It’s jaded, this world. Throw a question like “Do you believe in love?” and you’d get laughed at, if not spit on. But I’m not going to blame the world. I think it’s ridiculously funny too, this “love”. Whenever I meet some annoying smart-ass, I usually ask him “What is love?” just to put him in his place. It’s such a dead-end question. There’s no way you can answer it intelligently, and no chance in hell you can stop someone (somewhere) from passing gas after hearing your well-thought-of response. It’s such a joke, and everyone knows it. Well except maybe those in the show biz who make their dough making up as much bullshit as they can when they promote their all-about-love movies. In which case, the joke’s probably on us. Wait. I’m getting sidetracked. Where was I? Of course. Love… “the many splendored thing”. What the heck, right? Inexplicable descriptions like that are slowly killing love, I think. I mean, I can really see it, in the not so distant future, You-Twit-Face Generation will be browsing through Wikipedia to find "love" being defined as: (noun) endangered feeling last seen leaving the Lot-Lot and Monching residence and found murdered by the lyrics of the terrible triad “Love Hurts”, “Love Me For A Reason” and “Love Me Do”.
Seriously. Should we take “love” seriously? It’s just a measly four-letter word, and no one seems to know what it really means, anyway. No one would miss it if it just packs-up and leave. For sure. Take my nephew Choi who, last June, was preparing a birthday card for my mom and was having a hard time remembering if Love was spelled with an “e” at the end or just with a “u” in the middle. Finally, deciding without much fuzz, he signed, sealed and delivered his handiwork to my dear mother. It reads, “Happy Birthday, Mommy. I ♥ You.”
See. Replaceable love. Genius.
And they say love is everything but smart. Who “they” are, I really am not at liberty to disclose as yet. Let’s just call them the Idiots.
The Idiots are unbelievable romantics. You tell them that they’re romantic and they cannot freaking believe it. They’ll protest to the heavens that they are just as level headed and reasonable as the next rational man, but ask them if they’d jump off a cliff for a loved one and they’ll say yes, despite the logic of self-preservation and the fact that your query was merely rhetorical. The Idiots are funny. They think that the freeze frame of the final kissing scene means that true love lasts forever.
Which leads me to “(500) Days of Summer”, the subject of this movie review. Indeed, I may be the worst critic ever for leaving my core subject for last. I'm rambling on quite a bit for this piece, an unintentional homage to the ever disorganized structure of this indie flick by Marc Webb. In a gist, the movie is about soulmate-believer Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his relationship with Summer (Zoe Deschanel) who is like the anti-love incarnate. It’s not a love story, according to the voice over narrator who eerily sounds like the narrator in The Royal Tenenbaums. I guess, in a way, he’s right. Think of love stories and you’d think of “Pride and Prejudice”, “Notting Hill” maybe even “Reality Bites”. This movie, co-written by Scott Neustadter based on his personal experience, is clearly not in the same bloodline. If it’s a love story, it’s the illegitimate child; the strange-looking and weird-talking flipsy in the family who is simply hard to ignore.
I’m not going to venture into the unknown and tell you that, for me, love is like Tom’s 500 days with and without Summer, which is basically a season filled with happiness, depression, trust, insecurity, hope and hopelessness. I have NO idea what love is. And maybe no one does. I made the mistake of asking friends of mine, a couple, if love has made life brighter, better, or easier. I was curious to know if love can really make all the ugly, crappy, and yucky things in this world beautiful, if not, tolerable. They answered at the same time, which is cute. It's just too bad they answered differently. (super cute?) So there. Of course I'm confused and highly suspicious of love, or luv, or ♥. Whatever. My point is, watch "(500) Days of Summer". You’d probably get more amusing insights about relationships just watching Tom’s sister give out her Master-Yoda-ish advices. It’s surprisingly entertaining. I don’t know if it's a good love story, though. You’re not gonna get the meaning of love there, or have the confirmation that it has meaning at all. For me, it’s more about the comedy and tragedy of searching for and finding someone in the cynical social order that we're currently trapped in. While it’s a terrific movie for the romantic idiots of this world who really need a good slap in the face (I really mean well), I just have to recommend it as an indispensable viewing for those philosophically-opposed to “love”, however it may be defined.
If you’re grinning too much, then I’m talking about you, smart-ass. You’re not an idiot now. But you will be too... You can only be so lucky.
Seriously. Should we take “love” seriously? It’s just a measly four-letter word, and no one seems to know what it really means, anyway. No one would miss it if it just packs-up and leave. For sure. Take my nephew Choi who, last June, was preparing a birthday card for my mom and was having a hard time remembering if Love was spelled with an “e” at the end or just with a “u” in the middle. Finally, deciding without much fuzz, he signed, sealed and delivered his handiwork to my dear mother. It reads, “Happy Birthday, Mommy. I ♥ You.”
See. Replaceable love. Genius.
And they say love is everything but smart. Who “they” are, I really am not at liberty to disclose as yet. Let’s just call them the Idiots.
The Idiots are unbelievable romantics. You tell them that they’re romantic and they cannot freaking believe it. They’ll protest to the heavens that they are just as level headed and reasonable as the next rational man, but ask them if they’d jump off a cliff for a loved one and they’ll say yes, despite the logic of self-preservation and the fact that your query was merely rhetorical. The Idiots are funny. They think that the freeze frame of the final kissing scene means that true love lasts forever.
Which leads me to “(500) Days of Summer”, the subject of this movie review. Indeed, I may be the worst critic ever for leaving my core subject for last. I'm rambling on quite a bit for this piece, an unintentional homage to the ever disorganized structure of this indie flick by Marc Webb. In a gist, the movie is about soulmate-believer Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his relationship with Summer (Zoe Deschanel) who is like the anti-love incarnate. It’s not a love story, according to the voice over narrator who eerily sounds like the narrator in The Royal Tenenbaums. I guess, in a way, he’s right. Think of love stories and you’d think of “Pride and Prejudice”, “Notting Hill” maybe even “Reality Bites”. This movie, co-written by Scott Neustadter based on his personal experience, is clearly not in the same bloodline. If it’s a love story, it’s the illegitimate child; the strange-looking and weird-talking flipsy in the family who is simply hard to ignore.
I’m not going to venture into the unknown and tell you that, for me, love is like Tom’s 500 days with and without Summer, which is basically a season filled with happiness, depression, trust, insecurity, hope and hopelessness. I have NO idea what love is. And maybe no one does. I made the mistake of asking friends of mine, a couple, if love has made life brighter, better, or easier. I was curious to know if love can really make all the ugly, crappy, and yucky things in this world beautiful, if not, tolerable. They answered at the same time, which is cute. It's just too bad they answered differently. (super cute?) So there. Of course I'm confused and highly suspicious of love, or luv, or ♥. Whatever. My point is, watch "(500) Days of Summer". You’d probably get more amusing insights about relationships just watching Tom’s sister give out her Master-Yoda-ish advices. It’s surprisingly entertaining. I don’t know if it's a good love story, though. You’re not gonna get the meaning of love there, or have the confirmation that it has meaning at all. For me, it’s more about the comedy and tragedy of searching for and finding someone in the cynical social order that we're currently trapped in. While it’s a terrific movie for the romantic idiots of this world who really need a good slap in the face (I really mean well), I just have to recommend it as an indispensable viewing for those philosophically-opposed to “love”, however it may be defined.
If you’re grinning too much, then I’m talking about you, smart-ass. You’re not an idiot now. But you will be too... You can only be so lucky.
No comments:
Post a Comment