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sarea
This might possibly be the best film review site ever. Ratings go from "Almost tolerable" (yes, that is the best rating) to "Proof that Jesus died in vain." I'm just sorry there aren't more reviews. Here's the end of the PoA review (which actually got a decent, 2-bomb rating): Remember when George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery as James Bond? Ian Fleming fans across the world threw themselves off buildings. Gambon produces much the same impulse here, in part because when a film franchise so blithely replaces one actor with another, there's a dehumanizing effect that tears a piece of soul out of us all.
=))
Anyway, Mr. Cranky didn't have a whole lot of good things to say about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (though really, comparatively, it wasn't too shabby), but I sure do!
I have always said that I'm an idealist trapped in the body of a realist. Or something similar. Anyway the point is, I always want to see chick films and read chick books, especially ones about four best friends and what they go through together. When it's done well, there's nothing better. The problem is, I have to work through many layers of cynicism to actually enjoy what I see, and 9 times out of 10, I can't, because the book/movie is crap.
I am happy to say that this was not the case with SotTP. And it even had to overcome my initial skepticism of the whole thing. You see, I tried to read this book awhile back, when I was in the midst of my other teen lit stuff (the Princess Diaries, Georgia Nicolson, etc.), but I just couldn't get into it. The premise seemed unbelievably stupid to me. A pair of pants that fit each of the four friends, when they have vastly dissimilar builds? Oh, whatever. I couldn't work past it. It just seemed too much like some cutesy idea that had very little substance, and I couldn't be bothered to suspend my disbelief for it.
Well, you know what, the premise is still quite stupid and cutesy. But the movie -- or rather, the stories that are told in the movie -- are well worth having to put up with it. Seriously, the book/movie would have been strong even without the hook of these traveling pants. It doesn't really add much, and in fact is the weakest part of the whole thing. But I think you get the point, so I'll move on.
Before going to see this movie, I asked Jade (who'd already seen it) whether there was at least one romance for one of the girls, because I figured that that would at least make it tolerable for me in a guilty pleasure way, even if the rest of it sucked. She said yes (as well as a whole bunch of other things that turned out to be lies, but really, it's Jade I'm dealing with, I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was), so I happily went off with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
corianderstem to see the movie (and eat at P.F. Chang's afterward, which, yum). Want to hear something surprising (or not)? Two of the girls have romances (sort of), and they were the stories I found least compelling.
Not that I didn't like Lena's storyline. Alexis Bledel was fab in her role, I thought. It was just that it was the traditional romantic storyline, with zero surprises. If it had just been about her, I might have been bored to tears. But in harmony with the rest of the movie, it was actually a nice story to go back to from time to time. In fact, all of the stories managed to be interesting and complementary at the same time -- no easy feat. In any case, there were no surprises wrt Lena's storyline, and that's just fine. Perhaps the least interesting story was that of Bridget, at least until the moment we're given to realize that it was never about the boy she was pursuing, but about her and how she dealt with her mother's death. Blake Lively was ridiculously beautiful (though I had issues with her mouth/teeth). There were some shots of her with the golden boy (wtf is with the hair, dude?) in the Mexican sun that nearly blinded me with the pretty.
So the two storylines that moved me the most were that of Tibby and Carmen. Tibby's friendship with Bailey proceeded pretty much the way you'd expect, pulling all the right emotional heartstrings, and done so well that you didn't even care that you were expecting it all along. (And btw, this is where Lana Lang's aunt went! She moved to the DC area to start her own family! It all becomes clear.) Plus, Amber Tamblyn was just kickass. She ruled. There's no other way to put it. Also, the little girl who played Bailey was muy impressive.
Carmen's storyline probably got the most reaction out of me, though not necessarily in a good way. Not necessarily in a bad way, either. You see, Carmen has Father Issues. He and her mother divorced when she was young, and we see her as she's about to go off for the summer to visit him. She's excited, because yay, a whole summer with her dad! Only, of course, there is the small matter of the fiancee he never told her about, along with the two new stepsiblings that come with said fiancee. And he doesn't even tell her until he's pulling up to the house and Nancy Travis is all waving and happy, and then he's like, "Oh yeah, we live together." Jigga wha??? And things proceed from there, in which he proves how terrible of a father he really is, and basically turns Carmen into the Stepdaughter from Hell. But can you blame her? I don't think Nancy Travis was really a terrible stepmom, though she could have related to Carmen more, and naturally Carmen painted her with the Enemy brush. But the true asshole of the piece was her own father, which it takes her awhile to realize. Which is fine, and understandable.
