I believe Our Story, the one demonstrating that love is not always at first sight or even tenth sight, last ended when I was entangled on a sofa at the 1920s Club with three or four other women, having what was later dubbed the notorious Mormon Lesbian conversation, in which we realized we all could not marry each other because we liked the menfolk too much to forsake them.
Month: April 2004
clicking and sparking are just special effects (part one)
Tomorrow night the Austin Bloggers group is meeting at Opal Divine’s. My boyfriend and I are probably going.
Tomorrow will mark 13 months, to the day, since we first met. At Opal Divine’s.
It isn’t a very romantic story. It does not involve any sparking, clicking, or magical music playing in the background. It is remarkable only because it is so unremarkable.
Continue reading clicking and sparking are just special effects (part one)
Caddyshack (1980)
Caddyshack: 1980, dir. Harold Ramis. Seen on DVD April 18.
I really did think I would like this movie. I thought it would be like There’s Something About Mary, where I put off watching a film that seemed distasteful to me, but then it was so amusing and entertaining that I didn’t care so much about the gross jokes.
I was wrong.
There’s Something About Mary (1998)
There’s Something About Mary: 1998, dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Seen on DVD (April 8).
There’s Something About Mary ruined my life, I tell you. Well, slightly.
I hadn’t seen the movie, but I felt its effects. I read scripts for a film competition in 1999 and it was obvious that a certain scene in this movie had an effect on comedy screenplays. Suddenly the taboos on precious bodily fluids in film had been lifted.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Trouble in Paradise: 1932, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Seen on DVD (April 7).
It was such a happy surprise, such a nice little gift, to watch Trouble in Paradise and realize that it was yet another movie that I would enjoy and love and remember fondly. You never know, with these early films, whether it will be a static dull dud (Morning Glory, for which Katharine Hepburn won an Oscar), or something that hasn’t dated and faded over the years.
The problem with Trouble in Paradise is that I cannot really talk about it without talking about Thirties movies in general, and how much I love them, and the qualities of these films and how this relates to Trouble in Paradise. If you don’t want to read about the evolution of the romantic comedy film … your loss, not mine. But you have been warned.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: 1948, dir. John Huston. Seen on DVD (March 28).
I had high hopes for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I thought it would be a wonderful adventure movie, full of action and bravado and quotable dialogue. I’m not the world’s biggest John Huston fan, but this seemed like the type of movie he would do very well.
I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed.