I know this isn’t a movie but…

Can we please talk about Kill La Kill? I know that I mainly do movies and this is an anime but I just have so many feelings about this show that need to come out (all positive, don’t worry).

I was first introduced to Kill La Kill a few years ago at my college in Virginia. I was going for animation at the time and A LOT of my classmates were into anime. Like…..weeaboo level. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m just a casual fan of Japanese animation. I enjoy Studio Ghibli and am a fan of certain anime like Fullmetal Alchemist and One Piece, nothing to write home about. In my 2D animation class there was a girl who wore a mudkips hat all the time and just RAVED about Kill La Kill. When I asked my friend about it, another fellow weeaboo, he said that I wouldn’t like it, that it was basically porn. I looked it up and thought he was right and continued living my Kill La Kill-less life.

Fast-forward to a few months ago. My boyfriend for the 2 years that I’ve known him had been recommending the show to me. I would just brush it off that he liked seeing half-naked girls on screen but he swore by this show saying that it was different. So, a few months ago, I was just sitting at home and I decided to start it.

I finished it within three days.

I don’t even know where to being with this show. I will start with this I think that this show is best enjoyed blind, I just had the most emotionally best time watching it going in blind so this is your spoiler warning. I am not going to hold back in this post so turn away now if you still haven’t seen it.

I guess we can start with the plot. The story is written so well, there are SO MANY twists in the last few episodes. There was a lot that I had questions I had going through that were answered by the end. At first I thought it was a cheap plot to make. Alien clothing fibers that needed to suck the blood of their host to come alive and of course you had to be half naked for that to happen.

But the plot is so much more then that. And I was a skeptic before, my boyfriend told me that and I rolled my eyes. This show takes all taboos about nudity and throws them out the window. It not just a weak plot to have naked girls on screen, clothes ARE the plot and our relationship with clothes. For heaven’s sakes, Ryuko’s (the main character) outfit, Senketsu, is actually glaring at the audience, as if to make you feel bad if you are looking at this girls sexually.

Before we actually dive into the plot further can I also add that I think they do a pretty good job of keeping the sexuality pretty even between both sexes. By the end of the show, EVERYONE is naked, heck the resistance organization is called nudist beach.

Jumping off of that, I absolutely love how this show treats nudity vs. sexualization. To back track, the plot of the show revolves around “life fibers”, an alien life form that takes the shape of clothing. The evil chick, and Satsuki’s mom, Ragyo, gave herself over to the life fibers and became the head of a clothing company that distributing them to the public. She wanted to help the life fibers take control. The resistance fights against them, saying that humans are “slaves to clothing”. I love this. Like up until all of this was revealed, I had mixed feelings about the show. The plot got me roped in, but I was still uncomfortable with seeing scantly clad women on the screen.

That’s the whole point to the show. That’s where the difference between just the human body and sexualized nudity come into play. Why was I uncomfortable? I never once felt like Ryuko or Satsuki, the two main females, were being sexualized, even though their body was out for the world to see. But I had been taught through other media and heck even my mother that nudity equals sex. Now in art school that view changed very quickly since we used nude models on a daily basis, but in shows that view stayed the same, ESPECIALLY in anime. I see anything with half naked women in it I get turned off because I feel like it’s all fan-service and I get disgusted by it.

Never once did I get disgusted by Satsuki or Ryuko and never once did I feel they were being sexualized. The funny thing is, the leader of Nudist Beach (pictured above) WAS sexualized.

There is a difference with how he was portrayed and how Ryuko was portrayed:

Nudity does not equal sex. The human body is not something to be ashamed of. Besides that plot point, the story itself is really good. It starts out with Ryuko trying to find her father’s killer, and ends up discovering so much more. It’s engaging, it’s exciting. It goes from 0-100 REALLY quick, then goes from 100-1000 even quicker.

One other thing I want to touch on is Ragyo. There were scenes with her and Satsuki (reminder: her daughter) where she was trying to get Satsuki to give herself over to the life fibers and it’s implied that she molests her. Then again when she captures Satsuki after she goes rogue. THEN LATER doing similar things to Ryuko. It’s uncomfortable, it’s disgusting, it’s humiliating. And that’s the point. As I talked about before Kill La Kill dives into the ideas around nudity. Ragyo, to me, represents how media tells us to feel about nudity. Her molesting Satsuki is done to make her feel shame in her body so that she feels the need for the Life Fibers, that her body is bad and “lustful” the way it is.

