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Movie Review: Patti Cake$

I had been meaning to see this movie for a while. I saw the trailer a long time ago and thought it was really cool. If you haven’t seen Patti Cake$, it’s about a young white woman named Patricia Dombrowski, aka Patti, who lives in a small town in New Jersey but has big aspirations to become a famous rapper like her idol, O-Z. Even though she struggles to make it big, she and her friends Jheri, Bastard and her grandma Nana form a rap group called PBNJ together and Patti finds herself developing more confidence in herself as a rapper. I think that is why I love this movie, because it showed me that even if circumstances are hard, you can take steps towards accomplishing your dreams, but it requires a lot of serious dedication. Patti works two jobs and gets fired from one of them, and it puts a strain on the family finances. She gets frequent calls from debt collectors telling her that she is overdue on rent and other bills, and she also has to take care of her mom and grandma. But she spends time with Bastard and Jheri writing rhymes and recording in Bastard’s studio.

The relationship between Patti and her mom is really fraught at the beginning. Barb comes in while Patti is working at the bar and wants Patti to serve her alcohol, but Patti doesn’t want to. She does it though and after multiple shots of liquor she watches her mom sing on stage and then later vomit in the bathroom stall. Her mom is an excellent singer, but she gave up on her dreams when she had Patti and in fact, she blames a lot of her inability to follow her dreams on Patti. When Patti tells her about her rapping career, her mom laughs about it and makes fun of her for it, but it’s not until she actually sees Patti performing one night that she really starts to respect that girlfriend has bars.

It was also sweet seeing the romance between Patti and Bastard. When we first see Bastard he is at an open mic playing heavy metal on guitar and people are throwing stuff at him and teasing him. At first he doesn’t warm up to Danielle even when she tells him she liked his stuff but over time as he gets to know her he sees that she really likes his music and wants to collaborate with him, and they develop a beautiful friendship over the course of the movie. I also love love love the friendship between Jheri and Patti. I think that is why I gravitated towards the movie in the first place, because at the beginning of the trailer Jheri, who works at a pharmacy, is getting on the intercom when Patti walks into the pharmacy and gives her a grand ovation, introducing her as Killa P to an imaginary audience.

I also kind of related to one of the scenes in the movie, where Patti is interviewing for her second job at a catering company, because the man interviewing her asks where she would like to be in five years, and Patti at first imagines herself in a music video rapping in a hot tub with champagne and money around her, but then in reality she tells the manager that she envisions herself working for the catering company for the next five years. In 2016 I applied for several jobs after college to go towards paying off my student loans, and I landed an interview with a hotel as a front desk person. I was sweating how I was going to answer the interview questions and one of the questions, which is pretty common for job interviews, was “Where do you see yourself in the next five years?” Honestly I wanted to say “playing in a professional orchestra” because that is where I envisioned myself being after making enough financial resources and honing my craft. But I said, “I envision myself still working in the hospitality industry.” Part of me answered this way because I had this fear that if I answered that I wanted to have a different career path in the next five years, then they wouldn’t get me the job. (side note: I ended up being let go after four weeks. Probably for behavioral issues.) I’ve learned from watching this movie though that it really does help to have an income though so that you can still do what you love in your spare time. As much as I tried to quit my day jobs in the past, I realized that I really do like having stability sometimes. I think when I quit my job last year I was really anxious about finding another source of income, and when I played my music or did my writing I realized at some point that I didn’t need to quit my day job to do my passions on the side. I think I’m actually more determined than ever to use whatever time I have after work to practice my writing and work on my music.

