"What Happens in Vegas" Should have Stayed in Vegas

If there's one thing about America that captures the imagination of people outside America more than anything else: more than the Empire State Building more than the Golden Gate Bridge, more than Mickey Mouse, and more than the criminal justice system in America, it is Las Vegas.  In this land I currently reside (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) where alcohol, gambling, public displays of affection and even dating or banned, I met some young men from Palestine, Jordan, and Syria, and one of them (I believe the Syrian) kept mentioning Vegas.  And even a Buddhist monk I met in South Korea said when she visited America, Las Vegas was her favorite place because the distinction between reality and delusion was nonexistent.

Because I have never been to Vegas myself, my only knowledge of it comes from the things I hear and what I see in popular media such as Vegas Vacation, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the love film that I am about to review: What Happens in Vegas...

Interestingly, only the first 10 minutes or so of the movie actually takes place in Las Vegas.  The rest of the film is a consequence of Vegas, reminding us that when it comes to getting married, what happens there doesn't always stay there.

Keep it in Vegas, Ashton and Cameron....we don't want to know.

The guy is Jack played by Ashton Kutcher and the girl is Joy played by Cameron Diaz.  Both are privileged in many ways, but at the time they meet, they are are at the brunt of loser-dom.  Jack has just been fired...by his father, and Joy has just been dumped by a fiancee moments before he steps into a surprise birthday she has labored long for him.  The film centers around a divorce settlement involving a 3 million dollar slot machine win, and the judge will not allow the settlement to proceed until the two live together for a period of six months, thus forcing them to bear the consequences of their drunk vowing.

Before I lay into this film, let's acknowledge its merits.  It is interesting to have a romance film start at marriage rather than end there, thus capturing the inevitable period of strife that comes with any conjugal or cohabitating relationship.  Far too many love films seem to go straight from first kiss to wedding to first baby without acknowledging that for many couples at least, these things take time and more often than not, involve personality clashing followed by either reconciliation or relinquishing of the relationship.  In Jack and Joy, we see the reality of so many couples that are not really that compatible yet for whatever reason stay together sometimes at their benefit and other times at their detriment.

However, in this case, the said couple is only doing so (remaining together) for a cash payment at the end.  Notwithstanding the fallacy that someone (much less the recently married person) can actually win three thousand dollars from a slot machine after a few tries, there is the mistaken notion that keeping a marriage together merely requires a trial period after which is a jackpot at the end.

Perhaps, the biggest fallacy in this film is that a relationship can change even if the people in it do not. Before acknowledging the sudden compatibility of their previous incompatibility, the marriage counselor admits that the two have not really begun to manage their deep-seated personal issues.   Moreover, while Jack never does start cleaning up after himself in the bathroom, Joy doesn't confront an issue she has over work/sanity balance.

In fact, she walks away from it, turning down a promotion while saying she would rather be happy doing nothing than be miserable doing something she hated.  Other than the fact that doing nothing is never an option, this statement has some major problems.   One is that it's yet another message to women that happiness cannot be found within one's work but only within a marriage.  Another: even if it were the right call for her to turn down the promotion, it begs the question why don't we have more films of men doing the same thing?

When will a man be considered based on his quality of life and character, rather than on what title has has or how much he makes (or has)?

On that note, I'm giving myself a title: Chief Love Films Blog Operator (CLFBO sounds fairly official, doesn't it?), and welcome anyone else to submit reviews on romance films (good, bad, ugly and/or wild card) for posting here.  But be forewarned:  just like how this film couldn't simply keep Vegas in Vegas, what happens in the blogosphere.....certainly doesn't stay there.

FINAL VERDICT: Not bad...just ugly.

Most awkward part about having no kissing scenes: we have no recollection of what happened in Vegas either.

"My Life or Something Like it in Ruins"

A good job is like a good romance, as is a good career like a good marriage.   Both jobs and romance involve a courtship phase, a feeling of unbridled anticipation and a series of let-downs and/or challenges that must be reconciled in order to go on with them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to jobs, we can't simply stay single until the "right one" comes along. Yet, considering how frustrating and/or inconvenient our jobs can be sometimes, many of us would certainly do that and just remain "on the market,"at least intermittently, if given the chance.

For this "Love Films, No Kisses" blog post, I will be doing something different: reviewing two related romance films side by side. The first film is Life or Something Like it (2002) and the second is My Life in Ruins (2009).   Each film stars a female protagonists who (SPOILER ALERT) does get her guy in the end.   But each also features  a larger romance that overshadows the typical guy-girl affair: the romance of a woman and her career.

