Ruby Sparks (THERE ARE SPOILERS IN ABUNDANCE)

So many words needed to let all this out.

Acting/script/direction was really good, cinematography was great as well, but I don't want to talk about any of that, I want to talk about the concept it explores instead.
(It's like a hipster movie. No other word for it.)

Okay, so it's about Calvin, a novelist who writes about his 'dream girl' (literally: 'dream' girl), who somehow by some miracle becomes an actual, living, breathing, PERSON.
Well, when I say 'person'....

EDIT:~~Okay so this is where I delve into the plot itself and if you don't want that and what to keep it 'a mystery' then just jump right to the VERY last paragraph where I rate the movie. Seriously. But if you don't mind having a slight idea... then think 'Paper Towns' by John Green or 500 Days of Summer.~~

This movie (I'm tempted to say 'story') is all about how guys seem to want this 'manic pixie dream girl' (henceforth, MPDG) all their lives, and I don't want to believe it's true but I know it is, and I know it in the most personal sense (at least SOME do, okay?)

The concept is fantastic, because I think it does a VERY good job of showing how people are real and they're not 'writable' and/or 'set in stone (paper)' like characters in books are, and the thing is, I feel like girls in general get it. Like ALL of us girls have an idea of whom our 'ideal' guy is, but it's not as cruel as the idea of a MPDG, in my opinion. I mean, sure, we have an idea definitely, but we don't try to impose them on real people (at least I like to think so; I can only speak for myself and my group of friends).
I can attest this is true for guys as well--most of the guys I know seem to NOT have a specific idea at all, and maybe this idea of a MPDG is what EVERY guy secretly wants or dreams about the same way EVERY girl dreams about Prince Charming, and maybe this whole MPDG thing is not even that big of a deal to make a movie about, I DON'T KNOW.
REGARDLESS of gender, if there are people out there who dream of guys or girls in the same way the lead dreams of his 'one true love' in this movie, and heck even if they didn't, I think stuff like this would still open up people's eyes and they would start to realize how unfair it is to do stuff like that--to think of people as 'more than just people' as John Green put it in Paper Towns. And I WANT to say 'Regardless of gender' because this story was written by a girl! By the every same girl who plays Ruby Sparks in the movie actually: Zoe Kazan.

But it's strange--every 'romantic' book that talks about girls as magical creatures who maybe aren't even real, ALL end in the SAME way--with the glaring fact that they ARE real and that they are human, and not just some two-dimensional art on a canvas.

I think it's strange how there are so many movies and books like this (Paper Towns included) and these are things that are primarily written for a male audience I think, because I don't think girls can relate to the lead--they can only  relate to the girl itself, maybe---and the thing is, they ALL end in the same way, too: the girl just says "I'm REAL and I'm not just an IDEA!" and even then the guy doesn't seem to get it, and he just seems confused and offended that a girl can be different from the idea he has of her.
And this movie I think does an even better job that Paper Towns (sorry, John Green. I still love you, though) because in THIS movie, the guy actually DOES try to make her fit into his idea of her and well, ultimately when the shit hits the fan, and the 'meltdown' takes place, everything falls into place like I wanted it to. It was VERY well done in terms of acting and direction, by the way. It was fantastic. The actor (Zoe Kazan) was REALLY good in this particular scene. It must have been super challenging to do all that.*

All being said and done, I wasn't too happy about the ending itself, actually.
I mean, sure, it had a little bit of character development but...I don't know. Maybe he should have (**SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ FURTHER!!!**) met an Autumn after Summer like in 500 Days of Summer. I think I would have liked it more then.

EDIT: This is from Wikipedia:

"From early in the development she (Zoe Kazan) wrote the lead character Calvin with her boyfriend Paul Dano in mind. On the feminist aspects of the story Kazan explains she wanted to explore the idea of "being gazed at but never seen" where a woman is not properly understood but in a way that wasn’t unkind or alienating for men. She rejects the description of Ruby Sparks as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, calling it reductive and diminutive, whereas Ruby Sparks is about the danger of idealizing a person, of reducing a person down to an idea of a person."