This movie also showed me that it’s important to be true to yourself as an artist and not worry about what other people think of you. Even though she spits mad rhymes, Patti is a human being and at times struggles with self-confidence, especially because she faces a lot of bullying (the people in her neighborhood have always called her “Dumbo”). There is one scene where Patti falls in love with this guy named Danny who works at a pizza shop but during a rap battle he ends up insulting her and when she insults him back, he hits her. He does have a slight change of heart when he agrees to buy Patti’s CD, though. He was a jerk though to Patti. Patti also has a crucial moment when she meets her idol, O-Z. Throughout the film, Patti envisions following in O-Z’s footsteps and achieving his level of fame and fortune, but she gets a catering gig where she has to serve at O-Z’s mansion. When the manager asks who can make O-Z’s favorite drink, she makes it, and when she goes to his studio and finds him sitting on his fancy couch she envisions herself rapping for him. But instead she is extremely nervous and loses her confidence when she leaves a CD of her raps and O-Z puts down her dreams and stubs the CD with his cigarette and tells Patti to stick to catering and to give up on her dreams of becoming a rapper. The manager tells her she messed up and fires her, and Patti feels like she is failing at everything. She quits the group and then quits her job at the bar when one of the patrons finds her journal of lyrics and recites them in front of everyone without Patti’s permission, and she tells Jheri that she is giving up on her dreams. Before she meets O-Z, Patti tells Bastard that she wants to be like O-Z, but Bastard tells her to not be easily influenced by O-Z’s prestige and influence because it’s all just about appearances. Patti finally realizes that O-Z didn’t care about Patti’s dreams and was just a really terrible guy who looked down on people even though he was super successful. This reminds me of when I went to a professor’s house to audition for an advanced chamber music ensemble that he was coaching, and I thought very highly of this person, but to be honest at the time I really looked down on myself for working at Starbucks after graduating from this elite college. I thought that if I told my peers and professors from college that I worked at Starbucks, they would look down on me, so I often hesitated when telling them. When I met this professor, I was so nervous and wanted to impress him so badly, but it turns out that I didn’t end up getting into the group and to be honest, when I told him I worked at Starbucks, he told me he thought it was a shame that I graduated from a prestigious college and was working at Starbucks. I found myself losing my confidence and continued to make myself feel ashamed, but after a while, I realized that it doesn’t really matter what others think of your life journey in the long run, because as long as you are growing and maturing from the experiences you are always going to be on the best path for you. Of course, telling myself this everyday is much easier said than done because it’s a lot easier to look at someone else’s career path and think they have it easy, when you don’t even know their journey or what they struggle with every day to pursue that dream. I think what Bastard told Patti about not being swayed by O-Z’s success reminded me of this letter from The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin that I repeatedly turn to called “The Eight Winds.” Nichiren is telling one of his followers, Shijo Kingo, who is a skilled samurai that he shouldn’t let the promises of fame and praise sway his behavior. The four favorable winds are praise, pleasure, prosperity and honor, and the four adverse winds are decline, disgrace, censure and suffering. It’s easy to let other people’s validation or criticisms influence our decision-making or our life paths, and sometimes that praise or criticism comes from a good well-meaning place but other times it doesn’t, so I’ve realized as I’ve been pursuing these creative passions of mine is to not let these external influences prevent me from making art in the most authentic truest way. Bastard encourages Patti to keep being true to herself, regardless of whether people receive their music well or not, and DJ Tips, a famous emcee (played by MC Lyte) ends up playing Patti’s song “PBNJ” on her station one evening. DJ Tips also really loves Patti’s music even though she says it was “rough,” and when they meet at the bar mitzvah Patti is catering at, DJ Tips says to Patti that she can’t believe after 20 years as a DJ she gets a gig playing at someone’s bar mitzvah. This showed me that as musicians, you’re not always going to get that big glamorous gig you want and even after a lot of experience in the field you still may need to take gigs that may not be big and glamorous but are still really part of the job of being a musician. I kind of struggled with this at times because I expected that I would land an orchestra job right after college just because I’ve played for so many years and have all this playing experience in college, but that’s not how it worked. I would call the personnel manager asking if they needed me to sub for any gigs, but I didn’t get a reply and felt discouraged. I ended up playing quite a few gigs for free, and at someone’s Christmas party for some cash. But after talking with other classical musicians I have come to understand that is pretty normal. I had this grand idea that I would be this big name soloist who was going to collaborate with all of these famous artists, and when that dream didn’t come true I felt like I had failed or that this wasn’t the career for me anymore simply because I wasn’t making the progress I wanted. But what I have learned over time, and it’s still a life lesson I need to internalize, is that success is not a one-time thing, like you struggle and then bam, you just become successful after one hit or one CD or one gig. Sure it happens, but for the most part, artists have to keep producing and working on their craft to keep growing in their careers.

Overall, I really loved this movie. I kept jamming to the songs and it was a really encouraging movie for me to watch as a musician and writer who is still struggling to believe in myself and that I can achieve my dreams. Side note: Honestly, while watching this I kept thinking about Lady Sovereign, who is a white British female rapper. I grew up listening to a lot of her music in middle school and even today I found myself playing some of her old hits. Also there is a part in the movie where Patti and Jheri go to a recording studio and I thought the actor who played Swisha looked like Anthony Ramos, and sure enough when I watched the end credits I freaked out and was like, “Oh my gosh, Anthony Ramos from Hamilton was in this movie!!!” I loved watching Hamilton on Disney Plus and I loved Anthony in In the Heights, so seeing him in this movie had me going “Oh my gosh!” Ok, enough rambling. All that to say, if you haven’t seen Patti Cake$ yet I definitely recommend it.

Patti Cake$. 2017. Starring Danielle Macdonald, Siddharth Dhananjay, Bridget Everett, Mamoudou Athie and Cathy Moriarty. Directed by Geremy Jasper. Rated R for language throughout, crude sexual references, some drug use and a brief nude image.

Movie Review: Atonement

Disclaimer: one of the topics of the film is rape, so I give some brief descriptions of rape allegations as depicted in the film.

Last week I watched an excellent movie called Atonement. It’s the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. When I was in ninth grade I remember reading a lot of books and Ian McEwan’s Atonement was one of these books. I didn’t have a dictionary with me to help look up all the big vocabulary words so I had a pretty difficult time reading the book. I also learned this technique called long smooth underline when I was in a reading comprehension class, and when you do long smooth underline you put your hand under the words and move your hand across the pages to help with reading the sentences. But the thing about long smooth underline is that it is called long smooth underline for a reason; it takes time and it helps to slow down when you read so you can understand what you are reading. I was very impatient so I thought if I just speed-read Atonement I can finish it and be on my merry way. But as I’m writing this, I’ve told you nothing of the plot because I read it so fast that I don’t remember the plot and thus probably need to go back and reread the book. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because I really did enjoy the writing. I’m just ashamed I didn’t remember the plot of the book.

But anyway, these two young ladies in my Spanish class saw me racing through the book and one of them asked, “Are you really reading that fast?” And the other girl saw the book cover and said, “I love the movie!” I hadn’t seen the movie because I swore off R-rated films during that time. I thought, “I’m not 17 yet, so I can’t see this movie.” But after so many years and after finally watching the trailer and loving it, I decided, “Yep, it’s time for me to watch this movie.” So I rented it on Google Play and I must say, it was one of the best movies I have seen.

