The First Time

Written March 16, 2013

So what do you do when you wake up unnecessarily early on a Saturday morning? Watch a teenybop movie, of course! Anyone who knows me well knows that teeny bop movies (and sadly, teenybop music) are my guilty pleasure. I keep expecting to grow out of it but instead, I just become slightly more selective about which teenybop products I will consume. And no, I’m not desperately trying to cling on to some half-baked notion of perma-adolescence. I just really enjoy teen movies from the ’80s (Can’t Buy Me Love, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and ’90s (Clueless, She’s All That) right up to the present. Especially everything that came out during the teen movie invasion of the late ’90s to early ’00s. (Who didn’t love Bring It On?!)

But I digress… Today’s pick: The First Time, a cute teen movie about, what else, losing your virginity. The lead characters Aubrey (Britt Robertson from TV’s short-lived series, Life Unexpected) and Dave (Dylan O’Brien, I think?) were so incredibly likeable. It was also refreshing to see a teen drama where the actors actually look like the age of the characters they’re playing (ahem, Beverley Hills 90210 and pretty much every Freddie Prinze Jr. movie).

Celeste & Jesse Forever

Written March 10, 2013

While hanging out at home with my roommate on a lazy Saturday afternoon, we decided to watch Celeste & Jesse Forever. It’s billed as a divorce romantic comedy. A what? Yeah, I know. I didn’t think that was a thing either. Turns out when done properly, it really is a thing. Basically, this movie is like a mic drop to the divorce romantic comedy genre. (If you don’t get the mic drop reference, go ahead and click on this link to President Obama slow jamming the news on Jimmy Fallon, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAFQIciWsF4.)

Let me be clear, though… I was prepared to love this movie right from the start because I am certain that if Rashida Jones (co-writer and lead character, Celeste) and I were to ever meet in real life, we would be friends instantly. It might be one of those weird friendships where I spend most of the time telling her how incredibly cool I think she is but that’s okay. Friendships take on many forms, like in Celeste & Jesse Forever. The movie opens with a lovely montage which provides us with the background into Celeste & Jesse’s relationship. It’s a clever plot device that quickly allows us to feel like we know the couple right from the start.