Weekend Movies: Up in the Air, The Time Traveler's Wife
Up in the Air: George Clooney ends up exactly where he started. Excellent. On-site shooting and/or excellent reconstructions, convincing acting, characters who are all interesting, likable, or grow on you. The romance between Clooney and Vera Farmiga's characters seemed a little shallow on first pass, and there's one retroactive "wait, what?" moment, but the final impact is sufficient payoff to let that pass. I found the resolution of Natalie's plot particularly cathartic, for some reason. Cough.
The Time Traveler's Wife: The movie focuses on Claire and Henry's angst, and hits my two major stumbling-blocks in the book: One True Romance and bad made-up genetics. I had hoped that moving the story out of clunky prose and onto the big screen would let me enjoy the incredibly cool "magic genetics" premise, but this was not to be. Since I watched the entire movie, but didn't read the entire book, I found more things I disliked. First, the story is called "the time traveler's wife", but it's really a story about the time traveler. The title is misleading and makes me expect a much more feminist take on the problems of being involved with someone who has a lifetime problem. If you'd told me this was a story about a time traveler, I would go in with different expectations. Also, I disagree with the "biological offspring are the only valid legacy" trope from square one. (No. Just - no. The complexities and emotional load of dealing with a heritable genetic condition are beyond the scope of this movie review, but I can produce on request a five paragraph essay with really upsetting internet links to promulgate my view that choosing not to pass on your genes is an individual and sometimes well-founded decision.) I'm glad I saw it, because this gives me something to talk about, but it wasn't as viscerally enjoyable as Up in the Air.
I have yet to see Iron Man 2. I miss my old fangirl network: finding someone who will understand the feminist shortcomings of the Marvelverse while prioritizing the explosions, and further while indulging my moments of anti-feminist objectification of RDJr, is a high order.
The Time Traveler's Wife: The movie focuses on Claire and Henry's angst, and hits my two major stumbling-blocks in the book: One True Romance and bad made-up genetics. I had hoped that moving the story out of clunky prose and onto the big screen would let me enjoy the incredibly cool "magic genetics" premise, but this was not to be. Since I watched the entire movie, but didn't read the entire book, I found more things I disliked. First, the story is called "the time traveler's wife", but it's really a story about the time traveler. The title is misleading and makes me expect a much more feminist take on the problems of being involved with someone who has a lifetime problem. If you'd told me this was a story about a time traveler, I would go in with different expectations. Also, I disagree with the "biological offspring are the only valid legacy" trope from square one. (No. Just - no. The complexities and emotional load of dealing with a heritable genetic condition are beyond the scope of this movie review, but I can produce on request a five paragraph essay with really upsetting internet links to promulgate my view that choosing not to pass on your genes is an individual and sometimes well-founded decision.) I'm glad I saw it, because this gives me something to talk about, but it wasn't as viscerally enjoyable as Up in the Air.
I have yet to see Iron Man 2. I miss my old fangirl network: finding someone who will understand the feminist shortcomings of the Marvelverse while prioritizing the explosions, and further while indulging my moments of anti-feminist objectification of RDJr, is a high order.