LSS: Zooey & M. (She & Him)

Apart from being always, always quirky in her roles, it turns out that there is still more to love about Zooey Deschanel. It’s no surprise that she can really sing, given that her voice has a really deep quality about it. And it turns out that as she was playing bit roles on films (way before her big TV break with New Girl), Zooey Deschanel was a musician first.

Of course there’s her very cool performance of “Sugar Town” on (500) Days of Summer, but her thing with singing is way bigger than her big blue eyes. It’s no secret that she’s in a band, She & Him, with M. Ward and I’m kinda bummed that it’s only until recently that I have started listening to their songs.

So far they have released two albums, with another one to be released real soon. It’s quite hard to go far down their catalogue, at least for me, mainly because there’s just too many songs from them. But I try, really hard, and it isn’t too difficult because I really dig their sound. With a very indie, retro, quirky vibe brought about by Deschanel’s vocals and all the instruments, played by both members, incorporated with their songs, listening to them is almost as easy as watching Zooey Deschanel on-screen.

A few of my favorites are Change is Hard (Volume 1), a cover of You Really Got A Hold On Me (Volume 1), Me and You (Volume 2) and their newest single called Never Wanted Your Love from their upcoming record- you guessed it- Volume 3.

Quirky or Not, Here I Rant

If there is one thing that I am most thankful for during the past couple of months, it’s got to be the resurfacing of my interest with movies. I mean, for the past several months, I can’t really seem to get my mind to focus on anything that lasts for more than an hour. I leaned towards tv shows since they have a shorter arcs.

Well, I don’t really go to see the latest releases on theaters for many reasons. I mean, it consumes time, money and energy. And I admit it, I have really despised any form of personal interactions with people during the past couple of months. I may have gotten in my head too much, but I think human interaction is overrated. And as a result of my constant lack of communication to the world outside of my head, I have grown the habit of saying “fuck” every fucking time.

Well, getting back to my point, I have streamed quite a few movies online over the past couple of months whenever I go online. Doing that has become the top priority whenever I get to be online on a computer, because doing fucked up things on social media is easier when done on a mobile phone.

I have streamed quite a range of movies online. I’ve seen some action, comedy, drama, indie, blockbusters. When you have all your time to waste online, you pretty much can do anything online. But whenever I look for movies to watch, I usually tend to get into really quirky independent movies because I think that they are really hard to find in the long run. And I find those movies more interesting.

It all started when I downloaded the quintessential quirky independent film, (500) Days of Summer with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Who the hell didn’t find that film amazing? Zooey Deschanel was a very beautiful heart breaker there.

After that, I just started to grow fascination with films of that same level of quirkiness and rawness. The first one I saw after 500 Days was ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ starring Mark Duplass, Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson. And man, did I enjoy that movie. It’s hilarious and touching and just fascinating in all the right fucking places. And the twist on the end is just mind-blowing. Every character on both Plot A and B did an amazing job getting the whole point of the film across.

Then there is this very hippie, romantic-comedy indie entitled ‘Ceremony’ starring Uma Thurman. It’s different in such a way that it gets you thinking what really the message is because the film can go several ways, depending on how you see it. Plus the cinematography is just beautiful in a very hipster way.

I also genres other than comedy. I really liked the critically acclaimed ‘Winter’s Bone‘ starring the very talented Jennifer Lawrence. The film is very raw and well executed. Jennifer Lawrence is pretty much Katniss Everdeen here, trying to make things work and protect her poor family on the Ozarks. There is something very eerie yet effective on both Jennifer Lawrence’s performance and the film itself. (I’m looking forward to her new movie, Silver Linings Playbook. I think it’s a beautiful film.)

And since I am all for the weird and quirky (and perky), I also liked Paul Rudd’s ‘Our Idiot Brother‘ with Elizabeth Banks and Zooey Deschanel. Paul Rudd’s Ned, the titular idiot brother just adds insult to injury to his three sisters’ equally fucked up, dysfunctional lives in a very light-hearted way. It was an easy watch and was beautifully shot. It’s hilarious and ridiculous in a very cute way. Plus Zooey (yes, we address each other on a first name basis, thank you) is a very beautiful hipster lesbian, cursing and peeing on a pregnancy kit like fuck.

Ryan Gosling’s ‘Lars and the Real Girl‘ has got to be the most strangely heartwarming movie I have seen in a while. It is very strange but somehow very effective in telling the story of Lars and Bianca, well mainly of Lars’ struggle to feel things. It’s really strange watching it back to back with the film ‘Drive‘ in which Gosling takes on a very extremely opposing character to Lars.

Well, other than those I have mentioned above, I also really liked the more mainstream movies 50/50, Knocked Up, Easy A (Emma Stone is hilarious!), Zombieland and Bridesmaids (the whole film is hilarious!).

So, yeah, the time I am not spending living my life and interacting with friends and people I spend trying to find my fucking life in these movies. Well, they can say all what they want about life not being a movie but I will keep on streaming for free.