Until a couple weeks ago I have not been to the movies in months, mostly due to a lack of interest in what passes for entertainment these days. The only show I regret not seeing on the big screen is Australia—Hugh Jackman, rowrr. Ever since I read and saw The Thorn Birds at a much too tender age (“Mom, what’s a French letter?”), I have been a huge fan of Australian epics, and ever since I saw the revival of Oklahoma! I have been a huge Hugh Jackman fan.
My husband and I recently saw Nicolas Cage’s “Knowing”, and the previews before the show were just terrible. I felt as if I had sat through the best parts of seven movies (which wasn’t saying anything, believe me). I turned to him and said, “I can’t believe they’re all crap,” and he said, “Really? I can.” But then he is much more cynical than I am, which I guess is why I love romance and he loves military history.
Even a supremely buff Hugh Jackman in the Wolverine preview was not enough to boost my spirits. The whole movie-going treat was extremely disappointing.
Despair, destruction and death were the going themes of the day and we had just paid for that. I can see that on the news for free. Hey, I just went to a wake last weekend!
But the experience made me think about what I want to see and what I want to write. If we flip around the previous life-sucks-and-then-we-die theme, we have hope, creation and life. Romance writers are especially suited to this. We write about the hope of creating a life with a special man. Even if our heroine is not looking for a guy, we all know she has a tiny spark of hope deep down in her soul that life is not a parade of drunken losers who spill beer on her and are under the mistaken impression that she has a sign around her neck saying, “Please talk to my breasts.” Not that I’ve ever experienced that (Sigma Pi house, ca. 1989).
Fortunately for our poor heroine, our Blaze word count is such that she immediately meets the One and actually doesn’t mind if he talks to her breasts since he is usually doing very gratifying intimate acts at the same time. Fortunately for their long-term happiness, they move beyond the body parts and learn to love each other as a whole person.
Although it took another four years of beer spilling and lack of appropriate eye contact, I managed to find my own special man and we will have our 15th anniversary this summer. It seems like a long time sometimes until I remember the wake I mentioned previously—my co-worker’s father, who had been married 72 years. That’s not a typo.
And for those of you nihilists out there, I say nuts to you! If you are brave enough to have loved someone for 15 minutes, 15 years or even 72, you will not be disappointed. Hope, creation and life is the way to go, and you may just go further than you think possible.
All the best,
Marie Donovan
P.S. My new book My Sexy Greek Summer is out this week and is a fun summer read. If you can’t afford to go to the Greek Islands this year (who can?), you can be an armchair tourist. No screaming babies and no jet lag.
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I’m ready for a really good romantic comedy! (L)
Hi Marie,
I agree with you about seeing the best part of the movies in the previews (or TV ads). Then if I see the movie I’m disappointed.
Congratulations on 15 years, Marie
thats awesome! but OMG wow on 72…
I don’t get to the movies as often as I’d like but I can’t wait to see the Harry Potter movie this summer! I loved IronMan, too. It definitely takes a good storyline to make up for, as you say, the previews showing the biggest and usually best parts of the movie.
We’re off to see EARTH tonight. And I hate to pay for a movie then sit through commercials for Toyotas. Arggh.
And truly, some movie trailers need a good edit…Brenda…not you, we need you too much!
Bonnie
Congrats on 15 years! My grandparents are going to have their 56th anniversary this June.
My Sexy Greek Summer is in my TBR pile.
Marie, we have two cinemas close to each other near where I live. One is a cineplex with all the “blockbuster” Hollywood fare, the other a more genteel grown ups cinema where they sell wine and biscotti to take into your arthouse movie. We were at the arthouse one the other day and I was looking at the wall of upcoming attractions – documentaries, foreign films, small independent movies – and I said to my partner “I want to see that one,and I want to see that one, I want to see that one as well.” Then I looked around at all the silver foxes and women in comfortable footwear and realised that I was officially past the demographic that Hollywood gives a toss about. But you know, there are still people making feel good, smart movies…
I agree with what Sarah Mayberry said about the arthouse films. They are out there. We just have to seek them out. After seeing ‘The Reader’ I couldn’t leave the theatre – really, I mean that – I sat in the chair while the clean-up crew bustled around me. It was as if I had been sedated and I was waiting for someone to bring me back to this world. It took a while for the depth of the movie to penetrate all of my senses and for me to put every piece of the director’s storytelling puzzle together. I craze more of that. I just saw the trailer for a movie called, ‘The Stoning of Soraya M’, based on a true story. We are all such complex creatures. I want to read more of that in the books I pick up and see more of that up there on the screen. So writers, start your engines! Mary Kennedy Eastham, Author, ‘The Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget’ and the upcoming novel, ‘Night Surfing – A Story of Love & Wonder in the Waves of Malibu’
I have to admit, I’m a trekkie and the preview for the new Star rek movie looks really good. Kirk and Spock and Bones all young and the enterprise just being taken out for a test run? How coolis that? Also, wolverine is on my Must see list. PLot? who cares? Glooma nd doom? So what? As long as HUgh is shirtless and flexing thos muscles, what do I care if the movie sucks??
Congrats on the new release!!!
My day job is as a film and tv critic so I “have to” see a lot of films. Last year wasn’t the greatest when it came to movies, but I have to say this year, especially for the big blockbusters, looks like a good one. We shall see.