Haters Only

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted, but in lieu of the 20th anniversary of Keira Knightley’s Pride and Prejudice, I thought we’d celebrate with a post about how much I hate it.

Usually the praise of this movie centers around aesthetics. It’s pretty, the music is nice, there’s a hand flex, and funny potatoes. All well and good. The hand flex is romantic. The remark about potatoes is humorous. And it might not be so bad if the stupid thing wasn’t supposed to be anything like Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's beloved classic. But it was so different, it might have been better to call it something else. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies is almost a more faithful adaptation. Both movies add nonsense to dumb the original down--one through excessive giggling and one through excessive killing. “We’re giggling so you know we’re not boring. It’s set a long time ago, but we’re still having fun! We promise!” Ugh. I take it back. Even if it wasn’t supposed to be Pride and Prejudice, it would still suck.

Which is a shame because there’s so much about Pride and Prejudice that we love. So much is lost in this adaptation. We love Lizzie who is sharp and independent. But THIS Lizzie is less so when she’s offended by Darcy’s initial slight. In the book—and better movies/mini-series—she finds it funny. Some say it’s not fair to compare a movie to a six hour mini series that can cover more details. Did the movie not have enough time to make her laugh instead of pout? Did the movie not have enough time to NOT have a pig run through the house? Did the movie not have enough time for accurate representation of historical costumes for the period? Maybe they could have scraped some time off the scenes that stretched on for what seemed like years, of her sitting on a swing, or staring at herself in the mirror, or him walking through a field. Oh my gosh! We get it! He’s walking! 

—Then when he stops walking, after the end of the world has come and we’re all in the hereafter, it gets worse. We get his declaration of love. **shudder** Proceed if you dare.

I hate it so much that I’ve dissected it, line for line, to showcase its abhorrent stain on Pemberley’s shades. 

Prepare yourself! This proposal is on-the-nose and embarrassing. There isn’t a morsel of genuine, natural speech. It’s cliche, and a waste of space. Got your loins gathered? Let’s dive in.

“I love, I love you.” Reminds me of that part in “Singing in the Rain” when they’re making fun of the bad dialogue that’s “I love you! I love you! I love you!” Originality points? 0. Clever points? 0. Romantic points? 0. So far, you suck, Mr. Darcy. 

But it doesn’t improve. “You’ve bewitched me, body and soul.” “Body and soul” is implied, buddy. And “bewitched” is the word people use when they want to look like they didn’t just run out of words. Any time you see it, know within your heart of hearts that the author is being lazy. 100% of the time I hear it and cringe. Stop. Using. This. Word. Use words that actually mean something and are personal.

At last we have the ending. “I never wish to be parted from you.” Okay. And? Do you see how it’s phrased? “It’s SO historic because he used the passive voice!” No. It’s just lazy!

There’s NOTHING in this that you couldn’t take and give to someone else. There’s nothing personal. Nothing that sounds like Mr. Darcy. It’s as if they didn’t finish the script and threw something together. And there are those who believe Jane Austen actually wrote this. My friends, do not read P&P looking for this. You will not find it. 

It is inexcusable and irresponsible for a writer charged with the great honor of adapting a Jane Austen novel to present this kind of bland effortless crap fest. 

As a writer, I spent days writing and rewriting a declaration of love until I got it right. I have zero patience for professionals who refuse to hone their craft. It’s infuriating, and offensive. 

Ahem. Now join me, and tell me what you hate about this movie. Any comments about liking the movie will be deleted, and epically un-tolerated. Thanks for understanding. Haters only.

A Case For Love Triangles

 

Hi. My name is Becky, and I love love triangles. I've met some who oppose of geometric romance, so I wanted to sit down, and get out some of my thoughts, and subject you to them at the same time. Hurray!

Love triangles are when one person digs someone, and someone else digs them. It's not necessary that two points of the triangle dig each other, but that's often the way. 

In Fight Club's case, he liked Marla, and Marla just liked him back, but he thought that meant she liked someone else. He was a little confused. It's okay.

