real Love stories

i want to offer up a selection of films that need to be watched today--it doesn't matter if you're with someone, alone, or trying to/in the middle of hooking up, you must watch these films. this is a day filled with saccharine wubby-dovey-love and last minute gifts soon to be passing through the lower intestine (rejected candy hearts) or dead by the end of the day (those poor flowers). the notion of this day being the most romantic ever is always being reiterated in movies and having happy endings (getting laid? weddings? BABIES?); the mere human beings that we are will fall for it, becoming necessarily disappointed when none of it happens to us. when i first watched these movies i wholeheartedly believed my life would be boxes of chocolates and rides in hot air balloons, but since i've gotten wiser (ie: experiencing none of the aforementioned things and spending the majority of my valentine's days alone) my outlook on this holiday consists of disgust and indifference. even with all the cynicism boiling my blood, i don't mean to say i don't appreciate romance. or love. these are wonderful things...that are sadly twisted in the modern world.

ok. getting on with it. so whilst browsing a selection of films on netfilx about three months ago, i came across boys on the run.


i watched it because
1)it was a japanese movie
2)the brief synopsis was intriguing
and
3)i needed a break from supernatural.
apparently it was based on a comic and was also a tv series at one point (i just found out now...and i am sooo reading the comic). i didn't like it in the beginning. it really wasn't what i was expecting and it was so ...shocking. i grew to understand and empathize with the underdog protagonist, minature toy selling tanishi. as a 29 yr old living with his parents and offended by the benefits of adulthood and completely clueless in approaching females for relationship purposes he's soooo pathetic...but that's what makes him real. there are so many guys like him who never get any breaks. tanishi gets dealt shit, sulks in it, but he gets motivated to clean himself up, defend his pride and maybe even get the girl.



after a while i began rooting for tanishi. i empathized with his plight. and as every wretched event enveloped him, i hoped to find a man who would be awkward and funny around me, a man who reciprocated my love before we knew each other, a man who would still want me after getting knocked up by his rival and have to take me to an abortion clinic and then try to fight to defend my honor. that was sweet. that was fucking real.

another film i watched recently was blue valentine.


i remember the controversy regarding it when it was first released. ...it really isn't all that graphic (my standards are probably much higher than the general public, proceed with caution.)...and i wanted to watch it because
1)ryan gosling
2)grizzly bear
3) ryan gosling.
when i watched it, i did it in two parts: half of it one one night and finishing it the following night. i don't know if it had a direct impact on my impression of the film, but it did give me time to reflect on the progression of the plot and put together the pieces of the dean(gosling)/cindy(williams) relationship.



watching this felt so fucking real. fights and showers and sex and breakdowns; all the tension between the characters manifested themselves onto the viewer and it was sometimes too much, too intrusive to watch what was happening to fictional characters. the way dean and cindy met was cute...the way they would sing and dance in the street was cute...i started wishing i had more cute dates. dean's outlook on love also fascinated me. he was so sincere about it...so singular. he's a traditionalist, but his devotion and care for cindy a short while after meeting her...so sweet. the way he simply held her, refusing any idea of letting her go...completely dreamy. with ryan gosling as a main character what's not to love? oh, probably when he's dean five or six years later and has to look like this:


omg, he looks so creepy... the grizzly bear soundtrack complemented the film well. i had been a fan of the instrumental version of foreground and the way the music would mirror the scenes, the tension of the characters and the nostalgia of their blossoming relationship really made me enjoy and get unintentionally emotional (ie: crying) throughout the course of the film. anyway. this made me think about the future. so i got super scared. blue valentine shared a few similarities to boys on the run, making me wonder if there's a sentimental man who hasn't known me for long...who's willing to accompany a pregnant version of me to an abortion clinic...even though the baby isn't his...and proclaims he loves me even when i give him shit. are there real guys like that out there? maybe other girls aren't interested in someone like that unless he's attractive...
let that kind of dedication be a guide to all you lonely men out there (& wouldn't hurt if you looked like ryan gosling).