happythankyoumoreplease

what is with me and tv character obsessions? but yes i did check this out because "ted mosby" wrote and directed it. i wanted to see it in theaters (especially because the landmark did a q&a with josh radnor) but it got bad reviews so was okay when i didn't see it in a theater. what re-sparked my interest in it was my new girl crush zoe kazan starred in it too. well not major but minor.

so the thing that i have to remember when i watch my favorite tv actors in movies is that they are not their tv characters. i realized that when sam (radnor) started cussing, ted mosby doesn't say fuck well more like i never heard him say it. i was expecting to watch a ted mosby movie and that was not the case.

this movie was okay, nothing really to write home about. it follows the life of sam, a writer and his friends. sam helped this foster kid who was left on the subway and instead of sending him back into the system, kept him for a few days (yes which is essentially kidnapping) and discovered the kid is good at art and tried to develop that talent in him. he also met a girl named mississippi and they decide to have a "three night stand" which is kind of a cute concept. act like a couple for three days to see how it works versus just one night of sex. i would have signed his contract. and she is this singer and she asked him to her show but he doesn't want to go cos what if she is bad? then his attending her show becomes this symbol of his commitment to her. and in the end he goes. she is supposed to be amazing but i thought she sucked. she sang this bad show tune kinda song. it ended the movie on a bad note in my opinion.

another storyline is his friend annie who has alopecia which they treat as this horrible ailment. she even hosted an awareness dinner. and i get everyone has their own self-image battles but i think the head wraps made her look more ridiculous than her hair loss. she looked like a wannabe black girl, kinda like a wigga but that is not the right phrase. she didn't read bohemian but more like a wanna-be erykah badu, so i couldn't take her seriously. her whole thing was that she doesn't realize her beauty until she started dating this guy she was initially annoyed by from her office. btw this guy was buster from arrested development!!! anyway the title comes from story she shared at dinner where this taxi driver teaches her this mantra so she could have more happiness in her life.

then there is mary catherine (played by kazan) who was sam's cousin. her boyfriend wanted to move to la and she is anti-it because she hates la. but he gives this amazing description of la which is very true.

--

she gets preggers and then crazy. her bf proposed to her (without knowing that she was knocked up). but she freaked out because she is not the marriage type. but they end up happily ever after.

see the story lines were ho-hum. i didn't become invested in any of them.

but you know what i did love! the soundtrack!!! it was amazing and sadly not available anywhere. but wikipedia listed out the track list and surprise surprise the music supervisor is andy gowan from "how i met your mother". the man is really amazing!!!

ruby sparks.

grandma bea and i do not have fancy cable or satellite that gives you a guide to look for tv shows. instead we have to use a tv guide or channel 2 which scrolls through a listing of shows. though it can be a pain to use channel 2 because you have to wait for the channel you want to come around, it has kept me informed on what is new on dvd. it was in one of these said segments that i learned about "ruby sparks".

"ruby sparks" is the story of a struggling novelist who writes about the girl of his dreams, only for her to come to life. the storyline caught my eye and so did the actors. it's stars paul dano who we all adored in "little miss sunshine". i also saw a movie with him and zooey deschanel called "gigantic", it was cute but not super great. i also just learned thanks to his imdb that he voiced "alexander" in "where the wild things are". but who really caught my eye was chris messina. i first fell in love with me as the sweet adoptive dad with the great syrup/love analogy in "away we go". i am also loving that i get to see him on a regular basis on "the mindy project". he is so flippin' cute! he plays calvin's (dano) older brother.

at first i thought ruby was played by erin from "the office" but it's actually zoe kazan. and after watching this movie, i have a huge girl crush on her! you may remember her as the youngest sister in "it's complicated". anyway i learned on wikipedia she wrote "ruby sparks"!!!! and she and dano have been dating for 5 years now, so cute! and way to go her for writing such a great screenplay!

so as i said before the movie is about a lonely novelist who has a lot of issues (he sees a therapist). he wrote this amazing debut novel (everyone thinks he is a genius, though he hates the word). he even has bookish groupies, aka maeby from "arrested development"(!).

random digression but i could totally see myself as a bookish groupie, but have never thought of who i would sleep with based on book alone. i will do this now. please note this is based on their writing not the picture on the book jacket.

contemporary writers, i would want to sleep with: nick hornby, chuck klosterman, kevin wilson and maybe chuck palaniuk (though he would probably be into some crazy shit though i would be open to try. lol)

olden days: hemingway (we'd get along drunkenly and i would forgive him for his cheating), f. scott fitzgerald (ditto for what i said about hemingway, lol), garcia marquez and bradbury, definitely ray bradbury!

back to the movies. so calvin's therapist has him write about a person willing to meet his dog scottie (who is named after f. scott, i'm not a dog person but would consider someone with a pet name that cute!) and that is when he begins to write about ruby, a girl he has been dreaming about. and then one day she appears and she is real! i don't want to give any spoilers but will say that calvin realizes the power he has over ruby because he did write her. i will add that not everything is perfect for them, even though he created her but his love for her is real which is kinda odd. this also provoked another question for me as i read: "do author's fall in love with their characters?" like did austen love mr. darcy, fitzgerald- daisy, kerouac- sal, or tolstoy-natasha? it would make sense also because they were probably based on people they knew in real life.

oh and if you want to know what happens check it out or look for it on netflix.

also ruby is absolutely adorable, which is in part because zoe is so cute. she was the quirky girl that every boy falls in love with. i have a love/hate relationship with these types of girls in movie (see: sam in "garden state", claire in "elizabethtown", "allison" in "yes man", summer in "(500) days of summer" [yup those last two are zooey deschanel]). because i consider myself a quirky-ish girl yet i can't find a artsy boy that looks cute in cardigans to fall for me! where is my romantic comedy?!?! soundtracked by the shins?!?!? lol. but seriously these types of film fill me false hope. but than again this movie proves you need to be in love with the person and not the idea of the person. so i'll shut up now.

oh and before i forget, love love love loved that this movie was filmed in la. i have a soft spot for movies in which i can spot the filming locations. like where calvin gives a talk is totally the billy wilder theater at the hammer musum and the after party is in the hammer gift shop!

so yes go check out this movie!! also if you like books, you'll like this.

p.s. the book cover for the book that calvin writes at the end is totally cute. if it was a real book, i would have picked it up simply based on the cute cover.