What is NOT understandable is why, when he is the adult, and in the wrong, Carmen is the one making all the concessions. If my father treated me that way, I'd be like, "Hey! You ... get back in the garage and build me a new bicycle! Or I'll kick you in the NUTS!" (I've been watching a little too much South Park lately, forgive me.) I mean, HE IS THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE APOLOGIZING AND REDEEMING HIMSELF!!! And yet it is Carmen who is continually the one who's reaching out to him, making the first step, etc. NO. HE IS THE ADULT! AND HER FUCKING FATHER!!! It is his responsibility; those are the things he should be doing, to prove to us in some small way that he is worth all this heartache and the dozens of tissues I did not have nearby!! (Yes, if you see this movie, be sure to bring with you a box of tissues or you will regret it.) I mean, in his behavior, we saw a man who really did not give a shit about his daughter. He had found himself a lovely whitebread family that he was willing to change himself for (in all the ways he refused to change for his first family) -- which I don't blame him for, actually, because you can't help who you fall in love with or how you change as you get older. But I DO blame him for being a completely crap dad, and I'm sorry, but that little scene at the end did NOT make up for all the many wrongs he's done to Carmen. I mean, not by a LONG shot.
But that's something else you can expect from this movie. A pat ending. Which isn't always a bad thing; in this case, it was fine. Possibly worse than Carmen's pat ending was Bridget's summer fling inexplicably coming to her neighborhood to be like, "Hey, you know, that thing we had, it was cool in its own way. Look me up when you're 20." Oh, okay, and now walk down the street as if you're going to be able to walk to Columbia from Maryland with no other care in the world.
It's weird that there are sequel(s) out there. It was such a perfect kind of ending for this kind of movie -- you didn't have to expect that everything would work out perfectly, but the stories feel 'complete' as they are. But now we're going to have to see them take a few steps back, I'm sure, just so there's more story to tell. I mean ... do I really want to see more Lena/Kostas? Not really. More Carmen dad angst? Maybe, but only if she gets to tell him off but good this time, and cut him out of her life if he's going to be a dick. More Bridget angst about her mom, more Tibby angst about Bailey? The latter two actually seem have more room for new/interesting stories than the first two, but what do I know? I guess I'll just have to read the books to find out for sure.
I am thisclose to finishing IYOK7. I'm pretty excited about that, because then I can rid my back of this monkey! (Though the other monkeys, aka chapters, are still clinging on.)
I spent the whole of last night staring into Essia's eyes, as we waited to get into Alterac. If we had a picnic supper, it would have been sooooo romantic. NOT. WTF is up with the stupid Battlegrounds?! The ETA was 1hr, 2min. We waited for 3hr, 30min before we finally had to give up and go to bed. That is LAME. And some guy said that the previous day, his ETA was 1hr, 30min., and he waited 15 hours before he got in!! :O Seriously, that is fucked. Blizzard needs to get on that immediately. And that guy obviously needs to get a life.
I have nothing of substance to say.
Edit: Oh oh! Thank you for those of you who have passed my potato. It's reached 26 states! It's more than halfway there! If you haven't yet taken custody of my potato, won't you??? You might belong in one of those 24 states it hasn't been to! Thank you, that is all.
=))
Anyway, Mr. Cranky didn't have a whole lot of good things to say about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (though really, comparatively, it wasn't too shabby), but I sure do!
I have always said that I'm an idealist trapped in the body of a realist. Or something similar. Anyway the point is, I always want to see chick films and read chick books, especially ones about four best friends and what they go through together. When it's done well, there's nothing better. The problem is, I have to work through many layers of cynicism to actually enjoy what I see, and 9 times out of 10, I can't, because the book/movie is crap.
I am happy to say that this was not the case with SotTP. And it even had to overcome my initial skepticism of the whole thing. You see, I tried to read this book awhile back, when I was in the midst of my other teen lit stuff (the Princess Diaries, Georgia Nicolson, etc.), but I just couldn't get into it. The premise seemed unbelievably stupid to me. A pair of pants that fit each of the four friends, when they have vastly dissimilar builds? Oh, whatever. I couldn't work past it. It just seemed too much like some cutesy idea that had very little substance, and I couldn't be bothered to suspend my disbelief for it.
Well, you know what, the premise is still quite stupid and cutesy. But the movie -- or rather, the stories that are told in the movie -- are well worth having to put up with it. Seriously, the book/movie would have been strong even without the hook of these traveling pants. It doesn't really add much, and in fact is the weakest part of the whole thing. But I think you get the point, so I'll move on.