So, who would say, "I don't like these love triangles!" when obviously it's a smashing happening? I don't know, dudes. But they say things like, "This is a trope, and tropes are evil!" So, is it a trope? Define "trope!" A trope is, according to whatever came up when I Googled it, "a common or overused theme or device." BUSTED! Looks like love triangles are a trope, guys. Shut it down. 

Why are you still reading? We've decided it's a trope, and we all know tropes are bad. Move on with your lives. 

Fine. Okay. Let's divide tropes into two categories, JUST FOR FUN! First we've got our CRAPPY WRITING TROPES. In this section we'll cram all the tropes that aren't REALISTIC, and perhaps are downright insulting. IN YOU GO, ADO ANNIES OF THE WORLD! SEE YOU LATER, KAREN SMITH! References: The Oklahoma! character whose personality is promiscuity, and the Mean Girls character whose personality is promiscuous idiot. Why was there ever more than one of these!? Also, we can say goodbye to the nerd who is passed over in their career, then gets evil, and hot. I couldn't believe it when Wonder Woman 1984 did this AGAIN.

But there's another category, my friends: REALISTIC TROPES. And we should keep these. I'm making this up as I go, and so I haven't thought much about what else fits into this, and maybe we should get rid of those, but let's go ahead and put love triangles here, because - let me ask you a question; have you ever been in love? YOU HAVE!?! And did that person like you back? NO!??! Well, then my friend, congratulations,  YOU HAVE BEEN IN A LOVE TRIANGLE! Wait. What? They did love you back? That's WONDERFUL! Did anyone have eyes for you, or them, while you were jonesing for each other? THEY DID?!?! You know what that means, friends? YOU'VE BEEN IN A LOVE TRIANGLE! I can almost completely 100% guaran-freaking-tee that every single relationship ever, except maybe, gosh, I hope, Adam and Eve's, has been a love triangle. 

My second point.

All the best movies have love triangles. Gone With The Wind, Hunger Games, and not even just romances. There's also Harry Potter, Encanto, Indiana Jones, Les Miserables, X-Men, Spider-man.... We've also got Gladiator and Star Wars which both managed to have love triangles even when two of the points were related! Lord of the Rings? Check! Even your precious Titanic is one big love triangle. So stop bashing on love triangles, when you know you love them! Even if they love someone else.

2020’s Emma

It took me a while to realize what it was about this movie that was driving me nuts. I love this movie, but it drives me nuts. Then it hit me! It’s over-directed. In its attempt to be *interesting* it’s over-directed, which leads us to... UNREALISM! Oh the dread of something not seeming real! I actually don’t get why things have to be real all the time. But I will say when something takes a step away from reality, it should have a reason... stronger than, “Because we’ve heard this story before and now we have to make it different.” It’s a good story as it is, with solid characters who’ve stood the test of time! They don’t need your cleverness! Oh they’re so proud of how effing clever they are. I’m sorry! Okay? (Spoilers.) Emma’s nose bleed. Not needed. Doesn’t add anything to the moment, or the character. The end. Next topic. The social/distanced dance in the street between Emma and Frank! Oh gosh! It’s so cwoot! They’re flirting! They’re bonding! It’s trash! It’s such cleverly directed slosh-bucket. The butts! Nudity is no substitute for wit. (I stole that from the dowager countess of Grantham, but she said, “vulgarity.” Same thing.) Reminding us that people have butts does not improve your movie. Not to boast, but some of us already knew about butts. Where was I? I raged about the nose bleed, the Covid-dancing... oh! The dance at the ball between Emma and Knightley. You know it and I know it, it was sexual! Have you, don’t answer this, ever had sex while dancing? ‘Cause Emma and Knightley have! In fact, that’s how we, and apparently Emma, discovered they liked each other. Whose eyes are those rolling around? Oh. They’re mine. So freaking clever to make the dance so steamy! Do you see how easy it is to be exhausted by the end of such a witty movie? The movie already has a perfectly capable cast, and one of the greatest stories of all time! The script is delightful! The contrived and overbearing, ridiculous, cuteness added in... excuse me. I have to use the bathroom... to barf.