In Life or Something Like it, Angelina Jolie stars as Lannie Kerrigan, a a bleached-blond perfect-permed local reporter and television personality in metro Seattle.  She is very successful at her job and her challenge in the film is that she's trying to break into the national media scene.  Her character flaw is that she is too shallow, caring about little other than maintaining her image, and local soothsayer, played by Tony Shalhoub (that's right, Detective MONK), puts her vanity to the test by prophesying her upcoming death and making her feel as if she only has a week left to live.

Armed with a microphone, and no one can change the channel.

In My Life in Ruins, on the other side of the world is a Georgia, played by Nia Varddalos, a dissatisfied tour guide in Greece . Unlike Lannie Kerrigan, Georgia is failing at her job and just wants out.  Also unlike the Angelina Jolie character, she is someone who is TOO sophisticated and actually struggles to be shallow enough to connect with her tour group, which consists of what seems to be an obnoxious bunch of blowhards that are definitely not the nice Canadians that everyone tour guide wants to serve.

In both films, the love interest is, as expected, the "unexpected" one.  For Life or Something Like it  it's her boss's son, the cameraman, whom Lannie detests but has to work with him in order to advance her career, and for My Life in Ruins, it's the bus driver.  Both male characters, in addition to serving as the love interest, have a role to teach the female characters about the simple pleasures in life.  These pleasures are held up a superior to all those pipe dreams of national celebrityhood and actually teaching a tour group audience something about history.

While the message of "appreciating the simple things in life" is an important one, the way the films convey the message is at times very mawkish and corny (more so for Life or Something Like it but certainly true of My Life is Runs too).

There are also some extremely awkward parts that hardly help.......

In Life or Something Like it, a drunk and personality-makeovered Angelina Jolie (reminiscent of the Naomi Watts character in I Heart Huckabees),  instead of reporting on a worker rally, joins it.  To do so, she chooses, of all the possible songs in the world, to lead a chorus of "I can't get no satisfaction," which (correct me if I'm wrong) is not even a protest song.  And the whole incident actually helps her career rather than hurts it (so much for objectivity in journalism)

In My Life in Ruins, the driver gets distracted by Georgia making sexual poses while giving her tour and crashes the bus.  The calm and nonchalant way the people on the tour react towards almost losing their lives in an accident makes it seem as if the once "bitch about anything crowd" had suddenly become complacent angels overnight.

Overall though, it's refreshing to see two romance films where the female lead is not simply bound by her love for a man but rather propelled by it.  At the same time, their big dreams are not met but compromised, which although is quite reflective of reality, is not typically the same story you see when the protagonist is male.  This is probably unfortunate more for men than for women.   Hollywood rarely shows male characters lowering their expectations, which is something that almost every male person has to do.  As a result, males all across the country miss out on an important message that sometimes it can be a good thing to want less rather than more.

Final Verdict:
  Life or Something Like it: WILD CARD  (could have been GOOD with more Tony Shalhoub scenes)

 My Life in Ruins: GOOD but probably only because I also have a career of talking to a crowd of people who barely listen to a thing I say.

Most awkward part of having no kissing scenes.
   Life or Something Like it: They weren't taken out of the movie!! (at least two of them were actually included).  Perhaps it would have been too awkward to take them out because they don't last very long occur at the most critical turning points in the film.
   
My Life in Ruins: We miss out on some of the picturesque scenery of the Grecian landscape.

The Big Itch of "One Small Hitch"

Perhaps I am a romantic with romantic films....not in the sense of getting overwhelmed by the climactic love scenes  but in my belief of their potential to portray human relationships the way the really are: sour at times as well as sweet, often one-sided but with a genuine push to restore them to their mutual sanctity, and fearful as well as fearless.  Some romance films do indeed, believe it or not, present the challenges, the tribulations, the disappointments and the simple pleasures of romance quite vividly and accurately.  Others fall dramatically short of expectations

On the outside, One Small Hitch shares a lot in common with The Proposal (the last film I reviewed).  In both films, the guy and gal protagonists pretend to be engaged and have to do awkward things to demonstrate their "faux amour" toward one another.  For The Proposal, the goal is to deceive immigration officials and for One Small Hitch, the goal is to provide the would-be groom's terminally ill father an ounce of happiness in the final chapter of his life.

The big difference is that the deception in One Small Hitch is more than just the "sham engagement" itself...it runs deep within the relationship.  The guy character Josh (played by Shane McRae) notifies his parents of his "engagement" to the girl character Molly (played by Aubrey Dollar), an old family friend, without her even agreeing first.  And he does this after meeting her at the airport, where she has just ended an engagement of her own after being cheated on.  Granted, Molly does agree after the fact, but it's only after he guilts her into doing it and while on a plane, where she can't really physically escape anywhere.

