I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight†right HERE for free.
McCafe MY Day – REDUX
You are not seeing double, my friends, this is indeed a reprint from last week. I am all about winning this thing and need a last weekend push to try and snag the big prize.
How often have I asked anything of you? Not much, not many, not very often.
I need something from many of you: votes.
What’s in it for you is lots and lots and lots of movies and, if I actually win this thing, 15 films.
What happened was that I was futzing at home on my computer one afternoon after hearing that McDonald’s was going to be entering the coffee market. I don’t like coffee, I eschew everything coffee, I can’t relate to anyone anywhere when they talk about their morning fix and I certainly don’t understand the long queues that build up for people waiting in line to get that brown beverage.
But what I can and do love is my iced mochas.
That’s a drink I understand kicking down a door to get at if the time’s right.
So, I found out that McDonald’s was offering iced mochas and a short time after I procured one I entered their McCafeYourDay contest. The contest wanted to know why you deserved to have your day, essentially, made better with $50,000.
Well, I was coming off some fairly heady financial woes, those of you who have been affected by the recession know how much this thing has messed around with more than just one aspect of your life, and just wrote a passionate mini-missive about why I thought I deserved to win. They wanted a picture to go along with it and I uploaded one at the same time when I entered.
I forgot about the contest a couple weeks after sending my entry in. Didn’t even give it a second thought.
Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago I received a FedEx in the mail letting me know I was a finalist in this contest. I had forgotten about what the prize was, forgotten about what I wrote and, just a few days ago, was on a call letting me know that my story was was going to compete with 4 others at Mcdonaldsmccafeyourday.com. I was just as shocked as anyone and was caught completely unaware that I even made it through the gauntlet of over 12,000 people who entered this contest.
Voting goes from now until July 26th and you can use every e-mail in your arsenal once every 24 hours. The longer version of my story will be up at azcentral.com this weekend and I’ll be profiled in the local Scottsdale Republic here if you happen to live in the Scottsdale area. It’s a sappy story, one that’s a little too sensitive for me to copy and paste in here but here is what I want to offer anyone who is willing to toss a few votes my way.
I am giving away a cinematic cavalcade of DVDs to one person who can send me a screenshot of their vote confirmation from their e-mail box. I will enter every screenshot for a drawing to get this pile. There is incentive galore at your fingertips so I hope if you have a church group, a room full of shut-ins with access to a computer or an honest way of spreading the word I will not only appreciate it but I will reward the effort with a glorious compendium of free movies.
Go straight here (http://www.mcdonaldsmccafeyourday.com/) and help me win this thing. Even if you think I suck, shoot a vote my way and help out the cause, please?
Again, I don’t ask much but I’m just looking for a vote. After you read the entry you’ll see what you would be helping to do.
If you win the bushel of movies here is what’s included in the bonanza:
DEATH RACE 2000, BLINDNESS, THE MUMMY 3, PINOCCHIO on Blu-ray, BOLT, WALL-E, CAPRICA, BURN AFTER READING, THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE, A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY, ROLE MODELS, WANTED, CHOCOLATE, SWING VOTE and HELLBOY II.
Good luck to everyone… (And thanks to all those who have already voted and sent in their screenshots. I appreciate every, single, vote.)
COMIC-CON AUGHT 9
So, wi-fi sucks and so does every hotspot that wants a 10 spot to log on to their already crappy service. Before heading out for my Friday activities (1:1s with a mess off great people and panels that I hope are worth waiting for) I wanted to let you know that you can follow my stream of consciousness through my Twitter strteam: STIPP. Some of the highlights from yesterday include:
Seeing DISTRICT 9 – A fantastic science fiction film of the highest order and one that will will not disappoint anyone looking for a wild story intermeshed with some stunning visuals. Not to be missed.
Talking to Mike Doughtery of TRICK R TREAT. From being the writer of X2 to fashioning a film that looks to embrace Halloween’s essence he was incredibly engaging and it will be shared right here in the near future.
TRON 2 press conference. Talking to Jeff “The Dude” Bridges was a thrill if only tempered by the fact that it was a moment shared with a few dozen other reporters.
Tim Burton of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The man’s got his own vision to be sure and he was a riot to listen to as he broke down his idea about what ALICE should be.
There’ll be more to come so stay plugged in all weekend…
(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t.
This post modern love story is never what we expect it to be — it’s thorny yet exhilarating, funny and sad, a twisted journey of highs and lows that doesn’t quite go where we think it will. When Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, is blindsided after his girlfriend Summer dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together†to try to figure out where things went wrong. His reflections ultimately lead him to finally rediscover his true passions in life.
I know it’s little more than hyperbole on my part but this is going to be a film you’re going to be talking about in effusive praise as the film breaks wide.
What separates this film from a lot of other less interesting takes on the nature of relationships that men and women find themselves falling into and out of is its originality. It’s difficult to mine a topic that has been done so many ways since time immemorial but what makes 500 DAYS OF SUMMER so precious is that they’ve found a way to do it again and do it in a pastiche of pleasure and pain.
In wanting to tell a story that doesn’t drip with the falsities of what happens between two people who come together this film goes beyond the tropes and trappings of less than fulfilling romantic narratives which usually end in perfectly predictable ways. Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have written a story that doesn’t try to be too dour, too deep or emotive. Rather, what they do manage to craft, and why this movie sticks to the ribs of your heart long after you realize what the narrator said in the beginning is true, is a story that tells what it’s like to really fall in love and have it fall apart. Such a simple premise, and I realize that in other hands this could have been yet another film in a long string of sub-par romance tales, but it’s the non sequential storytelling that at least primes the pump for an engaging movie experience.