One thing I loved about this movie was the acting. I think when I was in middle school, I watched the Academy Awards and they showed a clip of Atonement, and the acting was just so brilliant. I have seen Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Little Women and absolutely love her acting, but I hadn’t seen her earlier work, so this was my first time seeing Saoirse Ronan when she was younger. She brought so much to her role as the young version of Briony Tallis, and her and Keira Knightley both played their roles really well. I also love James McAvoy; I haven’t seen too many films with him in it to be honest, but last year I watched a movie he was in called The Last King of Scotland, which, is the film adaptation of the novel The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden. Reading a book is definitely a different experience from watching the movie; I read the novel by Giles Foden the same year I read Atonement, but maybe I was just too young to understand the plot or I read the book too quickly. But watching the movie The Last King of Scotland, oh my gosh….it definitely is a film I am glad I saw because the acting was so excellent, but one of those films that shook me out of my skin to the point where I don’t think I need to see the film again because it’s so engrained in my mind. James McAvoy plays a doctor named Nicholas Garrigan, who goes to Uganda to be a doctor to dictator Idi Amin. My heart was beating out of my chest because the whole atmosphere of the film is so disturbing, but James McAvoy and Forest Whitaker both acted the hell out of their roles. To be honest, I know acting is a job for these people, but seriously after watching that movie I thought, How can you play these two characters and not go home at the end of the day feeling shook? Because as the viewer, I was just so mesmerized by the dedication they both brought to their roles. Nicholas lets it go to his head that he is the personal doctor of Idi Amin, and he gains access to all these influential people and parties, but it comes at a HUGE psychological, emotional, mental and (gruesome) physical cost. I saw as James McAvoy’s character went from being this seemingly innocent white guy who just wants to go to Uganda and help people to someone easily manipulated by power and influence and then brought quickly back to Earth by the terrifying reality that the guy he kissed up to is not the guy he thought he was, and the last half of the film left me on the edge of my seat (and also closing my eyes) because Nicholas really sees what kind of guy Amin is and that he can’t just pretend like he wasn’t somehow involved in these human rights abuses Amin committed because he becomes not just Idi Amin’s personal doctor but also his confidant, so whatever Nicholas spills about Amin’s corruption to others has severe (and very bloody) consequences. All that to say, James McAvoy is a very talented actor and in Atonement he was also amazing.

The movie delves into some pretty deep themes. One is the theme of forgiveness. Briony accuses Robbie for a crime he didn’t commit, and she has to carry that guilt with her for many years. Her sister, Cecilia, won’t talk to her anymore, and of course neither will Robbie because he went to prison for the allegations against him. Even when Briony comes to Robbie and Cecilia’s house to apologize, they can’t forgive her and just want her to leave them alone. I think what got me though was that the apology never got to happen because of some tragic events that precluded it . Robbie brought Cecilia happiness and love, and to see that taken away from her was devastating, and so she couldn’t forgive her sister for what she did. Another theme is perspective, because the movie shows the perspectives of the events that went down from Briony’s perspective but also I got to see another perspective of what actually happened. Briony finds out that another man raped her cousin, not Robbie, and that sends her into an even deeper spiral of guilt. Allegations are a serious thing, and these allegations left a serious scar on Cecilia and Briony’s relationship as sisters, and Cecilia lost all trust in Briony.

There was one important scene of the movie that takes place at Dunkirk. I had seen the movie Dunkirk a while ago, and absolutely loved it. Atonement doesn’t focus a lot on the Dunkirk evacuation, but so much happens on that beach in so short a time and the way the scene was shot was brilliant. It kind of reminded me of how 1917, another war drama, was shot in what looked like a single continuous take. The film really illustrated how horrifying World War I was and the risks and dangers that two men have to take to go through enemy lines and deliver the message they are assigned to deliver. As they travel long distances to deliver the message, they witness horrors that no one should ever have to witness (I think when they have to go through No Man’s Land it left a pretty indelible image on my memory) While watching the Dunkirk scene of Atonement, I wasn’t prepared to see the horses being shot to death but I think it just reminded me how hopeless everyone felt during this war and the Dunkirk evacuation seemed to be everyone’s last chance at finding hope and going home after the trauma and pain they suffered in World War II. Robbie and his comrades see people riding on an old merry go round set, singing, sitting by the beach, running around the beach naked and doing other activities. However, it’s tough for Robbie because he has to wait until he can go home since there are so many soldiers trying to get home, too, so he is forced to bear this suffering even further.

I really related to Briony’s dreams as a writer. Throughout the film, Briony is always writing. I also saw parallels between the characters Briony and Jo March in Little Women, both played by Saoirse Ronan, because both Briony and Jo love to write. Even when Briony gets older and works as a nurse during the war, she goes up into the attic and writes stories. The film shows how writing is such a vulnerable and personal thing, because Briony’s novel is based on her real-life experiences. She writes the novel because what happened in the novel wasn’t the full story in real life. In Briony’s novel she apologizes to Robbie and Cecilia, but when she is being interviewed as an adult she reveals that she never got to to go Cecilia’s and apologize because both Cecilia and Robbie died during the war. Her writing the novel was her way of helping Cecilia and Robbie find happiness since she still feels like she robbed them of their happiness in real life.

So it’s almost midnight and I am fading. But overall, this was an excellent movie worth watching. Since it’s a film about war there are some pretty heavy scenes (one especially when Briony is in the hospital and all the soldiers come in with pretty severe injuries and she treats one soldier with a serious injury) but it really is an excellent movie. And the film score was so beautiful. I haven’t seen Joe Wright’s other movies, but he definitely directed the hell out of this movie because it was good. It made me want to read the book Atonement again.

Atonement. 2007. Directed by Joe Wright. Rated R for disturbing war images, language and some sexuality.

