Six Movies for Thought: Helena from the Wedding; The Romantics; As Good as it Gets; Jeff Who Lives at Home; Morning Glory; Heartburn

This last week has been a film-infusion. There were actually seven movies, but I won't mention the seventh, I don't think.

If one wanted a "snapshot" of my viewing style, this week is perfect.

Rather than choose one or two of these films to write about, I'll try something new. I'll take you through all the movies I saw over the week, and you'll get an idea of my landscape of film experiences, a more accurate picture than if I were selective.

First, there was "Helena from the Wedding," which was a disappointment, but queued me up for film-viewing for the rest of the week. The main character, Alex, is an attractive man but clueless, recently married, to an enchanting but too-young-for-him-seeming sweet lady named Alice. Alice is a nonentity. It's all about her husband, who watches her thoughtfully.

The movie opens with the two of them driving to their country cabin, silently, snowy landscapes behind. I loved the opening: a little dialogue, but not much. Simple scene: unloading the groceries, 'welcome into our little world.' It promised to be one of those quiet movies. Soon, though, you realize that Alex is unsatisfied by his wife. She acts like a little girl, seems basically asexual. Then the plot devolves, because a really sexy woman shows up for their New Year's party, (Helena, of course) -- along with a few other clowns. It becomes one of those couples-getting-away-together themes. They have conversations about life-stage things like marriage, divorce, career, changes from their past, etcetera. A worn-out plot, that no one has ever done as well as "The Big Chill," but you keep watching because the main character is such a nerd. (Obviously, his staring at Helena will not lead to anything, because his neediness is transparent.) I've seen this actor in better roles, more fitting for him, such as Rolling Stone "Reporter," a geek who did ride-alongs with marines in the Iraq invasion, in "Generation Kill."

The stars this time are the friends: Jessica Hecht as Lynn, drama queen drunkard who keeps asking her husband to fetch and carry; and Paul Fitzgerald as Nick, a man who's already done the midlife crisis thing, been abandoned by his too-young mistress, is wiser than his friend Alex and now pretty much shameless. You see the story through the eyes of Alex, but you keep watching because of everybody else. And, in another classic "how not to end" conclusion, Alex has a 'moment' by the river, with friend Nick beside him, and you're more interested in what Nick says than whatever internal insights Alex might be having.

I was then in movie-thinking mode, though, which was perfect for watching "The Romantics," an unapologetically romantic film in all senses of the word. We are talking CHEESY. But I have to confess that I still love to watch Katie Holmes, even though she and Tom Cruise were on the pages of the tabloids for years, and even though I know she's not a good actor. She does certain things very well. She does the gaga lines, the moody eyes, the moonlight walks, very well -- and in this film she even has scenes where she's walking in nylon stockings across a grassy knoll, under the aforementioned moonlight, heels in hand, searching for her lost love. Yes! And she recites poetry, and she leans against an oak tree when he leans in to kiss her. So, you can more or less see the movie now in your head, right? Do you also LOVE this kind of thing? ...Bonus: Anna Paquin as rival, the best friend who stole the man away. Anna Paquin isn't bitchy, though; she is likeable. Especially when she's wearing a green face mask and sneaking cigarettes the night before her wedding. Without saying anything, her nervousness just radiates through the screen. (Anna Paquin is a good actor.) So I give this movie five stars. Most people would say it's terrible. In my opinion it hit the right notes. It did what it set out to do. Also, the ending is nice. It's romantic. :)

