I hate romantic films.They literally make me so angry I want to puke venom. Whenever I watch one of those sloppy pieces of shit I can feel my stomach screwing itself up and a spiteful little ulcer starts to grow. Films like P.S I Love You, Dirty Dancing, Love Actually and worst of all The Notebook are love propaganda for those with a vagina and an unhinged brain.
Each of those films and more convince its audience that love is a schloppy, schmaltzy almost supernatural force. For every single person in this world there is “the one”. FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT! There is not just one person for everybody. That is pure unadulterated, fantasy crap. There are seven billion people on this planet- are we seriously expected to think that there is such a thing as a 'soul mate'? Not only is that absolute shite but due to our high population you can pretty much guarantee that there are about a million more perfect people for you scattered around the globe. They're even more perfect for you than your current partner but you'll never meet them... Ever!
Now that is not being cynical, that's being logical. However that doesn't stop a lot of people believing all the turd in those romance films. One of the worst that I have seen was a 1995 Chris Columbus movie called Nine Months. I'm not a huge fan of Hugh Grant movies but I do quite like Hugh Grant. I love his performance in About A Boy and I look forward to the day he does another film as good as that one. However Nine Months is one of the most evil films I have ever seen.
The plot of this piece of filth seems to be that Hugh Grant has accidentally gotten Julianne Moore up the duff and so spends the entire film getting used to the idea of reluctantly becoming a Dad, whilst at the same time falling in love with Julianne. Err- what? If that is not a film whose message seems to imply that trapping your partner with a baby is a good and effective idea, I don't what is.
The most annoying scene came when Hugh was psyching himself up to tell Julianne that he doesn't want the kid. He meets up with her and to his surprise she starts to talk about all the reasons she doesn't want to be a Mum. Hugh can't believe his luck! Maybe they can get rid of the child before it's too late. Excited, Hugh agrees with everything she says only for her to conclude by saying something along the lines of, “but despite all that I still want the baby”. If I was Hugh I'd have thrown her down the fucking stairs for that. For knowingly getting my hopes up only to reveal that she wants the child after all is sick. People said The Exorcist was evil but it's actually quite an uplifting film in a way. Watching Nine Months makes me wish for a meteoroid to hit the Earth and destroy our pathetic, weasely species.
Having said all that I'd hate to suggest that I don't like love stories. My issue is with the schmaltzy, formulaic, sentimental ones- not genuine and subtle films such as The Graduate, 500 Days of Summer, Brokeback Mountain or Monsters.
All of those above films (and more) depict a couple of people getting to know each other and at least one of them falling in love. They're all original and show the heartache, pain, stress and joy that can accompany a relationship. Out of all of them, my current favourite is probably Monsters. This tells the story of two people being required to walk through a zone of Southern America which is quarantined due to the presence of aliens. It's a love story set against the back drop of a monster movie but where the creatures have a total screen time of about thirty seconds.
Unlike something like Independence day the aliens are not in the film to smash things up- they are there to provide a common threat which will allow our two heroes to bond over. The creatures appear violent and scary but they are simply not the focus of the film, the characters' developing relationship is. Without giving anything away, the movie is tense, scary, atmospheric and sweet. The last scene is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful in cinema and more genuinely affecting than anything in any of that previously mentioned soppy shit.
Another of my favourites is the 2002 film Punch Drunk Love. In a way, it follows the formula of something like Pretty Woman, but instead features a man who has outbursts of anger and acts in a retarded manchild like manner. You know you're watching a decent love story when the most romantic line in the film is, “I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty”. To which the response is, “I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them”.
Lets face it- when I watch bullshit films like P.S. I Love You, I would love to see someone pull out their eyes and take a sledgehammer to their fucking faces.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
Well first off I'd like to say that Love Actually is a fantastic film. It does not show love to be "a schloppy, schmaltzy almost supernatural force". Have you even watched the film? If you have, then you'd know that one story line follows a woman in love with a man, who loves her back, but she can't do anything about that love because she has a brother who is ill and needs her undivided attention. The last scene we see of this character is of her saying goodbye to the man she loves and then sitting crying, before receiving a phone call from her sick brother.
