Author: The Arts Are Life

I am a writer and musician. Lover of music, movies, books, art, and nature.

My Top Ten Favorite Movies

Daily writing prompt
What are your top ten favorite movies?
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Oh I love this one because I could talk about movies for days, weeks, months, years…

Ok, so my top ten favorite movies:

  1. Despicable Me: This is one of my favorites because it is just so heartwarming and the humor is great for both kids and adults. I first saw Gru and was like, This guy is so mean and hates everyone, but as you get to see him throughout the movie, he develops this beautiful relationship with the girls he adopts (Margo, Edith and Agnes). Steve Carrell is a great actor and I loved the Minions. 🙂 I pretty much know every line from this movie because my family and I have watched it so many times. Pharrell is also a musical genius because the soundtrack is phenomenal!
  2. The Devil Wears Prada: Oh my gosh another favorite! If you haven’t seen it, it’s a film adaptation of the novel The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, and it stars Anne Hathaway as Andy, a new assistant to the editor of a fashion magazine. The editor, played brilliantly by Meryl Streep, isn’t convinced that Andy has what it takes to last on the team (especially after one particular scene where Andy laughs at a couple of belts that look exactly the same but then Miranda grills her about the difference between them while also making a snide comment about her “lumpy blue sweater.” I’m pretty sure I would have been like Andy and broken down in tears after being grilled like that but I also get Miranda was just trying to let Andy know that the fashion world isn’t just stuff.) But Nigel gets Andy to change her look and change her attitude if she wants to stay at the magazine, so Andy does change but she also becomes someone she isn’t and starts to think her life at work is more important than her friendships and relationship with her boyfriend, Nate, but then she realizes that she is becoming someone she isn’t and changes back to being herself. The acting is phenomenal and after seeing Meryl Streep in that movie, I started craving more movies with Meryl Streep, which leads me to another of my favorite movies with Meryl…
  3. Julie and Julia: I saw this in 2009 when it came out in theaters. It was the summer before I was starting tenth grade. It was a very heartwarming movie and it inspired me in part to write this blog. Julie Powell, who is the subject of the movie and died last year at 49, published a blog where she described cooking every Julia Child recipe in a book called “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Amy Adams plays Julie and Meryl Streep plays Julia Child. Julie in the movie goes through the frustrating process of making these recipes, and she makes many mistakes when making these recipes, but also learns about herself along the way. As a staunch vegan advocate in high school, I wasn’t a fan of seeing all the meat on screen, but now that I am writing this and reminiscing on the movie my mouth would water if I watched this movie again because all the food looked so delicious. Even though I’m still vegan, if I could eat meat, I’m pretty sure I would do like Julie Powell and make all those recipes. There are just some things you can’t veganize.
  4. Bridesmaids: This one was absolute gold. All of my friends had seen it before me and were like, “What you haven’t seen Bridesmaids?!?” So I finally watched it at some point a few years ago, and I can see why everyone was trying to convince me to watch this movie. It features a cast of women that are spectacular in every way and the movie sends a great message about not giving up on yourself and hanging onto friends when things get tough. I was nervous about watching it at first because there is a vomiting scene and I am an emetophobe (having a fear of vomit) but I just closed my eyes through the scene. I thought the relationship between Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) was pretty sweet.
  5. Moonlight: I can’t remember exactly when I saw this, but the film score and cinematography in the trailer pretty much had me hooked, and when I saw the movie I literally just bawled my eyes out. If you haven’t seen it it’s a powerful coming-of-age movie about Chiron, who navigates the challenges of being a Black gay man in a homophobic society. The music is brilliant and it was composed by Nicholas Britell (who also did the score for another great movie called Vice) and the acting was incredible. I’m pretty sure this film was one of the first A24 films I watched and I think it got me hooked on A24 movies.
