that's pretty typical, so I found those relationships to be accurately depicted. The relationship between Justin Long and Drew Barrymore's characters was believable, too, and not just because Justin Long's character reminded me so much of H (without all the womanizing).
I loved this movie. It has some of my favorite romantic comedy conventions (including the whole "How can this person have their brilliant career AND the love of their life??" conundrum) while also being genuinely funny and believable. And I can't leave out the importance of Jason Sudekis, Charlie Day, Jim Gaffigan, and Mike Birbiglia, who all took the movie to the next level (the next level being the funnier one).
And MOST importantly, one of Drew Barrymore's New York friends is played by Natalie Morales, the girl who plays Aziz's girlfriend on Parks and Rec. H tried to tell me I was wrong but I knew I was right. Suck on that.

An Education

I love Ohio, but I do not love waiting for movies to come out here. Even though An Education came out in New York and LA weeks ago, it just came to Cleveland this weekend. Of course, I made H. take me. We were late (like usual) so we missed the first few minutes. After another ten minutes or so had passed, H. leaned over and whispered, "So...is he supposed to be older than her, or what?" And I realized that I'd neglected to tell him anything at all about the film we were seeing.
An Education, as you probably know, is about a high school girl (Carey Mulligan) being seduced by a mysterious older gentleman (Peter Sarsgaard). It was a really fantastic movie and I recommend it. The role of a charming creep is tailor-made for Peter Sarsgaard, who brings an air of creepiness to everything he does, anyway. And as a bonus, the film costars the teacher from Rushmore, the one neither Max Fischer nor Herman Blume could resist.
This is one of those movies where you know from watching the trailer whether you'll like it or not. That's not an original thought of mine, just something I heard some ladies saying in the bathroom right after the movie. They were right, though.

Movie Night with H.

It's probably pretty obvious that Alex and I like movies a lot. It makes sense. We grew up watching a lot of them with Papa Winfrey, whose passion for movies (that have happy endings) knows no bounds. But H. didn't have the same type of movie-filled young adulthood. In fact, he hasn't seen most of the movies that I love. So, in a moment of weakness that he surely regrets, he told me I could show him some movies.
I will be the first to admit that I'm hardly a film expert. My film education is limited to two classes, one in high school (where we watched Psycho no fewer than three times, which is fine and all, but it wasn't really such a subtle movie to begin with) and one in college (where I enjoyed all the movies but got really bored writing papers and hearing other people's opinions, which is yet another reason I was such a bad student). I know next to nothing about a lot of classics, but a whole lot about certain weird genres. I've never seen Citizen Kane, but I have seen the climactic dance scene of Staying Alive about five times. Regardless! H. has asked for help, and help I will provide.
My first choice was influenced heavily by the events of the past week: Pretty in Pink. It fits into my favorite movie category, which is, "Movies you can sincerely enjoy, but also laugh at." I just love this movie, and I knew that H. would, too. It has drama, lip-syncing to Otis Redding, James Spader lookin' hot, a dress-making montage set to a soundtrack of New Order, and one perfectly placed F-bomb, which can be found below in one of my favorite scene. Here, Andie confronts Blane about ditching her while James Spader lurks in the stairwell:

H. called me a "filthy, fucking liar!" a lot after watching that. We also noted his many similarities to Duckie. All in all, I think our first movie night was a success. H's review was, "She should have ended up with Duckie." Agreed.