Watched, Read, Loved: September 2017

Yay! Spring is here in South-Africa and I couldn’t be more excited. When the weather is so much better I am so much better. Getting to work while the sun is actually up makes me a much nicer colleague.

I’ve been doing a couple of Parkruns. My work gave us all the opportunity in taking part in the Discovery Pulse challenge, which made me realize (again) how little steps I take each day. I’ve been trying to average it at 5000 steps, but that is already a challenge. The challenge officially began on the 27th of September 2017, and I really am working hard to do everything healthier – eating, sleeping, more exercise, less stress (HA!). It runs for three months and I will definitely let you know how it progresses.

Movies

The Fate of The Furious: Continuing the ridicule of series that is the Fast Franchise, Dominic Toretto this time abandons his family for some obscure reason. I really enjoy these films because they are so brain dead and is just easy entertainment, but this one was particularly ridiculous.

Hidden Figures: So.Much.Love. It is heartwarming and beautiful with excellent performances, and I am so happy the film was released in such an important time in history. Not only is it about racial prejudice, it is about female empowerment, determination, love, courage and there are also great scenes of the early days of NASA.

Walk The Line: I was SO proud when I finally watched this – I’ve had the DVD on my shelf for many years now, and I remember hearing people rave about it but I never really made the effort to see for myself. Well, it was great, and a great Blindspot choice for me.

The Girl on the Train: It was okay. I enjoyed Blunt (I always do), and her supporting female co-stars where all very strong. I also really do like Luke Evans. The big plot twist – I caught it half right so I was marginally impressed. Definitely not as good as Gone Girl, but interesting all the same.

Easy A (2010): Emma Stone is one of my favourite young Hollywood stars. She’s just so incredibly talented and really funny. Easy A is some of her earlier work and she’s hilarious as Olive Pendergast. If I ever have daughters I hope they are like Olive – not willing to take bad behaviour from friends, loyal, hilarious, inventive and wildly inappropriate.

Wild Child (2008): Many people wouldn’t necessarily like this film, but I really do. It is one of my favourite teen movies, and although it isn’t as sharp as Easy A, Mean Girls, Heathers or Clueless (other favourites), it still remains one of the nicest things to watch, reminiscent of a time where Emma Roberts and Alex Pettyfer were clean cut, sweet individuals (probably not that sweet).

Australia (2008): One of Baz Luhrman’s work I have had the least exposure to, Australia is a tribute to the wild and terrifying glory that is the continent of Australia. Hugh Jackman is ridiculously attractive, wildly blown out of proportion delicious, and the dainty and unexpectedly hilarious Nicole Kidman impressed me with some of the humour she injected into her character. This was definitely a great watch and I will watch it more in the future

Clueless: Clueless is one of my favorite “high-school” films. It is so silly and sweet and Paul Rudd is so adorable and Alicia Silverstone is so friggin adorable. You can’t feel bad after watching something like this, you just can’t.

Books:

Gone Girl: Gillian Flynn I actually started reading this after The Girl on The Train, because it made me want to explore more thrillers. I am really enjoying so far and finding the writer pretty good at telling a story.

Hot Rocks: Nora Roberts I can’t decide whether it will be worth my time actually reviewing this. I’ve now successfully proven to bestie that I can actually read and review a book and then just not remember it, and it might very well happen with this novel. It wasn’t bad and I actually had a pretty great time, but it feels superfluous reviewing every single Nora Roberts book I read

September 29, 2017September 27, 2017 by Natasha Categories: 2017, Books, Movies, movies, reading, Review, Reviews, RomanceTags: Alicia Silverstone, Australia, Baz Luhrman, Clueless, Dominic Toretto, Dwayne Johnson, easy A, Emily Blunt, Emma Roberts, Emma Stone, Fast 8, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hot Ice, Hugh Jackman, Jaoquin Phoenix, Jason Statham, Johnny Cash, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Nicole Kidman, Nora Roberts, Paul Rudd, Paula Hawkins, Reese Witherspoon, The Fate of the Furious, The Girl on the Train, Vin Diesel, Walk The Line, Wild Child 1 Comment

Movie Review: easy A (2010)

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is invisible at school until one little lie changes everything. To have an excuse not to go camping with her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) she says that she has a date the weekend with an older guy. The next week Rhiannon keeps asking if Olive slept with the guy and eventually she lies and says yes to shut Rhiannon up. Marianne Bryant (Amanda Bynes) overhears the conversation and starts spreading the rumors around school that Olive is a slut. Marianne is the leader of their high school’s annoying religious click and sets out to “help” Olive. Marianne dates Micah (Cam Gigandet), a 22-year old senior with peanuts for brains who is having an affair with the school counselor, Mrs. Griffith (Lisa Kudrow), Mr. Griffith’s wife.

