The Quarterback

Never have I watched a show where a main character passed in the middle of the series. That is, until I came home from work one night (after a fairly decent shift for someone who was up to her elbows in fry grease for all eleven hours) and I remember my Mom ushering me into their bedroom and she just had this look on her face, as did my Dad. I hadn't seen that look since my Grandma passed when I was in the sixth grade. So, my first instinct when my Mom said, "Sweetie…" with drops of distain coming from her lips was that, "Crap, somebody died." And somebody did, Cory Monteith. 

I remember walking into my bedroom that night and immediately texting my best friend from Oregon (where I now live, but at the time I was home in Chico, but anyway, I'm getting distracted) and she had already heard, and for about an hour we just cried through cyberspace together. 

Not only have I never witnessed a main character's real-life death in my lifetime, but, I have never cried so much during an hour long program. Now, before I go on, let me just take a second to say that Glee took me through high school. Glee took me as a freshman who was struggling to make any sense out of the mean girls, the jocks, the sad boys and girls, and the parties. I watched Glee and grew to use it as a learning tool of sorts. And Cory Monteith's character as Finn Hudson showed me that not every guy in a letterman jacket with a broad as a girlfriend is as bad as he seems, nor is the blonde broad… that show released an episode tackling the topic of suicide just after a friend of mine took his own life in high school, and I remember a group of kids who I had never really talked to much, all pledged to watch it, and this was shortly after our friend's funeral so the wounds were still fresh, but we watched it, and we came back to school the following Monday with a newfound respect for those that we saw and those we interacted with. Even if that only lasted for a short time and the cliques eventually consumed them back into their primary state, it was eye opening and from then on, I believed in Glee. 

Now, moving onto the main premise of this post. The Quarterback was the episode released in memoriam of Monteith's character "Finn Hudson." The first number had me reaching for the box of tissues that was placed at the foot of my bed where two friends and I were huddled close together in anticipation. Seasons of Love is a hard song to find a reason to sing in some cases, I've seen it performed joyfully and I've seen it performed in a case such as this, meaning in memoriam of someone's life that just recently passed. And, not to discredit those who have covered the song in other times, but there is no better time than when a loved one has just passed to sing a ballad such as that. 

I was deeply moved by Naya Rivera's performance as Santana Lopez, as well as her performance of "If I Die Young". Backtracking a bit, when the friend of ours took his own life, a girl posted onto Facebook, "Funny when you're dead how people start listening." Which, of course, was a line from the song that Rivera covered, and at the time, the song had just been released, and became a bit of an anthem for our class. Rivera's "breakdown" of sorts at the end of her song came as a shock and almost as if a funny thing to those who may not watch Glee frequently, however, looking back on Naya's character as Santana, she has always been bitter, closed-off, short, and some would say she was just flat out mean. To see her break down the way that she did, and to confront Sue Sylvester (head Cheerio coach and more recently, the principal of McKinley High) the way that she did… Chills. The same goes for Puck's character, and his last few words with Dot (Coach Beiste) Jones, where he says, "That line between those two years… (motioning to the memorial placed beneath the tree outside of the school) …that's his whole life" and, as Puck is about to drive off into who knows where, Coach Beiste repeats, "Have a good line!"

Moving onto the whole reason behind why I'm tearing up just writing this. Rachel Berry, also known as Lea Michele… the brilliant, brilliant actress who was dating the late Cory Monteith at the time of his death, and Rachel Berry is also known as Finn Hudson's girlfriend… as he said in the episode 'I do'… "It doesn't matter who you are bunking up with… you are my girlfriend, we are endgame." I felt that her coming into the episode in the last twenty minutes was a smart idea on Ryan Murphy's part, because when it comes to "Finchel" there is not much that can be said that can't be better said in song. And after Michele delivered a heartbreaking rendition of Adele's "Make You Feel My Love", she enters the choir room to talk to Will Schuester and motions towards her necklace (a simple gold chain with the name "Finn" hooked from side to side, she has been seen at the TeenChoice Awards and elsewhere wearing a similar one that instead says "Cory") as she says, "He was my person."

