found this today! i did this when i was in high school. it’s a drawing of noah and allie from the notebook. the two are drawn with the words “if i’m a bird, you’re a bird” over and over, and the background has a few quotes from the movie. done in a felt pen.
It took me a minute to recognize him, but that is exactly who you think it is.
Young Hercules was a spin-off of the tv show Hercules. It only lasted one season. If you still don’t know who that is, just go look through the imdb page. He was 18 or 19 when he did this.
5 favorite actors
5. Ryan Gosling
The unifying theme you’re going to find amongst all the men on this list, (outside of their physical attractiveness because they are all sexy men in their own ways) are their passion and versatility. Although Ryan Gosling has stayed mainly within the romance world, his forays into those depths have only left me (and apparently everyone else) wanting more. His ability to play realistically emotionally characters, from the lovelorn Noah (The Notebook) to the absurdly confident Jacob (Crazy Stupid Love) to the desperate Dean (Blue Valentine) has earned him a spot on everyone’s radar. And he’s shown that he can do incredible things beyond romance, with his recent success in Drive. Although I haven’t seen as many of his movies as I would have liked, he has earned a spot on my and everyone elses favorite actor list.
I laughed.
Hey Boy,
I think we need to talk.
You have to stop. Just stop. It’s getting to be too much. See, I’m just a girl who sits in a cubicle all day. I have to live in a real world. Not the kind of “real world” with MTV cameras and token drama queens. I live in the kind of “real world” where I have to deal with men who can’t afford to buy me coffee and who can’t emotionally commit. The longer you continue to be so Ryan Gosling, the harder it’s going to be for me to want to live in that world.
Read it all; it’s pretty entertaining, and so so true.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011) is one of those movies that’s best to go into not knowing what’s going to happen. If that happens, then you spend the first third of the movie trying to figure out what kind of movie it is and the last two thirds having your mind blown. Because of this, I won’t include a synopsis beyond the movie is about Driver and anyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet should not read all of this review. I’ll let you know when to stop.
Ryan gosling is phenomenal in this film. He doesn’t talk much; in fact, he spends a lot of the movie just chewing on a tooth pick and standing there. But he probably does that better than any other actor on the planet. I read on IMDB that he was chosen to replace Hugh Jackman for the role, which was probably a godsend because the movie would have been completely different (and much worse) had Hugh Jackman been chosen to play Driver. Carey Mulligan, who plays Driver’s neighbor and minor love interest Irene, and Gosling have wonderful chemistry. There is very little on screen interaction; as I said before, even when he interacts with Irene he’s mostly just standing there chewing on a toothpick and not saying anything, but the sexual tension between the two of them is so tangible as to almost be another character entirely. The filming style of the movie is also really interesting, with many swooping over-head shots of the city, as well as a lot of shots of Gosling from below as if the audience is looking up at him. The use of lighting is likewise impressive, with the movie ofttimes over- or underlit to create fractured looking or dream-like scenes that border on surrealism. Finally, the score is great. There are several instances in the film where the music just sneaks up on you and you realize that you’re having an emotional response to something you didn’t realize was happening.
There were several… odd parts in the movie though. The font and color (the pink lettering seen in the poster above) of the title sequence was bizarre. It seemed like a Dirty Dancing/Miami Vice throwback which didn’t seem necessary. The soundtrack that was chosen to accompany the score was also really strange. I didn’t necessarily dislike the choice of songs, just disliked how or when they decided to use them. See * below for examples of what I mean. Finally, I understand their choice in making Driver a backgroundless character, but I just wish there had been one more line, just one single sentence spoken somewhere in the movie, that gave us some implication of who Driver was. I didn’t want a lot because I think him being backgroundless was part of the character, but something that would have tied what was happening in the movie to something that happened in his past, even if it was a vague line, would have done a lot for the character I think. An example of what I mean is the scene in Harold and Maude where Harold sees the Holocaust tattoo on Maude’s arm; the scene was almost inconsequential to the film, but that little brief moment where he notices that added so much more to her as a character.
But the movie is excellent so you should go see it and if you haven’t seen it, you should stop reading now.
