"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.