  6. My Cousin Vinny: Oh my GOSH…this movie. I pretty much know all the lines to all the scenes: The 5 minute grits scene in the courtroom where Vinny is grilling Mr. Tipton on how long it took to cook his grits, the scene where Mona Lisa and Vinny are in the diner and they first encounter grits, the scene where Mona proves herself a total beast at cars and mechanics in the courtroom when they are asking her about the Buick Skylark… I saw this the summer my junior year of high school. We were at Blockbuster (RIP) and my parents recommended we watch this movie because they really loved it. It came out in the 1990s so I was too young to watch it then, but when I finally saw it I howllllleed. It was hilarious and now that I’m working at a law firm the courtroom humor kind of rings with me. Marisa Tomei’s outfits were also amazing. The grits scene also was one of my favorites because I’m from the South, and down South people are serious about grits (although I was in for a surprise when I lived in New England for a few years to find that some of my Massachusetts friends also loved grits and that they served grits in the dining hall.)
  7. Lady Bird: Honestly, I have seen this film at least… five times. And counting. It’s that good. Even though I didn’t grow up in the same circumstances Lady Bird did, I can relate to that feeling of wanting to leave your hometown and follow your dreams. Lady Bird was relatable, too, because she is stubborn and independent, and I am very much like that. I really loved the acting, too; Saoirse Ronan was so good in this movie! It’s honestly one of my favorite A24 films. It’s also just a beautiful movie about a mother-daughter relationship, and it actually made me appreciate everything my mom went through to raise me, even when I lacked appreciation for her or disrespected her many times.
  8. Rent: I saw this movie when I was at a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting in high school. It was a small meeting and we had cheese pizza and chocolate chip cookies while watching this film. I am sad I never got to see the Broadway musical Rent, but the movie is absolutely amazing. The acting and the music, oh gosh. And I fell in love with Idina Menzel after seeing the movie because she is absolutely beautiful, especially during the number “Take Me or Leave Me.” She looks stunning in leather pants, let me tell you, and girlfriend was belting it out with Tracie Thoms during that number. I still listen to the musical number “Santa Fe.” It’s one of my favorite songs.
  9. About a Boy: I saw this at some point when I was in college. I had read the book when I was in high school and fell in love with Nick Hornby’s books soon after, but when I was younger I was in the mall and I saw this poster for About a Boy. I was too young to see the movie at the time, but when I got older, I really appreciated the film. I really love the scene where Marcus raps to “Shake Ya Ass” by Mystikal and is confronted by an older student named Ellie when she hears him rapping the song as he walks behind her, so that it seems like he is telling her to shake her ass rather than just singing a random song. I really loved seeing the actress who plays Nymphadora Tonks (Natalia Gastiain Tena) in her role as Ellie, and Nicholas Hoult as Marcus. Hugh Grant and Toni Collette were also really great in their roles in this movie.
  10. 1917: I just really loved the cinematography in this movie. I had read it had gotten a lot of praise for the directing, so I watched this movie and it was excellent. It definitely isn’t an easy watch, but then again, no movie about war is going to be easy to watch. The movie vividly captures the trauma, pain and disillusionment of war from the eyes of two soldiers who are sent on a mission to deliver an important message. The score is absolutely phenomenal, too. But definitely the cinematography was gripping; I was on the edge of my seat, and I’m pretty sure I shed a tear or two by the end of the film. In all honesty, right after the film, I was wondering how to send a letter to Sam Mendes thanking him for this film because it really was one of the most powerful and well-directed movies I have seen.

