feature film friday! (the 'how many times can i mention jamie blackley in one post' edition)

I spend an inordinate amount of time on YouTube and one of the things I like to do on there is watch movie trailers - a LOT of movie trailers. If I like something enough, I look the movie up online and download it. Aaaand since I was discovering so many good films that probably never go mainstream, I thought I'd feature a film here every once in a while. Hence, Feature Film Friday! (because today is Friday)

This week's film is an indie gem called 'And While We Were Here' which stars Kate Bosworth, Iddo Goldberg and Jamie Blackley.

SO. To be honest, the main thing that made me consider watching this movie is because of the very attractive, very young male lead. Yes. Jamie Blackley - who looks so ridiculously good (he has a TATTOO ON HIS CHEST, did you know that?!) that I would gladly sacrifice my book collection just for him to make out with me.

A quick summary: And While We Were Here focuses on Jane's (Kate Bosworth) marital life and her attempts to write a book about her grandmother's experience in the war. It's set in an island called Ischia which is near Italy and all the main characters say grazie way too much. Her husband is there for work (he's a cellist) and she's trying to write a book about her grandmother's experiences in the war. While she's there, she becomes romantically involved with a young American ex-pat.

Anyway, the film was pretty okay. It wasn't amazing and it did fall flat sometimes (story and dialog-wise) but the scenery is stunning and it has such a feel good summer fling kind of vibe that it makes you all giddy and warn inside as you watch two people fall into something that's not quite love, but something pretty damn close to it.  I think that made you want to keep watching until the end, because you want to find out what happens to the characters. (Plus Jamie Blackley. I mean, come on.)

 

Okay now this? This was the damn takeaway for me. This was what made me love this film , besides Jamie Blackley my sun and stars. I just adore this scene so much. Like, this nineteen year old kid, who's all braggadocio and carefree and YOLO-y, is goddamn nervous to be around this woman. She probably makes his heart do cartwheels or something! And come on, when a guy says he makes you nervous does that not send you into a flurry of feels? That was what sold it to me, to be honest. At that point I was, 'Okay. I officially love this movie.' (Caleb's last scene made me want to die of feels. </3)

I feel really bad for the husband, though, because it doesn't seem like there was anything egregiously wrong with their relationship apart from their standoffishness and lack of curiosity towards each other. I'm pretty sure they could have tried to make it work. She could have talked more instead of staying silent and waiting for him to read her mind or something (because let's be real, that's never going to happen) and he could have talked more or whatever. I just feel like they both could've fixed their relationship if they wanted to. (but at the same time it's Jamie Blackley so I don't completely blame Jane. LOL.)

But the movie was nice to look at - I love the warmth that the film gives off - and there were a few other gems strewn across the dialogue that made me think 'oh wow, words make me cry???'. Pro tip: Listen very well to the recordings. It's easy, it's light, it doesn't take too much to absorb the story. I'd say it's a great casual flick, like if you wanted to relax a little bit and watch something that doesn't have a heavy storyline but at the same time it makes you think. It's a gentle assault on the senses. I'd definitely recommend watching on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Also, it has Jamie Blackley! I MEAN JUST LOOK AT HIM <3

don't walk away from me, summer

If it wasn't already obvious from my glum face, packing is such a tedious job. I don't know about you but folding and trying to make clothes fit inside a suitcase is not my idea of fun, plus it's a grudging reminder that my 4 month-long summer is coming to a close. *sad face* *sad face* *sad face*

University officially starts on Monday I've spent all day today getting all my shit together before we leave tomorrow afternoon. I went shopping for school stuff earlier too and got myself an actual planner (that I promise to actually use to manage my academics) and a fresh batch of 1x1 photos for class cards and various school-related things. And speaking of 1x1 photos, the ones I got today make me SO uncomfortable. I don't look like me at all and it is creeping me out. Have I changed that much or was it just really bad retouching by the dude at the counter?! I will never know. I still haven't finished packing, though. 

Any guess on where I attend uni? You get brownie points if you're right.

Anyway,

Predominant feelings about school:

1. UGH.

2. Double UGH.

But thank the Lord for small mercies because I have afternoon classes this semester and a super easy Match credit. YAAAAS. I was made for classes that start after 10 and not for 7 am wake up calls. 

My first year was pretty lax. I think everyone spent their first year of uni adjusting so I'm up for letting loose and burying myself in various activities this time. 

A few other things I consider small mercies:

1. My cousin and a few of my friends from the recently graduated batch at my high school are in the 'big city' now so I'm psyched to be able to hang out with them!

2. A couple of my friends got accepted for transfer to Diliman from Baguio so I'm looking forward to being with them as well.

3. My closest friends and I have all made a pact to actually try to keep in touch this year and here's to hoping for more bonding with the select group of people who keep me sane. *sigh*

Notice how all my small mercies have more to do with hanging out and less to do with actually studying? :)) I promised myself to do better in my academics this year, though so there's that. I want to see if I can surprise my parents by getting in the Dean's List. Fingers crossed!

1AM: What Makes You Sad

I've just realized that no one has called me by my full name in a long time. 

(the times where they call out my name in school doesn't count and neither does it when my mother uses it as the leading sentence to a lecture/diatribe.) 

(because i know what counts and what doesn't.)

I fashioned myself a name that was ripped off from a sappy romance novel (guess which one) after deciding five years ago that alanis was lame. (because that wasn't what popular girls were called, that wasn't what pretty girls were called, and i wanted to be both.) (that was what people made fun of because it rhymed with a submerged city, because in my language it rhymed with rats and brooms and something sour.)  

What's that saying? The one where if you repeat something enough times then you start to believe in it? After I kept insisting, people have called me allie enough times for me and everyone else to forget that I was ever called anything else.

So here's the division:

Alanis and Allie.

It's no Gregorian calendar but it divides my life pretty accurately into two significant eras.

alanis was the age of honor rolls and an actual best friend and days when i had confidence and a belief in myself. When I actually excelled at things and my parents could brag about me and I didn't worry about how I looked because back then people cared about how smart you were and not how your hair was cut a certain way.

allie is the age of fitting in and first loves and kind of heartbreaks where I 'literally' wished I died. The age of lonely nights and solitary trips to the mall and not knowing if I have any real friends because if I did then where the fuck are they is what I want to know. It's the age of looking in the mirror and feeling so incredibly unsatisfied with what I see.

I'd laugh at how much has changed but wow, didn't that get sad. :))

But what's in a name, anyway? They're nothing but markers, distinctions between two volumes of the same book. It's the girl that changed and that's what makes me sad. 

[A footnote: There are people, though, that call me something else entirely. A name that was bred from years of familiarity and an insistence for some things staying the same. And despite everything that prevents me from calling them friends, those people are the ones that I like best. And most times they're the ones who keep me from being sad.]