After we’ve established that the story is not going to flow in normal order, some of the thrill is not knowing which in the 500 days you’re going to get next, almost like a visual Choose Your Own Adventure novella, we are beautifully ballasted by the school boy charms of Joseph Gordon-Levitt who simply plays a man named Tom and the girl-you-always-wished-lived-next-door in Zooey Deschanel as Summer. These two are matched up in a way that at once feels right and exciting; you can actually buy into the idea that this budding hipster could actually woo a woman of Zooey’s pedigree. She’s not portrayed as a woman who’s playing hard to get but, and this is absolutely where you have to praise the talents of the writers, she’s a woman who is independent and played as such throughout the movie. There is no abandoning the sense of who Summer is as a woman simply because she gets with a man like Tom. You want to think that everyone is able to cast aside their childish things once love walks into their lives, and certainly Tom does, but Summer stays constant and, I would posit, only heightens the searing pain of what happens when Tom’s devotion, dedication and dreams aren’t enough to make a whole.
Gordon-Levitt hasn’t been this arresting since his turn in THE LOOKOUT, his portrayal as Tom is alarmingly resonant to anyone who has loved so hard but ends up having nothing to show for it. Tom’s eventual meltdown in a staff meeting is particularly poignant as even though it’s played for dramatic effect and is obviously going for the overtly overwrought, despondent aspects of a man in a slight depression it’s psychologically telling as something that any human being who can’t make sense of their own emotional lives could relate to. As well, Gordon-Levitt, once he does get back on his emotional feet and has brushed off his shoulders a bit delivers a subtle, yet stinging, turn as Summer comes back into his life in a wedding sequence that kicks any man in the spiritual nut sack when you realize he’s still hanging on to “What if†instead of realizing it’s “What already was.â€
Deschanel, for her part, mystifies. She’s a tough mistress in that she never gives us what we all want from her and that’s for Summer to realize that Tom loves her, that it should be enough for her to believe in but that there is more going on than any of us realize. Like it was mentioned, she’s her own woman but that only increases her attractiveness. She doesn’t fall into the usual trappings of young lovers or infatuation or any of the feelings that always befall her cinematic equals. We love her in this film because she is still herself, is gorgeously depicted as a woman who has a bedroom smile that you wish you could awake to, a demeanor that won’t allow stupidity but who ultimately will make you work for her affection.
The truly arresting moments come in the film’s quieter times. When Tom picks a fight with a guy who is obnoxiously coming on to Summer, and it’s a time when you can see the writers at work crafting a moment for a specific reason, that it doesn’t feel organic, the ultimate resolution of the fight between Summer and Tom is gorgeously shot and is bathed in the kind of silence that apologies without recriminations sometimes have.
On the opposite end of the heady and heavy you have Paul, McKenzie and Rachel. Played by Matthew Gray Gubler, Geoffrey Arend and Chloe Moretz, respectively, they represent Tom’s two closest friends in the film and Tom’s very young sister to whom he tells everything. These three represent the comedic relief in the film and while they do feel like they’re serving the story’s purpose of lightening the mood they are by no means wasted. Gubler is absolutely charming as Tom’s confidant, Arend is positively hilarious and wish I had followed that man’s love trajectory and Moretz is the film’s other female element and she plays it well, her youth is in stark contrast to the maturity the writers have imbued her with but it’s positively welcomed. Along these comedic lines there is a song and dance number by Hall and Oats that should absolutely become your go-to mental representation should you ever hear the ditty outside of the theater.
And that’s the other thing.
Kudos to the film’s director, Marc Webb, for choosing a soundtrack that isn’t a bunch of shoegazing emo idiots slapped together for the sake of molding a hipster mix tape. A song by the aforementioned Hall and Oats, a karaoke version of “Here Comes Your Man†by the Pixies from a wicked Gordon-Levitt who knows how to rock a mic and scads of other musical nuances round out an ephemeral environment that feels very real to those in this film. Webb deftly allows these two to become more than just prototypical constructs and those who want to take issue with the idea that we’ve been here, we’ve done that so many times miss the point that if you were to look at what people have been given as a cinematic representation of love in all its trappings and pitfalls we have not been given a movie that makes you understand why we’re all willing to do it all over again. And again.
Comments: 17 Comments
17 Responses to “Trailer Park: (500) DAYS OF SUMMER and a $50,000 Gift Card”Leave a Reply |
July 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Haven’t seen this yet, but plan to. Would be nice to win here!
July 31st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
HOPE YOU WIN, i Gve you 3 votes, but alas not techy proficient enough to ‘screen shot’ it.
If you win I want a Sundae.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:54 am
wow!
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Plan to see it asap…love Zooey Dechamel…this seems like a great contest!! Would love to win this one..could really use it with hubby out of work going on a year now.
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
I would LOVE to win this!!
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I want it please!!!! Thanks!
August 4th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
wow a biggie
August 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Hope to win this… amazing prize. Startling.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
i llked the soundtrack and it shows how unfun all the work of relationships are.
August 8th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
WOW! Hope to see this and would love to win! THANKS…
August 8th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
I need to get this prize so I have a place to live.
August 8th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Please!
August 10th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
can’t wait to see this – wow – huge gift card contest!
August 10th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
awesome
August 12th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
MOney money money- I love it!
Iwant it! Gotta gotta have it!
August 16th, 2009 at 2:27 am
saw the movie . was amazed at how original it was.
and well… ive been supporting my boyfriend for a while now scince he lost his job and that much money would.. well change alot for us.
<3
August 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I really want to win this!! This movie looks so cute and I cannot wait to see it!