My Evening with Kevin Smith

My Fandom Fest journey began last Wednesday June 24th with the Kevin Smith/Jason Mewes event. My best friend and co-writer Amy McCorkle and I are huge fans of the Clerks director and his best friend/co-star Jason Mewes. If you have seen dvds like “An Evening With Kevin Smith” or “To Fat for Forty” you know what his Q&A is all about. If you haven’t I highly recommend you get it. We got to the show early. Even though we had VIP tickets I wanted to get there early so that we could park, find out where we needed to be and grab a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant. The Fandom Fest volunteers were very helpful and after getting our wristbands we headed across the hotel to eat at the Café Magnolia. The food was quite good if a tab bit expensive. I tweeted Kevin saying that we were waiting for the show and he favorited it. The fan girl in me was like “Yay, Kevin Smith read my tweet!!!” After dinner we went back to the event area and had a really long conversation with a couple named Joe and Sarah. They were AWESOME! Joe was so entertaining and knowledgeable. Saw them a few days later at the fest and got to talk some more. The event itself started with Brian O'Halloran, Dante from Clerks fame, warming up the crowd. He was funny, intelligent and generous with his time as he interacted with the fans. Jason Mewes came out and said that they would be showing the cartoon movie and then do the Q&A/Smodcast. The cartoon movie was funny but definitely not for children or people who are easily offended. READ: If you are a Kevin Smith fan you will probably not be offended. When Kevin finally came out he didn’t disappoint. He charmed me the way I knew he would. The show was raunchy, funny, and real. Toward the end and between the laughs Kevin spoke briefly about why he agreed to do this movie. Jason is a recovering addict and the movie helps keep him clean. That Kevin would do this speaks to his character and I on hope that I am as good a friend as he is to Mewes. The show ended with a little game that I won’t name here but let’s just say I had tears from laughing so hard.

My thoughts about "The Great Gatsby"

I am trying to see at least one movie a week at the movie theaters this year. While it has been hit and miss I did make it this week. This week the movie was The Great Gatsby, a film that I have been excited about since hearing it was in production.

Let me state that I was not forced to endure the torture of reading this classic when in high school like many of my friends claimed to have been. I wanted to see this movie for two reasons. One - I am a huge Baz Luhrmann fan. From the quirky Strictly Ballroom to the modern take of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to my personal favorite the tragically romantic Moulin Rouge. His amazing use of costume and music to create fantastical worlds full of larger than life characters astonishes the filmmaker in me.

The second reason is Leonardo DiCaprio. Now some of you might think that I discovered Leo during his Titanic heyday but that is not the case. I first noticed him on the big screen in “This Boy’s Life” (on TV it was when he was Luke on Growing Pains). His talented turns in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and The Basketball Diaries told me that guy was the real deal. He is an actor that is protective of his personal life so that he can disappear into each of the character he portrays. I have no qualms in saying that he is one of if not the best actors of my generation. I read once that James Dean’s death was the best thing that happened to Paul Newman career because the roles that would have been offered to Dean went to Newman. I often wonder if the same couldn’t be said for DiCaprio and the great River Phoenix. But I digress…DiCaprio’s turn as Gatsby is spot on in a somewhat spotty film. I found myself drawn to Gatsby as much as Nick was and wanted to throttle Daisy for abandoning him.

The Great Gatsby is full of the Lurhmann’s charm and style. What it lacks is the emotional connections of the above mentioned films. Part of the problem is, again I haven’t read the book, is in the character faults written in the original draft. I am going on what I have read in other publications and talked about with people who have indeed read the book.  Had Gatsby been written post WWII or post 1960’s it may have ended differently. In 1925 (the year it was written) Daisy was a former Louisville debutante who married old money. Women at that time were encouraged to marry, raise a family and if needed, make good of a bad situation especially a bad marriage.  So good girl Daisy went WAY off the script by having an affair with her “star crossed lover” Gatsby. I wished though that she went further and made herself deserving of Gatsby love/obsession. All that said…Thanks to Carey Mulligan I did like Daisy for about half the movie.

Tobey Maguire’s Nick was okay for this viewer. The first thirty minutes of the movie I waffled between thinking he wanted to be Gatsby and be WITH Gatsby. I felt he got better as the movie went on.

The rest of the supporting cast was good if not great. I do wish to give a big shout out to Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke as the doomed married couple Myrtle and George Wilson. Clarke in particular did so much with very little screen time.

My final verdict on the movie…if you like the book you will probably love the movie. For me it was 2 ½ Stars out of 4.

Tom Cruise and Oblivion...

I saw the new Tom Cruise movie Oblivion this week. Let me just say first that I’m not a big science fiction girl. Never have been but it doesn’t mean that I don’t like science fiction. That being stated though I liked this movie. I’ll try to speak in generalities but understand that it I might leak a few spoilers. If you want to see this movie, continue reading at your own risk. J

To anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock since the 1980s Tom Cruise is a movie star. There is no doubt about it. He skyrocketed to fame with the film like Risky Business and has never seemed to look back. He’s done the big budget action films like Mission Impossible and Top Gun. I’ve never been into that Tom Cruise. I like the Tom who did Rain Man and Jerry Maguire.

Watching Oblivion though realized why I liked those other two movies. Tom Cruise is never better than when he plays a character that it a little too sure of himself. You know that guy who knows his role in life. The man who not only lives on the edge but flourishes on it right until the moment he falls over.

Then viewers get to see what Tom does best. He takes this character that you think that you know, the one you have already invested thirty to forty minutes and spins him around. He makes choices as an actor that allows the viewer to feel as if they are a part of  the journey to self discovery.

In Oblivion, we meet Jack Harper, a futuristic electronic repairman who is two weeks away from completing his mission. Jack is another one of these characters who seemingly has life by the tail. It’s not until he begins questioning this that he realized that his “rebuilt” life isn’t what it seems.

The movie is not without its flaws. The pacing is a bit off and there is not nearly enough screen time for Morgan Freeman (but really I always think that.) The plot weakened as it needed more humans and less drones. But if you want to see Cruise at his best I highly recommend seeing it.