Why I'm Excited for August 7

It's no secret: I love movies. Way too much money is spent on me getting to see the movies I love oh-so much. I even enjoy watching bad rom-coms and teen movies. There are certain movies I get really excited for, like Harry Potter. But there is a day coming up that I am very excited for: August 7, 2009. I am not excited for some big-budget movie, but for 3 amazing-looking movies.

1. 500 Days of Summer



With movies coming out this summer like The Hangover and The Ugly Truth and all those formulaic rom-coms, I am anxiously awaiting 500 Days of Summer. While this movie has been released, it doesn't open in Grand Rapids until August 7. I will watch the trailer every so often to get my fix of its amazing-ness until the movie comes out.

Part of why I'm so excited for the movie is because I love Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And the music in it is so great (I've already purchased the soundtrack!). But this movie also looks so different from all those other romantic comedies. It says from the beginning: "this is not a love story." So while I can already guess how the movie is going to end (no I don't mean them breaking up, I mean how the movie ends), it is not going to be like other romantic comedies.

The man (Gordon-Levitt) thinks that his life is incomplete until he finds "the one" and the woman (Deschanel) is the one that doesn't want to be tied down while she's young and doesn't believe in love. It is refreshing to see the stereotypcial roles reversed. It's still very stereotypical to believe that the men are the ones that don't want to be in a relationship and the woman is the one who is romantic. While we all know this is not true, it's still refreshing to see that reflected in a movie.

I am reluctant to call the movie feminist or say that is has a feminist message until I see it and see how the story line actually plays out. There is only so much you can tell from a trailer. But it looks great and probably more feminist that most of the other movies coming out this summer.

2. Julie & Julia



Julie & Julia is definitely more big-budget than 500 Days of Summer. This movie stars two amazing women, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Julia Child was an awesome woman in and of herself. The movie shows part of her life in Paris, from starting cooking school with an all male class to her cookbook and TV show. Julie Powell on the other hand, is a woman who doesn't really seem to know what to do with her life and finds her answer in cooking.

I love to cook myself, so I'm excited for that part of it. But I think this movie also has the potential to be empowering. There's the Julia Child side of it: taking on the men of the cooking world and disproving all the nay-sayers. I've also heard that the book (I meant to read it before the movie came out, but I haven't gotten around to it) has a message of developing a healthy relationship with food and your body image. I hope that they keep this part in the movie. It would be great to see a movie with that kind of message.

3. Paper Heart



This movie looks really sweet and awkward. Paper Heart is about the making of a documentary starring a teenage (?) girl who does not believe in love and goes around interviewing people on the subject. Then she meets this boy (Michael Cera) and starts to fall for him, but of course all of their relationship has to be taped for the documentary. This movie just looks adorably awkward, not necessarily feminist. And it kind of looks along the lines of the overall story line of 500 Days of Summer with a documentary and awkward teens (but I would probably rather see 500 Days of Summer). But Paper Heart is only coming to "select theaters" on August 7, so that means that it probably won't be coming to Grand Rapids. But I'm excited to read about what other people think of it.