Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Romantic Comedy* Conundrum

I watched He’s Just Not That Into You on TV recently.  Throughout the first 85% of the film, I couldn’t rid myself of one distraction: a mental twitch with each new scene, a déjà vu of sorts.  This was due to not knowing if I had seen this scene before, because I didn’t remember it.  But by the time the scene was over I was like, yeah I have absolutely seen that before.  This was so irritating – rather than becoming absorbed in the movie, I spent the whole time wondering if the movie was so generic that I had forgotten seeing it, or had I never seen it but felt like I had because it was so predictable?  In the end, I concluded that I had seen it before.  But seriously, this experience left my mind feeling shifty**.  I’m guessing that I first saw this movie after aliens awoke me during the night, abducted me into their spaceship, and forced me to watch it in a state of vacant hypnosis. 

*Even though I seem to naysay romantic comedies in this posting, I actually like the genre quite a lot (One of my favorite romantic comedies is Leap Year).  I have nothing against mediocre movies – in fact, I usually get more enjoyment out of a happy mediocre movie than a poignant critically acclaimed movie, such as Million Dollar Baby.  

**I liken this mental disorientation to the time when half of my Eggo waffle came out burnt, so I had to cut that half off, and subsequently I could not cut my bites along the grid lines.  I experienced physical dizziness as I cut haphazardly, with the pieces looking as sloppy as a $2 hooker.  On no other occasion have I not cut along the grid lines.  

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