Friday, February 6, 2009

Gossip Girl for the Soul

Call it girlie, but I will still make you think….


- Amy Winehouse’s name has started to pop up in the festival lineups for this summer. At first my heart skipped a beat at the chance to hear her seductress voice again but, alas, one must take her track record into consideration. Will she even show up? Will people come just to see her fail in the public spotlight again? I want so badly to believe that her months of gallivanting around the Bahamas topless are going to produce a renewed talent and a new album. I mean, when you think about it, what better therapy is there that returning to your natural state on the beach with ocean and hammocks and pineapples without the threat of social inebriation or conformist clothing? I’m still rooting for you Amy, the state of music needs that refreshingly timeless voice back.


- Elsa Fisher can’t catch a break. With the unfortunately upcoming release of her new movie Confessions of the Shopaholic in the midst of the Recession hurricane, she is being pegged as naïve, ignorant, and uncompassionate to the current fiscal situations of Americans to produce a film that satirizes the excessive spending habits of one NYC chick. But there is so much more to this situation that it doesn’t seem reasonable to boil down the current economic attitude of the country to the gig of one actress. First, perhaps this is actually the PERFECT time for this movie’s release. One prime function of movies is the sense of unreality and escapism that they allow the viewer to fall into. I know that's why I read books and watch movies; to try to feel what the story is giving. So when nobody can afford to buy shoes and purses and things, what is the harm in spend two hours in a dark room, sitting in royally velvet red overstuffed seats and remember what it was like when you could. Most mainstream film genres (romantic comedies in particular) do not claim to be real life, but to use their magic of cinematography to evolve real emotions in viewers. Second, I understand that when an actor signs up for these gigs, they are giving up their image to be the “face of” a project. And unfortunately Isla is feeling the blow of this fact. But we are rational, knowledgeable people and we understand the basics of film. There are hundreds of other people that make a film a reality. Why aren’t the critics looking to Jerry Bruckheimer? To Touchstone Pictures? To Disney? If you’re going to criticize, don’t pinpoint one scapegoat; look at the bigger picture (and everyone that created it). Third, Elsa has been trying to get her big break in US film for years, and much to her credit, she is on her way up. Her breakout roll in Wedding Crashers followed by her marriage to satirist gold Sasha Baron Cohen has picked up her public image as a comedienne. She needed a starring roll to push herself into the category with comedian goddesses like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling. According to Wiki, she has co-written a scrip called “The Groupies” with Amy Poehler. Yes Please! So she got the call from household-name-making Disney to do this silly romcom and took the opportunity to make a solid name for herself. Her intentions did not lie in oblivion to the economic depression, but perhaps to hamper people’s frets of grey skies and empty streets of fifth ave or, hell, just to make people laugh.


- Its official, the love-em-or-hate-em ladies of Sex and the City have all signed on to do a sequel to the epic movie. I won’t hide the fact that I am a S&C fan, but even I have to raise an eyebrow at this move. I always thought the movie was to tie up lose ends and answer long standing questions left at the finale of the show. But really, WHAT is this going to be about? I ask this a current gen Yer. Then I had a thought…what if the audience is shifting. I’m thinking that a story about Samantha’s early retirement at 50 and the other ladies baby-making plans doesn’t quite grab my attention the way their quips of love conquest wins and loses did. But to others, it probably is. What are the thoughts and situations that independent, proven-worthy women work through after their years of gallivanting around the single life? So of course I’m going to go see it at its release in 2010, but will have to take a difference mindset in there with me. And for me, the excitement of a single 20-something’s life and love lies in the premier of He’s just not that into you tonight