Whiplash

Whiplash is a true art movie, and I say that because when you are watching it, you know you are watching real art. It's not a painting or a drawing, not in that sense, but it is a beautiful movie, truly.

Whiplash is about a first-year music student, Andrew, who is recruited to play the drums in the most prestigious jazz band in his college. The teacher and composer is a guy who often uses fear to get the kid to play their best. He makes them practice all day long and has Andrew play the drums until he bleeds. Andrew messes up a concert and finally gets fed up and attacks the teacher, who then kicks him out of the band. He soon finds out that there is a family suing the teacher and school who want him to anonymously testify against the teacher to get him fired. He does it, but runs into the teacher a few months later in a jazz club. He invites Andrew to play in a band with him at a huge concert, but when Andrew gets there, he realizes that he was set up and he doesn't know any of the music that the band is playing. He almost leaves, but sits back down and play his own music by himself and he starts cuing in the other band members . At first the teacher is furious, but he realizes that Andrew is his greatest student ever and they play amazingly. 

The teacher is based on real jazz conductors who pushed their players to the edge.

I bought the movie soundtrack and I will forever love jazz music because of this movie.   

This movie was so powerful and it spoke to my soul. I couldn't move after watching it, I was so taken aback by this movie that I had barely ever heard about. It is absolutely the best film of this century.  

Friday the 13th part 1, 2

Lets just say I got exactly what I was expecting with this 1980 classic cult horror movie. What I wasn't expecting was the fact that I now never want to be a camp counselor.

Picture this: Camp Crystal Lake has a horrific past involving fires, drownings, and murders. It's called Camp Blood. It's being opened by a young man who's waiting for all the new teenage counselors and the chef to arrive. The chef doesn't ever arrive.  Kevin Bacon wears short shorts.  People start dying and soon there's only one girl left. PLOT TWIST: its not a hockey mask-wearing slasher, it's his mom. Teenage girl beheads mom, police arrive and there's one survivor.

Kevin Bacon in his 1980's cut-offs

New Movie: Starts off where the last one left off. The lone survivor from the last movie is in her house, she has a cat, Jason kills her as she goes for some milk. There's a new training camp for counselors and it's right next door to the last camp. Half the people leave for a night out on the town and the rest of the kids are murdered. Everyone comes back and they too are killed, except for one couple. There's this horrible moment when you think this dog is dead, but then it's alive and it distracts them. Jason jumps through the window and grabs the girl and later she wakes up in an ambulance and her boyfriend plus the dog are missing. 

Yay, it's alive!

These movies were not at all surprising, but they were entertaining and by the second movie, I was watching it mostly to see the creative ways people died. They did have a lot of cliches, like the lights going out, running upstairs instead of outside, couples do it then die, etc. Not the best horror films, but certainly not the worst.

Dirty Dancing

Let's start with the best movie ever made in the history of movies and you can try to argue with me about your favorite movie, but I doubt it will change my mind. When I first watched Dirty Dancing, I was expecting another movie like Footloose or Grease, which are good but not that good. Instead I found a movie with one of the shallowest yet substantial plots ever. It's a coming-of-age story so of course the main character is going to break of from her family and fall in love (saw that coming a mile away), but for some reason it appealed to me in my very core.

I also love this movie because it makes me forget for two hours that I'm forever alone

It's 1963 and a Jewish family is going to a Jewish summer camp and everything is dandy until the main character, Baby, develops a crush on the head dance dude, Johnny. His childhood friend needs an illegal abortion so Baby funds the trip, cause she's nice, but oh no! The only time she can see the doctor is on the night of a big dance routine with Johnny. Again, cause she's nice, Baby steps in to do the dance and as she is taught the mambo, they fall in love. The dance goes swell, the abortion gets botched, and Baby's dad, who's also a doctor, helps but bans Baby from hanging out with the dance help. Well she's in love so she stays with Johnny anyway. He's accused of thievery but Baby stands up for him and he gets fired for getting hands on with Baby. He comes back for the final show, says the world famous line, then they dance the pants off the resort, everything is forgiven and all is good.

This movie had two very important things that stood out to me: 1. a young Patrick Swayze, and 2. classic hits from the 60's AND powerful love ballads from the 80's, but they aren't sung by the characters, which is important for me because I don't like musicals. It was a foreseeable ending but so immensely satisfying that I watched it eight more times that week.