Trainwreck: A Review

  So Tuesday night I took a much needed filming break to see a movie with one of my best friends. My friend Krista and I had been eager to see Trainwreck since we saw the first trailer, and it didn't disappoint. Not only was it the perfect Girl's Night Out movie, but it was perfectly applicable to our lives, and how we feel about relationships at the moment. I flip back and forth between thinking I want a relationship and thinking there's nothing I want LESS. But I don't think that makes me a "Trainwreck." 

  One (admittedly nitpicky) thing I didn't like was that Amy Schumer's character has to be considered a "Trainwreck." I know throughout the course of the movie you discover that she's actually not, she's pretty normal...or what is considered the norm for men, anyway. But I am a firm believer that the language we use to identify and classify is extremely important. So by calling her a "Trainwreck," we imply that women who act like men are unnatural, and akin to a transportation disaster. That kind of thinking is hypocritical, sexist, and there's something extremely wrong with it. Although I do understand that there are only so many title options. Judd Apatow couldn't very well call this film, "A woman who acts like a man..." but I think there could've been a better option than likening her to a literal disaster.

  Anyway, let's get into all the reasons why I loved this movie, without giving away any spoilers. 

  1) There was no girl on girl hate. 

  2) It was the most body-positive romantic comedy I've ever seen. No comments were made about Amy Schumer's body size. There was never a fat joke, and she never needed to be told that she was beautiful. She was confident and comfortable in her own skin, and that was something really refreshing and honestly inspiring to see in a movie whose target audience is (young) women. 

  3) It was sex-positive. I'm so sick of this (genderized) hypocrisy when it comes to sex. In our culture it seems that women aren't permitted to deny sex, but if they dare to enjoy it they're considered sluts. As Allison so astutely put it in John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, "It's a trap." Amy Schumer's character is therefore so refreshing. She's a leading lady who likes sex and isn't afraid to say so, and at no point in the movie does anyone other than herself accuse her of being a slut for it. That is to say, there was no slut-shaming of any kind. 

  4) The overall message of the movie was the kind of feminism I want to see. Basically it was this: "If you wanna date, get it girl. If you wanna have casual sex, get it girl. If you wanna get married and have babies, get it girl." That's what I walked away thinking, and I feel like that's really cool. No one should be shamed for what they want. Whether we're talking about slut shaming or marriage and baby shaming, it all has to go. 

  Essentially, this film was a commentary on the consumerist romance culture we have in our society today, and the negative effects it can have on us. I think most women (and probably men, but I can only speak for women) feel this immense pressure to live up to movies and tv shows when it comes to romance and relationships. And that's such a tall order, we don't even know where to begin. So we don't. So we're often left sad and terrified about feeling unable to participate in love. But really it's society that has the problem, not us. That's why so many of the moments in this film were so poignant. Amy Schumer is funny while also being intensely down to earth, relatable, and real. I'd definitely want to get waffles with her. 

 -Fran

Always Time To Do It Over...

                                 
  So…filming a web series. It seems like that's all I ever talk about anymore, but that's because it's all I ever do anymore. And with so many overlapping schedules and ever-dwindling time left in the summer, time has been the number one thing on my mind. How much we have, how much we don’t have, how much we can do with what we have left.

  I expressed these feelings to my friend Sam on Friday evening, before we began the massive undertaking of attempting to film an entire episode in one weekend. And he very astutely said, "There's always time to do it over, never time to do it right." Which was, essentially, exactly what I needed to hear. And he was completely right. There's always time to shoot and film the same scene over and over again. So if there's time for that, isn't there also time to get it done right the first time? It was a good thing to keep in mind over the course of a fifteen hour filming weekend. In the end, we got more done than I even dared to hope for. On Saturday alone, we filmed 90% of the third (and most daunting) episode of OVERDUE.

  Come Sunday, however, I was exhausted. After so much time off in the past two years, with only working at the library to keep me occupied, I never thought I'd be so grateful for a day off. Time to just sit around, take a bath, read and watch tv. But Sunday was that much needed break, and I loved it. It was especially satisfying because I knew we had done so much the day before, and I had therefore earned it. I ended up spending the entire day on the couch, watching The X-Files and editing the next few scripts. (I can't help it. I have to be a tiny bit productive every day.) I watched 10 episodes and prepared the scripts for the next few weeks. And even though that was literally all I did all day, I'm happy about it.

  Heading into yet another daunting filming weekend, I'm most certainly going to keep Sam's sage words of advice in mind. Just breathe and focus, Fran. There's always time to do it over, but never time to do it right.

  I realize this blog post has been more of a pep-talk to myself than anything else, but it's what I need right now. So I hope you don't mind.

  -Fran

A Balanced (& Busy) Bee

  I have been SO BUSY. Between filming my web series, reading, writing, watching The X-Files and of course hanging out with friends and enjoying the summer, I feel like I’ve barely been home at all this month. Which is kind of great but also kind of exhausting.