It’s just all really cool. This show goes beyond being “meta”; they actually take this idea of sexualization and “fan-service” and not only turn it on it’s head but create a whole plot around it. A good plot even.

Why does nudity make us uncomfortable?

 

It’s funny cause now it’s hard for me to get into another anime…this show just was a huge, wonderful ride and I’m sad it’s over.

Reliving Childhood: The Prince and Me

All throughout my childhood and even into middle-school and high school I was addicted to romance movies. It wasn’t even just movies, I was addicted to the idea of love. Even now I can’t resist a romance film, although my head is a little more on the ground.

Say what you will about it, but deep down it came from a place of just longing to having someone love me in way of a relationship; having something that (I thought) would be deeper than friendship, family, etc. When I was young, this came out of a place of impatience, waiting until I was old enough to be “swept off my feet”. As I got older, this came from a place of fear. I was scared I would never find love. After graduating it came from a place of desperation, which led me into a not so pleasant relationship, but came out of it for the better learning a lot about myself and life.

I know they are corny and cliche but they gave me a sort of escape. I could put myself in place of the female protagonist and pretend I was the one getting swept off my feet.

The Prince and Me was one of my all time favorites. I’m re-watching it now as I write this. It’s definitely not a great film by academic standards but as far as “chick flicks” it’s actually one of the better ones. I think what I loved about it was that the main character was relateable to me. I wanted someone as loving as Eddie, someone who looked at me the same way, who treated me the same way.

The key thing about The Prince and Me is that she was never looking for a relationship. She was fully immersed in her career, her school, and her family. That was something I couldn’t wrap my head around, finding romance when you least expected it.

We all know the truth, I knew the truth, I knew it so much I was sick of hearing it. But really life does not revolve around romance. That’s only one fraction of our life there are so many other things that make life worth living. There is something to be said for friendship and family and even self-love.

That being said, just like you shouldn’t wrap your life around trying to find love, we shouldn’t also let our life get in the way of it either. That’s what’s nice about this film. Both people have their obligations and their own dreams and they do what they can to fulfill them, while still being true to who they are and their feelings.

Sometimes you meet the perfect person and live happily ever after, sometimes you have to wait a long time to meet someone, sometimes who you meet isn’t who you’re supposed to meet or you meet the right person at the wrong time, and sometimes you don’t meet someone, either by choice or just by happenstance.

But none of that should keep us from living the life we deserve. So what do we do? We find happiness in our work, our education, living out what we feel called to do. We find love in our friends and family, love that is no less of a love then a romantic relationship with a partner.

I’m just ranting now I guess. Just know your self worth. Know that you only deserve the best and don’t let anything convince you otherwise. I wish my younger self knew that.

Made of Honor

I can’t lie, the moment I started this movie I knew I wasn’t going to like it. I never watched it but I had seen clips of certain scenes and I wasn’t impressed. But I was hoping that I would be wrong, that it would actually be okay…..

It wasn’t.

Made of Honor starts off like every other cliche rom com. The two main characters meet at college and are complete opposites. Patrick Dempsey likes to sleep around with all different sorts of women and Hannah, the female protagonist, is a quiet nerd who keeps to herself. They remain best friends throughout their life, and hang out often, but, of course, never enter into a romantic relationship. Here is the first problem I have with the film and honestly with a lot of rom coms. Hollywood makes it seem like the highest relationship a man and a woman can have (or really any two people can have) is a romantic one, and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Who’s to say you can’t have a deep bond with someone that doesn’t involve sex? There is something to be said for friendship as well and I just think it’s sad.

As an audience member you can tell where the story is going. It starts off like the female is going to “fix” the man like the generic bad boy settles down with the girl who sets him straight, which is another trope I hate but that’s a story for another time….

It’s obvious that Hannah likes Dempsy but it takes him a little longer to realize his feelings. She goes on a trip and with her missing from his life he has an epiphany that he is in love. Here is where things go wrong. She comes back engaged to a perfect man. So naturally he works to sabotage the wedding, it succeeds and they get happily married.

Where oh where do I begin.

Dempsey’s character just wanted to have his cake and eat it too, Hannah spent WAY too much time caught up in Dempsey’s character that the first guy she met outside of him she got engaged too. She also threw away a perfectly good guy (even though they got engaged way too fast) for a guy that didn’t give her the light of day until he thought he was going to loose her.