Message #1 to guys (from the film): snatch a girl quickly while she's on her rebound, and you just might be able to get her to do anything.

If that were the only issue with the film's deception, it may have had the potential to redeem itself, but unfortunately, that didn't happen.  Several times Molly wants to call off the scam but is egged on to just suck it up and get on with it...first by circumstance (her mother is getting married and she doesn't want to ruin her wedding with news of the deception), then by her social standing ("wow!  he gave you that beautiful ring of his grandmother's!  he must really love you!"), and ultimately by her own deception to herself that she can't do better than him anyway, which leads us to...

Message #2 to guys (from the film): if you can't compel a woman to do something that is advantageous to you, other forces (society, her friends even) will.

As far as how much the sham engagement inconveniences Josh, there is but one example.  He meets another lady friend from his past, starts to catch up with her, but is pulled away by a relative who informs this lady of the news that he's already taken.  But not to worry for Josh, he ends up "reconnecting" with her anyway and it's incidentally right as Molly is starting to fall from him (if she hadn't already started to from moment one of the film).

Yes he does eventually call off his relationship with the other girl as he falls in love with Molly, but the other girl (Gieselle) is the one who plays the role of "close confidant"...the one that urges him to forgo his playboy ways and go get the girl! (as if she never had any investment in her relationship with him and was simply there to satisfy his desires).

He even brings Giselle along in his quest to "go get the girl" Molly at the hospital, where his father has just been admitted.  At the sight, Molly decks him right in the nose  but then immediately forgives him and accepts his [real] proposal for marriage

Message #3 to guys (from the film): you can be an asshole and not lose....as long as you're willing to get punched in the face.

So I have to make decorations for this
sham marriage of yours too?

Interestingly, the worst part of the film isn't even the messages the film sends but rather a filler scene after Molly gives up trying to find someone other than Josh.  She and her friend go shopping and try on all these ridiculous looking outfits, and I'm not sure if they even had a reason to purchase clothes.  And speaking of deception, the fact that Capital Cities' incredibly bouncy tune Safe and Sound plays during this ordeal deceives the viewer into thinking that this scene plays a real role in the narrative.  While it doesn't appear to be product placement for any particular brand of clothes, it clearly (like so many other films of the genre) portrays shopping as the cure-all for any sort of emotional irresolution.

The only redeeming factor of this movie is the acting of Aubrey Dollar who portrays Molly's awkwardness, frustration, and strong-willed nature quite effectively, but you would think that the writer of this film could have given her more opportunities to be more at her own will and less at the mercy of others.

Final Verdict: Both BAD and UGLY

Most awkward part of having no-kissing scenes: We go from proposal straight to the delivery room of the first baby, which is even more awkward because it seems to confirm the rumors throughout the film that Molly was DWP (Drinking While Pregnant).

Saying Yes to "The Proposal"

Despite popular belief, men adore successful women.  They may resent (as part of human nature) any person including a women who may be doing better they are, but once they have a successful woman on their side, they realize the benefits and change their attitudes of that person accordingly.  It's successful women, rather, that are intimidated by men or at least by the perceived dilemma that they will have to choose between their significant others and their careers and then be judged as "not adequate enough" based on whatever choice they make.

The love film The Proposal is a perfect representation of this "lack of resolve" a successful woman may encounter if she ends up partaking in romance.  Sandra Bullock stars as Margaret, a head of a publishing firm who conscripts her personal assistant Andrew, an aspiring author played by Ryan Reynolds, into marrying her not for love.....but because getting married is her only option to continue her career in New York and avoid getting deported back to Canada.  

An ironic aside: in real life, it's Ryan Reynolds who is Canadian and Sandra Bullock who is American. 

The relationship between the two starts as indifference on the part of Margaret to Andrew and as pent-up hostility on the part of Andrew and Margaret, as one might expect from a typical boss to personal assistant relationship.    Andrew agrees to Margaret's proposal but only after making her agree to promote him, take his manuscript seriously, and get down on her knees to make a proper proposal.  The role reversal here is captivating not just for its own sake but also because both characters seem to get some kind of pleasure from it even though they've yet to fall in love with each other.

SPOILER ALERT: THE GUY GETS THE GIRL IN THE END

Aiming to delude immigration officials, the two travel to Andrew's family's home in Alaska to try to build a case to others (that would be interviewed by immigration officials later) of their engagement.    The family is thrilled for Andrew to be engaged, and anyone who has been engaged to anyone can certainly relate to some of the awkward things they are required to do such as talk of how they first met, replay the proposal scene and even kiss in front of others.  Betty White's performance as the grandmother matriarch here is priceless.

