You’re alone for a reason, Bridget Jones…

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Belle of the Library

… and it’s not the Ben and Jerry’s.

I am not a chick flick person. In the year 2010, all of the following things happened:

Gaily’s little girl died at 8 months old.
I did not give birth to the child that was due in March.
My ex-husband went out of town “on business” and didn’t have a job.
Gail’s divorce was finalized.
My ex-husband swore he changed the oil and the engine fell out of my car for no reason.
I learned that sometimes “I want a divorce” is met with the word “no.”
Gail made me watch the movie The Women.

Me: “I’m pretty sure that movie was the worst thing to happen in all of 2010.”

As much as I like my romance novels, I cannot watch that crap unfold on-screen. The lines are too over-the-top and emotion is gross. There’s a difference between imagining things and seeing them acted out. Just like I don’t want to watch porn, I don’t want to see people cry. What is wrong with the degenerates supporting these industries?!?

… and then, insult all of your readers.

There are, however, a few chick flicks I love and a few I love to hate. Bridget Jones’s Diary is actually in the first category and I’m just an overly-analytical person. I haven’t read the book and don’t intend to, precisely because of how much I like the movie. So, when I checked it out from the library (because I’m too cheap to rent it if it’s free at work) I enjoyed it immensely… while simultaneously tearing apart the lead. Not having seen the movie in years, it was fun to analyze as an adult and realize exactly what was wrong with Bridget Jones. I don’t claim to be an expert on men or what men want, but I don’t enjoy being around most women either, and I found many of the reasons for that personified in Chubby Zellweger. For example…

If you don’t like, change it.

There are a lot of things Bridget Jones doesn’t like about herself and her life, so she vows to change them… for like a day and a half. The main focus of this film is that Bridget Jones is a little chubbier than she’d appreciate. Renee Zellweger put on a confusing amount of weight for the part (20-50 pounds – does Hollywood even know what weight is?). Like most women, Bridget Jones wants to lose twenty pounds. Like many women, she doesn’t actually commit to doing so. Unlike most women (I choose to believe), she constantly bitches about it and blames her size for unhappiness. If you want to lose weight, quit smoking, drink less (7 calories per gram compared to fat’s 9), then fucking do it. If you’re comfortable with who you are and that person isn’t intensely unhealthy, in which case Bridget Jones should be more concerned with the smoking and drinking anyway, then stop obsessing over something you’re not going to change. I would like to be 15 pounds lighter. I really would. I also really like red gummy worms. I’d rather have hips and red gummy worms than no hips and no red gummy worms. This is the concession I make, so I’m pretty content in my size 8 shorts, rather than bitching about the 6’s in my drawer that don’t fit anymore. Bridget Jones’s issue wasn’t her weight. It was her unwillingness to change the things that made her unhappy.

If he proposes with these, I don’t need a ring. Ell oh ellsies. Just lying. The last one was surprise-fake. Gaily knows the next ring must include a diamond the size of a cow’s eye, so pure and magnificent that the blood is still actually on it.

Be nice to people.

A few weeks ago, my precious five-year-old niece, Layla, told me she doesn’t have any friends. She’s right. She doesn’t, because she’s mean. Here’s a snippet of her conversation with my brother, Bo, from her birthday party last year.

Layla: “He hit me!!!!!”
Bo: “Why’d he hit you?”
Layla: “Because I pushed him down.”
Bo: “Why’d you push him down?”
Layla: “Because he hurt my feelings! He didn’t want to play with me!”

So, when Layla told her Aunt Belle that she had no friends…

Me: “‘Be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you.'”
Layla: “I’m nice to the gentleman and the ladies!”

What? It’s not like a five-year-old realizes I’m referencing a song about prostitution. It’s sound advice. It’s also advice Bridget Jones needs to take. I am not referring to the times she embarrasses herself in these movies. There’s little to be done about the fact that no one told you the party no longer required a slutty costume or fumbling your words during a speech. There is, however, plenty to be done in regards to not insulting a group of people with whom you’ve chosen to spend your time, by calling them “fat, balding… upper middle-class twits.” You can express an opinion without telling everyone to go fuck themselves. It’s also kindest not to assume that every well-poised, attractive woman is after your boyfriend. When you’re mean to people, they and others don’t want to spend time with you. Regardless of your size or ability to embarrass yourself, if you laugh about it and move on, if you’re kind to people, they’ll enjoy being around you.