This movie could have been redeemed. Hannah tells Dempsey the night before her wedding “All these years, all this time and you’re doing this now….you’re only doing this now because you’re afraid of loosing me. I need someone who’s going to be there for me no matter what happens, someone who truly loves me, someone I can trust”

But of course, she changes her mind last second on her wedding day…

Love is so much more than the butterflies. I hate that Hollywood paints this picture that that’s all love is. Love is commitment and trust…all the things she says Dempsey isn’t…

I HATED this film..

No stars rewarded

And shame on you IMDB users, 5.9???? really???

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Is there a movie you’d like to see me review? Leave it in the comments or message me! I’m always open to suggestions, both good and bad!

Updates: I’ve been busy!!

Here I am again! I started school back up..this past week has been TOUGH, my school and work schedule didn’t line up too well.

I’ve also really been focusing on working on my art. If you didn’t know I am in school for illustration. I’ve just started a fiverr account and creating designs for teepublic *COUGH* fiver.com/sarahkelly455 *COUGH* teepublic.com/user/skelly5195 *COUGH*

I’ve also been working on a graphic novel idea…

Basically I’ve been working really hard on “my brand” and trying to get ready for the future.

It….it hasn’t been going the greatest…but I’m trying and that’s what counts.

But while I’ve been going a million miles a minute working on ideas everywhere this blog has been pushed to the back burner. Don’t worry I’m not going anywhere, posts just wont be as numerous right now…January is going to be a dry month…

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

 

Please go watch this film.

Please.

Look. Sometimes I don’t have the best judgment with films. I like what I like and I hate what I hate. And we all know by now that I am much more critical of animation then I am of action movies.

Welcome to the Jungle wasn’t perfect, by any means (I feel like I use that sentence a lot…). But it was a joy through and through. The writing a few times was cringy, but honestly the acting done by Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and especially Dwayne Johnson….ESPECIALLY Dwayne Johnson…saved it. They did a great job of embodying the kids they were supposed to portray. Jack Black especially, with him playing a female character trapped in a middle aged overweight dude’s body. It was humorous and tastefully done, it was something I was scared they were going to go super over the top with and exploit but in my opinion he did everything according to his character, you could imagine she was controlling him it wasn’t just a bad gag of a man acting like a woman.  I was most impressed with Dwayne Johnson’s acting. He was playing character Spencer who was a nerdy kid stuck in the body of Dr. Bravestone. You really believed Spencer was stuck inside Johnson, the acting on his part was top notch.

I was so impressed with this movie. I immediately got excited when I saw they were making it and have been pleasantly surprised at how well received it was. My biggest problem when the trailers first came out was how many people I heard going “Well….it’s a good idea…but it’s so stupid it’s attaching itself to the Jumanji franchise…”. I was really scared this was going to be another instance where I feel ashamed for something that is poorly received. But when I saw the overall audience scores for it after it came out it got me really excited it. Look. I get it…a lot of times when people try to reboot an old franchise or create sequels to movies, that don’t need them, it fails dramatically. But my opinion is…so what? If it sucks it sucks if it’s good it’s good. The new sequel/reboot isn’t going to ruin the original. People take these older movies and put them up on pedestals. No one is allowed to touch them, they are too sacred and need to be left exactly as they are.

I’m ranting I know. In fact I’m probably not making much sense right now…I’ve just been getting tired of people poo-pooing over these new movies and sucking the joy out of things. No one can be happy anymore.

THANKFULLY that wasn’t the case with Jumanji:Welcome to the Jungle. Look if you have the money and time to spare I would highly highly recommend watching it.

This post may get me in trouble…proceed with caution…

I was having a good Christmas. A great holiday. But friends I am sorry we need to address some things. I am going to apologize up front because I KNOW this will upset a lot of people. Also I want to ask forgiveness of all my co-workers who might stumble across this… Please remember this is my opinion. If you don’t like it please leave a nice comment or just move along with your anger. I am letting you have your opinions too I promise I wont attack you for it.

Calm down about Star Wars.

I’m about to anger all you super fans. Star Wars was never perfect. Not even the originals. I grew up on these films. I love them. And as a kid I watched the prequels and loved them. It was all just Star Wars to me. Then as I got older I saw all the hatred surrounding them and I was confused. I kind of just adopted it because I could never admit that I didn’t have a problem with them.