Like I said, though, I could talk about movies all day if I had my druthers, so this list is far from exhaustive. Would love to know what movies you love, too!

How do I plan my goals?

Daily writing prompt
How do you plan your goals?
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I write them down on a piece of paper. I don’t always have a plan of action, but I think what helps is writing down my goals and then chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo about them. When I chant I usually gain the wisdom to know which action to take. So for this writing career I want, I don’t have a fully fleshed out plan yet, but one action I have been trying to do is just write every day. A lot of days, I will make excuses for not writing, but I think that’s why attending a writing group online this week was helpful because it gave me the space to just focus on writing and not distract myself with other stuff. I also worry about whether my writing sounds good or grammatically correct, but I think if I worry too much about that then I don’t always get the draft done. I have made it a goal to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and recite gongyo (it’s part of the chanting practice) every morning and evening, and to also study this book called The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin (it’s a Buddhist text) every day. I also have a goal of saving more money, so I have started tracking my budget in a spreadsheet and learning what I can afford at the moment and what I need to save up for so that I can do it in the future. It’s amazing how even little stuff like getting coffee at Starbucks and eating out each week can add up (or even renting movies and TV episodes on YouTube and Google Play, which is my guilty pleasure.) So yes, long story short, I try to write down my goals and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to take the best course of action. It’s not always easy, and there are times I don’t feel motivated to achieve the goals, but when I remember it’s all for my personal growth I feel more motivated to do it. Even just wanting to write today was something I struggled with. I thought, Oh, I don’t have anything cool to write about, so I’ll just skip, but then I found these WordPress prompts and I think they are helping me get my creative juices flowing.

Downton Abbey season 1 episodes 6 and 7

This past weekend I was feeling in a Downton Abbey mood, so I decided to re-watch some of the episodes. I first heard about the show when last year my mom was watching it on Netflix before it left the streaming service. I couldn’t understand why everyone kept referencing Downton Abbey at first; it seemed a lot of people had seen the show. But then again, I am behind in a lot of shows that my friends have seen: Glee, Game of Thrones, Black Mirror, and of course, who could forget, Squid Game. When Squid Game became a craze, I didn’t know whether to watch it or not to be honest. I am pretty squeamish about violence, and I kept hearing some say it was violent. But then again, that depends on the person’s comfort level. I am super squeamish so anything related to Quentin Tarantino is out (sorry, Kill Bill.) All my friends were like, “OH MY GOSH YOU NEED TO SEE SQUID GAME!!!” I respect them and their TV choices and I respect that the show got so popular when it did. But I just for whatever reason ended up not watching it because I am a party pooper sometimes when it comes to TV. But I am totally getting off tangent here, as per usual. Back to Downton.

So last year I decided to go on a binge and watched it with my family. I felt kind of guilty because I had quit my job at the personal injury law firm I was working at and wasn’t making any money, just lying at home sleeping and applying on and off for jobs. It was a frustrating process and I found myself often feeling depressed and hopeless most of the time, but what got me through this entire year of navigating the guilt and anxiety of post-quitting-a-nice-9-to-5-gig was watching lots of movies and television. And Downton Abbey was one of those shows. My family and I loved watching the show together and I almost got emotional when we watched the movies, Downton Abbey and Downton Abbey: A New Era. I really liked the show and fortunately they had DVD copies of the show at the library so I checked them out.