There is a time and a place.

Bridget Jones was 33 years old in the first movie. She was single and beginning to feel hopeless about that fact. Despite that, she presented herself horribly in most situations. Again, I’m not talking about the embarrassing or desperate moments, like running out into the snow without pants, because she was terrified Mark Darcy was leaving for good. I’m referring to introducing yourself to someone by telling them how hungover you are, New Year’s Day or not…. about having the gall to be upset that they think little of you when you’ve done so. I’m talking about getting smashed at the company party, rather than saving it for a night out with your friends. I’m talking about slutting up to get some attention from the opposite sex at work. Bridget Jones was 33 years old and she really should’ve known better.

Value yourself.

Despite the fact that Bridget Jones was a little chubby, men still found her attractive. Hugh Grant slept with her, after removing her tummy tucker panties. Her new boss cast her as sex appeal. Collin Firth/Mark Darcy told her that he liked her “just as she is.” Regardless of all that positive feedback, she still blamed all of her problems on her weight. Bridget, you’re not unattractive, because you’re fat. You’re unattractive because of your whopping self-esteem issues. Bridget sleeps with her boss, pretty much just because he pays her inappropriate attention, which he’d have done to a floor lamp. This doesn’t just happen. She considers the option, acknowledges it as a bad decision, and does it anyway. On a similar note, she’s lamenting her single status at age 33, but she doesn’t actually try to meet anyone. She meets Mark Darcy, only by her mother’s introduction, bemoaning the fact that this is a regular occurrence. She sleeps with Hugh Grant because he’s present. Those are the only men she dates in the entire two or three years in which these movies take place. If you don’t want to be single, stop spending all of your time with your gay friend and gal pals and go date.

Gail is a brilliant gal and an amazing friend (currently she’s preening from reading that) and gave me a wonderful piece of advice a year ago.

“Go on a hundred first dates. Go on bad ones and good ones and meh ones. If you do that, eventually you will meet someone and it’ll click for you and it’ll click for them.”

She’s right. I’ve been on a dozen bad dates, because of that advice. It hasn’t clicked yet, but I’m trying. You know where I’m not going to meet anyone?

Here.

The Lucky One… rented a different movie.

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Belle of the Library

I was supposed to go to a baby shower today, but there was an apocalyptic downpour for the ten minute window in which I would’ve left. I still want to send a gift, so I went to Family Video and got a gift card, some candy, and microwave popcorn to go with the sparkling grape juice I’d bought. I figured I’d give a date night, since I know shit about what babies do. Then I was possessed by demons, and not the good kind like the sexy ones from my werewolf porn, but rather the entire hoard of Gentlemen from Hush, the silent episode of Buffy. You know what they did to me? They made me rent The Lucky One.

You couldn’t have just taken my heart?!?!?!

I’ve been on a romance kick with my Kindle, so I figured I’d give this whole chick flick thing another try. Clearly, I like the sweet love stories, right? The thing is, unless it’s done phenomenally well, the words on the page are just too overdone on-screen. I’m afraid of emotion, y’all. I can’t handle this without laughing. You are really going to enjoy my entries if I ever get into another relationship. But… I decided to give the genre another shot and asked for a recommendation since the last movie I saw was The Collection, because boys are gross.

“If you like The Notebook, you’ll love this one.”

I totally intend to write a blog about everything that is wrong with The Notebook, but I didn’t feel like browsing any longer. The thing is, I don’t hate The Notebook. I Titanic it. What that means is that I think it’s a really sweet story if you don’t scratch the surface… not even a little. The Lucky One, though? Well, at one point, I accidentally changed the language to French and wasn’t sure if I liked the movie enough to bother figuring out how to change it back. It may grow on me though… like genital warts.

