Movie Review (sort of): The Upside of Anger

I grabbed this film today at the movie store thinking it looked chick flick-ish and so I would watch it while the Firecrapper is away at work. In reality, he is perfectly willing to watch chick flicks with me, and has a few that are even on his favorites list (such as Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail.....maybe he's got a thing for Meg Ryan??), and compared to the random duds he often brings home (such as the unfortunate snoozer The Life Aquatic...DON'T BOTHER!) the chick flicks are often better.

And so I have watched it and all I can say is that it is a calm, sad-toned movie with characters that are a little too overdone and predictable. There are some interesting uses of light and color that seem to work symbolically as well as artistically. There is one "surprise" that I saw coming from the start, and we don't get to see very much of how this surprise resolves or changes anything that has been building up for the other 90% of the movie. So, kind of weak there, too. There was an attempt to get very philosophical about the great meaning behind the story, and so that's there, but again, it seemed a little over done to me. Didn't come across as natural at all.

The one thing I did get a kick out of, and would even get the Debi Pearl Stamp Of Approval, was the scene where the mother of 4 young women (so maybe she's 50ish) is talking with this man that is dating one of her daughters. The man is obviously older than the daughter, and is kind ofloserish and creepy and just not what most mothers would be looking for in a guy for their girl to spend time with. The mother asks this man why he doesn't date women his own age, and instead dates all these young girls half his age. His reply is something like this:

"Why do I date young girls? Because they're fun. Because they appreciate everything. You take 'em out to dinner. Oooh! A steak! Yummy! You take 'em for a walk after dinner and the air smells nice and they say 'Thank you, this is really nice.' They giggle. Why don't I date women my own age? You mean women like you? Because they're all bitter and angry and no fun to be around. That's why!"

No kiddin!

The other day my daughter asked my husband and me how we met and got together. So she got the Long Version of the story, told with competing points of view :) . One of the things my husband told her that he liked about me right from the start was that I was a fun-loving girl. No fuddy duddy whiney butt for him!

So, gals, this can be our friendly reminder today to be a fun loving partner for our man. Who wants to be bogged down with a fusser, anyhow?