Why I Blog

Daily writing prompt
Why do you blog?
View all responses

I love to blog because it allows me a space to get my thoughts out. At first I wasn’t sure about having a blog since I tend to be a pretty private person, but to be honest I had all these journals I had written through my life, and I wondered, What if I wrote electronically? I also watched the movie Julie and Julia, and in the film Julie Powell keeps a blog about mastering recipes by Julia Child. She wrote at a time when there weren’t all these blogs about blogging and it was the early days of blogging, but I think reflecting on that movie and seeing how blogging gave Julie this deeper purpose in life and joy really inspired me to start one of my own. I actually started a WordPress blog around 2014 or 2015 but I discontinued it because I was a total perfectionist at the time and after writing one article I was super critical of myself and thought it sounded like trash and that I would never blog again. At the time I was a philosophy and Afro-American Studies major and I wanted to create an academic blog about philosophy and Afro-American Studies, so I wrote my first post on Saartjie Bartman, who was a Black woman who was exploited and put on display in Europe during the 19th century (to be honest, recounting the history is pretty difficult for me because it’s just so disgusting how brutally she was treated so I won’t go into a long explanation. I will just say, the account of Saartjie Bartman’s exploitation is disturbing, painful and sad. It made me an angry Black woman.) I don’t know why I deleted the post or discontinued the blog, but that was the end of the blog and I ended up not writing a blog again. In 2019, I decided I was just going to try again. I had a full time job, was stressed and I just wanted to write. So I took a class or two on Skillshare about blogging and realized finally after many months of blank screens that I just needed to sit down and write some stuff.

To be honest, I still struggle with perfectionism when writing on my blog. I may sit at the screen and think, “Will people actually like this?” But that’s why I’m glad I have a spiritual/ religious practice to keep me grounded and to remind me that I deserve to write and call myself a writer, and that at the end of the day the important thing is that you sat down and wrote. When I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo I am basically saying that I am respect-worthy and love myself. It doesn’t mean I have stopped dealing with insecurities but I have something to weather those insecurities and get me back to my main purpose in life, which is to just be the truest most authentic version of myself that I can so that I can encourage other people to be their true authentic selves. Because what I’ve learned in my time as a writer is that you’re going to write bad drafts, but it’s better to have bad material you can sift through and edit than a blank page with nothing on it. Of course, I do love to put my writing on paper first; that’s why I have so many journals and probably need a new bin so they don’t mildew. I love writing on paper before typing stuff out; somehow I can collect my thoughts better.

The main reason I love to blog though is that it gives me a space where I can just be myself. I thought at first I needed to be a perfect blogger, but to be honest everyone’s version of perfect is different. I am an introvert when it comes to being with people, but on this blog I am a total extrovert. I love to write and sometimes I even have to tell myself, Hey this is too long, stop talking so much. But writing is just so freeing.

The Breakdown

Written on Sept 1, 2023

"You're just not a good writer," she told me one fine September morning. I was on my laptop and had just gotten a polite little rejection email from W. Mayberry and Sons, a publishing company in New York City, my dream city.
The email read:
Dear Ms. Barker, 

Thank you for submitting your inquiry. Unfortunately, it is not a project I would like to take on right now.

Sincerely,

Richard Mays
Mayberry and Sons 
1300 East 15th Street
New York, NY 34216

I worked so hard on that manuscript. So. fucking.hard. And now I felt defeated because now my manuscript was a piece of crap in someone's eyes. 
My inner critic sat next to me, looking over my shoulder.

"Yeah, you bombed that. You are not a good writer," she shrugged.
 
I nodded. Maybe she was right. I probably was a terrible writer and should just stop even trying to write. It didn't matter how much work I put into my writing. I was getting rejection letter after rejection letter. I looked at the clock app on my phone. 7:20 AM. I need to get in my car and get to work.

I fished for my black suit jacket, navy blue slacks and blue sleeveless top. I took my night clothes off and undressed. My inner critic watched me, unashamed to see me naked. She was probably examining every roll of cellulite on my thighs, every stretch mark on my belly, and how long my toenails had grown. Troll's feet, she calls them. 

"You really should give up on this career, Emily," she said. Her doe brown eyes burned with hatred and spite, boring through and searing my flesh. "No one cares about your writing. Just admit it."

I looked in the mirror at myself. Not only was I a bad writer who would never be successful, but I was also ugly and frumpy looking. No matter how much makeup I put on for work, no matter how much my gold hoop earrings scintillated and shimmered as I walked down the halls at work and no matter how many compliments I received for my fashion taste, I still didn't believe I was beautiful. It didn't matter if the pizza guy on 43rd Street checked me out or asked me for my own number. It didn't matter how much approval I received on my dating profile. At the end of the day, I still felt unlovable and unattractive. 

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you look disgusting." She went up to me. "Say it."

She was leaning over my shoulder and her hot breath, smelling of cabernet sauvignon from last night's dinner, tickled my neck. 

"I...." I hesitated.

"Look."

"Look..."

"Disgusting."

"Disgust..."

"Ing." 

"ing." 

"Now say it louder."

"I look disgusting."

"I can't hear you."

Tears were forming in my eyes. How could I be so cruel to myself? 

I wiped away a tear. She slapped me across the face, leaving a sting and a red mark across my pale skin. 

"I'm....disgusting," I said softly. 

She grabbed me by a fistful of hair, then shoved me across the room. I spun and she pummeled me, blow after blow. The wind was knocked out of me. I kept crying because her blows hurt. I was too scared to tell her to stop. 

Finally she stood up, a vicious twisted expression on her face. She snorted.

"You pathetic little shit."

My ears rang with each burning slap, each knuckle that hit me and rattled my body and mind.

"I'll say it one more time because you're too much of a coward to say it yourself. You look disgusting, Emily. You ARE disgusting. You are so disgusting that no one will want to look at you when you walk into work." 

