Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with:
Salomé
and
jmc
and
Lyvvie
and
Doug
(and totally non-SBD-related but exceedingly heartwarming puppy story from Megan and YAY FOR WILSON!)

And me. Okay, I'm just coming off a12-hour workaday, so I can't promise this will be coherent or interesting.

Movie-lovin'!

So I rented some movies at some point in the last few weeks and and I decided to pick up the latest version of Pride and Prejudice. You know, with Keira Knightly and Donald Sutherland and whoever else. Now, we all know how I feel about the book - namely, that I've somehow grown to hate it. I swear I used to like it, though it was never my favorite Austen, but somehow that lovin feeling is gone gone gone and I can't go on and et cetera.

So originally I didn't want to see the movie because I'm not interested in a pared-down version that focuses on the love story, as I'd heard this one does. But after re-reading it this summer and discovering my impatience with the novel, I decided to go ahead and rent it since it would no longer be destroying anything I love. Plus, Snookie frikken LOVES this movie and wouldn't shut up about it so okay fine, here we go, pop it in the DVD player.

The long and the short of it is: I didn't like it. And I guess this must just mean that I hate the story, period. I find them all dull and exasperating and absurd and bleh. There is apparently no way to make me like this story. Sorry. But on to the specifics of the movie:

• The absolute best part of it is Mr. Darcy. I'm too tired to google for the actor's name, but goddamn did he do an amazing job. This Mr. Darcy isn't just some hot, repressed, haughty, noble babe. He manages to convey this very layered, subtle character. It's not just some arrogant, prideful guy and later you find out it was all a mask. This actor - I dunno, the way he holds himself, the calculated non-expressions on his face at certain points - everything is just so right. And you see how much more there is to this character, how there's pride and fear and anger and introversion and annoyance all at once. Darcy stops being a cardboard cut-out and becomes this very understandable and sympathetic human being. All because of a really terrific actor. Bravo. Really.
  
• The next best part is all the balls. Not testicles, I mean dancing and stuff. You know how characters are always saying "It was a sad crush" and swooning and complaining about the crowd and the heat and the noise? And yet you watch a movie set in the time, and it's all sparkling and magical and oooooh pretty? Well, not in this movie. It's crowded and loud and exciting fun but claustrophobic. It just gives this remarkably real feel to the whole thing. Not just the ball scenes, but all the sets in the movie. It's really great.
• The worst part, if you ask me (not that you did), is Keira Knightly. I'm sorry, but she sucks. I hate the way she delivers her lines, slaughtering the rhythms of the dialogue and everything with a thick dollop of smugness. I always kinda wanna punch Lizzie in the face for her smugness anyway, but this actress makes me want to just bludgeon her. More than ever, I was compelled to wonder wtf Darcy sees in that git. GYAH.
• The other worst part is the series of unbelievably bad wigs she wears. Good lord. It's Hollywood. You'd think they could do better.
  
• Though I've seen worse, this movie is clearly in love with itself. There's a fine line between giving the world gorgeous cinematography and visually shouting OMG LOOK AT OUR GORGEOUS CINEMATOGRAPHY, WE ARE IMMORTAL! More than a little self-conscious. Ugh.
  

I realized I found the whole thing beyond redemption for me when, near the end, Mr. Darcy is striding toward the camera from afar, emerging from the mist, slightly dishevelled and manly beyond belief, the classic romantic (in the broadest sense of the word) figure. As the music swelled and the noble figure approached, I... burst out laughing. Snort-laughing, okay. All it needed was a heaving-bosomed vixen with creamy white skin and flowing auburn tresses looking at him longingly as she flashed her cleavage, a mighty stallion in the distance, and maybe some gold-foil letters. Sheesh.

So, ya know - I probly woulda been okay with it if I just got swept away in the story. But I seem incapable of that. I just DON'T like P&P, that's all there is to it. Bizarre, but true.

However - I also rented Brokeback Mountain. I think that Nora Roberts book made me wanna see ranch land and ranch hands and mountains and whatever, and I'd never seen it, so okay.