I’m back. Rant over. Thing is, I really like the movie! I pressure everyone to see it, because NOBODY HAS! The actors are wonderful. If they didn’t all get married by the end, I would have married all of them! The costumes were sometimes a bit too modern-seeming... No. shut up. I’m only talking about good things now! Oh! What the frock was with that score?!?! Sorry. That’s negative again. Gosh darn it! Anyway, you may not believe me, but I really do like the movie. Plenty to enjoy... just... don’t think about it. Okay. That’s all. Bye guys.

Mary Freaking Sue

Here’s why the term “Mary Sue” sucks and needs to die:

Mary Sue’s been around for forever, and nobody cared until the trope was applied to a woman. Novelists have been writing men who are outlandishly perfect for a long time. I give you Westley from The Princess Bride who couldn’t even be tortured and when he actually died, it didn’t take. I also give you The Count of Monte Cristo, who went to prison to get more awesome. These male characters, and many like them, are impervious to everything. They’re inexplicably superior to everyone they meet. They are ridiculous, and unrealistic, and nobody cared. People give Bella Swan of Twilight a hard time for being a Mary Sue and Stephenie Meyers laughed all the way to the bank. Obviously the trope is not keeping fans away. So why bring it up like it’s something anyone should care about? “Rey’s a Mary Sue!” Sorry. Find a different excuse to hate the sequels, ‘cause that’s an unoriginal, boring reason, and history has taught us that nobody really cares about Mary Sues.

So why did someone all the sudden stand up and shout, “Hey! This female character in this fan fic is unrealistically boss! We need a term for this offense so we can shame others and act like it’s a new thing!” I’m having a problem coming up with a reason apart from: blatant sexism.

Am I wrong? I’d love to be wrong.

Klaus

All I hear is, "Klaus is so good." "Everyone should watch Klaus." So, let's talk about it, friends. Let's talk about Klaus.

It's on Netflix.

It's about a mailman whose punishment is being sent to a small town waaaaaaaay up North. The town sucks. Everyone hates each other. Worst of all, nobody goes to school, and nobody mails letters, because of the hate.

Our friend, mail dude, has to mail 6,000 before he can go home, to his life of mailman luxury. He steals a kid's drawing, a drawing of said kid looking sad, and tells the kid she can have it back if she purchases postage. Her parents show up, and he runs off, with the drawing. He runs into a big scary guy, AKA Santa, (or Klaus,) who finds the drawing, and makes the postman deliver to the sad girl a toy. (Klaus has lots of toys.) So the postman does it, and soon every kid in town thinks if they mail a letter to Klaus he'll mysteriously deliver a toy to them in the middle of the night.

Well the kids start getting along, and guess who hates that? A few old people. So they try to Grinch Santa and the mailman. Then everyone finds out the mailman was really just trying to get the heck out of their sucky town, and they're really upset at him.
Here's where I go, "Oh come on. Is that really so bad?" In this movie's hurry to be formulaic, they missed making the mailman's sins against his friends, really that big of a bummer. His girlfriend, the teacher, was doing the exact same thing! Then she holds it against him when it comes out he was doing the same thing? Come on.

Then there's a touching moment, that made me cry, and that's when I went, "Oh. There it is. I cried. That's why everyone likes this movie."

To sum it up, it's okay. It's kind of heartwarming if you like warm hearts and all that. I give it a meh on the Boonie scale. Well... it's better than meh, but it's meh. It's not The Iron Giant. Maybe I'm angry because I expected more.

I liked the kid with the carrot, (above.)

Pixar Movies Sadness Level

Pixar movies rated by sadness.

Now you can do what I do - decide which movie you want to see based on how sad you want to get. Enjoy! (Or don't. If you like sad movies and want to suffer.)

