I felt very connected to these storylines
I’m making a short list of movies that have marked me, from the story to the ambience and the acting… everything in the movies down below really kept my focus deeply interested from beginning to end, and they definitevely left something with me after watching them.
1. Black Swan, 2010
It’s about this wannabe “prima ballerina” who is obsessed with becoming so perfect in order to reach her almost impossible goal, that she’s actually losing her mind trying to achieve it. It gets darker and more intense as the movie unfolds, and it targets mental issues that I believe are more common than we’d like to admit.
2. Lovelace, 2013
I used to live in the Valley of Los Angeles for quite a while, and I adored it there, it has a reputation though and it’s nicknamed “Porn Valley” so obviously seeing pornstars casually getting Starbucks was not something I was unfamiliar with, although it was not as shady as it sounds… but I’ve always been interested in the behind the scenes of the porn industry, that’s why I checked this movie out. It’s really harsh and unpleasant what happens to Linda Lovelace, but it’s probably something everyone should watch.
3. The Wrestler, 2008
I’m a Mickey Rourke fan, and I was really excited when it was announced he would be the lead in this indie movie because it felt like for a while we didn’t get much of him on screen and he’s such a talented actor that he deserved something to measure up to his talent. This was a perfect fit for him in my opinion, he plays this washed out wrestler that has a couple of health and money issues, coupled with untraditional relations & breakdowns. It’s just a great movie, and it’s different from most.
4. Thirteen, 2003
I was actually thirteen years old when I saw this movie for the first time… so totally relatable, to a point. Evan Rachel Wood plays this Californian girl who’s got complicated issues to deal with for her young age, and obviously she starts acting out because she’s not able to handle things like an adult especially because the adults in her life are not the greatest example.
5. Monster, 2003
I think it’s after seeing this movie that my obsession with serial killers started… I was just so confused and scared of what a person can endure, act like, and come to be, that it was the beginning for me of trying to understand the minds of these so called people. I reckon that it’s unhealthy since it gives me nightmares, but somehow I can’t stop wondering why they are being so glamorized and have become such addictive topics to society.
6. The Virgin Suicides, 1999
This movie should be subtitled “the teenagehood depression”; Sofia Coppola is a mastermind at discerning teen angst and their feelings and accurately representing them. The Lisbon sisters are having what seems like at first, as quite a normal suburban life but in reality, behind the curtains it’s all kinds of wrong and it leads them to the ultimate sacrifice, which they prefer to keeping up any other way. It’s quite a shocking ending.
7. Into the Wild, 2007
I’m sure almost all of us at some point in our lives can relate to Emile Hirsch’s character. He’s fed up with society and its stubborn unbendable rules, he just wants to be free and exist for himself, and discover what life is really about. He goes on this road trip he’ll never be able to come back from, but at the end, even if it isn’t what he could have expected, he finally finds his answer.
These are the movies I’ve identified with the most
I picked six movies that I relate to a certain level, sometimes it’s just about the atmosphere not necesseraly the story, sometimes it’s more about the character’s feelings rather than what’s happening to them, but in all cases I’ve really felt close to what was depicted in my own way.
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene, 2011
I think everyone gets to have an interesting childhood to some degree; mine was weird mostly because there’s a whole bunch I just can’t seem to remember. It’s like I blacked out for most of it, and there’s this uneasy feeling about what actually happened to my life then. Which is why I relate to Martha in this movie, even her hallucinations and bursts.
2. Blue is the Warmest Color, 2013
I was a teenager going to high school when I fell in love for the first time, on sight… a bit like Adèle in the movie did. It was unexpected and definitevely not what I had imagined. It was something really special, and it changed what I thought of myself & the world forever.
3. Welcome to the Rileys, 2010
Mallory is kind of a runaway, we don’t know where she comes from and why she’s the way she is; which is the type of person I became after I left my first love. I couldn’t handle certain things so I just packed and left everything, even though I was still way too young for a life like that on the road. I was secretive, but I met great people who ultimately lead me back home.
4. To the Bone, 2017
This was the worst peak of my life – back home, I had to deal with my eating disorder. I looked like a ghost of myself, my parents in an attempt to help me get through it gave me the one thing they knew would make me happy : they sent me away to study abroad in Los Angeles, it had always been a dream of mine. I met my best friend there and we became like family to each other, stranded across the world in the strangest of cities together.
5. La La Land, 2016
Then I think I fell in love again… but who could say really. It was such a short-lived romance if I can call it that way, but in the midst & glamour of the city of angels it felt like magic. I had never felt so light and safe before, it didn’t need words. That’s when I realized that my heart belonged forever to LA, and that it had chosen this place because of that moment in time, as the only place that I could ever consider as my real home.
6. Paper Towns, 2015
Then the real life struggles hit me, which I wasn’t prepared for and did not want to take responsibility of. I realized that maybe I could never make my dreams come true, but I did not want to just give up and become the cliché that is anyone else I knew. I didn’t want to fit in, and be part of society the way it was demanded of me, I wanted to be free so I ran… and I’m still on the run. Like Margo, and my best friends are supporting me & they mean the world.
MADISON KENNEDY
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Palms, pier and the ocean
I love spending time in Malibu, the beaches there are absolutely gorgeous… the sign at the entrance of the city says “27 miles of scenic beauty” and it couldn’t be more right. It’s just the perfect description; that and the million-dollars villas, the expensive cars racing Pacific Coast Highway, the fanciest restaurants with magical views – I’m in love.
Nothing that some time on the beach can’t solve
Two quick shots taken with a phone from the Manhattan Beach pier, and Redondo Beach in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. I used to live around for a while until I moved up the city. Always love coming back here and chill, to look at the ocean, sit in the sand and breath the salt in the air.
Madison Kennedy 