Fast forward to now. The same thing is happening with The Last Jedi. 

I am in no way saying this film is perfect. I have heard MANY crmuch as iques from MANY people and I agree with all of them. But guess what?  It’s still a good movie. Or at least I think it is. Everyone has their own opinion…and that’s okay!!! But I am tired of feeling like I can’t enjoy things I do. So here it goes. Guess what world? I actually liked Jar Jar Binxs as a kid….and I STILL dont think he was the worst thing about Star Wars. Guess what? I actually really really liked episode 3. Guess what? I don’t like Empire Strikes Back nearly as much as I should.

But I did love The Last Jedi. I can go into a post on why later, let me know if you would like to hear my formal critique on that after Christmas.

All I’m saying is that just because it didn’t go the way you thought or you just weren’t happy with the story, doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. Likewise, just because I loved it and found a lot of good in it doesn’t mean it’s a perfect movie.

A movie is what it is; a movie is what we make of it.

No Star Wars movie is perfect. Even the originals. But we can still like them…or not like them…whatever you prefer.

So there’s my controversial post for 2017! See you next year!!

…if you’re still here…

 

Arthur Christmas

I saw Arthur Christmas for the first time a few years ago after watching an interview with James McAvoy for the same film. It has become a yearly tradition to watch this movie. Honestly, . The animation is average, the designs are….eh. I mean, it is a Sony film so honestly shouldn’t except so much from that department anyways…

Looking past the animation, the story is heartwarming. It’s a simple story about Santa Clause and his two sons. It’s about the time where he will retire and the eldest son, Steve, is looking to take over. But, after Santa is done delivering gifts (what little gifts he delivered…the elves took over a majority of the responsibilities to cut time), he shocks everyone saying that he is planning to take the lead one more year. Steve is a techy and had been working hard to make the Christmas operation efficient and effective, so this hurt him. He was ready to be Santa, it was something had been dreaming of. Then there’s Arthur. Arthur is the youngest son who is clumsy and horrible at every job given to him. So his job is writing back to the children who send letters to his dad. And he LOVES it. For Arthur, that is what Christmas is all about. After everyone heads off to bed a gift is found. Santa missed a child….well, Steve’s algorithm missed a child. Everyone is against going to the child except Arthur. The thought of a child waking up on Christmas morning without a gift from Santa broke him. So he sets off with Grandsanta, a vintage sleigh, an old reindeer, and an elf from wrapping (her name is Bryony and she is my favorite character, please watch this film).

Arthur is most innocent and kindhearted and genuine character. His only motive throughout the whole film is to make children happy and to keep the magic of Christmas alive. The older I get, the harder Christmas gets. I have to work, it’s busier and it’s more stressful…I honestly miss the Christmas I had as a kid. There’s just a lot of magical time around the season that for some reason I started to loose…This year has been the hardest because I’ve had to work the most since the holidays are the busy time for theatres. But I’ve been trying to find the joy in different places. As a kid, it’s in the presents and food and time off from school. Now it’s in the smaller things, like yesterday I went out shopping and just driving past all the Christmas decorations made me smile.

It’s the small things for Arthur too. He reads hundreds of letters and he remembers everything. To him, the most important and magical things is just making others happy. The small touches, like the special bow he ties to the gift when then finally give it to the child. It’s just so heartwarming.

Go make some hot chocolate, cuddle up with loved ones and please watch this film.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

My childhood revolved around The Peanuts. I loved it, I loved the characters, the story; I wanted to be like Charles M. Schulz. So, of course, all of the movies are near and dear to my heart. And you can’t get more classic then A Charlie Brown Christmas. The history behind the animation is really interesting and is something I wanted to write a post about.

The special started as a 2 minute animation for a documentary about Charles Schulz and his comic. This idea fell through but networkers thought a 30 minute animation special would work. They had just 6 months to make it work.

Once completed, they hated it. They thought it would be a nightmare. Bill Melendez, the producer and also head of animation, was quoted saying “My golly, we’ve killed it.” Viewing the film, just from a technical standpoint, I can totally understand where they were coming from. The animation is basic, it’s choppy, and at some points it’s messy. They were on budget and time restraint so it makes sense. The network executives were also negative, as well as the executive producer, Lee Mendelson, believing that if it wasn’t scheduled for the following week they wouldn’t have aired it at all.