ReplyDeleteAnother story line follows a man who breaks his wife's heart by showing another, younger woman more love and affection at Christmas.
These stories are not "schloppy, schmaltzy almost supernatural force". They are realistic.
Secondly, I appreciate that you may not enjoy these movies, but how can you call them all bullshit? They may be a little unrealistic at times, but they have a huge fan base and make a hell of a lot of money. Obviously some people do enjoy them. Are you really that obnoxious to call them all bullshit just because you don't like them?
Finally, the movies you describe are love stories and romantic comedies...the clues in the genre name...
(also, I suggest you watch Clueless and 10 Things I hate About You, if you haven't done so already)
Yeah I've seen it.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember rightly it starts with a voice over informing us that the world is full of love because when the twin towers where hit all the phone calls from the victims were words of sentiment. To quote Will Self this is, 'the most grotesque and sick manipulation of a cinema audience's feelings that I've ever seen since Leni von Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will'.
And Love Actually isn't realistic. When was the last time you went to a wedding and half of the audience were tooled up with instruments? Do you really think the Prime Minister wouldn't have fired a member of his staff for referring to him by his first name and then swearing? And would airport security not have just shot dead the guy who runs past them at the end? At the very least he'd be stripped naked and have a gloved finger shoved up his arse.
I don't have a problem with films being unrealistic unless their target audience is the kind that is meant to believe them. Surely you must agree that at times they are reinforcing an unrealistic notion of romance that the real world just doesn't abide to. People are being made unhappy because their partners don't perform overblown romantic gestures such as in The Notebook when Gosling hangs from a ferris wheel, risking his own life for a date with a girl. I know first hand that things like these make happy people miserable as by movie standards they're just not happy enough.
Since when was money a sign of quality? I paid to see both Transformers 3 and Pirates 3 and they were awful. Perhaps if we were asked to only pay if we'd enjoyed the film then box office would be a relevant point but currently it's not. The amount of money a film makes is simply down to the budget it had for marketing and how effectively it was enforced.
Just because I say they're shit doesn't mean I don't think people should be allowed to enjoy them. There are some shit films that I enjoy but they're still shit. Die Hard is a well made action film The Transporter isn't, I still love them both. But then I don't believe my live should be as action packed as John McClane's or The Staths.
And yeah they're love Stories and comedies but why do they have to be so sentimental, formulaic, cliched and manipulative? Did you not get more enjoyment out of something like 500 days of Summer, Juno or even Easy A?
I haven't seen 10 things I hate about you but would like to. I haven't seen Clueless in a long time but if I remember rightly I quite liked it. It's interesting that the two examples you gave are based on works by Shakespeare and Jayne Austen, two people renowned for being a little more original than Richard Curtis.
Fair point about the wedding scene, I haven't been to a wedding where that has happened. But I bet it has happened somewhere. I have been to weddings where friends and family have performed songs so it's really not that far fetched.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I do agree that films reinforce unrealistic ideas of love. But is this really such a bad thing? As a single person its nice to have these movies to give me hope. I agree a lot of them are tosh and over the top, but they still have nice sentiment behind them. I do not think that when I get a boyfriend he will bring me flowers daily, or we will fall in love over the death of loved ones (Life As We Know It), but the idea of it is nice.
As for the money thing, I agree, Transformers 3 was terrible. But you and I aren't the ones to say a film is shit. It may have done so well at the box office on the back of Transformers 1 & 2 (that's how they got my money), but I do know a lot of people who really enjoyed it.
I do get more enjoyment out of the movies you have mentioned than most chick flick movies (excluding Love Actually). However that is my personal taste. I have lots of girlfriends who love all chick flick style movies, including The Notebook, and this is where the fan base comes from.
Most movies are unrealistic but they're made to be enjoyed. They know who their target audience is, and it isn't you.
