Monday, November 17, 2008

Weekend movie-viewing

I saw four old movies over the weekend. Total recall which I had all but forgotten, the old titanic (still haven't seen the dicaprio one) and The lake house with keanu reeves and sandra bullock. And a horror flick called Tale of the Mummy.

The Tale of The Mummy is about yet another mummy looking for his body parts. I shouldn't laugh but i was actually terrified by the way this mummy appeared when he was stalking his victims. Loose bands of dirty mummy cloth floating in the air. That's all he was. Something about it felt very filthy...like worms or slithery cloths from toilets. Strange but I shuddered looking at them when I really should have laughed. Maybe i have an issue with dirty cloths, who knows?

Watching Total Recall I think it was the first time I actually said, "uhm, Arnold S is really quite a hunk." I had never thought of him as handsome.

I actually burst into tears with the titanic. The star was clifton webb who majored in those sophisticated seeming cold and repressed but really a sweetie. I cried so much hubby started laughing at me. It was definitely manipulative but well-earned manipulation.

I'd wanted to see the lake house for a while. I'm a sucker for films that play with reality. And as we all know, folks in love can make folks they love not die by protecting them against the future. The weird thing is that I noticed what a good actor Keanu Reeves has become. He used to be so crappy. He's really grown! But the manipulation was a bit much. There's a point where one thinks, "Oh come on!!!" It's weird to finally see a movie you've always wanted to see and to feel that it didn't quite live up to one's hopes. And it was also trying to be arty. IT was almost pretentious with all that architecture talk. One more movi e about the sorrows of rich folks. But it worked. Didn't make me cry as the old titanic did. Somehow it lacked soul. Shows the difference between a story that really earns the tears it jerks and one which doesn't quite pull you in. Perhaps I was too busying trying to find the scientific fallacy of the story or maybe I kept wondering how they could be so passionately in love with each other after a few letters. ..whatever it was it didn't work.

The best thing about Lake House was the UST -- the unresolved sexual tension. That's what I need to do in my story. And the entire story is about these two people having to "wait."

3 comments:

Tia Nevitt said...

Arnie looked better as he got older. Unfortunately, his looks peaked (for me) in his 40s. Some, like Clint Eastwood, seemed to look better and better decade after decade. My husband used to tease me that I only liked old Hollywood stars.

Great point about the unresolved sexual tension. Not enough storytellers use this and it makes the book all the better.

I'm going to have to find that old Titanic. I haven't seen it since I was a teenager, and I probably wasn't mature enough to appreciate it.

Lisa said...

Gosh, I completely missed the 'unresolved sexual tension' in the lake house and merely saw it is their wish to be together (where together meant in the same time and alive.)
I liked that show.

Total Recal was awesome.

I don't watch horror flicks, they scare me too much.

I recently saw Iron Man on HBO -woo hoo. LOVED IT! more more more

Carole McDonnell said...

Hi Lisa:

Most movies have their heroes and heroines falling into bed but at the end when he waited to see her...well,he was waiting... and saying no to his immediate desires to see her and to be with her. I think it worked very well. -C

Blog Archive