In Defence of Happy Endings

Oh, When Harry Met Sally? Hey, I always meant to get around to renting that,

until I REMEMBERED I'M HETEROSEXUAL!

Turk (Donald Faison)

Scrubs

OK, I know that some of my reading public (now up to four - if you don't count all those people trying to get me to promote their cheap viagra /online-dating /quicky divorce services (actually that kind of has a certain symetry to it)) are going to think that Jonboy's getting soft in his old age (or just soft in the head - or just soft), but I think it's high time somebody came to the defence of that staple of the Hollywood studio system, the romantic comedy. Defence?, you ask. Why would something as ubiquitous as the romantic comedy (I refuse to follow fashion and adopt the crass contraction, "rom-com") need defending?

Valid question. I'll tell you why. If you're reading this, chances are you're not a multiplex slob who habitually sees whatever has the biggest advertising budget that month. You probably laugh at Woody Allen's comedies. You might have a favourite Chinese or Spanish or Russian director. You might even sit around with your friends and talk about movies you've seen. This is where the danger creeps in. Peer pressure is a powerful thing, my friends - don't give in to it.

Well, usually it's guys that take issue with the romantic comedy; that is, guys who don't think romantic comedies - or really any kind of love story - are appropriate viewing for men. You see, it's just not cool to like romantic comedies. Men refer to them as chick-flicks (not all men, of course, and the ones that do tend to only like movies with car chases or fart jokes*, so their opinion doesn't count for much with anyone outside of test screenings in Burbank). These views are short-sighted and prematurely judgemental, and I am breaking ranks - I am a proud romantic comedy watcher. I cry at the end every time I see The Accidental Tourist. I cheer internally when Harry and Sally finally get their shit together. Hell, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere give hope to us all.

Romantic movies across the board get a bum rap. Critics say they're predictable, that they're formulaic, that they're emotionally manipulative. Well so is Lethal Weapon. So is The Castle. The romantic comedy has been a filmmaking staple for probably as long as public exhibition films have been around. Yes they tend to run to a formula, that's true. But no more that a horror flick, Western, action movie or thriller (all of which I am also a fan). Some of the best writing in movies these days is going into romantic comedies, along with some of the best talent. And you don't have to devote two-thirds of the films budget to CGI either. And this has always been true. The Razor's Edge, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Casablanca all operate at a significant level as romances.

And if nothing else, watching a romantic comedy with your significant other is equal in good-partner-points to at least five hours of shopping for shoes. Two hours of looking at Kate Beckinsale or five hours of looking at Delores from Footwear. I know how I'd rather spend my time.

* The first writer to successfully synthesise these two genres will be a very rich man, but won't live long enough to enjoy his good fortune after a visit by the Coalition for Reintroduction of Entertainment for Everybody into Picturehouses (CREEPs).

Voted Most Likely to Fail (on revisiting The Mask)

Ms. jonboywalton and I went on a little nostalgia trip on the weekend and watched our newly acquired copy of The Mask (1994). I remembered enjoying it immensely when I saw it on the big screen (Ms. J and I were still dating then), but apart from a couple of scenes (like Peggy's betrayal, and the "You gotta ask youself - do I feel lucky..." sequence) I couldn't really recall much of it at all.

According to the good folks at imdb.com The Mask was the eighth highest grossing movie of 1994 in the United States. Admittedly it was up against it with the likes of Forrest Gump and True Lies, but it was only pipped at the post by Speed (with roughly $2 million more in the pot) and grossed significantly higher than Pulp Fiction (earning about $12 million more at the Box Office).

The funniest thing is, all emperical evidence points to the movie never being intended to be such a hit. The entire cast was either unproven or considered second tier, the director - Chuck Russell - had just two features to his name, the schlock remake of The Blob, and the third installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and the premise was cartoonish without actually being based on a comic book (or a video game). It just happened to tap into the zeitgeist - by 1994 society had come down hard from the giddy excesses of the eighties and everyone just wanted a little escapism. They didn't care if their heroes were unlikely (like Bruce Willis as Butch in Pulp Fiction or Arnold Schwartzenegger's Harry Tasker in True Lies) . The little-film-that-could just happened to capture the public imagination at a time when the public didn't want to think about interest rates and trade defecits.

The thing that struck me about the film, looking at it ten years on, was how pedestrian it felt. The lack of jump cuts and running scenes. The claustrophobic closeness of many of the interior sets (the interiors that weren't shot in existing buildings like the bank). The big crowd scenes where you only see about thrity people at a time. And, (I only mention this because of the obvious and rampant prejudice against them at the time) the number of "television" actors in crucial roles. None of this seemed that obvious when I saw it the first time. Has the movie-going audience grown so cynically sophisticated in the last decade that these thing stick out more glaringly than they once did? Have we become to au fait with movie making practice to ever lose ourselves in cinema ever again? If watching this again was any indication, then no. I laughed out loud and often, being surprised by how well the movie travelled, in spite of the hair styles and made-for-TV blockiness of some scenes. I think that a lot of the films timelessness can be attributed to the swing aesthetic that drenches the whole production, from Ha Nguyen's costuming to Randy Edelman's original soundtrack.

Also in it's defence (as if it needed defending) The Mask essentially launched two careers, and for this we should give thanks. 1994 was Carrey's year, with The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber all being released within ten months of each other. Since then, Carrey has gone on to do a stack of films, many good, some excellent. And, of course there's Cameron Diaz, who got an 'And introducing..." title in the opening credits. Admitedly, The Mask may not be her best work, but nobody could deny Diaz demonstrated a camera-friendliness this little black duck hadn't seen since Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. It's trendy to dump on pretty female actors, but how many would be prepared to make themselves dowdy to the point of unrecognisability for the sake of a role?

M.I.A.

The reason why I started this blog in the first place was because I had some free time and thought I'd be able to make the committment to it (I've been trying to put together enough short stories to shop a collection for a couple of years now - I find it generally easier to play to an audience). It's been over a week since my last post (now I feel like I'm in confession). I haven't been completely idle; I have written about half a typically long post about romantic comedies, prompted by going to see the very grown-up and extremely entertaining Must Love Dogs with two of my favourite actors, John Cusack and the incomparable Diane Lane. I'm a sucker for a romantic story and I love comedies (i.e. comedies by nature, not just by advertising). So I've been taking my time with it, trying to get the tone right, trying not to be too gushy. Not that you care, dear reader - I'm actually starting to wonder if you're even out there (barring a couple of loyal, patient, longsuffering friends).

Haven't got around to seeing The Shining that I bought the other week. Had a splurge and bought Amelie, A Room with a View, Blade III, and a couple of other DVDs. Summer viewing. Things are starting to wrap up in televisionland, so I'm sure they'll come in handy. I've also been reading some screenwriting books - more on that sometime in the future. All I really wnated to say this time was, I'm sorry for not keeping to the promise I made at the beginning - to get something thoughtful up at least once a week. If anyone does actually stop by to see what's new, leave a comment; that will goad me to keep true to my word.

Meanwhile, go see Must Love Dogs (you'll have to suspend your disbelief that somebody would actually leave Diane Lane for, well, anyone else), and if you got to the multiplex late and you just missed it, Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes is definitely worth the price of the ticket and the popcorn.