"As Good as it Gets" was a repeat for me. I had seen it before, long ago, once upon a time, when I was a kid. Whenever that was, when it came out. Yeah. (I was 21.) Here's the interesting thing: I didn't understand it back then. I remember my reaction: my brain felt blurred. I didn't get it. I didn't know why Jack Nicholson was not just repulsive. I didn't know why Helen Hunt was at dinner with him, when he was so clearly weird; I didn't buy them as a romantic couple. I don't think I even registered the gay artist neighbor as one of the important characters, what with the silly dog and all. (Not to mention my not appreciating Greg Kinnear until ten years later when I saw "Feast of Love," which I now want to watch again... He's terrific.) Anyway, I knew other people loved this movie but I myself had been too immature to understand. So, bring it on again, I thought. Maybe this time it will be good. And, sure enough, I am now capable of getting it. Especially the OCD part, which it occurs to me that my 21-year-old self had no knowledge of. (As in, did I even know what that was about? Was it recognizable to me? I'm not sure.) Also, though, the desperation of Helen Hunt's character, Carol the Waitress -- which this time made me cry. When she breaks down to her mother and says she didn't realize how far in the wrong direction things had gone... Oh boy. It's an adult movie, folks. Why did I even watch it at age 21?

More on Jack Nicholson in a little bit.

So far, so good. A nice movie-watching week. But then things ramped up, on into the glorious: the next three movies were actually mood-shakers, make-you-think-ers. Sigh.... This is what I love about watching a lot of film. You get on a roll.

"Jeff Who Lives at Home" has a dumb title, and I wish I could give it a better one. Suggestions? Jeff is a lot like a lot of guys in my generation; he's like guys I've known in real life, one of whom was actually named Jeff, too. He's a pothead, lives with his mom, can't seem to figure himself out, spends too much time in his head. Maybe it should be called, "Jeff Like a Lot of Guys." In the beginning, he has a great meditative monologue about another movie, which is a nice writerly nod to "Signs," and/or to film lovers as an audience. (We know how Jeff feels right away; we relate to him right away; it makes this movie a movie for those who love movies.)

I don't know Jason Segel as well as I should, considering he's part of the Judd Apatow gang. All I can say about him right now, acting-wise, is that he's very familiar, and probably benefits from that. I liked his performance in "Jeff Who Lives at Home" mostly because I felt like I knew him. (Side note: This familiarity-thing is true of a lot of actors, many of whom have carried a career on it, like Jeff Bridges and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jeff Daniels and others, and not a strike against them; it simply means they capture a moment in history better than the next guy. They 'fit the bill.')

But it wasn't the acting that made this movie great. In this case, it was the writing. The writing is original -- the plot (the story) is unexpected, and surprises you over and over; so too the dialogue, which is quirky and emotional at the same time. Jeff wanders about town, in a freewheeling kind of way, hopping on the backs of trucks, etcetera, following his nose (and a boy named Kevin). You just never know what will happen to him next. He encounters his own brother, Pat -- more than once -- and assists in a sloppy spy operation on Pat's wife, who may or may not be having an affair. Each of the brothers has issues, we learn; even though Pat's the one who has a job and marriage, he lacks insight into himself and could stand to benefit from his brother's contemplative path. In some ways, the story reminded me of "The Big Lebowski," only not so over-the-top like the Coen bros. do -- this is quieter, more familial; but it does have that theme of 'pothead goes on wild ride and winds up being the smartest person he meets.' There's a bit of substance here though, in the brothers opening up and learning from each other, as well as in a surprising twist at the end of the movie that is downright profound. It plays out like a classic piece of drama, and I really can't give anything away about it here. You have to see it.

A few days later I watched "Morning Glory," which was a bit of fluff, but I ended up thinking a lot about it, so it had an effect that makes it worth writing about. The premise of "Morning Glory" is simple. Rachel McAdams plays a driven career woman, Becky, whose life is dedicated to her work 100% (she gets up at 1:30 a.m. for a 4:00 start time producing a morning talk show). Her dream is to be a producer on "The Today Show." She has no relationships, no other interests, and so on. At the beginning of the movie, she's fired from her job managing the New Jersey local morning broadcast and gets a lot of flak from her mother and other people. What are the chances you'll ever go national; you can only go down from here. She's told to give up on this dream. But she persists, calling everyone she can think of, sometimes applying twice for the same job, until something comes through in New York City. A national network. Of course, it's a total loser situation; she gets a morning show that's tanking. It's absurdly bad, with horrible staff, no money, building falling apart, doorknobs falling off and the whole nine yards. She's immediately told about past producer turnover and how little time she has to bring the ratings up.

