Today, Friday, I got a haircut. I didn't get my usual summer cut...it's not so usual now, is it? I went to a new place, too, but I'm afraid the name of the place has escaped my mind. I woke up this morning feeling shitty because my mom has her heart set on making all of my hair go away. All I felt like doing was to be difficult and brat my way out of it. I was worried about what to say to the lady, too. It turned out that all I did was get the back shaped up and she also trimmed my bangs. My hair now reaches only to the middle of my eyes. That's pretty short though.
Tomorrow is Nona and Papa's 50th Anniversary, and the scrapbook my mom put together is finally all done. My page was the last page (or my pageS, rather, plural). So that is certainly very exciting.
Last night, I rented a movie. Have you ever heard of "I am Sam?" Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer star in it. Oh, and cute Dakota Fanning is also in the movie. This movie was Dakota's first movie. I found out that she was in a Tide commercial, being the lucky little girl out of thousands who tried out to be in the commercial. So her debut to the world was made in a commercial. She has also been in a CSI episode, and I must find that episode. The first movie I saw her in was "Trapped," which was originally entitled "24 Hours," and she is really good in that. She was also in one of the last 3 episodes of "Friends."
"I am Sam" is about a man who has a mental disability, meaning he is retarded, who has a girlfriend who gets pregnant. He is so happy to be a father and then the mother runs off in a crowd, leaving him with his daughter. With the help of one of his neighbor's, who complained that the baby was too loud, he feeds her and cares for her and she grows up to be...cute Dakota Fanning. In Dakota's first scene, she asks her father why he is "different." Then, after he asks what she means a couple times, she tells him that she is very lucky. She goes to school, and Sam learns with her about all the different grade school subjects.
Dakota meets a boy at school and this boy is a rude little son of a bitch. He tells Sam that his daughter said that she was adopted.
See, Dakota Fanning plays a smart little girl, like most of her roles. Sam, being a sweet man, but retarded nontheless, gives her all the love she needs. He loves her very much and his friends help raise her. His friends have mental problems also, one guy has seen so many movies (played by Doug Hutchinson) and talks about a movie in every sentence he gives, and another complains about everything. Those are among other friends, too. Dakota's role in the movie is the daughter of a man who is very different from her father. She is much smarter. The movie says that Sam has the mind of a 7-year old, and cute Dakota Fanning, Lucy, is turning 7 or 8 years old in the movie.
Sam and Lucy, his daughter, read together for school and Sam always loves reading "Green Eggs and Ham" to her every night. Lucy starts holding her back in school because she's starting to be able to read better than her father. So the school starts asking questions and soon decides that her living with her father is not the best thing for him. So, in a court session, the judge demands that Lucy is taken away from him.
The plot of the movie is for Sam, to meet and hire a lawyer, who ends up being Michelle Pfeiffer, who's friends make fun of her because she never does "probono" cases, which means free. So it turns out that she goes on Sam's case for free, he pays no money, and the case is for Sam to get his daughter back. There's the plot. Heartbreaking, huh? I recommend this movie to anybody who likes to cry.
Any movie that makes me cry is a good movie. Sean Penn is just such an awesome actor too. He plays a retard, but in the movie, he seems to be smarter than what he should be. He just talks funny. Although the movie is around two hours, I never wanted it to end. There is no way I would have ever fallen asleep to it. Sam is such a sweet character, he's a sweet guy. There is one scene in the movie (my absolute favorite) when Sam cries out to Michelle's character that she doesn't know what it's like to "try and try and try and never get there." He says to her that she wouldn't understand what it's like for people "like" him. She yells back at him that her life is always about being held back. Her son never listens to her, her husband "is out, screwing women who are so much more perfect" than her. Sam called her perfect. Michelle gives a career-defining performance in this one scene, crying out to Sam. Sam ends up giving her a hug and then showering her with kisses to make her feel better.
Michelle Pfeiffer plays a stressed out lawyer with a child and a husband that have their own sub-plots and problems.
I would have cried so much more to that movie, but I wasn't giving myself the satisfaction that other actors can make me cry.
I loved the movie and I give it a 9/10. I took one star away for all of you people out there who wouldn't want to watch the movie over and over. Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a C-, but I don't really understand why. Most men probably wouldn't like the movie. I loved it, and now I have great respect for Sean Penn. He's also REALLY good in "Mystic River," and his characters are very different.
I wanna know why Michelle didn't get an academy award for her role in "I am Sam." She's so wonderful. Michelle is an awesome actress. I actually fell in love with her character.
"Sam (Sean Penn), who has the mind of a 7-year-old, watches his daughter being taken away from him by social services. He seeks the assistance of a workaholic lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer) and inadvertently teaches her that family is more important than career."
See the movie.
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