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Wank Actually
Jun. 24th, 2007 10:53 amI don't get why women feel that Love Actually is such a feelgood movie..but they do. When I saw it in the movie theaters in -03 I went with a bunch of girls and a few guys, and though the guys laughed in a few places it was really the females cooing over it.
I rent chick flicks sometimes when I need to totally relax and get repowered, often the kind where the heroine kicks ass with intellect and luck and gets the whole kielbasa, both romantically as well as career-wise. These flicks don't have to be intelligent, just as long as they are not too dumb, I'll get my emo-fix. Notable here is that I am yet to meet a guy who enjoys watching a flick mostly about women. Even the Geek, who dislikes alpha-males, has mostly female friends and works with kids would rather watch a mediocre air-force movie with me than Pride & Prejudice.
And I do enjoy the occasional mediocre air-force/army/action/mafia/secret agent movie.
Our common ground is of course scifi and drama, we both seek out quality in the latter and happily watch whatever crap with the former.
But feelgood should make you feel GOOD right? So yeah, in the plot of Love Actually we have the good looking, single almost-forty woman who has an office crush on a decade younger man and is too restrained and tied up in family obligations to really do anything about it even though he's begging for it.
What a hoot.
We have the forty-something, unlikely naive Prime Minister who according to his back-history has a fetish for chubby women and gets interested in a supposedly roundish assistant (about twenty years younger and NOT even overweight). The message here being LOOK LADIES, you can get PRIME MINISTER-luuve even if you have a round ass!
Joy.
Oh, and lets not forget the very hott Colin Firth who travels away to Spain or Portugal or wherever with a broken heart and just weeks after the fallout with his unfaithful girlfriend/wife falls for this skinny dark beauty who's a bazillion years younger and with whom HE CANNOT SPEAK one blessed single word due to language barriers.
Bliss
yeah, here we are all supposed to buy that Colin has found true love, even though they can't even talk to each other. Hmm yeah, this story would definitely happen if Colin was fat or Senorita whatshername was pushing forty.
And now for the best feel-good story of all: Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson's marriage. The intellectual husband, with an equally attractive intellectual wife about the same age (I think they are supposed to be in their late forties in the film, even though Rickman is older really), a couple of healthy smart kids spawned, etc. Been married for quite a while, been good friends, done tons of stuff together. And Rickman is about to start an affair with a woman who's (speak it in chorus:)A BAZILLION years younger.
Who the FUCK feels good after this??
Anyone who's had a spouse getting his/her head turned by some selfish bitch/bastard giving them their success/sob-story about their yearnings, childhood traumas, needs for attention knows that this isn't love, if anything it diminishes love to start any relationship that way. Unless we are talking about mr Rochester being married to the MAD WOMAN IN THE ATTIC. (the mad woman in the attic being Gilbert's & Gubar's eternal archetype for the older/unattractive/unrestrained woman who stands between the man and his new potential woman)
Well, I guess Emma Thompson didn't want to be the Mad Woman in the Attic, and that sequence of the movie ends in a form of stalemate.
Happinesssss
There are other episodes, but these weren't memorable enough for me to recollect coherently.
The ONLY part of the movie I really loved was the one about the skinny aging has-been musician who's trying to do a comeback. He and his fat manager are hilarious and the only reason I would ever rent that movie and watch it again.
Sure the film is well-played, but I still wonder what the fuck makes people feel-good? Probably the fact that it's British.
Yesterday we watched something fairly different thankfully. We went to the Denver Mayan, an old movie theater with a lot of ambiance (where you can get drinks in a classy little bar while watching movies) and saw the Japanese animated Scifi flick Paprika and the Russian 2:nd installation in a Scifi trilogy; Day Watch.
Paprika was fun, and the Japanese fetish for old men looking under the skirts of teenage schoolgirls is at least more honest than previous feelgood goop. And some bonuses like a very nice soundtrack and an adult anime-style!
Day Watch is probably impossible to follow if you haven't watched Night Watch. The story is clearly inspired by The World of Darkness Games system and books, no matter what Lukyanenko says. Or the coincidence is beyond incredible. But I don't care about that, the cosmology is cozy and likable for a Scifi/fantasy/horror buff, and the setting and people are refreshing. I really like seeing people that look like real people on film, particularly in occult movies, it really deepens the experience of the story. And in Day/Night Watch there is no Botox-forehead anywhere in sight. Even the attractive people look normal. Less airbrushing one has to suppose.
Also fun, not spectacular, but worth while and well played. And the subtitling is great.
I'm not sure all people around me got the Russian sense of humor though, which is a shame, since the actors made a good job giving it away (at some point I was the only one laughing in the theater, which is so rare it freaked me out!). I also don't know if I should find the fact worrisome or amusing that the Russians make a special shorter and simpler edition of the movie for the American market. They mostly cut out plot and calmer sequences from the movie and leave the action scenes intact. My Russian is very flawed, but I still would like to get my hands on longer editions of these films.
I rent chick flicks sometimes when I need to totally relax and get repowered, often the kind where the heroine kicks ass with intellect and luck and gets the whole kielbasa, both romantically as well as career-wise. These flicks don't have to be intelligent, just as long as they are not too dumb, I'll get my emo-fix. Notable here is that I am yet to meet a guy who enjoys watching a flick mostly about women. Even the Geek, who dislikes alpha-males, has mostly female friends and works with kids would rather watch a mediocre air-force movie with me than Pride & Prejudice.
And I do enjoy the occasional mediocre air-force/army/action/mafia/secret agent movie.
Our common ground is of course scifi and drama, we both seek out quality in the latter and happily watch whatever crap with the former.
But feelgood should make you feel GOOD right? So yeah, in the plot of Love Actually we have the good looking, single almost-forty woman who has an office crush on a decade younger man and is too restrained and tied up in family obligations to really do anything about it even though he's begging for it.
What a hoot.
We have the forty-something, unlikely naive Prime Minister who according to his back-history has a fetish for chubby women and gets interested in a supposedly roundish assistant (about twenty years younger and NOT even overweight). The message here being LOOK LADIES, you can get PRIME MINISTER-luuve even if you have a round ass!
Joy.
Oh, and lets not forget the very hott Colin Firth who travels away to Spain or Portugal or wherever with a broken heart and just weeks after the fallout with his unfaithful girlfriend/wife falls for this skinny dark beauty who's a bazillion years younger and with whom HE CANNOT SPEAK one blessed single word due to language barriers.
Bliss
yeah, here we are all supposed to buy that Colin has found true love, even though they can't even talk to each other. Hmm yeah, this story would definitely happen if Colin was fat or Senorita whatshername was pushing forty.
And now for the best feel-good story of all: Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson's marriage. The intellectual husband, with an equally attractive intellectual wife about the same age (I think they are supposed to be in their late forties in the film, even though Rickman is older really), a couple of healthy smart kids spawned, etc. Been married for quite a while, been good friends, done tons of stuff together. And Rickman is about to start an affair with a woman who's (speak it in chorus:)A BAZILLION years younger.
Who the FUCK feels good after this??
Anyone who's had a spouse getting his/her head turned by some selfish bitch/bastard giving them their success/sob-story about their yearnings, childhood traumas, needs for attention knows that this isn't love, if anything it diminishes love to start any relationship that way. Unless we are talking about mr Rochester being married to the MAD WOMAN IN THE ATTIC. (the mad woman in the attic being Gilbert's & Gubar's eternal archetype for the older/unattractive/unrestrained woman who stands between the man and his new potential woman)
Well, I guess Emma Thompson didn't want to be the Mad Woman in the Attic, and that sequence of the movie ends in a form of stalemate.
Happinesssss
There are other episodes, but these weren't memorable enough for me to recollect coherently.
The ONLY part of the movie I really loved was the one about the skinny aging has-been musician who's trying to do a comeback. He and his fat manager are hilarious and the only reason I would ever rent that movie and watch it again.
Sure the film is well-played, but I still wonder what the fuck makes people feel-good? Probably the fact that it's British.
Yesterday we watched something fairly different thankfully. We went to the Denver Mayan, an old movie theater with a lot of ambiance (where you can get drinks in a classy little bar while watching movies) and saw the Japanese animated Scifi flick Paprika and the Russian 2:nd installation in a Scifi trilogy; Day Watch.
Paprika was fun, and the Japanese fetish for old men looking under the skirts of teenage schoolgirls is at least more honest than previous feelgood goop. And some bonuses like a very nice soundtrack and an adult anime-style!
Day Watch is probably impossible to follow if you haven't watched Night Watch. The story is clearly inspired by The World of Darkness Games system and books, no matter what Lukyanenko says. Or the coincidence is beyond incredible. But I don't care about that, the cosmology is cozy and likable for a Scifi/fantasy/horror buff, and the setting and people are refreshing. I really like seeing people that look like real people on film, particularly in occult movies, it really deepens the experience of the story. And in Day/Night Watch there is no Botox-forehead anywhere in sight. Even the attractive people look normal. Less airbrushing one has to suppose.
Also fun, not spectacular, but worth while and well played. And the subtitling is great.
I'm not sure all people around me got the Russian sense of humor though, which is a shame, since the actors made a good job giving it away (at some point I was the only one laughing in the theater, which is so rare it freaked me out!). I also don't know if I should find the fact worrisome or amusing that the Russians make a special shorter and simpler edition of the movie for the American market. They mostly cut out plot and calmer sequences from the movie and leave the action scenes intact. My Russian is very flawed, but I still would like to get my hands on longer editions of these films.