In these past two episodes I watched, a lot happens. If you haven’t seen Downton Abbey it’s about an aristocratic family who lives on an estate and must figure out who will be the heir of the estate, and it’s also about the staff who work at Downton and how they navigate challenging and joyful times together. The Grantham family consists of Lord Grantham and Cora and their three daughters: Mary, the oldest daughter, Edith, the middle child, and Sybil, the youngest. In episode 6 Sybil goes off to a political rally because they are tallying the votes in the local election, and they are debating women’s rights at the rally. Isabel tells Sybil she should leave the rally so that Tom Branson, who drove her over there at her request, won’t get in trouble because they all know Lord Grantham is going to scream if he finds out Sybil went off to a rally without her parents’ permission. Later when Sybil asks to be dropped off at the rally again, Tom warns her that she really shouldn’t keep going to the rallies anymore because she will get in trouble with her family. However, Sybil ignores him and goes anyway. A group of men ride to the rally and try to beat up on Tom and Matthew, who are trying to get Sybil out of the rally, but they end up knocking Sybil over and she hits her head on a liquor table and falls unconscious. After she is cleaned up at home, Lord Grantham finds out from Mr. Bates, his valet, that Sybil went to the rally and Tom took her. He is livid and tells Sybil she is grounded and no longer allowed to leave the house without his permission. Sybil tells her papa that she loved going to the rally because it gave her a purpose and a voice, and tells him that if he grounds her, she will run away. She doesn’t know where but she is determined to run away if her dad continues to police where she goes.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Patmore, who is the head chef of Downton, is having problems with her eyesight and as usual takes her frustration out on her protegee and member of the meal preparation squad, Daisy, who just wants to make Mrs. Patmore proud. Mrs. Patmore says she is too busy to get her eyesight taken care of, but when preparing and fussing around the kitchen, she drops one of the dishes and Mrs. Hughes finally has to tell her to take a break. Anna takes Mrs. Patmore to London and Mrs. Patmore at first is scared but then she gets her eyesight fixed.

Random Act of Kindness

Daily writing prompt
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
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In ninth grade in my world geography class my teacher had us all do a random act of kindness for someone at the school. I decided to knit dishcloths for the school nurse. I felt really good about doing it and I think it was even better without her knowing it was me who did it. I think the random acts of kindness project we did for school taught me that kindness is something that the world can never have too much of. I also really love to knit, so that was really fun for me to do. I got to chill out with my music while knitting these dishcloths and it felt very therapeutic.

Playlist 7/26/23

“Chopped and Screwed”: T-Pain

“Gossip Folks”: Missy Elliott

“Jump to It”: Aretha Franklin

“Never Gonna Break My Faith”: Aretha Franklin

“Automatic”: The Pointer Sisters

“On the Radio”: Donna Summer

“Come Around”: MIA

Cello Sonata in E Minor by Johannes Brahms

“Don’t Cha Wanna Ride”: Joss Stone

“Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See”: Busta Rhymes

“Kitty Kat”: Beyonce

“Soldier”: Destiny’s Child

“Love So Soft”: Kelly Clarkson

“Ain’t No Other Man”: Christina Aguilera

“Can’t Hold Us Down”: Christina Aguilera and Lil’ Kim

“Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song is About You)”: Janet Jackson

“Damage”: Danity Kane

Song Playlist

  • “High Hopes”: Panic! At the Disco
  • “Fool of Me”: Meshell Ndegeocello
  • “Superposition”: Young the Giant
  • “Supermassive Black Hole”: Muse
  • “Decode”: Paramore
  • “Hey Mama”: The Black Eyed Peas
  • “In Bloom”: Nirvana
  • “Classic (feat. POWERS)”- The Knocks
  • “wait in the truck”: HARDY feat. Lainey Wilson
  • “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”: Jet
  • “Prisencolineusinainciusol”: Adriano Celentano
  • “Make Me Feel”: Janelle Monae
  • “Team”: Lorde
  • “Like a Prayer”: Madonna
  • “Love Can Move Mountains”: Celine Dion
  • “I’m Alive”: Celine Dion
  • “The Boondocks”: Little Big Town
  • “Keep on Singin My Song”: Christina Aguilera
  • “Jojo”: Boz Scaggs
  • “Longview”: Green Day
  • “Drink You Away”: Justin Timberlake
  • “Na Na”: Trey Songz
  • “Trouble”: P!NK
  • “Beautiful”: Tweet
  • “Let It Bump”: Missy Elliott
  • “Through the Dark”: KT Tunstall
  • “Ashes”: KT Tunstall
  • “What Were We Thinking”: Joss Stone
  • “Put Your Hands on Me Baby”: Joss Stone
  • “Just Friends (Sunny)”: Musiq Soulchild
  • “When We Get By”: D’Angelo
  • “What’s It Gonna Be?”: Busta Rhymes feat. Janet Jackson
  • “Gett Off”: Prince
  • “Love from the Other Side”: Fall Out Boy

