While I was in the middle of this movie-a-day challenge, I was offered an internship at a local publishing company/up-and-coming artist's community whose members I've been hanging out with every week. Some of that job definitely came before my blogging in late-December/early-January. I was proofing some, and also... you try to get work done at your parents house between your birthday, Christmas, and New Year's Eve! Whew.
Speaking of New Year's Eve...
I didn't really like this movie at all..
WHAT A WAY TO ANTI-CLIMACTICALLY END A MONTH-LONG MOVIE MARATHON THAT SUBSEQUENTLY LASTED 2 MONTHS.
Okay, okay. You could say I had some premonitions about this movie. I really enjoy this movie format when done right. The "Love Actually" if you can bear to call it that. More so, though, I'm referring to the two twin movies called New York, I Love You and Paris, Je T'aime. These movies are what you should look towards if you want to see a movie like this done correctly, and without the parade of familiar faces.
Seriously, though. If all the actors in Hollywood had a break room or water cooler, even a cork board with a sign-up sheet on it saying, "Hey, who wants to be in a movie?" and then they write a story line for everyone who signs up... It would be these films: New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, What To Expect When You're Expecting, and He's Just Not That Into You (the latter two aren't as guilty and aren't as boring, and are also based on best selling self-help books that they bought the rights to).
Many of the small story lines are interesting and cute, but very surface. There are honestly just too many different ones in this movie that it's hard to keep up with any of them, which garners little emotional response from the audience. I want to be sucked in and consumed by the stories in these movies, but rather then being given a glimpse into someone's pain or pure joy without wasting time with introductions, we are forced to get to know them in five minutes instead of simply witnessing them. If any of that makes sense, good. These movies also break their backs to connect everyone in some way, and besides thinking "oh, cool," I'm thinking, "okay, who cares." The characters' connections with each other are usually revealed near the ending and we don't even get a chance to see why that connection is important.
The stories that I wish I had more of in this movie were the Michelle Pfeiffer/Zac Efron bit, (Though doing all that nice stuff for tickets to the "best party ever" is a plot point that is sort of lost on me, Pfeiffer was charming) and Karate Kid Hilary Swank planning the ball drop and her father seeing it for the last time. I mean, honestly, a better telling of any of the stories would have improved them greatly. From my count and according to IMDB, there are 8 story lines coming into play in 118 minutes. That's 2 hours for 8 little stories.... that's around 15 minutes a story if you're playing at home. Gee-sus. No wonder I feel like I can't focus fully on any of the story lines or have a favorite character... I don't know them at all.
Anyway, in conclusion, I liked a lot of these story lines and I feel like this movie could have really blown up and become a classic, but unfortunately I think it's going to stay buried in 2011 until people like me watch it on New Year's to be kitschy.
And with that, folks, I'm finished!
I'll save you the post where I philosophize about what it meant to me, and just say that I had fun and I have a lot of plans to keep this blog up and running and relevant.
LUV ME,
StephanieP.S. I didn't gain any followers. Bummer. Oh wells, pahahha.
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