Tagged: single parents
Review of Blue Valentine, the Once NC-17 Ryan Gosling movie
Yesterday’s post didn’t command any likes. Instead, it garnered a lot of love. Thank you. The only way to get there is together.
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Even though I’ve seen how it’s done, I’m always amazed that a man with a full head of hair can be made to look like a man who is balding, Ryan Gosling is no exception. Like Charlize Theron in Monster, here we have a very attractive celebrity turned bum. Seriously fellas, if your lady-friend is a bit too enamored with the man, press play on Derek Cianfrance’s divorce exposé.
Not a new film, gossip clearly deters many would be viewers. Even with foreknowledge that it is going to be an uncompromising look at a close-to-home trial, it’s impossible to prepare for Valentine’s authenticity. And that’s what places it ahead of its preteen Judd Apatow et al. peers.
Spanning love’s spectrum, the movie passes through the always interesting topics of 1. single men and women’s respective concerns about love and marriage, 2. our undeniable wish for love-at-first-sight to make the jump from fairy tale land to factical life, and 3. a holy-shit-I-thought-that-was-just-something-that-happened-to-me disintegration of a relationship with ease.
And now a note to the MPAA: get it together. You’re not protecting anything but your jobs. Drop the letter system. Increase the descriptions. And allow movie-makers the opportunity to tell stories that have some basis in this world, not distract them with PG-13 revenues.
Make no mistake, this movie is not pleasant. Questions are not answered. But if you laugh at the saying, “Ignorance is bliss”, if you consider yourself a seeker, or if you’re the mother of a son and sometimes ask, “Are you sure you couldn’t have worked things out?” watch the movie. (It’s on Netflix.)
Bright
He always chuckled to himself on the mornings that he forgot to turn on the lights. Freshly shaved, he’d come out of the bathroom and see her eating in the dark.
She always answered “good” when asked her state of being, no matter the level of light, and this morning was no different. After breakfast she began playing with her dolls in her normal talkative way.
“Okay. I’m just going to brush my teeth and we’ll be ready to go,” he explained.
“Okay,” she responded.
As he turned the water off and reached for the towel he noticed she wasn’t talking anymore.
“Hey. You okay? How come you’re not talking anymore?” he asked, walking by her, still gathering everything together.
“I don’t want to brush my teeth daddy,” she confessed.
“Well, well, well,” he laughed. “And you might have gotten out of it if you didn’t say anything. Think about that for next time. For now, let’s go brush your teeth.”
Captain's Log 