Ruby Sparks

This movie has "me" written ALL over it ( and yes... mostly because it has Paul Dano in the cast... who i LOVE!). Calvin (Dano) is a young, and very successful novelist. He wrote his first and only critically acclaimed best seller when he was 19, which is enough to keep people calling him a genius and to get phone numbers from random girls, but he has been uninspired and unpublished ever since. He lives in his expensive house with his dog Scotty who pees like a girl which only adds to Calvin's own feeling of inadequacy. On a routine meeting with Calvin's psychologist, he is given a writing assignment in the attempt to end his writer's block. His assignment is to write a  fictional character who would find him, with all his insecurities, attractive and who would think his dog was cute, even though he pees in the squatting position.

That night Calvin dreams of this girl. In his dream... he's walking Scotty in the park. Scotty runs away from him and leads him to a girl named Ruby (Zoe Kazan). Ruby is laying on a blanket drawing, she's an artist. She's quirky and cute and silly and sweeps Calving right off his feet. Calvin wakes up and can't get to his type writer fast enough. He writes pages and pages about his dream girl Ruby. Then.... some thing unexpected happens... something impossible happens. There's a girl in his house! Not just any girl.... Ruby is in his house acting like she's been there all this time! She jumped right off of the page and into real life! After the shock of the situation passes and after Calvin accepts that she is not a hallucination but a real physical person, he sits back and enjoys his new life of being  "in love".

Everything is passionate and blissful until reality sets in. Even when you find the love of your life.. no one is perfect or will do what you want them to all the time... or wait... unless you have the power to make them. Calvin realizes that all he has to do is type the words and he can make Ruby do anything. Ruby is at Calvin's command with just the tap of the keyboard. If you had the power to change the mind of someone you love... would you? What about the little annoying habits or that time he or she talked a little too long to your attractive friend? What about when you thought they were thinking of leaving you or wanted a little too much space? If you could stop them with the touch of a button, would you??? Tough questions.

Ruby Sparks is fun and heartfelt and Dano and Kazan are brilliant together. The storyline is outlandish and wonderful... full of psychological questions that boggle the mind. Ruby Sparks addresses issues at the heart of every romantic relationship. It's in a genre of it's own... it's a romantic thriller. I LOVED it!

Hide Away

A journey of grief, recuperation from guilt, time for suffering in peace... is the best way I can express the film Hide Away. Agony of the human spirit is brought to life beautifully and poetically. A broken man buys a broken boat. He stays docked through the winter while he goes mad dealing with the demons of his past. "Sometimes one must go completely insane before sanity can be reached"  is what I observed from the main character, played by Josh Lucas. And sometimes madness is best accomplished alone. As he slowly regains his sanity he gradually restores his boat. On land sits The Boathouse Cafe, run by a weathered man with a white beard (James Cromwell) and his captivating daughter (Ayelet Zurer). They assist the troubled man in mending his boat and his life. Hide Away is a story of healing. As gentle and fragile as it is dark and ominous, Hide Away is a rare peek into human emotion.

Friends With Kids

What happens to friendships when people get married and have kids? The answer... all kinds of things, but one thing is certain... those friendships do not stay the same. In Friends With Kids, Jason (Adam Scott), Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), Ben (John Hamm), Missy (Kristen Wiig), Leslie (Maya Rudolph), and Alex (Chris O'Dowd) are best friends. Everything changes when they all meet for Dinner one night and married couple Leslie (Rudolph) and Alex (O'Dowd) announce that they are having a baby. They say that things won't change and they will still be "cool" and not turn into psycho parents, but time tells a different story. After having kids the six friends meet less often, and when they do meet, things are significantly more stressful. Even married couple without kids, Missy (Wiig) and Ben (Hamm) are growing less happy. The two unmarried friends Jason (Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt) look at the lives of their married friends and realize something... they don't want to become like them. They also realize, however, that they do want to have a child before it's too late. The answer... Julie and Jason decide to have a child together with no romantic attachment... simply two friends conceiving and  parenting the same child.

So one awkward sexual encounter and one pregnancy test later Jason and Julie have a beautiful baby boy, and seemingly the perfect set up. They rest of the group is in awe of how smoothly their situation works and maybe even a little resentful. They take turns with diapers and feedings and even live in the same apartment. Everything is perfect until Julie starts to feel left behind when Jason gets serious with a big busted, young, flexible dancer. Then... the situation flip flops when Julie seems to have found the man of her dreams.

A rustic wood cabin sets the scene for tensions to be let loose and hurled at one another on a group ski trip with all six friends plus kids in attendance. It's difficult to express the complexities and significance of all these different relationships and how they affect one another in a few short paragraphs, so I recommend watching the movie and judging for yourself. If the up and down dynamics of friendships and marriage is something that appeals to you... you will appreciate Friends With Kids. I love these actors. Who wouldn't love Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph? They rock my world :)

Safety Not Guaranteed

Let's just begin with WONDERFUL and AMAZING! This is by far one of my favorite movies of all time! We begin in a conference room during the meeting of a magazine company. The editor asks for fresh titillating ideas. Journalist Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) voices interest in the local advertisement of a man looking for a partner to travel through time with him. Jeff's editor gives him the okay and allows him two interns to help. He chooses bold but somber Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and and nerdy Arnau (Karan Soni). Jeff rubs everyone the wrong way and it turns out that he's not even interested in the story, he actually picked that story because it's where his old high school fling lives. So while Jeff is focused on hooking up, Darius and Arnau head up the investigation to find out who the time traveling man is. Darius approaches Kenneth (the time traveling man), at the grocery store where he works. She goes in undercover as a girl who is sincerely interested in time travel. Eccentric doesn't even begin to describe Kenneth. To the average person he appears completely out of his mind... but kooky as he may be, Darius soon finds that Kenneth is also very good hearted and intriguing. Slowly the two gain each other's trust and begin training for their travel.

 So, the questions remain... is he brilliant or crazy, a genius or dangerous? How will the "story" play out and how far will Darius go to play along? Oh, and who are the big guys in suits spying on Kenneth and watching his every move? To find out the answers to all these strange questions please go see this movie!!!

 Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass have beautifully unique onscreen chemistry. They are a perfect balance of hard and soft, of crazy and sane. This is the first time I've ever seen Plaza, but I definitely hope it's not that last. The repressed emotion and genuine goodness that she shows through her character really connects the viewer to the heart of the story. And Mark Duplass.... I just love Mark Duplass in general. He leaves his character's flaws exposed and that brings a true to life quality to his interactions with other characters. I cannot think of anyone else who could make such a strange person like Jeff so likable. I don't know how he does what he does but I'm so glad that he does it! I love the actors, love the story, love everything single detail about this movie!