The movie opens with a battle scene where a freshly shaven and showered Zac Efron (Logan) and company are shooting people with what sounds like cap guns. Whatever, though. This is a love story, not a war story. The next day, Logan stumbles across a photo of a hot chick. When he bends down to pick it up, a bomb goes off and had he continued walking, he’d have been killed. More bad stuff happens and Logan lives, because the photo tells him to “Stay Safe” on the back. All his buddies keep telling him the woman pictured saved his life and he has to find her.

Wait. What? A soldier finds a picture of a woman on the ground and is immediately driven and encouraged to track her down? I know we find out later that the picture belonged to her brother, but Logan doesn’t know that. If a soldier has a picture of a hot chick on him, it’s kind of natural to assume she’s taken by a soldier. No one even considers or proposes this idea and Logan decides he must find his angel and thank her. ::Vomit::

Logan makes his family uncomfortable, because he’s irreparably damaged by war, so he walks from Colorado to Louisiana asking people if they know the girl in the picture, eventually finding her home town.

Wait. Shut the front door! He just happens to find someone who recognizes the girl in the photo, which says only “Stay Safe” on the back? I’m not fucking buying it. Unless there was a visible license plate number in said photo, the odds of just stumbling across her in the straight line you walked through two or three states are just too ridiculous for even a Nicholas Sparks story about fate. I read books about people who have to arrange their wings properly during sex and you still cannot convince me that Zac Efron finds the woman in this picture… but he does… because of fairy dust and love.

He didn’t walk. He rode in.

Logan eventually tracks down his savior and how incredibly disappointing is it for him that she is a total bitch? Has Nicholas Sparks ever even met a nice woman? This man is beginning to make me truly concerned for his personal relationships. If the movies based on his books are any indication, Nicholas Sparks owns a boat, is not nearly as terrified of geese as I am, and is in an abusive relationship. Beth the Savior is nasty to Logan from the beginning, with absolutely no catalyst. He says he’s a marine and she blows him off and calls him crazy, which I’m sure would make her brother proud. She implies that he’s stupid, because he only went to college for a year. Later, we find out that she doesn’t like him because he works too hard. Listen, bitch. Try being married to a man who is too lazy to bathe for four years and we’ll talk about the pitfalls of the man who fought for his country. At this point, I was hoping this was one of those movies where she gets a disease and dies.

Beth eventually warms up to Logan, and we’re not allowed to be angry at her for being a bitch, because she was sad that one time and we women can’t control our emotions around people who had nothing to do with our sadness. Yeah. I’m on board with that.

There are two main conflicts in this movie.
1) When will Logan tell Beth he found her picture?
2) Why’s it such a big fucking deal?
Also, Beth’s ex-husband is a douche bag and sheriff, even though he’d have to be like 9 years old, based on the timeline of this movie. Seriously. They got pregnant and married at 18 and the kid is 8. He’s 26 and sheriff? I suppose it’s possible.

There’s a lot of slow sensual sex, because people in love don’t fuck with wild abandon, duh. We see them dance and laugh, even though we never once hear either of them say something funny. Finally Beth learns that Logan knew her brother… and I still didn’t get why this was a bad thing. I have a big brother. I love him very much, even if he is a bigot who thinks fart jokes are hilarious. I’d be devastated if he died in war. You know what else? I’d think it was super cool that this guy found my picture and it was his good luck charm. It’d be even neater that he was hot and good in bed. I sure as shit wouldn’t be angry about it.

In a wildly unrealistic turn of events, Beth’s kid runs off in the rain, falls into a river, and his dad dies in an act of heroism, because somebody built the worst fucking treehouse of all time. Lady, if that treehouse couldn’t hold up to rain, your kid probably shouldn’t have been in it in the first place. Fo sho.

Oh, I’m not being fair. Louisiana isn’t really known for its storms.

Logan finds a photo of Beth’s brother and realizes that he was one of the guys with the cap guns and he died to save his partner. He tells Beth and dramatically walks away.

Why not just leave the way you got there?

Beth catches up with him, they kiss, and the kid has like zero rebound time to get over his dad’s death. They all live happily ever after.