Before going to see this movie, I asked Jade (who'd already seen it) whether there was at least one romance for one of the girls, because I figured that that would at least make it tolerable for me in a guilty pleasure way, even if the rest of it sucked. She said yes (as well as a whole bunch of other things that turned out to be lies, but really, it's Jade I'm dealing with, I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was), so I happily went off with
corianderstem to see the movie (and eat at P.F. Chang's afterward, which, yum). Want to hear something surprising (or not)? Two of the girls have romances (sort of), and they were the stories I found least compelling.Not that I didn't like Lena's storyline. Alexis Bledel was fab in her role, I thought. It was just that it was the traditional romantic storyline, with zero surprises. If it had just been about her, I might have been bored to tears. But in harmony with the rest of the movie, it was actually a nice story to go back to from time to time. In fact, all of the stories managed to be interesting and complementary at the same time -- no easy feat. In any case, there were no surprises wrt Lena's storyline, and that's just fine. Perhaps the least interesting story was that of Bridget, at least until the moment we're given to realize that it was never about the boy she was pursuing, but about her and how she dealt with her mother's death. Blake Lively was ridiculously beautiful (though I had issues with her mouth/teeth). There were some shots of her with the golden boy (wtf is with the hair, dude?) in the Mexican sun that nearly blinded me with the pretty.
So the two storylines that moved me the most were that of Tibby and Carmen. Tibby's friendship with Bailey proceeded pretty much the way you'd expect, pulling all the right emotional heartstrings, and done so well that you didn't even care that you were expecting it all along. (And btw, this is where Lana Lang's aunt went! She moved to the DC area to start her own family! It all becomes clear.) Plus, Amber Tamblyn was just kickass. She ruled. There's no other way to put it. Also, the little girl who played Bailey was muy impressive.
Carmen's storyline probably got the most reaction out of me, though not necessarily in a good way. Not necessarily in a bad way, either. You see, Carmen has Father Issues. He and her mother divorced when she was young, and we see her as she's about to go off for the summer to visit him. She's excited, because yay, a whole summer with her dad! Only, of course, there is the small matter of the fiancee he never told her about, along with the two new stepsiblings that come with said fiancee. And he doesn't even tell her until he's pulling up to the house and Nancy Travis is all waving and happy, and then he's like, "Oh yeah, we live together." Jigga wha??? And things proceed from there, in which he proves how terrible of a father he really is, and basically turns Carmen into the Stepdaughter from Hell. But can you blame her? I don't think Nancy Travis was really a terrible stepmom, though she could have related to Carmen more, and naturally Carmen painted her with the Enemy brush. But the true asshole of the piece was her own father, which it takes her awhile to realize. Which is fine, and understandable.
What is NOT understandable is why, when he is the adult, and in the wrong, Carmen is the one making all the concessions. If my father treated me that way, I'd be like, "Hey! You ... get back in the garage and build me a new bicycle! Or I'll kick you in the NUTS!" (I've been watching a little too much South Park lately, forgive me.) I mean, HE IS THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE APOLOGIZING AND REDEEMING HIMSELF!!! And yet it is Carmen who is continually the one who's reaching out to him, making the first step, etc. NO. HE IS THE ADULT! AND HER FUCKING FATHER!!! It is his responsibility; those are the things he should be doing, to prove to us in some small way that he is worth all this heartache and the dozens of tissues I did not have nearby!! (Yes, if you see this movie, be sure to bring with you a box of tissues or you will regret it.) I mean, in his behavior, we saw a man who really did not give a shit about his daughter. He had found himself a lovely whitebread family that he was willing to change himself for (in all the ways he refused to change for his first family) -- which I don't blame him for, actually, because you can't help who you fall in love with or how you change as you get older. But I DO blame him for being a completely crap dad, and I'm sorry, but that little scene at the end did NOT make up for all the many wrongs he's done to Carmen. I mean, not by a LONG shot.
But that's something else you can expect from this movie. A pat ending. Which isn't always a bad thing; in this case, it was fine. Possibly worse than Carmen's pat ending was Bridget's summer fling inexplicably coming to her neighborhood to be like, "Hey, you know, that thing we had, it was cool in its own way. Look me up when you're 20." Oh, okay, and now walk down the street as if you're going to be able to walk to Columbia from Maryland with no other care in the world.
It's weird that there are sequel(s) out there. It was such a perfect kind of ending for this kind of movie -- you didn't have to expect that everything would work out perfectly, but the stories feel 'complete' as they are. But now we're going to have to see them take a few steps back, I'm sure, just so there's more story to tell. I mean ... do I really want to see more Lena/Kostas? Not really. More Carmen dad angst? Maybe, but only if she gets to tell him off but good this time, and cut him out of her life if he's going to be a dick. More Bridget angst about her mom, more Tibby angst about Bailey? The latter two actually seem have more room for new/interesting stories than the first two, but what do I know? I guess I'll just have to read the books to find out for sure.