Pretty simple. And the plotline is simple, too. You know from the beginning that Becky's going to succeed, because she's so cute and passionate, so it's only a matter of watching it unfold. How will she manage it? This is meant to be a fun, silly comedy. And it is. She has to get her two primary anchors to work together (Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton), despite their differences (Harrison Ford plays a former news journalist, dour and depressed by the necessity of lowering himself in this capacity; and Keaton plays a bubbly, somewhat desperate, somewhat typical television 'personality' -- eager to please, sometimes too eager). The staff of the show must agree to do ridiculous things to get the ratings up, like in one case, ride a roller coaster live on camera, or in another, face off with a sumo wrestler (Diane Keaton, by the way, fell and injured her head during the filming of this scene, and some New Yorkers living in a nearby skyscraper recorded it, so you can see the whole thing happen -- thanks YouTube).

The movie's kind of funny, but it succeeds in going beyond what it should have been (a bit of fluff). The true joy is Rachel McAdams, herself, as you see her running around in heels and suits, bounding across sidewalks, dodging taxis, impossibly energized, cheerful, pulling you into her corner, an unstoppable force of nature -- even in the face of the gloomy, aging Harrison Ford character and his negative appraisal of the morning show phenomenon, which is not 'real news' (a point of view that reflects your own, by the way). Becky is our heroine: she takes it on, accepts the challenge, and makes you believe. And, it is actually inspiring!

I said I thought a lot about the movie. And I did. Why? It was such a failure at the box office, and arguably an embarrassment for actors of this caliber, to participate in a total fluff product. However, I can see the work that went into it, and the heart that went into it. Into every bit of it. Even Patrick Wilson (most gorgeous man alive) plays it up as Becky's love interest, and though his part is minimal and could have been withdrawn from the story, he makes it sweet, he makes it dear; he shines a flattering light on the soul of our heroine. Through him we see just how deeply invested she is (who would forego a night with Patrick Wilson to spend hours trying to motivate an aging newsman?). The character of Becky, by sheer will, makes the impossible possible. She turns the whole story and all the characters around. With the support of some talented actors, but little else, Rachel McAdams turns the whole movie around, energizes it and makes it good. That's a lot of work, and in my opinion worth reflecting on.

It was a supposedly dumb movie I'd love to see again.

So, finally, for my last film of the week, I come to "Heartburn." This is -- and I wouldn't lie -- a hidden treasure. Who ever heard of it? I discovered this film entirely by chance, while perusing a list of Jeff Daniels titles. Jeff Daniels has a teeny-tiny role here. The main characters are Rachel and Mark, played by Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. The writer is Nora Ephron and the director, Mike Nichols. Yikes!!! Can you stack it up better?

It's a story about marriage, and it's just beautiful. In the beginning, the unlikely couple meet at a wedding. There are no bells ringing. Their encounter looks like it has all the potential of a one-night stand. Soon enough, though, they are so charmed by each other they are getting married themselves. This all happens very quickly, so you know it's not about how they fell in love. It's about what happened after. In my head I kept comparing it to "Another Year," a film that has a dreamy but mysterious marriage in it -- an unrealistic ideal. These are the two films I've seen that really make you think about what marriage is. In "Heartburn," there are lots of beautiful details, and they feel real. The couple buys a house that needs repairs -- lots of repairs. They have trouble with their contractor, of course. There are small arguments and there's dust. (The house will never be fully renovated, in fact. They will live with unfinished walls for years.) Then, there's the first pregnancy, and singing. Rachel and Mark spend an entire evening singing every song they can think of that has the word 'baby' in it.

Eventually, there's trouble, and it's a little foreseeable, especially by the way Rachel keeps saying, "I'm so happy!" ...But it happens nice and slowly, and not in any way you could predict. It takes a long while for the couple to realize they can't stay together, and along the way there are plenty of moments when you, like they, think it might work out after all.