This movie went so far beyond what I was expecting, I think because of the decisions made about the first third of the movie. They gave it the potential to be just about every genre of movie ever. It could have gone the rom-com route; it could have gone the rags-to-riches athlete route (with the racing); it could have gone the I’m-a-criminal-leading-a-double-life route. And instead it went the I’m-out-to-avenge-someone route. I really didn’t see that coming at all. Which was great! I love it when movies surprise me (like From Dusk til Dawn). The best way to classify this movie I think would be half way between A History of Violence and Man On Fire. One thing that really surprised me about this film was how well the director went back and forth from the sexual tension between Irene and Driver and just pure violence. My favorite scene in the movie was the elevator murder because it was so impassioned. It was phenomenal! (I also read on IMDB that that scene was originally longer but they cut it to secure a decent rating.) *and as far as what I mentioned above with the music, the best (worst?) example is the scene where Driver finds Shannon in the garage, and the music starts up as he’s looking at him. It made it really cheesy, but I loved the music over the following scene as Driver was spying on Nino and Nino was laughing. I thought that was a wonderful dichotomy. Anyway, sorry for the disjointed review, but i think this is a really good movie to go into not knowing what’s going to happen so I tried my best to keep all the spoilers out of it.
In this comedy, Lars Lindstrom is an awkwardly shy young man in a small northern town who finally brings home the girl of his dreams to his brother and sister-in-law’s home. The only problem is that she’s not real - she’s a sex doll Lars ordered off the Internet. But sex is not what Lars has in mind, but rather a deep, meaningful relationship. His sister-in-law is worried for him, his brother thinks he’s nuts, but eventually the entire town goes along with his delusion in support of this sweet natured boy that they’ve always loved.
This movie is equal parts confused, hilarious, awkward, creepy, endearing, and just pure emotion. A strange combination, but let me explain: The screenplay of this movie seems to be incomplete. It’s as if Nancy Oliver, the writer, wasn’t sure what she wanted to be going on in Lars’s head, and thus wrote several scenes with several motivations. Then she reached a deadline and didn’t have time to compile them all and alter them into a single mindset. At times throughout, Lars seems minutely socially anxious, majorly socially anxious, autistic, agoraphobic, or just normal. It doesn’t make sense: there’s very little consistency in the things that Lars does. He has a tic that seems to be consistently present, he doesn’t spend a lot of time looking people in the eye, a symptom of autism, he makes up excuses in order to get out of social gatherings, he takes a long time to respond to others and he spends several scenes with psychiatrist doing cognitive-behavioral exercises to help Lars overcome a somatoform-like disorder because of which he feels pain whenever anyone touches his skin.
Yet, when he gets a new “girlfriend”, Bianca the sex-doll, he runs to tell his brother and sister-in-law, which seems out of place: I would imagine that someone with the various social anxieties he demonstrates would still be wary to garner extra attention for himself on top of the attention he would already get for having a new “woman”. Even if he thinks Bianca is a real person, he is still anxious and he should not be able to jump out of that so quickly. A second scene that is out of place is a confrontation between Lars and his real person love interest, Margo’s, boyfriend. Lars is shown looking him in the eye, firmly shaking hands without gloves on, which should have caused him pain, standing up straight, not engaging in his tic, etc. And then later the movie makes a big deal about him shaking hands with Margo without her glove on. It’s just as if the movie has no commitment about what kind of psychological distress Lars must be under to create such a delusion.
Flaws aside though, this movie is mostly about the awkward humor you would expect if a guy is toting a sex doll around town introducing her as his girlfriend. It’s funny and you’ll laugh, but in an unsettled kind of way. Despite it’s funniness, it’s creepy because of the simple fact that Lars thinks his sex-doll is a real person. He talks to her, tucks her in at night, reads to her, etc. But he doesn’t have sex with her. On top of that, everything that Bianca says is coming from Lars and is thus a reflection of Lars’s own feelings, thoughts, and anxieties. It’s an incredibly unique way to get a glimpse of someone’s psyche. There’s also the fact that Margo is often times dressed up like a 7th grader with a crush.
But anyway, many of the reasons this movie is creepy are also the reasons this movie is endearing. There is a real emotional connection between Lars and Bianca, and through that emotional connection he is able to connect to other people, to being pursuing Margo, to reconnect with his brother. Through Bianca he is able to work out his own problems and anxieties. And through their relationship we are able to get an impression of the entire town they live in and how much everyone cares for Lars, in that everyone goes a long with the delusion. Ryan Gosling does such a fantastic job committing to every moment in this movie that you can’t help but get a little emotionally involved yourself. He cried so many times in the movie and he was that anxious awkward character (or whatever character was called for at the time). This movie is a great example of how talented he is because if he wasn’t in the movie, it wouldn’t have been anything. He adds the depth and the realness that makes this movie worth watching. Not to mention the fact that he can make a total creeper ‘stache look completely adorable.
So this movie isn’t a movie you have to see; it’s unique, sure, but has tons of flaws. But if you want a new movie to watch, you won’t regret watching this because Gosling with blow you away.
