You've Got Mail

Good late night my darlings, it is a bit late for me to be up and doing anything but be sensible and just try to sleep. But here I am, awake, none the less; and blogging for that matter. The last few days, I have felt the urge to watch an old time favorite of mine that I grew up watching: You've Got Mail, with Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dave Chapelle, Steve Zahn, and a few other people I don't remember; oh, Yea! And Greg Kinnear. Meg Ryan is the small time bookstore owner, and Tom Hanks is the "price club" of books who is just opening up a new store in the same neighborhood as Meg Ryan's store, threatening to shut down her business.

This whole movie is full of so many sweet truths and the sweet seed of hope. Makes me think of all the endless hours as a child I spent at the Barnes and Noble in the Aurora neighborhood I grew up in. I can't even begin to describe all the lovely bits of this movie without rambling on for hours, and even rambling wouldn't fully get the feeling across for this film. I am a very non-verbal person, always using my hands, my face, and my expressions to tell a lot of my story for me.

This movie was in its' own way, my cult classic I grew up with. As I got older, it got put on the shelf where it collected dust, and I remember having turned twenty-one years old, and I pulled it out to watch, and my life was so different from where it had started and where it ended up at the time and even where it is now, and I remember watching it there, curled up in the corner of a ratty old couch that was my bedroom.... And I felt nothing for it. I didn't even finish it. It was like one of those sub conscience wake up calls, or like my conscience calling me from far away: asking me where did that part of me go that was comfortable just being myself? Where did that girl go that didn't have to act hard all the time? Where did that girl go that even when there wasn't someone else she was interested in romantically, she still had the dream of someone else?... Where did she go? I think that was one of the first poignant self evaluations I had of myself and the former life I was committed to.
I spent four years drifting away from this core classic of myself, and I am happy to say, it only took me two years to fight my way back. One of the emails that Meg Ryan and Joe Fox (tom hanks) share in the beginning epitomizes my sad poor pathetic addiction to Starbucks coffee and makes me laugh at myself thinking there is probably much more truth to what he says than I'd like to expand on, but I'm o.k. just laughing about it and considering it probably really is the truth, and I'm not going to fight it. It's who I am, and I am content with who I am, so why should I feel bad about it?

So, I will leave you with his opinion of people and Starbucks and I now realize it is one o'clock in the morning, so have a peaceful rest of your night.

"The whole reason of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. So, people who don't know what the they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self."

~Joe Fox- Tom Hanks

And I have to say, the movie ends with Over the Rainbow.... It isn't the version by Iz, but I don't think it existed yet, so the Harry Nilson version just had to suffice in the meantime, and maybe the Iz version did already exist, I just didn't know about it yet.. But I know about it now, and they say when you find the real thing to hold onto it, so I will. And I wish you the same.

Hotel Transylvania

Good afternoon my dears. I am watching Hotel Transylvania, bleh, bleh, bleh......

I tried to watch it last night and I was just hung up on the fact that Adam Sandler was the dad's voice.... And that Selena Gomez was the voice of the daughter. ... I am not a fan of Selena Gomez, but I'm not a hater of her either, I would just prefer not to watch her. However, in this case that wasn't an option... And Technically(!) I'm not watching "her.." I'm just "listening to her... So, I huddled down  and set my differences aside and fell asleep twice at the point everyone starts dancing to the "wiggle" from the LMFAO song. It is now afternoon and I watched it all the way through and focused off expectations and just enjoyed it for what it is... And it's a fun kids movie. And it does have three important messages:

1. we should never try to outsmart the truth and just let truth have its' day

2. children are not their parents... and we are not our parents....

3. at some point children have to fly from the nest to make their own mistakes and find their own happiness and their "zing"

 And aside from Adam Sandler, I recognized a fellow actors voice that usually appears in other movies with him. AAAnd I heard the glorious-ly nasal Fran Drescher!! I love her! She voiced Frankenstien's Bride.

Ok... So I should sum up the plot for you. Dracula's wife died, and he raises their baby daughter alone. He builds a hotel for monsters where no human should ever be able to enter... time passes until the present day and the daughter is now turning 118 years old (the human equivalent of 18) and the eve of her birthday party, a young man.. (hu-man) stumbles onto the hotel unknowingly. From which ensues the rest of the story, including cute little baby werewolves, Quasimodo the French Sniffing Chef and his Sniffer Mouse Esmerelda, Bat pouty faces, ukelele song, magic, human pot pie, frozen language, and zing... just to name a few articles and events... dot, dot, dot, and never more.

It was cute and made me laugh. If the beginning is a wee bit too zany for you and tween popp-ish, give it a few minutes, cut it some slack.. I think there really is some sincerity at the heart of this movie.

Have a Beautiful Day, filled with Zing if you've already found it.. or just filled with the hope for Zing if you are still searching for it my loves.


IMDB list of Cast Characters and Actors:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0837562/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast