Good Taste, Bad Taste, No Taste At All
Do your movie tastes mirror your book tastes?
For me, the answer is absolutely not. I’m even less in sync with the other member of my household, we’ll call him hubby. Trying to pick a movie in my house is the equivalent of the negotiations at the Yalta Conference. My usually cool, Hawaii-born hubby likes horrifyingly angsty movies. He’s relatively normal except for this serious character flaw. Three examples of the type of comedic gems he loves are House of Sand And Fog (including the death of a child and, well, just about everyone else in the cast except Jennifer Connelly), The Hours (death by stones in pocket and disease and a bunch of other depressing stuff) and Requiem For A Dream (the most depressing movie ever made - everyone is addicted to some type of drug and each character is more painful to watch than the one before). He thinks because they’re award-winning that makes them interesting. Sometimes, yes. Most times, no. We won’t even talk about his fascination with incomprehensible foreign films. There was one about a weeping camel, one about migrating birds and one about bugs. Yes, I said bugs. It was called Microcosmos - go check it out. I could not possibly make that up.
But, these charming movie picks are consistent with what he reads. Sure, he accidentally picks up a decent mystery now and then - this usually coincides with when we are about to fly or go to the beach. Apparently a book about Krakatoa is not the perfect beach read (see: Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 - it’s actually much better than it sounds). For the most part he likes nonfiction titles. Some are very good (don’t tell him I said that because I take tremendous joy in making fun of him). Some are god awful. But, all seem to reflect his movie tastes - some mystery, mostly indie and nonfiction stuff.
Then there’s me….. Well, I like my movies with big exploding things, car chase scenes and gunfire (think Bad Boys II). My confession, and I know this is likely to generate another nasty email, is that I never pick chick flicks. Traditional romantic comedies are always my last choice. Okay, second to last since my hubby’s choices are dead last. Why is this? I can read romance after romance (with a bit of mystery/suspense sprinkled in now and then) but I don’t gravitate to pure romance stories or cutesy romance stories on the big screen. Is it because I’m uncomfortable with the sexuality in movies? Rest assured that is not it. But it’s something I haven’t figured out yet.
March 31st, 2005 at 12:45 pm
HelenKay, I like chick flicks, bad monster movies, and big dumb action films. For some reason lately, my books have started to resemble my movie tastes. (They hadn’t before.) This is especially true in what I’ve been writing. I must admit I’m a tad worried since the romance in all these movies (except the chick flicks) is actually secondary to the adventure. What does all this mean? I have no idea. Probably that I’m moving into a new direction with my career. Can we say career suicide? I think we can. LOL!
March 31st, 2005 at 12:59 pm
My movie tastes and my reading tastes are somewhat similar: all over the fucking place, with a good bit of pseudo-snobbery thrown in. I loved Requiem for a Dream–in my opinion it holds one of the distinctions of being both an excellent book AND an excellent movie. I also love The Transporter, a.k.a. the Silliest Action Movie Ever. But who cares, it has Jason Statham shirtless and covered in motor oil in one of the most improbable, fun fighting sequences ever. Oh, and I love the first Charlie’s Angels. All that bouncy giggliness and over-the-top asskicking. HELL YEAH.
Romantic movies: most of them make me gag. I was SO DAMN HAPPY when Leo went under for the last time in Titanic that I almost cheered in the theater, except I was afraid I would be beset and torn to pieces by enraged 14-year-old girls who had gone to see the movie for the 2,597th time. A very, very few make me go “Awwww!” like While You Were Sleeping. Many of the classic movies like Roman Holiday are pretty good, too. But my two favorite romantic movies are probably The Royal Tannenbaums and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which aren’t exactly typical love stories, and they’re not exactly chick-flicks either. If I had to labelm them, I’d call ‘em “Pretentious Pseudo-Indie Movies for Indie-Whore-Wannabes Who Wet Themselves When They Hear the Words ‘Screenplay by Charlie Kauffman.’”
March 31st, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Candy, Requiem For A Dream? I agree it was well acted, but didn’t a part of you want to poke your eye out with a sharp pointy eye-poking instrument by the end? When Jennifer Connelly’s character was a drug addict and still wasn’t the most pathetic person on the screen - really, there’s not enough candy in the movie theater to create the sugar buzz I needed not to stab myself in the heart. For me, it’s the subject matter that kills the experience. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind I did like but would say I didn’t think of it as a romance when I saw it. I’m not sure why. Maybe because they were trying to forget each other, which really isn’t all that romantic if you think about it. I thought of it more as a scientific experience gone afoul. I also think Kate Winslet is cool so that my color my view.
Maybe the problem is that I’m shallow, gee, I hate to think that’s it.
Jordan - I’m with ‘ya. Every time I think about my movie tastes I think, wow, maybe I shouldn’t be writing romance - there’s clearly nothing romantic about me.
March 31st, 2005 at 11:32 pm
Something about Requiem for a Dream was just incredibly compelling to me. I was cringing like mad, especially when Jared Leto’s arm started resembling the new gateway to Hell and he was still shooting up on it. I’ve known addicts (not to heroin, though) and the compulsiveness and self-delusion the characters underwent rang true to me. The ickiness was hypnotic and had a distinct voyeuristic quality to it, but I couldn’t look away, and I thought about the story and the characters for days and days afterwards. I can definitely see how it would squick people out, and yeah, Jenny-poo does remain distressingly telegenic even during her downward spiral, but eh, she’s Jennifer Connelly, she’s always distressingly telegenic.
The romantic part about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was how the two of them–oooh, semi-spoilers ahead, so don’t read this bit if you haven’t seen the movie–anyway, I love how the two of them met each other all over again, and fell in love all over again after they got their memories erased. The two of them still had problems and major personality conflicts that they’d need to resolve or be risk entering in the same destructive cycle they engaged in the first time ’round, but hey, they have the tapes from their sessions with the good doctor, so their odds seem better this time.
I tend to be a much worse movie snob than I am a book snob, but I try hard not to associate aesthetics and entertainment choices with moral fiber or intellectual prowess, because God knows as a romance novel reader I get PLENTY of pre-judgment from random people who feel fit to assume asstarded things about me based on that alone.
April 2nd, 2005 at 9:14 am
NO CHICK FLICKS though to be honest I’d rather watch something like Legally Blonde (dont shoot me) than While You Were Sleeping. I’d definitely pick a good action film first anyday. And what’s happened to all the good scary movies? They’re…GONE. Non-existent!
But as a writer, I don’t think I have the skills to tackle an action or sci-fi movie yet–on the flip side, I don’t write straight romance either so go figure