And I will say this about Brokeback Mountain: it's quite possibly the best, most amazing love story I've ever experienced in my life. I just couldn't believe how frikken great it was. And maybe it was because I was half-expecting overrated, pretentious, social-conscious bullshit, I dunno. But I was more than a little pleasantly surprised. I needed a long recovery time after watching it, because it was that intense and that moving.

And sure the actors were great and the writing was wonderful, but I think it's all about Ang Lee, who is about the most brilliant director ever. His style is so perfect for a story like this. I haven't read reviews and I'm not gonna, because I don't care what other people think on this one. It's understated and marvelous and shattering and about the most moving piece of fiction I've ever seen. I think most people trying to write a good romantic conflict would do well to study this one. If you really want it to be powerful and stunning and unforgettable and intense, you need to make the internal conflict be a little something more than, like, a fear of commitment. Good luck with that.

So in sum: Pride and Prejudice = meh; Brokeback Mountain = holyshit genius.

I also watched Thank You For Smoking and it's brill, but nothing to do with romance.

Yeah, that's it. I gotta sleep now bye.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with...

Salomé
and
jmc
and me.

I read Montana Sky, by Nora Roberts. I accidentally ordered it. I can't remember what I'd intended to order, but it wasn't this. Oh well. I read it anyway.

I didn't dislike it. It was ... just... I dunno. I don't understand why people want to read books like these, which I think this book is pretty representative of plain ole Popular Fiction and it's why the woman is on every bookstand in every airport, grocery store newspaper kiosk, and hotel nightstand. (Okay maybe not the nightstand, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.) Aside from this one being frequently noted by her fans as a favorite, it clearly has a very broad appeal and is largely enjoyed by the average reader. Therefore I find it safe to conclude that this is what many many many many readers love to read.

And it's not like I haven't read many books that taste like this one before - the same-tasting prose, the characters, the plots and sub-plots, the feel of it. It's not that it's bland, it's just... uhhh... I dunno. Brain good not so werk, sorry.

What it is, is that it's got the same feel as some movie you watch on late night TV because oh yeah hey I remember Julia Roberts is in this one and I'm really bored and don't feel like getting up from the couch, so okay at least the moutains are pretty. Like that, see. It's like a relatively forgettable movie in book form. It's entertaining, and it's not crap - it's just... um? Filler, maybe that's the word. It's like eating the bologna sammich you brought to work with you for lunch. Ya know - instead of going over to the Thai place and getting the panang curry noodles and a beer. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just... so... basic.

And I'd also like to know why we have to see things from the (unrevealed until the end) killer's POV all throughout the book? Granted, I'm not a fan of mystery and suspense and all, so it's quite probable that this is just a convention of the genre. But man did it ever make me roll my eyes. Way to kill the mystery. Yeesh.

Furthermore, the romance line between Interchangeable Hot Cowboy and Hollywood chick? I was ever so annoyed at how it ended. Look, the only substance to their relationship is really great sex, and they laugh a lot, and they... have a lot of really hot sex. That's pretty much it. I really didn't buy the whole "We are in love and will not be Together Forever and she gives up Rodeo Drive at the drop of a cowboy hat" thing at the end. Puh-leez.

However, I give full props and great thanks for the fantasticness of Louella, a little-seen character who totally stole the show. She's a hoot and a holler and a stitch, that woman. Made me giggle a lot, which is not so easy to do in the written form. Oh, also where the sisters were target-shooting - that was amusing too.

So there you are - my first Nora Roberts was pretty much what I expected it to be. Not bad, but not anything all that special. The end.

PS: My cat looks very much like this cat. Except I doubt she'd ever get all cuddly with any other animal like that.

PPS: This was the recipe I used to make the pumpkin cupcakes. It actually makes more like 24, not 18, and they're really damn tasty.

Celebrate the Day of the Very Very Very Smart Bitches with...

