One thing that inspires me today: Great Expectations (directed by Alfonso Cuaron)

This movie still give me chills. I can listen to the soundtrack 24/7. I HAVE listened to the soundtrack 24/7.

This movie is the ultimate unrequited love story in my opinion, about falling in love hard and trying to stand up despite the anguish in your bones, the love that you know is just wrong for you and you could go for someone more nice, more deserving, more ordinary and less in all the ways that are somehow important but inexplicable. Love that is unreasonable, malicious and hurtful but one that makes you feel and what drives you forward to her.

I was in a serious funk when I saw this film and it expressed everything I wanted to say that was beautiful, powerful and so full of yearning.

The story is a Charles Dickens classic tale about a boy who is given wealth by a generous benefactor. He falls in love with Estella who is taught never to give her heart to men by her guardian. The plot is a typical Charles Dicken drama, full of secrets, lies, and coincidences. 

In the movie, the screen writer and director strips the plot of extraneous characters. The novel lost the colourful characters but it found it's main narrative thread and imbued it with an aching melancholy that's beautiful and resonant. So many shots in this movie felt like it was from memories, intoxicating in the way the story of Finn and Estella builds and builds.

And the music. OH MY GOD. I already mentioned the soundtrack and I am not kidding when I said I listened to it 24/7. Especially this song.

Not just the song... the soundtrack score is one of the most beautiful and romantic pieces I have ever heard. The moment of that kiss in the rain... and I know it's cliche but it's genuinely exhilarating.

I love this film for these moments. I love the book that Finn carries with him of his sketches and illustrations and how it is used in the ending credits. 

This film inspired me to carry my own little sketch book, fill it with portraits and sketches and fill it with thoughts. I owe this film for crystalizing my emotional state at the time, where I was looking for love, feeling lost, wanting to express myself and art and to have it all, to be acknowledged and leave behind the past.

I love this film with all my aching heart.

10 things I love about Iron Man

10 Things I love about Iron Man

1) Robert Downey Jr. Acerbic, witty, damaged and so hot in a tank top sweating under the workshop lights. Ahem.

2) The Tech. I am so not a tech guy but the tech is so awesome, I feel like I'm 7 again playing with my robots.

3) Good use of characters. Every character was utilized properly. Hot damn, that foxy female reporter in the beginning? Not a disposable character but someone who appears again and is of use to the plot.

4) "Everybody sit down"... ha ha... fantastic news conference.

5) Pepper Potts. Ooh, the unrequited love just... oooh, I haven't felt this much for a Gwenyth Paltrow character since Estella in Great Expectations.

6) Jon Favreau. The man knocked it out of the ballpark. Where a lot of directors talk about characters and how important it is... this guy actually directed the actors and respected the characters. 

7) Marvel Studios. No longer another film studio handling a Marvel property. Marvel Studios protecting and creating their own franchises and characters.

8) The way Iron Man holds his hands out to the side like a little girl for lift off. A small detail but so, so funny, so fitting and all the more fun.

9) "Welcome to a bigger universe." I got chills.

10) "I am Iron Man."