Jersey Shore Season Two Plot Lines

Dear MTV,

I have to admit I am not biggest fan of the Jersey Shore even though I love the show. None of my T-shirt professes a fist pump logo. I will probably never GTL and I am only a quarter Italian. Still, this is what I would like to see on the Jersey Shore season two.

I think it would good to start off the show with good ole Pregnancy scare. Sammy Sweatheart thinks she’s pregnant. They have to get a test, may be a few. The house is worried. The show writes itself.

For the second episode, the whole cast is invited to WASPY country club affair. All of them have to dress up in proper clothes but they find a way to Guido it up.

There should be an effort to reform them. So they should have some battles with the Italian-American organizations that rebuff them. For a little more drama, include an old Italian priest comes to talk to them. They have to respect him as he hits them with his old world ideas.

They should also have baby sit small children who really get on their nerves. In the end, the kids should be little guidos.

Another episode could center on the entire Jersey shore being out of hair gel. What will they do?

As a final episode, it would be cool to have the season end with a big brawl with Irish stereotypes.

As an after thought, either Mike or Snookie should go on the ‘Apprentice’ and Paula D should go on DWTS.

More thoughts on Nick and Norah's infinite playlist (2008)

More thoughts on Nick and Norah's infinite playlist (2008)

For the ultimate review of this movie see Jan De Bakker's review below (apologies for the generation X style of that phrase. I am, by the way, proud to be too young to be a part of generation X).

I saw this movie too and had some thoughts on it as well. I also review the soundtrack, see below.

This is a highly anticipated movie, mainly because it stars Michael Cera. Cera is a Canadian actor who starred in the two biggest teenage movies of last year: Juno and Superbad. Cera is sort of on the verge of being an icon of his generation. Now that GenX is reaching their 40's, a new generation emerges. Cera is introverted, stable and good natured, which is the complete opposite the previous generation that celebrated "trash talking" and extremism of aggression.

So, the question is: will Nick and Nora follow in the tradition? Well, it sure tries.

You meet Cera who goes by the name Nick now. He is broken up with his girlfriend. You kinda wonder if the girlfriend is Ellen Page. He looks and dresses the same as in SuperBad, except that he is changed from green hoodie to a blue one. If you want one yourself, the one he wears in the movie is from American Apparel. His room looks just like Juno's room with the cut outs all over the wall. He lives in a house that looks like his house from Juno too.

He is met by his friend Thom, played by Aaron Yoo, who wants him to play in their band for a gig in New York City. We learn that the band members are gay except Nick. He tells him that it is "hard being straight" and Thom couldn't understand that. Yoo is an interesting actor. He represents a growing asian presence in films. Almost every teen orientated film seems to cast him. Always in a small role where he is gay or asexual. He not so much playing an asian stereotype like -Jackie Chan, but he is clearly subjugated. John Cho of Harold and Kumar fame makes an appearance later in this film. Ever notice that the only time you see an asian male actor being aggressive to another person in a non-racist stereotyped way is when they doing so to another ethnic?

Well, I am proud to say that this film is directed by Peter Scollett. Scollett is someone who was at NYU when I was there. Two of my good friends were in classes with him at Tisch.

Now with this in mind, the when the movie gets to New York from the safety of the close New Jersey suburbs, it is shot in all the NYU kids nightlife pallet. If fact is you are thinking of going to NYU, you should check out this movie for taste of your nightlife. Scollett got the look and feel of being out on a Thursday through Saturday night downtown. NYU students study on Sunday.

The girl in the film Norah is played by Kat Denning. Denning does a good job playing an introverted cold and stuck up girl with a lot of money who is highly troubled. Basically like many of the girls you would meet if you attended NYU.

The trouble is that Denning and Cera do not pair up well. Cera needs to be paired with a extremely lively and loud partner. Jonah Hill and Ellen Page had more personality than most people can handle. Cera seemed to absorb that, and it create a pleasing dynamic. When you pair two introverted people it is kinda boring. In fact, the most interesting chemistry was between Nora and Tal , played by Jay Baruchel (Canadian). Jay Baruchel has a lot a of presence in his bit role as the manipulative friends-with-benefits guy that Nora is involved with when she meets Nick. Baruchel standout very much when is away from his Judd Apatow brothers such as Seth Rogan.

The movie also makes a bad move by having Nick and Nora have sex or whatever they were doing. One thing that movie has going for was a kinda innocence to it that has been seen from Rushmore to Juno. Somehow, the way it is was done here has that sleazy feel that teenage sex had in the 1980's teenflicks.

Nevertheless, movie has it's moments. It greatest accomplishment is cinematography is the shot at the end. It ends with a kiss on the escalator in Madison Square Garden going to Penn Station. It is really ugly place in New York, but it is a very beautiful romantic shot. So, maybe there was beauty there after all.