I finally got the courage to walk away. I shook with every insult she hurled at me.

"Don't worry," I heard her say as I made my way down the stairs. I looked up. She mocked me with her sadistic grin. 

"I'll be back here until you get back, ready to talk about how much you failed at work today."

I tried to ignore her as she continued to hurl insults at my retreating back. Each insult was a knife that lodged itself in my shoulder blades and back, and I was determined not to wince under the pain as each insult sliced into me. 

"You fat ass."

"You're incompetent. No wonder people hate you so much."

"You are WORTHLESS." 

I slammed the door. 

---

I am sitting in the board meeting. It is my day to give a presentation. I really tried, I really did. But when remembering what bullet points to talk about, I draw a blank. I think I might vomit. I can't write a decent manuscript, so how can I even put together a decent presentation? Maybe she was right; I'm worthless. 

"Ms. Barker?"

I snap out of the cloud of negative self-talk that hovered over me. My coworkers and boss are all staring at me. And I suddenly feel faint. My skin gets even paler. I feel them all laughing at me. I see them now throwing tomatoes at me, jeering at me, "You are a terrible employee!" "You are bad at doing presentations!" "You should go back to waitressing instead of corporate!" 

My throat closes and I try to block out the noises, but I am overwhelmed. I feel myself getting out of my chair and hear voices of concern, not mockery, but I'm too embarrassed and ashamed of myself to even hear what people are saying. I try to swallow and gasp for air. The girl I pass by gives me a menacing glare and I continue to stumble as I run in my black patent leather heels to the restroom. When I slam the restroom stall, I crumple in a heap on the toilet seat. Who cares if it's full of microbes and germs and has had loads of dirty asses on it (my fat ass being one of them)? I gasp through tears and my body erupts into spasms as I break down, until a blood curdling scream of agony threatens to escape from my mouth.

I hear a gentle knock.

"Emily?" a soft voice whispers. 

I don't reply.

"Emily?" Another knock. 

The door swings open. Damn it. In my stupid little fit I didn't even bother locking the damn door. Proves how stupid I am.

Through the blur of my tears, I see Maria, a quiet woman from the human resources department I would always see sitting alone at lunch. She leans down and is sitting criss-crossed on the cold linoleum floor with me. My lips tremble and I cry even harder. I bury my head in my knees as I curl up in fetal position. I am literally a big fucking crybaby right now. Wait until I get home; she is going to have a field day. 

Grow up! What are you, five? You land a corporate job and you act like this?!? 

She will shake her head and laugh and say, I knew you were weak and incapable. From the minute you were born, your parents never loved you. They didn't want anything having to do with you. Raising you was what killed your mother, not breast cancer. Seriously, you---

"How are you feeling?" Maria interrupts the cascade of thoughts in my mind.

I can't reply. How do I feel? No one's asked me that, right? I mean, sure they've asked me. In the lunch line, at the office cafe, in the breakroom, when passing by my desk. But I've always responded with, "Fine" or "I'm good, how are you?" 

This time I can't even answer Maria. I close my eyes and lean against the toilet bowl. I take a shuddering breath.

I hear gentle breathing next to me. Maria has also closed her eyes. She is sitting with me in silence. I jolt when I hear that adjacent stall close. I wrinkle my nose when I smell the bathroomgoer's funky farts. Did they really have to eat tuna salad for lunch? 

But I also start giggling. And I open my eyes and cup my hand to my mouth to stop the giggles. Maria at first continues breathing quietly, but then she loses it as well. 

I hear a flush and we see our boss, Rachel, leave the stall to wash her hands. 

The water runs, then she comes over to our stall.

"What is so funny?" 

Maria and I look at each other and shake our heads. 

"It's nothing." 

Rachel looks at her watch, tugs on her red suit jacket, then walks away.

"You two missed the rest of the meeting, I'm afraid. And Ms. Barker, I will need to have a word with you about your behavior today." 

"She is fine," Maria tries to intervene. "She just had a rough moment."

"Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez, but I am afraid this is between me and Ms. Barker." 

I feel a lump in my stomach. Yep, I clearly failed. Now I am going to get fired. I don't think I can stand a year of job searching with her by my bedside, telling me I'm not good enough to get an interview.

"Anyway, ladies, please get cleaned up and get back to your desks." Rachel leaves and the door gives a hard cold slam. 

I walk over to the mirror and my eyes are bloodshot and rivers of tears and mascara are caked on my face. My red lipstick is smudged in some places. Basically I look like shit, not The Shit. 

Fuck it. The makeup was going to get messed up anyway. I run the faucet and slap myself with cold water.

I expect Maria to go back to her desk, but she just stands behind me.

"I don't want to make you late or get you in trouble," I sputter through the water.

"It's okay," she says. "I can stay."

I turn the faucet off, then snatch a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and hastily wipe off my face of makeup and tears. I check one more time. OK, eyes still look red and puffy, but no one's going to notice right? 

Maria opens the door for me.

"Thank you," I say quietly. How could this person treat me so kindly? I don't deserve their kindness.

Maria smiles, and we walk down the hall together. She doesn't ask my any personal questions. We just walk together back to our desks.

