Chick flicks.
Waste of celluloid, digital film, whatever. We watch them from a young age and are led to believe that love really is that straightforward and that fluffeh. No it is not, it's like getting to the age of twenty and still believing in fairy tales; they give us unrealistic expectations. Would you apply that to other genres - just because Bruce Willis can abseil down a building on a fire hose to escape an explosion does it mean anyone can or should? No.

The worst offenders in the world of Maladicta are the Brit ones, and in particular the Unholy Trinity - Love Actually, Bridget Jones and Four Weddings. The number of times I was made to sit through these as a teenager is somewhere in the low hundreds, I'm sure, because "everyone loves a good romcom" and they're such "frothy fun" and "it's escapism, you can always dream" - no, no and no.

Perhaps I'm just prematurely cynical, but I seriously think these things should be culled before we raise another generation of people who use the words "singleton" "smug married" or "emotional fuckwit" in every day conversation and who think that it's perfectly acceptable to do so.

I hate horror films too, especially the ridiculously gory kind, but I'd even rather sit through Mr Maladicta's favourites: House of 1000 Corpses, Devil's Rejects, and Starship Troopers (which he has to watch when I'm not around, such is my gore-hatred) than watch Hugh Grant bluster his way to another happy ending.

*is scared at how opinionated she seems this week*
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 16:58, 13 replies)

Can
we go to the cinema toegther when I move back to the UK please?

There's a couple of particularly vile Romcoms out in the US at the moment; I have to keep politely refusing trips to the cinema with work friends when they suggest that going to see '27 Dresses' would be an acceptable way to spend an evening. Over my drugged and beaten body it would...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:08, closed)

Go see Iron Man.
Much better use of your time than a romcom, and probably a hell of a lot more realistic.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 5 May 2008, 17:12, closed)

@ Rakky
Why yes of course! I'm glad it's not just me and as such I think cinema followed by cocktails would be awesome.

I never even got started on American romcoms - 27 Dresses also looks appalling, Down With Love made me murderous, Legally Blonde reinforced every single stereotype and gave a lot of already annoying blonde girls I know ideas way above their chav stations "it's coz I'm blonde innit?", I nearly walked out of Girl Next Door, and the tide shows no sign of abating...
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:14, closed)

@ Loon
Iron Man does look amazing - I much prefer stuff like that and X-Men and action films to someone moping about eating Ben & Jerry's waiting for the phone to ring, at least you know you're meant to suspend disbelief, like you do with things like 24 and Lost...
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:16, closed)

The best review I saw of Love Actually
Just read "Crap, actually."

Why do women find Colin Firth attractive? I just don't get it.

I think as well as the feeling patronized aspect of most romcoms, and the generalization that all women like shoes and chocolate (*) and want to be bought flowers, for me it's the predictability. I'd rather sit through a film which has an ending that feels right, even if it's not the one you would want. People die, things don;t work out, I want to see that in films, I don;t go to the cinema to be reassured that everything will work out right in the end, I go to watch something interesting. I almost wrote "I go to be stimulated," but that's an enitrely different sort of cinema...

(*) I like shoes and chocolate. But they're not the mainstay of my existence.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:20, closed)

I haven't seen all of it yet
but a friend has a bootleg copy, so I watched a chunk of it on a computer screen. This much I can tell you- you do NOT want to wait for it on DVD, you want to see it someplace that has good sound and a BIG fucking screen. Woo!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 5 May 2008, 17:21, closed)

i rather eat my own vomit...
i feel exactly the same!!!
ive never seen Dirty Dancing on principle! i'm female and the amount of dirty looks and "oh my god i dont believe you haven't seen it, all girls should watch it!!"
why why why why??????
(VodkaMargarine When there is no Brandy Butter..., Mon 5 May 2008, 17:22, closed)

@ Rakky
I found Colin Firth attractive for FIVE MINUTES when I was 15, yet some women seem to carry it on into adulthood, and all because of either Bridget Jones or Pride and Prejudice (another thing I hated).

The only accurate part of Legally Blonde, I felt, was when she's just been dumped and is in bed surrounded by tissues and chocolate watching a soppy film, and when the guy in the movie tells his girlfriend he will always love her she throws the box of tissues at the telly yelling "LIAR!"

I also like shoes and chocolate, but I also like to watch cinema that makes me think: FFS I have A-levels and soon will have a degree, I don't want to watch a film that reminds me of the fairy tales I used to read as a kid, life just isn't like that...
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:44, closed)

@ Loon
I'm not sure it's out here yet, but when it is I will definitely go to the cinema for it, hopefully after finals :)
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:49, closed)

@ Vodka
Nor have I - the song from it and the way people react to it is enough! I used to know three girls who lived together and all had an equally unsettling love of that film, and Patrick Swayze in it... why? Why?
( Maladicta, Mon 5 May 2008, 17:50, closed)

And while we're at it
why is it always women that get targeted for chocolate? Is there something un-manly about me for being a chocolate addict?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 5 May 2008, 17:55, closed)

Chocolate
It's not at all unmanly, Loon. I'm a bit of a chocoholic too.

Especially Belgian.

Or Swiss.

British too, although it's not quite so smooth.

Anything but Hershey's really.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 5 May 2008, 18:18, closed)

Huge admission here...
While most of the time I find chick flicks/romcoms dull and predictable....


I will watch a film if it has a favourite actor of mine in it...

So after developing a huge crush on Mark Ruffalo in the film 'In the Cut' I wanted to see everything he's been in. Even the crap stuff. 13 going on 30 - utter, utter crap - 'Big' rewritten for a girl. But the worst one was 'Just Like Heaven' with Reece Witherspoon ... I wanted to see it because he was in it...I'd read the book - that was crap Chick Lit - the signs were there, I knew the film would be undemanding pap....

I knew no one would go to see the film with me...

So I did something very, very liberating...

I lied about where I was going (this was back when I was still Little Farmer's Wifey) so The Family (his) couldn't disapprove.

And I went to a matinee at the local cinema all on my own.

It was lovely.


The film was rubbish, but lovely undemanding rubbish.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 5 May 2008, 22:13, closed)