At other times the movie is boring without a lot going on. I would say about 45 minutes could have been cut out There is not real conflict presented. Everything just seems too safe. Overall, it is a cute movie, and I would recommend it.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

TIKKUN O'LAM IN MANHATTAN
"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"

What is it about romances that draws us back to movie theatres over and over again? I mean, it's the same story every time, isn't it? My literature humanities instructor in undergrad would probably have said that it is an expression of the Universal Human Experience. Whatever. I just like seeing people in love with each other*.
"Nick and Norah" is one such romance. Michael Cera as Nick plays essentially the same character as he did in "Juno": an awkward, kind and irrepressably geeky high school senior. Norah (Kat Dennings) is a moody, "stone-cold Jap" stuggling to come out from the shadow of her rich father. Both are huge music geeks in tune with the underground hipster scene. The movie takes place over a single night in Manhattan, as Nick and Norah, along with a motley assortment of friends, try to find the secret location of a surprise concert to be given by "Where's Fluffy". Hints to the concert's venue are only given by rabbits drawn in improbable places, and indeed as the group of teenagers meet, disperse, and meet again in various misadventures in the nighttime world of Manhattan, it is in fact as if they have gone through the looking glass. In the course of this midsummer night, Nick and Norah fall in love, fall out of love, and fall back into love in the inevitable sonata of the love story. And through it all, of course, there's a great and nearly constant soundtrack. Now I am not myself a huge music geek in touch with the underground hipster scene, so don't recognize the songs or the bands, but I definitely appreciated the music.
"Nick and Norah" is really a reflection of American Graffiti. Both are movies about a group of teenagers spending a night on the town and coming of age in twelve hours. For Nick and Norah, this happens in the hipster music scene in New York, while American Graffiti takes place in the car-racing scene in Modesto, California. But there is a fundamental difference. American Graffiti is about what those who lived in the Swinging Seventies would be pleased to call "self-realization": each of the characters in the movie come of age, but they do so individually, as separate entities. The entire movie takes place on the night before college begins, and while they all grow up overnight, they also know that they must part ways in the morning and seek their own way as adults. "Nick and Norah" by contrast is all about coming together: the main characters do so, of course, but so does everyone who, after patient searching and red herrings, is finally unified by the ethereal music of Fluffy. And while American Graffiti takes place on the Anytown, California strip, Nick and Norah pointedly takes place in Manhattan, devoting several shots to its cityscape and celebrating it as the great crossroads.
Near the end of the film Norah says that her favourite part of Jewish philosophy is Tikkun O'lam, the "repair of the world", because it brings broken pieces of this world back together again. And that's what this movie is all about. It's a charming morality tale in which the self-centred, those who are only in it for the money or the sex, are cast into the outer darkness, while the just seek, lose their way, persevere, and finally find each other and the concert at the end of the night.

*except on public transportation.

by

Jan de Bakker

Be Kind, Rewind (2008)

Who would have thought Mos Def and Jack Black would be a comedy duo? I guess it is in the long tradition of rapper being film stars that Mos Def must follow.

Be Kind, Rewind is the first good art film to arrive in 2008. It is written and directed by Michel Gonfry. Gonfry is the great French director who started in music videos and moved on to film; like Spike Jonze. He made my favorite film of 2006, The Science of Sleep.

He did another great job with this one. It is interesting, funny and really really sad. The film starts off slow and finish to a rousing finish without a happy ending. Instead, it has the poor will inherit the earth kind of thing going on.

The story of the film is that Mr. Fletcher, a kindly old man (played by Danny Glover) runs a video rental store in a depressing part of New Jersey with ultra-nice guy Mike (played by Mos Def). Jerry, a crazy guy (played by Jack Black) owns a nearby business, is always hanging around. One day, when Mr. Fletcher is away scouting other video stores because the city is set to demolish his building due to urban redevelopment and building code violations, Jerry erases all the videos. So, in a last ditch effort to keep the store running, Mike and Jerry shoot the movies themselves; starring them, just two guys with a video camera in the great state of New Jersey. Along the way, they pick up Alma (played by Melonie Diaz) in a dry cleaners store. This is when the movie picks up speed. The chemistry between the three in one of the best part of film, and something I haven’t seen in film yet.

After a bunch of thugs liked their rendition of Ghostbusters, all three of them start making sweded films. “Sweded” means that they made there own versions of the film. Just like previous Gonfry movies, this wear his stamp comes in with brilliant homemade looking props and art. The film really gets fun and funny here. It picks up a warmth and joy. Then the Gonfry takes it all the way. A harsh reality folds in and never leaves. You are left feeling “Well, at least they tried.” : ( I left feeling really sad.

It really had a Chaplin feel to it. Everyone in the movie was poor and ethnic. They lost every time. The “Man” was always after them. Still, they persevered. It was shot in very urban industrial parts of town; in poorest of areas.

Nevertheless, you have not seen this before. Maybe you have lived it. Maybe you recreated films in your backyard growing up with your video camera. I did. It was like beautiful homage to that.

I have a feeling that a couple years from now and going forward Be Kind, Rewind will be one of those college and hipster cult movies that will be studied and copied into culture.