Filed under: media,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 9:42 am
These days, the stories we hear about kidz and the technology are often cautionary tales: strangers! sexting! TEXT NECK! But Nancy Schwartzman — producer and director of the in-the-works film xoxosms — wants to tell a different, more salutary tale: about (young) people forging relationships that may start as virtual, but are very, very real.
“xoxosms is about first love, long distance and Skype. It looks closely at one young couple who — like many — met online and fell in love before ever meeting each other,” says Schwartzman. “There’s a tension between their ‘digital intimacy’ and real life, and the film explores the way the digital world, full of intimacy, bonding, sweetness, is a way to mitigate the hard stuff of growing up and having sex. A way to be close without things getting too confusing.”
The documentary tells the true love story of Gus and Jiyun — a home schooled 19-year-old from a religious family in small-town Illinois and a 19-year-old Korea-born New York City art student — who met nearly a year ago in possibly the only place two people so different might ever find each other: The Internet. Over the past 18 months, they have built an intensely intimate world via Skype, AIM and iChat. They are each other’s very first loves, and through the Internet, they have established a connection that feels as real as if they were right there beside each other.
Help xoxosms have a happy ending! You can kick in a few bucks here to help Schwartzman & co. complete their project. (They’re already over halfway there, with 19 days to go!) You can share your story at their Tumblr, “Without the Internet We Never Would Have Met.” And you can watch the trailer, oh, right now!
Seinfeld, Schmeinfeld. Now there’s a comedy documentary featuring/involving no fewer than five beloved alums of Breakup Girl LIVE, including the magnificently talented and dare we say dashing Rob P. (alter ego of Defender Stratocaster), who wrote and performed all Breakup Girl music ever on stage and screen. (Oh, wait! Seinfeld, in fact, also performed at Breakup Girl LIVE. True story! And a really long one.) Anyway! Kristen Schaal!
Sadly, it’s not out until June, so we can’t say it’s the perfect Valentine’s Day escape into refreshingly funny alternative jokes about why you’re alone. But in the meantime, enjoy the new trailer, and watch this space for more!
Tagline: Alternative IS the mainstream. W00t! Tell that to your high school.
Two new movies starring four very attractive people pose the questions: (1) Can “friends with benefits” arrangements work? and (2) Natalie Portman?! On (1) I’m leaning no, if only on the grounds that I would definitely fall for Justin Timberlake.
But Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon.com gives the matter deeper consideration. But her bottom line is basically this: “When you talk to people who have been there and done that — and even those who are continuing to do that — the response is overwhelmingly negative. As my own former ‘friend with benefits’ put it, ‘I’ve been in so many of these situations and, basically, they work until they don’t.'”
Read the rest (Tracy does a bunch of reporting and covers a lot of thoughtful ground) and let us know what you think: Does FWB ever benefit anyone? Under what particular circumstances? Share away, ’cause don’t worry; we won’t expect anything more from you than a good time. 😉
Currently making the rounds: a thoroughly modern tale of revenge via Netflix. As Helena Popkin reports at MSNBC:
It takes a cuckold of true imagination, and at least a passing knowledge of the Netflix movie-suggesting algorithm to strike out in a subtle and personal way, it wins the (somewhat horrified) admiration of Web community Reddit, the primordial ooze of current Internet creativity.
“My girlfriend cheated on me, so I rated movies in her netflix account until I reached the desired result,” wrote Reddit user Contra3, who posted the…screen grab [at right] as evidence of his handiwork.
As you’ll see, a theme has emerged among the movies Netflix now thinks Girlfriend Non Grata will <3, such as The Scarlet Letter, Unfaithful, and, well, Whore. While BG generally objects to revenge (and, for that matter, to using “whore” and “slut” as insults), I gotta say this one made me crack a smile. So now the bar’s set pretty high. Next time you contemplate revenge, ask yourself: is my scheme as clever/elegant/no-one-(else)-gets-hurt as Contra3’s? (And does it involve Bambi?)
From our tipster: “This is like doing Pop Rocks and Coke…. put two great things together and IT’S SO GOOD IT CAN KILL YOU. These guys don’t quite do it up to its potential, but it’s just so cool to think, ‘Oh, man, you know what would ROCK? Is if Joss Whedon directed the Avengers. Ha! As IF….'”
…may include the fact that he is engaged to a woman 24 years older than him. (I have no problem with this. I just want to know what they talk about.) Still, as our tipster says, “I’m probably hopelessly wrong, but they both seem kind of adorable and unconventional. I’m a sucker for an ‘up yours, world!’ romance.”
Nerve lists ’em, from Christopher Reeve as Superman to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman to … well, we’re not telling. Check their roster and let us know what you think!
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