  Work: Filming the web series has been an exhausting but worthwhile experience. It has taken up every single evening and weekend I’ve had to spare, but I’m okay with it, because I think we’re going to have something really awesome in the end. In other creative news, I'm planning an art project with my friend Cole. I've never done a piece of art with someone else before, so I'm simultaneously excited and scared. I love painting and making art in general, but I haven't put brush to canvas in nearly 2 years. Other things (like writing and video-making) have taken up that time, so I'm excited to have motivation to get back into it again.

  Friends: This past weekend I went to the Finger Lakes Lavender Festival, which I also went to with friends last year. We picked fresh lavender, had some pretty photoshoots and pretended to be the members of Haim. (Or at least I did...) I got a sunburn due to my alabaster complexion, which I didn’t discover until I went to a pool party later. But hey, what’s summer without a few mistakes, right? On Sunday I went to brunch with my friends Kelsey, Sam, and Andrew, and from there we went to see Kelsey and Sam's brand-new roasting location for Peaks Coffee Company. It's a small space, but the perfect starter location. I'm just so proud of my best friend and all she's accomplished in the past year. We both had rocky starts to our first year post-high school, but we had each other. And now I'm happy to say that we're both on our way to doing what we want to do. We're getting there. Slowly but surely, we're getting there.

  R&R: Just today I learned that I could connect my computer to the tv and have dual screens. I’m currently watching an episode of The X-Files with my brother while I write this. I’ve also been reading a lot more. I’ve always said that if I’m not reading, consistently reading, I feel pretty sad and dead inside. So needless to say I feel pretty good right now. I’m currently reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, a pretty huge undertaking, but I’m not doing it alone. I'm reading it with my friend Andrew, and we’ve been motivating each other to keep reading. The book is confusing and often terrifying, but having someone with whom I can discuss the insane plot has made things easier. I’ve never done a “buddy read” before, but I would definitely do it again, and I’m glad I decided to start with this book. Next, The X-Files. I’m not going to lie, I lost steam with it for a while there. Season 2 just got kind of boring and I had to stop for a while. But recently I picked it up again and realized that it’s everything I love. Conspiracy theories, spooky (unexplained) happenings, scary monsters, sexual tension, and aliens of course. I’m well into season 4, and am so glad I have nine seasons and 2 movies to distract me when I need some down time.

  Anyway, all of this is my long-winded way of saying that I'm happy, because I finally feel like I have this balance to my life. This balance of reading, writing, watching, working, and having fun that I've been so desperate for for a while now. Who knows, maybe I'll publish this post and all of that will fall apart, but for now it's really good. And so I just wanted to document the glorious existence of this mystical balance.

 -Fran

Wicked & Free

  
  So on Wednesday I met with my mentor at my orientation for Empire State College, and we talked about a lot of things, including my future as a student. But we also strayed to the subject of my name, Francesca Cacace, and what it means. I already knew that Francesca means free, but she was very interested to know what Cacace meant. We looked it up, and it turns out it means wicked. “Wicked and free” she repeated over and over, “wicked and free.” And that stuck in my head. 

  Like hell yeah, I am wicked and free. This year has already been so much better than the previous two. I’ve made more, loved more, been happier more. And I haven’t been constantly aware of the passage of time, as I was in the past. This year has, for the first time in a long time, truly flown by. But for the rest of this year, and hopefully the foreseeable future as well, I want to stay in that mindset of being wicked and free. I want to be free— free of fear, free of self-inflicted pain and doubts, free of things holding me back. Free to do what I want and be who I want. And I want to be wicked. By that I mean, not so cautious. Not so hesitant. Not so…meek. I want to be wicked, I want to be free, I want to feel alive and happy and like I’m having so much fun my excitement borders on anxiety. So this is a message to you all. From here on out, I’m going to be wicked and free. 

Who will you be?

 -Fran

A Message to My Fellow Creators

  

   If you're working some dead end job that doesn't make you feel anything, get out of there. If you're just there for the money, and not a single aspect of it gives you joy, that's not a good situation. I think every job you work should inspire you in some way. Even if it's not what you plan on doing for the rest of your life, even if you're only there because you need a job, if it inspires you in some way, then it's not a waste of your time. People like to think of life as this all-out rat race. Do this to get here, work this job to get there. It's always do this, then that. But maybe life doesn't have to be that way. Maybe here can just be here. And maybe it'll inspire something that'll one day take you there, but I think if we look at everything in life as the next square on the board that'll take us to the next thing, that's not much of a life. 

  I started working at the library because I decided I wanted a job, and I thought I would like working in an environment full of books. And while I have struggled with it a lot, as I've struggled to find my identity outside of student-hood, I've decided recently that it was the best choice I could've made. Having a job made me feel secure, being around books made me feel safe and happy, and that lead to me having this idea for a web series, which has made me feel really excited and creatively fulfilled. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can't see the long term in something that makes you happy in the day to day, don't worry about it. If it makes you happy, that means you're doing something right. And hopefully one day, it'll make sense. I know that sounds like soppy nonsense, but at the moment, I really believe it. I haven't had the easiest road, but I'm happy and excited right now, and I'm trying to decode how exactly this came to be. 

  -Fran