I'm such a sap

Whoa, it's no longer July. Summer has flown by.

Lately I've been watching a lot of movies. Tonight, I'm at Martha's (my sister) watching over my niece and nephew (Grace and Hazard). I watched most of 4 movies: The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Pork Chop Hill, and Definitely, Maybe.

I watched the original Matrix a few days ago, and that trilogy deserves its own post. Also, I want to watch the entire movie Pork Chop Hill, it looked brilliant. I've never seen another Gregory Peck movie besides To Kill A Mockingbird, which I saw long ago.

I saw most of Definitely, Maybe a while ago. It's always frustrating to come into a movie right after it starts. There are plenty of movies I have missed the beginning of because I ran across it on tv, or I just flipped the channel because I'd rather watch a movie from the beginning.

I promise, I will write a music post soon. There's some Grieg that I absolutely adore. I haven't been practicing too much, unfortunately. I can't believe I leave for Vienna in 17 days! I need to practice so badly! Ah! Too much to plan! But I'm very excited! Ok, enough exclamations.

Definitely, Maybe is one of my favorite romantic comedies. That really doesn't say too much, considering I have only seen a handful. Also, I keep missing the first 20 minutes or so.

There isn't a formula for what makes a movie good. I like all sorts of movies so it's hard for me to list concrete criteria. I'm thinking this will be a more general commentary about movie making.

For example, particularly in romantic comedies, how believable should it be? In books and movies, and perhaps it can be applied to opera, ballet, and music as well, what is most important is the quality of identification. We must suspend our disbelief. No matter how fantastic or outlandish the art may be, we have to see something that we can identify with in some way. Sometimes a story appeals to our sense of idealism. Life should be this way. I guess that's my interpretation of our love of predictable and clean fantasies and romances. Boy likes girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl by either doing something stupid or some unfortunate circumstance (in Nicholas Sparks' case, the tragic disease of the week). Boy wins girl back. They live happily ever after.

Cookie cutter and unrealistic have its place in the cannon, absolutely. The formula is called upon for a reason: it works. People are unsettled when there is no happily-ever-after. Thank God Disney changed all the original endings, entire generations would have been scarred for life.

I can totally buy the story of Definitely, Maybe. I loved the acting, it was very natural. The story is built as a giant flashback, where the dad is telling his daughter the story of how he met her mother. The father - daughter relationship is great. From an objective view, it helps the audience by putting our questions and thoughts into the mouth of the daughter. The dad answers these questions in a way that builds his character as flawed yet loving. It also serves the purpose of juxtaposing the dad of the past with the dad of the present.

It is storytelling on film. And the story is much more interesting because the dad makes it a kind of love mystery by telling a full story of his love life and letting his daughter (and us) guess who turns out to be the mother.

The main character (dad) is divorced, so in a way it turns the traditional romance story on its head by starting at the end and telling how it all came to be. The dad assures his daughter that there is a happy ending to this story, which is the most beautiful sentiment ever. I'll talk about it in a bit.

Going back to stories being realistic, I love this movie because it's so believable. The characters are round and dynamic. Life is chaotic and things don't end up the way we expect them to. It's messy, but luckily not scatterbrained or haphazard. Some stories try to tell too much. Like epics or movies like Babel. I love epics but it's very hard to keep all the characters straight. It's super realistic but too many side stories can confuse things. I'd say that's why I never finished Les Miserables, but honestly I have a habit of not finishing books, no matter how interested I am in them, for whatever reason.

Because it's realistic, I think it does a fantastic job of showing complex relationships. You see the interactions, the thought processes, the struggles, and the flaws. It makes falling in love so much more three dimensional.

So at the end of the movie, the daughter knows who her mother is, and they all go out to the zoo together. As the girl leaves to go home with her mom, she runs back. Her dad tells her that she is the happy ending of the story. I start to tear up at this point.

We could leave the movie theater relatively happy with this ending. We don't need the dad to find love, since he knows it was all worthwhile since he has a beautiful daughter to love. But then in a half expected epilogue of sorts, the dad and daughter go to the apartment of one of his former girlfriends, the one he is still in love with.

The Jane Eyre book she is searching for throughout the movie is a wonderful motif. It was given to her by her father and contains a great dedication, but was lost. The main character finds it and was going to give it to her immediately, but doesn't. This sets up my favorite line of the movie, right at the end: "I kept the book... because it was the only thing I had left of you."

It's cheesy but in a good way. It's satisfying and set up beautifully by the entire movie. It's like brie, which is the only fancy cheese I like or can think of, rather than velveeta or american. (Which probably shouldn't even qualify as cheese, really)

I love the characters. I love the realism of the plot. I love the dialogue. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's a mature look at the trials and tribulations of love, and it makes us say, "yeah, it's hard, but it's totally worth it."