Meryl Streep is so different here, so subtle and perfumed, so fragile and strong. She's beautiful, of course. And young. She's delicately laughing at dinner parties. But then later ... she's curled up on top of her bedspread with her rice pudding. She's grocery shopping with a vengeance. She's at the hairdresser having a revelation, her eyes opening slowly in the mirror, while a bimbo teases her bangs. She's cooing with her little girl on an airplane, her hands forming the itsy-bitsy spider. She is, in fact, a real woman. She is so good at this that you can forget all the 1,000 other movies you have seen with the famous "Meryl Streep" starring in them. This is mind-blowing, folks. You can watch her and actually forget who she is.

I am tempted to credit Mike Nichols for that fact, because he is a genius, and those scenes are his creation. And I partially credit the age of the film (Meryl did this before she did so many of those other things -- she was new unto herself, even). But I do think this performance was outstanding, and kind of magical.

Which brings me to Jack Nicholson. Not as much was required of him; his character was one-dimensional. Perhaps the film's only weak point was that Mark's point of view is hidden from us. Nevertheless, I thought about old Jack and how diverse he is. Sure, this was a simple role for him. Play the husband who is too good-looking for his wife to see through. You don't think he's good-looking? He can be good-looking. He can do anything.

I most often tend to think of him as "Chinatown." (Snarky, jerky, quick-minded, sharp-edged.) For a lot of people he's "The Shining." (Demented, exaggerated, scary.) There are performances where he's stunned me, like "About Schmidt." Or those where he's repulsive, as mentioned above, in "As Good as it Gets." I've seen him play a retired astronaut and The Joker. In "The Departed," he pulled off being violent, not to mention Irish -- which should have been unbelievable. When you give it a little thought, it's an amazing body of work.

It's tempting to say we've seen too much of Jack and Meryl. But I picked up this little movie this week, and by accident got to discover them both anew, seeing their talent as if for the first time. So, I guess I will close with a grand statement. After years of uncertainty, I am ready to admit that Jack is the best actor of his generation. And I'm ready to say the same for Meryl. Watching them act together is a damn fine way to spend an evening.

"W." and regretfully, again, How Not To End A Movie!

"W." had me laughing, giggling even, with glee. I have been looking forward to watching this for a long, long time. And it was every bit as exciting to watch as I anticipated! It had me rewinding key scenes and watching them once or twice over. I loved the rhythm of the film, the way you step right into the action and right into the heart of the debate (about troop levels, for instance -- I immediately rewound to watch again: How was this information presented? What assumptions were made?). I loved the acting - the portrayals of all the people surrounding W. were very persuasive, not to mention Josh Brolin himself. But Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush and Thandie Newton as Condi Rice were amazing, too.

I say it had me laughing. Why? Because it was so much fun -- to step inside W's world. To follow him as he moves from being a perfectly normal person, confused and lost, trying to find his way, all the way to the War Room. To feel his pressures with him. To begin to understand why he changed, what forces moved him.

You know what's going to happen but you don't really know how it was for him. This movie gives you a chance to pretend you do. You see him running drills with Karl Rove, prepping his talking points on the campaign trail for the Texas governorship, and you see how he transformed himself from a fun-loving boy into a driven politician. Slapping those answers down like cards on the table. And he always had a gambler's "I go with my gut," attitude, didn't he? Brolin really makes me believe that. That feels like the President I knew. Perhaps he overdoes some of it, turns characterization to caricature in a few places, like the way he eats. Was Bush really always smacking like that, talking with his mouth full, licking his fingers? I don't know. There are moments Brolin does it and it seems over the top (like when W's meeting Laura for the first time, and you wonder why she'd be attracted to a guy grinning with sandwich in his mouth). There are other moments Brolin does it -- like right in the middle of Cheney's push for new "psychological" interrogations, where Cheney mentions off-handedly that these methods would also be used on U.S. citizens who aid or abet terrorists and W. says yup, that does "makes sense" (lick, slurp) but you've got to sell it to those "latte-sipping liberals" -- in that moment, it feels like it might be true.

