Easy A

This film is just…WOW (for a romcom)! Normally, I wouldn’t say this about such a massive Hollywood film, but honestly it was amazing. Emma Stone plays a rumour mill slut, Penn Badgley plays her crush, and Aly Michalka is her best friend. And all I know about where it is set is that it was in the sunny part of U.S.A.

So Stone’s character, Olive, doesn’t want to spend her weekend with her best friends hippy parents, so instead she makes up a lie of having a date with a college boy, and when talking about her date on Monday she tells a small lie, which is overheard by the strict religious girl in school, and so the rumours begin. Then she goes on to help her gay friend make a point of not being gay, so that he can get through high school in peace. This backfires on her as he tells a friend about how she helped him out, and eventually the whole school believes that she is getting paid for sexual favours. She is a nice girl though, so if a guy asks her for a favour because he can’t actually get laid, then she’ll help him out. She eventually begins making a point of the fact that she is the school slut and starts going to school in nothing more than underwear, basically. Then you think that the story is going to turn, because she actually gets asked on a date. So, she goes along and she pays but when they get to the car he tries to give her a gift voucher and then tries to make out with her, she pushes him away but he keeps on trying it. When he does eventually leave her alone, she is left in tears. From this point the film gets better, as she makes an attempt to redeem herself, but watch it and find out for yourself what happens.

I love the fact that throughout the film she keeps flicking back to the webcast, I think that it is an interesting way of breaking up the film and almost gives it book-like chapters. Also, the way that the editor showed the travelling of rumours was beaut. The way that the film was edited brought something a little bit different to the screen (for a blockbuster) and I appreciated the change.

Definitely a film to watch, especially if you liked She’s Out of My League, because it is that kind of honesty and comedy that is in this film too. Definitely worth a watch if you like romantic comedies of a slightly abnormal nature.

The Help

The Help is one of the best films that I have seen in a long time. It is a political/family drama. It has Emma Stone in the lead role of Eugenia Phelan (Skeeter). It is set in Mississippi, which means nothing to me but mud pie. It also stars Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard.

You meet the Aibileen and Skeeter. They seem to be getting along just fine. But then there is a flashback and you see who Aibileen works for. She is the narrator throughout the film, and it gives an insight into her life. You are taken through a series of situations that the maids have had to go through, you see the things that they had to face on a daily basis and it does make you think. You see Minny getting fired for using the toilet during a thunderstorm. And then you see everything get better for Skeeter and her book. And what I think is the saddest part of this whole film; this is when we find out what really happened to Constantine (Skeeter’s maid).

The film was so well made, and well written and well directed and everything. I don’t quite understand why I find this film so amazing, but I do. The film has a cohesive aspect to it, as it doesn’t start at the beginning of the whole story, but starts at the start of the actual stories in the book, which I think was quite a smart idea. Tate Taylor has definitely outdone himself, and I think that this is one of his better films. Of course a lot of the respect goes to Kathryn Stockett who wrote the novel of the same name.

I really enjoyed this film; it was a film about one of the darker times in history (that isn’t meant to be a racist pun). The film is all about a very serious issue, but it still keeps it quite light hearted and funny. The slave trade isn’t the only hard issue that it is about though; it is about domestic abuse and illness during pregnancy too, which are both issues that affect a lot of people. Definitely worth a watch.