MYST #5: When Harry Met Sally

I love 80s movies. I haven't seen them all, but the ones I have-The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing to name just a few-I adore. I actually have Three Men and a Baby on as I type.  I do not know why I love that decade of films. Maybe its just the way that my curly hair makes me feel like I belong in the 80s or the happy endings to the stories that make my day.

When Harry Met Sally (1989) was on the other day and with it being an 80s film and somewhat of a Rom-Com classic, I decided to watch it. Billy Crystal & Meg Ryan star as Harry Burns and Sally Albright, respectively. Other actors include Carrie Fisher (Marie) and Bruno Kirby (Jess).

The film starts when Harry meets Sally, or course. Harry's girlfriend at the time set them up to drive halfway across the country to New York City. They do not get along well during the 18 hours drive as they both view the world very differently, including the idea that men and women can or cannot be just friends. They end their trip with a simple goodbye.
Five years later, they run into each other at the airport. Sally is in a relationship with Joe, who Harry actually knows, and Harry is engaged. They end up chatting on the plane about their road-trip years ago and their current lives. It does not lead to anything significant.
Another five years later, Harry is getting divorced and Sally is newly single. They run into each other again at a bookstore and grab lunch. That lunch turns into a great friendship where they help each other get over their ruined relationships and just really enjoy each others company.
One night after Sally finds out that her ex, Joe, is getting married, Harry comforts her. That same night they end up sleeping together. Their friendship is almost completely ruined because Sally loved it and wanted to start a real relationship with Harry, while Harry wanted to pretend it never happened.  This goes back to Harry's initial opinion that men and women cannot be friends due to sex. Harry eventually realized that he loves Sally, resulting in him frantically running to confess that love for her. She rejects him at first, but she cannot help but forgive him and let their true love relationship begin.

With it being that 80s movies are not known for necessarily being cinematographic pieces of art, I did not noticed many scenes with something special. I actually found myself thinking that a continuos shot would have been good for some shots, but that might have been because we had just talked about Children of Men in class. I will point out that it did a good job of making the characters grow through their wardrobe and hair. Although it was no Citizen Kane for how many years the story covered, the almost twelve years were made more realistic with mostly Sally's head hair and Harry's facial hair. It was a simple touch that I appreciated. 

There are also the true love stories that break of the film. Other than being completely adorable, the way that the story ends with Harry and Sally in position talking about themselves makes the rom-com just that much more romantic.

I really enjoyed this movie. Crystal and Ryan both did a great job with their characters and I felt like their chemistry was great for the story. It met my expectations and really made me laugh. For that I give it 4/5 stars!

MYST #4: About Time

I had been interested in seeing About Time since it came out almost exactly a year ago, but I never got to see it. I remembered the trailers from then, so when I saw the movie on t.v. recently I decided it was finally meant to be that I would see this movie.

One of the main character, Rachel McAdams, has been in a lot of good romantic movies like The Vow and The Notebook (not to mention Mean Girls). Being that she was the only American actor in the film, I did not know the other actors by name-or even face-most of the time. It turns out that Domhnall Gleeson, who plays opposite McAdams, was in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2 as Bill Weasley. The fact that he is going to be in Star Wars: Episode VII (According to IMDb) would have sold this movie to me so more, but Rachel McAdams and the story of the film was enough to pull me in before I found that out.

Tim and Mary meeting for the first time, which they will
do two more times,

About Time follows Tim (Gleeson) through his life, basically starting from when his dad (Bill Nighy) tells him that the men in their family have a special gift: the ability to travel back in time through their own lives. Where the movie could have taken a weird sic-fi turn (or turned into another version of McAdam's film Time Traveler's Wife), it instead gave the awkward character of Tim several second chances. It initially does not help him as much as he hoped, but Tim eventually gets the hang of his gift and meets Mary (McAdams) in the process. Time traveling is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to a perfect life, but Tim eventually finds out that some things do not need to be re-done to be perfect. While Tim and Mary build a life together, we also see Tim having to decide whether to time travel again in order to prevent things, like his sister (Lydia Wilson) getting into a bad car crash. The story becomes more than about love between a man and a woman as Tim also looses his dad and cannot go back in time to visit him, but Tim learns to live each day as great as he can, so that he does not even have to think about redoing it.

Tim and his father about to time travel together
for the last time.

There were a couples scenes in the film that did a good job of utilizing a hand held camera or different lighting to match the mood, but what really stood out was the editing of the film. The whole time traveling thing could have been made to be completely cheesy, and having to stand in a dark closet and clench your fist almost made it, but the way the filmmakers kind of rewind the scenes that Tim was traveling through helped make the experiences easier to follow and almost more realistic.

Tim's experience with time travel, although sadly unrealistic, ended up being relatable in the end as he explains that we should take advantage of all of our time with people and make the most of everyday. The movie managed to be funny, romantic, sad, well cast, and just well-made. The only faults remain in what I also mentioned to be good. The time traveling aspect got to be a bit confusing is the logistics of what Tim could and could not do, to me anyway, so for that I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.