Middle school fashion and boy band photos

I love reading. I bring a book everywhere. The only thing is that sometimes my book reading habits can show up in unexpected places. In eighth grade, I carried around these photos I printed off of Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. I saw a girl in my U.S. history class who had a binder with boy bands on the cover and I wanted to have pictures to look at because I just had to have a distraction. So I printed out pictures I got on the web of Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump and Brendon Urie and also the Harry Potter cast. And I literally would look at these photos all the time. I often stayed up late watching on YouTube the music videos of Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco. I would imagine meeting these guys in the bands, and how cute Pete Wentz was. One time it got to the point that I felt too embarrassed to go out in public without my staring pictures because all I could think about was how cute Pete, Patrick and Brendon were, so I needed yet another distraction. I chose a book my sister had gotten from the library. At least it had some pictures. On the cover anyway. We had gone clothes shopping at a secondhand clothing store, and I needed to look at something while changing in the dressing room, so I had the nerve to bring my book in the changing room with me and drop it so that it was open so that it looked as if I was reading the book while dressing. There was a long line and unfortunately I was holding up the party. My sister told me that two girls were looking at each other when I did that, like, “Is she really going to read her book in there?”

This was around the same time I started dressing like Juno MacGuff from the film Juno. When I was visiting family in Chicago, I absolutely insisted that we go to H and M. When at H and M I found a plaid miniskirt and an orange and white striped shirt. I could wear the miniskirt over my jeans like Juno! My aunt looked at my chosen outfit and asked, “Are you sure you want to wear this to school?” And not knowing any better or foreshadowing the chuckles and comments I might get, I affirmed that yes, this was in fact what I wanted to wear to school, comments and stares and chuckles be damned. So I did wear the miniskirt over my jeans and wore that orange and white striped shirt to school too. And I can’t remember if people laughed at or commented on the outfit (then again, everyone was dealing with their own insecurities and shit so they probably weren’t super concerned about me wearing a miniskirt with jeans all that much. Or I just had the confidence to not care what anyone thought of my clothes.) The one thing I do remember is some of my classmates telling me I hadn’t taken the price tag off of the miniskirt. A girl named Karen* (I changed the name) had pointed it out.

“Ginger, the tag is showing on your skirt….”

I spun around proudly, my Afro spinning with me (I also decided at the time to wear my hair in this massive Afro, even though people kept touching it and it bugged me) and declared, “Oh, it’s personal choice, thanks.” And then walked off. To this day remembering this whole debacle has me rolling.

Daily habit that improves my quality of life

Daily writing prompt
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?
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Honestly for me, my daily habit is daily prayer. I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo every morning and recite gongyo, which is the 2nd and 16th chapters from a Buddhist teaching called The Lotus Sutra. I’ve definitely seen positive changes in myself and my relationships with people when I chant. When I chant, I bring out my wisdom, courage and compassion and I try to bring all this greatness to my interactions with people. Of course, that doesn’t mean that all my relationships with people have been perfect; human relationships are still an area of my life that has been challenging. But I think having a daily spiritual practice has helped me zoom out and look at situations differently. I think having a daily habit that improves your quality of life is important, whether it’s prayer, practicing gratitude (which I need to do more of), meditation, exercise, brushing your teeth, taking a digital detox from your electronic devices, or a combination of good habits. Somehow having a good daily habit gives me something to look forward to for each day.

More gushing about Ted Lasso (spoilers)

Written on: May 20 2023

8/30/23 edit: I didn’t know if I would publish this post because I’m super self-critical and perfectionistic and so I thought, Am I going to publish this? I should probably edit it because it doesn’t sound good, so I kept it in my drafts because I just thought, I need to make it sound perfect before publishing this, but I’m working on being kinder to myself and developing more confidence as a writer and realizing that I’m still trying to practice and improve myself as a writer, and that part of the process of writing is writing bad drafts. So after that long winded disclaimer, here goes nothing:

This week I started season 2 of the comedy series Ted Lasso. Honestly I love this season so far; I really love the writing of the show. There are some pretty heartfelt moments, too, and some parts where they address serious issues. In episode 1, they hire a no-nonsense sports psychologist to watch the team’s rehearsals and help them recover from their tie streak. But the psychologist ends up helping them with their emotional problems, especially one of the players named Dani, who cannot forgive himself after he accidentally kicks the ball and it kills the AFC Richmond team mascot, Earl, when Earl chases a bird and accidentally gets in the way of the goal that Dani is trying to score for the team. Coach Lasso, Nate, and Coach Beard find Dani in the shower, crossing himself with the Catholic cross symbol and crying for a good hour because he killed Earl. (The episode titled reminded me of a song by The Chicks called “Goodbye Earl,” and I’m pretty sure the episode was named for that song. Side note: the first time I heard about this song was from my P.E. coach, who had a foot attached to the bumper of her car, and she explained that it was inspired by the song “Goodbye Earl” by The Chicks.) They try to get Dani to move on from Earl’s death, but he can’t and when he tries to kick the ball toward the goalie he imagines a cartoon version of Earl and freaks out. Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, the sports psychologist they hire, doesn’t have time for Ted’s fun and games, but she ends up being a valuable person at AFC Richmond because she gives therapy sessions to the team members. Poor Higgins, though, decides to give her his office but ends up struggling to find his own office space, so he pretty much finds any open space where he can do his work since his old space is now occupied by the psychologist. The psychologist is a really good bullshit detector and when Ted offers her biscuits and tries to be his chatty self, she is suspicious and thinks that she can help him with any underlying issues he is dealing with. When Coach Beard meets with Ted at their usual pub place, Beard asks him why he won’t seek therapy, and Ted tells him that it brings back bad memories of when him and his ex-wife visited couples therapy and it didn’t help. However, I’m wondering if Ted is going to end up seeing Dr. Fieldstone to address any underlying emotional issues he has. This show really addresses mental health and I appreciate that it does because I haven’t seen a lot of sports movies that do that. Dr. Fieldstone ends up helping Dani get back to himself, because Dani’s original motto when we first meet him is that “football is life,” but after accidentally killing Earl during the game he begins to think that “football is death,” and Dr. Fieldstone helps him accept that football is both life and death.