There are chick flicks I’ve truly enjoyed, such as Sweet Home Alabama, 500 Days of Summer, Riding in Cars with Boys and Bridget Jones’s Diary. It’s just not fun to review those, because I can’t be sarcastic and smart alek. There are many more I’ve enjoyed, but love to tear apart, because according to Jay I’m “too analytical”. These include The Notebook, Gilmore Girls, Bewitched, Just Married, The Twilight Saga, and No Strings Attached. I enjoy watching these movies with and without analysis. Then there are movies I hate: The Women, The Vow, Pretty Woman, Enough, License to Wed, Life as We Know It. I’m not sure where The Lucky One falls. It’ll probably just be forgettable. But it was worth the $3 rental charge to enjoy “over-analyzing” it. The rest are sure to come.

Top Lines That Did Not Work On Screen, Because Emotions Freak Me Out

“Why did you come here?”
“To find you.”
I think someone once told me that in an alley where no one could hear me scream.

“Finding something like that in a war is like finding an angel in Hell.”
Has Sparks read the Bible? Because there are evil angels (known largely as demons) in Hell. The infamous Satan being one of them. Duh. So… ‘finding something like that in a war is like finding ham in a refrigerator.'” – Gail

“You should be kissed every day, every hour, every minute.”
That is going to get really awkward when I’m doing things you’d like to pretend girls don’t do.

Titanic: An “Over-Analysis”

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Belle of the Library

So there comes a time in life when you find yourself turning it over in your brain… approaching it at different angles… coming up with pithy comebacks several hours after the fact… because what did he mean you’re “too analytical” and “over-analyze”?!?! It’s not like you couldn’t get through a simple late night meal you didn’t need at an IHOP without going on your “Titanic Rant”! It’s not even a rant! It’s a simple, perfectly healthy, rational review of historical fiction that was completely ridiculous!!!!!!!

Seriously. That internal monologue totally happened when Jay interrupted someone to say “DO NOT get her started on Titanic“, because…

That version would’ve been so much better.

I’ll open with a disclaimer. On the surface, Titanic is an enjoyable watch. It’s a cute love story with a strong female lead. It’s too damned long, but I have no attention span for movies and television anyway, as I only watched half the last episode of Vampire Diaries, before I turned off the T.V. to read. My appreciation for this movie, however, is with zero analysis and I have it on good authority that I’m incapable of such a feat. End Disclaimer.

Rose would not have spoken to Jack. She wouldn’t have had the chance to do so. She was betrothed to a very powerful man and likely would not have been left alone long enough for her pretend suicide attempt, let alone the many touching moments that followed. Had the former even occurred, Jack would’ve been arrested and immediately hauled away from her when it appeared she’d been attacked. They wouldn’t have waited around to hear the explanation of a hysterical female. He touched a very wealthy man’s fiance and would pay for it. The movie ends and it’s bloody.

Let’s go ahead and allow them to meet, though. Maybe 17-year-old (they discussed University) Rose really is left alone long enough to threaten to fling herself from the boat and gets the attention she is clearly seeking. This was 1912, ya’ll. Women didn’t talk to strange men and no one married for love anyway, especially not the rich. They hardly do that today. They married for social and economic standing. The end. There were two classes back then: upper and lower. The modern day middle class did not rise until the mid-forties.* Rose would’ve been choosing between extreme wealth and extreme poverty and she wasn’t exactly a low-maintenance gal. Furthermore, by choosing the latter, she was dooming her mother to it, too. The woman wasn’t exaggerating when she asked Rose if she’d like to see her reduced to working as a seamstress. This was backbreaking, 16-hours a day, may or may not get paid and still won’t be able to eat, work. It was some of the only work available to women and they still couldn’t survive on it.* All because Rose wanted a little more excitement? Rose was a strong and feisty woman by 1997’s standard, but by 1912’s, she was a selfish brat with no loyalty to her mother, who did all she could to raise her, send her to the best schools, and hide the fact that the money was gone, so she could procure a nice man to take care of her, because women couldn’t provide for themselves.