Olive gets detention from her favorite teacher Mr. Griffith (Thomas Haden Church) when she calls Nina Howell (Mahaley Hessam) a twat. She cleans bathrooms as punishment with her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) and he admits to being gay and how difficult it is to be gay in school. She sympathizes and tells him to take matters into his own hands to get people to stop teasing him. Brandon gets the idea that he and Olive should pretend to have sex at a party to convince everyone he is straight. Olive eventually agrees because she really feels sorry for him. They pretend to have sex (loudly while everyone is listening outside of the door) and Brandon restores his status at school.

Rhiannon calls Olive when she hears the news and it becomes obvious that she is jealous over Olive’s new notoriety. Olive gets angry and decides to embrace her new “tramp” identity. She channels her anger with the help of the book their English class is reading, the Scarlet Letter, and sews an “A” to all her new risqué outfits.

Olive soon starts taking money for “sleeping” with unpopular boys, increasing their status. All hell breaks loose when Micah is tested positive for chlamydia and blames Olive. Olive agrees to take the blame to spare Mr. Griffith, who doesn’t deserve to have his wife’s philandering ways become known. Marianne is furious and her clique, which Rhiannon has now joined, begins campaigning to have Olive thrown out of school.

Olive finally becomes depressed. She is sad that every guy was willing to pay to say they had slept with her but none of them even thought of taking her on a real date. When Andon (Jake Sandvig) asks her out, she feels that the tides are turning. On their date at the lobster shack Rhiannon sees them and just gets angrier because she’s liked him forever. Andon, however, seems to think that Olive will really sleep with him for money and tries to kiss her. She storms away, and her friend Todd (Penn Badgley) makes her home. He tells her that he doesn’t believe the rumors and that he knows she isn’t sleeping with everyone, and also that Rhiannon kissed him – which means Rhiannon went after Olive’s childhood sweetheart.

Olive decides to try and get her life back, but Brandon ran away with a guy and Micah was sent to his grandparents as punishment. Mrs. Griffith refuses to come clean as well, telling Olive no one will believe her story because she is the school tramp. Olive tells Mr. Griffith the truth, and he believes her and leaves his wife.

Olive hatches a brilliant plan with Todd and does a song and dance at a school rally where she invites everyone to go watch her live broadcast from her webcam where she will “do-it” with Todd. Instead, she tells her true story to the entire school, ruining everyone’s reputations as studs. She texts Rhiannon apologizing for lying to her. After finishing her webcast, Todd fetches her on a lawnmower and they ride off into the sunset together.

Rating: 7.5/10

Easy A was hilariously funny. It has a unique story – not sleeping around but pretending you did and still getting burned – and delightfully focuses on all the many personalities in high school that has issues existing. The pompous Jesus-freak was excellently done by Amanda Bynes (sad sigh), which I might add was one of her best performances I’ve ever seen. The gay guy who is struggling to survive amidst jackasses, the girl desperate to be popular no matter what (I really wanted to slap Rhiannon) and the poor teachers who are in control of them made up for a pretty entertaining time.

Emma Stone is as awesome as always. She is really talented and very funny when she wants to be. I haven’t ever watched one of her movies that I didn’t enjoy. Also, I have serious hair envy every time I see her.

The movie is unique and fun and recommended to everyone.

Have you seen it? Thoughts?

March 10, 2014 by Natasha Categories: Movies, ReviewsTags: Amanda Bynes, easy A, Emma Stone, Lisa Kudrow, Marianne Bryant, Movies, Olive Penderghast, Penn Badgely, Reviews 3 Comments