Lyvvie and her tarot cards
Kate and her unholy love of (barf) Regency Christmases
Doug and his guy-readin' of Outlander
jmc and her totally reasonable contempt of the hired help
and Salomé even though it's not very SBDish, but it's a really funny video and it made me snort-laugh and everything.

And I guess me, except (a) I am a wee bit nutty in that hypercrazygoofy sense, and (b) I really got nuttin except

This One Random Memory Of A Harlequin

So I think I read this back in the Second Romance Awakening of my life (senior year of high school, AP Advanced English and Thomas Hardy eating my brain, category Romance soothing the synapses, ahhh secret babies and billionaire tycoons ahhhh) and I have applesolutely no idea what it was called. It was about an actress - maybe her name was Maisy? Something like that. Or I could be completely inventing that. Hm. Or not.

(I don't know, the mind is an awfully weird place, eckspecially when it comes to memory, and I suppose it's entirely POSSIBLE that a Harlequin heroine of the late 80s was named Maisy of all the dumbass names, but I mean I just consider it rather unlikely, that's all. But then where did the name come from? How did it get lodged in my brain for all these years and associated with this slim volume of tripe? It perplexes me. It is a modern mystery. The world may never know. And yet we must forge on. On, I say!)

So this Maisy (we'll call her Maisy) was an actress and in order to act this Role Of A Lifetime - for which she won A Major Award (the Quill, perhaps? a lamp in the shape of a fishnetted leg? I! Don't! Know!) and got ever so famous - she had to be fat. So she gained all this weight, see, as part of her Art. And while she was filming this Major Motion Picture, this totally hot actor was on set a few days, a bit part. And he was totally hot and the tallest man in the book and therefore the hero, so she fell completely in love with him. He was nice to her and all, but it was mostly just her desperately crushing on him and him treating her like a little sister. They were friends, but no more, because she couldn't get up the nerve to pass him a note that read "I like you, do you like me, please check this box" or whatever.

Until one day (dramatic music!) she overheard him saying to some mutual movie-friend that he could tell that Maisy had the hots for him, but he wasn't interested in her because she was so very grotesquely fat (paraphrasing). So she ran off crying to herself, eventually rose strong from the ashes of this great personl tragedy and gave The Performance Of A Lifetime, thereby becoming the Toast of the Town.

Then she spent like 6 months on a treadmill, eating nothing but carrot shards until she was svelte as your typical Hollywood ho-bag, and then! Five years later! She was set to star with HIM in some movie, and she realized she still totally had feelings for him even though she should hate him because he's so shallow for caring more about her ugly cellulite than for her Inner Beauty.

So naturally what happens is that he falls for her and makes the moves and she wants him but she can't ever forget what he said about her thighs, that rat bastard, he doesn't love the REAL her, etc. Poor Maisy. Finally - and I think it happens while they're in A State Of Extreme Intimacy - she tells him why they can't do it. (Because it's never JUST about love; it's always also about Having Nookie, see. Doing It means they're In Love. In a Harlequin, they're basically the same thing. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Duh.) He is stunned because here HE'S been afraid of falling in love with HER because they were friends once and she totally ditched him when she became famous. And then they have this convo which was like

Him: "Fame is all that matters to you!"
Her: "I ditched you and then like A YEAR LATER became famous, dickweed, and I HEARD what you said about my fat and you only like me now because I'm skinny!"
and he's all: "You ran off and didn't hear the rest of what I said!"
and she's like: "I didn't NEED to hear more, what I NEEDED was to go drown my sorrows in a gallon of Haagen Dazs which I only ate for the sake of MY ART."
and THEN, okay, get THIS, he says to her: "What I said and what you didn't hear was that you were all hung up about your weight and very depressed and down on yourself, no confidence, and how could I possibly find that attractive? It ws the INSIDE of you that was unattractive and that I didn't want to be with!"

And then she sighed and cooed and they fell in love and HEA.

So I remembered this book randomly today and all I can say is: seriously? SO FUCKED UP.

The end.