My Dad and I had a talk about a year or so I go, I want to say. He told me that everyone has a "person". A person that they loved, and will continue to love. A person that if they called you in ten years, and you're settled down with a family and the two of you are on opposite locations of the earth, you would pick up the phone and you would hear their voice, and not necessarily go running back to all that there was for the two of you, but you wouldn't turn them away by denying their call… you would answer. You would answer and you would listen, because they are your person.

Everyone will have a person, whether it be their friend, a family member, or someone that they've once loved.But when Rachel Berry broke the Gleeks of America's heart by saying "He was my person." My heart crumpled in threefold, one for Rachel, and one for Lea, and one for the entire cast and fan base of Glee. 

I have never cried so much or felt so much for a single hour of television before. 

In my opinion, it was very, very well done. 

Rest in peace, Cory. Rest in peace, Finn.

World War A,B,C.

*WARNING* While this is primarily a review of the movie World War Z, chances are I will give away a couple of minor spoilers, and if you haven't seen this movie... this may not be a post that you would want to read. I figured I'd give you guys a fair warning, considering I will be doing this sort of review type thing fairly often.

To start off with, I'd like to commend Marc Forster for not taking the "Cloverfield way out" and allowing the primary amount of action to occur within the first ten minutes. I mean, to backtrack to the year 2008 when Cloverfield was first introduced to us. This was the first "apocalyptic" movie of sorts in the long stretch of those sorts of movies where something comes into a highly populated city that either devours and dements every living thing to cross it's path or it completely and utterly destroys the city, leaving 60 of the 90 minutes to just mindless looters running amuck. (Side-note: How cool would it have been to have been an extra for one of those movies, where you can just throw mailboxes into store windows and clamber into the grocery store without any repercussions?) Anyway, the writer of Cloverfield, Drew Goddard, redeemed himself greatly when he co-wrote for World War Z, which starred the scarf and long hair sporting Brad Pitt, along with some not-so-familiar but all-the-more intriguing faces such as Mireille Enos and absolute badass, Daniella Kertesz.

Let me just start by pointing out some little quirks that I've noticed a good number of these sorts of "something is taking over the world" movies have. They always have a child with some sort of illness that can't be helped by anything other than albuterol. This was shown in Signs when the son of Mel Gibson's character was unable to reach his inhaler and, thankfully, that wound up saving his life (am I the only one who thought that the scariest moment in that movie was actually when Mel Gibson yelled at everyone at the dinner table? I get goosebumps just thinking about it...) as the alien's weird finger that opened up from the nail bed and released some sort of poison into the boy's open nose and mouth couldn't get past his closed airways. Well, this was once again brought up in World War Z as the eldest daughter had an asthma attack of her own after she witnessed countless people die and watched as her dad hijacked an RV and the previous owner was convulsing into an undead fit as the family drove off into the blood red sunset.

That's not the only similarity, there are less examples of this but at the same time, the examples can be changed and altered in even the slightest bit that still add up to the same thing. There is almost always that family, normally it's a small non-english speaking family with just one child, and other times it is just a couple of rotten kids who won't listen to you when your name is Brad Pitt and you're telling them "We need to move, sitting still means certain death." In this case, it was a small hispanic family with one child, and as certain as they were about staying right where they were, they certainly did, and they certainly died. Another example of this is the ever-so-classic movie Titanic, in which Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio's character are running towards the deck, or at least trying, when they come across a small crying child who Leo hastily takes into his arms, soon to be taken out by a non-english speaking man who runs in the opposite direction with the child. And as sure as he was that he was getting his child and himself out of the way of danger, they were surely dead within the next five seconds.

