Monday, August 18, 2008

Hopelessly Romantic

I have a confession....I'm a hopeless romantic. It's true. I want a guy to send me flowers, buy me chocolate, snuggle with me on a blanket under the stars and whisper in my ear that he loves me. To me, those things are the epitome of romance. But there's one other out there more hopelessly romantic than me: Hollywood.

I went to a showing of Brideshead Revisited last night with some friends of mine. For those who don't know, Brideshead Revisited is a novel by Evelyn Waugh about the effects of Catholicism on people and their relationships with other people. It is a well written and enjoyable novel. My friends and I commented throughout the movie the different parts that weren't in the book and things that had been exaggerated. I figured the film would be off from the book, but not WAY off. I finally noticed that romance had been majorly exaggerated. (I won't mention between whom so that if anyone should choose to read the novel, it won't be spoiled) This got me thinking about other movies that had added romance for the benefit of the movie-goers.

Now as I said before, I'm a hopeless romantic and I love cheesy romance movies very much, but some movies really don't need it. For example: the amazing film 300. I love this movie. It's bit off historically, however it's well made and to put it frankly, it kicks ass. But, the added romance between King Leonidas and Queen Gorgo seemed out of place. I understand the lingering goodbye and the necklace given to her at the end, but was the black and white sex scene really necessary? As hot as it was, no, it really wasn't needed to add to the film's awesomeness. I can think of several other films that had added romance where there was no place or need of it.

I know I'm not the only one out there waiting for Hollywood to put love on the back burner. When I go to see an ass kicking movie, I don't want a lovey dovey part, I want ass kicking. Otherwise, I wouldn't be seeing this movie. There are plenty of purely romantic movies out there for me to choose. So I simply ask this of Hollywood: I know you're hopelessly romantic, but could you knock it off for a little while?

Friday, August 15, 2008

Is it just me?

Alas, the next Y2K is coming. I never would have thought the end of the world would be coming while I was still alive. It's not the second coming of Jesus, it's not the Apocalypse. It's the conversion from "rabbit ears" to full on cable. *gasp*

Grab your water and canned goods while you still can. And make sure you grab a cable while you're out. I understand that elderly folk still probably have the "ears", but do all the commercials need to make it out like it is seriously the end of world? All the commercials are doing is probably freaking out the older crowd into a frenzy. "Call this number" or "Go to this website". I'm betting anybody with "rabbit ears" probably doesn't know how to work internet. Because if you know your way around the World Wide Web, why haven't you updated your t.v.? Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but really? Does it need to be this exaggerated? Is it just me that finds this all a little insane?