Thank goodness they did. A Charlie Brown Christmas was number 2 on the ratings, it met high critical acclaim and won an Emmy, and, of course, has been a classic ever since.

I think something that Schultz, Melendez, Mendelson and heck all of the network executives overlooked was the amount of heart behind the movie. I know I am hypercritical of animation, and let’s face it the animation is not something to brag about. But the reason that this movie means so much to me is because of all the heart poured into it. These characters and their stories meant so much to Schultz, Charlie Brown meant so much to Schultz.

When everyone was reviewing the film before it aired they were looking purely for quality. When you create art it’s hard not to critique it harshly. You want things to be the best they possibly can. But what people see is the love and care you put into it. A Charlie Brown Christmas, just like all of Schultz’s stories, has no mean bone in it’s body. It’s simple, it’s loving, it has good values. It’s not even a question why people loved this film; sometimes we forget about the simple things in life. I know I have this past year. We forget about the love of family and friends, we forget why life is worth living. We get so wrapped up in wanting the biggest, shiniest aluminum Christmas tree, we overlook what we do have, that, with just a little bit of love, can turn into something even more beautiful.

…does that make sense? Am I making sense? Sometimes I’m not the best with words…

We all have Charlie Brown moments…I think that’s why I loved him so much growing up. Lots of times I felt like him. People would put me down, make fun of me, I felt like I failed a lot. But the beauty of him is that things seem to work out in the end.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a film that I have watched every year and will continue to watch.

 

 

((2004). The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas (DVD). Paramount Home Entertainment.)

Here I am!!

I’m alive I swear!! I had finals this past week and work, with Star Wars, was CRAZY. Which, btw I wont be reviewing Star Wars. Honestly, I’m not sure I have anything of worth to say that hasn’t already been said. For the record though I did quite enjoy it, but my standard for Star Wars movie is super low. If people fight and things blow up I’m satisfied. I was talking with my co-worker about it, a die-hard fan, and there was a lot that he felt was lacking, so I totally understand why people were not satisfied. I really liked it, just hoping they can pull it together for Episode 9.

BUT now that school’s done hopefully we can spend the next week getting in the holiday spirit ^.^

I hope everyone’s holiday goes well and I look forward to making some festive posts the next few weeks!

 

A Good Ole Christmas Story

The year is 2008. At the time, we had the tradition of spending Christmas eve with my dad’s family, and then on Christmas day we would spend with my mom’s sister’s family. On this particular Christmas, my Aunt was working and we scheduled another day to get together. Her one son had nothing to do so my parents thought it would be nice to take him out to see a movie. We loaded up our car, drove to our local theatre, and bought tickets.

My mom had seen commercials for a certain Christmas movie that was playing so we bought tickets for that. Friends, that movie was Four Christmases. We bought our snacks, grabbed our seats, and the first thing we were welcomed to was Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn aggressively making out in the ladies rest room. My parents were extremely embarrassed as the movie just got worse from there and I had a wonderful Christmas story.

This season I am going back with my boyfriend and rewatching any Christmas movie we find. This one just happened to be free on Xfinity and we needed something to watch while finishing up some projects.

There is nothing I can say about Four Christmases, but I’m going to try anyways. This movie is awful. It is down-right awful. I have never gotten on board with Vincent Vaughn’s acting, there are very few films I actually like him in. Reese Witherspoon I love when she’s in a good role….and this role was just…eh. The writing is terrible, the story is sub-par, the humor falls flat. The fact that they made this Christmas movie is sad, and the fact that I’m actually writing about it is also sad…don’t worry I promise I will do better Christmas movies I swear.

I’m honestly trying to find redeeming qualities as I’m siting here watching it. Witherspoon’s acting isn’t horrible, I’m a little more biased because like I said I actually enjoy her. Also the casting isn’t that bad. I actually can believe that Kristin Chenoweth is sisters with Witherspoon and that Mary Steenburgen is their mother. That’s about all I can think of.

“This movie is so not self aware it’s up it’s own butt. It’s just doing it’s own thing and failing hard at it.” Peter M. , Boyfriend

Four Christmases could do so much better if it was self aware. At least then it would be funny.

Tis the season to be jolly and watch stupid Christmas films…