1. Inside Out: Cried the entire time. Never not crying.

2. The Good Dinosaur: Bawl fest 2015

3. Coco: Day of the Sad

4. Up: Oh hello. Would you like to be sad?

5. Toy Story 4: Sad Story 4

6. Toy Story 3: The Toys Start Getting Sad

7. Monsters Inc.: Just thinking about the ending is making me tear up. Don't think about it!

8. Toy Story 2: Jessie's past life in Sadville.

9. Finding Dory: I haven't even seen it all the way through because it's more boring than anything else... which is sad.

10. Finding Nemo: Every parents' worst nightmare.

11. Wall-E: No tears, but super depressing.

12. Cars 3: Sad Cars

13. Brave: There are moving moments

14. Ratatouille: another nightmare

15. Cars: it's kind of sad that Lightening McQueen doesn't win... right?

16. A Bug's Life: Sad that it doesn't have more Heimlich

17. The Incredibles: Hardly sad at all.

18. The Incredibles 2: Even less sad.

19. Monsters University: Not sad even slightly. Downright freaking delightful.

Spider-man: Far From Home

Yay! Go see it.

Aladdin

I was not expecting to completely love this movie. These live-action Disney remakes have been disappointing crap-fests. (Search your feelings. You know it to be true.) The Jungle Book was dark and stupid. The best parts of the original were the songs! Take that away and you've just got a big, Christopher Walken monkey. Nobody wants that. Hermione and the Beast was absolutely horrible. Emma Watson's voice made me want to burn my ears off, and she turned Belle into a snob. Belle wasn't a brainy snob. She was brainy, but her big brain didn't make her head bigger. Also, I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't care for that Evermore song. Just give us, "If I Can't Love Her!" from the Broadway version. That song's amazing. Like sit in my room and not do anything but listen to that song amazing. Cinderella was okay, probably because it wasn't trying to be a sad carbon copy of the original. But it was still slow... and still sad. But you know what gave me chills, was exciting, and not a depressing suck-fest?

I'm not saying it's perfect. Beware of spoilers. (Yes. I know you've seen the original. But still.)

Here's what didn't work.

1. The ending didn't have a, "I'm a street rat, remember? I'll improvise." moment. Who cares? Well, I'll tell ya. He had to be who he was in order to win. When it mattered, being who he was was better than being a prince.

2. Adopt a voice trainer. I'm sorry. But flat notes have no place in Agrabah. Jasmine's voice sounded good during her new, modern, songs, but "A Whole New World" needed a whole new singer. But it's tough being compared to the great Lea Salonga! Meanwhile, during the musical numbers, Will Smith's energy would go on vacation. But this is me reeeeeeeeeally nit picking. No performance was as bad as Emma Watson's was. The best singer was the woman with one line, "Still I think he's rather tasty." Hello there, random citizen with a beautiful voice!

3. Let's talk about Jasmine's story line. It was new. It was unrealistic, except in a modern, or magical, setting. (Which it was, so we're good.) But did we lose our "I'm a street rat," moment because Jasmine was having her, "I won't be silent" moment? I think we could have had both. It stayed true to Jasmine's original character. They just took it a step... or 900 steps, further. But it might have been nice to see a change there. If the movie had started with her keeping silent, and being scared, THEN she embraced her voice at the end, that would have been more effective.

So what worked? I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED! I'm not even gonna number them. Let's go!

Okay. I'll number them. We'll keep score.

1. Will Smith's Genie. No. He's not Robin Williams. Of course he's not. No one is. But you know who he is? He's FREAKING WILL SMITH! He's the Fresh Prince of Ababwa! So shut up about it and get off his back. Come on, people. Seriously.

2. Aladdin. He was great! I loved that during One Jump Ahead you could tell he loved being the Robin Hood of Agrabah. It was wonderful to see this side of Aladdin that really enjoyed who he was, and what he was doing. 

3. The differences. The little things. The removal of the dungeon scene. The removal of Jasmine running away. Gone. Gone. Gone. Thank you!