There is another really good episode where Sam, whose family is from Nigeria, protests against the airline Dubai Air because of its involvement in environmental injustice in the country. Sam tells Rebecca that he doesn’t support the airline and needs to sit the game out, and Rebecca understands but when she asks her ex-husband, Rupert, for help he tells her to kick Sam off of the team. Before this episode, Jamie came back on the team and everyone was really upset that Ted let Jamie back on the team because he was mean to everyone, but Ted let him back on because he doesn’t really have a lot of career opportunities left and figures he can redeem himself if he rejoins the football team. Sam is really angry with Ted and feels he betrayed him since some guys at the pub saw Jamie and Ted talking over drinks and rumored he was going to let Jamie back on the team, even though Ted assured him that wasn’t the case. But Jamie has a change of heart before one of the games, when Sam and the other Black football players decide to put black tape over the Dubai Air logo on their jerseys, and Jamie decides to put black tape over his logo, too. At first Sam is wondering why someone like Jamie would care about the protest, but Jamie says that they’re a team and so everyone in solidarity with Sam decides to put black tape over the Dubai Air logo on their jerseys. Then afterwards, Ted is at another press conference and everyone asks him about the Dubai Air protest at the game and Ted, who is a white guy, explains that Sam did what was right and has Sam answer the reporters’ inquiries. When Sam and Ted get back to the locker room, they think he will be in trouble, but instead all of Sam’s teammates celebrate his protest on the field and Nora’s daughter (and Rebecca’s goddaughter) Flo is a huge fan of Sam, and so they all take a picture with Nora at the end (thankfully Keeley tells them to put their beers away in the photo since she is the social media/ publicity person).

There is another episode where the Richmond team celebrates Christmas. It is really sweet that Rebecca checked in on Ted because after Ted Facetimes his son and ex-wife he drinks whiskey alone while everyone else is out celebrating. Rebecca and Ted end up going to people’s houses to give their children presents, and they enjoy musicians busking on the street. Meanwhile, Higgins and his wife and five kids enjoy company when many members of the AFC Richmond team come to their house to celebrate Christmas. At first Higgins says only a couple of players usually come to his house to stay over since they cannot go to their families over the holidays, but many of the players end up coming to Higgins’ house and end up having a wonderful time. Keeley and Roy have to find a dentist for Roy’s niece, Phoebe. Phoebe is upset because a boy at school says she has bad breath and gave her toothpaste and a toothbrush as a Christmas present, and Roy threatens to beat this kid up but instead Keeley asks Phoebe if she can smell her breath since it can’t be that bad, but Keeley and Roy smell Phoebe’s breath and they find out that yes, Phoebe’s breath really does stink. So they go everywhere to find a dentist but have no luck. They finally find a woman who is a dentist and she tells Keeley and Roy that the histamines that Phoebe takes for her cat allergies are drying up her mouth and led to Phoebe having bad breath. They go to the mean boy’s house and in Love Actually style Phoebe holds up poster boards telling the boy that he was mean to her and wasn’t nice.

In another episode, Ted meets Roy at his favorite kebab place to convince Roy to rejoin the AFC Richmond team after he suffers a knee injury and ends up working as a commentator for a sports channel. On the show he is very gruff, and swears and the other newscasters are put off by his honest no nonsense demeanor. Roy helps Isaac regain his love of football by showing him the old field in his neighborhood where he used to play soccer.

My Brief and Awkward History With Crushes

I must admit that I’m a novice at love. I got my first boyfriend at 22 and up until then I’ve just had a string of crushes. Somehow I always end up falling for guys who are already dating other people, and sometimes my heart would get crushed but then the crush would be fleeting and I would move on to another crush. I don’t remember having a lot of crushes on boy bands. A lot of people in my peer group were into NSYNC, but I didn’t think the guys were hot or anything, I just liked their music and the way it sounded. In fifth grade, I started having these crushes on these guys at school, but I guess I wasn’t sure if they were crushes or just admiration for the person. I really liked this boy named Chris (name changed to protect privacy) and the only reason I liked him was because he looked like Andrew Lawrence, the actor who voiced T.J. Detweiler in a show I loved called Recess. All the girls at school kept asking me if I liked him, and the gossip spread like wildfire that I liked this guy. However, I also had really low self-esteem and unfortunately I remember filling my notebook with negative things about myself. Part of this low self-worth was deep in my own life, but as I think about it, I’m sure I was around a lot of kids who struggled with self-esteem and self-confidence, so I may have picked up on that when I was around these girls. I remember writing that I thought I was ugly and that Chris was never going to want to date me because I was ugly, and my mom read it and she broke down crying and asked me why I would say such things about myself. I don’t know how she got ahold of my journal but I was pretty upset. All these girls kept asking me if I liked Chris and I honestly didn’t know how to answer them. As I grew up and had more classes with Chris my crush on him gradually faded.

Then in seventh grade, there was a boy named Robbie (again, name changed to protect privacy) and he was nice, but I wasn’t interested in him. But everyone giggled about how Robbie liked me, and he made his feelings for me quite clear and said “I think you’re pretty cute.” As a kid with really low self-worth, this was really hard to hear because I honestly thought I was an incredibly ugly worthless kid. However, even though I didn’t like Robbie, I liked a guy named Jack. Jack played the viola and he was a blonde-haired eighth grader who was studious, went to church and was just really good at playing viola. I’m not even sure if I was attracted to the fact that he played viola so soulfully or because I genuinely thought he was attractive. These two girls in my orchestra class, Megan and Sandy, kept asking me if I talked to Jack yet because I was always telling them about my crush on him. I would often fill my journal with fantasies of Jack and I growing up together, getting married, having three kids. But I also wrote about how I wasn’t pretty enough for Jack, that I was just some shy Black seventh-grader who didn’t deserve him (now that I have more self-confidence, I can say, Fuck that, you know who I do deserve? I deserve my own damn self.) But after days and months of walking down the hall and staring as he went to his locker and walked to class, and making myself completely invisible whenever I saw him (like in The Incredibles when Violet Parr becomes invisible when her crush, Tony, passes her by in school), I finally got the courage to talk to him. We were on the steps outside the door to enter the orchestra and choir rooms.