Now, taking a bit of a sidestep off of the protagonists of this movie. Let me just talk about Daniella Kertesz's phenomenal performance as a certified badass. At first, I was sure that there was some sort of G.I. Jane crossover, considering her crawling, shooting, and running skills were impeccable. I was also rooting for her and Brad's character a bit more than I was rooting for him and his wife... considering she decided to go against his orders, rather, his comment that "He would call HER everyday." and called him instead, which then "awoke the dead" killing oodles of people including can't-seem-to-get-anything-good-since-LOST Matthew Fox.

Going back to similarities, if there is ever a dog in an abandoned building where people are hiding, or in this case, on a plane, or in other scenarios, in a completely desolate city (such as I Am Legend or even Signs for that matter) or anything in-between the combination of those, you can be rest-assured that there is probably a member of the undead or a creature from the unknown, and that dog will find it. In this case and point, it was a tiny, annoying dog, and I was rooting for it to sacrifice itself, or just be eaten, whichever came first. But, no, this blonde stewardess took it for the team.

Included is a picture of two of the four pages of notes taken during the movie. I do this so that I am not mindlessly typing away on Twitter or something along those lines, and instead, am practicing my chicken scratch handwriting so that I have it as reference when I go to review it on here.

All in all, World War Z was a great movie. The effects used on the "undead" were a bit different than those that I have seen in past zombie-affiliated movies and I was pleasantly surprised with Brad Pitt's performance considering I have had a love/hate relationship with him up until I saw him in Inglorious Basterds and fell madly, madly in love and forevermore repented my feelings of hate. I enjoyed the tossup of new faces as well as some old ones mixed in with those that portrayed non-english speaking characters actually being from/having acted in movies of their said origin. If I were to give the movie a rating on a scale from "wait to see it on DVD" to "go see it opening weekend", I'd say go see it the weekend after opening weekend.

Lobsters.

I watched my first full episode of Friends when I was visiting my then-significant other's mother's house in southern California. I had never paid a whole lot of attention to the hype of the show when it was airing, however, I knew that those who watched it, loved it. It never seemed to be one of those shows that you could "just watch", it was a show that you were involved in like some sort of relationship or friendship. And that's just what they were, they were Friends. 

I later began watching it on a regular basis. I can't even remember how I began watching Friends but I just found that I had easy access to all of the episodes I could desire and before long, I was watching at least two in a sitting, and shortly after that, I was finishing the first season, and the second, the third, the fourth, and so on...

Friends is like that healthy snack that's also delicious. If I were still in elementary school, that snack would be "ants on a log" or celery with peanut butter and raisins... Friends is like that snack for me. You watch it, and you almost submerge yourself in the idea that these six people spent ten years of their lives together, simply filming this show that soon grew from a Pilot episode to a lifetime of different impacts on each and every individual actor or actress' life. I mean, Jennifer Anniston is Courtney Cox's children's godmother... That in itself makes my heart melt.

One of the most significant things that I've found from the past year that I've spent watching and re-watching Friends is the realness put out from these characters. Certain situations made me feel human during some of the roughest times that any guy or girl could really go through. Including episodes like: "The One Where Monica And Richard Are Just Friends" and "The One With The Morning After" where each individual emotion displayed in each individual scenario is so easy to relate to, that it is heartbreaking albeit touching because despite how alone you may feel in your own situation, there are well over 200 episodes of this to show that you're not, and you're human for feeling how you feel.

Anyway, this is my blog. My name is 'Becca and not Abby Singer but Abby Singer is a technical filming term... she was also an actress. You see, when she was on set, she and the director would commonly say, "Okay, just one more take... and then one more." and that was then put into relative terms and is still used on set today. This is my blog, I'll talk a lot about movies, music, TV shows, and probably a bit about sports as well. I owe the inspiration behind this blog to my big brother and my parents, who encourage me more than I could ever hope for. I also owe an incredible amount of the inspiration to the friends of mine who have sat down to show me a new movie or allowed me to share one with them. I love movies, and I love those of you who share them with me.

So, this is me. Just, the highly opinionated movie/TV show/music buff version.