Fumarama

McCain's stated favorite tv shows are the Office, Lost, and the Tudors on Showtime. I thought I would let you know.

I was in the Venetian all depressed because I just lost all moy money in poker. I had a king high two card flush, which I lost to a fall house. Problem is: I totally did not notice the full house on the table. So I felt extra sad because it was stupid to bet all my money when I should have seen said full house. And I had tried calling my friends, who were off wandering somewhere, like 6 times but they were not picking up their phone, and it was freezing in the casino but it like 100 degrees outside so I didn't want to go there either and I was thinking of giving in to the mind numbing bright lights of a slot machine...when suddenly I look up and walking by are a group of 5 people that include two of my favorite General Hospital characters: Spinelli and Patrick Drake. They look exactly like they do on tv--I understand this has something to do with the way soap operas are shot--except that they are not dressed like their characters. Spinelli is a computer whiz and Patrick is a brain surgeon but both actors (whose names I do not know) were dressed like hungover, rich surfer boys, or maybe this is what we call wealthy Vegas style. And so I stared at them for a while and they clearly realized that I recognized them (I was briefly insulted by this, "do I look like one of the 2 million or so people in America who watch general hospital?" I asked my friends. "but you do watch General Hospital" one of my friends pointed out) and seemed somewhat uncomfortable. But really what I was thinking as I was staring was that while in New York I would pretend not to see John Waters and Alan Rickman on the street in Las Vegas I felt I could openly gawk at Soap Stars in a casino. Man, this was a great town.

From A.O. Scott's review of 27 dresses:

At the beginning of “27 Dresses,” Jane (Katherine Heigl), a serial bridesmaid with an almost pathological devotion to other people’s nuptials, spends a long night shuttling between two weddings. One is in Midtown Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn; one has an upper-crusty, white-bread look, while the other appears to be a Jewish-Hindu intermarriage. But as the director, Anne Fletcher, methodically cuts back and forth between them, she makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike.

The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies. There is a touch of idiosyncrasy here and there — in this one the heroine’s dad is a widower who owns a hardware store! — but most of the elements might as well have been pulled off the registry list at a high-end chain store.

The template is something like this: A career woman who lives in a bright and perky city (though usually not the one in which it was filmed; most of this Manhattan is actually Providence, R.I.) takes a bit under two hours to make it to the altar with (or at least be stopped at the airport by) the Right Guy, who had seemed at first to be the Wrong Guy. Earlier, the Wrong Guy had seemed to be the Right Guy.

I agree. It was a total paint by numbers romantic comedy. But if you love the genre (which I do), that is good enough. It was so perfect as a romantic comedy that I feel like the movie could serve as a manual for other aspiring rom-com writers. So, future romantic comedy writers, if you put these 9 elements (numbered, to go with the paint by numbers theme) in a movie, you too can create a movie I will happily watch over and over again on basic cable.

1. Woman who the audience is supposed to think is normal looking, just like them (Katherine Heigel)
2. good looking, witty Mr. Right with respectable job. (Jame Mardsen)
3. Complicated plot in which characters initially not interested but then fall in love (He is using her to get ahead in his career)
4. Banter.
5. Singing or dancing theme hopefully to well-known song. (In this movie, they did Benny and the Jets)
6. Big reveal after she has fallen for him. (Article about her being a bridesmaid 27 times comes used to further his career comes out after night of drunken singing and sex)
7. post-fight or big reveal montage of both characters feeling sad and looking into middle distance.
8. Emotional sharing. This is where they reveal their feelings for one another. (He comes to her sister's rehearsal dinner and says she deserves to be taken care of. She jumps on boat and says she is falling in love with him.)
9. Wedding.

It had a character called Tiny Shorts Guy, who was supposed to be funny, I think, but I could not/still cannot believe that the writers thought this was humor. It was just a character who was really uncool, nerdy if you will. His whole thing was that he was really uncool (I can't think of a better word because I think it would give the character more depth than he was given in the movie) so that Dempsy and his friends wanted nothing to do with him, but he hung around anyway. Really? Seriously? Who did the writers think was their intended audience? 10 year old boys? Because, you know, the writers are off. This is a chick flick, intended for women. And I can't think of a single woman, even 10 year old women, who would be like, oh look, really nerdy guy with tiny shorts....hahahaha.

The folks I saw the movie with seemed in total agreement that Iron Man is a lesser comic book story, and has nothing on the Batmans, Supermans, and Spidermans of the world. And I guess they are right about parts of the origination story. Even though I cannot think of a single other character in the same position, the whole arms dealer who realizes he is responsible for all these deaths and so decides to save the world strikes me as trite. That being said, I love the way in which he becomes Iron Man. It is traditional problem solving. Stark realizes he has a problem, he has been helping destroy the world. So he comes up with a solution, turn into a superhero. (seems logical enough) and next he has to figure out and take the steps necessary to implement his chosen solution. And so the audience gets to see all the steps, the trial and error, the frustration, the joy of finally achieving it. All using nothing but his brain power and some gadgets. It is kind of like solving a legal research question. I found it all very relatable.

That, and I love that at the end he tells everyone that he is Iron Man. One of the people I aw the movie with tried to explain to me that this was some sort of joke because (I think) in the comic books the cover is always that Iron Man is Stark's body guard. Anyway, either way, I thought it was great because it made Stark so much more normal. I am sort of tired of these total self-sacrificing/scardy-cat superheros who won't tell anyone who they really are.