I am thisclose to finishing IYOK7. I'm pretty excited about that, because then I can rid my back of this monkey! (Though the other monkeys, aka chapters, are still clinging on.)
I spent the whole of last night staring into Essia's eyes, as we waited to get into Alterac. If we had a picnic supper, it would have been sooooo romantic. NOT. WTF is up with the stupid Battlegrounds?! The ETA was 1hr, 2min. We waited for 3hr, 30min before we finally had to give up and go to bed. That is LAME. And some guy said that the previous day, his ETA was 1hr, 30min., and he waited 15 hours before he got in!! :O Seriously, that is fucked. Blizzard needs to get on that immediately. And that guy obviously needs to get a life.
I have nothing of substance to say.
Edit: Oh oh! Thank you for those of you who have passed my potato. It's reached 26 states! It's more than halfway there! If you haven't yet taken custody of my potato, won't you??? You might belong in one of those 24 states it hasn't been to! Thank you, that is all.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:03 pm (UTC)Let's try the BG again tonight.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:29 pm (UTC)If it's Alterac, there is probably not enough horde showing up to field the battle. You need at least 10 to start, and if Silvermoon is anything like Llane, Horde can't get enough to match Alliance numbers, so they'd rather go to WG instead.
If it's WG, it may be something similar...like there's already too many 10vs10 going on and you have to wait for another slot to free up.
Are you going in in groups of 10? Or solo or small group? That can affect it too. If you have 5 ready to go in, but there are 6 people waiting in another group, then you're both waiting for five or four to be available. You're better off going solo, but then you may not be in the same group as your friends. Or just try to go in a group of 10.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:42 pm (UTC)Also, the book I was reading was so D/G. Do you know what happened? Eight ball in the side pocket on the billiards table, my friend. Hahahahahahahaha! Couldn't stop laughing when I got to that point.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 06:45 pm (UTC)Sarea and I were grouped together but that's it. I didn't think two would be such a problem. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 08:34 pm (UTC)What I'd really like to do is log on and get into the queue, then go take an hour walk as I am trying to do these days. Of course, the problem then is that WoW will kick me off after xx minutes of inactivity, making the whole point moot.
OMG you are so lying about the billiards table! I refuse to believe in such a freakish coincidence!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-14 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-15 06:47 am (UTC)Even if it is all a lie.
^_^ Just thought I'd add my two cent insight into that little subject.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-15 05:04 pm (UTC)The problem is, this wasn't real life. It was fictional. And in a story where Lena's grandfather, a stubborn Greek, can look past his arch enemy so his granddaughter can be happy, where Bridget's summer fling can make his way to Maryland to say two sentences to her, it doesn't seem too much to ask for Carmen's ending to have been more "right" than it was. Or maybe the problem was not that it didn't end neatly, wrapped in a bow. Maybe the problem was that they tried to show us that Carmen GOT her happy ending, when in my opinion, it wasn't a happy ending at all, because he still had not showed her in any meaningful way that he was sorry for his past behavior and that she was an important part of his life. (His gesture at the end was not enough.)
So there are really two things here: Carmen's behavior, and Carmen's ending. Carmen's behavior I can understand (from every perspective, from her lashing out to her continually reaching out to her father), so my issues are more about my personal feelings than they are about how the story played out. Carmen's ending, however, is the fault of the story. It was exploding fireworks in our faces, distracting us to say, "Look! She gets to be happy! Her father's not a bad guy after all, and he's made up for all the things he did!" When, within the context of the story, he did not do so, at all.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 05:51 am (UTC)Cause let's face it, with the possible exception of Tibby, none of their endings were very realistice, but were more focused on, "oh look, it's over and finalized in a satisfying sort of way."
^^
no subject
Date: 2005-10-14 02:06 am (UTC)That scene killed my 'understanding' for the dad (which there wasn't anything at all to begin with) but given the fact that his biological daughter is upset and is god knows where, you'd think he'd be trying to look for her. Which is what any normal dad would do.
Lena and KOSTAS??! what the hell. I thought it was Kostos. None of my friends has watched the movie so i'll be obsessing over this. (Have you read the books?) like the two teenagers couldn't get together because of some feud their grandfathers had over bad fish? Get over it. Plenty of fish in the sea. I didn't necesarrily found lena and kostas' relationship thrilling or of interest.
I loved Tibby's world. I found it amusing out of all of them. She was amazing. That's all and that's that.
Bridget was... what can i say. She's reckless.
-S