In defense of Love Actually

Many of my friends and family LOVE Love Actually. Many of you know that it's a movie that I watch year after year; it's even on my list of favorite Christmas movies and favorite Romance movies.

Billy Mernit gets it

This Love Actually Season, the detractors (movie reviewers more talented than I) came out of the woodwork to try to knock it down, but they just don't get it.

Others DO get it.


Me, I want to love. I look for it. Seek it out. I sought it out, and found it. I want all aspects of it, even the pain of lost love (insert cliche, cliche, blah, blah, blah). What about the pain or angst of a love you think you can't have? it's terrible and good at the same time.

I saw Love Actually, alone. Twice. In the theatre. Plus, countless times on DVD, Netflix, and even on TV whenever it's on. I LOVE it.

Are there movies that show love in it's true light? I don't know, but would it be boring?

Love at first site does exist. Some men DO fall in love with the pretty girl because she's pretty. Men also fall in love with that girl they pretend to hate. It's because they can't have her and it fucking hurts to talk to her. And yes, even with a girl who only speaks Portuguese.

People complain about how unrealistic the loves in LA were, but they are snapshots or exaggerations of loves that many of us have been in. People complain about the Prime Minister and his girl servant. Realistic, thank you. She's pretty, speaks what she thinks, and she's pretty.

Karl and Sarah? Yeah, why didn't Karl try harder when he could see she's just caring for her sick brother? Because she's also sick, and just not sick enough to be institutionalized. Give Karl's writer a break, and good move, Karl. You couldn't win that one.

Does this all paint men in a bad light? Yes, but we are men. We can do better, but we don't always rise up.

I think virtually every little love in LA was realistic (with the exception of Colin and his hot American babes) in a sense. Are they smart? Sensible? Well thought out? No, but such is life and love.

So while the Love Actually haters might be great movie reviewers, they suck at reviewing love.

The next batman

should either go 'light' and be more like the Super Friends Batman that I grew up with

OR get real with a gracefully aging Batman with an actor like Bryan Cranston.

Now that he's no longer seen as Malcolm's Dad, Cranston would make an awesome, grittier Batman. Just make him a little funny, too. Not Adam West funny, but self-deprecating funny.

I never took the Super Friends seriously, but I can't really take the bitter, angry Batman we have today for much longer, either.

faint heart

"Faint heart never won fair lady" - Robin Hood, 1973

eet

In the olden days there was no true backspacing. Typewriting writers simply kept going. You could go back a character or two and overtype your mistake with Xs or something, but that's about it. Later, someone figured out how to squeeze a ribbon of 'white out' under the hood, but fixing more than a word or two wasn't pretty.

Saturday's blog post was inspired by hearing the following song, Regina Spektor's 'Eet,' which is about a mythical key on a typewriter that allows you to overtype words on page like we wish we could events in our lives.

The mythical key allowed one to backspace, overtyping previous events with new ones, or to simply block them out, leaving a black smudge, but without the words to form a memory or, more importantly, a lesson.

It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
You can't believe it
You were always singing along
It was so easy and the words so sweet
You can't remember
You try to move your feet

As attractive as forgetting or erasing sounds sometimes (and I do love the song), your memory will still be there in some way. Don't try to erase it; learn from it, and move on.



Instead, focus on the other things in life, like your own endless sheet of paper, and the other keys on your keyboard.

backspacer

When you flirt over skype, be careful that you turn off the option that shows that you're typing when you're typing something.

If you don't turn that off, the person at the other end knows you're working on something, and if there's a long, long pause and you end up sending something short and sweet, they know you changed your mind.

It means you backspaced. You're a backspacer. "What were you going to say, backspacer?"

Flirting over skype is like an interactive love letter; it's a dialog that falls somewhere between an actual conversation and air mail (for those of you who remember air mail). There's a craft to it, not unlike writing dialog in a story or screenplay. Do you think movie or book characters would be that amazingly sharp, quick,and witty in real life? No, their creator (the author) had the luxury of backspacing.

Wait, this sounds bad. Am I saying that people, conversations, and relationships aren't as good, clever, romantic, or as funny in reality as they are on the screen or in the pages of a book? Absolutely not. I'm saying that there's value in each of these methods of communication.

Love letters are a speech, and are 'heard' by the reader, even if they are read silently. You are your own speechwriter, unless your love interest is named Roxanne, of course.

I'd love to be good at love letters, and every once in a while I try. I won't say 'it's not pretty,' but I will share that it's painful. ...for me. ...to write.

It just doesn't come easy for me. Despite parent and teacher encouragement, letter writing never came easy for me, and I feel bad for my pen pals, who got what amounts to a greeting card in response to their novellas.

Conversations were no better, which long time readers won't be surprised to read. Conversations are right now, and for someone shy (believe me), they can be a miserable experience (trust me). Talk about pressure. Enough pressure that most potential conversations never happened.

I'm a guy who scripts out what could be. In my mind, I play out the scene that should be. It never is. I can count on one hand the number of times I tried to implement a conversation that I'd just scripted in my head. I could never begin to guess the number of times I realized that reality would never stack up to my imagination. ...and I sat back down.

Enter skype

...and it was good.

When I first started skyping with Galya, there was nothing to indicate that the other side was typing; you just waited, and the words appeared when the other party hit <enter>. We typed our conversations, with carefully calculated words back and forth. (This was how I imagined conversations could go!)

Then, one day after a skype upgrade, a little animated pencil made scribbling motions next to the box where her text would soon appear, and things had changed again. I could see when she was typing, and knew to wait (what was taking so long?). She could see me, too, and the pressure was on! I had no choice but to put myself out there, quickly and deliberately, too.

Then, I thought, I would use this to my advantage. Strategic backspacing leaves the other side wondering what was just not said. What the other wanted to say, but didn't. How many unsaid words weren't sent? How many untold "I love yous" were tested out before being replaced with "good nights?" How many many of those secret messages got through to her?

We jokingly called each other out on the backspacing, and we each knew there were unsaid messages removed by that little animated pencil's eraser. I cannot count the unsaid words, but I can count, and do remember, how many times I typed 'I love you' and backspaced, testing the waters, hoping she knew.