Tags
31 day blog challenge, 31 days of March, favorite movies, friends with benefits, he's just not that into you, March blogging challenge, sweet home alabama, the war room
Favorite movies you never get sick of watching:
Sweet Home Alabama
When I lived in my first apartment in Sioux Falls I didn’t have cable in my bedroom. And the DVD/VHS player in there had a broken DVD player, so night after night I fell asleep re-watching my VHS of Sweet Home Alabama. Yes, I still own the movie on VHS. I haven’t watched it as much now that I only have a Blu-ray player in my room, but for months I watched that movie sometimes for a week straight. I love it. And it, like most on this list defies the fact that I claim to, in theory, dislike romantic movies. Yet, to this day I love watching this movie and I can quote the whole movie.
Favorite quotes:
Young Melanie: What do you want to be married to me for, anyhow?
Young Jake: So I can kiss you anytime I want.
[they kiss, and lightning strikes]
Melanie Carmichael: The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.
Melanie Carmichael: You’re the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.
Friends with Benefits
I have this movie on my laptop and until Christmas my parents didn’t have wireless at their house and the tv in my old bedroom only plays whatever channel the tv in their bedroom is on, so for a year anytime I was home I fell asleep to Friends with Benefits night after night. I can quote this movie too and still love to watch it randomly. I think it kind of hits home because I have similarities to both of the main characters in my personal relationship characteristics. And I’m a hopeless romantic at heart. I try to hide that, especially since I hate all things romantic movies, I’ve never watched The Notebook and so on. But I love this movie. And I really am a hopeless romantic deep down I guess…
Favorite Quotes:
Dylan: Why do women think the only way to get men to do what they want is to manipulate them?
Jamie: History, personal experience, romantic comedies.
Dylan: Why do relationships always start off so fun and then turn into suck-a-bag-of-dicks?
Jamie: You really have to stop buying into this bullshit Hollywood cliché of true love.
Jamie: You’re emotionally unavailable?
Dylan: Oh, yeah!
Jamie: Oh, my God! I’m emotionally damaged. I haven’t seen you at the meetings.
Tommy: Oh! Right! Right! Like that’s how Warren Buffett got rich. He took doors off of things! Hey, everybody wants a short cut in life. My guide-book is very simple. You wanna lose weight? Stop eating, fatty! You wanna make money? Work your ass off, lazy! You wanna be happy? Find someone you like and never let him go. Or her if you’re into that kinda of…creepy shit.
The War Room
This documentary follows former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential bid. It is a movie that was shown in my American Government 101 class my freshman year of college and my love for it was instant. In fact that movie and class is what brought me to change my major to Political Science. Best decision of my life. It showed me the chaotic side of political campaigns, while also showing me what I’ve learned to be true. Campaign teams become family. You win together, you lose together. And you almost always stay connected.
Favorite quotes:
Bill Clinton: [giving a televised speech] If you’ll be my voice tomorrow, I’ll be yours for four years.
James Carville: I thought of that didn’t I? I’ll take credit for it.
James Carville: There’s a simple doctrine: outside of a person’s love, the most sacred thing that they can give is their labor. And somehow or another along the way, we tend to forget that. Labor is a very precious thing that you have. Anytime that you can combine labor with love, you’ve made a good merger. I think that we’re gonna win tomorrow, and I think the governor’s going to fulfill his promise and change America. And I think many of you are going to go on and help him. I’m a political professional, that’s what I do for a living, and I’m proud of it.
[weeping]
James Carville: We changed the way campaigns are run. It used to be, there was a hierarchy. If you were on one floor, get to another floor. Everybody was compartmentalized. You people showed that you can be trusted. Everybody in this room, everybody. People are gonna tell you you’re lucky. You’re not. Ben Hogan said ‘Golf is a game of luck. The more practice, the luckier I get.’ The harder you work, the luckier you are. I was thirty-three years old before I went to Washington or New York. Forty-two before I won my first campaign. And I’m happy for all y’all. You’ve been part of something special in my life… and I’ll never forget what y’all have done. Thank you.
He’s Just Not That Into You
I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. I hate dating rules, I defy dating rules. Yet, at the same time there are things I find to be so true even if I don’t want them to be in this movie. Part of my love for this movie is the fact that I actually did a project on it during graduate school. You have to love when an academic project can also be fun. I hate, hate, hate dating rules. That’s not to say I don’t agree with some of the points in He’s Just Not That Into You, but in a way I feel like endorsing the points in the movie, endorses the traditional dating idea. And well I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a traditional relationship since I was like 18. If ever.
And for those wondering what we evaluated in our project, we evaluated the movie using interpersonal relationship theories and examined how the movie fit and didn’t fit some of those theories.
Favorite Quotes:
Gigi: Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we’re told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we’re so focused on finding our happy ending we don’t learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don’t, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn’t include a guy, maybe… it’s you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is… just… moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.
Gigi: I may dissect each little thing and put myself out there so much but at least that means that I still care. Oh! You’ve think you won because women are expendable to you. You may not get hurt or make an ass of yourself that way but you don’t fall in love that way either. You have not won. You’re alone. I may do a lot of stupid shit but I’m still a lot closer to love than you are.
Mary: I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work so I called him at home and then he e-mailed me to my Blackberry and so I texted to his cell and then he e-mailed me to my home account and the whole thing just got out of control. And I miss the days when you had one phone number and one answering machine and that one answering machine has one cassette tape and that one cassette tape either had a message from a guy or it didn’t. And now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.
Gigi: But you didn’t! And that same wise person told me that I’m the rule. That I have to stop thinking that every guy will change, that I have to stop thinking that…
Gigi: [Alex kisses her]
[smiles]
Gigi: … I’m the exception…
Alex: [whispers] You are *my* exception.
[they kiss again]
Alex: So trust me when I say if a guy is treating you like he doesn’t give a shit, he genuinely doesn’t give a shit. No exceptions.