Really?  I have to get down on my
knees for this guy?

As expected their indifference towards each other gradually shifts to the solidarity required to pull their act of to best buds and mutual admiration all those fuzzy feelings they were believed to have towards each other in the first place.   The budding romance climaxes in a scene when Andrew takes Margaret out boating and ends up having to rescue her from the water.  While one might expect it to be simply a damsel in distress meme, it actually becomes more than that.  The rescue scene echoes the vulnerability he has to her as a personal assistant rather than accentuates his strength and extension power over her.  Moreover, part of the success of this particular rescue scene depends on her taking some of the responsibility for saving herself.  The fears she has to face here embody the fears she has to face first in being honest with Andrew's family about the whole affair and later committing herself to him.

Fortunately, there is not a lot of product placements in this film other than the fact that it serves as an infomercial for Alaskan tourism (it's more than just snow and Eskimos up there, baby).  In terms of the messaging of the film, there is some tacit encouragement of the sham marriage, but the immigration officials are on their asses (especially hers) the whole film, so it does portray the serious risks of doing such a thing rather persuasively.

Overall, it's not the greatest film in the world, but considering the generally dismal nature of the genre, it's somewhat impressive.

Final Verdict: GOOD

Most awkward part of having no-kissing scenes: We barely know she says "yes!"

Forgetting "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"

I start with a movie that is very close to me.  The protagonist shares my name (Peter), my ambition (writing musicals), and quite a few of my personality traits (obsessive with an off-and-on ambitious streak and a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time).

It's probably no surprise that I don't like this character who is played by Jason Segal, and it's not just because the songs he performs aren't really that good (2 chorders that sound like Candle in the Wind) and that I'm jealous of the music studio he has in his home that I will never be able to afford.  He's oblivious to people that care about him, self-absorbed, and only superficially interested in companionship unless it's with a girl that really digs him.  (Hey, I didn't say I shared ALL of his personality traits).  Despite this, he somehow has an actress/model ex-girlfriend who stayed with him apparently for a long time before realizing that he wasn't the one who was going to take her places and do things.

SPOILER ALERT: THE GUY GETS THE GIRL IN THE END

The story revolves around him following Sarah and her new boyfriend.....a big time rocker (played by Russell Brand) and "awkwardly" or rather "purposely" running into them several times, while lamenting that he can't be with her again.

Already we have a virtuous stalker.  If it were a girl or even either a jock or geeky guy, it would be a creepy annoyance, but because he's played by a harmless Jason Segall and is writing a Dracula puppet show musical, he's a sweet soul just trying to find closure.  And gentlemen, if you are this sweet harmless soul tagging along with your ex-girlfriend's crew AKA a stalker, you can even win the sympathy of and score with the cutie at the tourism booth (played by Mila Kunis).

I vant to suck my ex-girlfriend's dignity

The good news is that he has to leave Hawaii all alone, having secured neither of the two girls for the ride back.  But, the sadness he feels at ruining things leads him to bang on the piano singing about how terrible his songs are  (just like me Peter Moody) which leads him to actually finish the Dracula puppet musical, which unfortunately ends up being a lot more awesome than the initial disappointing songs he writes would otherwise suggest.  And guess which of the girls somehow hears about the musical and is at its opening to check him out?

Overall, a decent love film for songwriting dreamer nerds like me (although nowhere near as good as Music and Lyrics).  Still the film has a number of social messaging issues.  Peter only finds his happiness after he scores with the new girl, and that scoring is only possible after a night of drinking several bottles of wine with the new and old girl subtly fighting over him with their words.   And only when Sarah Marshall is in the vulnerable position he was once in (by begging him back) can he finally be over her.  In other words, even if you're the harmless, awkward, over-emotional type of guy, you can still be the trophy asshole.

Final Verdict: Cross between UGLY and WILD-CARD

Most awkward part of having no-kissing scenes: Characters end up in bed together quicker than expected.

Love Films, No Kisses

When I first came to Saudi Arabia, I had so much to do and so much exhileration to do it.  Now as I wait for my wife's visa to be processed, I'm just trying to find the best way to pass the time.  My only real source of entertainment is the Dubai Movie channel that typically plays romantic comedies every night.  I have thereby decided to review these films..to deem them as Good, Bad, Ugly, or Wild Card and to extract their implicit social statements, their capitalist ethos and/or  patriarchal underpinnings.  The only problem is that on TV in the UAE, they edit out all the kissing scenes.....so  what's it like to have the love without the catharsis...?