“Hi,” I shyly greeted.

“Hey,” he said, looking off in the distance.

I sidled closer to him. This pent-up pubescent sexual energy was burning in my body and I was trying to keep it from bursting out all over this guy.

“What’s your name?” I tried to sound really flirtatious. I really tried, guys.

“My name’s Jack.”

My heart beat even louder and louder in my chest. Jack, oh gosh, when he said it my heart fluttered.

“Oh. My name is Ginger.”

He nodded.

“I deal a lot with these mean girls at school. I want to call them the “b” word but like, I don’t want to cuss.”

He nodded as he looked at me, then he looked out to see if his mom was picking him up.

I took a deep breath. Gosh, this is it…

“I think you’re pretty cute,” I giggled. Wow, I really thought I was being a charmer.

He snorted.

“I’m already in a relationship.”

I blushed. Awkkkwarrdd…..

“Oh. Ok. That’s cool.”

A blue minivan pulled up.

“I’ll see you later,” I gave a weak wave of the hand.

He gave a half-wave and got in the car.

Ok, cool. So I guess we can just be friends…I guess…wow, that really went badly.

Naturally like any crush I get this crush faded with time. So in eighth grade I got a new crush. Actually quite a few crushes. One guy named Michael, poor fucking Michael. I wouldn’t stop staring at him. I’m pretty sure this was borderline sexual harassment, but I really wasn’t paying attention in health class when they talked about consent and boundaries. This was a good lesson in learning to respect both of those things. I don’t know how my crush on Michael developed. We weren’t even that close to begin with. Everyone knew him as the smart kid in sixth grade, and then a year later there were rumors he became a troublemaker and started goofing off. But then somehow I just started liking his personality. Every time we talked he was so intelligent and sweet. At least it seemed on the surface. And his eyes were a beautiful blue and his face was just so chiseled. We had about four or five classes together that year: Spanish, science, math, history. But my love-struck ass couldn’t respect the fact that he already had a girlfriend. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I would always sneak looks at him in class. I would just turn around in my seat, and look at his face. It was similar to the previous year when I thought it would be funny to poke my classmates at the back with a pencil. No wonder Barry, a fellow student, did the same thing to me. Karma’s a bitch, people.

So of course, Michael rightfully thought this was hella annoying that I kept sneaking these glances, and so he would tell me over and over, “Ginger! You have to stop looking at me. I’m not interested in you AT ALL.” But I wouldn’t listen to him or respect his wishes and I kept staring at him. Even when Jo told me Michael was dating someone else. We then went to high school together and it wasn’t until our last year that I finally gave a decent apology. We were in the bleachers and my annoying butt called out “Michael!” He turned around and seeing who I was, gave a small grin, like “Oh shit here we go again.” I said, “I’m sorry for always looking at you.” Somehow though we had made amends during those last couple of years in high school. I had grown up and stopped doing the silly looking-at-Michael-24/7 thing and in Spanish class in 11th grade, I finally got serious with my studies and stopped being interested in him, and just respected him as a classmate. Then it’s funny because I found someone in college who did the exact thing to me that I did to Michael, and I clearly saw it for what it was. A reflection of my own past behavior.

Then there was another guy I loved in my orchestra class who was a year above me, and I found him quite attractive. His name was Drake, and he was an incredible double bass player. I would just stare at him from afar. When I saw him hanging with his friends, my heart would pound and I would blush. One evening I saw him performing with the top orchestra for a varsity competition and the way he played the bass with so much feeling…it was beautiful. And he was very humble, and I don’t know I just got these warm feelings for him. But of course, I barely exchanged a few conversations with him in passing because he was always around other people. And I’m pretty sure like Jack, he had a girlfriend (then again, I didn’t know because we didn’t have any classes together or exchange conversations much). Then I found out he was attending an Ivy League, and I started to think, “Wow, he is so smart.” So during my first year of college I still wasn’t over my crush on him, and so I emailed him (I got his email from the campus directory. I still didn’t have a Facebook at the time so email was one of the few modes of communication I used) and asked him how college was and asked if he remembered me. A week later he emailed back and said, “Hi Ginger, I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Then again, I’m better with faces than I am with names. College is good. How is college with you?” And then he asked “Also, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get my email?” Again, very awkward moment where I thought, Oh shit, yeah, I’m a stalker now. But because I was still so deeply in love with this person, I sent him a long ass email talking about orientation and my dorm’s cheer and my classes and…oh gosh guys when I look back, it was embarrassing. I barely knew the guy but I acted like I had known him forever. When in reality, as I’ve reflected, a lot of these crushes were a form of escapism. Love, sure, but also escapism. I am still currently grappling with a crush on someone now, but I think chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is helping me stay focused so that I don’t always let my crush be the center of my life and it’s helped me cultivate self-respect, too, so that I’m not totally heartbroken when I find out that the crush (this usually happens) already has a girlfriend.

My Top Ten Favorite Movies

Daily writing prompt
What are your top ten favorite movies?
View all responses

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!