Yes, to the 'reduction to an idea' part but no to the MPDG part because the idea of the girl she happened to pen down for Ruby WAS of a MPDG in my opinion. That's what my interpretation of a MPDG is, anyway.


Rating: 2.5 on 5 stars.
And yes, I can be a critic too.


*Another movie example of this concept is 500 Days of Summer. EVERY guy I have met and who has admitted to watching the movie, LOVED it, but I personally thought it was just okay (maybe a 2 on 5). Also, do all the actors who fit into this role of a quirky/MPDG have to be called 'Zoe'?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro

This movie was so long, it could have been TWO movies.
I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing--when a movie seems long, I mean.

It was funny in a pun-ny way, so needless to say I thought it was hilarious. I think I LOVE this trilogy/installment/whatever over Tobey McGuire's because that guy just seemed like he was trying too hard, and he ALWAYS. CRIED. FOR. EVERYTHING.
So Andrew Garfield FTW. And Emma Stone is super pretty as well.

Okay, so on to the movie:
First off, LOOK at this poster!

Awesome!
It's based off a comic-book, so again, if you're walking in thinking of Inception-like movie-intensity, you are just stupid. I mean, really?
So that being said, it's a "fun" movie to watch. Whenever Peter Parker dons the Spider-Man spandex, he becomes this sarcastic, fourth-wall-breaking superhero that constantly verges on comedy/irony that your usual 'serious' superheroes from Marvel don't do, which is so awesome! It's just what we need, I think (this is also a secret cry for that Deadpool movie to happen).
The villain is Elecrto, played very well by Jamie Foxx, although his acting does sometimes come off as...well, acting. It's not too good. It's like, you KNOW he's acting, you know? The villain's character itself was okay, I guess, and I'm tempted to say that it was unbelievable in a sense, but whattheactualhell, THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A MAN SPIDER, AFTER ALL. So really, who am I to judge?
Electro is just one villain in this thing, btw. There are like THREE by the time the movie gets over, so maybe that's why I thought the movie seemed too long.
The second villain, obviously, is Harry Osborn, and dayum, he is a looker just like the other one was (James Franco). Just sayin'. Played by Dane DeHaan, this character is I think in many ways, better portrayed than the original one.

JUST LOOK AT HIS FACE:

Gosh, he looks good playing the troubled anti-hero. Not a lot of people can pull that off. I see a lot of badness in this one; akin to Tom Hiddleston, too.

I think maybe the script is just better, and the actors are fantastic and so is the directing. I mean, these things play such a huge role in what a movie ends up like, and even though the story-line is the same, EVERTHING is different. The perfect illustration of this would be the difference in the aired and the un-aired pilot for the TV show Sherlock. The dialogues in most scenes is literally the same, and yet EVERYTHING is different. It's a prime example of what a director alone does to a particular piece, and that being said, I think everything falls into place in a much better sense with this Spider-man installment/trilogy thing than it did with Tobey McGuire.
Dane DeHaan is a better actor than Jamie Foxx is, man. In this movie, at least. He seemed much more believable I guess; I'm not sure if it's because of the character or because of the acting itself, honestly. Maybe it's both.
Oh wait, I think it was the character. Because looking back, for the second-half of the movie, I thought Jamie F did a better job as Electro like holy crap he was GOOD. Damn. Maybe it was CGI. Maybe it was him. You'll never know.
The chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield was OBVIOUSLY really good. Dane DeHaan is a FANTASTIC Harry Osborn and Jamie Foxx was a good Electro too, I can't argue with that.

Special mention: RYAN FROM THE OFFICE IS IN IT! Hahaha! It was nice watching him in something other than The Office. Siggghhh, B.J. Novak.

To keep it short, it was a good watch, and I do NOT regret any moment of it. Though I do think it should come with a warning for (***SPOILER ALERT***DO NOT READ***) major character death.

And seeing as how I can be a critic too, I would give it a 3 on 5!