Movie Review: The Assistant

Saturday, July 15, 2023

A couple of weeks ago I watched a movie called The Assistant. It was definitely a powerful movie. I had not read much about the film but I heard it was really good. It’s not a long film but it packs in so much, and I normally take notes while I watch movies, but for this one because there wasn’t much dialogue I had to pay attention to the nonverbal communication in the movie. The Assistant stars Julia Garner, who I saw for the first time in the comedy-drama Grandma. In The Assistant she plays a young woman named Jane, an aspiring film producer who works as an assistant at her dream job, a film company. However, as the film progresses, it is clear that her dream job is not all it’s cut out to be and actually has a toxic work culture of abuse, gaslighting, and sexual harassment. At the beginning we see Jane going into the office early in the morning. It is clear that she hasn’t gotten much sleep and is being worked to the bone at this job. She eats Fruit Loops and then has to hurry back to her desk when she sees some of the executives walk past. Her coworkers are also intimidated by the boss, but they give into his bullying behavior and force her to deal with it, too. They don’t treat her with respect or value what she does every day. Every day Jane does stuff like make copies of spreadsheets, stock pills for her boss, distribute schedules to her coworkers, and take phone calls. Some of these calls she deals with people who respect her, but others, like the call from the boss’ wife, are very hard to deal with. In one scene, Jane’s coworker throws a crumpled ball of paper at her and tells her she needs to take a call from the boss’s wife. She gets on the phone with her, and the woman screams at Jane about how her husband cut off access to their credit cards and is with some other woman. When Jane asks her if she has her own credit cards, the woman gets angry with her and hangs up. Jane’s female coworkers also don’t treat her with respect. They ignore her and also make her feel invisible.

Tensions rise when a young beautiful woman named Sienna is hired on the team as an assistant. She is made to sign nondisclosure agreements and when Jane gets suspicious about this, no one says anything or encourages her to file a complaint because they know that the boss will intimidate them and probably fire them if they file a complaint. Jane goes to Wilcock in human resources and tells him that she finds it problematic that this young woman is being given this assistant job when she has very little prior experience. Even after Wilcock jots down what Jane tells him, he doesn’t take it seriously and laughs it off. He thinks that Jane is just jealous of this young woman and tells her that she will suffer serious consequences if she goes through with filing the complaint and asks if she wants to keep her job at the company. I think the part that was the worst was when he tells her before she leaves, “Don’t worry, you’re not his type.” I think watching this film a second time helped me understand why this kind of work culture is so toxic and problematic, and I think I came away from the film disturbed and deeply angered that this kind of work culture persisted for many years. When I first started learning about the Me Too movement, I wasn’t very sympathetic to the victims. I actually thought consent was as simple as saying “no” or speaking up, but what I had to understand is the ways in which power played a huge role in these Me Too cases, and the perpetrators of sexual harassment threatened to take away the victims’ livelihood and did what they could to keep these victims silent. When I found out about Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, I asked Why didn’t they just say no? And my friends had to remind me that these men used their influence and power to silence these women and threatened them with violence and harm if they didn’t remain silent about the abuse and assault. As I educated myself more about sexual violence, boundaries and consent I really started to understand how serious these allegations were.

The film left me feeling very upset and angered but also I had to understand that many of the real life cases of sexual assault and harassment in multiple industries, not just film, didn’t have happy endings. Many of these victims still carry trauma and pain. Around 2017, an article in The New York Times called “She Said” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey came out (it is now a movie with Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan playing the aforementioned reporters) detailing the years of sexual abuse that Harvey Weinstein inflicted on actresses and so many other women. Harvey as many know ran these very successful film companies which produced films like Chicago, Good Will Hunting and many more, but when those allegations came out it was hard to stomach that someone would do something like that to all those women. In fact, I still get chills thinking about that article.