4. Iago. 

5. The beginning. HOW SWEET WAS THAT!?! So cute! Of course, knowing everything, I knew what was going on. The kids behind me didn't. At the end of the film they were like, "Oh!" Silly youths.

6. I'm out of things to say now. But I want to add numbers because I said we'd keep score earlier and I really enjoyed this movie. It kept giving me chills! It was so much fun! 

7. I don't want to leave out Jafar or the Sultan. They were great. Carpet. Great. Abu. Really great. Is great a good word to use when eloquently critiquing a movie? Nobody cares! (Nobody being me.) 

8. Seriously. I'm done now. Just go see the movie. I'm sorry I didn't list anyone's names except Will Smith's. Check out IMDb. Don't make me do all the work.

9. But let's make this an even 10.

10. Go see it.

A Wrinkle in Time or Why I Hated Reading as a Kid

Thank you, A Wrinkle in Time, for reminding me what it was about kid books that made me hate them.
1. Nonsensical Magic.
My sister hates this worse than I do, but I hate it. "I think I'll be a bird now." No. Not allowed!

2. Appealing to Kids.
"Hey Phil, kids like magic. Right?" "Yeah, Mary. Kids love magic." "Cool. Okay. I'm gonna throw in a lot of stuff kids like." Kids like magic. Everyone likes magic. But kids also like stuff that doesn't suck.

3. Are you saying A Wrinkle in Time sucks?
I'm saying it was a big, boring, chunk of time-wasting fluff. It was pretty fluff. Sometimes the fluff made me ugly-cry. I liked all the, "My gift to you is your faults," or whatever stuff that was a big theme throughout the movie. I liked that a lot. Like The Greatest Showman, having confidence in being deserving of love right now, as you are, is a fantastic theme! But the rest of the blah-blah-blah... no.

4. It boils down to CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
Do you care about the characters?
Some of them.
Were you worried about them?
No. Because the situations they kept getting themselves into were RIDICULOUS!

Suddenly they're in a forest and suddenly some wave of NOTHING is chasing them! OH NO! RUN FROM THE CONVENIENT OBSTACLE!

To be fair, I spent a good chunk of the movie with my 5 year old in the bathroom. He kept saying he had to go, and he had been sick the day before, so I didn't want to chance it. But he also says he has to go to the bathroom when he's bored with a movie, or scared. I could hardly blame him for being either.

TV Show: When Calls the Heart

Let's take a break from movies, and talk about TV, specifically, Hallmark Channel's (I watched it on Netflix and Season 5 on Vudu,) WHEN CALLS THE HEART.

It's based off a book or something. They call it the North West, the frontier, and there are Mounties, so we're thinking, Canada. Right? Well, their Christmas parade had American flags, so....  I know little about Canada's history, but unless their flag was once a whole heck-of-a-lot like ours... someone got confused.

Apart from that, the show is refreshingly conservative. It's not that I'm anti-liberal TV shows, but this one is clean, and easy. It doesn't challenge anything, and I'm sorry, it's kind of nice. I ENJOY A GOOD CHALLENGE, but this show let's absolutely every other show do that, while it just hangs back and chills.

That being said, every single character is either the best person ever, or the worst. There are a few characters who are grey. THANK YOU BILL!

SPOILERS: I spent the first five seasons wanting to Jack and Elizabeth to get together, and when they finally did I wanted to punch them in the face. They're so obnoxious now! Also, when Cody showed up, uh-uh. No. Hated Cody! But once he was there for a while and stopped WHINING ALL THE TIME he became okay. I even worried about him when he got sick.

Second spoiler: Yeah. It's a bit predictable. Doug showed up and I told myself, (because I watch it alone, or with my babies,) he's gonna die. Low and behold.... he did. BUT I can't knock a show for being predictable, because... everything's predictable.

