Does Love Complete?

I love you. You complete me. –Jerry Maguire

That’s probably the most famous line in the movie (besides Renee Zellweger’s response). Many people know this line without having even heard of the movie, maybe because it’s so cheesy or its repetition throughout pop culture. If kids today know this line because of The Dark Knight, which came out twelve years after Jerry Maguire, this would be pretty awesome (though the context in the situations is completely different so interpretation may be odd). However, though it may be a cliché, I think that it’s probably one of the few clichés or platitudes about love that is actually right or true.


Is it a universal truth though? I am probably not the person to ask when it comes to this, since there are accounts of people happily living alone and single with no worries or need to fill up a void. What I do know is that there are many people who don’t see it that way, including yours truly. Now, if I had to choose one reason why that would apply to me, I guess it would be loneliness. I’ve always thought that loneliness was the flip-side of love, rather than hate. I see love as collaboration, and that doesn’t really happen when you’re alone. I’m not saying that loneliness gets cured once you find yourself a girlfriend or boyfriend, if that was the case then things would be a little easier.


Instead of the shift from “single” to “taken,” it’s more of a realization that you are moving from a person alone in the world, out on your own, to someone who’s capable of being loved. And I’m not saying this is about becoming a better person. No. This is about knowing that you exist in a space where someone could love you no matter what you did, that you can exist in a space where forgiveness is always possible with enough time and healing.



I’d like that love to be possible, it’s just hard to trust that space because who actually does love unconditionally and accept you for who you are? For me, in my past relationships (and friendships), I doubted the validity and consistency of things like that, waiting for things to fall apart.


Here’s the thing, I don’t know whether or not love completes. There’s no way to be absolutely certain that it could, since it may or may not be true. But if it’s a lie, it’s the most beautiful lie we have. That’s probably why I still believe that love can complete, maybe because I want to believe it.

Blue Valentine

I never want to be like my parents. I know they must've loved each other at one time right? To just get it all out of the way before they had me. How do you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that? –Cindy

For as long as I can remember, the main message of any romantic movie was that love was this amazing thing that solved everything and would last forever. One example that comes to mind is the ending of “When Harry Met Sally.” The original ending the director had in mind was that the titular characters don’t end up together. Billy Crystal would say his touching speech, and Meg Ryan would just say no, but the studio wanted a more commercial ending, something more cinematic and less realistic. The director, Rob Reiner, has stated that if you were to think realistically, Harry and Sally would not have kissed and gotten married.

However, the main message of Blue Valentine would probably be “Maybe it doesn’t last forever,” something that is not always addressed in films. The movie itself is simple. It shows the beginning of the relationship and the end of the relationship in a nonlinear fashion. The middle of the relationship is up to the viewer’s interpretation.

It moves between past and present showing us the highs and lows of the relationship. What I like about this movie is that it is unlike many of its peers; it is never schmaltzy or cheesy. Everything feels genuine. When we see them falling in love, we believe it and when we see them falling out of love, we believe it. Yet we know that this relationship is doomed to fail because that’s the other half of the movie we’re watching and the red flags are obvious even in the falling in love segments of the movie. They make stupid, irrational decisions that lead to their marriage. And let’s be honest, when young and in love, lots of people make stupid and irrational decisions.

Cindy gets knocked up by her douche ex-boyfriend, and Dean (the male lead) supports her anyway. When she cannot go through with the abortion, he decides to marry her and even help raise this other guy’s kid. Not to mention the fact that this other guy also beat up Dean at work (seriously, that guy’s a tool). Needless to say, Dean is a genuinely good man. The problem with this situation though is that when he decides to marry her, he immediately says it out loud: “Let’s raise a family.” He says this on the bus, she agrees and then they hug.

Marriage is a really big deal and it is not something you just decide on a whim. I’ve heard of many couples that have done this. I know lots of movies where this is deemed ok, it ends with a wedding and everything is hunky dory.

With Blue Valentine, we show what happens after the wedding. And though Dean is still a good man, loving his wife and daughter, that isn’t enough. Cindy grows to resent him. At one point, she asks him if he ever wanted to do anything with his life, that he has so much potential. Dean then says that he is perfectly happy with being the devoted family man, and nothing else. Lots of people who’ve seen this movie say that Cindy is portrayed in a negative light, and I guess I can see why they would think so but I think it portrays both characters fairly. I don’t think it’s fair to solely criticize Cindy, it was inevitable. They never should have married in the first place, but she was young, pregnant, and scared. You can’t really blame her for that. Plus, Dean has no other aspirations in his life, and most of the time he’s either chain-smoking or drinking. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s still a good guy, but it’s important to consider that.

Blue Valentine is that rare movie that dares to go beyond what you’d expect, and is probably the most realistic out of any movie that is about love or relationships. More people should see it.

RIP Steve Jobs

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true."

Intro To The Ten

Yes!

I have not abandoned the blogosphere, and it's only been... six days? OK, wow. That is a lot. Hopefully, I can make this a little more consistent. Actually, it'd be even better if people actually read this thing, so that they can nag me into coming back. That's if I actually have any good content here. Oh dear, I should stop.

Alright, now to the main focus of this post. For some reason, 10 has always been the number that we go to when we refer to big important things: The Ten Commandments, The Top 10 Hits of 2011, 10 Things I Hate About You. It's always the number 10. 

I have decided to chronicle the ten movies that gave me the love and passion I have for movies. I'm not going to list it down from 10 to 1, because though I have a solid idea on what my favorite movie is (at the moment), ranking 2 to 10 is really complicated for me, since the order is likely to change often.

I'm hoping to get some actual work done on them, and if I were to quit blogging again, I would like to have at least completed writing about the ten movies that changed me.

An Attempt At Blogging....again

This is not my first blog post.

I have tried this before. It was three years ago. I was all set and excited. I was going to write every single day. It was going to be beast yo.

Five posts and I was gone.

I wasn't exactly disappointed in myself. It wasn't as if the lack of a blog left a gaping hole in my life, but the more and more I think about it, I'd have things to say about certain subjects and I figured "Why not try again?" So, I decided to have another go at it. Perhaps I could maybe stick to it this time. I think I really got interested again when a friend of mine told me to start a blog, and I thought about it a lot. Then again, I made a YouTube channel, and I stopped after three videos.

I think that starting this is pretty much my attempt at not only getting my voice out there, but to also try to stay consistent with a project, whether it be blogs, YouTube videos, or scripts (crap, I should start working on that).

If there's gonna be a recurring subject in these posts, it will be movies. Yeah, it's definitely going to be movies. Maybe a rant every now and then or some opinion I'd have about a recent event, but expect loads of film-related posts.

That's if I actually post anything.