Most of the time, throughout the movie, I liked W. and I liked especially the portrayal of him surrounded by all these people whose groupthink motored the decision-making process. You can see the motor running. I liked the interpretation that W. was not stupid, nor ill-meaning, but that he was in fact more of a feeling than a thinking person, that he reacted to situations based on his relationships with people and his instincts about them. His admiration for Cheney is clear. I liked all of this because it helps to make sense of what happened; it gives us an opportunity to try to understand why we went to war with Iraq -- how the administration crawled toward that decision, inch by inch. And where the influence was.

I liked the movie a lot and I'm probably going to watch it a second time, later this weekend, before I send it back to Netflix.

The only problem was the ending. Unfortunately, Oliver Stone decided in the last few minutes of the movie to abandon his highly-skilled portraiture in order to confess an ideological judgment. There are three issues I take with the ending scene: First, though it's clear that W. lost sight of the ball, and the metaphor was apt, it feels disrespectful. And, after everything we've been through with W, to see him so confused again in the last few seconds doesn't even feel accurate. Finally it leaves us with another question: Why did he lose sight of the ball? Why?

Philadelphia - 15 years later

I saw the advertising on AMC for the 15-year anniversary of "Philadelphia," that modern-day classic starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, which brought the dark persecution suffered by victims of AIDS into the broad daylight of everybody's lives. It sought to teach the common man, the ignorant man, that AIDS was not an illness anyone could catch, not transmitted through ordinary human contact, and that we should not treat AIDS patients like the lepers of biblical times. It actually did more than that -- it made people face the fact of discrimination against gays, in general, in a way that as far as I know, no other movie had done before. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

So I thought I'd watch it again. Interestingly, something has happened to me between 1993 and now. (Something relevant to my take on the film.) I've learned a little bit about the law. I worked in a law school, first, then later worked in several law firms, dated a couple of attorneys, and then worked in a big-city courthouse. I've also done a lot of reading: law reviews, legal history essays. It's an area you might say I'm familiar with. So when I saw this film, which is a courtroom drama by genre, I paid some attention to the presentation of the case. I became less interested in the emotional aspects of a dying man's fight against discrimination. In this context, it's a totally different movie.

If you look at it for what it was meant to be (see first paragraph) it has a big emotional impact. For sure. Here's Denzel Washington, shaking a man's hand and then stepping ten feet back after he learns that the man has AIDS. Here's Tom Hanks, trying to read in the public library, but they want to put him away in a private room as if he needs to be quarantined.

However, if you begin paying attention to the actual court case, it becomes an infuriatingly bad movie. If you are trying to follow the arguments being made, you see instantly that they don't work. For instance, the defense attorney, in her cross examination, asks Tom Hanks a series of questions about his sexual encounters in a gay movie theater. What's the relevance in a wrongful termination lawsuit? Objection! When an objection is raised she states that her line of questioning goes to credibility. So, I the viewer take this to mean that she is going to prove he's a liar -- isn't that what you would think? That he can't be trusted? His word is no good? Something along those lines? Yet, she never proves nor disproves anything about whether the man is credible. She never even raises that issue! It makes no sense whatsoever. All she's doing is asking him about his sex life. When did he contract AIDS? Was it in a movie theater? Was it when he had sex with a stranger? Yes, yes, yes, he says (he doesn't deny anything). So for the movie's theme, I get it. People are homophobic. People thought homosexuals deserved to get AIDS because of their "lifestyles." It was ugly, ignorant, prejudiced and wrong to think that way. No one deserves to get AIDS.

OK. Does this line of questioning have emotional impact? Yes. Does it even try to sound like a point is being made, in a legal argument? No. He doesn't lie. She doesn't say he lied. She doesn't show that he lied. She doesn't even try to find out whether he lied about anything. The issue isn't even addressed.

Here's an even more glaring problem. Suppose I am not paying attention to the arguments and I'm willing to ignore the fact that neither of the attorneys is making a case. I mean, what if I had never worked in a law firm or courthouse? I'm just the average viewer now, and I don't pay any attention to the arguments. (Although this would be difficult, considering the entire movie takes place in a courtroom.) Minimally, I as the viewer care about what happens to Tom Hanks. Don't you? All my heartstrings are being pulled. Clearly I want him to win the case; I am pulling for him. So -- how bad is it that, when the movie is over and he wins the case, I can't even tell you why or how he won it?!

Usually, in almost every courtroom drama you'll see, there's a moment when the case turns; something is revealed, either in evidence or in testimony that changes the case and turns it around, usually in favor of the protagonist. Anyone, any viewer, even one with no legal knowledge, can point to the moment. It's the drama of the movie, so it's supposed to work. In "Philadelphia," that moment is skipped over. There is no convincing argument made by either side. All we have is one emotional moment after another, followed by the win, which I guess they figured we were expecting -- so it didn't have to be convincing. What a let-down. Way to treat your viewers like children. "Yay! He won the case! We're happy now, because this is what we knew would happen and it takes away the sting of death at the end! Everybody applaud the success!" Give me a break. I want to know, please tell me (now that I've invested all these hours in this courtroom), how did he manage to win it?

Was it because the partners could see lesions on his face? (There's this gut-wrenching scene where Tom Hanks unbuttons his shirt to reveal the prominence of lesions, viewable by the entire jury.) But we knew all along they could see the lesions, so nothing was proven by that display. In the beginning, the point was conceded that his employers saw the lesions but didn't know what they were. So that wasn't a breakthrough in the case. How dumb do you think I am? You think I've already forgotten the first half hour of the movie?

What I expected was that, at some point in the movie, Denzel Washington was going to uncover some proof that the partners knew about the AIDS. They claimed they didn't know; he had to prove they did in order to prove wrongful termination. He never proved that. So, I was very, very disappointed. And even though I can say, as I did in the first paragraph, that this movie did amazing things for society, when it was released in the early 1990s, it truly had impact because it opened our eyes to persecution -- I can admit that, but I can't say it was a good movie. It just didn't really try. That was the saddest part. Many movies include a legal case, and they also have another agenda, and yet they manage with a little effort, to weave together a story that is reasonable as well as emotional. This one didn't even give us the chance to use our brains. It wanted our hearts and that was all it went after. It didn't even try to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. "Who cares if it doesn't make sense? It made you cry, didn't it?" I hate that.

Delirious

Wow, that movie was slow to get going. Sloooooooooooooow.

The only thing that's wrong with this script is the timing of it. Which is, of course, everything.

Ach, it's such a bummer because there were so many things I liked about it!

It takes a long time to get into the characters (and consequently, a long time before the viewer cares about them. After 19 minutes I was about ready to turn off the movie for lack of interest in the characters). Then, once you do start getting to know them it takes a long time for a major plot point to occur (so now we know who they are, but is anything going to happen in this movie?). Then, after quite a few good scenes where the action picks up and we're finally getting involved in the story, there's this weird lull, a slow-down accompanied by some strange tangential filler material. Calm before the storm? Nope. Instead we get a bizarre character twist that feels like we're suddenly watching a different movie.

I guess that means there are two big flaws in the script. One, the timing (pacing) is all wrong. Two, our main character turns into someone else after we've invested a lot of time getting to know him.

Steve Buscemi has appeared in a lot of great movies (Reservoir Dogs, Barton Fink, Fargo) and quite a few terrible ones. Unfortunately "Delirious" goes in the terrible category - but it's not Buscemi's fault! It's all about the script. Buscemi makes us feel weird emotions. That's what he's great at. We can look at him and think, 'Man, you're a weirdo' or even 'You're creepy, dude!' and still be able to relate. He does it again quite skillfully here. He plays a guy who wanted to be a photojournalist and wound up being a paparazzo. He obviously inflates the importance of his work in order to make himself feel better about it. He's got a precarious hold on self-esteem. The smallest insult makes him crumble into misery. Buscemi does a beautiful job making us sympathize with someone who's extremely unlikeable.