This brings us to the men: Jack and Cal. Jack was a homeless man. You can put whatever spin on it you like, but the man was a vagrant and a moocher.

“Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people.” – Jack Dawson*

Had she ended up with him, she’d have eventually been the wife of a factory worker, dreaming of the days when life wasn’t so grueling.

Cal, however, was quite the catch for the time period. He was classically handsome, wealthy, and frankly, he put up with a lot of shit from Rose, because he actually loved her. So, he ordered for her at dinner. It was 1912! That was commonplace and no one would’ve thought anything of it, including Rose. He bought her the paintings he hated, paid a man the equivalent of $476.19* today for saving her life, and gave her a diamond that explorers still coveted 85 years later. That’s more than pretty much all women of the day could ask.

“There’s nothing I couldn’t give you. There’s nothing I’d deny you if you would not deny me. Open your heart to me, Rose.” – Cal Hawkley*

I mean, the man only hit her once and it was for cheating on him. That’s really quite the show of self-control by today’s standards. Statistically speaking, Jack would’ve hit her far more, due to economic standing and because she was impossible.* I mean, the woman told penis jokes at a formal dinner. That’s disgusting in 2013, let alone 101 years ago.

“Do you know of Dr. Freud, Mr. Ismay? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you.” – Rose DeWitt Bukater*

So, Rose ends up with the millionaire. The movie ends and it’s bloody.

“He married, of course. And inherited his millions. But the crash of ’29 hit his interests hard, and he put a pistol in his mouth that year. Or so I read.” Rose Calvert, 1997*

Rose never would’ve spoken to Jack and she never would’ve chosen Jack, but let’s just say she did. The events progress exactly as they did in the movie and the ship is sinking and she chooses to risk death with a drifter, all for the sake of luuuuuuv. They’re in ice cold water and the lifeboats aren’t willing to rescue them, for good damned reason, because they’ll be tipped and everyone will freeze to death. We’re supposed to think the guys who make that call are douches, but in reality, they’re the heroes who saved everyone on those lifeboats. Meanwhile Jack and Rose find a floating door that won’t hold the weight of both of them. An entire fucking ship just sank and she doesn’t encourage him to seek out more debris, because then she won’t have a chat buddy? They couldn’t have held hands on His and Hers doors? She’s a selfish bitch and he’s a moron, so he dies. Rose goes on to live a beautiful and fulfilling life full of people she loves, as the result of making Jack her sacrificial lamb. She marries and has children and grandchildren.

“Then she marries this guy named Calvert, they move to Cedar Rapids and she punches out a couple of kids.” Lewis Bodine*

Then, just before her death, she presents a diamond worth millions that could’ve taken care of her whole family for generations, and tosses it off the side of a boat to be dramatic, even though no one is watching. I know we have this idea in society that we aren’t supposed to use the word “cunt” for the elderly, but in this case, I’m willing to make an exception. Finally, Celine Dion music plays in the background, Rose dies and is transported back to the Titanic to meet Jack and the credits roll.

Wait. What?!?! She lived a rich life full of people she adored and screwed out of millions, and her idea of heaven is a ship that sunk and killed hundreds of people, just because of a one-night stand from 85 years ago?!?!?! Her whole family got owned.

“I saw my whole life as if I’d already lived it. An endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared… or even noticed.” – Rose Calvert, 1997*

Meanwhile, the early 1900’s American poor lived their own adventures, as in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle:

“… meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one—there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit. There was no place for the men to wash their hands before they ate their dinner, and so they made a practice of washing them in the water that was to be ladled into the sausage. There were the butt-ends of smoked meat, and the scraps of corned beef, and all the odds and ends of the waste of the plants, that would be dumped into old barrels in the cellar and left there. Under the system of rigid economy which the packers enforced, there were some jobs that it only paid to do once in a long time, and among these was the cleaning out of the waste barrels. Every spring they did it; and in the barrels would be dirt and rust and old nails and stale water—and cartload after cartload of it would be taken up and dumped into the hoppers with fresh meat, and sent out to the public’s breakfast.”*

Meanwhile in China… those are her toes: