FILM 1956: A SIMPLE FAVOUR

FILM 1956: A SIMPLE FAVOUR

TRIVIA: The gin used in the martinis shared by Anna and Blake's charaters is Aviation (American) Gin, a company owned by Blake Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds.

One of the reasons that Blake Lively wanted Emily to wear suits was because she wanted to differentiate Emily from the character she played on "Gossip Girl." Both characters are women in fashion from the Upper East Side. "I wanted it to be a very different look and vibe," she says.

Blake Lively wanted to create an iconic look for her character. She drew inspiration from Paul Feig's style in real life - "the buttoned up, three piece suit, bow tie, pocket square, cuff link wearing version."

The most prominent part of the soundtrack consists of French songs from the '60s.

In an interview, Anna Kendrick recalled the scene where Stephanie goes to Emily's house as being particularly fun to film. She says, "we found a way to kind of flirt with each other that was really fun, even though the things we're saying don't necessarily have that element."

Director of photography John Schwartzman was inspired by the "brightly lit, poppy colors" of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet." He says, "The idea was to not try to hide things in the shadows on this movie. Let's put it all out there in plain sight and let the audience figure out all the information."

The theme that screenwriter Jessica Sharzer was most interested in exploring was how society often forces women to choose one role to play in life, then penalizes them for breaking out of that role. "I like that this story looks at how different women decide between career and children."

Costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus researched real mommy vloggers on Instagram for inspiration in creating Stephanie's look. The sweater that she wears with the pom poms was inspired by one vlog that was very "This is how you DIY kitty cats on your collar," as Kalfus puts it. (Stephanie actually does wear cats on her collar earlier in the film when she gets in touch with Sean in London.)

In order to help the audience feel as though they were really following Stephanie's vlogs, director of photography John Schwartzman chose to re-film the vlog scenes as they played back on a very high-resolution monitor. The technique allowed him to incorporate the detailed texture of the pixels on screen.

Director Paul Feig worked with Linda Cardellini, who plays Diana Hyland, on "Freaks and Geeks". He was thrilled to get another chance to work with her after 17 years.

The director of photography, John Schwartzman, previously worked on major motion pictures like "The Rock," "Jurassic World," and "Pearl Harbor." Schwartzman went to film school with Feig, but this is the first time they have worked on a film together.

BOOK 194: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK: MARK MANSON

BOOK 194: THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK: MARK MANSON 

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger shows us that the key to being happier is to stop trying to be “positive” all the time and instead to become better at handling adversity.

For decades we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life.
But those days are over. “Fuck positivity,” Mark Manson says. “Let’s be honest; sometimes things are fucked up and we have to live with it.” For the past few years, Manson—via his wildly popular blog—has been working on correcting our delusional expectations for ourselves and for the world. He now brings his hard-fought wisdom to this groundbreaking book.

Manson makes the argument—backed by both academic research and well-timed poop jokes—that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to better stomach lemons. Human beings are flawed and limited—as he writes, “Not everybody can be extraordinary—there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. This, he says, is the real source of empowerment. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties—once we stop running from and avoiding, and start confronting painful truths—we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.

“In life, we have a limited amount of fucks to give. So you must choose your fucks wisely.” Manson brings a much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor. This manifesto is a refreshing slap in the face for all of us so that we can start to lead more contented, grounded lives.

MY VERDICT: I started off by really enjoying this book, the reference to Bukowski in the first chapter spoke to me. But after that, this book kind of lost me. The advice seemed to repeat itself over and over, and although the message of the book, which was to focus on some things to care about and learn that some things are not worth spending time worrying about was good, it didn’t seem enough to fill a book. I think this advice was better suited to a pamphlet to be honest. I read to the end but I had already become quite bored and couldn’t wait to finish it – luckily it was quite short.

BOOK 112: BLOG INC. : JOY DEANGDEELERT CHO

As someone who has kept a blog for a couple of years now I found this book very interesting.  It has inspired me to make more personal blog posts and not to worry too much about what people will think of me and just put myself out there.

There are some very helpful tips for people to blog as a full time job, which was fascinating but didn’t really apply to me.  I’m happy to blog as a hobby and entirely for fun and this book was just as useful to me as those who blog for profit.