Thing is, this character is pathetic in the original sense of the word. Inspiring pathos. So why would he turn psycho killer in the end? Of course he doesn't, really, turn psycho killer (thank goodness). But why does the movie try to make us believe that he would? Why, why, why?

All along the movie is about a friendship. Well, it's also about obsession with celebrity, and feelings of self-worth, and whether or not fame and success are the only thing that will make these characters feel OK about themselves. But it's a friendship. For the first time in his life, Les (Buscemi's character) feels like he's gotten himself a friend, a companion. He's got someone who makes him feel good about himself -- even his dubious career. And when that guy turns out to have a heart, actually caring about celebrities as people, we don't blame him for wanting to turn away from the paparazzo lifestyle. The sad thing is we've come to care about Les, and we don't want to see him abandoned. There's a poignant scene where Les is in a bathroom trying to compose himself so that he can speak articulately to his idol Elvis Costello. This is the Les we know and love.

This is the heart of the movie. His friend will move on without him, precisely because he doesn't have Les's insecurities. This is the story of Les's life. It's realistic. It's human. So why, why, why did someone decide that, after a long lull, Les was going to go psycho killer? Sure, he doesn't actually pull it off, but I'd swear the last sequence belonged to another movie altogether - not the one I was patiently watching, and finally beginning to enjoy. Oh, well.

The Notebook

I wonder why everybody was gaga over this movie. Supposedly it was "so romantic," "so moving," it would make me cry, ("even made my dad cry," one friend told me), it was the "greatest love story" in modern film. Sure. What are we, desperate for romance?

I remember so well that conversation with my girlfriend when I remarked on the lack of great romance in films these days. Where's the passion? Where's our Clark Gable, our "Gone with the Wind"?

"You should see 'The Notebook.' It even made my dad cry."

Well, now I've seen it and, apart from appreciating the quite lovely Rachel McAdams, I didn't enjoy it. A great romance has to have conflict. These two young people fell in love smoothly enough, but there wasn't much in the way of passion, of tormented desire. They really didn't have any conflict. They were happy-go-lucky. Then what happens? Sure, sure, they're separated - it's a plot twist and causes a temporary delay to the relationship, but does that cause conflict within their love? No. The love doesn't suffer from it, there's no doubt they still love each other just the same. It's so obvious that they're going to get back together anyway, since the whole time you've got the two of them together in old age narrating the entire story. So where's the intensity? Where's the emotion? Where's the heat?

Hell, I think there was more passionate romance in some of those old "Dawson's Creek" episodes where Pacey is pining for Joey but can't make a move because she's Dawson's girl. And everybody said that was corny - but they liked "The Notebook"?

The Paper Chase

I used to like this movie, when I saw it the first time. Cute flick about a cute boy who's on his way to becoming a lawyer. Lots of good classroom scenes.

I don't know what I thought it was "about," except there's a guy struggling in law school (Harvard no less) and he's got a sorta-romantic subplot which is sorta interesting.

Recently I watched it again and I decided, it's political. And I don't like the political statement it makes. And furthermore! I don't think it makes any sense. Like many liberal "statements" this one is corny and rings false. Do you really think that a Harvard law student wouldn't care about his grades at the end of the year? Just because his teacher didn't know his name?

Throughout the movie there's this repeated mantra - "It's all about the grades." Then there's a scene where the pretty, but frankly boring, romantic interest tells the boy that he's on a paper chase (note the lack of subtlety). She compares attaining a law degree to attaining a driver's license and an insurance policy. Hm. Let's think about that.

And the boy, struggling through law school -- Harvard law school -- is supposed to swallow that and decide (in a sudden moment of gushing realization when his teacher doesn't remember his name) that suddenly his grades don't matter? He actually makes a paper airplane out of them and sends them out flying over the ocean. It doesn't come any cornier than this.

Great performance by John Houseman, though.