August 29, 2009

  • Once and 500 days of Summer

    I was late to a social gathering the other night.  I had double booked my 5 o'clock time slot with a racquetball match.  I have been known to blog about mundane topics like R-ball games and video games, and to properly make them mundane a significant amount of time needs to be spent.  But that's not what made me late, after all, it was a pretty ordinary game.  My kill shot was a bit off, and I'm still not pleased with my backhand shot.  I was pleased however, with the feel of new strings on my 2nd racquet.  I finally broke the strings on my 1st racquet a couple weeks ago.  Anyways....to the point of the post.

    I saw Once with a group of friends.  I gave it some time to marinate, but looking back at the film, I don't see what the point of the movie was.  I suppose it has something to do with really doing what was in your heart....at least for the musician.  There were some cute parts to the film, but overall, it was rather pedestrian in the flow of the movie....afterall most of it was a pied.  I was a bit miffed by the female character though.  In my opinion she did quite a bit of leading on.  I mean, it was set up to be that way almost.  Lonely heartbroken guy meets quirky flower girl.  I won't spoil the rest of the movie with details, but I'll just say that it had some common elements with 500 days of Summer....

    ...Just not as brazen.  Here was a female character you could hate, at least some people thought so.  The underlying theme here was about love and fate.  For one person, there really was THE ONE destined to meet and live happily, while the other thought such a thing was pure nonesense.  As in Once, the female character leads the male character into a relationship, if that's what you can call it.  If....that's what she could call it.  In the end, she could have been less of a ass, but no...continued to plunge daggers into the guy's heart.  Something to effect of "we are great friends."  Yeah ok.  Whatever that means after all crap she pulled.  You just felt really sorry for the guy from Third Rock (not to be confused with Thirty Rock), and the fact that he was willing to do it all over again.  Anyhow, it wasn't so much that you could hate Zooey's character, just that she was completely tactless.

    The movie does bring up some interesting questions though.  So what about fate?  Does fate play a role in love?  Or...is it just purely coincidental?