Like Crazy and Other Thoughts

I've neglected this blog ever since I've joined Tumblr, and it's likely that I'll move there full-time, but I think I'll keep this for awhile since it's still good for nice, long rants that I won't subject my Tumblr followers to (there I have real friends following me, this blog is more of a secret). Another reason for not coming back here is mostly because I haven't had anything fashion or film related to rant about for the past few months. Everything's been politics or Harry Potter, and for that, there's Tumblr - I'm just madly in love with so many of the tumblrs I've found. I've found my online idol in STFUSexists, a feminist (duh) tumblr that's run by this wonderfully smart college grad with an often scathing and irreverent sense of humor. I'm so glad I'm on her side, because reading her takedowns of the various misogynists and all-around idiots unlucky enough to cross her blog (and wrath) is terrible and awesome to behold. The girl can fucking school.

But in this case, I'm just talking a bit about a movie that's zoomed up to the top of my must-watch list ever since the poster and trailers were simultaneously released:

One, I had heard about this movie already, since it had won Best Picture at Sundance, but I was completely disinterested. It didn't help that its female star Felicity Jones was already being compared to Carey Mulligan. By then I'd just had it with all the annual mandatory Sundance It girls. To be honest, they all seemed more irritating than the last. It took me a long time to warm up to Carey Mulligan, and by the time it happened, Jennifer Lawrence was starting to get on my nerves, which was weird because I was a fan of her performance in Winter's Bone, but she irritated me all throughout awards season (why, I honestly can't tell), and her performance in X-Men was just grating. Have you ever just disliked a particular actor irrationally, just because they seem obnoxious, although there's no definite proof of it? Yeah, that's pretty much me and Jennifer Lawrence. Anyhoo, I was losing track of all of THIS year's Sundance It Girls - Elizabeth Olsen and that girl who wrote and starred in Another Earth and then Felicity Jones - yawnnn.

A couple days ago the promotion for "Like Crazy" started, and I was struck by the poster immediately. A wistfully nostalgic, sun-lit image of an ideal young couple, and the I WANT YOU I NEED YOU I LOVE YOU I MISS YOU in the Eat Pray Love font that's becoming so popular for movie posters across the board. I just stared at the poster for about a full twenty seconds, mentally swooning. A tale of nostalgia (it seemed), missed chances, unfulfilled, uncompromising and all-absorbing love.

It's funny, because I've read comments over the past few days that describes "Like Crazy" as a split between "Blue Valentine" and "500 Days of Summer", presumably because it's about two young, idealistic lovers who struggle along the way (imagine that), but the poster was so appealing because it seemed like neither movie. Not "500 Days" practically drowning in its own self-conscious post-romance hipness, or the confining grimness of "Blue Valentine". I totally fell in love, right there and then. To hell with unconvincing quirk and bitter realism! Give me epic, sweet, struggling, yearning, all-encompassing love. I just want to watch a couple fall in love in screen convincingly and not have to roll my eyes. Please. That's what anyone really wants, actually.

Then I saw the first trailer, and found the second a few days later. I posted both here, and the second one is more explanatory, but I love the first one because it's made in the vein of my favorite kind of trailers - kind of unfocused and vague, more of a video essay than a plot summary.

Judging from the trailers, I have a good idea of how it'll probably end (or maybe it'll surprise me), but I'm glad that I don't care. I just hope it's a worthwhile love story. And Felicity Jones (who also won Best Actress at Sundance), you look awesome in this. Incredibly freaking radiant and not in a contrived way (which brings to mind Carey Mulligan again - I, like everyone else, enjoyed her performance in "An Education", but I found the random mugging - just brief shots where she would smile for no reason or glance directly at the camera with a charmingly flirtatious look - somewhat arbitrary and inexplicable). And Felicity Jones is so pretty in this, it hurts.