Not much to say about this except that I want to say I don’t watch a lot of crappy movies and though this isn’t super crappy, it is kind of cheesy fluff… but I still like it.
And according to my original facebook post, a lot of others like the film too, so maybe I shouldn’t feel all that guilty about liking it… hmm.
A few years ago, a friend had posted a list compiled by the BBC of 100 Classic books and collections, claiming that the average person has read six out of the hundred. You could go over the list and see which books you read/hadn’t read and see if you were better than the average person. So I did that, and I had a grand total of… insert drum roll here… seven! I’m slightly better than average! Huzzahs are in order. I had another friend go over the list and she had read almost everything. Man, was I jealous.
After doing that, I set out to read as many books on that list as I could, and one of the ones on the list was Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. Like you, I thought it was going to be a sappy, boring romance story with some fantasy thrown in, but it turned out to be way more profound and deeper. The two main characters are deeply flawed, and very modern (they’re in punk music, for one). The time travel aspect of the book is also really interesting and it deals with the science and science fiction of it pretty well, I must say.
I asked my twin sister if she had read the book and she said she had, and had also seen the movie but she warned me: “Whatever you do, DON’T watch the movie.” So naturally, after I was done, I watched it.
And oh god.
They diluted the charisma and wonderful, unique characterization of the leads into horrible stereotypes. Claire, for one, is turned into the typical “I’m a woman so I must want a child” character; their interesting anecdotes are lost in the movie; and Henry time travels abruptly all the time, while in the novel it is mainly due to stress — ie. there’s a reason for it and it’s not random. It’s cliché-filled, which the book is against and apart from the time traveling, it feels like a run-of-the-mill Hollywood film. Ugh.
I should’ve listened to my sister. On the other hand, watching the movie made me appreciate the novel and really, just writing and literature that much more.
I know I’m super late in posting this but better late than never. Day 17 is for a song that you hear often on the radio and since I don’t listen to the radio anymore, awhile back, this song seemed everywhere. I don’t have much to say about it except that I really don’t like the video, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Day 18 was for a song that you wish was on the radio, and man, where do I start? At first the question confuzzled me as I thought of songs that should be on the radio just because they’re good songs. But then I thought about whether it was telling me to post a song that was would do well on the radio that wasn’t on the radio so I wasn’t sure… in any case, it was toss-up between two Jamie Cullum songs from his latest album, The Pursuit: “Mixtape” or “Wheels”. I thought of going with “Mixtape” but there’s a piano jazz solo in the middle of the song that is super awesome but not something you’d hear on the radio, so in the end, I went with “Wheels” instead. In any case, I think “Wheels” was released as the second single from the album since there’s a music video to it (which I found a little disappointing since the song itself is about the current state of the world and the metonomy and metaphor of wheels as part of a car/the world). It’s still a great song though.
It’s a shame that his music isn’t more well-known but in a way, his lack of being mainstream is what makes him also sell out his shows and make him so special, much like many indie/lesser-known artists. Hmm.
aaron's random musings 