A film providing someone with a form of comfort is in noway a bad thing at all. Just so long as you don't rule out what could be a great guy who spends more time shitting than he does plotting death defying romantic gestures.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to declaring a film is shit I think we may have crossed wires. I am referring to how well made it is, you are talking about the enjoyment you get from it. Maybe lots of people do like cliched rom-coms but that doesn't make them good films. Lot's of people also like heroin, Hollyoaks and Jar Jar Binks. Mass appeal isn't a sign of quality.
Maybe I'm not their target audience in which case I'm curious as to who that audience is? Like I've mentioned I enjoy things like 500 days so I'm not against the concept of romance and comedy. I just prefer it to be a bit more original, well made and a little less schmaltzy.
Unfortunately I don't think watching a man shitting wouldn't make the best movie. Whereas romantic gestures can.
ReplyDeleteYou said in your original blog that these movies are all "bullshit" and show love as "a schloppy, schmaltzy almost supernatural force". This has nothing to do with how the films have been made. Your original blog mentions nothing of camera angles or acting ability, it was simply about the content of the movies.
And again, your last statement above says "I just prefer it to be a bit more original, well made and a little less schmaltzy" - this is not about how the movie is made, its just a taste thing!
The way in which love is depicted is related to the film-making.
ReplyDeleteEverything that makes these films so cliched is in the script which itself is part of the film-making process. An unoriginal script is just as much a problem as shoddy editing or forgetting to take the lens cap off.
You made a good point though. The camera angles and overall style of these movies are generally lazy and unspectacular. The day Fincher makes a Rom-Com I'll be first in line to see it. As it stands however they simply have a point the camera and hit record attitude about them. Even porn experiments with handheld once in a while.
The acting too is rarely anything to write home about. Compare Hilary Swank in P.S I love you to her work in Insomnia or Million Dollar Baby and you'll see the difference. Gerard Butler was even worse here than he was in Tomb Raider 2 although to be fair he is only ever good when he's shouting.
Jesus mentioning Butler made me think of the Ugly Truth. That's a Rom-Com and one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life. Surely you must agree that all of my points can be applied to that film too?
I will give minor credit to Love Actually however when it comes to acting. Despite everything else that's wrong with it the cast for the most part is pretty good. In fact with most of Richard Curtis's movies the actings ok. It's just a shame that they also tend to be syrupy, overly-sentimentalised and depressingly un-inspired. Oh and yeah and like you pointed out they could also do with some better shots and a little more style.
Basically they need to be more like 500 Days of Summer.
My issue here isn't with the fact that you class the filming/acting/script writing as shoddy, its the fact that you're saying you can't have a good movie unless its been well made...
ReplyDeleteMoving away from rom-coms, how about movies such as the Transporter series and Teenwolf, they're not particularly well made, but still enjoyable. And isn't that the point...?
Just because a movie is poorly made, doesn't mean people can't enjoy it (including tosh such as Transformers 3).
I can tell that you consider yourself to be quite knowledgeable on this topic, and maybe that factor is getting in the way of the fact that at the end of the day it's all down to opinion. Just because you don't like a film doesn't mean that others can't, or that it's a bad movie. It's just not to your taste.
Well you can't have a good movie unless it's well made. I don't think I'm saying anything controversial there am I? A shitty car is still a shitty car regardless of whether it's owner likes it.
ReplyDeleteAt no point have I said others can't enjoy these movies in the same way that I enjoy The Transporter. Although when it comes to The Staths action classics I am aware that they too are rubbish and that my enjoyment mostly emanates from my irony glands.
At no point have I had an issue with people who like these movies. My issue is with the lack of quality in the films themselves and the large group of crazies who then walk away with unrealistic expectations of life.
Regarding my personal taste in films I sort of don't have one. The only thing I'm drawn to is a quality movie. I don't discriminate by genre, cast, language or style. Find my a five Star chick-flick and I'll happily sit down and watch it. In fact I hear Bridesmaids is pretty good and so I'd be as excited to sit down and watch that as I would any film receiving similar reviews.
So when you say that these films aren't too my taste you are right. I like films that are good and unfortunately most of these are definitely not. I don't judge a films quality based on my taste but rather form my taste based on its quality.