Throughout The Assistant, it is very clear that where Jane works enforces and perpetuates a culture of silence and bullying. No one talks to one another, even to just exchange small talk, and most people pass by without speaking to each other. Everyone is intimidated and stressed out by this boss, and what got me is that everyone knew that the boss was being predatory towards these women, putting them up in hotels and sexually harassing them. When Jane’s coworker asks Jane where she had Sienna go to, Jane reveals she had Sienna go to a nearby hotel, and it’s clear that everyone knows that the boss is doing this to multiple young women. When Jane goes downstairs she sees a young woman leaving the office, and gives her an earring that fell. The woman tries to explain but she hesitates and leaves without telling Jane probably because she is scared for her life and the boss probably threatened her if she didn’t remain silent about his inappropriate behavior. Jane going to HR and then HR not taking the allegations against the boss seriously isn’t an isolated event; many cases of sexual harassment have gone unreported because the victims weren’t taken seriously. And I have to remember that even though a lot of these allegations do in fact happen in the entertainment industry, sexual violence happens in many industries as well, particularly in the food service and retail industry. In these industries, many people, especially young women, face harassment and assault but are silenced into not reporting it. The Me Too movement really made me aware of how prevalent this culture of shame and silence has been for decades. At the end of the film, I found myself thinking, Couldn’t Jane just quit? But I reflected on it and thought that Jane probably couldn’t afford to quit the job because she had to pay her rent and bills. Also, her boss was a bully and I’m sure because he was so powerful and intimidating Jane felt she couldn’t leave. When she emails him an apology after he screams at her for the umpteenth time about how worthless and useless he thinks she is, he replies saying that he is trying to “make her great” and that is why he is so hard on her. However, I wondered, Yes, this is her dream job. She’s wanted to work at this company for the longest time. But after two months, is is worth it, after what she has witnessed? Wilcock tells Jane that she can’t dig at Sienna for not having much experience as an assistant because Jane has only been at the company for two months, but I wondered, If this job is taking a severe toll on your mental health and there is a toxic culture and you have a boss who is a sexual predator? Girl, get the fuck out of there. Then again, after educating myself on the Me Too movement I had to realize that for many people, it’s not as simple as just bouncing out. You still carry that trauma and pain with you long after you leave that toxic environment, and when people ask you to recall it it can be painful to relive that trauma over and over again. I’m sure people heal from the trauma but it’s not an easy process.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie. Julia Garner’s performance was excellent and it was a powerful film.

The Assistant. 2019. Drama. Rated R. 1 hr 27 m.

Writing Prompt

Daily writing prompt
If you could host a dinner and anyone you invite was sure to come, who would you invite?
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If I hosted a dinner and anyone I invited was sure to come, I would invite Brene Brown. I really love her books about vulnerability and they have changed my life, and so I would love her and also Susan Cain, the author of Quiet, to be at the table. We would talk about introversion and vulnerability, and it would be such an engaging discussion. I would also invite one of my friends from college to dinner because he is a cool guy and we have a great friendship. We would probably talk about philosophy and movies together. Honestly it was hard for me to choose one person to invite. I would also love to invite Daisaku Ikeda; he is a philosopher, a peacebuilder and has had lots of dialogues with people around the world to foster friendship and create peace. If they was still alive, I would invite Aretha Franklin and also Tina Turner to dinner. We would have great conversations about music, and Tina and I would talk about Buddhism together. Honestly I would also love Michael McDonald there because he is one of my favorite singers. I would have to probably cater food for at least 100 people because I have so many people I would have loved to invite to dinner. Aretha would perform “Something He Can Feel” and “Call Me” and I would probably be sitting there with tears running down my face because I am finally getting to see my idol up front and close singing music for me. Tina would perform and I also would tear up because I would have finally seen her perform live (sadly in reality, I never got to go to one of her concerts.)