CONSENSUS: Yes. It's cheesy and it only gets cheesier. Yes, it gets formulaic, (everything does.) Someone leaves town. Someone goes to get them. They change their mind about being grumpy and everything is happy. But it's easy. It's light. I don't have to worry about anything. Sex doesn't even exist and the worst someone does is steal and shoot because they want to keep stealing. So here is a list of my favorite characters, in no particular order:

Lee Coulter (far right)
Rosemary (far left)
Bill (dated Becky from Full House/next to Lee)
Abigail (Becky from Full House)
Tom Thornton (not pictured)
Reverent what's his name (the second reverent who dated Becky from Full House/next to Rosemary)
Opal (not pictured)
Philip (above pictured)
Mayor Jerk-Face (I can't believe I'm blanking on these names. Oh well. It's not like I could take the time to look them up or something!/not pictured)
Charles (poor Charles/not pictured)
Faith (nurse/not pictured)
Carson (doctor/not pictured)
AJ (outlaw lady/not pictured)

And here are characters that bother me:
Early Cody
Jesse
Hattie

Usually, I like our leads, but they're getting on my nerves with all their cheese!

So I suggest you watch it!

The Greatest Showman

CONS:

Con The First: All the songs, I AM SORRY, sound exactly the same, and I GOT SICK OF THEM. (That last part was capitalized because I had to yell over all the shouting at me.) Also, all the choreography was jumping, often cheesy, and uninteresting, except for the acrobat song where Zendaya and Effron were floating around, which was awesome... but also absurd and ridiculous... and, again, cheesy.

Con The Next:

Jenny Lind... ahem.

Jenny Lind, like most people in this movie, was a real person. She was, in fact, a Swedish opera star. During the film she is described as "the greatest opera singer in Europe," or something. Then we finally get to hear her sing, and... wait... that's not opera. She's not an opera singer. Let me put this into context for those of you who happen to not be music snobs. Calling something opera that isn't opera... It'd be like if they described a dancer as a ballerina, then when she danced she danced a ho-down. It's all dancing, but there's a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. 

Now, I get why they didn't have her sing opera. Trust me. I get it. But don't just shovel pop at us and call it opera! Have it be like a dream, where she's obviously singing opera, but what we - through the view of Barnum - hear is the poppy song. OR just describe her as "the greatest singer in Europe," and leave the "opera" part out! As long as we're taking liberties! It's a MUSICAL! We're not going for realism, but do we have to LIE? Oy. In the great words of somebody somewhere, "If you bring a cannon on stage, you have to shoot it." The word "opera" is a cannon. Handle with care.

Third Con:

The subplot was more interesting than the plot. Is that a con? Yep. I just checked.

Most Objectionable Con Even More So Than The Opera Thing:

Barnum refused to admit his circus friends into the "opera" concert after party. They're so cheesed-off they sing my favorite song about it. (I don't remember how it goes, but it sounds like all the others except sung by the Bearded Lady who's quite possibly the most vocally talented of the lot.) But they NEVER RESOLVE THIS! The circus folk just kind of get over it. WHY INCLUDE THIS IF HE NEVER APOLOGIZES FOR IT!?!?!? Are we to take him returning in the end as an apology? Because it's not. Sloppy convenience is what I call it. 

PROS:

First Pro: The theme of "I'm enough as I am," is absolutely beautiful and relevant. I LOVE that it not only applied to the circus peoples, but to Barnum, who kept thinking he wasn't enough even though Michelle Williams kept trying to tell him he was more than enough.

Second Pro: The singing was nice.

My brother once told me he respected movies that accomplished what they set out to accomplish. This movie fulfilled its goal, but it was also dull. HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT. BOONIE?!?!?!?! I HATE YOU!!!! It's because I didn't care about Barnum. He was kind of a creep. He never sacrificed beyond risking all his money. I cared way more about everybody else, than I did about him.

But would I recommend it? Eh. I would tell you, "It's okay. Kinda fun. Kinda dull. Really great theme. Lots of people liked it." It reminded me of Newsies. I'd say it's better than Newsies. There. Sparkling review. 

Okay. I'll leave it here, fully convinced some of my friends now hate me.